"Split your legs," he said.

I did so, obediently.

In spite of my terror, I felt incredibly alive doing this, obeying him. He crouched near me. He put the whip on the rug.

"You are a virgin?" he asked.

"Yes!" I said.

"Are you lying?" he asked.

"No!" I said.

"If you are lying," he said, "you will be whipped."

I looked at him, from my back. I could not begin to understand a man who was so strong. How absurd it seemed! Did he not know that women could do anything with impunity, that no matter what we did, even if it were to bring about the destruction of a man" s manhood and the ruination of his life, we were never punished? And yet this man seemed ready to punish me for so little as a lie, or perhaps for something as insignificant as simply not being fully pleasing to him! What sort of man was this? It was almost as though he were not a man of Earth! How had he managed to escape his weakening? Has he, somehow, not been suitably trained and conditioned? How different he seemed from a man of Earth! Was he one of the rare men of Earth, I wondered, who had seen through the debilitating and demeaning hoaxes of his society, who had cast forth from him, like poisons from his body, the unnatural and pathological conditioning programs to which he had been subjected?

"Do you understand?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I wonder if you really do," he said.

My lip trembled.

"You might perhaps think of lying now to a man," he said, "but I assure you, my dear, the time will come when you would be terrified to even think of lying to a man."

I was silent.

"Hold still," he said.

I tensed.

"This will only take a moment," he said. "I will be extremely gentle." I pulled back a bit.

But he was gently, extremely gentle.

"Is she a virgin?" asked one of the men standing nearby, the third man, he near the table on which rested the attachA© case.

"Yes," said the man beside me.

I blushed, hotly.

The fellow near the attachA© case then turned to it, and seemed to sort through some objects within it. Then he found one and placed it on the table. I do not know if I could have told what it was, in the shadows, had I been standing. Lying as I was, of course, I probably could not, from my position, have seen what it was even had the room been as light as it had been long ago, some three months ago, on that bright afternoon when I had for the first time to my knowledge found myself under the eyes of my current captor. Whatever it was, it did not seem large. It made a metal sound when placed on the table.

"Are you going to rape me now?" I whispered.

"No," he said.

"No?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"You are a virgin," he said.

"I don" t understand," I said.

He smiled.

"But if you are not going to rape me," I said, "what is this about?" "Get on your knees," he said, standing up.

I rose again to my knees, with a small sound of bells, the chain leash on my neck.

He seemed a bit angry. The other two men, too, he near the attachA© case, and he who held my leash, his fist now close to the back of my neck, seemed somewhat angry. I gather they had not been particularly pleased to learn that I was a virgin. Had it not been for that I gathered they would have seem to it that I pleased them muchly.

"If I am not to be raped," I said, "I do not understand what is going on. What is this all about?"

"Have no fear," said the man, "eventually, in your new life, you will be well and frequently raped. Indeed, your life, in effect, will be one of rape." "My new life?" I said. "I do not understand what is going on."

"She is stupid," said the man behind me, he controlling my leash, allowing me so little tether on it.

"No," said the man before me. "She has her tiny spark of intelligence, nasty, petty and small though it might be, which, hopefully, may perhaps facilitate her survival. It is just that these things, now, are beyond her ken."

"I do not understand," I said.

"Can you not guess, cuddly beauty?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Remember, long ago," he said, "when we first met, and we spoke of an ancient, beautiful world?"

"Yes," I said.

"A world in which women such as you," he said, "were bought and sold as slaves?" "Yes," I said, uneasily.

"Perhaps you remember saying that that world was gone," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"And perhaps, too," he said, "you may remember me remarking that there was another, not unlike it, which exists."

"Yes," I said.

"You said that that was absurd, as I recall," he said.

"Yes," I said. "And it is absurd!"

I felt the man" s hand tighten a little in the chain. This made me more conscious of the collar on my neck.

"Do you recall what I said then?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. I shuddered.

"What?" he asked.

"That you had seen it," I said.

"It is true," he said.

"You are mad!" I said.

"And you, too, will see it, my dear," he said.

"That is absurd!" I said. "You are mad! You are mad!"

He reached down and picked up the whip.

"You must learn deference to males," he said, "absolute deference to males." I shrank back. But he was coiling the whip. Then with a butt clip and a blade clip, he put it on his belt. I almost fainted.

"There is no such place!" I said.

"I was born there," he said, "as were my fellows."

"There is no such place on Earth!" I said.

"That is true," he said.

"What are you saying?" I gasped. "Who are you?"

"I am Teibar," he said. "My colleagues are Hercon, to your right, and Taurog, behind you, who holds your chain."

"I do not understand such names," I said. They did not even sound like the names of men of Earth!

"I suppose they are unfamiliar to you," he said. "They are not found here, or at least, I suppose, not frequently."

"Here?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "on Earth."

"I don" t understand," I said.

"I speak of a world which is not Earth," he said.

"Another world?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Another planet?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"But you are human, surely," I said, "some sort of human, though perhaps of a different sort from those to whom I am accustomed."

"You fear that I am an alien?" he asked.

"Yes," I whispered.

"In one sense it is true that I, from your point of view, am an alien," he said, "the sense in which I have come from a different world. In another senses, however, I am not an alien, as I am identically a member of your own species." I looked at him.

"My ancestors came from Earth," he said, "rather as yours came from Europe. Have no fear. I am every bit as human as you."

"I see," I said.

"And that is why I am so dangerous to you," he said, "because I am a member of your own species, because I understand you, because I know how you think, because I am familiar with your nasty little mine and emotions, your slyness, your pettinesses, your selfishness, your stupid little tricks, everything about you, and what you are."

"And this world of which you speak," I whispered, "supposing it exists, it is like, in some ways, the other world, the vanished world, of which we spoke?" "Yes," he said.

"Is it like it in one way in particular," I asked.

"It is like it in many ways," he said, seemingly amused. "Do you have anything particular in mind?"

"It is a worlda€”" I asked.

"Yes?" he said.

"Is it a world in which women such as I," I asked, "are bought and sold as slaves?"

"Yes," he said.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

"Can you not guess?" he asked.

I leaped upward but, cruelly, instantly, with an expert turn and throw of the leash, I was thrown twisting, gasping and choking, to my belly on the rug. I was startled with how excellently, how easily, how smoothly, and with such little thought this had apparently been done. I had been utterly helpless, like something of no account in Taurog" s control. I felt his heel on my back. it pressed me cruelly down on the rug. The collar was on my abraded neck. Some links of its chain lay beside my throat. I lifted my head as I could.