He looked at her, not speaking.

"Deirdre," she whimpered.

"In the instant you were imbonded, you ceased to be Girl,' be said.

"Girl?" she said.

"what is your house name?" be asked.

"Oh, no," she said. "Not you! Not you, of all people! You not see me as a slave! You could not see me as a slave! I you. That would be impossible! You could not relate to as though I might be a slave! You could not! One such as would never enforce my slavery upon me! One such as you could never do so!" Then she looked up at him, her lower lip trembling. "'Renata' is my house name," she said. He then removed the belt from his tunic. The accouterments on it he handed to Drusus Rencius.

"You lifted your head from the tile position before free persons had passed you, Renata," he said. "You also addressed a free man twice by his name. Similarly your speech has been inadequately deferential. It has not been interspersed at appropriate points, for example, by the expression "Master.' You have also referred to yourself as though you might still be ~Deirdre.' Such falsifications of identity are not permitted to slaves. Deirdre is gone. In her place there is now only a slave, an animal, who must wear whatever name masters choose to put on her. Similarly, when asked a question, that pertaining to your house name, you did not respond with sufficient promptness. Do you understand all that I am saying, fully and clearly, Renata?"

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Yes, Master!" she said.

"On all fours, Renata," he said.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed, assuming this position.

"Perhaps you should precede us a few paces down the hall," said Drusus Rencius to me.

I moved, frightened, a few feet down the hall, not looking. Then, suddenly, I heard the belt beginning to fall, sharply, on the girl. I turned in time to see her on her side, in her chains, receiving the last few blows. She had not been pleasing. She was a slave. Of course she was being punished.

Then Hermidorus, without further ado, took back his accouterments from Drusus and slipped them on his belt. He then fastened the belt again about his waist. I was startled that one such as he, seemingly so scholarly and gentle, possessed such uncompromising strength. The female had learned, to her sorrow, that in his presence she would not be permitted the least slackness in her discipline. "I am sorry for the interruption," Hermidorus apologized to Drusus Rencius. "That is perfectly all right," said Drusus.

The girl lay on her stomach, in her chains, in the water on the tiles. She lifted her head, gazing in pain, disbelief and awe at Hermidorus. She was a slave who had not been pleasing. She had been put under his belt.

We then continued down the hallway.

"Master," she called out, "I want to lay for you! I want to lay for you! Please have me sent to your rooms! I want to lay for you!"

Hermidorus did not look back.

I looked back. I saw in the girl's eyes that she now knew she was a slave, and helplessly so, and that she loved him.

We continued on our way.

I wondered if he would have her sent to his rooms. The decision' was his. She was a slave.

"As the house opens to the public at the tenth Ahn," said Hermidorus, "perhaps I should now take you to the office of Publius, who wished to greet. you before you left the premises." The tenth Ahn is the Gorean noon.

"Splendid," said Drusus Rencius.

We were then making our way upward from some of the lower pen areas.

I had not realized the complexities of a slaver's house, and this house was not an unusually large one. We had seen the baths and the sales yard, which is also used for exercise; we had seen various holding areas, ranging from silken, barred alcoves for superb pleasure slaves, through cells and cages of various sorts more fit for medium-priced women, to incarceration chambers that were little more than grated pits or gloomy dungeons, areas in which a slave might be terrorized to find herself placed; other holding areas, ranging from good to bad, were no more than a ring position, in a wall or on a floor; we also saw kitchens, pantries, eating areas, some with mere troughs or depressions in the floor, storage areas, guard rooms, offices, and places for the keeping of records; there were also a laundry and an infirmary; too, there were rooms where such subjects as the care and dressing of hair, the application of cosmetics, the selection and use of perfumes, manicure and pedicure, and slave costuming were taught, and even rooms where inept women, usually former members of the upper castes, could be instructed in the small domestic tasks that would now be expected of them, small services suitable for slaves, such as cleaning, cooking and sewing. Certain areas of the house, however, I was not shown, presumably because I was a free woman, such as the lowest pens, the branding chamber, the discipline room, and the rooms where girls were taught to kiss and caress, and the movements of love.

"I will be good! I will be good!" I heard a girl cry, from within a low, steel, rectangular box, shoved against the side of the passage, presumably that it would not be in the way. I stopped, startled. It had not occurred to me that a girl could be held within those small confines. Indeed, in the half-darkness of the lamp lit passage I had hardly noticed the box It was about four feet long and three feet wide, with a depth of perhaps eighteen inches. It was of steel and opened from the top. In the lid, at each end, there was a circle, about five inches in diameter, of penny-sized holes. It was locked shut, secured by two flat, steel bars, perpendicular to its long axis, padlocked, in front, in place. "I will be good!" wept the girl, from within.

"It is a slave box," said Hermidorus.

"I beg to be pleasing, Masters!" cried the girl, from within.

"Surely she must be a very tiny woman," I said, horrified, to Drusus Rencius. "She is the former Lady Tais of Farnacium," said Hermidorus. "Her house name is Didi. She is, as I recall, a normal-sized slave."

"The box is so small," I said.

"It is supposed to be small," said Drusus Rencius.

"But consider the cramping, the tightness, the girl's helplessness," I said. "Those are among its purposes," he said.

"But it is so small!" I protested.

"It is not really so small," he said.

I looked at him.

"It would be, for example," he said, "more than large enough for you." "I will obey lovingly and with total perfection, Masters," averred the woman from within the box. "I beg only to be permitted to be fully and totally pleasing to my Masters!"

"Come along," said Hermidorus.

We then, once again, followed him.

"I beg to be pleasing!" cried the woman from within the box. "I beg to be permitted to be totally pleasing!"

"She is almost ready to leave the box," said Hermidorus "Let me see the license on her," said Publius. "I see," he smiled, surveying the scrap of paper given to him by Drusus Renelus, "the' Lady Lita." He looked at me. "A pretty' name," he said.

I thought so, too.

He smiled at me, as though amused by the name. I did not understand this. "It is not her true name, of course," said Publius to Drusus Rencius. "Of course not," said Drusus Rencius.

"Doubtless, in the circles in which you travel, Lady Lita," said Publius to me, "it would not do for your friends to know how you were brought half naked and braceleted into a slaver's house."

I looked away from him. I did not deign to respond to such a remark.

"It would be quite a scandal doubtless," he said, "and make a quite good story in the telling."

I looked away, loftily, still braceleted.

"Here, Lady Lita," he said, "let us stand you in the light, where we can get a better look at you." He conducted me to a pool of light, at the foot of a shaft of light, falling from a high, barred window.