"A Cosian?" said Marcus.

"Yes," I said.

"That will not be found in Ar," he said.

"It used to be," I said, "at least before the war."

"Yes, Master," she beamed. "I have read it!"

"You, a free girl, have read it?" I asked. To be sure, the book is a classic. "Yes, Master!" she smiled.

"Does your father know you have read it?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"What do you suppose he would do to you, if he found out?" I asked.

"I think he would sell me, Master," she said.

"And appropriately," I said.

"Yes, Master," she smiled.

"Stand," I said. "Turn about. Cross your wrists behind you."

"Yes, Master!" she said, eagerly, complying.

"Oh!" she said, bound.

"Turn about," I said.

Swiftly she did so, and looked shyly up at me. She tested the fiber on her wrists, subtly, attempting to do so inconspicuously, trying its smugness and strength, its effectiveness. She put down her head and suddenly, inadvertently, shuddered, with pleasure. I had used capture knots. She knew herself helpless. I supposed it was the first time she had ever been bound.

"May I speak?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I am tied as a slave is tied, am I not?" she asked.

"As slaves are sometimes tied," I said.

This comprehension was suddenly reflected, or exhibited, in her entire body, in fear, and desire and pleasure, she flexing her knees, twisting, her shoulders moving, and then, again, she stood before me, looking up at me, but now trembling.

"It is appropriate, is it not?" I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I regarded her.

She looked away.

She was trying to deal with her helplessness, to understand it, and its import. I wondered what her feelings would have been had she been a legal slave, and known herself totally at our mercy.

"Will it be necessary to leash you?" I asked.

"No," she said.

I then leashed her. "Now you will not run away," I said.

"I will not run away," she said.

"I know," I said. I looped the long end of the leash three times. She looked at the swinging loops, apprehensively. Most slave leashes are long enough to serve not only as a leash but also as a lash. The length, too, permits them to facilitate a binding, both of hand and foot. A common technique is to run the leash through a slave ring and then complete the tie as one pleases, simply or complexly. Many leashes, such as the one I had just put on the girl, are cored with wire. This prevents them from being chewed through.

"Tarry here a moment," I said to Marcus. To the girl I said, "Precede me." She went ahead of me some paces down the alley before I stopped her. "Do not turn about," I said.

I then turned back to Marcus. I pointed to the remains of the chest and touched the knife at my side.

He nodded and drew his knife. On the lid of the chest he carved a delka, and then set the lid against the remains of the chest, that the sign might be prominently displayed. As we were not in the officer's chain of command, he in charge of the guardsmen of Ar whom we had earlier encountered. I did not (pg. 196) think he would be likely to follow up the matter on the girl's disposition. He would presumably take it for granted, that she might even now be in the loot pits of the district of Anbar, awaiting the technicalities of her enslavement. Had he been interested in the matter he would doubtless have seen to it himself, or had his men see to it. Perhaps, on the other hand, he did not trust them, as they were of Ar. I did not know. If an investigation were initiated, which seemed to me unlikely, as many women were delivered on one pretext or another to the loot pits, and there would not be likely to be much interest in any particular one of them, Marcus and I could always claim that she had come into the power of the Delta Brigade, and we had thought it best not to gainsay their will in the matter, and indeed, I suppose, in a sense, that was true, as Marcus and I, were, or were of, as it seemed better to put it now, given the most recent information at our disposal, the Delta Brigade. Too, even if the matter were not perused further, there would now be at least one more delka in Ar. In a few moments we were out on the streets. Even though such sights were not rare in Ar, in the past months, a free woman, leashed, in the custody of guardsmen or auxiliaries, presumably having been appropriated for levies, or perhaps merely having been subjected to irrevocable, unappealable seizure at an officer's whim, yet men turned to regard her as we passed. In spite of her youth she was well formed. In four or five years I had no doubt she would constitute an extraordinary luscious love bundle helplessly responding in a master's arms. A fellow made a quick noise with his mouth as he passed her. She lifted her head, startled, in the leash collar. The meaning of the sound would be unmistakable, even to a girl, signifying as it did the eagerness and relish which the mere sight of her inspired in him. her face was soft and lovely, gently rounded. Her hair was long and dark.

"She moves well," commented Marcus.

"Yes," I said.

"I think she has just begun to sense how men might view her," mused Marcus. "I think so," I said.

"It is interesting," he said, "when a women first begins to sense her desirability."

"True," I said.

"And hers is such that a price can be put on it," he said.

"Yes," I said. Her desirability was so exciting that it could only be that of a slave.

"Look at her," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"She is ready for the block now."

"Perhaps," I said.

"I am sure she would perform well," said Marcus. "And if she were reluctant to do so, or hesitated for a moment, I am sure any lingering scruples would be promptly dissipated by the auctioneer's whip."

"Undoubtedly," I said. I had seen such transformations take place many times at the sales. It is not so much, I think, that the lash, in such a situation, as a punishment, changes the woman's behavior, that she obeys because she does not wish to be whipped, but rather that the whip convinces her that she is not free to be sensuous, sexual, marvelous creature which she is in herself and has always desired to be. In this sense the whip does not oppress the woman but rather liberates her to be herself, wild, uninhibited, free in a sense, even though she may be bound in chains, and sexual. To be sure, the whip is also used to punish women, and they do fear it, and mightily, for such a reason. Sometimes it is used too, of course, merely to remind them of what they are, slaves. "How graceful she is," he commented.

"Yes," I said.

I suspected that a perceptive master might have a woman such as she trained in slave dance, that she might please him also in this way. I could imagine her, even now, in the floor movements of the slave dance. I wiped sweat from my brow. How beautifully walked the girl, how conscious now, how proud, how pleased, she seemed, in the abundance of her beauty, her desirability and power. How different she was from many of the free women we had seen earlier being led through the streets, piteous, overfed, stumbling creatures following behind on their leashes, their heads down, loudly bemoaning their fate. But even those, I suspected, given diet, exercise and training, could in time, be transformed into dreams of pleasure.

"Slave!" hissed a free woman to the girl. Then she was behind us. Her voice fraught with hatred.

"She thinks you are a slave," I said.

"Yes," laughed the girl, delightedly.

For some reason free women hate female slaves. They are often quite cruel even to those whom they themselves own. I am not certain of the explanation of this seemingly unreasoning, inexplicable hatred. Perhaps they hate the slave for her beauty, for her joy, her truth, her perfections, her desirability, her happiness. At the root of their hatred, perhaps, lies their own unhappiness and lack of fulfillment, their envy of the slave, joyfully in her rightful place in nature. In any event, this attack on the part of the free women, which happily had been only verbal, as they often are not, and the abused slaves in any event dare not protest or object, as they are at the mercy of free persons, was in its way a profound compliment. So beautiful and exciting was the girl that the woman had naturally assumed she was that most marvelous, helpless, lovely and degraded of objects, the female slave.