Part 12 (2/2)

”How then do you explain the condition of your body, when you were found?” asked Aynur.

”I may have felt, a little,” I whispered.

It would do little good, I feared, to attempt to deny, to an observer as astute as Aynur, what would have been obvious. There are so many signs, the dilation of the pupils, the helplessness, the sheen of sweat, the oils, the smells, the mottling of the body, the erection of the nipples, such things.

”You have felt the whip, and iron on your wrists,” said Aynur.

”Yes,” I said.

”Do you still claim to have felt little?” she asked.

”No,” I whispered.

Women such as I, of course, and Aynur, and so many others, inside the walls and outside of them, are the most responsive of all women. We are not permitted, for example, dignity and inhibitions. Such are incompatible with the collar. We know what is expected of us, and what we must be like. And we are trained. And we are under discipline. Too, we are, I suspect, selected with heat in mind. It is presumably one of the properties which those whose business it is to acquire us keep in mind. Such a consideration may, in many cases, make the difference with respect to whether or not we are to be acquired. Such a property is apparently important, for example, when want lists are compared with inventories.

”Do you think I cannot recognize a hot little tart when I see one?”

asked Aynur.

”I do not know,” I murmured.

”Do you think I have not read your papers?” she asked.

”I do not know,” I said. I could not read them, of course. I did not even know what they said.

There was apparently some remark on them pertinent to my heat. He whose whip I had first kissed, in the corridor long ago, he who had later treated me with such cruelty, spurning me, throwing me to others, he whom, in the long nights in the kennels, I had never forgotten, had told me that I was supposedly quite ”vital.” The matter had been confirmed in the pens, of course. I had wept with misery and shame for hours afterward. But the proper endors.e.m.e.nts had been included, I had gathered, on my papers. Aynur, it seemed, could read.

”You were at the wall,” said Aynur.

”Yes,” I admitted.

”Although it may have been difficult for you to wholly refrain from feeling,” said Aynur, ”you undoubtedly did your best.”

”Oh, yes, yes!” I said.

”And you remained totally inactive,” said Aynur.

”As inactive as possible,” I whispered.

”Then you did not, for example, kiss him?”

”Of course not!” I said.

Tima and Tana broke into laughter. I looked at them, frightened.

”You saw?” I asked.

”Yes!” said Aynur, in fury.

My heart sank.

I had not known how long they had been watching. Apparently it had been long enough. I had heard a voice, That of Aynur. And then, a moment later, she had cried out in fury. I had then, in terror, tried to pull back, but he had not permitted me to extricate myself. He had held me where I was, against him, in his arms, naked.

”s.l.u.t!” cried Aynur.

”He ordered me to kiss him!” I cried.

”And you did so reluctantly?” she screamed.

”Yes, yes!” I cried.

”Liar! Liar!” she wept.

I was terrified. I almost lost position.

”Naked, collared tart!” she cried.

Did not Aynur wear a collar, too? Did her collar not fit as well as mine? Did it not proclaim its message on her neck, as mine did on mine? Was it not well fixed there, and was she not as incapable of removing it as I was of removing mine? ”Naked collared s.l.u.t!” cried Aynur.

Was there such a difference between us? Was she so loftily garbed? Was she not in her way almost as naked as I? Was there truly so much more to her attire than mine, other than the necklaces, and the jewelry, the earrings, and such, richer than mine? Was there so much, for example, to the silk she wore, the open skirt, held only at the left hip by a single, easily detached golden clasp, one which might be flicked away with a finger, to the scarlet silken vest, against which her beauty strained. tied at the front with a scarlet string, one which could be undone with a single tug? ”Naked collared lying little s.l.u.t!” cried Aynur.

She chastised me as might have a woman other than we! Surely she knew my condition, and nature. I did not think it was much other than hers. I had surely sensed that Aynur was frustrated in the garden, and that she was, at least latently, highly and powerfully, and significantly and helplessly. s.e.xed. Perhaps she had sensed the same of me, though I was smaller, and so much more vulnerable. Perhaps that was why we had not cared for one another.

Perhaps that was why she hated me.

”Lying s.l.u.t!” wept Aynur.

I had then been seen kissing the fellow in the garden. I had been unable to help myself. I recalled that I, conquered as such as he can do to such as I, had done so, willingly, eagerly, gratefully helplessly, pa.s.sionately, uncontrollably.

”s.l.u.t! s.l.u.t!” cried Aynur.

Did she wish that it had been she who had been caught in the garden? ”s.l.u.t! s.l.u.t!” she cried.

Would she have behaved so differently from me? ”s.l.u.t!” she wept.

I did not think she was so different from me, in what we were, but here, in the garden, in the articulated structure of this world, we were separated by a chasm of almost infinite proportions. She was first amongst us, and I was the newest and, surely, the least of the flowers.

”s.l.u.t!” she screamed, beside herself with rage.

She raised the switch and I cringed.

But the blow did not fall.

Aynur had lowered the switch.

Then she said, quietly, her voice unnaturally calm, ”Bracelet her.”

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