“Would you care to see her?” asked the man near me. He bend down, and his large hands, reaching about me, were on either side of my neck, on the edges of the cloak, near my throat. With a simple movement he might have drawn the cloak down and away, slipping it back and to the sides. I tensed. But the seated man made tiny gesture, a negative gesture. The man behind me removed his hands from the cloak and straightened up.
“She is pretty,” said the other man, encouragingly.
I did not understand why the cloak had been put about me. I did not understand why, now, it had not been removed. Nor, I think, was this clear to those who had been my captors.
I bit my lip, a little. I knew what it was to be looked upon, to be assessed, to be examined, as a female and a slave. But now I was frightened, for I feared my value to this new comer, he who had been announced to me as my master, had little to do with whatever features or properties I might possess as a woman in bondage, with such things as beauty, intelligence, character, personality or talent. There was, I feared, a different interest in me, one which might be far more sinister or insidious, one far less immediately intelligible than those associated with the typical, obvious values of a slave.
“Very pretty!” urged the second man.
I had been taught to present myself well in chains, or ropes. I had been taught to turn well on the slave block.
But it seemed such things were of little interest to the new comer.
Desperately I looked at him, trying to read his eyes. You must understand that we literally belong to the masters, and that they may do with us as they please. I hoped that he would be kind.
“She begged for use,” said the man behind me. “She had to be cuffed.”
I feared I detected contempt in the eyes of the newcomer.
I put down my head.
“She is a hot little slut,” said the second man.
I looked up, angrily. Could I help myself? And had I not been enslaved? And had my needs not been ignited and enflamed by men? Had they not detected and revealed my most profound erotic secrets? Had they not released me from myself? Had they not, indeed, forced me, with whip and chain, to become my true self, the needful, hungering, passionate self of my dreams? They had not permitted me to hide! Why then was I to be criticized? It was they who had put me in the collar!
“We have kept her starved of sex,” said the man behind me, “as you ordered.”
Why would have ordered that?
Our eyes met and I quickly lowered my eyes and head, before that fierce gaze. I looked down, fearfully, docilely, humbly. I was a slave.
The seated man then, suddenly, rose to his feet.
I looked up, frightened.
But he paid me no attention.
He reached within his cloak and drew forth a leather pouch. It seemed heavy. It was apparently filled with coin. He tossed this to the man behind me whom I then understood as being surely he who was first of the two who had captured Aynur and myself. The captor did not even count the coins. That the sack had been given to him by the man in the mask was apparently a sufficient guarantee of the integrity of the transaction. They, I gathered, unlike Aynur and myself, had some sense of he with whom they dealt. They might not know his identity, but they were apparently adequately assured of the validity of his credentials, at least as being those of some contact in question, of his reliability, of his right to conduct certain businesses.
“There were two collars of gold,” said the man behind me.
The newcomer made a tiny gesture, granting them such trivial objects. The collars would doubtless be melted down. Either was doubtless worth more than many slaves, doubtless more than I and perhaps more even than Aynur.
No longer did we wear collars of gold.
No longer were we pleasure-garden girls.
Now, about our necks, as though we might be the least of common girls, were hammered simple rings of iron.
“What of this slave?” asked the second man, indicating Aynur.
Aynur turned wildly toward the newcomer.
He would make no claim upon her.
Aynur, wildly, desperately, in terror, threw herself to his feet.
“Please, Master,” she begged, “keep me!”
But he stepped away from her, and, when she looked up, it was the two captors who stood over her.
“Have mercy, Masters!” she wept.
“You have served your purpose,” said the second man.
“A girl may serve many purposes!” she wept.
“What should we do with her?” asked the second man of the first.
“We could always put her in the slave box, and return her to the porch of the house Appanius,” said the first man, musingly.
“Please, no, Masters!” said Aynur. “My perfidy would be clear to all! I would be nailed to the gate!”
“It might be dangerous to return her to the house,” said the second man.
“That is true,” said the first.
“It would be better,” said the second, “to bind her and gag her, and put her in the slave box, and then cast the slave box into one of the more remote carnariums.”
“We could save the slave box,” said the first, “and, at night, simply weight her and cast her into the carnarium. She would disappear without a trace.”
“Yes,” said the second, thoughtfully. “That is much better.”
“No, no, Masters!” wept Aynur.
“We could then sell the slave box,” said the first.
“Yes,” agreed the second.
“Have mercy, Masters!” cried Aynur.
“You are a treacherous slave,” said the first man.
“No, Master, no!” she cried.
“You are disloyal,” said the second man.
“No, Masters, no, no!” she cried.
“Do you deny the words of free men?” inquired the second man.
“I beg humbly only to correct the misapprehensions of Masters,” she wept. “I was treacherous. I was disloyal. But I am no longer treacherous! I am no longer disloyal! I have learned my lesson. Forgive me, Masters! Give a foolish, disobedient slave the opportunity to redeem herself! I will never again betray a master!”
“What are you?” asked the first man.
“A slave, Master!” said Aynur.
“And what else?” he asked.
“Nothing else, Master,” she said. “Only that, Master!”
“Are you determined now to be a good slave?” inquired the first man.
“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” wept Aynur.
“Perhaps we should then cut her throat before we cast her into the carnarium,” said the first man.
“No, Master! Have mercy, Master!”
“What are you good for?” asked the second man.
“All the things that a slave is good for!” she wept.
“You are cold,” said the second man.
“No,” she said, “I have a thousand heats and a thousand flames!”
“Do you think you could please a man?” asked the first man.
“Desperately and fervently,” she said, “in all the ways that a woman can please a man! I beg only the opportunity to show you!”
“Let us leave her fate in the hands of the other slave,” suggested the second man.
“No, no, no!” cried Aynur, turning white. “No, Master! Please, no, Master!”
“But she was first girl over the other slave,” said the first man.
“So much the better,” said the second man.
“You were, as I understand it,” said the first man to Aynur, who seemed now unable to rise even to her knees, “a poor first girl, one not only unpopular in the garden, but even one richly hated therein, one who ruled it strictly and cruelly, personally, arbitrarily, using your modicum of power as an opportunity to satisfy your vanity, bestowing favors on your sycophants, indulging in petty vendettas, stealing from, and abusing, those whom you disliked. Too, you tried to seek power from guards, and even, through them, to contact, and influence, others, others, even outside the house. Your pettinesses, and administered punishments, often founded on nothing more than your whims and tastes, were notorious in the house.”
Aynur moaned.
“And, in an abuse of your power, you tricked this other slave, and illicitly, treacherously delivered her, for putative gain, into our hands, in this act betraying both your office and your master.”