Witness of Gor

14

“How free slaves are!” she cried, delightedly.

“Shhh, Mistress,” I cautioned her.

“You must not call me ‘Mistress’!” she whispered.

“Forgive me,” I said. Such things, from training, and from force of habit, sometimes slip out.

“And do not ask for my forgiveness,” she whispered. “Please! Someone might hear! Think of me only as a slave in your charge.”

“I will try,” I said. We had come from the bazaar with its sights and sounds, and booths and stalls, and the crowding, and the music. I much enjoyed that part of the city. We were now climbing steps to the upper terraces and courts. From there one may obtain a grand view of the mountains.

“I am so grateful to you!” she said.

I held her leash, preceding her. Her hands were braceleted behind her.

“It was your aide,” I said. “I only conveyed your please to the depth warden. Had I not do so, in some failure to comply with your request, I might have risked serious discipline.”

“Nonetheless, I am grateful!” she exclaimed. “You need not, I am sure, have conveyed my pleas. You might even have managed somehow to escape punishment for the inadvertence. Since my care was put in your keeping I have not even seen the depth warden. He might never have known. You might have pretended to misunderstand, or forget, or you might have denied that such pleas were made.”

“In such a matter,” I said, “your word would be taken over mine.”

“How vulnerable are slaves!” she marveled.

“Yes,” I said, climbing upward. “We are vulnerable.”

“But you could have conveyed my pleas in such a manner as to have had them discounted, or rejected as haughty demands, or such.

I was silent.

“You must have enjoined them upon the depth warden with sympathy.”

I supposed that was possible. She had been so pathetic.

“Oh! She suddenly exclaimed, in pain.

“Do you wish to pause?” I asked.

“No,” she said, looking at me, wincing, lifting one foot a little.

“Your feet are not yet toughened,” I said. She was barefoot, of course. This was in accord with her guise.

“Do you wish to wait?” I asked.

“Someone is coming,” she said.

Coming down the stairs was a man.

“Come, slave!” I said. “Do not dawdle!”

with a little cry of pain she followed me up the stairs, the leash straight between us. Little consideration is shown to slaves. The fellow glanced at us, sizing us up, as men do, as slave meat, in passing. We looked down. Had he stopped, we would have knelt.

“Is your foot all right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I think that the very first day on which I had seen the free woman, several days ago, over the pool, had been the same day on which a transformation had begun to be wrought in her. There were doubtless several causes for this, not to mention a certain ripening of her understanding, of how she was fully, truly, even though a prisoner, at the mercy of men. Specifically, I think it was useful to have had to explicitly, frequently, and humbly address the depth warden as “sir,” which practice apparently, in its present authentic form, began on that day, to know that she was not permitted to attempt to interfere with the latching of the cage, and might thus, at any moment, walking or sleeping, be plunged into the pool, to the creatures which frequented it, and, perhaps most significantly, to learn that she, though a free woman, was being housed in a slave cage. This latter comprehension, in itself, it seemed, had acted profoundly upon her consciousness. She had began soon after that, as I had learned from the brunette, Fina, she preferred by the pit master, who slept at his feet, to kneel in the cage at the approach of the pit master, the depth warden, who commonly attended to her. Further, she began, aside from the courtesy expressed in the use of the expression “sir,” to address him with great deference, and to importune him, when she dared, in suitable humility. Too, as she now used the word “sir” there could be no hint within it, as there might have been, as I understand it, before the day of her instruction at the pool, of irony or insult. Now no longer did she use it exaggeratedly, or pointedly, or sneeringly. It now emerged from her lips with sincerity, with understanding and respect.

I recalled that once, in my training, one of the girls in my group had dared to say the word “Master” to one of the guards in such a fashion that it was clear she did not mean it, in such a fashion that it constituted, in effect, a sneer. She was punished, terribly, and, in an instant, was blubbering for mercy, contrite, and fiercely instructed, begging with the utmost terror and authenticity to he who was then to her as master for mercy. Such insults, of course, are not tolerated for an instant in a slave. We quickly learn that the masters are truly “Master.”

“I am tired,” she said, climbing the stairs. Too, I think her foot hurt her.

I looked up and down the broad stairs. They were empty now, save for us.

“Let us rest,” I suggested.

She sat on the stairs.

“See,” she said, proudly, “how I hold my legs together, and to the side. Is it not attractive?”

“Seeing you thus,” I said, “I would think a man might be tempted to seize your ankles and part them.”

“Oh?” she said, pleased.

“It is more modest to kneel,” I said, kneeling on the broad step, my legs together.

“Should I be kneeling?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Immediately she knelt.

“As I hold the leash,” I said, “you should be on a stair lower than I.”

She descended one stair, happily.

“That is not how you kneel before men, is it?” she asked.

“You are inquisitive,” I said.

“Is it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I am a slave of a sort which, I expect, you, as a free woman, many never have heard of.”

“You are a pleasure slave,” she said, helpfully.

“You have heard of us?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “My brother has two of you. He pits them against one another.”

“The beast!” I exclaimed.

“He is well served.” She said.

“Doubtless,” I agreed.

“All the female slaves below are pleasure slaves,” she said. “Fina told me.

“Fina is also a pleasure slave!” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“The pit master will have it no other way,” I said.

“Of course not,” she said. “He is a strong, powerful man.”

“We are worked as though we might be field slaves!” I said.

“Oh, you are not worked so hard,” she said.

I knelt back, smiling. “Perhaps not,” I said.

“I think the pit master is kind,” she said.

“You have not felt his lash,” I said.

“It must be thrilling to be subject to the lash,” she said.

“I do not care for the lash,” I said. The thought of it even frightened me.

“But it must be thrilling,” she said, “to know that you must please, and that you are subject to it.”

I was silent.

“Is it not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. Why must she, a free woman, pry so closely into these things? Too, what could one such as she understand of such matters?”

“But I think the pit master is kind,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“If he were not,” she said, “he would not permit us to be here, or do this, would he?”

“No,” I said. “I do not think so.”

“So,” she said, “that is not how you kneel before men, is it?”

“No,” I said. “I am a pleasure slave. It is expected, accordingly, that I will kneel before men with my legs spread, unless, perhaps, free women are present.”

“Like this?” she asked, eagerly.

I looked about, quickly, determining that none were about. It was warm, and late in the afternoon.

“No,” I said. “More widely.”

“Oh!” she said, softly, trembling.

“Yes,” I said. “Like that.”

“Thusly,” she asked, “and before men!”

“Yes,” I said, “or even more widely, depending on the master.”

“Ai,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

One of her knees was now off the stair.

“How it must make you feel!” she breathed, delightedly.

“Yes,” I said.

“How vulnerable you are!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“It is very exciting,” she said.

“It helps us to keep in mind that we are slaves, and the sort of slaves we are,” I said.

“It is exciting,” she said.

“Exciting’?” I asked.

“Surely the intent of this exceeds mere mnemonics and instruction,” she said, “such things as a mere desire to demonstrate to the slave her vulnerability.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Surely at least a portion of its intent is to arouse the slave, to make her feel receptive, and helpless, kneeling thusly before a male.”

“I do not doubt,” I said, “that something of that sort has entered into the thinking of the beasts, those who force us to assume such a position before them.”

“Ah!” she said.

“It has its effect, too, upon the male,” I assured her.

“I am so pleased to hear it!” she said.

She looked down at her knees. Her hands were braceleted behind her. Her leash went to my hand.

“Janice,” she said.

“Yes?” I said.

“Do you like to kneel thusly before men?”

“Please!” I said.

“Please, tell me,” she said.

“Must I speak?” I asked.

“I cannot order you to do so, not now,” she said. “I am now naught but as a slave in your charge. That is the understanding, and the condition. But please, Janice! Please speak!”

“Yes,” I said. “I do enjoy so kneeling before men. I find it sexually arousing. Too, I find it is right for me. I find that it is fitting and proper for me.”

“It must make you feel very female,” she said.

“Yes, it does,” I said. “But it is all right for a woman to feel very female. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“I am a female,” she said. “I want to feel very female.”

“But you are a free woman,” I reminded her. She looked at me, agonized.

“There are two sexes,” I said. “One is dominant, and one is not. Each should be true to itself. On this world, this basic truth has been recognized, and, in a portion of the social sphere, institutionalized.”

“I want to be true to my sex,” she whispered, “really true to it, fully true to it.”

“Beware,” I said. “You are a free woman.”

She was silent.

“Freedom is precious,” I said.

“I have had freedom,” she said. “I know what it is like. Now I want love.”

“I am a slave,” I said. “And I have not found love.” A poignant memory gripped me, but I turned away from it.

“What is wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. I need not speak the truth to her as she was to me now naught but as slave.

“I think you are a true slave, Janice,” she said, softly.

“Yes,” I said. “I am a true slave. I was true slave even before I was brought here and collared.”

“You love being a slave!” she said.

“It can be terrifying to be a slave!” I said.

“You love being a slave!” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I love being a slave!”

She looked down at her knees, so widely spread. She was “slave clad.” One lovely thigh, her left, as she knelt, emerged from the brown rag which had been knotted about her waist. She wore a halter. We had improvised it from a twisted, matching piece of brown rag. In its simplicity and raggedness, it was surely believable as, and suitable for, a slave halter. It was I who had decided that she should be clothed in brief tatters. Too, it was I who had decided that her midriff would be bare, and considerably so. In these arrangements was expressed, doubtless, something of my view as to her condition, which was free. That is what I think of your condition, and what you really are, you free females! Take away your veils and robes, and we shall see what you are! There, see, you are no more than we, only more slaves! Yes, perhaps I had chanced to yield, to some extent, to the temptation to take a little vengeance on her, and, though her, on all free females. Too, how often does a slave get to dress a free woman, as the slave might choose to dress her? And how often will she have the opportunity to conduct one about, “slave clad,” back-braceleted, and on a leash? What a turnabout is there! The pit master, when I had displayed her to him, had seemed startled. Certainly he had uttered a skeptical sound. Perhaps he had not realized before that the free woman was actually an attractive and desirable female, at least for a free woman, one who had not yet learned slave softness, slave helplessness. But he had let us leave the depths. She had not seemed to mind all this at all, but to find the whole matter delightful. Perhaps she would not have found it all so delightful if she had realized how she might now appear to men. Might she not then have been terrified? What free woman would dare to appear, as it is said, “slave desirable”?

Some days ago she had been removed from the slave cage over the pool and given a cell not far from our quarters. It was a comfortable cell, some eight feet in width and height, some ten feet in depth. Though there were rings within it, she was not chained to them. She had a pallet filled with straw, a dish for food, a vessel for water, anda wastes bucket. The luxury of the straw-filled pallet was doubtless an acknowledgment of her status as a free woman. One morning I had been ordered to fold my blanket early and emerge from my kennel. I had followed the pit master to the free woman’s cell. I had been uneasy doing so, as I was afraid of her. Female slaves learn early on this world to fear free women who, for some reason, seem to bear them great malice and hatred. But it was a far different free woman I encountered in the cell than she I had recalled from the cage. She knelt at our first approach.

“I have heard nothing of your ransom, Lady,” said the pit master to her.

She nodded.

I knelt behind the pit master, to his left. That is the common heeling position. I wore a typical slave tunic, brief and revealing.

“I congratulate you on the improvement in your behavior,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“You understand,” he said, “that we may, if we wish, put you back over the pool, and assure you that that is not the worst sort of accommodation in the pits.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She bowed her head.

“Your behavior is particularly to be commended,” he said, “as you are not bond.”

She lifted her head, it seemed, as though puzzled.

“When one is bond,” he said, “one has absolutely no choice-instant and unquestioning perfection of service is required.”

“Sir?” she said.

“Janice!” he snapped.

“Master!” I cried, startled.

“Obeisance!” he said.

Instantly I knelt forward, the palms of my hands on the floor, my head to the floor.

“Lick and kiss,” he said.

I scrambled forward and, head down, kissed and licked, swiftly, frightened, at his feet and sandals.

“Enough!” he said. “Back!”

I drew back, hastily. But he was no longer paying me attention.

“You see?” he asked the free woman.

“Yes, sir,” she said, trembling.

“You seem to have learned something of what it is to be in the keeping of men,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Keep in mind,” he said, “in the future, that you are still in their keeping, utterly.”

“Sir?” she said.

“Though henceforth,” said he, “more indirectly.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“I am a free man,” he said. “I have no intention continuing indefinitely to attend to you personally. It is not as though you were my slave, a girl whose hair I might comb, or in whose feeding and watering I might take some pleasure. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sire,” she said.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we do not have free women to attend to such matters in the depts…”

“I understand,” she said.

“This, Janice,” said he, “is the Lady Constanzia, of the city of Besnit.”

“Master,” I whispered, in misery.

“Lady Constanzia,” said he, “the bond-maid, Janice.”

“Janice,” she said.

“Mistress,” I said.

“You need not call her “Mistress,”” said the depth warden. He then turned to the free woman. “Your care, for the most part, will be in her hands,” he said. “Moreover, you will give her no trouble. And you will obey her.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

I marveled.

“Incidentally,” said he, females-.”

I was startled that he used the same expression to refer to us both. I supposed, of course, that we were both females, but, in a sense, within that genus, of two quite disparate species, one free, one slave. But, in another sense, of course, both of us were the same, both females, and were thus addressed, as only females, relative to his maleness.

“-you are to exchange little or not political or military information.”

“I know little of such things,” said the free woman.

And I knew myself, of course, almost totally ignorant of such matters, certainly on this world. Further, a limitation on our discourse had now been imposed, a limitation which would doubtless be respected. This was not a world on which such as we, she a prisoner, I a slave, would be likely to transgress such an injunction. Who would want to be thrown, for example, to those terrible creatures in the pool?

The pit master then turned about, and began to withdraw down the corridor. I had leapt up, and hurried to follow him. That was the first day on which I had begun the care of the free woman. That very night I took her her food and water. “Go to the back of the cell,” I told her. She complied. She had not knelt, of course. I was not a man. Still, I was her keeper. I think she had not really known how she should behave with me. Nor, as a matter of fact, on the whole, did I. The pit master, however, had told me to have her kneel, and help her keep in mind that she is a prisoner. I had the key to the cell on a string. I put down the food and water, opened the cell, put the key back about my neck, and brought in the food.

“There are guards about,” I informed her, though I supposed she must be aware of this.

“Yes, she said.

She did not seem particularly haughty or arrogant. A great transformation, it seemed, had come over her since the first time I had seen her, at the pool.

“Do not try to escape,” I said. The door was, after all, now open.

“I will not,” she said.

“You cannot escape,” I said “Escape is impossible for you.”

“I know,” she said.

“Kneel,” I said.

She knelt.

I let her remain kneeling for a few moments, looking at me. I then came toward her ad put the food down, on the floor, before her.

“Do not touch it yet,” I said.

She drew back her hands.

I was standing before her.

She looked up at me.

“Remove your veil,” I said.

She unwound the veil from her features, carefully, gently, where she had wrapped it about herself, and brushed back the hood of her robes of concealment.

She then looked up at me. She did not seem angry, or offended.

“You are the barbarian,” she said.

“The one whom you had punished,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“I was shipped,” I said.

“You have face-stripped me,” she said.

“Doubtless you did not then expect to be where you are now.”

“No,” she said.

“I am the one,” I said. “who speaks so terribly.”

“You speak beautifully,” she said.

“I have an accent,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “You have an accent.”

“A slave accent!” I said.

“It is a lovely accent,” she said.

“But it is a slave accent!” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “It is a slave accent.”

“You think my accent is acceptable?” I asked.

“It is a beautiful accent,” she said.

“I think you are trying to lie,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I am trying to accustom myself to telling the truth.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It does not matter, does it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I suppose not,” She looked at the food. “But it is a slave accent,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “It is a slave accent.”

I did not think she had eaten since last night. She must be ravening.

“You may eat,” I said.

She lost no time in addressing herself to the food, but, rather to my surprise, and irritation, she did so with delicacy. She had a certain breeding and refinement, it seemed, of sort which one might not expect to find in my sort, in slaves. I supposed that if she were a slave, the signs in her manner of such breeding and refinement might be of interest to a master, not that they would make her any less a slave. Similarly a high-caste accent, with all its elegance and refinement, would not make her any the less a slave either. Such learn to leap and obey as quickly as the rest of us.

“You eat with delicacy,” I said.

Too, this refinement, this elegance, seemed so natural in her. Such, doubtless, was the effect of breeding.

“Your features are not unattractive,” I said.

It had been in consequence of my orders that she must remove her veil, exposing her features. But this was not as momentous as it might seem. I was, after all, a woman. It was not as though I were a man, a brutal masculine captor, who had torn away her veil, that he might assess her promise for the collar. Too, many free women would think nothing of appearing unveiled before their serving slaves. Yet I was sure it would not have been lost upon her that she had had to remove her veil, that so precious thing to a free woman, at my command. But she had not seemed dismayed to remove it. Was she concerned, I wondered, to make clear to us the authenticity of her new understanding, that she must obey. Or, perhaps, did she find it appropriate, for some reason, that he features be bared?

She looked up at me, timidly.

“I am not lying,” I said. “I am not a free woman. I am a slave. I can be punished terribly for lying.”

She threw me a grateful glance.

“Am I pretty?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Am I beautiful?” she asked.

“That would be a judgment,” said I, “best made by masters.” And then I added, maliciously, “-when you are stripped on a slave block.”

“Am I beautiful?’ she pressed.

“I would think so, yes,” I said.

She put her hands to the throat of her robes, closing them more tightly. “Do you think I might,” she asked, “be beautiful enough to be-to be a-a slave?”

“Shame,” cried I, “free woman,” scandalized.

“Please!” she begged.

“I would suppose so,” I said. “I do not know.”

She drew her robes yet more closely about her. She put her head down, trembling.

“Finish your food,” I suggested.

She again addressed herself to her light repast.

“I thought of stealing some of your food,” I said, “but I did not do so.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“The diet here has doubtless slimmed you,” I said, “but I do not think they are planning on selling you. I think they are waiting for your ransom.”

She kept her head down, eating.

It seemed as though she might have wished to raise her head, to speak, but she did not do so.

I knelt down, across from her.

I was sure she wished to speak to me, but she refrained from doing so.

In a bit she had finished the modest collation I had set before her. She pushed back the empty dish, the drained goblet. It had held only water.

“Doubtless,” I said, “it is not what you were hitherto accustomed to.”

“I am grateful to be fed,” she said.

That seemed to me insightful on her part.

“Is this that on which you are fed?” she asked.

“It is better,” I said. “Often we have only slave pellets and slave gruel.”

“I am sorry,” she said.

“We are slaves,” I said.

I picked up the plate and goblet. I stood up.

“The provender of slaves,” I said, “is designed to keep us healthy, trim, and vital, as the masters want us. It would be the same with other animals.”

“Animals!” she breathed.

“Of course,” I said. “But we get other things, too. The masters may feed us by hand, from their own plates, as we kneel by their tables, or throw us scraps, such things. Occasionally we may be given a candy, a pastry, such things. It depends on the master.”

She nodded, frightened.

I turned to go.

“Please!” she said.

I turned back to face her.

“Slaves are exercised, are they not?” she asked.

“We must exercise, yes,” I said. Such is important for muscle tone, improvement of the figure, responsiveness, and such. We are not permitted to neglect such matters. Masters would not permit it.”

“You are very clean,” she said.

“We are not free women,” I said. “We must wash frequently. We must keep ourselves pleasing, in so far as we can, for masters.”

“I am miserable,” she said.

I looked at her, puzzled.

“I have been cramped in for so long,” she said.

“This cell is large,” I said.

“I feel dirty,” she said.

I shrugged.

“Look at me!” she said.

I regarded her.

“I’m filthy,” she said.

“Yes,” I admitted.

Her clothing, perhaps the very garments in which she had been originally captured, had, in her continual wearing of it, in her sleeping in it, in its contract with the floors of cages and cells, and such, become much soiled. It was thickly begrimed with weeks of wear and filth. Too, it was wrinkled, and faded, and torn. She was, in these things, a sorry sight.

How different was her appearance now, I thought, from what it must have been when she had long ago entered the fateful shop in Besnit.

“I must smell,” she said.

“I am a slave,” I said. “It would not be wise for me to notice.”

“I must smell,” she said.

“Yes, you do,” I admitted.

She looked down, miserable.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “It is not as though you were a slave. You are a free woman. It is not as though you must, under discipline, groom yourself, attend to your appearance, keep your body clean, such things. Have no fear. Your neglect of such things, as you are a free woman, will not be punished.”

“Perhaps,” she said, softly, to herself, “I would that I were such that I might be punished for the neglect of such things.”

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing!” she said. She shrank back, putting her finger tips to her lips, as though she might have chided them for what they, sweet, unwary guards, had permitted to pass their portal.

I stood there for a moment. I thought she might have wished to speak further. But she said nothing.

I then turned about, and went to the door of the cell.

“Janice!” she called.

I turned about again, and once more faced her.

“May I call you ‘Janice’?”

“It is my name,” I said.

“This morning,” she said, falteringly, “you licked-and kissed-the feet of a man.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I have never licked and kissed the feet of a man,” she said.

“You are a free woman,” I said.

She regarded me.

“It is a not uncommon act for a slave,” I said.

“It is surely very symbolic,” she said.

“There are many symbolisms involved,” I said. “It is not merely that it is a way in which a given woman makes clear her relation to a given man, that she is his slave, that he is her master. It is far more than this. It is, for example, a way in which our femininity avails itself of an opportunity to express, in the particular act with a particular master, something far broader and more profound, its deference toward, and its submission to, the very principal of masculinity. In this way its significance extens far beyond a particular couple. It has to do with men and women, and masculinity and femininity, and the order of nature itself.”

I saw her tremble. I did not understand her agitation.

“Janice!” she cried.

But she did not speak.

“Janice,” she then whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

I saw that this would not be what she might first have thought to say. To be sure, it would perhaps be related.

“I fear a guard is coming!” I suddenly exclaimed. “Quickly hide your face!”

She looked at me.

“Quickly, quickly!” I said.

Hurriedly she muffled her features in the veil, holding it in place with both small hands.

“No!” I said, suddenly. “He has gone another way! But I fear I must get back, quickly. I must return the key to the pit master.”

She lowered her hands, and the veil.

“You were slow to veil yourself,” I said. “He might have seen.”

“Perhaps I should have let him see,” she said.

“Do not be shameless!” I said.

“You are not veiled,” she said.

“Nor should I be,” I said. “I am naught but a slave.”

“Do not go yet!” she begged.

“Stay on your knees,” I said.

She remained on her knees.

“Janice!” she called.

“Yes?” I said.

“I would be exercised!” she said.

“It is difficult to exercise in the robes of concealment,” I said.

“Perhaps something else might be devised,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“You must wash somewhere,” she said.

“There is a cistern,” I said.

“Might I not, too, be permitted to was there,”

“Slaves wash there,” I said. “Animals.”

“I do not mind!” she said.

“Perhaps I cold take you there when it is not being used,” I said. “I would have to speak to the pit master.”

“Please, please do!” she begged.

“Very well,” I said.

“Janice!”

“Yes?”

“I want to be your friend!”

“There can be no friendship between us,” I said. “You are free. I am a slave.”

“I am not so different from you!” she said.

“I am far from free!” I laughed.

“That is not what I meant,” she whispered.

I pondered this, but did not understand it.

She was a free woman.

I closed the door, and locked it, and put the key back about my neck.

“You may rise,” I told her. The door was now securely locked. The lock was heavy, the bars were thick. She was well held within the cell.

I looked at her. She had remained on her knees.

Somewhat to my surprise the pit master had been agreeable to the free woman’s desire to bathe, and he permitted me, the next day, when the cistern was free, to take her there. How joyously she bathed!

“Do you think now that I am beautiful enough to be a slave?” she had asked me later, happily, kneeling beside the cistern, throwing her washed hair behind her.

“Yes,” I had told her. “I think you would look well in a collar.”

She had laughed delightedly.

I eyed her pile of garments. How filthy they were!

“I shall launder these for you,” I said.

“No!” she said. “I shall clean them!”

“You are a free woman,” I said. “Free women, or at least such as you, do not attend to such matters.”

“Please,” she said. “I want to!”

“You want to work?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Work me! Work me-as a slave!”

I regarded her, startled.

“You have been taught how to work, have you not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. In my training I had been taught the performance of numerous servile tasks. I had, for example, by female slaves, been instructed in sewing, laundering, cleaning, cooking, the polishing of metal, and the grooming of leather. When one buys a woman, even a pleasure slave, one expects, as a forgone conclusion, that she will know how to do such things. Yes, even a pleasure slave, who might, in her more familiar modalities, drive a master mad with passion, may be expected, either out of his sight, or under his supervision, if he pleases, to make bread and repair a rent garment, such things.

“Show me how to launder,” she begged, “-as a slave!”

“It is doubtless the same way in which free women of low caste launder,” I said.

“Show me,” she begged.

“Kneel beside the cistern,” I said. “Knot your hair behind your head, that it not drag in the water. The garments must be soaked, and twisted, and kneaded, and beaten on the stone, again and again. One soaks the garments, one beats them. It is not easy work. It is hard work. It takes time. Begin.”

She took her veil first, and submerged it in the water.

The next day, I came early to her cell. She had requested it. The pit master had given his permission. At my arrival she had knelt without being asked to do so, and had removed her veil.

“Greetings,” I said.

“Greetings,” said she.

“May I stand?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

To my surprise she then removed her outer garments, putting them to one side. Then she stood before me in a light, silken, sliplike undergarment. It was quite brief. It was not, I thought, unlike a slave garment. I wondered if free women sometimes studied themselves in the mirror, in such garments. I recalled that I had, it now seemed long ago, wondered what I would look like if my wrists were roped, if there were a chain on my neck. She then, again, knelt.

“What if the guard should see?” I said.

“It does not matter,” she said.

“Do not be foolish,” I said. “Do you not know what the sight of you, as you are now, might do to a man!”

“What?” she asked.

“Do not ask,” I warned her. “You are a free woman!” I dared not tell her the might of the desires of men such as these, of their mercilessness and their power.

“Janice,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Exercise me,” she said.

“Do not be foolish,” I said.

“I know nothing of such things,” she said. “Please!”

“in what way would you be exercised?” I asked.

“Exercise me,” she said, “-as a slave.”

I considered this matter. I supposed that her body might, indeed, cry out for some exercise. She had been long incarcerated. But why, I asked myself, did she wish to be exercised in a certain way, as a slave? Surely that was incomprehensible. On the other hand, I asked myself, how often does a slave have this power over a free woman? Indeed, would it not be amusing to exercise her-as a slave?

“Stand!” I said. “Spread your legs widely! Put your arms out to the sides!”

I feared I was not easy with her. And yet the harder I was upon her the more eager, the more zealous, the more compliant, the more helpless and obedient, she was. Afterwards I took her to the cistern that she might wash her body and her garment.

After that she was exercised regularly.

Once she asked me, “What are slave paces?”

“They are movements, attitudes, positions, poses, and such,” I said. “designed to display a slave.”

“Put me through them!” she begged.

“You a free woman,” I said, “ask to be put through slave paces?”

“Yes!” she said.

“You are mad!” I said.

“Please!” she begged.

“And that,” I cried, a few minutes later, “is how a slave may be put though her paces.”

“Yes, yes!” she had cried, wide-eyed, gasping, fighting for breath, drenched with sweat, lying before me on her belly, on the stone.

“To be sure,” I said, “if you were really being put through your paces, you might expect certain things to be different. Presumably you would be naked and collared. I would be a man. Would have a whip or switch. There might very well be other men present, and so on.”

“I understand,” she whispered.

“Yet,” I said, “perhaps now you have sense of what might be involved.”

“Yes,” she whispered, in awe. “Thank you, Janice.”

“Do you not now regret your request?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Are you not now outraged and humiliated?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

I had then left the cell, locking the door behind me. I looked back, once, at her. She still lay on the floor, in the tiny sliplike garment she had worn. She had lovely legs. She seemed in awe.

The next night she had wanted to know something of the intimate exercises of female slaves. I did not even know how she, a free woman, had heard of them. I described them to her.

“How helpless you are!” she breathed.

“Yes,” I said. “We are helpless.”

I had then again left the cell, locking the door behind me. When I looked back at her, she knelt. “I would put on again the veil and the robes of concealment,” I said.

“Janice?’ she said.

“The guard will be making his rounds,” I said. “I do not think it would do to let him see you as you are.”

“Why?” she asked.

“It is better, I think,” I said, ‘that he not realize how beautiful you are.”

“Why?” she asked.

“He might take you for a slave,” I said.

“I see,” she smiled.

“Do you not find that thought frightful,” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

“What if he did?” she asked.

“You do not know what it is to be the object of such inordinate, uncontrollable, raging desire,” I said. “You do not realize what it is to be the object of such lust and passion, such as may be stimulated only by a woman in bondage.”

She looked at me, startled.

“Men kill for us,” I said.

“I see,” she whispered, frightened.

“Wars have been fought for us,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“To be sure,” I said, “some men may prefer gold, but even gold is usually valued for its uses, one of which is to buy such as we.”

“I understand,” she whispered.

“Doubtless the bars would hold,” I said.

“You could always stay back from then, so that he could not reach you. I do not think the pit master would permit him the key.”

“But what if he could open the cell?”

“And took you for a slave?”

“Yes,”

“Inquire not into such a dreadful possibility,” I said.

“Janice!” she protested.

“You would doubtless be treated as what he had taken you to be, a slave,” I said.

“What would he do?”

“I do not know,” I said. “He might cuff you and throw you to the straw, where you might quickly learn what it is for a man to take his pleasure in you. And that would be but the beginning.”

“I would have to serve him?”

“Utterly, lengthily,” I said, “and as his least whim might dictate.”

“But you are not behind bars,” she said, “and you are not, surely, frequently and indiscriminately seized.”

“There is a roster for my usage,” I said. To be sure, in my view my usage was too closely restricted. It seemed there were two reasons for this, one, to make me something of a prize for guards, a delight which they were accorded less frequently than they might wish, thus serving as an instrument in their control, and, two, to serve as an instrument in my own control. Needless to say, I did not approve of this second reason. There was little doubt, however, as to its effectiveness. There are many ways to control a girl. Among them, of course, is that, the control of her gratifications.

“In my city, Besnit,” she said, “slave girls are numerous. One sees many of them. One things little of it. In most parts of the city they go about in relative safety.”

“Doubtless many men in your city own their own,” I said, “or have access to them, perhaps in taverns or brothels.”

“Yes,” she said. “But would it not be so, too, here, in the city above?”

“Yes,” I said. I smiled. “There is no dearth of slave girls in this city.” That was surely true. I had been startled by their number and beauty. This seemed to me an extremely rich city. It was only to be expected then, I supposed, particularly given the nature of the men on this world, that many of its riches would wear collars. I had been permitted, of course, from time to time, like the others, out of the pits. The city above was quite beautiful. It was like a lovely, lofty jewel set in the mountains.

“It would then be possible to be out of the cell, as a slave, and be in relative safety?”

“I suppose so,” I said, “assuming she is suitable collared, and owned, and such.”

“Are you ever permitted to go above?” she said.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“To the city?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“May I rise to my feet?” she begged.

I regarded her though the bars.

“Yes,” I said.

She rose to her feet and hurried to the bars. She grasped them. “You have been so kind to me, Janice,” she said. “You let me bathe, you let me clean my clothing, you have showed me how to exerxise!”

“As a slave,” I said.

“Yes!” she said.

“It is the pit master, the depth warden, really, ultimately,” I said. “who permits such things.”

She then knelt behind the bars, looking up at me.

I had not ordered her to kneel.

I looked down, into her eyes.

She was before me, she, a free woman, on her knees, before me, before a slave!

I did not understand this.

But it is not unpleasant for a slave to have a free woman before one, so.

There were tears in her eyes.

“Janice,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I beg!” she said. “I beg!”

I supposed she might want a hard candy, or a bit of pastry. I thought the pit master might permit that.

Her behavior had been much improved of late.

“Yes?” I said.

“I long to see the sun, Janice,” she said. “I want to see the sun!”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I want to go to the surface,” she said. “Take me to the surface! I want to see the sun! I want to see the sun!”

“How can that be?” I asked. “That is not a trading city, some sort of multifaceted commercial metropolis. This is a city of thieves, of raiders and warriors. One does not have free women from foreign cities wandering about above.”

“I have thought carefully about the matter!” she said. “I must needs be disguised!”

“As what?” I asked.

“As a female slave, of course!” she said. “I would then attract little attention. There must be many of them above.”

“There are,” I granted her.

“Please, Janice!” she said.

“There is no escape for you,” I said.

“I know,” she said.

“And there would be even less chance of escape,” I said, “if you were clad as a slave.”

“I know,” she said.

“And your body would be muchly bared,” I said. “and men could look upon you, even casually.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You find that acceptable?”

“Yes!”

“I do not think you understand” I said, “what it is to be looked upon by men, as a slave.”

“Please!”

“You would not be permitted your veil,” I said. “Your features would be bared, publicly.”

“But no one would know me,” she said. “Do you not see? They would not understand that they were looking upon a free woman, especially one such as the Lady Constanzia of Besnit! Some wear masks that their features not be recognized. But I, contrariwise, conceal my identity by going unveiled!”

“The depth warden would not hear of it,” I said.

“Ask him for me, beg it of him, I beg of you. Please, Janice!”

“If the pit master should prove accommodating,” I said, “are you prepared, actually to go though with this?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

“But we have no slave garment for you,” I said.

“Surely something might be devised!” she said. “Anything will do!”

“Even a rag?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said.

That thought amused me-to put a free woman in a rag!

“You would have to wear a collar,” I said.

“A collar!” she cried, softly. She put her hand to her throat, frightened.

“Yes,” I said.

She stiffened.

“Never,” she said. “Impossible!”

Clearly she understood the symbolism, the significance, of such a thing.

She was, after all, a free woman.

I, too, as a slave, understood the symbolism, the significance, of this. How momentously it marked the difference between us, between the slave and free!

“It would have to be,” I said.

She seemed then to shake with ambivalence. Within her two women warred, I thought, one who wanted her to be as she was expected to be, the other who wanted her to be as she wanted to be.

“In this city an uncollared girl,” I said, “would immediately attract attention, and suspicion.” And I supposed that would hold for other towns and cities on this world, as well. Indeed, how could one be “slave clad” without a collar? Men expect to find collars on slaves.

“I would not dare take you to the surface without having a collar on you,” I said.

“I do not know if I have that much courage-to go that far,” she said.

I shrugged.

“Is that really necessary,” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“What sort of collar,” she said.

“A slave collar,” I said, “the collar of a slave.”

“Might there not be something else?” she asked. “Something which might resemble such a collar?”

“No,” I said. “It would have to be a slave collar, an authentic slave collar.”

She turned pale.

That is the end of that, I thought.

Then it seemed she came to some sort of resolution. And it seemed her entire body suddenly shuddered with delight, thrilled. A bridge, it seemed, had been crossed.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course, I would have to be collared. Of course! Have me collared! And it must be the collar of a slave. Of course! Yes! Put me in a slave collar!”

“It would have to be an authentic slave collar,” I said, “an actual slave collar.”

“Of course,” she said.

“And it would be on you, truly on you,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“It would have to be locked,” I said, “and you would be unable to remove it.”

I would take no chances with her, if it was not locked on her, if she were not well fastened within it.

It would perfect my custody of her.

If she were to escape my charge for even an Ahn I would be held responsible.

Too, it would be dreadfully dangerous if someone should, either routinely or on provocation, perhaps a guardsman, discover that it was not locked.

“Let it be locked!” she said. “Let me be helpless it in!”

“You want it to be locked?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to be helpless in it!”

“You would be,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

“There is one compensation for the degradation,” I said, “though it is nothing in which you would be interested.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“The slave collar is very pretty on a woman,” I said. “The beasts who design them doubtless have that in mind. It much enhances the beauty, the attractiveness, and interest, of a woman.”

“That is, of course, of no interest to me,” she said.

“Certainly not,” I said.

“But do you think I would be pretty in such a collar?”

“Strikingly so,” I said. “You would be stunning in one.”

“Oh?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “But, too, you must recognize its effect on men, for it says to them that you are such as belong to them, that you are lovely and helpless, that you are kajira, that you exist for their service and pleasure.”

“Perhaps it has, too, its effect on the woman,” she speculated.

“Yes, it does,” I said, “clearly.” But I thought it unnecessary, and perhaps improper, to elaborate on this, as she was a free woman.

“Such things are, of course, of no interest to me,” she said.

“Of course not,” I said. As she was a free woman, she could lie with impunity. I myself, if caught in a lie, could be switched mercilessly.

“Please, dear Janice,” she said, earnestly. “Please convey my petition to the pit master!”

I regarded her. I did not really wish to risk the wrath of the pit master.

“I want to see the sun!” she wept.

Could there be more to it than that?

“I am not sure of this,” I said.

“Please Janice!” she wept.

“I will ask him,” I said.

That night I had knelt before the pit master. “Master,” I had asked, “may I speak?”

“Yes,” he had said.

I conveyed to him the petition of Lady Constanzia. I feared I might be cuffed.

“She wants to see the sun,” I said.

“Undoubtedly,” he said, “but she also wishes to have her body bared and to have it looked upon, it adorned in the rags of a slave.”

“Master!” I cried, scandalized.

“It is not what all women want?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“Is it not what you want?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said, boldly. Then I added, in a whisper, “But I am a slave.”

“And so, too, are all women,” he said.

I put my head down, trembling. I did not know if what he had said were true or not. Certainly some of the women who had been in my training group had denied in vehemently, particularly in the first day or two. But sometimes, at night, I heard them crying out with gratitude to masters in their sleep. Too, they had soon trained excellently. A little later I had often heard them conversing among themselves eagerly, looking forward to their sales, discussing what they hoped for in the way of masters.

“Master,” I had asked, “may I again speak?”

“Yes,” he had said.

“I do not know the reason for which I was brought here.”

“You have not yet been informed,” he said.

“Was I brought here to take care of the free woman, Lady Constanzia?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“For what, then?” I asked.

“You will learn, in time,” he said.

“Master!” I begged.

“Curiosity,” he said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

“Yes, Master,” I whispered. “Forgive me, Master!”

Two days later, for the first time, I had knotted the rag about the hips of the Lady Constanzia and, as she has straightened her body, had cinched the halter on her.

“Oh!” she had said.

She was kneeling.

“Must it be so tight?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

“To better display you,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“Certainly you do not object?”

“No,”

“When you walk, or move, try to do so with some care,” I said.

“I will,” she said.

The rag about her hips had, in its authenticity, no nether closure.

The female slave is commonly denied even a minimum of shielding for her delicious intimacies. She is to be vulnerable, and instantly available, with a minimum of inconvenience, to the attentions of the master.

“I am frightened,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I fear I do not even know how to walk,” she said.

“Of course you know how to walk,” I said.

“-as a slave,” she said.

“It is just a matter of walking freely, and well, beautifully, attractively gracefully, with ease and loveliness, showing your joy in your bondage and womanhood, with vulnerable femininity.”

“I am afraid,” she said.

“You will have no difficulty,” I said.

“It is so different,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“In the robes of concealment, we must walk sedately, with carefully measure tread, with dignity.”

How else could one walk in such impediments, I wondered, so ornate and heavy, so confining and cumbersome? One is, of course, free.

How different were such garments from the usual scanty lightness of the slave’s garmenture, usually a brief, revealing garmenture permitting her the luxurious freedom of her limbs, a garmenture in which she finds herself permitted a joyous and uninhibited freedom of movement. To be sure, she is in her collar.

“Do you think, truly,” she asked, apprehensively, “that we can be successful in this?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you think that anyone might take me, truly for a slave?” she asked.

“Without the least difficulty,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“Your movements, of course,” I said, “as you have not been trained, and have not felt the whip, and such, will not have the grace and beauty of a more experienced girl, one who has been fully taught her collar.” I recalled that my own posture, slovenly from Earth, had been corrected in the pens with the stroke of a switch. Men like their slaves to be beautiful before them. “But,” I said, “I do not think that will matter. We will pass you off as a new slave. That will be all right. You will be seen, however, as fetchingly exciting, and doubtless men will see you in terms more of your potential, than your present, will see you in terms of what they can do with you and make of you.”

“What they can do with me, and make of me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

I had then showed her the collar which had been kindly provided by the pit master. “The name on it, I am told,” I said, “is ‘Tuta’.”

“You cannot read?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She took the collar and looked at it. “Yes,” she said. “It says ‘Tuta’.”

“I am sorry it is such a name,” I said. “I had hoped for something more aristrocratic, more prestigious.”

“It is fine,” she said.

“I am told,” I said, “that it is a common slave name.”

“Yes,” she said. “I have heard it many times. It is commonly worn by low girls.”

“I am sorry,” I said.

“Rather sensual sluts,” she said.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“The name reeks of sexand slavery,” she said.

“Forgive me,” I said.

“Like ‘Fina’ and ‘Janice’,” she said.

I put down my head.

“It was the choice of the pit master,” I said.

“He is perceptive, and has excellent taste,” she said.

I looked at her, startled.

“I love it,” she said. “It is just right for me. It will do wonderfully well.”

“Once you put on the collar,” I said, “you will, for the purposes of our disguise, no longer be Lady Constanzia, but only Tuta.”

She put the collar about her neck, with the lock in front, and closed it. There was a small, solid click. Then, carefully, as it was a close-fitting collar, like most such collars, she turned it on her neck, so that the lock was at the back. This is the common way in which such collars are worn. She then smiled at me. “Now I am Tuta,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “you are now Tuta.”

“Is Tuta pretty?” she asked, timidly.

“Tuta is beautiful,” I said.

She suffused with pleasure, basking in my commendation. She put down her head, blushing, her face and exposed limbs red with delight. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I stood up.

I looked down upon her.

She looked up, smiling, but a little frightened.

I thought I had probably been too indulgent with her. She was, after all, a free woman, and how often would a slave have such as she in her charge?

“Stand Tuta,” I said, suddenly sharply, “and put your wrists behind your back, and lift your chin. You are to be braceleted and leashed.”

“Janice,” said the free woman, the Lady Constanzia of Besnit, now disguised as Tuta, a slave.

“Yes,” I said.

“I would not as the sort of slave I am supposed to be, be kneeling thus, would I?”

We were kneeling on the broad steps leading to the upper terraces.

Her knees were widely spread, as those of a pleasure slave.

“No,” I said, “as you are presumably not to be understood as a pleasure slave.”

She closed her knees, it seemed to me, reluctantly.

“But,” I said, “any slave might kneel so, for example, as a placatory gesture, to avert a master’s wrath, to interest a man, to plead with him that he might have mercy upon her, and give attention to her needs, and such.”

“I see,” she said.

“But it is only in the pleasure slave,” I said, “that the position is commonly required.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Failure to kneel properly, for one such as I,” I said, “is cause for discipline.”

“Discipline?”

“The whip, or such,” I said, “whatever the master pleases.”

“I see,” she whispered.

“Straighten your back,” I said. “Lift your head.”

She did so.

“You inspect your handiwork?” she inquired.

“Yes,” I said.

“I am more exposed than most slaves,” she said, “am I not?”

“Less so than those who are kept naked,” I said. I regarded her.

I had knotted the brown rag low on her hips, so that their lovely flare might be the better noted.

“Is the halter too tight?” I asked.

“I do not object,” she said.

This halter, improvised from a brown rag, like the skirt, was, in its simplicity and raggedness, as I have suggested, believable as, and suitable for, a slave halter. Too, if there were any doubts as to the matter, they surely would have been dispelled by the manner in which it was on her, by the height, tightness, and insolence with which it confined her, leaving little of the delights of her lineaments to speculation, the knots jerked tight with casual authority. Would she be clad as a slave? Then let her know how slaves might be clad, for the interest and delectation of men, we at the mercy of those delicious, masterful beasts.

“Am I attractive?” she asked.

“I would think so,” I said.

“Do you think men might be interested in me?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“Enough to pay good money for me?”

“Of course.”

“Am I beautiful?” she asked.

“yes, beautiful,” I said.

“Am I truly beautiful?”

“Yes,” I said, “you are truly beautiful. And you are also vain. Quite vain.”

“But slaves are permitted vanity, are they not?” she inquired.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But you are not a slave.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken,” she said. She smiled.

How irritating a free woman can be!

I looked away.

“I am clothed as a low slave, am I not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You enjoyed devising these garments, and putting me in them, didn’t you?” she asked.

I turned, to look back upon her.

“Yes,” I said, “free woman.”

“A slave’s vengeance on us?” she laughed.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Was I supposed to be dismayed, to be scandalized and shamed?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” I said. “Were you?”

“No,” she said.

“But when we came to the exit, at the height of the tunnels, you hung back,” I said. “You were terrified. You feared to be drawn, as you are, into the light.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was afraid then!”

“Do you wish to return to the cell?” I had asked her.

“No,” she had wept.

“You will then, free woman,” I had said to her, “emerge into the light, and as you are!”

I had then, she braceleted and helpless on the leash, unable to resist, drawn her forth, out into the light. Then she had stood there, just outside the opening to the tunnel, “slave clad,” her head lifted, her eyes closed against the light, in the full light of the sun. she has seemed suddenly rapturous. It had been done. She stood there, outside of the tunnels. Her bared feet were on the warm stones. The light of the sun fell full upon her, illuminating and warming her. It was hot and bright on her muchly exposed body.

“I will show you the bazaar,” I had said.

“These garments make me attractive, don’t they?” she asked.

“You are attractive anyway,” I said, “and would never be more so than if you were naked in your collar.”

“But they do, too, make me attractive, in their way, do they not?” she asked.

“As all suitable slave garments,” I said, “they stimulate and provoke interest.”

“Yes!” she said.

“They conceal and hint,” I said, “but, as slave garments, they are not permitted to deceive or falsify.”

“I understand the distinction perfectly,” she said.

“Even the relative modesty of a common slave tunic,” I said, “tends to be stimulatory.”

“Doubtless,” she said.

“I have haltered your breasts high,” I said, “the better to emphasize the line of your body, and the better to show you as one subject to bonds, but it is clear, from the way in which this is done, the deception is not involved. For example, it is quite clear what would be the case were they free to be gazed upon without interference, the halter having been, say, cut away. Too, the line in question is one of several quite natural ones. It would be similarly well revealed if your wrists were fastened to an overhead chain or if you were thrown on your back, head down, half over a couch.”

“I see,” she said.

“You would doubtless look delightful in a variety of slave garments,” I said. “I think you would look quite fetching, for example, in a common slave tunic, sleeveless, brief and such.”

“Yes,” she said. “Let us come again and again to the surface. And garb me variously!”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“But never forget,” she said, “as you have garbed me now!”

“You do not object?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I love it!”

“Perhaps,” I said, somewhat maliciously, “the next time, if the pit master permits us a repetition of this adventure, I will march you thought he streets as a bare-breasted slave, permitted only a string and slave strip.”

She suddenly squirmed and jerked at the slave bracelets confining her hands behind her back. “Surely, Janice,” she cried, “you would not!”

I laughed.

“You are teasing me!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Tell me more of slave garments!” she begged.

“Are you rested?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“We must be on our way,” I said.

“Please!” she said.

“There are many varieties of slave garments,” I said, “which have their various purposes and utilities, such as display of the slave, the mockery or humiliation of the slave, the assurance of her instant availability, punishment garments, confinement garments, and such.”

“It is an entire world,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But the important thing, really, about slave garments,” I said, “whether they are the riches of gowns, with perhaps a slit in them through which a thigh must be revealed, or the tiniest of strings and slave strips, is that they are just that, slave garments. It is their meaning, primarily, which renders them provocative, that they are slave garments, that she who wears them is slave.”

“Yes!” she said. “That is it!”

“We must be on our way,” I said.

“I have seen some slaves in the streets naked,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “We are subject to that.”

“If I were a slave,” she said, “I could be put in the street that way, couldn’t I?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You are so vulnerable,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

She looked down at her knees. They were not pressed closely together.

“Have you heard, Janice,” she asked, “anything of my ransom?”

“No,” I said. “Alas, no.”

“Perhaps I have been forgotten?” she said.

“No, I am sure that is not the case,” I said. “You must keep up your hopes!”

“What do you know of my hopes?” she asked.

I did not understand this.

“Are you slaves dawdling?” asked a man’s voice.

“No, Master!” I cried. “We were just leaving!” I leaped to my feet. “Up, lazy, Tuta!” I said, angrily. I snapped the free woman’s leash. She seemed startled at this but, responsive to my command, and doubtless, too, not failing to comprehend the leash signal, rose swiftly to her feet. “Does she not know how to respond?” asked the man. “What do you say?” he asked the free woman. “Yes, Mistress!” exclaimed the free woman. “She is new to her collar,” I explained. “Do not be easy with her,” said the man. “That is not how a slave is trained.” “Yes, Master” I said. “Forgive us, Masters!” I said, for there were two men there, in tunics and cloaks. I then, head down, avoiding their eyes, as a slave normally does with unknown free men, turned about and led the free woman up the stairs. I think the men watched us ascend, and then, at their own pace, also ascended the stairs. We had ascended but two or three steps when I heard one of the men say something to the other. “A pair of juice puddings,” he said. “Yes,” said the other.

In a few minutes, perhaps three or four, we came to the largest of the high terraces. There were many other high terraces in this part of the city, but none were as large, as spacious, as splendid, as this. I had a special reason for coming to this terrace.

“How glorious is the view!” exclaimed the free woman.

I recalled that she had told me that she had been brought here hooded in her own veils. I had had fastened upon me, doubtless appropriately, a simple slave hood.

I took her toward the balustrade, where we might look out.

“It is breathtakingly beautiful!” she exclaimed.

We drank in the sight of the snow-capped peaks, the darkness in the valleys, the patches of cloud in the bright sky. So small we were in the face of nature.

“Janice,” said the free woman.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you remember what the man said on the stairs, as we left?”

“Do not concern yourself with the matter,” I said.

“I am not sure I understood him,” she said.

“Consider the beauty of the mountains,” I said.

“Janice!” she protested.

“It is only a vulgar expression,” I said, “like ‘vulo’ or tasta’.”

“Those are not vulgar expressions,” she said. “A vulo is a kind of bird, a tasta is a kind of candy, often mounted on a stick.”

“They can be vulgar expressions when applied to slaves,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“If you were a slave,” I said, “you could understand how a man might speak of you as slave meat, or as his vulo, or his tasta, or his pudding, and so on, for that is, frankly, what you would be.”

“Are you a juicy pudding, Janice?” she asked.

“I had best hope that I am,” I said.

“Am I a juicy pudding?’ she asked.

“Perhaps, if you were a slave,” I said, “you might prove to be such.”

“I see,” she said.

“And you would best concern yourself to do your best to be such,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“Do not look now,” I said, “but there is a fellow back a bit and to the right who ahs his eye on your. He may thing you qualify as a juicy pudding right now.”

“Like the men on the stairs!” she laughed.

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t look,” I cautioned her.

“Do you think he would like me to be his juicy pudding?” she asked.

“It seems to me quite possible,” I said.

“How wonderful!” she said.

“You might not think it so wonderful if you were roped and hooded and carried off,” I said.

“It would improve a girl’s price, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“What?” I asked.

“Being a juicy pudding,” she said.

“How vulgar you are,” I said.

“Wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“Undoubtedly,” I said.

“How beautiful this place is!” she said.

“I have come here for a purpose,” I said. “I want to check on something. I will, accordingly, take you to the side for a time, to the wall over there, and secure you there.”

“Secure me?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “To one of the slave rings. But I will be back shortly.”

“May I inquire as to what you are going to do?” she asked.

“No,” said I, “Tuta.”

“Yes, Mistress,” she smiled.

We then turned away from the balustrade, to make our way across the large terrace. “Keep your eyes ahead!” I said. I had seen her glance about, doubtless trying to locate the fellow I had mentioned to her earlier. It had been a mistake, I supposed, to have called her attention to the matter. It was surely not necessary that she, as a free woman, know that she, looked upon as a slave, had been found of interest by a male. She now kept her eyes ahead. I think it cost her some effort to do so. But she was trying to be cooperative and, after all, it was I who had held her leash. There was a three-tiered decorative basin on the terrace, on the way to the wall. The first, or uppermost, tier was some four feet above the surface of the terrace, the second, or middle, tier was about three feet above the surface of the terrace; the lowest tier, the third tier, was almost level with the surface of the terrace itself. “May I drink, Janice?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. There had seemed something a little suspicious in her voice. I wondered if she truly wanted to drink, or if this were a stratagem to dally, perhaps to, as though inadvertently, steal a glance about, perhaps in the hope of seeing the fellow I had mentioned. But it was warm today. She stopped at the basin. She turned about. Yes, she was looking about, the vixen, over the surface of the water in the uppermost basin! “I cannot use one of the cups, or cup the water in my hands Janice,” she said. “Perhaps you will help me.” Then she whispered. “Which one is he?” “The one over there,” I said, “in the scarlet tunic, and cloak, looking this way.” Quickly, flushing, she looked down. “He is handsome!” she whispered. “Remember you are collared.” I whispered. She must be concerned about the propriety of her behavior! “Perhaps you will help me, Janice” she said, aloud. “No!” I said. What did she thing? She seemed surprised by this, but then bent forward, to drink from the upper basin. “Oh!” she cried, jerked to the side by the leash. “What are you doing?” I asked her. “I was going to drink,” she said. “I don’t do not understand,” “Kneel,” I said, “and drink from the lowest basin. The upper basin is for citizens and fold of honor, the second basin is for resident aliens and common visitors, the third basin, the lowest basin, is for animals.” She then knelt beside the third basin, the lowest basin, that which was almost level with the surface of the terrace itself, and, head down, her hands bracelted behind her, the leash running to her neck, drank.

When she had finished drinking, she looked up at me, from her knees. She seemed shaken. There seemed a soft of wonder in her eyes.

“It seems you have never drunk thusly before,” I said, “from the lowest basin, as a slave.”

“No,” she said.

“Up,” I said.

She stood.

“Is he still about?” she asked.

“I do not know,” I said.

“Did he see me, drinking, as I did?”

“I do not know,” I said.

“I would be terrified for a man to have seen me drinking in such a way,” she said.

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “It is a common way for slaves to drink at public fountains, basins, and such.”

She did not raise her eyes. Her eyes seemed focused on the flagstones of the terrace, warm beneath her small, bared, white feet.

“There is a ring over there,” I said. “We will use that one. It is in the shade.”

The pressure of the leash collar on the back of her neck brought her quickly enough out of her thoughts.

In spite of my earlier injunction about keeping her eyes ahead, she now looked about much, over her shoulder and such. She was doubtless trying to ascertain whether or not the fellow in the scarlet tunic was about. It would have been difficult to tell. In this part of the terrace, more toward the wall, and shade, it was crowded. Some booths were set up on the terrace, for the sale of fruit and flowers.

“Oh!” said a voice, suddenly, angrily.

It was a female voice!

I saw a flurry of ornate robes.

My heart sank.

My charge, doubtless in her concern to survey the terrace for the scarlet-clad figure, had, it seemed, struck into a free woman of the city.

“A slave!” cried the figure in the robes of concealment, in horror. “I have been touched by a slave.”

My charge stood there, unsteadily, out of breath, from the buffeting, not quite comprehending what had occurred.

I had knelt, almost immediately. There were, after all, free persons about.

“Filthy slave! Filthy slave! Filthy slave!” screamed the figure in the robes of concealment.

This epithet, of course, although uttered repeatedly with great vehemence, was not literally correct. I had no doubt but what my charge was far cleaner at this moment than the free woman. Indeed, she almost sparkled. She had well bathed. It was only then that the rags of a slave had been knotted on her. There are, of course, filthy slaves, for example, those forbidden by a master to clean themselves, usually as a punishment, and slaves can be kept in filth, in tarsk sties and tharlarion manure bins, and such, also usually as a punishment, but this is not common. Among the Wagon Peoples of the southern plains. I am told, a slave who has not been fully pleasing may be tied overnight in a dung sack. I am also told that excellent order obtains among the kajirae of the Wagon Peoples. But then, as I understand it, excellent order obtains among all kajirae on this world. It is seen to by the masters. The most common device for improving a girl, of course, is the switch or whip. As I have suggested earlier, cleanliness and such things, are normally required of a slave, as they are not of a free woman. The free woman’s cries, of course, one may suppose, were not intended to express an objective appraisal of my charge’s current hygienic condition, rather they served as a way of ventilating what was apparently a considerable sense of outrage.

“I am not filthy!” cried my charge, a mistake, surely.

“Clumsy, collared she-urt!” screamed the offended woman. “Look,” she cried to the bystanders. “She is standing! She is standing!”

“Kneel,” I urged my charge. “Kneel!”

“You struck into me as much as I into you!” said my charge. Woe, I thought. She has forgotten everything! Does she not know how she is clad, that she is in a collar, that she is leashed! Woe! She is acting like a free woman!

The free woman’s eyes flashed above her veil.

Suddenly then I think that my charge realized her position and danger. I heard the bracelets pull suddenly against the close-set links which joined them. But she could not free her hands! They were confined behind her back! How helpless she was, helpless as a slave is helpless! Too, I think she became then much aware of how much she was exposed, of the softness, bareness, and vulnerability of her skin. She slowly sank to her knees.

“Bring me a switch!” cried the free woman. My charge cast me an alarmed glance.

“Beg her forgiveness!” I whispered to her.

“It was not my fault,” she whispered to me.

“A switch!” cried the free woman.

“It was not all my fault,” insisted my charge to me.

“A switch, a switch!” called the free woman.

“It was probably both your faults,” I said. “Beg her forgiveness!”

“She is not begging mine,” said my charge.

A lad brought a switch, probably from one of the booths. It was about three feet long, of leather, narrow, rodlike and supple.

The free woman seized it.

“Beg her forgiveness!” I said.

“Forgive me!” said my charge, suddenly, to the free woman. “Forgive me!”

“Mistress’, ‘Mistress’,” I urged.

“Forgive me, Mistress!” said my charge.

“You beg my forgiveness?” inquired the free woman, with mock interest, and solicitation.

“Yes, Mistress,” my charge assured her.

“Oh, yes,” said the free woman, maliciously, “you will beg my forgiveness, I assure you of that!”

“Please, Mistress!” I said. “She is in my charge! It was my fault. I did not watch her well enough!”

The free woman glared down at me.

“It was my fault,” I said. “Beat me, instead!” I had, after all, felt the whip, and the switch. Too, it was horrifying to think that the Lady Constanzia might be struck. Such was not for such as she. She was a free woman!

“It was she who stood in my presence,” she said, “it was she who dared to speak back, it was she who did not look where she was going!”

“Mistress, please,” I begged.

“Be silent, collared slut!” said the woman with the switch.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said, silenced.

She turned then to my charge.

“Does the stupid clumsy girl beg my forgiveness,” she asked, sweetly.

“Yes, Mistress,” said my charge, timidly.

“We shall see!” cried the free woman.

I saw her arm rise. I closed my eyes.

“Wait,” said a fellow’s voice. “Do not mark her. She may have value on the block.”

The free woman turned to him, angrily. But she lowered her arm. He seemed a fellow of some importance. On his left sleeve, toward the bottom, there was a blue chevron, a yellow one, and another blue. He must then, I thought, be of the Slavers, of course, be an excellent judge of women flesh. “You are angry,” he said to outraged woman. “You might lower her value.”

“She is valueless,” she snapped.

“She might bring something in a vending,” he said. Then he turned to me. “She is new to her collar, isn’t she?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” I averred, gratefully.

Then he looked at the Lady Constanzia. “The more quickly you learn your collar the better for you, soft, tender little vulo,” he said.

She nodded, frightened.

“What satisfaction am I granted here?” inquired the offended free woman, clutching the switch.

“To your belly, slave!” snapped the slaver to the Lady Constanzia.

Immediately she went to her belly. I almost threw myself on my belly, and I had not even been addressed. His voice was such as women understand. It was the sort of voice which a woman instinctively obeys.

Even the free woman, clutching her switch, shrank back in fear.

“To her slippers, stupid clumsy girl,” said the slaver, “and beg her forgiveness fittingly.”

Immediately, terrified, the Lady Constanzia struggled forward and pressed her lips to the slippers of the free woman, kissing them again and again. “I am a stupid, clumsy girl,” she said. “Forgive me, I beg of you, beautiful Mistress! Please, forgive me, beautiful Mistress!” the slippers, I supposed, might not be greatly unlike those which the Lady Constanzia herself had worn on the afternoon of her abduction. Prisoners are seldom permitted slippers or hose. Her slippers had been used, I supposed, to make clear to someone that she was in the power of her captors. It is not unusual for a slave girl to address even a veiled free woman as “beautiful Mistress,” incidentally. It is a way of trying to mollify and flatter them. Often, of course, one does not know if they are beautiful or not. They might be fortunate to bring a few coppers as a kettle-and-mat girl, but then, of course, what does that matter, as they are free.

“It is enough,” said the free woman, drawing back. She handed the switch back to the lad who had brought it.

The slaver looked down upon the Lady Constanzia, who was prostrate before the free woman. I still held the Lady Constanzia’s leash. “If you would live,” he said to the Lady Constanzia, “learn your collar quickly, little vulo. Do you understand?”

The Lady Constanzia, frightened, perhaps hardly understanding what she had done, what had been done to her, or perhaps understanding it only too well, her head turned to the left, nodded affirmatively, vigorously.

“I thank you, Lady,” said the slaver to the free woman, she in the ornate robes, who had been muchly offended, “on behalf of all property holders, for your understanding in this matter, for the lenience you have shown in this instance.”

“It is nothing,” she said, her voice shaking a little. She was, after all, even though free, a female in the presence of such a man.

“You are doubtless as beautiful as you are merciful,” he said.

Her hand went, it seemed inadvertently, modestly, to her veil. Doubtless she wished to reassure herself that it was in place. But, it seemed, she disarranged it, slightly. But then, swiftly, she remembered this lapse. The slaver gave not the least indication that he might have noted her embarrassment.

“It is a lovely day,” he said. “Might I be privileged to accompany you? In the lower gardens the veminia are in bloom.”

“Of course,” she said.

He then extended his arm and she placed her small, gloved hand upon it.

It is not unusual on this world, incidentally, for men to prize such things as flowers. Perhaps all men have this softer side to their nature. I do not know. At any rate, men here, or most en here, do not seem to fear this part of themselves or attempt, perhaps for some cultural reason, to conceal it. Perhaps, given their culture, in which are secured their natural rights, those of manhood and the mastery, they can afford to be whole men here, not cultural or political half-men, of one sort or another. It seems paradoxical to me at first, of course, to discover that these men, with their great love of nature, would think nothing of keeping a cowering, cringing woman chained at their feet. Were we regarded, because of what we were, rightly, as being worthy of less consideration than the delicate petals of a tiny blossom? Did they know us that well? Was our nature so obvious to them? Did they know, too, I wondered, that we were the secret enemy? Did they understand the secret war? But did they understand, too, that we were the secret enemy who wishes to be subdued, and enslaved? Did they understand that we wished to lose the secrete war, to be vanquished, totally, that we wished, conquered and humbled, to bend our necks to the collars of the victors, that we might then serve them as their helpless slaves? I had soon come to understand that these mysterious juxtapositions, these seeming paradoxes, this thing, the love of flowers, the subjugation of women, and such, is all of a piece. It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, our pettiness, our vanity, and such, that they put us to their feet. It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, as the enemy to be vanquished, that they put us to their feet. It is also, simply, in part, because of their adherence to nature, and their refusal to compromise it, that they put us to their feet, where we belong. They know that if we are not kept there we will destroy them. We despise and hate men too weak to keep us as slaves, for they then deny to us our own nature, and not only theirs to themselves. We want only to be owned, and to serve and love our masters. Is that too much to ask?

But then, suddenly, a wave of slave terror overcame me. I was a slave. It could be done with me as masters pleased! I was owned!

I watched the free woman withdraw, her tiny hand on the arm of the slaver.

Was she mad, I wondered. But perhaps she knew him. Perhaps he was well known in the city. Perhaps there was no danger. But surely she must understand the meaning of those three tiny chevrons on his left sleeve. Did she not know that he must have handled hundreds, perhaps thousands, like herself, in their chains and collars, appraising them, determining their order of sale, taking his profit on them?

They were now well across the terrace.

I wondered if she wondered, beneath her robes, and veil, walking across the terrace, what might be the feel of slave iron on her limbs, what it might be to feel the sawdust of the slave block beneath he bared feet, what it might be to hear the call of the auctioneer, proposing her for the consideration of buyers.

“They are gone now,” I whispered to the Lady Constanzia. “Get up.”

She rose to her knees, unsteadily, trembling. I did not think she could stand at the moment.

“I could have been beaten,” she said.

“You are in a collar, and clad as a slave,” I said.

“I could have been switched,” she said. “As a slave!”

“Of course,” I said. “I am only surprised that you were not.”

“Why?” she asked.

“The switch,” I said, “would not have marked you. Oh, it might have put stripes on you which might, for a day or so, have had some effect on your price, but the stripes would go away.”

“Then why was I not beaten?” she asked.

“He might have been afraid that she did not know how to beat a slave,” I said. “He might have been afraid that she, somehow, in her rage, might have actually injured you. Perhaps he was afraid that you might have been blinded, which would, assuredly, have lowered your price.”

She shuddered.

“But, I think,” I whispered, “that he, a salver, suspected that you might not be truly bond, but something else, perhaps what you are, a mere prisoner. He might have thus intervened to prevent the indignity of you being beaten, as a mere slave.”

“Do you think so?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Would the people of your city object to the switching or whipping of an errant slave?”

“No,” she said. “If the slave is not fully pleasing, she is to be punished. Everyone knows that.”

“And so,” I said, “they would be unlikely to interfere.”

“True,” she said.

“And they would think little of the matter.”

“That is true,” she said. “They would think little or nothing of it. They might pause to jeer the girl, encouraging her to profit from her beating. That is all. It is just something that is done-and appropriately-to slaves. They must learn to be pleasing.”

“It is the same here,” I said. “I have seen slaves publicly whipped three times in this city, once on a lower terrace, and twice in the bazaar. And several times I have seen them hastened by a blow of two of a belt or switch.”

She shuddered.

“They are slaves,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

I looked at her.

“-As I might be taken to be,” she said.

“Precisely,” I said.

“And I might then be treated similarly.”

“Certainly.”

“And then I, too, might be whipped, as they, perhaps even on a mere whim-whipped-literally-whipped.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Do you think any others might know that I am not bond?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. “indeed, he may have thought you bond, but merely new to your collar.”

“But you think he knew?”

“I think so,” I said. “Presumably he is an experienced slaver.”

“Do you think he had any doubts about you?” she asked.

“No,” I said, reddening. “I do not think he had any doubts whatsoever about me.”

“I could have been whipped,” she said, wonderingly.

“Are you able to stand?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“You should have been switched,” said a male voice, to the Lady Constanzia.

We both, startled, looked up, from our knees.

The Lady Constanzia gasped. Then, swiftly, she thrust down her head.

It was the fellow in the scarlet tunic, with the scarlet cloak, whom I had originally noted in the vicinity of the balustrade, where we had been looking upon the mountains.

“Lift your head, slave,” said he to the Lady Constanzia.

She did so.

She kept her head up, but, after an instant, was careful not to meet his eyes. In her first glance she had grasped, with the immediate understanding a woman has of such things, the nature of his scrutiny. She knelt very straight, frightened. She was being considered, as a female. He did not hurry. And he even walked about her. Then he was again before her. “A beautiful face,” he commented to me. “Good slave curves. Excellent hair.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You should have been switched,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I was startled. That was the first time I had heard her use the world ‘Master’ to a man.

“Why weren’t you?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” she said.

He looked at me.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“You were very fortunate,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“I, myself, would not have been so lenient,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, swallowing hard. He was such as would think nothing of beating her.

“Has she been whip-trained?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

“She must indeed be quite new to her collar,” he said.

“yes, Master,” I said. He must then, I surmised, have been reasonably close, in the crowd, during the incident with the free woman.

“She nearly drank from the first basin,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I admitted. He had been watching us then.

“It seems,” he said, regretfully, “she is stupid.”

“No, Master,” I said. “It is only that she has much to learn about her collar.”

“She is not totally stupid?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“She has some intelligence then?” he asked, interested.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “She is actually quite intelligent.”

“Excellent,” he said, pleased.

Then he looked at me, and snapped his fingers. “Collar,” he said.

Instantly I, trained, leaped to my feet and stood quite close to him, uncomfortably close, and held my hands a little behind my body. I lifted my chin. He crooked a finger under my collar and pulled me closer to him, holding me in place. I could feel his finger against my neck, on the left side, between the steel of the collar and the flesh. I could also feel the collar drawn tighter against the back of my neck.

“It is a state collar,” he said. “Your name is ‘Janice’.”

“Yes, Master,” I whispered.

He released me, and I knelt.

He then regarded the Lady Constanzia. He snapped his fingers and said, “Collar!”

She rose uncertainly to her feet, and approached him. She had, of course, had my example from which to profit. She, to my surprise, however, stood closer to him than I would have expected, and more close to him than I had, originally. It seemed she was improving on my example. Was she then, in such matters, to be my teacher? She lifted her chin delicately. In response to the “collar command,” the salve approaches the male, that he need not inconvenience himself by coming toward her. She then lifts her chin and places her hands behind her. It is thus that a girl renders herself vulnerable for the reading of her collar. In this case, of course, the Lady Constanzia’s hands were already behind her, her small, lovely wrists closely linked together, well pinioned, in the steel of slave bracelets.

Still he put his finger under her collar, and, as she gasped, he pulled her even closer to him, indeed, quite close to him, “slave close,” as the expression is. She could not move back, because of his hold on her. I was alarmed. She was a free woman! I could well conjecture her dismay, her discomfort, her fear, her wild sensations-she, a free female, being held so close to him, she half stripped, he fully dressed, so powerful, so masculine!

“’Tuta’,” he read. “It is a good name for you, slave.”

“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

“It is not a state collar,” he said to me, “but, as she is in your custody, one gathers that she must be in the keeping of the state, for some reason, perhaps pending her sale.”

I was silent.

He released the Lady Constanzia’s collar. “Remain where you are,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Slave lips,” he said to her.

She looked at him, wildly, in consternation.

“Purse your lips,” I said to her.

She complied, frightened.

“Close your eyes,” he said to her.

She did so.

She was then standing there, before him, her eyes closed, her lips pursed.

“Her lips are of interest,” he said.

“Please, Master,” I protested.

“I am going to taste your lips, Tuta,” he said.

“Master!” I protested.

He did not immediately address himself, however, to the Lady Constanzia. Rather he stood there for a time, and let her stand there, for a time, her lips in the position he had commanded, her eyes closed, as he had ordered.

I heard a tiny clink of metal as she pulled a bit, futilely, against the bracelets which held her small hands confined behind her back.

Then, to my surprise, and dismay, I saw her lift her chin a little more, and stretch her neck a little, lifting her lips to him. How shameless! She was offering herself to him! Could the Lady Constanzia be a slave?

With a low, throaty laugh, almost a growl, he then enfolded her, she helpless, braceleted, in his arms and, indeed, tasted, and lengthily, and well, tasted the lips of the free woman, the Lady Constanzia!

After a time, perhaps even three or four Ehn, he released her, and she sank to her knees, before him. Then she looked straight ahead. Her eyes were wide. She was clearly shaken. She began to tremble. I feared she might collapse to the stones.

He crouched down beside her, briefly.

“Oh!” she said, suddenly.

“She is not in the iron belt,” he observed.

“She has not had her slave wine, Master!” I said, quickly. “Please, I beg of you! Do not! Do not!”

He stood up.

“Have no fear,” said he.

“May we leave?” I begged.

“Her lips are indeed of interest,” he said to me. “To be sure, she was more kissed than kissing.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Does she know how to use them?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“But she is intelligent, you said?”

“Yes, Master,”

“Then she can learn how to use them?”

“Of course, Master.”

“Does she know the seven basic kisses of the slave?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“Not even that?”

“No, Master,” I said.

Naturally the number of “basic kisses,” tends to vary with the nature of the analysis in question, much depending on how broadly or narrowly the notion of “basic” is understood and the criteria for distinguishing between a “basic kiss” and a major variation thereof. If I may be permitted to exaggerate a point, for purposes of clarification, one might as, are there two basic kisses with five hundred variations of each, for basic kisses with two hundred and fifty variations of each, five with two hundred variations of each, ten with one hundred variations of each, or, as some authorities might prefer, merely one thousand basic kisses? Or are there ten thousand, and so on? All authorities agree, of course, that the varieties of possible kisses, with respect to location, pressure, liquidity, duration, timing, and such, are infinite in number. The notion of “seven basic kisses,” however, is, apparently, a common one. It deftly imposes some useful order on what might otherwise be a chaos. It is nothing against the value of a classificatory scheme that it is not the only one possible. As a last note, I might add that there does seem to be general agreement among authorities on the importance of a given number of types of kisses, and perhaps that is more important than whether one accounts a given kiss A to be a variation of B, or B to be a variation of A, and so on. There are apparently, incidentally, on this world, a number of manuals devoted to slave training. In most of these, as I understand it, seven is indeed given as the number of the “basic kisses.” For what it is worth, that is the number which was impressed on me in the pens. I had had seven basic lessons on the matter, with variations taught within the lessons. There were also frequent review lessons later on. One does not, of course, forget such things. To be sure, much depends, as we were always being told, on the individual master. It is his will which, to us, is all. In our practices we were sometimes blindfolded. I presume there were several reasons for that, for example, that we might learn how to concentrate on the tactual sensations involved, that we might be able to kiss well in the dark and, when we are using male slaves to practice on, that we should not become involved with them personally. When one kisses a man as a slave it is hard not to feel oneself as slave to him. I do not think the male slaves objected to being used in our training. Some who began by crying out in rage, perhaps new slaves, ended up moaning with pleasure. They, too, were generally blindfolded, except when we must kiss them upon their closed eyes. Later, as our skills improved, the guards permitted us, sans blindfolds, to practice upon them. And they were harsh taskmasters, I tell you! Diligently must we strive to please them! But we preferred their severities to the helplessness of the slaves for we knew that they were such as to whom we belonged, free men. Sometimes we felt the switch when we did not do well. I so wanted to kiss he whose whip I had first kissed, but he would never permit it. I wanted to kiss him as he had never been kissed before, but he would not permit it. How he scorned me! And perhaps rightly, for I was naught but a slave! After we had kissed the guards we were much aroused. Shamelessly, later, throbbing with need, we would beg their attentions from our kennels. Sometimes they were kind to us and sometimes there were not.

“She is quite ignorant then,” said the fellow.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

The Lady Constanzia, I am sure, did not appreciate my concurrence in this matter, but he was a free man, and I a slave, and his conjecture was, after all, obviously true.

“A pity,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

Do you come often to this terrace?’ he asked.

“We have not, in the past,” I said.

“Will you in the future?” he asked.

“I do not know if we will be permitted aboard,” I said.

“And if you are?” he asked.

“Perhaps then, Master,” I said. I had wanted to come to this terrace for a particular reason. It gave access, by means of a bridge, to an area in which I had hoped I might obtain certain information. This was unknown, of course, to the Lady Constanzia. I had come here some times before, but things had not been satisfactory. One must be here, or rather at a place close by, at a certain time to learn what I wanted to know, if one could know it. The information I wanted, of course, like that which had been denied to me about the reason for my being in the pits, had been denied me. It was a simple enough bit of information, but a slave girl must be extremely careful about certain things. For example, asking a question outright, particularly of a stranger, can involve great risks. The stranger will presumably assume that you are supposed to be denied the information or you would have already obtained it from your master or keeper. To be sure, one may, kneeling, innocently request certain sorts of information, such as the directions to a shop or given street, or such, but to ask about something which is either sensitive or presumed to be generally known can be frowned upon. For example, a slave would not request information as to the departure or arrival times of sky caravans and such, and she would not, presumably, ask something of the simplicity of that which I wished to know. It would automatically be assumed that that information, for some reason, had been denied to her. One night, of course, merely be told that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, which, I had learned, is something of a saying on this world, but, more likely, one might be cuffed or beaten, and then one might have one’s hands bound behind one and one’s question written on, say, the interior of one’s thigh or on a breast, usually the left, as most masters are right handed, where when one returns to one’s keeper or master, it will be clear that one has been disobedient, and attempted to obtain the denied information illicitly.

“Perhaps, then, I shall see you again,” he said.

“Perhaps, Master,” I said.

“You may leave,” he said, suddenly, rather angrily.

“Thank you, Master,” I said. I leaped up and the Lady Constanzia not daring to look at the scarlet-clad stranger, rose, too, to her feet.

We turned about.

“Stop!” said he.

We stopped.

“Do not turn,” said he. “Do not kneel.”

We remained as we were, facing away from him, I with the leash, she with her hands braceleted behind her.

“When is she to be put up for sale?’ he asked. His voice, in all its power, seemed almost to break. It seemed that within him, unaccountably, this question had cost him something. It was as though it had suddenly erupted within him. It seemed to have emerged out of a struggle, some internal conflict.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“It does not matter, of course,” he said, suddenly, angrily.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Go!” he ordered.

“Yes, Master,” I said. I swiftly then made my way toward my previous destination, a point on the wall of the terrace, which wall was, across an expanse of terrace, to the right of a bride leading from the terrace, which bridge was, across an expanse of terrace, to the right of the balustrade.

I drew more heavily on the leash. The Lady Constanzia, clearly, was hanging back. I stopped and turned about. She then, too, turned about. We could see the scarlet-clad figure striding fiercely across the terrace, not looking back. He seemed angry. I conjectured that the Lady Constanzia had been trying, earlier, to glimpse his retreating figure over her shoulder.

“Do you think we will see him again?” she asked.

“I do not know,” I said. “The cut of his clothes seems foreign to this city. He is probably here on some business.”

“He will then be gone soon?”

“I would suppose so,” I said.

“He kissed me,” she said.

“Do not be upset,” I said. “He things you are only a slave. He does not know you are a free woman.”

“Do you think he likes me?” she asked.

“It is possible,” I said, “that he might have found you of interest.”

“Of interest?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Of what sort of interest?” she asked.

“Of slave interest,” I said.

“Ohh,” she breathed.

“But half the men who look upon you, clad as you are,” I said, “might not mind having a chain on you.”

“Do you think so?” she asked, eagerly.

“Yes,” I said. “But, too, they would probably all be of the opinion that you are short on whip-training.”

“Do you think I am short on whip-training?” she asked.

“If you were a slave, certainly,” I said. “But do not concern yourself with such matters, as you are a free woman.”

Whip-training, incidentally, does not require that the pupil is struck, only that she is subject to that contingency. To be sure, it is difficult to get though whip-training without having felt the lash. On the whole, of course, the more intelligent the girl is, and the more quickly she trains, the less she is likely to feel the lash, and the stupider she is, or the more slowly or clumsily she trains, the more likely she is to feel it.

“I have never been kissed before like that,” she said.

“You have never been kissed in a collar before,” I said.

“It is not at all as one kisses a free woman,” she said.

“I dare say,” I admitted.

“I did not know a kiss could be like that,” she said.

“They are brutes,” I said. “What they are denied in the world of free women they arrogate to themselves in the world of slaves. It is there, in that world, that their natural dominance, liberated from the bondage of artificial constraints, flourish unchecked. Beware, for in that world, we belong to them. In that world we are totally theirs. In that world we must obey and serve them, utterly. In that world they use us as it pleases them, and have from us whatever they wish, in total perfection.”

She shuddered.

“Rejoice,” said I, “that you are a free woman.”

“It is only in such a world, is it not,” she asked. “that they can be true men?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But then,” she said, frightened, “it must be only in such a world that we could be true women.”

“You are a free woman,” I said. “Do not concern yourself with such matters. Do not think such thoughts.”

The scarlet-clad figure had now left the terrace.

I then drew her to the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Kneel here,” I said, “your back to the wall.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Exactly what I told you before,” I said.

“Surely you were joking,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Must a command be repeated?” I inquired.

“No,” she said.

She knelt down, with her back to the wall.

But means of the leash I chained her to a slave ring. Slave rings are common in public places on this world.

“I do not want to stay here,” she said.

“I think you will find that you have little choice,” I said.

“Janice!” she protested.

“I will be back shortly,” I said.

I then hurried from her, toward the bridge. I did look back once, to see her there, looking after me, back-bracelted, kneeling at the ring, chained to it by the neck. It was doubtless the first time in the Lady Constanzia’s life that she had been so situated. It is not unusual, of course, on this world, to find slaves so tethered, kneeling or sitting, awaiting the return of their masters. Indeed on this world, there are many places in which slaves, as other animals, may not be taken.

In only a few moments I had come to the large, flat expanse over the bridge from the terrace. That was the object of my journey. On the left there was no balustrade. On the right there were numerous warehouses. This expanse was now empty. There were, near the warehouses, some boxes and bales, some covered with tarpaulins. There were some planks here and there, also near the warehouses, and some coils of rope. The sky was clear. The day was warm. I looked about. The expanse was now empty. It was not always empty. It was here I had hoped to find the answer to one of the questions which afflicted me. One day I hoped I might do so. But this, it seemed, was not the day.

I then returned, in haste, to the slave ring, to free the Lady Constanzia, for it was near the fifteenth bar. It would not do for me to return her late to the pits.

That night, when I brought her her food, she wanted, as she often did, to speak to me.

“You will take me again, to the surface, won’t you?’ she begged.

“I can ask the pit master,” I said.

“Soon!” she begged.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Do you remember the fellow in the scarlet tunic and cloak, whom we met this afternoon?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you recall that he kissed me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“He kissed me,” she said. “And I was in a collar.” She was now, of course, in her cell, in the robes of concealment. She was, however, not veiled. It was too early for the guard’s rounds.

“Surely you do not find it surprising that a female would be kissed when she is collared.”

“No,” she said, uncertainly.

“Nor surprising that you, personally, might be kissed, and, in particular, when you were wearing a collar?”

“I do not know,” she said.

“I assure you,” I said, “if we are concerned with probabilities or frequencies in such matters, a woman is far more likely to be kissed, and most often, when she is wearing a collar.”

She nodded, numbly.

“But not kissed as a free woman is kissed,” I said.

“No, of course not,” she said, “rather, kissed as a slave is kissed.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And that is how I was kissed!”

“He did not know you were a free woman,” I said.

“It was so possessive, so ruthless, so uncompromising, so merciless, so masterful,” she said.

“He is a man,” I explained.

“How can you resist such a kiss?” she asked.

“We are not permitted to do so,” I said.

She trembled.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“He kissed me,” she said, “and I was in a collar.”

“Yes, you were,” I said.

“A collar!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“A slave collar,” she said, “the collar of a slave!”

“Yes,” I said.

“I am trying to understand my feelings,” she said.

“I see,” I said.

“I imagine such a man would have to be served very well,” she said, lightly.

“I would think so,” I said. “He seemed such a man.”

“I feel uneasy, and frightened, and weak,” she said.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “You will doubtless never see him again.”

She threw me a look of anguish.

“On the other hand,” I said, “it is possible, of course.”

She seemed, then, to breathe more easily.

“He kissed me,” she said. “Do you think he likes me?”

“He may have been merely trying you out,” I said.

“Trying me out?”

“Yes,”

“Do you think he might have been pleased?”

“I would not be surprised,” I said.

“Do you think he likes me?” she asked.

“Perhaps he might find you of some slave interest,” I said, “as might, incidentally, a great many men.”

She smiled, shyly, pleased.

“Do you like him?” I asked.

“Of course not!” she cried. “Did you not see how he kept me on my knees before him?”

“Such a position is common for a slave before a free man,” I said.

“But I am not a slave!” she said.

“He did not know that,” I said.

“Surely one could tell!” she said.

“Not at all,” I said.

I saw that this intelligence much pleased her.

“You think then that I could be taken for a slave?”

“Of course,” I said, “and you were.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And you would make a lovely slave,” I said.

“Do you think so?” she asked, eagerly.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you think I would bring a good price?”

“Of course,” I said.

“And men might desire me?”

“Certainly,” I said, “very much so. Even excruciatingly so.”

I saw that this much pleased her.

“How dreadful!” she exclaimed.

“Not at all,” I said.

“And did you not see how he demeaned me,” she said suddenly, angrily, “how he walked about me, regarding me, examining me, inspecting me, as though I might be a slave!”

“He took you for a slave,” I said.

“I?”

“Of course,” I said.

“And he ordered me to him, that my collar might be read!”

“He probably wanted to know your name,” I said.

“Do you think so?” she said, eagerly.

“Certainly,” I said.

“He read your collar first!” she said.

“Certainly,” I said. “I was the leash holder. But I think it is clear that his interest was in you, not in me. Indeed, I suspect he read my collar to learn more of you, for example, you would be the slave Tuta who was in the keeping of the state slave, Janice, and so on.”

“Oh!” she said, excitedly. “But did you not see,” she then said, angrily, “how he forced me to hold my lips, pursed, simply by his will, and I must keep my eyes closed, and wait, and wait, and then how ht took me in his arms and kissed me, and how he kissed me!”

“Slaves may be kissed in such a fashion,” I told her. Certainly her lips, although those of a free woman, had been as lengthily and patiently raped as those of a common slave in a master’s possessive greed for her.

I doubted that free women were ever so kissed, unless perhaps they were but moments from the collar, such a kiss serving them as a token of the bondage that awaited them.

“I hate him,” she said. “The beast, the arrogant brute, I hate him!”

“You hate him?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”

“If you were actually a slave,” I said, “it would not matter whether or not you hated him, or he you. You would serve with perfection in any case, as the slave you would then be.”

“I supposed so,” she said.

“Definitely,” I said. “And if he was not pleased he would doubtless use the whip on you, and well.”

“Do you think so?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Such men do not let women make fools of them.”

“Janice,” she said.

“Yes?” I said.

“Why did you ask me so silly a question, as to whether or not I might like him?”

“It was just a thought,” I said.

“An absurd thought!” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

“But why did you ask?”

“Just little things,” I said.

“Such as?” she asked, testily.

“The way you spread your knees before him,” I said.

“I did not!” she cried.

“Oh, yes, you did,” I said. “It is one thing for me to kneel before a man thusly, for I am a pleasure slave. I may be punished if I do not do so. We are trained to kneel thus, brazenly and joyfully before men. But you needed not do so.”

“I did not!” she said.

“Yes, you did,” I said. “And as time went on, and particularly when he looked upon you, you spread them even more.”

“Truly?’ she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She put the tips of the fingers of her ring hand before her mouth.

“But such things,” I said, “might occur inadvertently, or without one’s being aware of them, or without really paying them much attention, or one might forget about them promptly afterwards, as things that could not have happened.”

She pressed her finger tips against her lips, as though fearing that she might speak.

“Did you know what you were doing?” I asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

“Perhaps you were frightened?” I suggested.

“Yes,” she said. “I was frightened.”

“Such behaviors in a female can be consequent upon trepidation,” I said.

“Undoubtedly,” she said.

“Rather like the prone slave’s timid lifting of her derriere, facing away from the master, at his feet, hoping thereby to distract him, perhaps from punitive intentions, with thoughts of pleasure.

“Oh!” she said.

“To divert wrath, to placate him, such things,” I said.

“Undoubtedly,” she whispered.

“But often such behaviors, the spreading of knees, and such, and merely a way of presenting oneself, of offering oneself, of inviting attention, of begging for it.”

“But I am a free woman!” she said.

“Even so, you are a female,” I said.

“I have never thought of myself so radically,” she said.

“Perhaps you should, sometime,” I said.

“There is a saying,” she said. “It is that there are two sorts of female slaves, those who are collared, and those who are not yet collared.”

“An interesting saying,” I said.

“Do you think it is true?’ she asked.

“I would not know,” I said.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“It is true for me,” I said. “I have always been a female slave, but it was not until I was brought ot this world that I was collared.”

“It is so easy for you,” she said. “You know what you are.”

“I must go now,” I said.

“Ask the pit master if we may go again to the surface!” she begged.

“I will,” I said.

“Janice!”

“Yes?”

“Surely my disguise as a slave might be more effective,” she said, lightly, “if you were to instruct me, somewhat, in how a slave behaves, in the sort of things she is expected to know, and such.”

“Perhaps you are right,” I said. Certainly I might improve her deference procedures and her way of kneeling.

“Teach me the seven kisses.”

I regarded her, startled.

“You are a free woman,” I said.

“Please!” she begged.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“And teach me to use my lips!” she said.

“There are many ways to use the lips,” I said. “But you must understand, too, that there are many ways to use the hands, the feet, the hair, and so on, indeed, in a sense, the slave is taught, in many ways, to use her entire body.”

“Teach me!” she begged.

“I do not think the pit master would approve,” I said. “Surely you would not wish me to ask him?”

“Of course not,” she said, horrified.

“I did not think so,” I said.

“It could be our secret,” she said.

“It is better that you remain ignorant of these things,” I said. “You are a free woman.”

“Please, Janice,” she said.

“It is knowledge more appropriate to slaves,” I said.

“Please, please,” she begged.

“I will think about it,” I said.

“And surely,” she said, “I ought to quaff slave wine!”

“It is terrible stuff,” I said.

“But it might be dangerous on the surface,” she said. “There might be ruffians.”

“I think,” I said,” rather, I will have you locked in an iron belt, the heaviest and most uncomfortable that may be procured.”

“No,” she said, “slave wine, slave wine!”

“You may be right,” I said. “It would not do at all if some fellow on the surface, taking you for a mere slave, and insensitive to the civilities involved, should simply throw you to the stones and put you to his pleasure.”

“Janice,” she said.

“Yes?” I said.

“I knew what I was doing,” she said.

“I thought so,” I said.

“I know what I am,” she whispered.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Hurry, veil yourself,” I said. “I hear the approach of the guard!”