slave is to be made utterly helpless, that she be bound with perfection, and that she will know herself utterly helpless, and bound with perfection.”
“I see,” I said.
“She has more body than you,” he said, “but I do not see that you are all that inferior to her.”
“Oh?” I said, angrily.
“You are generally worthless,” he said. “You are stupid, vain, petty, selfish, deceitful, and, if the opportunity should present itself, I fear dishonest. I have serious reservations concerning your character.”
“I am not stupid,” I said.
“Still,” he said, “your face and figure, and something indefinable about you, are not without interest.”
“I rejoice,” I said.
“Remove your tunic,” he said. “I want to see you in nothing but your collar.”
“Surely Master has seen me often enough in the slave wagon,” I said.
“In nothing but your collar,” he said.
“You would have me strip myself here, in the open?” I asked.
“Now,” he said.
I slipped from my tunic, a slave.
I straightened my body. “Is Master pleased?” I asked, acidly. “No!” I cried. “Please, no!”
Then I was kneeling down, head down, to the dirt, muchly cuffed, twice kicked. “It is my hope that Master is pleased,” I wept.
“You had best hope that I am pleased,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I wept. “Yes, Master!”
“We shall see,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“Perform,” he said.
“Please, no, Master!” I said.
“Roll about,” he said. “Writhe! Pose. Assume attitudes. Display your limbs! Various positions. Show what you have, slave! Perhaps someone will buy you. Perhaps you will not be beaten. Perhaps you will not be thrown to sleen!”
The dust, scattered and stirred, was wet with sweat and tears.
“More!” he said. “More frenziedly, more pathetically, more wildly, more boldly, more violently, more desperately!”
“Yes, Master,” I wept.
“And so,” he said, “the slave performs before the loathed, hated master, frantically hoping to be found pleasing.”
“I do not hate you Master!” I cried out, an outburst breaking from my tortured body.
“Enough,” he said, angrily.
I crawled to him on my belly, weeping. I pressed my lips to his boots and kissed them, again and again.
“I do not hate you, Master,” I said. “I love you!”
“Your hair is growing out,” he said.
“I love you,” I said. “I love you!”
“Of what worth is the love of a worthless slave?” he asked.
“Of no worth, Master,” I said.
I rose to all fours. I dared not meet his eyes.
“Garmenture,” said he. “And fetch your pack. We must join the others.”
Shortly thereafter I stood on the trail. I was now tunicked. I stood very still. Our party must be a pasang, or so, ahead. He adjusted the pack. That is sometimes done.
“I do love you, Master,” I whispered to him. “I think I have loved you since the Sul Market, in Ar, when I was half-stripped, with my wrists bound behind me, and you, a stranger, ordered me to my knees before you.”
“I see,” he said.
“I looked up, and feared you were my master, and, I fear, I desired it so.”
“I see,” he said.
“And perhaps,” I said, “as you gazed upon me, a kneeling slave, with your master’s appraisal, you wondered how I might appear, naked, chained at a slave ring.”
“That sort of thing is common with any fellow,” he said, “looking on any woman, slave or free.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“And,” said he, “as you were at the time, that conjecture required little imagination.”
“Did my performance please you?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“You made me perform well,” I said.
“That was my intention,” he said.
“You humiliated me,” I said.
“You enjoyed it,” he said.
“Oh?” I said.
“What woman does not enjoy displaying herself, naked, as the slave and slut she is?” he asked.
“It is my hope,” I said, “that the Lady Bina will give me to you, or sell me to you.”
“Do not concern yourself with such things,” he said.
“Such thoughts occur to a slave,” I said.
“Matters of moment abound,” he said.
“Please care for me,” I begged.
“Though you be but a slave,” he laughed.
“Though I be but a slave!” I said.
“We must hasten, to rejoin the group,” he said.
“Master!” I begged.
“Slave girls are unimportant,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I wept.
“One does not care for the female slave,” he said. “She is no more than a beast. For her it is the whip, bonds, the collar, service, ownership, work, and the inordinate pleasures which she must frequently and unquestioningly provide.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Why else do you think women are collared?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Surely you learned such things in the slave house,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“What was your name when free?” he asked.
“Allison Ashton-Baker,” I said.
“Well,” said he, “does the former Allison Ashton-Baker understand these things?”
“Yes,” I said, “Master.”
“Heel,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said, and hurried to follow him, a bit behind, on the left.
We made our way along the trail.
We were well behind the party, but I had little doubt that we, a free man and one slave, might shortly overtake it, possibly within the passage of an Ahn. The Lady Bina was robed, though less decorously than would have been thought proper in Ar, and Mina, our captive, was leashed and bound. Such things commonly reduce the speed of a march. Moreover, the party would presumably proceed slowly in this unfamiliar terrain, and certainly with the Crag of Kleinias in the offing, rearing up before them, into the sky.
“I am lovely, am I not?” I asked Master Desmond.
“Yes,” he said, “and vain, and such.”
“Might I not now bring a good price?” I asked.
