So easy, so satisfying, so sickeningly sweet to use him like this. To find in her hands this pale and pliant oracle, this man who would speak with authority and intellect on any topic she pleased without demands of his own. And hadn’t his jaw relaxed a little? Hadn’t his breath smoothed and deepened like a man on opiates? He had served her by informing her, by using his talents to help. It had brought him real joy. Was it really slavery if the slave was grateful? If that gratitude had been hammered into the alloy of his being?
