had done wrong, pleading for mercy, and forgiveness. He pulled back, away from me again, and then stood there, some feet before me, looking down at me. I was still on my belly. I looked up at him, a slave regarding her master with terror, lying before him, his property, on the tiles of his house. 'Have her lashed, he said. 'Then have her hair cropped, and sent her to the field!»
'And it was thus you came to the fields,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'And how did Milo respond to all this?' I asked.
'Imperturbably,' she said. 'I was, after all, only a female.'
'Do you think that Milo finds you attractive?' I asked.
'Master?' she asked.
'That he would like to strip you, collar you and throw you to the furs at his feet, there to vent his lust upon you, his slave?'
'I do not know if his drives are that strong, Master,' she said.
'Would you object?' I asked.
'No, Master,' she said. 'It had always been my hope that I might prove attractive enough to provoke such desire. I am a slave girl. I live to be the obedient, grateful, vulnerable object of such lust and power. I have always dreamed of it. I wish to be choiceless, to be overpowered and made to serve!'
'Milo must have exhibited some interest in you, or seemed to exhibit some interest in you,' I said, 'if only during the period of your seduction, when you were being trapped.'
'Yes,' she said, 'then.'
'But after you were in the house as a slave, collared, scantily clad, utterly vulnerable?'
'No, Master,' she said.
'He never asked for you to be brought to him?'
'No, Master.'
'Why do you think that is?' I asked.
'I am insufficiently beautiful,' she said.
'Did he call for other women?' I asked.
'I do not know, Master,' she said.
'Did you not see names written on the call boards in the kitchen?'
'No,' she said.
'Interesting,' I said.
'One of the girls, another one of we three who had been trapped by Milo, claimed to have been with him, but it was proven that she had lied. She had been chained in the stable that night. The house master found out about it and she was whipped, before us all.'
'As far as you know, then,' I said, 'none of the girls of the house were put with Milo.'
'As far as I know, not,' she said.
'But surely there would be no cause for secrecy about such a matter,' I said. 'I would not think so,' she said.
'Milo was important in the house,' I said. 'He is famous. He is of great value to Appanius.'
'Certainly, Master,' she said.
'It would make sense then,' I said, 'to suppose that a girl would be sent to him, at least once in a while.'
'Perhaps, Master,' she said.
'So much is done even for quarry slaves,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'But as far as you know this was never done?'
'Not as far as I know,' she said.
'And if it had been done,' I said, 'it is my speculation that you would have heard of it, such gossip flowing quickly through the corridors of such a house.'
'I suppose so,' she said.
'If Milo had requested a girl, do you think he would have received one?'
'I would suppose so,' she said, puzzled.
'Perhaps he did not request one,' I said.
'Master?' she asked.
'Possible Milo does not find women attractive,' I said.
'Master?' she asked.
'Nothing,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Are you a virgin?' I asked.
She laughed. 'How long can a slave remain a virgin, Master?' she asked.
'Whom have you served?' I asked.
'Mostly men in the house, on the staff,' she said, 'those who wanted me for the night. We are free to them, you know. I was muchly cuffed at first. I was clumsy. I knew so little.'
'You are more accomplished now?' I asked.
'One learns quickly under the whip,' she said.
'And in the fields?'
'Mostly the whip masters,' she said. 'But twice I was tied to a stake, for the field slaves.'
I noted that her knees had moved a little further apart, probably unconsciously, or without really thinking about it, after she had said this. In such ways can a slave, sometimes not even conscious of what she is doing, or fully conscious of it, beg. I glanced at Marcus, and he smiled. He, too, had noticed the tiny movement.
'May I speak, Masters?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
She put her head down.
'Have you experienced slave arousal?' I asked 'Master?' she asked, looking up.
'Have the slave fires been lit in your belly?' I asked. She was, after all, a relatively new slave, and had been a house slave, apparently primarily consigned to domestic duties, serving table and such, and was now a field slave, whose primary services would presumably lie in such labors as the carrying of water and the hoeing of suls. It was not as though she had been in the attentive and exacting ownership, for example, of a particular master, who would see to the summoning forth and cultivation of these intimate, exquisite, exigent latencies which once initiated seem to blossom and grow of their own lovely, imperious will, which cannot be suppressed or silenced, and which make a girl so much their prisoner, more so than collars and chains.
'Sometimes,' she said, 'I sense their beginnings in me.'
'How do you feel about them?' I asked.
'I love them,' she said, 'but I am afraid of them.'
I nodded. Well she might be.
'May I speak?' she asked.
'Very well,' I said.
'Who are you?' she asked. 'Are you men of my master, Appanius?'
Perhaps she thought we had come from her master, to question her. But surely, too, our armbands should have suggested to her that our origins, and intents, were not indigenous to the house of Appanius.
'No,' I said.
'You are not slavers, are you?' she asked.
We did not speak.
'Please tell me!' she begged.
'It is not in that modality that we have come,' I said.
'You are members of the caste of slavers!' she said.
'No,' I said.
'But you are slavers!' she said.
'Do not concern yourself with the matter,' I said.
