Part 15 (1/2)
”I'll obey you because that's the proper order of the world. You paid a lot of money for me. You own me. I, of all the slaves in the world, have the least right to complain about that. I wasn't forced into this. I decided of my own free will that I would let men own me for the rest of my life. You can beat me half to death any time you want. You don't need a reason. You can tell me right now to crawl back onto that bench so that you can cane the flesh from my back and I'll do it even if it means that I'll be disfigured for the rest of my life. I'll put the cane in your hands, personally, and kiss your feet afterward.”
”I'll never understand you.”
She didn't answer that. She didn't really understand herself. She understood only that she would do it.
”Do you like being caned? Is that how your brain works? Don't you feel pain at all? Or do you feel it, but the pain is a pleasure for you?”
She flinched at the thought. ”No. I feel pain as acutely as any person. Maybe more acutely, now that I have experienced so much more of it. And I hate it. I have never asked you to beat me. Never deliberately done anything to give you cause. I seek as much pleasure as I can get but I never seek pain. Never.”
”Yet you made yourself a slave. How much pleasure can a slave get?”
”More than a lady. When I was a lady, I felt very little pain but I also felt no pleasure, either. Now I feel both. More intensely than I ever thought possible, and far more pain that pleasure, but even pain is better than feeling nothing.”
”So you find slavery a happy state?”
”No. A happy state would be having much pleasure and no pain. But I don't know anyone who achieves that. If I thought that a carpenter lived in such a state then I would have become a carpenter.”
”I employ carpenters. They don't strike me as living in bliss.”
”I thought not.”
He looked at Flame lying on her cot on her stomach, her bandaged a.s.s sticking in the air, too tortured for her to sit or lie on her back, and a look of guilt returned to his face.
”I don't give you much pleasure,” he said.
”So what? I'm your slave. You have no duty to give me pleasure. No obligation to my feelings.” She winced as her attention turned to her abused b.u.t.tocks. ”You know what you should do now?”
”No. What should I do?”
”You should order me to tear this bandage off my a.s.s and crawl back to the whipping bench. You should order me to give you the cane so that you can beat me all over again. Last night you laid nineteen strokes on me. Tonight you should lay on twenty. You should stripe me cruelly in a slow, measured cadence so that I feel each stroke individually and suffer as much as possible. You should make me scream in agony for a long, long time.” Her voice caught and slow tears began to roll down her face. Her body began to shake in terror.
”Why should I do that?”
It was hard for her to force herself to speak. ”Because you can. Because a slave's feelings mean nothing to you. Because it will help you stop thinking of me as a person. Because if you cane me deliberately instead of in anger, if you cane me as simple physical exercise to limber your arm without any concern for my terror and suffering, then you will realize that you have no reason to feel guilt.”
He looked at her for a long time.
She prepared her mind for the coming ordeal. In her thoughts, she rehea.r.s.ed tearing the bandages from her wounds and crawling off the bed. Her fingers twitched in antic.i.p.ation of his orders.
She pressed her face into her mattress so that he would not see the tears flowing from her eyes. Not see that her face was blanched with terror.
”Do you know why I'm not going to do that?” he asked.
”No.” The word was m.u.f.fled because it was spoken into her mattress ticking.
”Because I paid a hundred-thousand plaqs for you and I can't afford to lower your value with any more scars.”
That was the only acceptable reason for not caning her again.
”But don't worry,” he said. ”As soon as your a.s.s can take another beating, I'll take the paddle to it. And the flogger and the strap. I'll make you sing your songs of suffering and dance your dances of agony. I've come to enjoy hearing you moan and shriek while you quiver and writhe. I never thought that I could develop a taste for another's pain, but life is full of surprises.”
He hadn't mentioned the cane. She wondered if he would soon develop a taste for the sight of blood and scars. ”I will try to give you good return on your investment, then,” she said into her ticking.
He laughed bitterly. ”You better. I need to get as much return as possible on everything that I own right now.”
She turned her head to look at him again. ”That bad?”
”Sir Drake has bled me white.”
”You can sell me. I'm worth a hundred thousand on the block. I can keep you from bankruptcy for a while.”
”Don't be foolish. I'm not an idiot. I'd never get myself in so deep that I'd risk going bankrupt. You think that I'd risk being sold as slave myself?” He sounded annoyed.
”Are there male slaves?” Flame had never thought about that before. Some aristocrat's tastes ran to men rather than women, but she didn't think that there were enough of them to support trade in male slavery. They were more likely to want to b.u.g.g.e.r each other. In her experience, all slaves were beautiful women between the age of fifteen and forty.
”Of course there are male slaves. You think that the only slaves are pleasure slaves? Men and undesirable women are labor slaves. They are sold into mines, factories, farms, and s.h.i.+pping. There aren't a lot of them because it's usually cheaper to hire help than to buy a slave, even a cheap one. But the worst jobs the dirtiest and most dangerous can't be filled by volunteers so we buy slaves for fodder.” He looked at her curiously and waited for the penny to drop.
She wasn't stupid. She realized the implication of what he was saying. She wouldn't be a pleasure slave forever. In another ten years, she would be getting close to forty. However hard she tried to remain attractive, she would no longer be able to compete in an auction against younger, prettier slaves.
There were no old pleasure slaves. None.
But there weren't any old labor slaves, either, because they didn't last long. A few years after she was sold as a labor slave, she would die of heatstroke picking berries or choking on coal dust in the bottom of a mineshaft or being washed overboard from a fis.h.i.+ng trawler in a gale.
When she had sold herself into slavery, she hadn't thought ahead to the ultimate destiny that she had fixed for herself. She had not thought past being violated by her new owner and his friends a few times. She had been ignorant and foolish.
”How much do labor slaves fetch on the block?” she asked.
”A thousand plaqs. Maybe two. Never three. They're not an expensive investment. It costs more to feed and house them than to buy them. They can't do much work if they are starving to death or dying of pneumonia.”
She smiled wryly. ”You should sell me soon or you won't get your hundred-thousand plaqs back.”
”I wouldn't get it back if I sell you now. Not even close. You fetched that much because you were a novelty. We all watched a lady place herself in slavery. That was astounding. But the next time you're on the block, you're going to be just another slave being sold by her owner. I'd be surprised if you fetched much more than thirty thousand.”
”So you lost seventy thousand when you bought me?”
”As soon as I took you off the block.”
”Why did you pay so much, then.”
”I thought that you were worth it. I still do.”
”Because my screams are so s.e.xy and I writhe so seductively when I'm being stung by the paddle.”
”Yes. And also because you can tell me how to behave like a proper aristocrat.”
”Is becoming a knight that important to you?”
He looked at her in shock. ”Of course.”