"Kneel beside the cistern," I said. "Knot your hair behind your head, that it not drag in the water. The garments must be soaked, and twisted, and kneaded, and beaten on the stone, again and again. One soaks the garments, one beats them. It is not easy work.

It is hard work. It takes time. Begin."

She took her veil first, and submerged it in the water.

The next day, I came early to her cell. She had requested it. The pit master had given his permission. At my arrival she had knelt without being asked to do so, and had removed her veil.

"Greetings," I said.

"Greetings," said she.

"May I stand?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

To my surprise she then removed her outer garments, putting them to one side. Then she stood before me in a light, silken, sliplike undergarment. It was quite brief. It was not, I thought, unlike a slave garment.

I wondered if free women sometimes studied themselves in the mirror, in such garments. I recalled that I had, it now seemed long ago, wondering what I would look like if my wrists were roped, if there were a chain on my neck. S h e then, again, knelt.

"What if the guard should see?" I said.

"It does not matter," she said.

"Do not be foolish," I said. "Do you not know what the sight of you, as you are now, might do to a man!"

"What?" she asked.

"Do not ask," I warned her. "You are a free woman!" I dared not tell her the might of the desires of men such as these, of their mercilessness and their power.

"Janice," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Exercise me," she said.

"Do not be foolish," I said.

"I know nothing of such things," she said. "Please!"

"In what way would you be exercised?" I asked.

"Exercise me," she said, "-as a slave."

I considered this matter. I supposed that her body might, indeed, cry out for some exercise.

She had been long incarcerated. But why, I asked myself, did she wish to be exercised in a certain way, as a slave? Surely that was incomprehensible. On the other hand, I asked myself, how often does a slave have this power over a free woman.? Indeed, would it not be amusing to exercise herand as a slave?

"Stand!" I said. "Spread your legs widely! Put your arms out to the sides!"

I feared I was not easy with her. And yet the harder I was upon her the more eager, the more zealous, the more compliant, the more helpless and obedient, she was.

Afterwards I took her to the cistern that she might wash her body and her garment.

After that she exercised regularly.

Once she asked me, "What are slave paces?"

"They are movements, att.i.tudes, positions, poses, and such," I said, "designed to display a slave."

"Put me through them!" she begged.

"You, a free woman," I said, "ask to be put through slave paces?"

"Yes!" she said.

"You are mad!" I said.

"Please!" she begged.

"And that," I cried, a few minutes later, "is how a slave may be put through her paces."

"Yes, yes!" she had cried, wide-eyed, gasping, fighting for breath, drenched with sweat, lying before me on her belly, on the stone.

"To be sure," I said, "if you were really being put through your paces, you might expect certain things to be different. Presumably you would be naked and collared. I would be a man.

would have a whip or switch. There might very well be other men present, and so on."

"I understand," she whispered.

"Yet," I said, "perhaps now you have a sense of what might be involved."

"Yes," she whispered, in awe. "Thank you, Janice."

"Do you not now regret your request?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Are you not now outraged and humiliated?" I asked.

"No," she said.

I had then left the cell, locking the door behind me. I looked back, once, at her. She still lay on the floor, in the tiny sliplike garment she had worn. She had lovely legs. She seemed in awe.

The next night she had wanted to know something of the intimate exercises of female slaves.

I did not even know how she, a free woman, had heard of them. I described them to her.

"How helpless you are!" she breathed.

"Yes," I said. "We are helpless."

I had then again left the cell, locking the door behind me. When I looked back at her, she knelt. "I would put on again the veil and the robes of concealment," I said.

"Janice?" she said.

"The guard will be making his rounds," I said. "I do not think it would do to let him see you as you are."

"Why?" she asked.

"It is better, I think," I said, "that he not realize how beautiful you are."

"Why?" she asked.

"He might take you for a slave," I said.

"I see," she smiled.

"Do you not find that thought frightful," I asked.

"No," she said.

"Oh," I said.

"What if he did?" she asked.

"You do not know what it is to be the object of such inordinate, uncontrollable, raging desire," I said.

"You do not realize what it is to be the object of such l.u.s.t and pa.s.sion, such as may be stimulated only by a woman in bondage."

She looked at me, startled. "Men kill for us," I said.

"I see," she whispered, frightened.

"Wars have been fought for us," I said. "I see," she said.

"To be sure," I said, "some men may prefer gold, but even gold is usually valued for its uses, one of which is to buy such as we."

"I understand," she whispered.

"Doubtless the bars would hold," I said.

"You could always stay back from them, so that he could not reach you.

I do not think the pit master would permit him the key."

"But what if he could open the cell?"

"And took you for a slave?"

"Yes."

"Inquire not into such a dreadful possibility," I said.

"Janice!" she protested.

"You would doubtless be treated as what he had taken you to be, a slave," I said.

"What would he do?"

"I do not know," I said. "He might cuff you and throw you to the straw, where you might quickly learn what it is for a man to take his pleasure in you. And that would be but the beginning."

"I would have to serve him?"

"Utterly, lengthily," I said, "and as his least whim might dictate."

"But you are not behind bars," she said, "and you are not, surely, frequently and indiscriminately seized."

"There is a roster for my usage," I said. To be sure, in my view my usage was too closely restricted. It seemed there were two reasons for this, one, to make of me something of a prize for guards, a delight which they were accorded less frequently than they might wish, thus serving as an instrument in their control, and, two, to serve as an instrument in my own control. Needless to say, I did not approve of this second reason.

There was little doubt, however, as to its effectiveness. There are many ways to control a girl. Among them, of course, is that, the control of her gratifications.

"In my city, Besnit," she said, "slave girls are numerous. One sees many of them. One thinks little of it. In most parts of the city they go about in relative safety."

"Doubtless many men in your city own their own," I said, "or have access to them, perhaps in taverns or brothels."

"Yes," she said. "But would it not be so, too, here, in the city above?"

"Yes," I said. I smiled. "There is no dearth of slave girls in this city." That was surely true. I had been startled by their number and beauty. This seemed to me an extremely rich city. It was only to be expected then, I supposed, particularly given the nature of the men on this world, that many of its riches would wear collars. I had been permitted, of course, from time to time, like the others, Out of the pits.

The city above was quite beautiful.

It was like a lovely, lofty jewel set in the mountains.

"It would then be possible to be out of the cell, as a slave, and be in relative safety?"

"I suppose so," I said.

"As safe as a slave can ever be," she said.

"I suppose so," I said, "a.s.suming she is suitably collared, and owned, and such."

"Are you ever permitted to go above?" she asked.

"Sometimes," I said.

"To the city?" she asked.

"Sometimes," I said.