"No," I said. "I am a pleasure slave. It is expected, accordingly, that I will kneel before men with my legs spread, unless, perhaps, free women are present."

"Like this?" she asked, eagerly.

I looked about, quickly, determining that none were about. It was warm, and late in the afternoon.

"No," I said. "More widely."

"Oh!" she said, softly, trembling.

"Yes," I said. "Like that."

"Thusly," she asked, "and before men!"

"Yes," I said, "or even more widely, depending on the master."

"Ai!" she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

One of her knees was now off the stair.

"How it must make you feel!" she breathed, delightedly.

"Yes," I said.

"How vulnerable you are!" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"It is very exciting," she said.

"It helps us to keep in mind that we are slaves, and the sort of slaves we are," I said.

"It is exciting," she said.

"Exciting?" I asked.

"Surely the intent of this exceeds mere mnemonics and instruction," she said, "such things as a mere desire to demonstrate to the slave her vulnerability."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Surely at least a portion of its intent is to arouse the slave, to make her feel receptive, and helpless, kneeling thusly before a male."

"I do not doubt," I said, "that something of that sort has entered into the thinking of the beasts, those who force us to a.s.sume such a position before them."

"Ah!" she said.

"It has its effect, too, upon the male," I a.s.sured her.

"I am so pleased to hear it!" she said.

She looked down at her knees. Her hands were braceleted behind her. Her leash went to my hand.

"Janice," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

"Do you like to kneel thusly before men?"

"Please!" I said.

"Please, tell me," she said.

"Must I speak?" I asked.

"I cannot order you to do so, not now," she said. "I am now naught but as a slave in your charge. That is the understanding, and the condition. But please, Janice! Please speak!"

"Yes," I said. "I do enjoy so kneeling before men. I find it s.e.xually arousing. Too, I find it is right for me.

I find that it is fitting and proper for me."

"It must make you feel very female," she said.

"Yes, it does," I said. "But it is all right for a woman to feel very female. There is nothing wrong with that."

"I am a female," she said. "I want to feel very female."

"But you are a free woman," I reminded her.

She looked at me, agonized.

"There are two s.e.xes," I said. "One is dominant, and one is not. Each should be true to itself.

On this world, this basic truth has been recognized, and, in a portion of the social sphere, inst.i.tutionalized."

"I want to be true to my s.e.x," she whispered, "really true to it, fully true to it."

"Beware," I said. "You are a free woman."

She was silent.

"Freedom is precious," I said.

"I have had freedom," she said. "I know what it is like. Now I want love."

"I am a slave," I said. "And I have not found love."

A poignant memory gripped me, but I turned away from it.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. I need not speak the truth to her as she was to me now naught but as slave.

"I think you are a true slave, Janice," she said, softly.

"Yes," I said. "I am a true slave. I was a true slave even before I was brought here and collared."

"You love being a slave!" she said.

"It can be terrifying to he a slave!" I said.

"You love being a slave!" she said.

"Yes," I said. "I love being a slave!"

She looked down at her knees, so widely spread. She was "slave clad."

One lovely thigh, her left, as she knelt, emerged from the brown rag which had been knotted about her waist. She wore a halter. We had improvised it from a twisted, matching piece of brown rag. In its simplicity and raggedness, it was surely believable as, and suitable for, a slave halter It was I who had decided that she should be clothed in brief tatters. Too, it was I who had decided that her midriff would be bare, and considerably so. In these arrangements was expressed, doubtless, something of my view as to her condition, which was free.

That is what I think of your condition, and what you really are, you free females! Take away your veils and robes, and we shall see what you are! There, see, you are no more than we, only more slaves! Yes, perhaps I had chanced to yield, to some extent, to the temptation to take a little vengeance on her and, through her, on all free females. Too, how often does a slave get to dress a free woman, as the slave might choose to dress her? And how often will she have the opportunity to conduct one about, "slave clad," back-braceleted, and on a leash? What a turnabout is there! The pit master, when I had displayed her to him, had seemed startled. Certainly he had uttered a skeptical sound. Perhaps he had not realized before that the free woman was actually an attractive and desirable female, at least for a free woman, one who had not yet learned slave softness, slave helplessness. But he had let us leave the depths. She had not seemed to mind all this at all, but to find the whole matter delightful. Perhaps she would not have found it all so delightful if she had realized how she might now appear to men. Might she not then have been terrified? What free woman would dare to appear, as it is said, "slave desirable"? Some days ago she had been removed from the slave cage over the pool and given a cell not far from our quarters. It was a comfortable cell, some eight feet in width and height, some ten feet in depth. Though there were rings within it, she was not chained to them. She had a pallet filled with straw, a dish for food, a vessel for water, and a wastes bucket. The luxury of the straw-filled pallet was doubtless an acknowledgment of her status as a free woman. One morning I had been ordered to fold my blanket early and emerge from my kennel. I had followed the pit master to the free woman's cell. I had been uneasy doing so, as I was afraid of her. Female slaves learn early on this world to fear free women who, for some reason, seem to bear them great malice and hatred. But it was a far different free woman I encountered in the cell than she I had recalled from the cage. She knelt at our first approach.

"I have heard nothing of your ransom, Lady," said the pit master to her.

She nodded.

I knelt behind the pit master, to his left. That is the common heeling position. I wore a typical slave tunic, brief and revealing.

"I congratulate you on the improvement in your behavior," he said.

"Thank you, sir," she said.

"You understand," he said, "that we may, if we wish, put you back over the pool, and I a.s.sure you that that is not the worst sort of accommodation in the pits."

"Yes, sir," she said. She bowed her head.

"Your behavior is particularly to be commended," he said, "as you are not bond."

She lifted her head, it seemed, as though puzzled.

"When one is bond," he said, "one has absolutely no choice-instant and unquestioning perfection of service is required."

"Sir?" she said.

"Janice!" he snapped.

"Master!" I cried, startled.

"Obeisance!" he said.

Instantly I knelt forward, the palms of my hands on the floor, my head to the floor.

"Lick and kiss," he said.

I scrambled forward and, head down, kissed and licked, swiftly, frightened, at his feet and sandals.

"Enough!" he said. "Back!"

I drew back, hastily. But he was no longer paying me attention.

"You see?" he asked the free woman.

"Yes, sir," she said, trembling.

"You seem to have learned something of what it is to be in the keeping of men," he said.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Keep in mind," he said, "in the future, that you are still in their keeping, utterly."

"Sir?" she said.

"Though henceforth," said he, "more indirectly."

"I do not understand," she said.

"I am a free man," he said. "I have no intention continuing indefinitely to attend to you personally. It is not as though you were my slave, a girl whose hair I might comb, or in whose feeding and watering I might take some pleasure. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Unfortunately," he said, "we do not have free women to attend to such matters in the depths."

"I understand," she said.

"This, Janice," said he, "is the Lady Constanzia, of the city of Besnit."

"Master," I whimpered, in misery.

"Lady Constanzia," said he, "the bond-maid, Janice."

"Janice," she said.

"Mistress," I said.

"You need not call her "Mistress," said the depth warden. He then turned to the free woman.

"Your care, for the most part, will be in her hands," he said.

"Moreover, you will give her no trouble. And you will obey her."