Yesterday and Today

"Master," she whispered from her place at the foot of my couch.
The day had been long for her. Every day is long for her. She is a slave. I no longer own a brothel full of slaves to put to tasks both menial and mundane. There is only Mina, and she is enough. She wakes at dawn most days, often with a kick to her flank. I suppose I am strict. I have been many things to slaves in the past. Harsh, at times. Loving, at others. Understanding, on one hand. Unreasonable, on the other. I have walked hand in hand with a girl down a public street, illiciting murmurs of 'coddler' from the more judgmental of my peers. I have walked down that same street with a girl bent at the waist, her head to my hip and her hair grasped roughly in my fist. I have had girls branded, and chosen not to do so with others. I have freed a slave or two in my day, and kept others in the most abject positions on my chain with little or no hope for a better lot in life, let alone the notion of existence out of the collar.
"Please have me," she begged, tears welling.
I have had slaves intensely devoted to me, and others that I frustrated so deeply that they ran from me. Of those that ran, I hunted a few. Others, I let run. I have had women that were nothing more than physical diversions, used for the desire their scent and their curves provoked in me. I have had others that I enjoyed speaking with, at length, on a variety of subjects. These were women that were obviously thoughtful, and laudably intelligent before they became the property of men. I have taught whores and barbarians to read and write The Language, and play musical instruments. A few times in my life, I allowed a mere slave girl to assume the role of 'every woman' to me. I took the time to learn everything about her, physically and emotionally, stripping her bare before me, leaving her utterly vulnerable beneath me.
"Please," she said.
Her cheek was on the bare floor, staring boldly at me. She was nude. Her shoulders were low and her hips were high. After an exhausting day, she was yet restless. She wound the heavy chain I secure her with about her body, circling her waist with it. There are times she fights me, asks too many questions of me. There are times she earns the whip that I put to her on a regular basis. And there are times she simply submits, both to me and to herself. Mina is not very good, but she is hungry. And she is learning.