"Strikingly so," I said. "You would be stunning in one."

"Oh?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "But, too, you must recognize its effect on men, for it says to them that you are such as belong to them, that you are lovely and helpless, that you are kajira, that you exist for their service and pleasure."

"Perhaps it has, too, its effect on the woman," she speculated.

"Yes, it does," I said, "clearly." But I thought it unnecessary, and perhaps improper, to elaborate on this, as she was a free woman.

"Such things are, of course, of no interest to me," she said.

"Of course not," I said. As she was a free woman, she could lie with impunity. I myself, if caught in a lie, could be switched mercilessly.

"Please, dear Janice," she said, earnestly. "Please convey my pet.i.tion to the pit master!"

I regarded her. I did not really wish to risk the wrath of the pit master.

"I want to see the sun!" she wept.

Could there be more to it than that? "I am not sure of this," I said.

"Please, Janice!" she wept.

"I will ask him," I said.

That night I had knelt before the pit master. "Master," I had asked, "may I speak?"

"Yes," he had said.

I conveyed to him the pet.i.tion of the Lady Constanzia. I feared I might be cuffed.

"She wants to see the sun," I said.

"Undoubtedly," he said, "but she also wishes to have her body bared and to have it looked upon, it adorned in the rags of a slave."

"Master!" I cried, scandalized.

"Is it not what all women want?" he asked.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"Is it not what you want?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said, boldly. Then I added, in a whisper, "But I am a slave."

"And so, too, are all women," he said.

I put my head down, trembling. I did not know if what he had said were true or not.

Certainly some of the women who had been in my training group had denied it vehemently, particularly in the first day or two. But sometimes, at night, I heard them crying Out with grat.i.tude to masters in their sleep. Too, they had soon trained excellently. A little later I had often heard them conversing among themselves eagerly, looking forward to their sales, discussing what they hoped for in the way of masters.

"Master," I had asked, "may I again speak?"

"Yes," he had said.

"I do not know the reason for which I was brought here."

"You have not yet been informed," he said.

"Was I brought here to take care of the free woman, Lady Constanzia?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"For what, then?" I asked.

"You will learn, in time," he said.

"Master!" I begged.

"Curiosity," he said, "is not becoming in a kajira."

"Yes, Master," I whispered. "Forgive me, Master!"

Two days later, for the first time, I had knotted the rag about the hips of the Lady Constanzia and, as she had straightened her body, had cinched the halter on her.

"Oh!" she had said.

She was kneeling.

"Must it be so tight?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"To better display you," I said.

"I see," she said.

"Certainly you do not object?"

"No."

"When you walk, or move, try to do so with some care," I said.

"I will," she said.

The rag about her hips had, in its authenticity, no nether closure.

The female slave is commonly denied even a minimum of shielding for her delicious intimacies. She is to be vulnerable, and instantly available, with a minimum of inconvenience, to the attentions of the master.

"I am frightened," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I fear I do not even know how to walk," she said.

"Of course you know how to walk," I said.

"-as a slave," she said.

"It is just a matter of walking freely, and well, beautifully, attractively gracefully, with ease and loveliness, showing your joy in your bondage and womanhood, with vulnerable femininity."

"I am afraid," she said.

"You will have no difficulty," I said.

"It is so different," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"In the robes of concealment, we must walk sedately, with carefully measured tread, with dignity."

How else could one walk in such impediments, I wondered, so ornate and heavy, so confining and c.u.mbersome? One is, of course, free.

How different were such garments from the usual scanty lightness of the slave's garmenture, usually a brief, revealing garmenture permitting her the luxurious freedom of her limbs, a garmenture in which she finds herself permitted a joyous and uninhibited freedom of movement. To be sure, she is in her collar.

"Do you think, truly," she asked, apprehensively, "that we can be successful in this?"

"Yes," I said.

"Do you think that anyone might take me, truly, for a slave?" she asked.

"Without the least difficulty," I said.

"I see," she said.

"Your movements, of course," I said, "as you have not been trained, and have not felt the whip, and such, will not have the grace and beauty of a more experienced girl, one who has been fully taught her collar." I recalled that my own posture, slovenly from Earth, had been corrected in the pens with the stroke of a switch. Men like their slaves to be beautiful before them. "But," I said, "I do not think that will matter. We will pa.s.s you off as a new slave. That will be all right. You will be seen, however, as fetchingly exciting, and doubtless men will see you in terms more of your potential, than your present, will see you in terms of what they can do with you and make of you."

"What they can do with me, and make of me?"

"Yes," I said.

"I see," she said.

I had then showed her the collar which had been kindly provided by the pit master. "The name on it, I am told," I said, "is 'Tuta'."

"You cannot read?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She took the collar and looked at it. "Yes," she said. "It says 'Tuta'."

"I am sorry it is such a name," I said. "I had hoped for something more aristocratic, more prestigious."

"It is fine," she said.

"I am told," I said, "that it is a common slave name."

"Yes," she said. "I have heard it many times. It is commonly worn by low girls."

"I am sorry," I said.

"Rather sensual s.l.u.ts," she said.

"I am sorry," I said.

"The name reeks of s.e.x and slavery," she said.

"Forgive me," I said.

"Like 'Fina' and 'Janice'," she said. I put down my head.

"It was the choice of the pit master," I said.

"He is perceptive, and has excellent taste," she said. I looked at her, startled.

"I love it," she said. "It is just right for me. it will do wonderfully well."

"Once you put on the collar," I said, "you will, for the purposes of our disguise, no longer be the Lady Constanzia, but only Tuta."

She put the collar about her neck, with the lock in front, and closed it. There was a small, solid click.

Then, carefully, as it was a close-fitting collar, like most such collars, she turned it on her neck, so that the lock was at the back. This is the common way in which such collars are worn. She then smiled at me.

"Now I am Tuta," she said.

"Yes," I said, "you are now Tuta."

"Is Tuta pretty?" she asked, timidly.

"Tuta is beautiful," I said.

She suffused with pleasure, basking in my commendation. She put down her head, blushing, her face and exposed limbs red with delight. "Thank you," she whispered.

I stood up.

I looked down upon her.