The Usurper (33 page)

She put her hand lightly to the collar on her neck. It had been referred to as a temporary collar. She was not sure what that might mean. Certainly it was fastened on her neck quite as effectively as any other collar. “Perhaps,” she thought, “it is temporary because I am to be given to some man, perhaps an uncle or brother, who will then put me in his own collar.”

As Cornhair had ruminated on these matters, her original curiosity as to the purpose of this gathering or meeting returned. Why had it been convened? What was its purpose? Too, in serving, even at the first supper, she had noted something else which seemed puzzling to her, perhaps an odd coincidence, or at least, surely, something unexpected. There seemed no older women in the household, at least none amongst those she had seen. The several free women in the household, or, at least, those she had seen, were all rather young.

“Cornhair!”

Cornhair looked up, frightened.

“Put down your decanter, Cornhair,” called Lady Delia, “and come here, dear, and stand before the table of favor.”

That would be the table behind which sat Lady Delia, Lady Virginia, and several others, several of whom Cornhair had first seen when her hood had been removed. It had a place of honor, at the head of the room. Cornhair supposed that the individuals at that table might have some special status. Perhaps they were officers, of a sort, ones who stood high in this gathering, this organization, or sisterhood, whatever might be its purpose.

“Shame on you, Cornhair,” laughed Lady Delia. “Do not disappoint us! You are a slave. Stand as a slave! Tall, soft, at ease, gracefully, desirably, proudly! Be attractive. Do not be ashamed of your sex! Be proud of it, love it, want it! Be excruciatingly, unapologetically female.”

“Please, Mistress!” wept Cornhair.

“It is permissible, you are a slave,” said Lady Delia.

“Please, Mistress,” begged Cornhair.

“Do you know you are in a collar?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

She now knew that only too well.

“Must you be lashed before you show us you know it?” asked Lady Delia.

“No, Mistress!” cried Cornhair.

“Suppose we were men and you wanted us to buy you!”

“Yes, Mistress,” wept Cornhair.

“That is why she did not sell from the shelf, or from the block,” said Lady Virginia. “That is why we had her for only five
darins
.”

“I see,” said a woman, “a slave, but a poor slave.”

“Yes,” said Lady Virginia.

“But she is pretty,” said a woman.

“Yes,” said another.

“Do you hear me, Cornhair?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are a slave,” said Lady Delia. “It is what you are! Do not be ashamed of it. Be proud! How could you be more female? Feel your bondage, feel it in every fiber of your lovely, desirable body. Feel your need, let it suffuse you, let it heat you; let it torture you; feel it in every particle of your body, in every drop of your blood. You need to be owned, and to serve. You need to be handled, and mastered. You are a helpless, worthless slave, only that! Now, pathetic, delicious, worthless slave, let your body beg to be bought!”

Several of the women about the tables gasped, and others cried out in rage.

“Turn, turn slowly, slave!” said Lady Delia. Then she cried out, “Will she do?”

“Yes, yes,” cried several of the women, eagerly. A circuit of polite applause rippled about the room. Some women struck their utensils, or knuckles, on the table, in a gentle, refined tattoo of approval.

“You may return to your serving, Cornhair,” said Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Things then muchly returned to normal.

But Cornhair was troubled.

“I fear I am becoming a slave,” thought Cornhair. “What am I? I know there is a collar on my neck. Am I a slave? But this goes far beyond the collar! What is the collar but a symbol, a confirmation? I fear I am becoming a slave, a true slave.”

***

Cornhair, in the warmth, standing in the sand, where she had been told to stand, felt someone close to her.

She heard, overhead, or about, the snapping of canvas, almost as though a banner, or flag, might be torn by the wind.

“That is odd,” she thought. “I hear wind, but I do not feel it. Surely on my arms, or legs, I should feel it, but I do not.”

“Steady, dear,” said a voice, a woman's voice.

She felt the leash and the leash collar removed. Then she felt her hands being untied.

“Keep your hands at your sides,” she was told.

The leash and the leash collar, and the cords, were apparently handed to someone. There were at least two then on the sand near her.

“Hold still, dear,” she was told.

To her amazement, she felt the collar grasped and a small key thrust into the lock at the back of her neck. She felt the back of the collar press against the back of her neck, and the key turn in the lock. Then the collar was opened, and removed.

“Why,” she wondered, “had another collar not been locked on her before the first was removed?”

“Mistress?” she asked.

She had the sense then that the collar had been given to the second person. She waited, expecting a new collar. She was, after all, a slave.

“What, dear?” asked the female voice.

“I have no collar,” whispered Cornhair.

“That frightens you, does it not?” asked the voice.

“I am a slave,” said Cornhair. She was surprised that she had said this as simply, as naturally, as she had.

“Do not concern yourself,” said the voice.

“Am I to be freed?” asked Cornhair.

“No,” said the woman. “And if I were to lift the hem of your bit of cloth, here, on the left side, your brand would be clearly visible. Have no fear, my dear, you are nicely marked.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair, frightened in the hood, her hands at her sides.

“For what is to be done to you,” said the woman, “it is important that you be a slave. You must be a slave.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair.

“You will understand, shortly,” said the woman.

“What is to be done to me?” asked Cornhair.

“It will be clear, shortly,” said the first woman. The other person, also a woman, laughed.

“Your hood is going to be removed,” said the first woman. “You are to keep your hands at your sides, until you are given permission to move them.”

Cornhair then felt the hood being unbuckled. It was spread a bit, and loosened, and then it was jerked from her head.

There were cries of pleasure from several women, cries which seemed to come from above her, and about her.

Cornhair blinked, half blinded by the light, and the glare from the sand. For a moment she could barely keep her eyes open.

There had been two women with her, who now withdrew, taking with them, as was shortly clear, the leash and leash collar, the cord with which her hands had been bound, the collar which had encircled her neck, and the hood which had covered her head.

“There is one!” cried a woman's voice.

“See her!” cried another.

“See the slave!” she heard cry.

“Good, good!” cried another.

Cornhair looked up, bewildered, frightened.

“Slave!” she heard cry.

She heard screams of derision. She saw faces contorted with hate.

“Mistresses!” she cried, plaintively.

There was laughter.

She now understood why she had felt no breeze, for she stood within a walled enclosure. The walls did not seem unusually high, perhaps only seven or so feet in height, surmounted by what seemed to be a railing of large, white, wooden cylinders. There were tiered seats, circling above and behind these cylinders. In these seats, there might have been a hundred, even a hundred and fifty, women, ringing her. Looking up, Cornhair could see, stretched on poles, shading the stands, yellow-and-red striped, silken awnings. It was these she had heard snap in the wind. Where she stood, for the time of day, in the early afternoon, there was no shade from the walls. The sun was fierce, the glare cruel, the sand hot. Cornhair looked wildly about herself. She stood, alone and trembling, in a small arena, some fifteen yards in diameter.

Cornhair looked up.

She still stood where she had been told, her arms at her sides. She was standing below, and before, what seemed to be a small, boxed area just behind one of the railings.

A woman stood up, elegantly robed, and, with a gesture, silenced the small crowd. This was the Lady Delia.

“Mistress!” called Cornhair.

Lady Delia had been kind to her.

“Approach, female slave,” said Lady Delia.

Cornhair hurried forward, her arms at her sides, as she had been told to keep them, to stand closer to the wall, behind and above which was situated Lady Delia's box. Lady Virginia was with Lady Delia, on her left, and Cornhair recognized some of the other women in the box, as well. They had been present when she had been unhooded after her arrival in the domicile. Cornhair put her head back that she might the more easily look up.

“You are a pretty thing,” said Lady Delia.

There was some laughter in the stands.

“Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“How are you clothed?” called the Lady Delia.

“In a tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair, puzzled.

“What sort of tunic?”

“A slave tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“Why?”

“Because I am a slave, Mistress.”

“It is rather short, is it not?”

“We are clothed, if clothed, as our Masters or Mistresses please,” said Cornhair.

“You are well displayed,” said Lady Delia. “It leaves little of your body to conjecture.”

“It is a slave tunic,” said Cornhair.

“Unfortunately,” said Lady Delia, “there are no men here.”

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“No men here, to want you,” she said.

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair. “May I speak?”

“Certainly,” she heard.

“May I move my arms?” asked Cornhair.

“Certainly,” said Lady Delia, “you may move your arms, your body, move as you wish. That will make things more interesting.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair.

“Be patient,” she was counseled.

Cornhair put her hands to her throat. “My collar was taken,” she said.

“You feel naked without it, do you not?”

“I am afraid not to be collared,” said Cornhair.

“I can understand that,” said Lady Delia. “A slave who impersonates a free woman is to be put to a terrible death.”

“I beg to be collared,” said Cornhair.

There was more laughter in the stands.

“Why?” asked Lady Delia.

“Because I am a slave, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You acknowledge that you are a slave, wholly a slave, and only a slave?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

“To be sure,” said Lady Delia, “not all slaves are collared, at least publicly. Some seem to be free women, moving about, conducting their business, and such, but, when they return to their Master's domicile and the door closes behind them, they kneel, and await their commands, as the slaves they are. They may then be stripped, collared, tunicked, bound, whipped, whatever the Master pleases.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair, wonderingly.

“But such slaves are not impersonating free women, in the legal sense,” said Lady Delia.

“No, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“But slavery should be public, and manifest,” said Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“It would be quite embarrassing, and annoying, even an outrage,” said Lady Delia, “to discover that one whom you took to be free, one with whom you may have actually conversed, thought of as an equal, and such, was naught but a slave, who should have been kneeling, collared, ill-clad, and trembling, at your feet.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. Cornhair realized how mortified, and furious, she would have been, had she, as a free person, been the victim of such an imposture. But, too, she wondered if she might have been the victim of such an imposture, and more than once. How would she have known? One could not expect every woman one met to bare her left thigh. No, it was better, as Lady Delia thought, for slavery to be public, and manifest. It would not do, at all, to confuse free women and slaves. It would not do, at all, to confuse citizens with beasts, persons with objects, with properties.

“It is my impression,” said Lady Delia, “that slaves like their collars.”

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“That, in a sense, they like having their necks encircled with the band of servitude.”

Cornhair was silent. She feared to think such thoughts.

“It warms and heats them, it frees them, to become the most female of women, the most complete and perfect of women, the owned, submitted complement to masculine power,” said Lady Delia.

“How can it be, Mistress,” asked Cornhair, “for they are slaves?”

“As, in their heart, they wish to be,” said Lady Delia.

“Slaves!” cried a woman in the stands, “meaningless, worthless slaves!”

“Yes,” said Lady Delia, fiercely, “they have been found worthy of the collar! They are content, and reassured, in their collars! Not every woman is collared! Only those men want, the most exciting, the most desirable! So the sluts know how special the collar makes them! They have been selected not for their standing in society, their connections, the advantages they can provide, their wealth, but merely for their femaleness, which men will own, dominate, exploit, and master!”

“Have mercy, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, lifting her hands to Lady Delia.