"Do not do so," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, gratefully.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Well," I had said, "Master."

"Good," he had said.

"Master," I said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No," he said.

"I am sure Fina would be happy to please you," I said.

"And you?" he asked.

"I, too," I said.

"You need not look upon my face," he said.

"No, Master," I said. "Thank you, Master."

"Go to your kennel, and close the gate," he said, kindly.

I kissed the ma.s.sive, swollen cheek of the pit master. I did this very gently. Then I stripped and went to the kennel, for we are to be nude within them.

I wrapped the blanket about me, and, from the inside, drew shut the gate.

It locked automatically.

I watched him sit there on the bench by the table, his head in his hands.

Then, after a time, I fell asleep.

TWENTY THREE

"It is precisely here that you will stay!" laughed the Lady Constanzia.

"Yes, Mistress," I said, irritably.

I knelt by the same slave ring to which I had often fastened her.

My head, by the neck, was pulled back close to the ring. The leash was wound about the ring in such a way as to hold me tightly back against it.

"That will do for the moment!" said the Lady Constanzia.

I could not pull away from the ring.

"She is pretty, isn't she?" said the Lady Constanzia, turning to the fellow with her, the stranger in the city, he who had come again and again to visit her, at this very ring.

"Quite," said he, approvingly.

I was dressed precisely as she had been in our first outings, in the rags I had selected for her, those which I had specially selected, in my slave girl's vengeance on a free woman, to display her as a low slave. I had wished her to burn with shame and humiliation in them but she had loved them. Now it was I who wore them! I, though I was an actual slave, doubtless because I recollected my own intent, felt the very shame and humiliation which I had intended for her, but which she, infuriatingly, had simply refused to feel. I do not think I would have thought much about the garmenture if it had not been for the significance involved, from my point of view, at least. But, you see, there was a principle of sorts involved here. That was what was maddening about the whole thing. It was not so much the fact that I was muchly exposed, for I have worn slave strips, and less, and slaves grow used to such things, and may even revel in them brazenly, as the fact that I was now revealingly clad in the very way I had once intended for her to be revealingly clad. "Is that too tight?" she had asked, as I had knelt, backbraceleted, in the depths.

"Yes!" I had said. She had then made it tighter. Then she said, "Suck in your belly." She knotted the rag about my waist. "How is that?" she asked. "Too tight," I said.

"Oh!" I said. She had jerked the knot yet more tight. She had then leaped up and clapped her hands, admiring her handiwork. "You are pretty, Janice!" she said. She bent down, and kissed me. Then she leashed me. "Come along," she said, eagerly. "We must go above."

I now looked up at her, irritably, I kneeling at the ring, my head back against the metal.

It is not comfortable, having one's head back in that fashion.

A great change had come over the Lady Constanzia, as you may have gathered, in the last few days.

The current reversal of our typical situation had come about in two ways. First, the pit master had been well aware, it seems, and far more so than I had realized, of my little games with the Lady Constanzia, the frequent imposition of my slave girl's vengeances upon her, a free woman. Indeed, he seemed far more aware of such things than the Lady Constanzia herself, or, at least, rather more inclined to object to them, for in her case it seemed that the more she was treated as a slave, the better she liked it. But was she not a free woman? Was she not, thus, ent.i.tled to more respect than I had accorded her? And had I not been, in my way, an insolent slave girl? In any event, this morning, he had decided that it was I who would be leashed, and garbed precisely as I had, earlier, chosen to garb her.

Second, it had to do with the change which had been taking place in the Lady Constanzia over the past few days. I had, on the whole, refused to recognize that change, but it had been clear enough to the pit master. We had become, it seemed, less a free woman and a slave, as I viewed us, than two slaves.

And, if that was so, why should it be I who would be always permitted to act as her arrogant superior, when there was, in effect, little, if anything, to choose between us.

Did my insolence not need a corrective? Might I not profit from a lesson? Very well. Today, it would be I who would wear the leash. As you can see, the matter was quite paradoxical. On the one hand, as the Lady Constanzia was at least technically a free woman, might I not be reprimanded for having subjected her to certain indignities, my little slave girl's vengeances on a free woman? And, on the other hand, paradoxically, as she was now little other than a slave, might not I, a mere slave, be reprimanded for having treated her in such a way as to suggest that she might be less than I? In any event, today, it would be I who would be leashed.

"But she may escape, Master!" I had said.

"Do you think there is an escape for you?" he had asked.

"For me, Master?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"No, Master," I said.

"Why is there no escape for you?" he asked.

"Because I am a slave girl, Master," I said.

"Lady Constanzia," he said.

"Yes?" she said.

"You wear a single garment, a slave tunic, and are collared," he said.

"Do you think there is an escape for you?"

"No," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because," she said, "I am as a slave girl."

"Today," he had said, "it is you who will hold the leash."

"As you wish," she had said, puzzled, startled, "-Master."

Oh, yes, I think there was a lesson involved, but I think, too, that the pit master had thought the whole thing rather amusing. It was not that he did not like me.

Indeed, I think he was quite fond of me. It was, rather, I think, that he had been somewhat irritated with, or, at least, had entertained certain reservations with respect to, my treatment of the Lady Constanzia and, indeed, of the "slave," Tuta. His punishment of me then, it seems, would be this little joke. Had I been a bit arrogant, a hit vain? Then let me be reminded that anything could be done to me, and that I was only a slave. Does a slave require to be humbled? Men such as those on this world are skilled in doing so. Quickly they bring us to our knees.

Quickly they remind us of our collars.

"Now," said the Lady Constanzia, regarding me, "let us do what we discussed."

The fellow with her drew forth from his pouch a lock gag. I had worn one only once, in training.

I pressed my head back, against the stone of the wall. I could not pull away from the slave ring, as I was leashed closely to it.

I made a tiny noise of protest as the leather pad, a part of the device, was thrust in my mouth. In a moment, with small adjustments, the entire device, of leather and metal, was fitted to me. It was then locked shut. I looked up at them, reproachfully.

The curved metal bars, well back between the teeth, where they cannot be slipped, holding the wadding in place, close behind the back of the neck. To these same bars, in front, is attached the binding. This binding is of thick, supple leather; it fits snugly, closely, to the contours of a girl's face and mouth; it had been drawn back, tight, on me; that is the way such things are worn; on the outside it is covered with hinged metal plates.

It also, like the curving bars, goes behind the back of the neck. The whole then, the wadding bar, anch.o.r.ed deeply behind the teeth, holding the wadding in place, and the binding, with its protective plates, is secured with a single-thrust lock. That had now been done.

I looked up at them.

How pleased was the Lady Constanzia!

The heavy wadding, or packing, was in my mouth, attached to the bar between my teeth.

The binding was fastened tightly about my face; I could hardly move my lips within it; I tried to speak but could not, of course, even begin to do so.

They seemed amused.

I knelt there; I was well silenced; I was quite helpless.

I was in lock gag.

One of the advantages of the lock gag is that the girl cannot remove it, any more than a collar. She may thus serve in it with her hands free. To be sure, if the girl is disciplined, such a device is not necessary. An ordinary gag, which she is forbidden to touch, will suffice. Indeed, she may be simply "gagged by the master's will," and thus be forbidden to speak, even to beg permission to speak. There are various utilities of lock gags, which we need not note. One might observe, however, that they are occasionally useful with free female captives or even hysterical slaves. One utility which should be noted, particularly as I suspect that it may have been of interest to the Lady Constanzia and the fellow with her, is that, as the gag, with its plates and such, cannot be removed without a key or tool, it cannot be, say, conveniently undone, or cut away, by anyone who might wish to make inquiries of the captive or slave. A free man, thus, could not easily inquire of me, until the gag had been undone, the whereabouts of, say, a pretty slave and a fellow not of the city, a stranger, one clad in scarlet.

The Lady Constanzia, now that I was gagged, loosened the leash at the ring, so that my head was no longer bound back tightly to the ring. I might now sit at the ring, or kneel near it, or even lie beneath it.

"Do not go away, Janice," she said. "I love you!" She then kissed me and arose, and beamed down on me, she with her hand on the arm of the scarlet-clad fellow.

"We are going to have a wonderful day in the city!" she said. "We are going to go everywhere!

We are going to see everything! We are going to eat! I will bring you back something, if he permits me."

I looked up at them.

"It would be nice if you could come along," she said, "only that that would not really be nice. I want to be alone with him. We would rather be together, alone. You understand."

She then kissed her finger tips and touched the side of my face.

"You will stay here now, and wait for us, won't you, Janice?" she said.

I looked up at her.

Then I shrank back, for I saw a sudden sternness in the eyes of the male.

Swiftly I whimpered once, in affirmation. I knew the signals. Had my response been quick enough? I saw him draw back his hand.

"No, do not strike her!" cried the Lady Constanzia. "She is my friend!"

He then, angrily, took the Lady Constanzia by the hair and bent her backwards, exhibiting the bow of her beauty. She winced, crying out with pain. "Master will do, of course, as he pleases!" she cried.

"Forgive me, Master! But I beg you not to hurt her, for she is my friend." He released her hair and she knelt before him and seized his leg, looking up at him. "Please do not hurt her," she begged.

He looked at me. "Do you beg forgiveness?" he asked.

Quickly I whimpered once, and put my head down to the stones.

"And you," he asked, addressing himself to the Lady Constanzia, "do you beg forgiveness?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

When I looked up, I saw her kissing his feet. This startled me, as it was the first time I had seen the Lady Constanzia at a man's feet thusly. How fervently, how humbly, how submissively, she kissed his feet! Did she think he was her Master? Did she not recollect that she was a free woman? How like a slave she looked at his feet, how like a beautiful, submissive slave!

"You are both forgiven," he said.

"Thank you, Master!" breathed the Lady Constanzia. He then turned about.

She leaped to her feet, to run beside him.

"Do you not know how to heel a man?" he asked.

Instantly she knelt.

"You need whip-training," he said.