"You understand what is required?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He turned away.

"Master!" I called to him.

He turned back to face me.

"What you did to me last night!" I cried. "What you made me do! What you made me feel!"

"It is nothing," he said.

"I do not even know Master's name," I said.

"Your name is 'Janice'," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then left.

A few minutes later one of the slave girls entered the room. The other was a little behind her.

They busied themselves, picking up, tidying.

One of them came over and looked down at me. "You are a well-tied little vulo," she said.

I did not respond.

"It stinks in here," said the other, lightly "There must be a pit slave somewhere."

The two girls were not twins, but they were clearly a matched set. They were similar in height, figure, hair and eye color. They also wore matching tunics, brief, of yellow silk. I wondered if they had been sold as a matched set, or if the officer had matched them himself. I envied them their private collars. They were owned then not by the state but, presumably, by the officer himself. I wondered if they served his pleasure together.

Many men, of course, own more than one woman. How they apply them, or mix them, is up to them.

"She is a pierced-ear girl," said the girl standing near me.

"I wish he wouldn't bring them here," said the other. "It lowers the quality of the compartments."

"You are an Earth s.l.u.t, aren't you?" asked the girl near me.

I did not respond.

"Oh!" I cried, in pain, kicked.

"Aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes!" I said.

"Yes, what?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress!" I said.

"Speak when you are spoken to, s.l.u.t," said the girl.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "Forgive me, Mistress."

"Let us give her a switching," said the other girl.

"No, Mistress!" I begged. "Please, no, Mistress!"

"You will be a good little slave, won't you, Earth s.l.u.t?" asked the first girl.

"Yes, Mistress!" I a.s.sured her.

"What do the masters see in such curvaceous little s.l.u.ts?" asked the second girl.

"They are pretty little bundles of slave curves," said the first.

"That is doubtless it," said the second.

"But we are pretty, too!" insisted the first.

"Yes," agreed the second.

I did not think we were really so much different, either. Indeed, we were all rather similarly figured. Their yellow silk certainly did not do much to conceal their own "slave curves." What difference did it make, really, if I was from Earth and they were not? In the end were we not all the same, all women, all slaves?

There was a knock on the door.

"That will be the guard," said the first girl. "Bundle her silk!"

In a few moments I was standing, back-braceleted. A slave sheet was thrown over my head and body.

It fell to my calves. It was held on me by a collar, fastened closely about my neck. To a ring on this collar a leash was attached.

The jewelry I had worn, the bracelets and the bangles, the arm-let and the earrings, had been removed from me. They had been given, together with my silk, to the guard. He placed them in a pouch. These things would be returned to one place, and I to another.

I was then led from the compartments. I had been brought to them silked and veiled. I was taken away covered in a slave sheet. There would be few, thusly, who would be able to connect me with the officer.

SEVENTEEN

"What are you doing?" cried the pit master, with horror.

I turned about, startled, in the cell, that in which the peasant was confined.

"Obeying, Master!" I said, frightened.

"Down on all fours!" he cried.

Swiftly I went to all fours.

The peasant, sitting, cross-legged, by the wall, in his chains, looked at me, dully.

I heard the pit master draw his belt free of his tunic.

I moaned.

Down came the belt with a hiss and I cried out in misery, and went to my stomach, my eyes filled with tears.

I looked up at the peasant. He regarded me, impa.s.sively. I do not even know if he understood what was happening.

Twice more the belt struck me. I wept. I had not known the pit master could be so angry.

"Please, Master!" I wept.

"Who told you to behave in such a fashion?" said the pit master.

"The tall man," I said, "the officer, he whom I served last night!"

"And who gave you permission to appear before this prisoner clad as you are?" he asked.

"It was my understanding that I should so serve!" I said.

Certainly this had been expressed to me, and the pit master, as well, had heard words to this effect in the cell. I could recall that.

"Are you trying to torment this prisoner?" he asked.

"Master?" I asked.

"Beg his forgiveness," he said.

I crawled to the peasant on my stomach, over the stones. I was careful not to come within reach of those mighty hands. I did not think even the pit master would have cared to have come within their compa.s.s. I did not doubt but what the peasant could have torn my head from my shoulders.

"Forgive me, Master," I said, weakly.

I heard the snapping of the pit master's fingers. Quickly I backed away, on my stomach, from the peasant, and then rose up, on my knees, to kneel, head down, before the pit master.

"I have seen you move," said the pit master, his rage seemingly dissipated.

I looked up at him, frightened, and then looked away. It was still hard to look upon those grotesque, ma.s.sive, twisted features, the irregular placement of the eyes, one larger than the other.

"You did not move as you might have, before him," he said.

"No," I admitted.

"It is one thing," said the pit master, "to appear bare-breasted, in a string and slave strip, before guards, before soldiers, before free men, serving their feasts, crawling at their feet, licking their thighs, dancing before them, and quite another before a prisoner. The free men may seize you upon a caprice and fling you down for their pleasure.

They have whips. They may lash you to the furs. You may hope they will be kind enough to merely put you to their lengthy pleasures. It is not the same with a chained prisoner."

I hung my head.

"Yet," he said, "I know you. You did not move as you might have."

I was silent.

"Why?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"I think you are not one of those petty, insolent s.l.u.ts," said he, "who must have her wrists tied over her head and be whipped."

"Master?" I asked.

"You were told to torment him, weren't you?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Did you do so?"

"Of course, Master!" I said.

"I know you, Earth s.l.u.t," he said. "You could make a rock scream with need, but you did not do so."

"Forgive me, Master!" I said.

"You were reluctant, you were hesitant."

"Forgive me," I said.

"Were you afraid of him?"

"Yes," I said. "I am afraid of him."

"He is chained," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"He cannot hurt you," he said.

"No, Master," I said.

"You might then have tormented him with impunity," he said.