She nodded her head, vigorously.

"i wonder if I should give you permission to use human speech," I mused. "Perhaps, rather, I should feed, train and use you as a mere curvaceous brute, not bothering to complicate our relationship by according you human speech."

She made piteous noises.

"It has been a long time since you were permitted to speak, hasn't it?" I said.

She nodded.

"Do you wish to be permitted to speak?" I asked.

She nodded, anxiously.

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

She nodded, desperately.

"Very well," I said. "You may speak." I usually permitted my slaves to speak. Sometimes, however, when it pleased me, I had them serve me mutely, as only delicious beasts. Only one or two slaves had I never permitted to speak in my presence, and those I had, later, sold off.

"That is good," she said, "to be able to speak!"

"You may thank me," I informed her.

"I do not wish to do so," she said.

"The permission accorded," I said, "may as readily be withdrawn."

"Thank you," she said. It pleased me to obtain this small amount of courtesy, this conciliatory token, from this woman.

"Thank you-what?" I asked.

"You are a slave!" she said. "You wear a collar!"

"Thank you-what?" I asked.

She was silent.

"Are you familiar with the quirt?" I asked.

"Thank you, Master," she said, quickly. "Yes, Master!"

"I see you have felt it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you know what you are doing here?" I asked.

"You are going to use me," she said, "one or more times. Then you will return me to the herd. I am ready. Let us get on with it."

I regarded her.

"I do not wish to be quirted," she said.

"Why a moment ago, did you withdraw from my touch?" I asked.

"I found it irritating," she said. I saw her body, as she said this, tighten, and draw back. It was very different from the normal body of a slave, which seems so warm and soft, so vital and alive, so eager to be touched, caressed and held. I saw that she was a rigid, unhappy woman.

"You are not branded," I said.

"No," she said.

"Are you from the Waniyanpi compound?" I asked. Teh Waniyanpi, slaves of red savages, lived in tiny, isolated agricultral communities. They supplied their masters with corn and vegetables. They subscribed to a unisex ethos.

"No," she said.

"How did you come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"You do not need to know anything about me, to have me," she said.

"Speak, Slave," I said. I touched the quirt to the palm of my left hand.

"Yes, Master," she said quickly. "I was once a woman of Ar."

Her accent, soft and liquid, had suggested this to me.

"I was of the merchants. I formed a company to trade along the Ihanke. I hired five men. I regarded the red savages as ignorant barbarians. I sent my men to nearby trading points, opened by the Dust Legs to any white traders. I furnished them with inferior trade goods, which they were to misrepresent to the savages. I would become rich in hides and horn. Imagine my surprise when, standing on the front porch of my small trading post, I saw my five men, afoot, bound and gagged, each dragging a travois, returning from the Ihanke. At the same time I fet myself seized from behind by red savages, Dust Legs. I was stripped and bound. I was shown the materials on the travois. They were the inferior trade goods I had sent to the trading points, being returned. One item, however, on one of the travois was not mine. It was a fine kailiauk robe. One of the Dust Legs showed it to me, and then pointed to it, and then to me, and then threw it on the porch of the trading post. It was their payment for me. I was then carried into the Barrens. I have been a slave of red savages ever since."

"At least you were properly paid for," I said.

"Yes," she said, angrily.

"How did you come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"The Dust Legs traded me to the Sleen," she said, "and the Sleen traded me to the Yellow Knives."

"It seems that no one was eager to keep you," I said.

"Perhaps not," she said.

"Waht did you bring?" I asked.

"The Sleen got me for two knives," she said, "and the Yellow Knives had be for a mirror."

"The Dust Legs," I said, "apparently originally conjectured that you would be worth a hide. You then went for two knives, and then a mirror."

"Yes," she said, bitterly.

"YOu have not failed to note, I suppose," I said, "that you have seemed to undergo a certain decreasing in value."

"No," she said, angrily, "I have not failed to note that."

"How did you finally come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"I was taken in a girl raid by the Isanna, with two-dozen others," she said. "We were herded into the Isanna country."

I nodded. This was around Council Rock, north of the northern fork of the Kaiila River and west of the Snake River.

"But you are not kept in a private lodge," I said. "You are kept in a girl herd."

"I was tried out, and then put in the herd," she said.

"You are apparently not regarded as much of a slave," I said.

"I am beautiful," she said, squirming in her bonds, the tether, attached to the branch, above her head, on her neck. "You saw that I was marched at the stirrup of an Isanna warrior in the Isanna procession into the camp of the Isbu!"

"That is true," I said. "You were seen fit to be displayed as Isanna loot."

"Yes," she said.

"Then you were sent back to the herd," I said.

"Yes," she said, sullenly.

"Why," I asked, "did you, in our two pervious meetings, regard me with such contempt?"

She tossed her head.

"I advise you to speak, Slave," I said. I tapped the quirt in my palm.

"You are only a male slave," she spat out, suddenly. "I despise male slaves. I hold them in contempt. I am too high for them. I am too loftly for them. I am above them! Girls such as I belong to and are for free men!"

"I see," I said.

"Too," she said, "I am the property of a red master."

I nodded. I saw that she had come to know and respect red savages. From a woman who had once regarded them as dupes and ignorant barbarians she had now come, as their slave, to understand them as the redoubtable hunters and warriors they were. Astride their kaiila, lance in hand, they were the rulers of the prairies, the Ubars of the plains. In the Barrens, obviously, it is something of a distinction for a woman, particularly a lowly white woman, to belong to one.

"But you are apparently not much of a property for your master." I said.

"Oh?" she said, angrily.

"You are kept in a herd," I reminded her.

She looked away, angrily.

I freed her tether from the branch and, slipping it back under the bond coming up from her wrists, I unlooped it from her neck. I then freed her hands. I dropped the rope to the side.

"Perhaps you had better keep me bound, or put me in a leg stretcher," she said.

"That will not be necessary," I said.

She rubbed her wrists. I had perhaps bound her too tightly. But then it is important that a girl knows herself bound.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

"Many things," I said, "but among them I am going to improve your master's property."

She looked at me.

"Get on your hands and knees," I said.

She complied.

"See the quirt?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I will give you a moment or two to crawl to the robe which I have spread on the grass," I said. "After that, if you are anywhere else for the next Ahn, the quirt will be used on you, and liberally. And, indeed, it may, if I choose, be used on you, even on the robe."

"I understand, Master," she said.

"Go," I said.

She crawled to the robe. Crouching on it, she looked at it, and its edges. It was an island of safety for her, or possible safety. Off it, in the next Ahn, she knew she would be whipped. On it, she did not know. This was, of course, a familiar master's tactic, usually used only with new slaves, young, inexperienced girls, fearful of the sexual aspects of their slavery. They find themselves in a large room, usually empty, or rather empty, save for an imposing couch. They are then informed that they will be whipped anywhere in the room except on the couch and may, perhaps, be whipped upon it. Needless to say, the girl scurries to the couch, regards it, in effect, as a place of possible refuge, in spite of the fact that her secual expoitation and domination will clearly take place upon it, and, for the time limits set, whatever they may be, fears to leave it. Some masters, if not pleased, will force the girl from the couch, and, keeping themselves between the girl and the couch, whip her, then letting her, after a few strokes, flee back to the couch. There, in that place of possible safety she will try again, desperately, to be more pleasing. This may be the last time in months, incidentally, that the girl will be on the surface of the couch. Until her slave skills imporve her place will be on furs, or a mat, or on the bare stones or tiles, at the foot of the couch. Indeed, some masters will sleep even a superb slave at the foot of the couch. Perhaps it is too obvious to mention but a point served by this original use of the couch is to break down the new slave's fear of the couch and encourage her to see it in a favorable light, indeed, as a place of relative safety, comfort and favor. In a possibly hostile environment she desires its protection and significance. She wishes to be upon it. Later, of course, for nobler reasons, she will presumably come to view it with greater eagerness and affection. On it she will be permitted to serve her master and on it, in turn, she will come to know his touch, as a loving, yielding slave.