by John Norman
"From various countries?" I asked. "America, England, France, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan?"
"Yes," he said. "But your shipment was largely regional."
"Is it difficult to gather these girls?" I asked.
"No," he said, "they are trapped more easily than the small animals you call rabbits. Consider your own case."
"Do your people do this sort of thing regularly?" I asked.
"We have our schedules," he said.
"Are there other groups engaged in this sort of thing?" I asked.
"I think so," he said. "But I know little about them."
"I was the hundredth?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"I was saved for last?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"That was your doing?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I have asked for a transfer to other duties," he said, musingly, regarding me. "It is thus possible that you may be the last female I will bring here from your world. To be sure, I will doubtless capture other women from time to time, here on my world, women native to my world, and perhaps, from time to time, Earth girls who have been brought here earlier."
"But you chose me for your last catch," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
He smiled, fingering the coils of the whip.
"Surely you could have taken others," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"But you did not," I said.
"No," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
He did not respond.
"There is something different or special about me, somehow, from your point of view, isn't there?" I said. I had sensed this from the first.
"I did wish to make my last catch a particularly delicious one," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"Do not underestimate yourself, and your desirability as a female animal," he said.
"I am too short," I said. "I am too meaty. I am not tall, spare and willowy."
"Do not be stupid," he said.
"Am I attractive?" I asked.
"Certainly," he said. "You are a superbly cuddly slut. Do you think I would get my pay if I did not bring in first-class females?" I then realized that the tastes of men here might run more to the natural female, sweet and cuddly, and marvelous, than the stereotypes of beauty on my own world. In a sense I was moved with pleasure to learn this. In another sense I was terrified. Here I then understood I might find myself the object of powerful lusts and desires. Here I might find myself desired, and sought, and hunted, perhaps even as an animal, exquisitely delectable female quarry.
"But even so," I said, "perhaps you found something, or thought there was something, different or special about me?"
"I find you personally," he said, "quite desirable, even excruciatingly attractive."
I shrank back in the chain. How could he speak so openly of sexual matters? Too, I was afraid, as a female, found of interest, before him.
"But, yes," he said, "beyond such things you are special to me."
"In what way?" I asked.
"In your capture there is something symbolic," he said. "It is thus fitting that you be what might be my last capture of a female from your world."
"You seem to hate me," I said.
"Yes," he said. "I do."
"Why?" I asked.
"You are a modern woman," he said, "and, as such, you represent a perversion of humanity, a pernicious and wanton perversion, one maliciously deleterious to the centralities of human sexuality, both of the male and female, and thus one literally inimical not only to the quality but, ultimately, to the very future of the human species."
I looked at him, startled.
"You are a modern woman," he said, "and would destroy men."
"No!" I said.
"But you will not, I assure you," he said, "destroy men here, Modern Woman. Here, rather, you will serve them fully, and fearfully, and delectably, and to the utmost of your abilities."
"I am not a modern woman," I said. "I have never, in my heart, been a modern woman. In my heart I am a primitive woman, one who has been bred upon from the time of caves, an ancient woman, a Medieval woman, a Nineteenth-century woman, a natural woman, a needful, loving woman! I was as alien, and sorrowful, and lost, and miserable, in my world as you were!"
"Liar!" he cried. He snapped the whip in fury, and I shrank back, startled by its sound and threat, before him. "You are so clever, you lying slut!" he hissed. "You are so quick, so cunning, so dangerous!"
"Please," I said.
"But I see through your tiny tricks!"
"Why do you think I am a modern woman, in some sense you despise," I asked, "because I can speak clearly, because I can think, because I have read a book? Do you not think that true women, loving, needful women, can do these things? Do you not think that what you can love, they, too, can love?"
"They demean such things," he said, "using them as baubles and adornments."
I wept.
"Perhaps those little adornments, those little vanity devices," he said, "will make you more amusing, and interesting, in your collar."
"My collar?" I asked, aghast.
"Have you not seen what is being done to men on your world?" he asked.
I was silent.
"If you are not active in such matters," he said, "what have you done to reverse them?"
I was silent.
"You are thus, at the least, an abettor, or accomplice, in such crimes," he said.
"No!" I said.
"Thus, if only by tacit consent, you, too, are guilty of them," he said.
"No!" I protested.
"What do you think of the men of your world?" he asked.
"I despise them! They are weaklings!" I cried, suddenly. "They deserve to have us take their world from them, to be thrust aside with words and writs, to be superseded by contrived legalities, to be relegated by statutes and slogans to the peripheries of power, to become trammeled, and crippled, and incapable of action, like tied sheep, bleating contentedly, as they are advised, as they are castrated, to become nothing, to be deprived of their pride and strength, and thus even of the potentiality of their unused manhood, to take our orders, to obey us!"
"Your position, I take it," he said, "is motivated by your hatred, jealousy, and envy of men?"
"I do not think so," I said. "I do not want to be a man. I want to be a woman. My anger, my frustration, is motivated, I think, not by their manhood, and that I am not a man, as seems to be the case almost universally with the women you despise, if we can believe physicians in the matter, but rather by their lack of manhood, which denies me as well as them, which keeps me from being a full woman."
"You are a clever slut, in your small way," he said. "I never doubted it. How cunningly you would turn things! But I am not deceived by your petty tricks. You envy men, and not being one, would try to destroy them."
"No!" I said.
"Yes," he said, "you are a modern woman, and would, like others, if you could, destroy men. I find you, and others like you, guilty, and grievously guilty, guilty of crimes against the very future of the human race on your world. Here you will discover, however, that men, the men of my world, are not inclined to find this sort of thing acceptable. You will learn here, I fear, that they do not see fit to tolerate such intentions and attempts."
I trembled.
"Here," he said, "my young, lovely, charming pretentious slut, you are going to learn what it is to be a woman, truly. Here, too, by my intent, I having brought you here, it pleasing me, you will in a lifetime of beauty, degradation and service pay for your crimes. Here, modern woman, your being a modern woman will be taken from you. You will henceforth be another sort of woman."
I looked up at him, frightened.
"We will revenge the men of Earth," he said.
I put down my head, terrified. I supposed, in some senses, I had been a modern woman, and tha
t I was, in some sense, guilty of crimes. I had little doubt I would be punished. Men would doubtless have their vengeances upon me.
I looked up at my captor.
He had brought me to this place, at least in part, it seemed, out of just such a sense of fittingness, out of just such a sense of rightfulness, and justice.
"Good morning, Miss Williamson," he said.
"Good morning," I whispered. As he had used my name I was not at all sure it was really mine. It had sounded different, somehow. I suddenly feared that I might have any name, almost like a dog.
How incredibly attractive he was to me! How weak he made me feel!
I thought that I was, as human beings went, quite intelligent, but before this man, before such a man, I sensed that my intelligence was as nothing. I sensed, as I had long before, in the library, that he, in his power, intelligence, and maleness, was totally my superior, indeed, that I could at best be little more than an animal at his feet.
"Hold still," he said. He crouched before me, the whip in his hand.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Position," said he. I readjusted my position, improving it, kneeling, back on my heels, my back straight, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.
"What are you going to do?" I asked. My body could still feel, dimly, the hot marks of the lash.
"Put your head back," he said. "Farther back."
I was then looking, in effect, at the beams and plaster of the ceiling.
"This is a test," he said.
"Ai!" I cried, suddenly, recoiling, jerking back, falling to my side, in a rattle of chain. I was then at the end of the chain, away from him, it taut from the ring, it holding my head forward. I could withdraw no further. I put my knees together, tightly. I put my hands over them. I looked at him in horror.
"Good," he said. "It is as I thought."
I could not believe what he had done.
"You are alive," he said, coiling the blade back against the staff. "I had thought you would be. Your body, its curves, suggests a rich abundance of female hormones. Such will put you, of course, more at the mercy of men."
The touch had been totally unexpected.
"Beast!" I said. "Beast!"
The touch had been gentle, but it had been purposeful. Apparently it had told him what he wanted to know.
"Beast!" I wept.
I had not realized what he was going to do. I had not had an opportunity to prepare myself for the touch, to perhaps steel myself into inertness. I was then suddenly fearful. What if such men simply did not permit a woman to steel herself into inertness, what if it were literally incumbent upon her to feel, and irreservedly, perhaps even under the threat of discipline, of fierce punishment, or worse, in all her hot, sweet, vulnerable openness? As it was, taken unawares, I had been forced to show myself, and before this beast, this lion of a man, responsive. I blushed red, hotly.
He stood up. "Return here, and kneel," he said, "and as you were before." He indicated the spot, gesturing with the whip, near the ring, where I had knelt.
He shook out the blade of the whip.
I hurried, crawling, to the spot, and knelt there, as I had been before.
He looked down at me.
"Make me pay," I whispered.
"What?" he said.
"I am ready," I whispered.
He smiled.
"I am naked before you," I said. "I am on a chain. You have aroused me. You have made me show myself responsive. You have taken all pride from me. You despise me. You hate me. I gather that I am to be made to pay for my crimes, that men here will make me pay for them, for being a modern woman. I am ready to pay. Make me pay."
"On your back," he said. "Throw your legs apart." Tears in my eyes, I obeyed.
"The modern woman," he smiled, "on her back."
"Where I belong!" I said.
"Or on your stomach," he smiled, "or kneeling, bent over, or in any one of a thousand postures of submission and service."
I shuddered, understanding the sorts of things that might be required of me, and even routinely, on this world.
I closed my eyes. I feared I might swoon at his least touch. I had never met anyone who remotely compared with him. I had not even known such men could exist. To such a man I knew that I, even with all my refinement, education and intelligence, could never be more than a dog, a panting bitch, at his feet. He had even spoken of a "collar." What could he have meant?
I opened my eyes.
"Do you beg?" he asked.
"Would you make me beg?" I cried.
"Yes," he said.
"Very well," I wept. "I beg!"
"The modern woman begs," he smiled.
"I beg," I said. "I am no longer a modern woman."
"Oh, yes," he smiled, "you are still a modern woman, as of now. But, in time, you will no longer be one. In time, that will be taken from you."
"I beg!" I said. "I beg!"
"Surely you have forgotten something," he said.
"What?" I asked, in misery.
"You are a virgin," he said.
I looked at him, wildly, tears in my eyes.
"Kneel, as you were before, slut," he said.
"Beast!" I wept. "Beast!" But I crept to my knees, and knelt before him, as I had been commanded. I was shaking. Tears fell from my eyes. He had had no intention of having me. My virginity, somehow, seemed a factor in this. I wondered what this, really, could have to do with anything. Had it not been for that I think I would, even in the library, by such a man, have been put to lengthy uses. Muchly I suspected would I have been forced to pleasure him, and doubtless Taurog and Hercon, as well.
"Beast!" I wept.
"I am leaving," he said.
I looked up, frightened.
"It was only that I wished to see you before I left, and how you might look, here, a chain on your neck, hateful, charming slut, in a waiting room."
"A waiting room?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "They will be coming for you shortly. You will have a busy morning. Others are already being processed."
"Processed?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. He then turned away from me.
"Wait!" I cried.
He turned about, again to regard me.
I thought desperately. I wanted to keep him with me. "Are all women awakened here," I asked, "by the whip?" My body was still sore from the blows.
"No," he said, "of course not. It was merely that I thought it might be informative and salubrious for you to be awakened thusly, that you might then, from the beginning, obtain an inkling as to what, for you, was to be the nature of your new world."
I regarded him, aghast.
"Have no fear," he said. "Such a thing, if ever, is rarely done. As you may well imagine, it tends to interfere with a woman's sleep."
"With her beauty sleep?" I said, ironically.
"In a way, that is quite true," he said. "Good rest is important to her, for her loveliness, her alertness and service. It is the same with other domestic animals."
I looked at him, angrily.
"Most of your beatings will occur, at any rate, I assure you, when you are fully awake."
"Beatings?" I asked.
"A hazard of what is to be your condition," he said.
"An occupational hazard?" I inquired.
"The condition is not an occupation," he said. "An occupation is not something you are, but something you do. Too, you might change an occupation. Your condition, on the other hand, in the sense I have in mind, is not what you do, but what you are. Similarly, you will be totally unable to change your condition. You will be absolutely powerless to alter, influence or change it in any way whatsoever. Once it is imposed upon you it will then be something which you, quite simply, and categorically, are. To be sure, susceptibility to the beatings of which I spoke, similarly to an occupational hazard, in its way, is an inevitable concomitant of what will be your condition. The frequency and nature of these beatings, of course, will probably depend mu
ch on you. If you are not pleasing you will doubtless be beaten, and well. If you are pleasing, and perfectly so, you may or may not be beaten."
I looked at him, trying to understand what was being said to me. I did know, of course, I could be beaten. I had already felt the lash. I was not eager to feel it again.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
"I do not understand what you are saying," I said.
"Oh?" he asked.
I put my hands on the chain that attached me by the neck to the ring in the floor. "I do not understand what I am doing here," I said. "What is going to be done with me?"
"You mean, immediately?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You're going to be branded," he said, "and put in a collar."
I regarded him with disbelief.
"But so, too, will the other girls," he said. "You will all have your brands and collars."
I could not speak.
"Such things are prescribed by merchant law," he said.
"This," I whispered, frightened, "is then truly a world such as that of which you spoke, a world on which women such as I are bought and sold as slaves?"
"Position," he said.
Immediately I released the chain and knelt as I had before, back straight, back on my heels, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.
"Yes," he said.
"And that is the fate you have decided for me," I said, "that I be a slave."
"Yes," he said.
I was silent.
"It will be amusing, from time to time, to think of you in exacting and perfect bondage, where you belong, so right for you, striving desperately to please masters, for fear of your very life, my delectable, hateful slut."
"That is why you did not take my virginity," I said, "because you had this fate in store for me."
"Yes," he said.
"My virginity could affect my price?" I said.
"Yes," he said.
"It is as if I were an animal," I said.
"Soon," he said, "you will be an animal, in full legality."
"You captured me," I said, poutingly. "My virginity belongs to you. It is yours, truly."
"I do not want it," he said.
I looked at him, startled.
