I knelt there in the darkness, the blanket clutched about me.
I did not know where I was, or what was expected of me.
I was helpless in the cell. I was well kept here. I was totally in the power of others.
It was dark, and cold.
What was wanted of me?
I suddenly became very afraid.
I felt then within me a sudden body’s urgency and cast aside the blanket and groped awkwardly toward the larger of the three vessels.
In a few moments I had returned to my place.
I had reached the vessel in time. That is important. One does not wish to be punished.
I had learned to use such things, and drains, in the pens. If nothing like that was provided one waits, or, if permitted, uses the back right-hand corner of the enclosure, as one faces the rear of the enclosure.
One of the early lessons one learns in the pens is that one is not permitted dignity or privacy. I recalled the guard from the pen who had been, for some reason, unlike the others, so cruel to me, he whose whip I had first kissed. Several times it had been he who, it seemed in anger, had elected to “walk me.” Several times I must squat at the drains and relive myself before him.
Thought I was a slave I found this shameful, and embarrassing. Not before him, of all, he who was so precious and special to me, he who figured in my most helplessly lascivious and submissive dreams, he whose whip I had first kissed on this rude, beautiful world! Why did he hate me so? Why did he make me do this? Why did he wish to so grievously shame and humiliate me? Is this how he wanted to think of me, or remember me, as a foul, pathetic, meaningless little animal relieving herself upon command before him?
One cleans oneself, if permitted to do so, and this permission, because of hygienic considerations is seldom, if ever denied, with what might be available. In this cell, as was presumably intended, I had done it with straw and water. That is not that uncommon. The straw is left in the vessel. We are trained to clean ourselves well, incidentally. If we do not, we are whipped.
The slave is not a free woman; she must keep herself, as best she can, fresh, rested, clean, and attractive.
I now sat back in the cell, my back against the wall, wrapped in the blanket.
The blanket was warm, but, within it, I felt very bare, in the skimpy tunic.
Within the blanket, with the finger tips of my left hand, I felt under the skirt of the tunic. The tiny mark was there, my brand. Within the blanket I felt very soft, and vulnerable. Within the blanket I touched my throat. No collar was there.
I suddenly pressed back against the wall.
For the moment I dared not breathe.
The shape which had so terrified me but a bit ago was again at the bars. It was like a darkness among darknesses. It was standing there. I smelled it, too, now, a heavy beast smell. I heard its breathing. It thrust its snout against the bars. I heard a low, rumbling, warning growl. I pressed back even further. Then it was gone, padded away.
I gasped, shaken.
When I was sure it was gone I went again to my belly, and to the food bowl. I put my head down and, delicately, bit off part of one of the pieces of dried fruit. I then ate it, treasuring it, even that small part, bit by bit, little by little, particle by particle. Then for a long time I fed there, bit by bit finishing the first of the three pieces, and then the second, similarly, and then the third. Such things, the slices of fruit, are very precious. I had saved them for last. When I was finished, I rise, to all fours.
I had relished the fruit, dray as it was.
I was grateful that it had been given to me.
I then turned about and, for a time, on all fours, the blanket about me, faced the bars.
I heard a howling, far off. I did not know if it were the wind or some beast.
I was suddenly frightened, and lonely.
I hoped the men would be kind here. I would do my best not to displease them.
Surely they would be kind! They must be kind! Had I not been fed, had I not been given a blanket? Surely that was a kindness. My scent could always be taken otherwise. Had there not been three slices of dried fruit in the bowl?
But I had seen the great bird, I had seen the prowling beast, that fearsome guardian of narrow ledges.
I feared that men here might be strict with such as I, with their slaves.
Afterwards I lay down and slept.
9
I lay on my stomach on the floor of the mountain cell, my head toward the back of the cell, my legs widely spread, my arms extended outward and upward. It is difficult to rise quickly from such a position. I was counting slowly, aloud, to one thousand. One begins to count when one hears the gate lower and lock. One does not know if, or how long, someone might watch, and listen, to see if the directive is honored. So one counts aloud, and slowly. When one reaches one thousand one may rise, and fetch the food and water bowls, and the clean wastes vessel, from just within the bars, where they have been left. One knows when to place them before the bars because there is a signal, the ringing of a suspended bar, from somewhere outside. At the signal one puts the empty bowls at the waste vessel near the bars, and then assumes the indicated position, one of prone helplessness, facing the back of the cell. I had received these directives on the morning after my first night in the cell. They were issued to me in a female voice, belonging to a person I did not see, from somewhere outside the cell. I had, accordingly, as yet, seen nothing of my jailers. I did not know if the voice I had heard was that of one who was free, or one who was bond, as I did not doubt but what I was, in spite of the bareness of my throat. It seemed to me most likely that she would have been bond, as it did not seem likely that free females, in a world such as this, would be involved in tasks so lowly as the care of prisoners. From what I had seen of free females in the pens, to be sure, only two of them, in its more respectable areas, and from what I had gathered from remarks of guards, rough jokes, and such, they were a haughty, exquisite, frustrated, pampered, imperious lot. I had also been warned by more than one guard that I should watch my step with particular care among such creatures, as they enjoyed being incredibly cruel, petty and vindictive towards those such as I, who, doubtless for reasons of their own, they regarded with utter contempt and hatred. “How different they are from us!” I had once breathed in the pens. “Not so different,” said one of the guards. “Naked, on her knees, in a collar,” said another, “they are not other than you.”
I was pleased that he had said this for I myself, earlier, had boldly speculated much to the same point, but I did not, of course, explicitly profess this concurrence on our views. It is one thing for a man to say such a thing; it would be quite another for a slave. I did not thin he would beat me, but I did not know. So I remained silent. I was pleased, of course. He grinned at me, so I suppose I did not conceal that as well as I might have. In any event he did not beat me.
But how contemptuous, and how regal, they had appeared, and so beautifully robed and veiled! Many I was told, wore platforms of a sort on their feet, perhaps as much as eight to ten inches high, which would increase their apparent height, and, of course protect their slippers from being soiled, for example, in muddy streets, or, certainly, in the damp pens. The two I had seen, however, had been in “street slippers.” Such, I suspect might provide better footing in the pens, for in places the stones are damp, even wet. One is very much aware of that when one is barefoot. How serene and beautiful they seemed, in their veils and robes!