“Certainly,” I said.
“He read your collar first!” she said.
“Certainly,” I said. “I was the leash holder. But I think it is clear that his interest was in you, not in me. Indeed, I suspect he read my collar to learn more of you, for example, you would be the slave Tuta who was in the keeping of the state slave, Janice, and so on.”
“Oh!” she said, excitedly. “But did you not see,” she then said, angrily, “how he forced me to hold my lips, pursed, simply by his will, and I must keep my eyes closed, and wait, and wait, and then how ht took me in his arms and kissed me, and how he kissed me!”
“Slaves may be kissed in such a fashion,” I told her. Certainly her lips, although those of a free woman, had been as lengthily and patiently raped as those of a common slave in a master’s possessive greed for her.
I doubted that free women were ever so kissed, unless perhaps they were but moments from the collar, such a kiss serving them as a token of the bondage that awaited them.
“I hate him,” she said. “The beast, the arrogant brute, I hate him!”
“You hate him?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
“If you were actually a slave,” I said, “it would not matter whether or not you hated him, or he you. You would serve with perfection in any case, as the slave you would then be.”
“I supposed so,” she said.
“Definitely,” I said. “And if he was not pleased he would doubtless use the whip on you, and well.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Such men do not let women make fools of them.”
“Janice,” she said.
“Yes?” I said.
“Why did you ask me so silly a question, as to whether or not I might like him?”
“It was just a thought,” I said.
“An absurd thought!” she said.
“Of course,” I said.
“But why did you ask?”
“Just little things,” I said.
“Such as?” she asked, testily.
“The way you spread your knees before him,” I said.
“I did not!” she cried.
“Oh, yes, you did,” I said. “It is one thing for me to kneel before a man thusly, for I am a pleasure slave. I may be punished if I do not do so. We are trained to kneel thus, brazenly and joyfully before men. But you needed not do so.”
“I did not!” she said.
“Yes, you did,” I said. “And as time went on, and particularly when he looked upon you, you spread them even more.”
“Truly?’ she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She put the tips of the fingers of her ring hand before her mouth.
“But such things,” I said, “might occur inadvertently, or without one’s being aware of them, or without really paying them much attention, or one might forget about them promptly afterwards, as things that could not have happened.”
She pressed her finger tips against her lips, as though fearing that she might speak.
“Did you know what you were doing?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said.
“Perhaps you were frightened?” I suggested.
“Yes,” she said. “I was frightened.”
“Such behaviors in a female can be consequent upon trepidation,” I said.
“Undoubtedly,” she said.
“Rather like the prone slave’s timid lifting of her derriere, facing away from the master, at his feet, hoping thereby to distract him, perhaps from punitive intentions, with thoughts of pleasure.
“Oh!” she said.
“To divert wrath, to placate him, such things,” I said.
“Undoubtedly,” she whispered.
“But often such behaviors, the spreading of knees, and such, and merely a way of presenting oneself, of offering oneself, of inviting attention, of begging for it.”
“But I am a free woman!” she said.
“Even so, you are a female,” I said.
“I have never thought of myself so radically,” she said.
“Perhaps you should, sometime,” I said.
“There is a saying,” she said. “It is that there are two sorts of female slaves, those who are collared, and those who are not yet collared.”
“An interesting saying,” I said.
“Do you think it is true?’ she asked.
“I would not know,” I said.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It is true for me,” I said. “I have always been a female slave, but it was not until I was brought ot this world that I was collared.”
“It is so easy for you,” she said. “You know what you are.”
“I must go now,” I said.
“Ask the pit master if we may go again to the surface!” she begged.
“I will,” I said.
“Janice!”
“Yes?”
“Surely my disguise as a slave might be more effective,” she said, lightly, “if you were to instruct me, somewhat, in how a slave behaves, in the sort of things she is expected to know, and such.”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said. Certainly I might improve her deference procedures and her way of kneeling.
“Teach me the seven kisses.”
I regarded her, startled.
“You are a free woman,” I said.
“Please!” she begged.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“And teach me to use my lips!” she said.
“There are many ways to use the lips,” I said. “But you must understand, too, that there are many ways to use the hands, the feet, the hair, and so on, indeed, in a sense, the slave is taught, in many ways, to use her entire body.”
“Teach me!” she begged.
“I do not think the pit master would approve,” I said. “Surely you would not wish me to ask him?”
“Of course not,” she said, horrified.
“I did not think so,” I said.
“It could be our secret,” she said.
“It is better that you remain ignorant of these things,” I said. “You are a free woman.”
“Please, Janice,” she said.
“It is knowledge more appropriate to slaves,” I said.
“Please, please,” she begged.
“I will think about it,” I said.
“And surely,” she said, “I ought to quaff slave wine!”
“It is terrible stuff,” I said.
“But it might be dangerous on the surface,” she said. “There might be ruffians.”
“I think,” I said,” rather, I will have you locked in an iron belt, the heaviest and most uncomfortable that may be procured.”
“No,” she said, “slave wine, slave wine!”
“You may be right,” I said. “It would not do at all if some fellow on the surface, taking you for a mere slave, and insensitive to the civilities involved, should simply throw you to the stones and put you to his pleasure.”
“Janice,” she said.
“Yes?” I said.
“I knew what I was doing,” she said.
“I thought so,” I said.
“I know what I am,” she whispered.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Hurry, veil yourself,” I said. “I hear the approach of the guard!”
15
“It is for this reason that you have been brought here,” said the pit master.
I had followed him, to the lowest passages in the pits, and to what surely must have been one of the dankest corridors in that dismal place. There was damp straw on the floor of the corridor. Sometimes an urt, a small rodent, not like the large urts in the pool, scurried past. Water, here and there, dripped from the ceiling of the corridor. I could stand upright in the corridor, but most of the men of this world, I conjectured, could not have done so. The head of the pit master, for all his bulk, he like a bent-over bear, was lower even than my own. In such a place, in such a corridor, I think he, with his terrible strength, and almost like a four-footed animal, would have proved a terrible foe to almost any man, even those of this world. In this place there was a smell of dampness and stench. I was afraid to have come here. The pit master carried a tiny lamp. It cast long, strange shadows about. Fina, who usually accompanied him in the pits, had been left in our quarters, chained to her ring.
The pit master handed me the tiny lamp, with five keys taken from his belt, undid the five locks on the iron door. He swung the door open and took back the lamp.