The Duties of Women

"What are the duties of slave girl?" I asked her.
"Absolute obedience, exquisite beauty and to be fully pleasing in all things," She answered.
It was rote. A taught response. I knew that. She knew that. In a sense, she was being absolutely obedient, responding in the way she must. This is not uncommon. Conditioned responses are often a part of slave training.
"What are the duties of the free companion?" I asked her then.
She smiled ruefully, laughed nervously and responded, "Absolute obedience, exquisite beauty and to be fully pleasing in all things. And accounting, house tending, bearing babies."
"Excepting the bearing of children, which I do not demand of you" I noted, "your duties as a free companion do not seem all that different than the duties of a slave girl."
Behind her, in the campfire, her robes burned. Her slippers, too burned. Her veils were lost to the lick of the flames as well. Earlier in the evening, I directed her to dispose of these things. The smoke in the air, thick, hung low about us. Her face was wet with tears. Certainly it was the smoke that stung her eyes. She was not forthcoming with me. She hid from me. She employed rote response and half truths to disguise the fact that She held onto false notion, distorted perception and an illogical point of view.
"Do you like your yellow silk?" I inquired.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, clutching it to her chest. She was afraid, I believe, that it would be taken from her just as the robes, veils and slippers were. She couldn't have guessed farther from the truth. She will become very familiar with the yellow silk in the future; for the foreseeable future.
I shoved her to her back and questioned her further,"What are the duties of my free companion?" I asked of her.
"Absolute beauty, Master!" she cried. "Exquisite beauty! To be fully pleasing in all things, Master!"
I put my hand over her mouth then. I no longer listened to her proclamations. After the whipping, swift and brutal, it was clear she would no longer answer with rote response. She was taught with cruel deliberation that a man and a woman are two halves of one whole. One seeks conquest, the other is conquered. There is no escaping the blood nor the instinct of the human animal. One owns, the other falls slave. It is a foregone conclusion on a world that disdains to ignore the natural order and beauty of things. Her response to discipline proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. She has been left with nothing to deny.