girl.
'You are aware of how revealing they are, are you not?' I asked.
'I think so, Mistress,' said the girl.
'By them the lineaments of your beauty are made publicly clear,' I said. 'That is doubtless one of their intentions, Mistress,' said the girl. I suddenly felt faint.
'Mistress?' asked the girl, alarmed.
'I am all right,' I said.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said, relieved.
I then, slowly, walked about her, frightened. She stood still, very straight, her head up. She was incredibly lovely, and exquisitely figured.
'There is something on your left leg,' I said, 'high, on the thigh, just under the hip.' I saw this through the almost diaphanous, white, floral-print tunic she wore.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said. 'It is common for. girls such as I to be marked.' 'Marked?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said. 'Would Mistress care to see?'
Seeing my curiosity, my fascination, she drew up the skirt of the brief tunic, with both bands, and looked down to her left thigh.
'What is it?' I asked. It was a delicate mark, almost floral, about an inch and a half high and a half inch, or so, wide.
'It is my brand,' she said.
I gasped.
'It was put on me in Cos,' she said, 'with a white-hot iron, two years ago.' 'Terrible,' I whispered.
'Girls such as I must expect to be marked,'' she said. 'It is In accord with the recommendations of merchant law.'
'Merchant law?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' said the girl. 'May I lower my tunic?'
'Yes,' I said.
She smoothed down the light tunic.
'It is a beautiful mark,' I said.
'I think so, too,' she said. 'Thank you, Mistress.'
'Did it hurt?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'It doesn't hurt now though, does it?' I asked.
'No, Mistress,' she said.
I reached out, timidly, toward her throat. I touched the object there.
'What is this?' I asked.
'The silk?' she asked. 'That is a collar stocking, or a collar sleeve. They may be made of many different materials. In a cooler climate they are sometimes of velvet. in most cities they are not used.'
Under the silk I touched sturdy steel.
'That, Mistress, of course,' she said, 'is my collar.'
'Would you take it off,' I asked, 'please? I would like to see it.' She laughed merrily. 'Forgive me, Mistress,' she said. 'I cannot take it off.' 'Why not?' I asked.
'It is locked on me,' she laughed. She turned about.
'See?' she asked.
Feverishly I thrust apart the two sides of the silken sleeve at the back of the girl's neck. To be sure, there, below her hair, at the back of her neck, at the closure of the steel apparatus on her neck, there was a small, heavy, sturdy lock. I saw the keyhole. It would take a tiny key.
'You do not have the key?' I asked.
'No, Mistress,' she laughed. 'Of course not.'
'Then you have, personally, no way of removing this collar?' I said. 'Yes, Mistress,' she said. 'I have no way of removing it.'
I shuddered.
'May I ask you 'an intimate question, Susan?' I asked.
'Of course, Mistress,' she said.
'Are you a virgin?' I asked,
The girl laughed. 'No, Mistress,' she said. 'I was opened by men long ago for their pleasures.'
'Opened?' I whispered.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
'For their pleasures?' I asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
You have called me 'Mistress,' I said. 'Why 'That is the customary way in which girls such as I address all free women,' she said.
'What sort of girl are you?' I asked.
'A good girl, I hope, Mistress,' she said. 'I will try to serve you well.' 'Are- you a slave?' I whispered.
'Yes, Mistress,' she said.
I stepped back. I had tried to fight this understanding. I had told myself that it could not be, that it must not be. And yet, now, how simple, how obvious and plausible, seemed such an explanation of the girl's garb, and of the mark on her body, and of the collar on her neck.
'I am the slave of Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus,' she said. She slid the collar sleeve about the collar and, feeling with her fingers, indicated some marks on the collar. I could see engraving there. I could not read the writing. 'That information,' she said, 'is recorded here.'
'I see,' I said, trembling.
She slid the collar sleeve back about the collar, arranging it in place. 'I was purchased almost two years ago, from the pens of Saphronicus, in Cos,' she said. 'The purpose of the collar sleeve is to hide the collar,' I said.
'No, Mistress,' she said. 'Surely the collar's presence within the sleeve is sufficiently evident.'
'Yes,' I said, 'I can see now that it is.'
The girl smiled.
'The yellow fits in nicely with the yellow of your belt,' I said, 'and the yellow flowers on the tunic.'
'Yes, Mistress,' smiled the girl. The sleeve I saw now could function rather like an accessory, perhaps adding to, or completing, an ensemble. It did, in this case, at least, make its contribution to the girl's appearance. 'The belt is binding fiber, Mistress,' said the girl, turning before me. 'It may be used to tie or leash me, or even, coiled, to whip me.'
'I see,' I said. It was a part of her ensemble.
'And the flowers,' said the girl, 'are talenders. They are a beautiful flower. They are often associated with love.'
'They are very pretty,' I said.
'Some free women do not approve of slaves being permitted to wear talenders,' she said, 'or being permitted to have representations of them, like these, on their frocks. Yet slaves do often wear them, the masters permitting it, and they are not an uncommon motif, the masters seeing to it, on their garments.' 'Why do free women object?' I asked.
'They feel that a slave, who must love whomever she is commanded to love, can know nothing of love.'
'Oh,' I said.
'But I have been both free and slave,' she said, 'and, forgive me, Mistress, but I think that it is only a slave, in her vulnerability and helplessness, who can know what love truly is.
'You must love upon command?' I asked, horrified.
'We must do as we are told,' she said. 'We are slaves.'
I shuddered at the thought of the helplessness of the slave.
'We may hope, of course,' she said, 'that we come into the power of true masters.'
'Does this ever happen?' I asked.
