“My life is in your hands,” wept Aynur. “Please, sweet, beloved Gail, my favorite, beloved sister in bondage, be kind, be merciful!”

Aynur did not now have her talmit, that symbol of authority. She did not now have her switch.

“I am sorry I was cruel to you!” said Aynur. “I am sorry! Am sorry!”

No longer was she first girl. She was now naught but another slave. And a rather pretty one. There was no special reason, I now saw, why she have been first girl, any more than several of the others.

“Please, beloved Gail,” she wept.

“She is beautiful, Masters,” I said, suddenly. “You do not wish to hurt her.”

He who was first among the captors looked at me, startled. The newcomer, too, who had paid little attention to these matters, turned, now, to regard me.

“She is your enemy,” said the second man. “How shall we kill her?”

“She is only a slave,” I whispered. “She wants to love and serve.”

“Yes, yes,” whimpered Aynur, her head turned to her left, her cheek on the stones.

“Do you no understand?” asked the second man. “We are granting you a rare privilege. We are permitting you to dictate the manner of an enemy’s death. You may never again receive such an opportunity. Relish your revenge! Let it be sweet!”

I put my head down. I wanted none of this.

“Beg!” said the second man to Aynur. She cried out, kicked. “My life is in your hands,” wept Aynur to me. “Permit me to be spared! I beg my life!”

“How do you address her?” inquired the second man of Aynur. She wept, again, again kicked.

“Mistress! Mistress!” she said. “I beg my life, Mistress!” I was in consternation.

I was now as Mistress to the proud Aynur!

“If I am to die, please let it be done quickly, mercifully, Mistress,” said Aynur.

“Speak!” the second man ordered me.

“I am a slave, Master,” I said. “It is neither mine to prescribe, nor dictate, the manner of another’s death. It is rather mine to obey, to serve.”

Aynur lay helplessly before me. All that had seemed cruel and hard about her before was now gone. She was now no more than the slave she was. The cruelties, the artificialities, had been broken away from her. She was now utterly vulnerable, and soft, and tender, and beautiful. Now she was no more than a helpless slave girl.

“What is to be done with her?” inquired the second man.

I looked down at Aynur, and she looked up at me, piteously. No longer was she the Aynur of old.

“We are both slaves, Masters,” I said. “That is all we are. That is our destiny and nature. We beg to love and serve. That is what we wish, to be pleasing, and to be loved. Please be kind to us. Please show us mercy. We beg it.”

“What of her?” said the second man. He indicated Aynur, roughly, brutally, prodding her with his bootlike sandal.

“If you do not want her,” I said, “do not hurt her. If you do not wish to keep her for yourselves, do not kill her. Sell her. Surely she will bring you a good price in a market.”

I sensed the men looking at me.

“I am sure that she will do her best to be a good slave,” I said.

“Is it true?” asked the second man, of Aynur.

“Yes, my masters,” whispered Aynur.

“For the time, then, at least, we will spare her,” said the first man.

Aynur shuddered. I feared that she might faint.

I was acutely aware of my own helplessness, and bondage, how my ankles were crossed, one lying over the other, the two looped with cord and bound together, how my wrists were crossed, and bound. I pulled a little and, in an instant, had come to the last of the slack, an inch or so, in the cord which fastened my wrists to my ankles. I was conscious of the cloak, so precariously about my shoulders, and my nudity beneath it. It was total power the men held over Aynur and myself. This was not merely a matter of their much greater size and strength, enabling them to handle us as though we might be children, enabling them to do with us as they wished, nor was it a matter merely of the implacability of our bonds, denying us even the most meaningless opportunity to try to defend ourselves or to flee; it had rather to do with the marks on our thighs, the collars on our necks, that we were slaves. It was that which, more than anything else, more than their incomparable greater physical strength, more than the sternness of bonds, made us wholly, helplessly, theirs.

The second man bent to Aynur’s ankles and bound them together.

“Thank you, Mistress,” breathed Aynur.

I winced, seeing how tightly her ankles were bound together.

The man then knelt across her body and thrust the slave bracelets higher on her wrists. He then, with cord, tied her wrists together. He jerked the cords tight. He then removed the bracelets from her, putting them in his pouch. He then drew her to her knees and gagged her.

I dared now cast a glance at my master. He was standing to one side.

I feared to be overly bold. I did not wish to be lashed.

The slave box, by the first man, with his foot, was thrust before me and to my right, rather toward the foot of the stairs. It scraped on the stone flooring. It was not far, then from where my master was. It was to his left. He paid it no attention.

The second man then lifted Aynur up to his arms. I saw her eyes, over the gag. He carried her to the slave box. He sat her in the box. He put on hand in her hair and the other on her ankles. I again saw her eyes. In them there was terror. Neither of us knew, truly, what her fate was to be. It was my hope that they would spare her, if only for the whip and collar of another, one who would see, even casually, to her perfect mastering. He put her down in the box, on her back, her knees up. He shut the lid of the box, and locked it. Through the perforations in the box, in the form of the kef, I could see her face.

In what perfect custody we are kept!

The newcomer, my master, and the two captors then exchanged further words, sotto voce.

I saw then the slave box lifted by the two men. It had stout, leather handles at each end. It was carried up the stairs, and then, the first man opening the trap, thrusting it up, through the opening. The trap was then closed. I heard the stops of the men, heavy with the weight they were bearing, cross the floor above, and then, in a moment, as the set themselves to a new flight of stairs, diminish.

I was then left alone, in the subbasement, with my new master.

I thought that I would attempt to charm or placate my master. I would dare to lift my eyes, timidly, to his. I would smile, a timid smile, hoping to please him.

I lifted my head.

“Slut!” cried he in rage.

I understood nothing of his fury. It made no sense to me. Why should he be angry with me? Why should he be cruel to me? I thrust my head down, instantly, terrified.

I had only smiled at him.

How had I done wrong? How was it that this should have so offended him, have so enraged him?

“You worthless slave and slut,” he whispered. In his voice there, was almost unbelievable hatred.

No longer dared I hope that he might be kind. I hoped rather now only that I would be permitted to live.

“You smile at me,” he snarled, “not even knowing who I am!”

I kept my head down. I trembled.

“Lift your head!” he snapped. I obeyed.

“Back, back, further!” he said.

My neck then hurt. I saw, above me, the wretched, peeling ceiling of that dank place.

He approached me and handled the collar.

“Fitting,” he said, contemptuously, angrily, “you begged use?”

Of course I had begged use! Was I to be blamed for what I was, for what I had become, that which I had earlier been only secretly, only in my dreams? And were not the masters, too, to blame? Had they not released the slave? Did he now think I could simply return her to her dungeon, where she had languished, neglected and denied, after I had met her, and, in her, my true self? Once one has found oneself can one forget oneself? It is a bit late for such things then. It is one thing never to acknowledge oneself; it is one thing to pretend and hide; it is one thing to avoid meeting oneself; but it is quite another to forget oneself once one has met oneself; one cannot, so to speak, then unmeet oneself; one may hide from the truth; one may attempt to avoid it; one may even arrange one’s life in such a way asto minimize the possibilities of learning it, at least explicitly, face to face, in its fully glory; but once one has seen it, one cannot simply unsee it; one cannot unlearn it; it can no longer be repudiated; incantations can restore neither virginity nor ignorance. And, too, I loved my sex, my truth. I would cling to it forever. No one could force it out of me. I was not discontent to be a woman.