“She is perhaps lying,” I said.
“No, no, Master!” said the slave.
“It is strange, is it not,” I said, “that the deck watch failed to note such intruders, and that the alarm bar did not ring until men were pouring onto the deck?”
“Do you think it strange?” asked the tarnsman.
I considered the deck watch.
“No,” I said.
“Nor I,” said he.
I undid the ropes which held the small wrists of the slave above her head, and then freed her of the belly ropes.
The hail had stopped, but the air was still moist.
Leros had now been on the platform and ring for several Ehn. He had had his cloak bundled on his back.
When freed, the slave, not dismissed, and in the presence of free men, went to her knees.
Her head was down.
This was appropriate.
Many are the beautiful symbolisms between masters and slaves.
How natural are such things.
And how perfectly they reflect categorical relationships, and absolute realities.
“Your tunic is soaked,” I said, “and your hair is bedraggled.”
“A slave fears she is not pleasing to masters,” she said.
“You are suitable on your knees, with your head down,” I said.
“May I lower it further, Master?” she asked.
“I do not understand,” I said.
I felt her lips on my boots.
“I am sorry if I displeased Master,” she said.
I was silent.
She, this woman, was at my feet. I recalled her from Ar. She, this slave, was at my feet. I recalled her from Ar.
“Thank you for punishing me, Master,” she said.
“It is nothing,” I said.
“It is late,” said Tarl Cabot. “She is to be returned to the Kasra area, is she not?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She was displeasing,” said the tarnsman.
“Yes,” I said.
“Shall I have a punishment tag brought,” asked the tarnsman, “and a thong?”
The punishment tag, as noted earlier, would be wired to the slave’s collar, her hands would be tied behind her back, and she must hurry to her keeping area, where discipline would be meted out by her keepers, the large women.
“What do you think, slave?” I asked her.
I recalled her former terror that this might be done to her. I gathered it was very unpleasant for a lovely slave, a slave such as she, well-curved and delicious, a man-pleasing slave, the sort that men wish to buy, the sort that men wish to own, the sort that men find attractive, and care for, an exquisite, feminine slave, to find herself at the mercy of the ill-tempered, hating, envious, jealous, unhappy, gross brutes likely to be found in charge of a keeping area.
“It will be done with me as masters please,” whispered the slave, head down, at my feet.
“It will be done with you as masters please,” I assured her, “have no fear, slave, but what would you like?”
“That it may be done with me as masters please,” she said.
This answer pleased me.
“You have come far in bondage,” I said.
“It is my hope to please my masters,” she said.
“You have been punished enough,” I said. “You may go.”
“Keep me,” she said. “I beg to please you!”
“Please me?” I said.
“Yes!” she said.
“How?” I asked. “In what way?”
“As a slave,” she said. “As the slave I am!”
“Do you know what you are saying?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, Master!”
“Speak,” I said.
“I beg attention,” she said.
“Attention?” I said. After all, why make things easy for a slave, particularly such a slave.
“You would make me speak, of these things, I, knowing who I once was?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Seize me, take me!” she wept, lifting her face to mine. “Put me to use! I beg it! Employ me as a means to your pleasure, a mere means! I ask nothing else, or further! I am collared! Behold me! I am a needful slave! Be kind! I beg! Put me to your pleasure! What am I for if not to please you? Put me to your pleasure, Master! Use me! I beg it!”
“And it was so,” I asked, “even from Ar?”
“Yes, Master,” she wept, putting her head down. “Even from Ar!”
I found this answer of interest.
“The deck is hard, cold, and wet,” said the tarnsman. “There is a large coil of rope nearby.”
The lantern was lifted a little higher, better illuminating what knelt at my feet, head down.
She did not now dare, her confession uttered, to raise her face to mine.
“Your use has not been given to me, slave girl,” I said.
“But you have tied me,” she said.
“As might any man,” I said.
She put her hands on my legs and looked up at me. I saw in the light of the lantern that her face was streaked with tears.
“Might not a slave find favor with Master?” she asked.
“Go,” I said.
“Master!” she begged.
“Must a command be repeated?” I inquired.
“No, Master,” she said, quickly. She then pressed her lips again, fervently, to my boots, and then rose to her feet, backed away, head down, and then turned and ran, weeping, from the lantern light, disappearing in the darkness.
“You well know how to handle a slave,” said the tarnsman.
I did not respond.
“The slut was quite ready,” said the tarnsman.
It is interesting to see how helpless slaves can be, like a blanket of heat and need. Much, I supposed had to do with the collar, with slavery itself.
Odd, I thought, how bondage can free them.
It is no wonder men put them in collars.
They belong in a collar. They want them. In the precincts of the collar they find themselves, fulfill themselves, and are whole.
“Her use is not mine,” I said.
I looked at the large coil of rope to the side.
“To be sure,” said the tarnsman, “it is scarcely the furs of love, spread on the floor at the foot of a master’s couch.”
