"You are not a slave," I said. "You do not have trained, honed reflexes. Smoldering fires have not been set in your belly, never far from the surface, ready to leap into flame at the smallest touch. You are a free woman. I do not expect much of you."

"Oh!" she cried, suddenly.

"Still," I said, "you seem to have in you the promise of vitality." "Oh," she said.

"Interesting," I said.

"Oh!" she said. "Oh!"

"Perhaps, as in all women," I mused, there is a slave in you."

She moaned.

"Or perhaps it is not so much that there is a slave in you," I mused, "as that you are simply a slave."

"Please do not make me yield!" she begged, suddenly. I continued to caress her. "Be silent!" she said. "Be silent! Can't you see I am in the hands of a man!" "Mother!" cried the girl. "Oh!" cried the woman.

"You squirm like a slut!" cried the girl.

"What you are doing to me!" cried the woman, half rearing up on the palms of her hands, the chains on her wrists.

"Lie down," I instructed her.

She then lay there, on the cool marble, clutching it, tensely, her eyes wild, her head to the left.

"Is anything wrong?" I asked.

She lay extremely still, almost rigid, tensely, on the bench. She gripped the marble tightly. It seemed she did not dare to move.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Do not make me yield," she begged. She was very beautiful, and very helpless. Such a female would indeed, I thought, bring a high price.

"Why?" I asked.

She moaned.

"Why?" I pressed. It was not necessary to beat her for not having responded promptly to my question. She was a free woman. Such tardiness in a slave, of course, is not acceptable. It can mean the whip for her.

"Please," she said.

"You want to yield, do you not?" I asked.

"No, no," she said.

"I think it has been a long time since you have yielded, if ever before you have truly yielded to a man."

"Yes," she whimpered.

"Did you ever before, truly, yield to a man?" I asked.

"No," she whispered.

"I think you now suspect what it might be like to do so," I said.

"Yes, yes," she whispered, tensely.

I touched her, slightly. "Oh," she said, grasping the marble even more tightly. "Be strong, Mother," called the girl.

Tears fell from the woman's eyes, falling to the marble. The padlock, holding her in the close-fitting metal collar, moved a little on the smooth marble. It made a small sound. She had long, dark hair.

"I think you want to yield," I said.

"No, no," she said.

I touched her, gently, "Ohhh," she said.

"I think you want to yield," I said.

"No, no!" she said.

I again caressed her, this time with an exquisite delicacy, a brief, sweet touch that brought her, in her present condition, to the brink of an uncontrollable response. If I should continue I had little doubt but what she would, in a moment or two, be jerking on her belly, crying out in a rattle of chain, writhing helplessly on the marble, then bruising and marking the soft interiors of her lovely thighs against it, so tightly gripping it.

"No man can make you yield, Mother!" cried the girl.

I gathered she was a mere virgin. Doubtless in the next few weeks she would learn better.

"Be silent, you stupid girl!" wept the mother.

"Mother!" protested the girl.

"Why do you not wish to yield?" I asked the woman.

"My daughter," she gasped. "My daughter is here!

"But you would be willing to yield if she were not present," I asked.

"Yes, yes!" said the woman.

"Interesting," I said.

"Mother!" protested the girl, horrified.

"Do you think I would have her removed from the room?" I asked.

"Please! said the woman.

"No," I said.

She moaned.

"Do you not want her to know what a pleasure and a joy you can be to a man?" I asked.

"I am her mother! she wept.

"You are only another woman in a collar," I said. "And, soon, you will be going your different ways. Besides, I do not think she is your equal in these things. Perhaps sometime she might possibly be your equal. I do not know. Perhaps you, in your love, could hope that for her, and even give her training, and advice. At present, however, dear lady, it is you, I assure you, who are the prize, you whom strong men would relish most on her belly before them. Who knows? Perhaps you will both find yourselves eventually in the same household. It might be interesting to see you competing for the favor of the same master. I have little doubt it would be you, properly enslaved, my dear, and not she, who would be most often drawn by the hair to the master's couch."

The woman sobbed.

"What has been the relationship between you and your daughter?" I asked. The woman did not respond.

"I gather it has been distant," I said. "I gather that you love for her has been little reciprocated, that your sacrifices, your concerns and efforts in her behalf, have been little understood or appreciated. I gather that she, in the customary, unquestioning self-centeredness and vanity of her youth, seemingly so inevitable in the young, has given little concern to your feelings, to your reality as an independent woman and human being, that she has scarcely thought of you, or understood you, in these ways, that she has, typically, much taken you for granted, considering you often as little more than a convenience, a tool and fixture, in her world, as little more than her servant and satellite." "No, no!" said the daughter.

The woman was silent.

"But such things are over now," I said.

"Yes," whispered the woman.

"You are now only two women," I said, "each in the custody of impartial iron, each destined to stand by herself on the sawdust of the slave block, each, separately, to helplessly submit to, and endure, the objective scrutiny of buyers. There it will not matter that you are mother and daughter. Probably you will not even be sold in proximity to one another, but in the order of your numbers, or in some order deemed aesthetically or commercially appropriate by professional slavers. There you will be evaluated, bid upon and purchased, as different animals, as separate properties, merely as independent items up for sale, solely on your own merits. Then you will go your own ways, doubtless never to see one another again, doubtless each to the chains of a separate master. I wonder who will make the better slave?"

I then touched her, gently, again.

"Ohhh," she said, softly.

"Who would be the best?" I asked.

"I do not know," said the woman.

"Mother!" scolded the girl.

"Doubtless, in the end, under the suitable tutelage of strong men, you will both become superb," I speculated.

"Yes," whispered the woman.

"Perhaps, in the end, when you are both marvelous, there will be little to choose from between you," I speculated.

The woman said nothing.

"But now," I said, "there is a great deal to choose from, between you." The girl cried out in anger.

The woman groaned, clutching the bench.

"Can you imagine your daughter in slave silk?" I asked the woman. "Can you imagine her in a collar, kneeling and obeying?"

"Yes," whispered the woman.

"Do not speak so," begged the daughter.

"Can you imagine her naked, kicking in her chains," I asked, "crying out, begging for a man's touch.

"Yes," said the woman.

The daughter put her head in her hands, sobbing.

"Hush, dear," said the woman. "It will be so."

"Men are horrid," wept the girl.

"No," she said, "they are the masters. They are as they are, as we are as we are."

"I will never yield to them," wept the girl.

"Then you will be killed," said the woman.

The girl gasped, shrinking back in the chains. "I could pretend to yield," she whispered.

"That is the crime of false yielding," said the mother. "It is easy to detect, by infallible physiological signs. It is punishable by death."