(pg. 183) In a few Ahn it would be dawn. I had not slept well. I must make the decision soon, whether or not to carry certain letters. I gathered this couriership might be not without its dangers.

I glanced at the female on the bench. She was lusciously desirable. I put her from my mind.

I had reservations about taking Hurtha and Boabissia into danger. Even if they were willing, and informed, at least to the extent I was, I did not think I should permit them to accompany me. It might be too perilous for them, how perilous, of course, I did not know.

The female stirred on the bench. There was a tiny sound of chain. I forced the thought of her from my mind. She was excitingly desirable.

I had little doubt, however, that Hurtha would cheerfully come along, if asked, and perhaps if not asked, abounding with his customary indefatigable optimism whatever might be the odds. He had already complained, more than once, that his ax was getting rusty. This is an Alar way, I took it, of saying that it had not been used lately. That was perhaps just as well. If Hurtha came with me, however, it seemed that Boabissia should be left behind. If she were left behind, however, I did not doubt but what she would soon find herself in a collar. She was that attractive. I put the woman on the bench again from my mind. I wondered what Boabissia would look like on the bench, in such a predicament. Rather well, I supposed. I might slip from the city, without them, I thought. In that way I would not carry them into danger. That would be thoughtful on my part. If I did that, of course, I should speak to Hurtha and Boabissia. I wondered if I should slip from the city. I did not know what to do. It was hard to sleep.

"Oh!" said the woman on the bench, stiffening, my hand on her.

"Do not relax your body," I said. "Keep it tight against my hand."

(pg. 184) She moaned.

"You are a free woman, are you not?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You may relax your body," I said.

Quickly she drew herself forward on the bench, frightened, an inch or so.

"Move back," I said.

She moaned, and slid back a tiny bit.

"More," I said.

She complied, fearfully.

"More," I said.

She was now back where she had been before. "I do not know where your hand is," she said.

"It is here," I said, lifting a finger, touching her.

"Oh!" she said.

"You look well in a collar, and chains," I said.

"Please," she said. "Do not touch me."

"Why," I asked.

"My daughter is near," she said.

"What is that to me?" I asked.

"She can see, she can hear!' she whispered. "Ohh!" She shuddered, caressed.

"You are a lusciously bodied female," I said. "Doubtless you will bring your seller a good price."

"Ohh," she said.

"When you were brought in," I said, "it seems your wrists were quite tightly bound behind you, more than with the customary tightness ample to keep a female in perfect custody.

"Sir?" she asked.

"You may call me Master," I said.

"Master?" she said.

"The way you rubbed your wrists, that suggests you were not merely bound with customary tightness, but punishment bound."

"Perhaps," she said.

"Perhaps you had showed less than absolutely perfect deference to men?" I speculated.

"No, Master," she said. "I am not a fool."

(pg. 185) "I would guess then," I said, caressing her, "that the tie was intended to be an informative, or admonitory one, one from which you were to gather something of the meaning of your reduction in station."

"Yes," she said.

"Doubtless, then, you were formerly of some importance."

"Yes," she said. "I was important."

"Are you important now?" I asked.

"No!" she gasped.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" she gasped.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am-261!" she said.

I pulled her to a sitting position, before me, and then bent her backward and turned her body. "Yes," I said, "you are 261." I then put her back on her stomach. "And who is your daughter?" I asked.

"437," she said.

"Are you more beautiful than your daughter?" I asked.

"I do not know," she wept, clutching the bench.

I heard a gasp from the side, from our right, from among the other women.

I stepped from the bench, looking at the other women. "You," I said to a girl there. "Kneel, straighten your back, put your chin up, throw your hair behind your back." She did these things. "You are 437," I said, reading her number.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes, what?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, quickly.

"Yes," I said to the woman on the bench, "she has something of your beauty."

"Something!" gasped the girl.

"You are both quite beautiful," I said to the woman on the bench, returning to her. "I suppose it would be difficult to say who, ultimately, under proper slave disciplines, will prove the most beautiful, but, clearly, now, at the moment, if these things are pertinent to the issue, you would bring the highest price."

"I?" asked the woman before me, wonderingly.

(pg. 186) "Yes," I said. "But she has something of your coloring and characteristics, and is quite beautiful, and I think it likely, in time, with more experience in life and love, she might aspire to equal your beauty."

The girl gasped.

"Please," said the woman. "We are mother and daughter."

"You are only two women," I said, "two women in collars, and, at this time, you, my chained beauty, would bring a higher price on the auction block, a price she could not hope, for perhaps years, to equal or excel. To be sure, I think you are both excellent collar meat."

The woman moaned. I then renewed my attentions to her body.

"I gather it has been a long time since you have been touched," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Are you disappointed in me? Do I take too long to respond?"

"Mother!" cried the girl, scandalized.

"You are not a slave," I said. "You do not have trained, honed reflexes. Smoldering fires have not been set in your belly, never far from the surface, ready to leap into flame at the smallest touch. You are a free woman. I do not expect much of you."

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly.

"Still," I said, "you seem to have in you the promise of vitality."

"Oh," she said.

"Interesting," I said.

"Oh!" she said. "Oh!"

"Perhaps, as in all women," I mused, there is a slave in you."

She moaned.

"Or perhaps it is not so much that there is a slave in you," I mused, "as that you are simply a slave."

"Please do not make me yield!" she begged, suddenly. I continued to caress her.

"Be silent!" she said. "Be silent! Can't you see I am in the hands of a man!"

"Mother!" cried the girl.

(pg. 187) "Oh!" cried the woman.

"You squirm like a slut!" cried the girl.

"What you are doing to me!" cried the woman, half rearing up on the palms of her hands, the chains on her wrists.

"Lie down," I instructed her.

She then lay there, on the cool marble, clutching it, tensely, her eyes wild, her head to the left.

"Is anything wrong?" I asked.

She lay extremely still, almost rigid, tensely, on the bench. She gripped the marble tightly. It seemed she did not dare to move.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Do not make me yield," she begged. She was very beautiful, and very helpless. Such a female would indeed, I thought, bring a high price.

"Why?" I asked.

She moaned.

"Why?" I pressed. It was not necessary to beat her for not having responded promptly to my question. She was a free woman. Such tardiness in a slave, of course, is not acceptable. It can mean the whip for her.

"Please," she said.

"You want to yield, do you not?" I asked.

"No, no," she said.

"I think it has been a long time since you have yielded, if ever before you have truly yielded to a man."

"Yes," she whimpered.

"Did you ever before, truly, yield to a man?" I asked.

"No," she whispered.

"I think you now suspect what it might be like to do so," I said.

"Yes, yes," she whispered, tensely.