"How do you like that, slave?"
Then she flourished the whip.
"Get up!"
I was about to rise.
"Not that way," she commanded, "on your knees."
I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash.
The blows fell rapidly and powerfully on my back and arms. Each one
cut into my flesh and burned there, but the pains enraptured me. They
came from her whom I adored, and for whom I was ready at any hour to
lay down my life.
She stopped. "I am beginning to enjoy it," she said, "but enough for
to-day. I am beginning to feel a demonic curiosity to see how far
your strength goes. I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and
writhe beneath my whip, and in hearing your groans and wails; I want
to go on whipping without pity until you beg for mercy, until you
lose your senses. You have awakened dangerous elements in my being.
But now get up."
I seized her hand to press it to my lips.
"What impudence."
She shoved me away with her foot.
"Out of my sight, slave!"
* * * * *
After having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams, I
awoke. Dawn was just beginning to break.
How much of what was hovering in my memory was true; what had I
actually experienced and what had I dreamed? That I had been whipped
was certain. I can still feel each blow, and count the burning red
stripes on my body. And _she_ whipped me.
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