"Twenty strokes!" cried Lola to Tela.

Tela looked at the Lady Gina.

"One will do," said the Lady Gina.

Lola suddenly turned white.

"Do not forget, Lola," said the Lady Gina, "that you are not really free. Do not grow pretentious."

"Yes, Mistress," said Lola, frightened. It pleased me to see the fear in the female slave.

"You may now administer the disciplinary blow," said the Lady Gina to Tela.

The blow was delivered. I winced. Tela, being a woman, could not strike me overly hard with the whip. She had only a woman's strength. A woman cannot punish a man too efficiently with a whip. A man, on the other hand, with his strength, may punish a woman terribly with it, should he choose to do so. No true man I knew, of course, would choose to do so.

"Pour the wine back into the vessel," said the Lady Gina, "and pour it forth again."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

Then, a moment later, again, I poured wine into the cup before Lola.

"You are pouring it too slowly, Slave," said Lola.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said. But she did not call for Tela to strike me again.

As I drew back Lola reached forth and, with her hand, knocked the cup over on the small table. "Clumsy slave!" she cried, aghast.

I was startled.

Lola looked to the Lady Gina. "See what he has done!" she cried.

I looked at Lola with a sudden fury.

"Are you not a slave, Jason?" inquired the Lady Gina.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said, hastily, to Lola. "I will clean this up immediately."

"Hurry, Slave," said Lola, triumphantly. "And, meanwhile, I shall consider what your punishment shall be."

In fury I went to the side of the room and put down the vessel of wine. There, at the side of the room, I fetched cloths and water and returned, quickly, to clean the table and floor, where Lola had struck over the cup. "Clumsy slave," whispered one of my fellow male slaves, kneeling at the line, to me. When I had cleaned the table and floor and replaced the water and cloths I again knelt before Lola.

"Head down," she said.

I put my head down.

"What punishment shall I mete out to you?" she mused. "I have it! Return to your cell and remove your clothing. There, have yourself placed in close chains. There will be no food or blanket for you tonight. Too, tell the guard you are to receive twenty strokes." She paused. "Of the snake," she added, thoughtfully.

I looked up at her, in disbelief. Men could die under the blows of the snake. She was smiling at me, contemptuously.

"Five will do," said the Lady Gina.

"Very well, five!" said Lola.

"Thank your mistress, and obey," said the Lady Gina.

"Thank you, Mistress," I said to Lola.

"Run," said Lola. "Run, Jason, Slave!"

I rose to my feet and, angrily, ran from the room.

"Tandruk," I heard, from the Lady Gina, behind me, "you are next. Pour the wine, Tandruk."

I lay on the stones of the cell, naked, in blood, my wrists and ankles chained. I could scarcely move my body. I had received five strokes of the snake, wielded by a man.

"Jason," I heard.

I struggled to my knees and looked to my left. There, on the other side of the bars, was the Lady Gina.

"Why did you not point out that Lola had spilled the wine?" she asked.

"You know that she did it?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "Her small hand, though quick, was not so quick as my eye. Too, your hands, as they were placed on the vessel of wine, could not have struck the cup."

"I did not want you to punish her," I said.

"Good!" she said. "I see you are learning. You wished to reserve her for yourself, that you yourself might later, if the opportunity presented itself, mete out her punishment. Good! You are learning something of being a man."

"I would not have punished her," I said. "I am a man of Earth. A woman is not to be punished no matter what she does."

"How then do you control your women?" she asked.

I shrugged. "We don't," I said.

"You men of Earth well deserve the lives you lead," she laughed.

"Mistress," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Why does Lola so hate me?" I asked.

"You are different from the other men she has known," said the Lady Gina. "She finds you despicable. You do not master the slave in her."

"She is a person," I said. "She has feelings."

"Of course she has feelings," said the Lady Gina. "She has the deep, exciting, profound feelings of a woman who knows herself a slave. Have you answered those feelings in her?"

"No, of course not," I said.

"You area male of Earth," she smiled.

"Yes!" I said. "She is not supposed to have those feelings!" I said. "She is supposed to be a person!"

"Women are slaves," said the Lady Gina. "They long for their masters. That is far deeper than your myths and political inventions, regardless of their expediency in your form of society."

"How can you speak in such a fashion?" I demanded. "You yourself area woman!"

"Look upon me, Jason," she said. "See my size and strength, my severity. I am not as other women. I am for all practical purposes a man, but one trapped by some cruel trick of nature in a woman's body. It is painful, Jason. That is perhaps why I hate both men and women so."

"I do not think, Mistress," I said, "that you truly hate either."

She looked at me, puzzled. Then she said, "Beware how you speak, lest you be lashed and burned with irons."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "Yet I think you are, strangely, a woman of both vision and kindness."

"Beware, Slave," she warned me.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said.

"Keep clearly in mind, Jason," she said, "that women are slaves, longing for their masters."

"They are persons!" I insisted.

"You insist on seeing women through sexless and demeaning categories," she said. "By doing so, you will prevent yourself from knowing them and understanding them. You will, by using such categories, miss their richness, their depth, their latency, their womanhood, and you will be forever unable to satisfy them in the fullness of their biological needs, which include the need to submit themselves as a slave to a strong male."

"False! False!" I cried. "False! False! False!"

"I am sorry if I have caused you distress, Jason," she said. "That was not my intention. You have had a difficult and cruel day. Doubtless I should not speak to you as I sometimes do. Sometimes, for some reason, I seem to forget that you are only a male of Earth, and a slave."

I did not speak.

"You are large and strong to be a slave, Jason," she said. "Perhaps that is why I sometimes forget that, as a male of Earth, you are small and weak inside."

"It requires courage and strength to be small and weak," I said, angrily.

"Perhaps," she said. "I would not know. I am neither small nor weak."

I put my head down, angrily.

"It is an interesting way to view matters," she said. "Perhaps the fool has the strength to be a fool. Perhaps the coward has the courage to be cowardly."

I looked at her.

"It is sad enough to be a fool and a coward," she said, "without making virtues of these sorry flaws. Can you not see that you have been conditioned into a morality of weakness, an invention of the weak to undermine and inhibit the strong? Is not the social utility of such a device, so congenial to the fears of the small and weak, obvious? Can you not see that a morality designed to cripple and thwart the strong, to turn them against themselves, is an ideal instrument to advance the ambitions of the small and weak? While the strong lacerate themselves and tear themselves apart with misery and guilt the small and weak, swarming unabated over the world, proceed unimpeded with their small projects and gnawings."

"No, no," I said.

"Rest now, Jason," she said. "Tomorrow you are to be appraised by woman slavers from the market of Tima."