" She said, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? The Great Judge always orders the death of the leaders of the territory he takes over. I want you to know that I am ready for death, but I wish to make one request of my conqueror.”
It was not the moment to disillusion her about her fate. But there was no doubt that she was in a melodramatic state. He guessed he was about to have some sort of emotional appeal made to him. He said, in an even voice, “Any reasonable request, which does not conflict with my instructions, will be granted to your highness.”
She came toward him, swaying a little, and there was a hint of imminent tears in the way she held her mouth, and in her voice, as she said, “General, to you this conquest of Jorgia may only be an episode, but for me it is the end of an era. In my death throes, I have wild thoughts about many things.
To me, being the conquered is laden with symbolic meanings, and somehow the conqueror is interwoven into these symbols. I am woman, conquered, and you are man, conqueror. Although I had no more than a fleeting glimpse of you . . . earlier . . . I had then the feeling of fear and hate . . . and love.”
He didn’t have to lock the door. That had been done automatically on his earlier instructions.
He lifted the woman lightly into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. The fire that was in her made her reach for him. She had strength, this woman, at this moment, as she grasped at him and pulled him down.
In the pale light of dawn, they lay side by side, exhausted but not asleep, and she said, “You’ll never forget me, will you?”
“Never,” said Marin.
“You may kill me now,” she said, sighing. “I feel a rightness in me. The defect is consummated.”
And he thought, wonderingly, Perhaps it had been two condemned people clutching at a last fling of life. For, unless he could find a solution to his problem, he was really condemned. And she thought she was. "

― A.E. van Vogt , The Mind Cage