Norman Invasions (34 page)

“What sort of collar?”

“The collar of a slave—a slave collar.”

“No, no!”

“Do not struggle so, so wildly, so futilely. Please, desist. You may injure yourself. And the masters might be displeased.”

“Masters! Masters! —Masters?”

“Yes, the men.”

“Release me from the wall!”

“Have no fear, you will soon be released.”

“Good!”

“Even now the iron is heating which will mark you.”

“Mark me?”

“Yes, the iron that will mark you slave.”

“No, no!”

“You cannot expect not to be marked, for you might be mistaken for a free woman, and that would be terrible. How insulting to free women! To be sure, it is highly unlikely that a woman such as you, so sweetly bodied, so beautiful, so small, so soft, so feminine, yes, feminine, truly feminine, do you object, would be mistaken for a free woman. That would seem unthinkable. Just looking upon you a free person would know you for a slave. Yet, the brand is required by Merchant Law. One cannot be too careful about such things. Too, the brand will help you to remember that you are a slave, simply that, a slave, that, and nothing else.”

“How is my objective value to be determined?”

“Simply, by what men will pay to own you.”

“Pay?”

“Of course.”

“I am a free person!”

“Do not be naive.”

“I cannot be owned!”

“You are mistaken.”

“I can't be owned—”

“I do not understand. Why can you not be owned?”

“I—I am not an African!”

“You refer to a race, or group, I take it, of your world. I know something of your world, which is why I am here, speaking to you in a language you can understand. On this world races, as you seem to think of them, do not exist. Here, free men stand to one another as individuals, not as representatives of groups, not, in effect, as members of gangs, as of brigands. But even on your world, slavery was never restricted to those whom you ignorantly put together so naively as “Africans.” All races, as you think of them, were subject to bondage. For centuries, whites, as you might think of them, enslaved whites. Too, blacks, as you might think of them, enslaved blacks, and Asians, as you might think of them, enslaved Asians, and those you might think of as the indigenous peoples of what was known as “the new world” enslaved one another.”

“Not now!”

“My dear, slavery still exists on your former world, in several areas. And it would exist more broadly except that a relatively small, but technologically advanced and powerful, portion of your population, perhaps in a jealousy concerning the pleasures of the mastery, being enjoyed by others, not by themselves, or fearing that they themselves might one day succumb to bondage, took the liberty of imposing their military and economic will on other peoples. But that could change. Indeed, as bondage has its values and rationale, and its obvious appeal to thinking men under certain conditions, it may come about that the darker peoples, so to speak, may reinstitute the condition, when sufficiently powerful or so motivated, and then that the vaunted superiors will find themselves, in their turn, in their chains, in the holds of slave ships, and on the auction blocks. Who then, I wonder, will “rescue” them? The appeal of bondage is obviously universal, and a turning of the world might bring it about again.

“I see you do not care to speak. Perhaps you do not like these thoughts. Yet I thought I saw you tremble in your chains.”

“No!”

“Surely you understand that slavery represents an advance in civilization over obvious alternatives.”

“What?”

“Being slain, being exterminated, being tortured to death, being burned alive, and such.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Surely you understand the attractions of ease, of pleasure and power to human beings?”

“—Yes.”

“And you can understand then how a strong human being might prefer a life of greater ease, one in which he is served less by himself and more by another, a life in which he may extract what pleasures he wishes from another, one over whom he holds absolute power.”

“One must deny oneself such pleasures and powers!”

“Why?”

“I—I do not know.”

“Nor do I. Why should the strong not avail themselves of such delights? Why should they not choose to be pleasured, to be powerful? Is that not the sane, sound, and healthy fulfillment of their natural right? Why should not those who can seize the delicious fruits of life do so? Why should the rewards and perquisites of nature, her gifts and bounties, not be taken advantage of by the strongest and fittest, the most powerful, the most intelligent, the aristocrats of nature?”

“Let it not be so!”

“What an amusing little tart you are! But put aside these questions of your former world, and its conflicts, confusions, and vicissitudes. It is here that you are now. And be assured, curvaceous little mammal, that on this world, an honest. open, beautiful world, slavery is an institution with universal incidence. Its value is accepted and understood. It is historically sanctioned and practiced. It is a matter of custom, law, and tradition. It is unquestioned and universally accepted.

“Why should those who are natural slaves not be slaves, and those who are natural masters not be masters?

“Do not hide your face in your hands. Look up at me. Wipe the tears from your eyes. Have you never dreamed of being a slave, really, of meeting a man like no other, one before whom you could not help but kneel, and lick and kiss his feet, and would melt in need and submission, one to whom you could at best be an abject object, a mere property, a domestic animal, an item of livestock, purchasable from a pen, a lovely beast, one from which is to be derived service, and ecstatic pleasure?

“I see you have.”

“No, no, no!”

“Are you even worthy to be the slave of such a man?”

“Please do not so speak to me!”

“Well, here you will meet men such as you never knew could exist, men beyond your wildest and most erotic dreams, men before whom you can be naught but such a slave, an utterly abject slave. Oh, you will learn to serve well, and you will experience pleasures, and provide pleasures, the nature and intensity of which, and the extent of which, you cannot now even conceive. Oh, you will make a delicious little slave.”

“No, no!”

“I see it in you.”

“No!”

“But are you even worthy of being such a slave?”

“I do not know!”

“Men have brought you here. They know their business. They think you have promise, or you would not find yourself in this place. They have seen fit to give you a trial.”

“A trial?”

“An opportunity to prove yourself worthy of a brand and collar. I hope that you will do well, pretty little slave.”

“And if I do not?”

“I would try desperately, if I were you. These men are not patient.”

“And if I fail?”

“There are animals to be fed, to whom you would be a lovely dessert, a most tasty morsel.”

“No!”

“Do not fail.”

“I do not want to be a slave!”

“There you are mistaken.”

“No!”

“You have always dreamed of meeting your master, a man so magnificent, so powerful, that you know instantly in your heart that you are rightfully his, a man so overwhelming and attractive that before him you can be naught but a dutiful, submitted, passionate, enraptured slave.”

“I am inert, cold, frigid, I have no such feelings!”

“Do not believe all you have been taught. The veils of politics, woven by the self-seeking fearers and haters, the ugly moral amputees, the spiritual cripples, those who strive to force the dismal grayness and chilling cold of their lives on others, are rent by the truths of biology. Dare to feel. The furies of blood refute the casuistries of conditioning. The caress of a master can shatter convention's fragile, carefully constructed house of cards. A kiss can open a window, a door, to a new world. Love is not so dangerous and terrible.”

“You speak of love?”

“Of dominance and submission, of rightfulness, of propriety, of nature, of complementarity, of dimorphism, of biology. Women are property. Thus, they learn love best on a chain.”

“Have I a choice?”

“None whatsoever, absolutely none, little slave girl.”

“Please do not so demean me, do not so refer to me!”

“So you think you hate men?”

“Yes, yes!”

“That may amuse them.”

“But I must serve them nonetheless?”

“With sensuous perfection.”

“I am not sure I hate men,” she whispered.

“I know.

“And you will soon live to give them pleasure, and I predict, little slave girl, that you will soon know the highest happiness a woman can know, for we are their properties, by nature, you must understand, the happiness of being the yielding, joyful slave of an uncompromising, overwhelming, and mighty master.”

“I am afraid.”

“And well you might be, for you will be subject to strict discipline. He will have what he wants of you, have no fear.”

“I am ignorant.”

“That is a problem, for it puts you at greater peril. It would doubtless be better if you had received extensive training in the many arts of the female slave, but the market is unfortunately overburdened with beauty at the moment, and the merchants wish to move stock, particularly the lesser stock, such as you, quickly, to save time, to clear space and such.”

“When am I to be sold?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for your kindness, in speaking to me.”

“I wished to do so.”

“You asked for permission to speak to me?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.

“It is nothing,” she said.

“I am afraid to be sold.”

“Of course.”

“Were you once of my world?”

“Of course.”

“You spoke of your master.”

“I met him on Earth.”

“Were you his slave there?”

“Of course, as I am his slave here.”

“He was of Earth?”

“Yes, but he was a master, and thus he made me his slave there. I love him. He is everything to me. I would die for him.”

“How did he come here?”

“He is such a man as those of this world respect. He was detected, and offered an invitation to come to this world. He accepted.”

“And you?”

“He brought me with him.”

“—as his slave?”

“Of course, that is what I was.”

“And you serve him here?”

“As lovingly and perfectly as I can.”

“Are you—branded?”

“Yes, it was done shortly after I arrived on this world. It is required by Merchant Law. Now anyone on this world, seeing I am branded, would know that I am a slave, am purchasable, and such.”

“You are very beautiful.”

“Thank you, and so, too, are you.”

“Thank you, and I do not think, really, that I am stupid.”

“No, you are not stupid.”

“Is this a beautiful world?”

“Yes, much as Earth must once have been.”

“I think I am not displeased to have been brought here.”

“You begin to suspect what might be your life here?”

“I think so.”

“A life that you only dreamed you might live.”

“Yes.”

“Though only as a rightless, abject slave?”

“Yes.”

“Such, my dear, you are, and will be.”

“It is so beautiful! If only one would not grow old, and it could last forever!”

“There are serums here, called stabilization serums. A secret of the caste of physicians. You may fear desperately on this world, but you need not fear the diminution of your beauty. Men will enjoy keeping it in its collar, indefinitely, at the pinnacle of its health, youth, and loveliness.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“They will come for you soon.”

“How shall I behave? What shall I do?”

“Present yourself as well as you can on the block. Know that you are beautiful, and desirable, and exciting. Understand that. Know in the bottom of your belly that you are for sale, and will be sold, and are excellent goods. Be erotic, brazen, and beautiful. Be what you will then be, wares, a commodity, a lovely property in the process of being vended—a beautiful slave, an exhibited, proffered slave.

“I see that you try to fold those miserable shreds of garments about you Do you think they conceal you? Rather they will intrigue the men.”

“I am frightened!”

“And even those bits of rags will be removed from you on the block. Men insist on seeing—completely— what they are buying. They are not fools.”

“Surely I will not be shown to men—not to men!—even as I am!”

“Were you a trained slave you would not ask such a question.”

“But I am not such a slave!”

“I am to you at this time, though slave myself, as Mistress. That may not have been clear to you. But I now make it clear. Accordingly you should address me as “Mistress.” It would be well for you to accustom yourself to such things. Oh, do not look upon me with such dismay, such bewilderment and horror.”

“But I am not such a slave—
Mistress
.”

“True. But now, were you such a slave, you would know that you would be so exhibited. You would expect it, and, further, if given a choice, would insist upon it, that you might, in the competitions of beauty, be able to strive fairly, and without detriment, to obtain the most excited, covetous master, he who most hungers and thirsts for you, and cries out and roars to possess you.”

“Can men so desire a woman?”

“Yes.”

“How fearful to belong to one who so wants one!”