'Master?' she said.
'Take the Lady Tutina's belt,' I said, 'and tie her hands behind her back.' 'Master!' protested Louise.
'No!' cried the Lady Tutina.
'She is free,' said Louise.
'Must a command be repeated?' I asked Louise. 'No, Master!' she said.
She took the Lady Tutina's belt off and pulled her hands behind her back, and tied them there.
'Good,' I said. The Lady Tutina squirmed, on her knees, her hands tied behind her.
'Master,' moaned Louise, frightened.
'Here,' I said, handing her the tiny glass of wine. 'Obey me, unquestioningly, when I speak.'
'Yes, Master,' whispered Louise.
'No!' said the Lady Tutina. 'Oh!' I had then, reaching about her head with my left hand, pinched her nostrils tightly together between my fingers. She could now not breathe through her nose. With this same grip, and its afforded leverage, I pulled her head back. Perhaps I was not as gentle as I might have been, considering she was free. Still it might do her some good, like the binding of her hands behind her, to accustom her to being handled in this fashion. She gasped for air. I then wedged my right hand in her mouth and, with my thumb and fingers, my thumb on her upper teeth, my fingers on her lower teeth, forced it open, very widely. Held so, she could not bite.
'Now,' I said to Louise. 'Now.'
The Lady Tutina whimpered. She squirmed. She tried to shake her head, but I held it in position, exactly as I wanted it. Louise carefully poured the wine into that lovely, widely opened orifice, that lovely, widely opened vessel that was the mouth of the Lady Tutina.
'Good,' I said to Louise.
Louise looked at me, gratefully. She would not be immediately beaten, at least. She was pretty, naked.
I continued to hold the head of the Lady Tutina in place. As I had timed the matter she had not had a breath left at that point to exhale or blow the fluid from her mouth. She looked at me, wildly.
'I would suppose, sooner or later,' I said, 'that you would like to breathe. No breath, however, can enter your lungs until you have first cleared your mouth of the fluid in it. There is only one way for you to do that, in your present predicament. That is to swallow it. Perhaps your body will make the decision for you.'
She whimpered piteously in protest.
'There is not really much point in holding your breath,' I said. 'The matter is one of inevitability.'
Another whimper.
'You are very pretty,' I informed her.
Then wildly, tears plunging down her cheeks, she swallowed the liquid and, choking, gasping wildly for breath.
'You may now unbelt the hands of the Lady Tutina,' I said to Louise.
'Yes, Master!' she said, hastening to do so.
'Oh, no, Lady Tutina,' I said, holding her hands now. 'You would not want to do that.'
She jerked her hands, but could not remove them from my grasp. 'I hate you!' she said. 'I hate you!'
'There is nothing to fear,' I said, 'unless there might have been something in the wine.'
'I hate you,' she sobbed. She threw a wild look at the fellow slumped over the nearby table. He was still unconscious. She was clearly frightened. The dosage she had imbibed, assuming there might have been one in the drink, would doubtless have been one fit for a male. Accordingly, her own period of unconsciousness, given this possibility, might possibly last several Ahn, more than enough time to be carried to a cell in a praetor's holding area. She jerked her hands again, wildly, but I held them tightly.
'I hate you!' she hissed.
'Do not forget your loneliness, and your need for love,' I said.
'Sleen! Sleen!' she hissed. She again tried to free her hands, and again, of course, could not. How could she expect to do so, with her strength, only that of a female? But this time, even so, it seemed to me she had pulled less strongly than before. Even her small woman's strength seemed now less than it had been. Apparently there had indeed been something in the wine. It was beginning, it seemed, to take effect. She seemed suddenly unsteady.
'What are you going to do with me?' she asked. 'When you awaken,' I said, 'you will discover what has been done with you.'
'I love you,' she said, suddenly. 'Take me to your room. It was not necessary to drug me. I would have gone happily.'
'It is nice to hear that,' I said.
'I love you,' she said. 'You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?' I regarded her, not speaking.
'I will serve you therea€”even as a slave!' she whispered. 'Then you will let me go in the morning.'
I did not answer her.
'What are you going to do with me?' she asked.
I did not answer her.
'You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?' she pleaded.
'No,' I said.
'Then what are you going to do with me?' she asked.
'I do not think I am going to do much of anything with you,' I said.
She looked at me, puzzled. She wavered.
I glanced at the fellow slumped over the nearby table.
'No!' she said. 'No!'
'It is a pretty ring,' I said. I then removed it from her hand. I put the ring on the floor. She leaned back. I did not think she could get up. She watched as I crushed it beneath my heel.
I glanced at Louise, who was kneeling to the side, frightened.
I looked again to the Lady Tutina. She was now slipped to the floor, beside the table, on the tiles, unconscious.
I took the unconscious Lady Tutina by the wrist and pulled her over a bit, onto a nearby met, to the left of a nearby table. It was the table, of course, across which the unconscious fellow lay slumped. There was a heavy slave ring there, too, fixed in the floor. It was near the head of the mat. The mat and ring, both, of course, were those appropriate to the fellow's table. There, she lying on the mat, I pulled down her now-beltless dress until it was about her knees. In doing this I retrieved his purse. I tied it about her neck. I then, with some binding fiber, cored with wire, from my wallet, bound her wrists tightly together and then tied them tightly to the ring.
In tying the hands tightly to the ring it makes it harder for the female to get her teeth on the binding fiber. But of course, even if she should manage this, trying desperately, determinedly and elatedly, with wild hopes, to free herself, she would discover shortly, at least in this case, this discovery dashing these wild, absurd hopes, mocking all her efforts, and plunging her into despair, the fiber's stern wire coring. She was not tied there, in such a fashion, by a man, she would then learn, that she might escape. It seemed to me extremely unlikely that she would recover consciousness before the fellow. If that should however, somehow occur, she would still be found at his ring, awaiting his pleasure. I looked down upon her. She lay there then, on her belly, mostly stripped, her arms extended over her head, her head turned to the side, her wrists crossed and bound tightly together, lashed to the slave ring, his purse about her neck. I considered matters. I then pulled the mat from beneath her, and with my foot, thrust it to the side. She would lie naked on the tiles, I had decided. Such a woman was not worthy of a mat. I also kicked her belt over beside her. It was a small detail, but it, like herself, like all she was and all she would be, now lay at the disposal of the fellow slumped across the table.
I then returned to my own table. Louise was still there, kneeling. I had not yet dismissed her.
'Am I dismissed, Master?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
She gasped.
'Are you any good on a mat?' I asked.
'But you are Earth,' she said. 'And I am of Earth! I am from Earth! You are from Earth! We are both from Earth! You could not for a moment be thinkinga€”!' 'Fetch a slave whip,' I said.
