Slavery

“You understand nothing I see,’ said Damian steadily.’the pleasure I felt then was the pleasure of my independent thoughts whilst my body, like my life, was at your commmand. My livelyhood depended on being able to please you, in this as in other things, the preparation of cravats, the service of wine and sweatmeats, the ready presentation of whips and cigarillos. If I was able to to discharge my seed on your body or your cushions, my lord, it was because inside my head I watched like a voluptuous  Sultan, a scene in which you were bound, ankles to neck, with cords that cut your fine flesh, whilst black girls whipped you with bull pizzles. I could come at will at the imaginary sight of those imaginary runnels of blood, Sir, my friend, and so I was able to fulfill my duty. Of which I am now absolved.

            Culvert sat upright, and the shadows chased each other like clouds across his ivory brow. ‘Perhaps,’ he said doubtfully, ‘that is how we should proceed. I cannot I fear provide black fgirls or Bull pizzles, but cords there are in pleanty, and perhaps you should blind and hurt me, and thus fulfill your desires.’

‘You still do not understand,” said the other. ‘Those too were the desires of a servant, a bondsman, a man with a master. Those are the desires of a man whose desires are secret, not his own, at another’s command. Now I am a free man, or so you seemed to say, and I must learn the desires of a free man. And perhaps what I desire is perhaps not to do with you at all.” (A.S. Byatt, 1996: 70-71)