Part 51 (1/2)

”Kneel beside the cistern,” I said. ”Knot your hair behind your head, that it not drag in the water. The garments must be soaked, and twisted, and kneaded, and beaten on the stone, again and again. One soaks the garments, one beats them. It is not easy work.

It is hard work. It takes time. Begin.”

She took her veil first, and submerged it in the water.

The next day, I came early to her cell. She had requested it. The pit master had given his permission. At my arrival she had knelt without being asked to do so, and had removed her veil.

”Greetings,” I said.

”Greetings,” said she.

”May I stand?” she asked.

”Yes,” I said.

To my surprise she then removed her outer garments, putting them to one side. Then she stood before me in a light, silken, sliplike undergarment. It was quite brief. It was not, I thought, unlike a slave garment.

I wondered if free women sometimes studied themselves in the mirror, in such garments. I recalled that I had, it now seemed long ago, wondering what I would look like if my wrists were roped, if there were a chain on my neck. S h e then, again, knelt.

”What if the guard should see?” I said.

”It does not matter,” she said.

”Do not be foolish,” I said. ”Do you not know what the sight of you, as you are now, might do to a man!”

”What?” she asked.

”Do not ask,” I warned her. ”You are a free woman!” I dared not tell her the might of the desires of men such as these, of their mercilessness and their power.

”Janice,” she said.

”Yes,” I said.

”Exercise me,” she said.

”Do not be foolish,” I said.

”I know nothing of such things,” she said. ”Please!”

”In what way would you be exercised?” I asked.

”Exercise me,” she said, ”-as a slave.”

I considered this matter. I supposed that her body might, indeed, cry out for some exercise.

She had been long incarcerated. But why, I asked myself, did she wish to be exercised in a certain way, as a slave? Surely that was incomprehensible. On the other hand, I asked myself, how often does a slave have this power over a free woman.? Indeed, would it not be amusing to exercise herand as a slave?

”Stand!” I said. ”Spread your legs widely! Put your arms out to the sides!”

I feared I was not easy with her. And yet the harder I was upon her the more eager, the more zealous, the more compliant, the more helpless and obedient, she was.

Afterwards I took her to the cistern that she might wash her body and her garment.

After that she exercised regularly.

Once she asked me, ”What are slave paces?”

”They are movements, att.i.tudes, positions, poses, and such,” I said, ”designed to display a slave.”

”Put me through them!” she begged.

”You, a free woman,” I said, ”ask to be put through slave paces?”

”Yes!” she said.

”You are mad!” I said.

”Please!” she begged.

”And that,” I cried, a few minutes later, ”is how a slave may be put through her paces.”

”Yes, yes!” she had cried, wide-eyed, gasping, fighting for breath, drenched with sweat, lying before me on her belly, on the stone.

”To be sure,” I said, ”if you were really being put through your paces, you might expect certain things to be different. Presumably you would be naked and collared. I would be a man.

would have a whip or switch. There might very well be other men present, and so on.”

”I understand,” she whispered.

”Yet,” I said, ”perhaps now you have a sense of what might be involved.”

”Yes,” she whispered, in awe. ”Thank you, Janice.”

”Do you not now regret your request?” I asked.

”No,” she said.

”Are you not now outraged and humiliated?” I asked.

”No,” she said.

I had then left the cell, locking the door behind me. I looked back, once, at her. She still lay on the floor, in the tiny sliplike garment she had worn. She had lovely legs. She seemed in awe.

The next night she had wanted to know something of the intimate exercises of female slaves.

I did not even know how she, a free woman, had heard of them. I described them to her.

”How helpless you are!” she breathed.

”Yes,” I said. ”We are helpless.”