"Then you did understand much of these things," I said, "even when you were a free woman."
"No," she said, "I understood nothing, nothing!"
"Oh," I said.
"Aiii!" she wept, rearing up. "Nothing! Nothing! Oh, my my master, thank you, thank you! Be kind! Be kind to your slave, she begs you!"
I was silent.
"How helpless I am!" she said.
The chain moved a little again, on the floor. I glanced to her ankle. The ankle ring looked well there. She reached up, to put her arms more about me. She was stripped, save for her collar and the ankle ring.
"I desire to be found acceptable, Master," she whispered.
"You are acceptable," I assured her.
"Her skin is blotchy," said Phoebe.
"Steady," I whispered to the slave.
"Master?" she asked.
I put her arms gently away from me. I moved my right hand. "Oh!" she said. I felt the pressure of her left thigh against my hand. I moved my hand again. "Oh," she said softly. The chain moved on the floor. I moistened my tongue. I lowered my lips to her lower belly.
"Oh, Master," she whispered.
"Steady," I said.
She moaned, given no choice but to submit to the pleasure I chose to inflict upon her.
"Steady," I cautioned her.
"You know I shall not be able to resist you," she said.
"You will be whipped, if you even try," I said.
"Yes, Master!" she said, in joy. I felt her small fingers, clutching in my hair. "Oh, Master!" she suddenly wept. And then she began to twist and moan, and try to remain still, and thrust against me, and to hold my head where it was not letting it go and her fingers were tight in my hair and this hurt but I did not beat her but relished her so moaning and then bucking and trying to remain still and thrusting against me and how needful and helpless she was and so much in my power and so responsive and how such helpless movements and cries could be elicited by such tiny, persistent, patient, delicate attentions and she cried out begging me and I took her hands from my hair and looked down into her wild pleading eyes.
"What is it you wish?" I asked.
"I juice, my master! I gape, my master!" she said.
"Do you wish to serve?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Yes!"
"Do you beg to serve?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I beg to serve." She lifter her belly, piteously. I looked down upon her.
"Please, Master," she said.
I was silent.
"I am only slave," she said. "You have done this to me! I am only a girl in a collar. I am helpless. I belong to you! I am yours to do with as you wish! I will do anything for you! I beg you to have pity on me!"
"I have tested your responses, slave," I said.
"Oh, Master!" she wept, in misery.
"I have found them satisfactory," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"Once triggered," I said, "they were involuntary, reflexive, beyond your control."
"Yes, Master," she wept.
"Such responses will much improve your value," I said.
"I am pleased, Master," she wept.
"And they appear still beyond your control," I said. I regarded her.
"They are, Master!" she said, tears in her eyes. Her body moved. She squirmed. Even to look upon her seemed to make her move. She was aroused, clearly, simply finding herself under the eyes of the master."
"But surely," she said, "you have not addressed these attentions to me merely to assess the nature and specificity of my slave responses?"
"No," I admitted.
"Let me serve! Let me serve!" she begged.
I regarded her.
"I beg to serve, Master!" she said.
I entered her.
"My Master!" she said.
I then informed her, in a modality of the mastery, of my ownership of her. "I yield me yours, your slave!" she cried.
Then I held her quietly, her body trembling in my arms. "Ecstasy, ecstasy," she breathed.
"You see," I said, "there are feelings involved."
"It was unbelievable," she said.
"You are learning to feel," I said.
She looked at me, startled.
"It is true," I said. "You are still a new slave."
"Then I think I must just die," she said.
"Slaves have survived such things, and more," I said.
She laughed softly, and pressed against me.
"There have been slaves for thousands of years," I said.
"And there is another now," she said.
"Yes," I said. There was no doubt about that.
"I have never been so happy in my life," she said.
"Your feelings do not matter," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
"They are those only of a slave."
"Yes, Master," she said.
She then lay quietly beside me, her head on my chest.
"But if free women could understand these things," she said, "they would all put themselves to the feet of me and beg their collars."
"But they cannot understand them," I said. "They are not slaves."
"I assure you that I had some understanding of this sort of thing when I was a free woman," she said.
"Anything like the understanding you have now?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "Nothing like my understanding now!"
"That is my point," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"The experience is a totalistic one, which occurs in an entire context," I said. "It is thus that a woman does not fully understand what it is to be a slave until she becomes a slave. Once she is owned, of course, and subject to the whip, she will learn her condition. Kneeling before her master, she will soon apprehended something of its joys, duties and terrors."
"It is true, Master," she said.
"Kneel," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I lay on one elbow, regarding her.
"It is my hope that I have pleased my master," she said.
"You have pleased me," I said.
"Then the slave, too, is pleased," she whispered.
"She is very pretty," said Marcus.
"Her skin is still blotchy," said Phoebe.
"It is much better now," I said. We had purchased soothing, healing lotions. "And her hair is much too short," said Phoebe.
"That is true," I said.
The slave kept her head down.
"But I suppose she is pretty enough," said Phoebe, "for a cheap girl."
"Thank you, Mistress," said the slave.
"What did you cost?" asked Phoebe.
"Oh, come now," said Marcus, irritatedly. Phoebe knew very well, of course, what I had paid for her. Indeed, she had not rested from the moment we had brought her in, braceleted and on a leash, until she had learned, and to her immense satisfaction, how little it had been.
"Five copper tarsks, Mistress," said the girl.
"I myself," said Phoebe, "sold for a hundred pieces of gold."
"That was under very special circumstances," I said.
"But that is what was paid!" she said.
"True," I said.
Much of the weightiness of this was lost on the new slave, of course, for she had very little notion of the prices of women. As she had come into the keeping of Appanius in virtue of the couching laws, she had had only one sale, that to me for a few copper tarsks. She would, of course, recognize that a hundred pieces of gold was an incredible amount of money. In a sense a woman is worth as much or as little as someone is willing to pay for her. In typical markets, if it is helpful for purposes of comparison, an excellent woman, suitable, say, for the paga taverns, would sell for between one and three silver tarsks. In such a market I thought that Phoebe would probably go for something like two or two and half silver tarsks, and that the other girl, if her hair was grown out and her skin healed, for something like two silver tarsks.