The Usurper Read Online Free Page A

think she was a beast, a slave! How little did they know! How wrong they were!
    She recalled her jeweled collars. How conveniently they might be affixed, or removed.
    How different from the chain, with its disk, now fastened on her neck!
    She wondered if the men who had looked upon those jeweled, sparkling collars had more seen her, or the collars. Were they not dazzling, so bright, so calling attention to themselves as to blind a vision which might, otherwise, have noted a woman? Did they not divert an attention away from what was incidental to their display, a rack, a platform, a woman? What was most important here? What would be the prize? How would one see the woman, as a woman, or as an instrumentality by means of which a putative treasure might be secured? Which, jewels, or woman, would be the essence and motivation of some projected quest? Or had she affected such displays that she might conceal herself behind them, fearing to be looked upon simply, primitively?
    In the case of a slave, things were muchly different.
    Slave goods are presented objectively, directly.
    In the case of the jeweled collar, the woman displays the collar; in the case of the slave collar, it is the woman which is displayed.
    She jerked at the chain on her neck. She could not remove it. Men had put it on her, and she would wear it.
    But it was attractive.
    But one of the things she sensed about chains, and collars, far transcended the provinces of aesthetics, and bespoke itself of cognitive matters, of meanings. Did not the collar on a woman’s neck say, “I can be owned,” or, if she is a slave, “I am owned”? Does it not say, “I am goods,” “I can be purchased,” “I am a slave,” “I can be yours”? “Would you not care to own me, Master?” One does not see a slave as one sees a free woman. One steps aside for the free woman; one is heeled by the slave; one notes the free woman; one seeks the slave; one honors the free woman, one wants the slave; one defers to the free woman; one commands the slave; one courts the free woman; one buys the slave; one admires the free woman; one puts the slave to her knees; one esteems the free woman; one puts the slave to one’s pleasure.
    How is it, wondered the blonde, the fine Lady Publennia Calasalia, that men prefer a half-naked, collared chit to an exalted, splendidly robed, noble free woman? How is it that they bid so avidly in markets for a lascivious beast, writhing to the auctioneer’s whip? What is wrong with men, she wondered, that they do not see the superiority of a free woman, any free woman, to the weeping, moaning, and thrashing of a slave in her chains, begging piteously for at least one more caress, even a tiny one?
    The Lady Publennia Calasalia, with anger, recalled an incident in one of the opulent gambling palaces whose portals were once open to her, perhaps one in Lisle itself, seat of one of the imperial palaces, in which a fellow near her had brought his slave with him into the hall, in defiance of proprieties, and knelt her near the table, head down. “She brings me luck,” he had explained, insouciantly, responding to her acidic reminder of his indiscretion. Surely he knew there was a room off the main vestibule where such beasts might be shackled, for a small fee. Indeed, even small bowls of porridge were provided, included in the cost of the temporary housing. Indeed, there were even poles outside the gambling palace to which they might be chained, free of charge, awaiting the return of their Masters. “She brings me luck,” he insisted, “like a lucky piece, or charm.” Lady Publennia had then, muchly irritated, returned her attention to the table, and the dizzy orbits of the tiny golden sphere spinning about in the bowl of the large, shallow wheel. She had later looked down at the slave, a girl with light brown hair, kneeling, head down, with her knees closely together. How uneasy was