The next day I whipped Sydney--Mrs. DeMarcco--as I had promised her master. But I felt strange. I could not take pleasure in it. I felt no desire for revenge, only a sadness at her story and all the misery she had endured. I did not whip her very hard, and she knew it, but did not say anything.

We did not speak privately all day, except when I gave her orders and she quietly answered "Yes, Mistress," and complied. It wasn't until evening that I took her aside and bluntly reminded her to speak to her husband tonight. She nodded silently but did not speak. I knew she was afraid.

It was early the next morning and I was not quite asleep, my restless mind still active with all the surprising events of the last few days twirling inside, when there was a soft knock at my door. "Come in," I whispered, assuming it was Sydney.

My surprise was almost horror when I saw it was Master DeMarcco. He was carrying a small lamp turned almost all the way down and in the dim light I saw he was smiling. "May I speak with you, Miss Janey?" he asked and I nodded. He came and sat at the edge of my bed. I pulled the covers tightly around myself, both for comfort against the chill and a sort of security against this strange man.

"She told me everything," he said suddenly, staring away from me. "She told me all about you and her as children, in Triten."

I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. His face suddenly was pointed toward me, though in shadow, and I could not see if he was pleased or angry.

"You have done a wonderful thing, Miss Janey," he whispered quietly. "You have given me a wife."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean that for the first time, my wife and I were able to talk, to really speak about important things. Tonight we talked for hours, and I learned more about her and she more about me than either of us learned in all our years of marriage. It was what we should have done _before_ we were married. It is astonishing, Miss Janey, but we are now closer than we have ever been. It is like we are suddenly two different people who just met and have fallen in love."

He paused and I did not speak. "Do you know why I married Rosemary?" he asked. I shook my head. His head turned away and I saw his eyes were slits, lost in memories. "I married her because I didn't understand her. Does that make any sense?"

"No, sir."

"You're right. It does not." He laughed almost drunkenly and I worried he was not quite aware of his own actions. But then he became serious again and I saw he was not drunk with wine but giddy with joy.

"When I first saw Rosemary I thought she was like all the others--haughty, greedy women who do not _feel_ anything. I abhor the type and yet in high society it seems that is often all that's available. It is no wonder the lower sections of London are quite popular among the aristocrats. Where else can men of breeding find _real_ women? Sure, we can only marry the respectable, but our attraction is to the women who are not ashamed of their bodies, the women who's idea of fun is splashing through mud puddles, women who would sleep with a man not because he's her husband and it is her duty, but because it is her desire!"

The Master shook his head softly. "Rose was beautiful, that was certain. But from the second I first spoke to her I knew she was like no other woman I had met. For you see, she spoke to me as a peer, as her equal, not as her master.JShe did not disguise her thoughts or opinions to make them more appealing to me. This intrigued me. It puzzled me. I was fascinated, captivated. I accompanied her everywhere, and yet the mystery was never explained. She had all the proper manners of decorum and speech, yet she did not _think_ like the women I had known. It was not long before I proposed and she accepted.

"At first we were deliriously happy. We were of one body, though not of one mind. Eventually that fact caught up with us and we fell apart. We had very little in common and rarely spoke. For a long while I thought maybe I had made a grave mistake. Whatever I had seen in Rose that so intrigued me no longer interested me. I just wanted us to be friends again, to laugh the way we used to, to play together. But Rose had grown distant, aloof, disinterested. I did not wish to force her, so I rarely made an issue of it. But inside I felt sad and betrayed, for a part of me really adored this mysterious woman, this beautiful stranger who spoke more like a man than a woman.

"And then there was the whole scene with you, and the night when I punished her and turned her over to you as your servant. I confess I did what I did out of desperation and anger, not rational thinking. I felt betrayed and abandoned, and I wanted my haughty wife to learn the real meaning behind being a Lady. I did not honestly expect it to work; I had not really considered what would happen if it did.

"Then tonight she came to me, meek and humble, begging to confess a horrible secret which has haunted her for years. I immediately thought she had betrayed me with a man and I was livid, but she told it was not that, but far worse. I did not know what to think. Then she told me her story. She told me of you and her as children--though she did not reveal that it was you, at first--and she even showed me the Lindsey vase which she has kept all these years.

"I must confess her story bewildered me. I felt relieved in some ways, for the mystery behind her strangeness was known. But I felt cheated and deceived by her years of lies and that made me angry. In truth, I was confused. What did this mean to us, to our relationship, to our marriage?

"But then she broke down into tears and wept openly and begged me for forgiveness, and asked that even if I would beat her it would be a joy to her, for her to have just that part of myself. 'It would be an honor, Master,' she wept, and I saw no deception in her actions. Then I realized what had happened: she was a Lady, a real Lady, who perhaps does wrong, as we are all so bound to do, but then apologizes and accepts responsibility for her actions at whatever the cost. My wife, this beautiful creature sobbing at my knees, was now as humble as a servant and as meek as a naughty child!

"My heart swelled with joy and pleasure and I leaped to my feet and stood her up and said, 'Sydney, my love, you have my forgiveness and eternal love! For today you have shown yourself a true Lady, a woman of breeding and good character, a woman who will not shirk her duty nor shy away from her responsibility no matter how painful or difficult.' And Sydney began to weep in my arms and hugged me tightly and told me she'd never let me go, never disobey me or deceive me again.

"I told her I understood, that she was forgiven, and that we now could begin a new phase of our relationship. 'We have so much to discuss,' I said to her. 'There's so much we need to learn about each other. We have never really spoken about our pasts, our feelings. Please, trust me--I shall never harm you. I will trust you, too. We shall open our hearts to each other and let the blood flow openly between us. No secrets, no mysteries. Only pure truth, raw and unfiltered.'

"And so we did. We spoke until the early hours and then we made love and it was beautiful, far more precious than I can ever put into words. I felt like I was holding a part of my soul in my arms as I held my dear wife and I wept without shame, for I knew that I loved her and she did indeed love me."

The Master paused for such a long time after this that I almost thought he had fallen asleep sitting up, but then he shook his head as though to shake off a fierce and controlling dream and turned to me. He held the lantern up close to my face so we could see each other clearly. There were tears in his eyes and he looked so handsome and happy I felt my heart aching for him.

"It was all your doing, dear Miss Janey," he whispered gently. "You opened her heart; you showed her the way. Truly, if ever there was a real Lady, it is you."

I gasped in shock at this outrageous statement. Surely he was jesting. Me, a Lady? But his face was filled with the utmost seriousness, and his smile was one of pleasantness, not mirth.

"Sir, you cannot mean what you are saying," I began, but he cut me off with a gesture.

"Again you are too modest, my dear. It is, perhaps, your only flaw." His smile was gentle and kind and before I could move he had leaned forward and kissed my forehead. I flushed brilliantly and I felt a sudden bursting of emotions flooding from my heart to my crotch and I turned away, deeply embarrassed. What was the Master doing!

He laughed, boldly. "I am only here to thank you, little one. You have given me a wife, the woman I have always dreamed of but never met. It is the most precious gift I know, the giving of one being to another."

He stood quietly and took my hand in his and gently squeezed my fingers. "Trust me--I know the sacrifice you made. She does not realize it yet. Perhaps she never really knew. I saw it between you two immediately, but I did not pry. I did not really understand until she told me everything, but now I know."

"Know what, sir?" I asked, bewildered.

He smiled, a broad, friendly smile, the smile of one confident to another. "I know," he said simply. "I know." And then he was gone.

I lay softly for a while, thinking. I wondered at everything I had heard, everything that had happened, what the Master had said at the end. It was not clear to me. What did he think he knew? What was it that he thought he saw?

And then suddenly, as the clear light of dawn broke through the window, I understood. My heart wrenched and I knew what he had seen, something so deep I myself had not examined it. I knew what he had learned and what Sydney only naively suspected. I also knew that no one else would know, that the Master would keep my secret as tightly as I had kept it.

I also knew that I had always known, had always suffered it, and always would. For it was not something I could discuss openly, reveal its dark nature in the light. Even now I could not say the words. It was something that had to remain deep and buried where it was, and I would have to content myself with other methods.

I thought of the Mistress' cold whip and hard cane, her loving hand, her sorrowful tears. I saw her kneeling at my feet, weeping. I saw her naked flesh, pale with the vivid red stripes of punishment. I felt the welts on my own flesh, the stinging pain, the heart-wrenching agony of each stroke, and my breathing grew shallow.

It was all true. It was all there. We were so much alike and yet so different. With a heavy heart I stretched out upon my bed face down and began to weep. I wept for everyone I knew, for the Master and his wife, for Sydney's mother, for her brother, for Dorothy and Nellie and others I had never met but only heard of, even for poor Alfred.

Finally, after a long time, I built up the courage and did something I had never before: I cried for myself, for what I would never have, for what I would never feel. I understood the Master's message, what it implied, and I knew that he was right. My feelings were no more appropriate than it would have been for him to have taken advantage of me during one of those late-night visits.

But at least, at the very least, I knew that Sydney--Rosemary--would be happy.

It was hours later. I stood and dried my tears. Enough emotion. It was time to be a servant again. I had duties to perform. With a deep sigh and a faintly trembling heart I left my room.

The kitchen was in chaos, servants running and pots steaming and people shouting. Immediately the cook asked where I had been and did I want a strapping?

I smiled and sighed.

Everything was again as it should be.

--The End--