"But surely you can guess," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Spread your knees more widely," she said, coldly.

I did so.

"No perhaps you can guess," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"You seem relieved," she said, puzzled.

I shrugged. I was indeed relieved. She had again only been toying with me. It seemed clear to me now, as it had before, that she did not know who I was. The man in the booth, I recalled, had tried to kill me. Thus, if she had truly known my identity, she might, by now, have had me killed. That would have been easy enough to have done while I was drugged. Too, the nature of my capture did not suggest anything special about me. I had merely been one of fifteen brought into her chains.

"There is something else," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"I am interested in being assessed," she said.

"Assessed?" I asked.

"Yes, objectively," she said. "I have been curious about it for a long time.The richness of your garments in the piazza, the weight of your purse, suggests to me that you might have experience in such matters, that you had the means to be intimately familiar with the doing in markets, and so on."

I was silent.

"Let me remind you," she said, "that it is you who kneel before me, with your knees spread like an imbonded girl!"

"I understand," I said.

Her hand went to the pins at the left side of her veil.

"I think you will find me extraordinarily beautiful," she said, "perhaps even slave beautiful."

"Perhaps," I said.

She unpinned her veil at the left side, and let it fall, and brushed back the silken hood of her tent robe, shaking her head, freeing a cascade of long, dark hair. She looked at me, amused. "I see that you find me beautiful," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She stood. "Are you familiar with the duties of a silk slave?" she asked. As she spoke, she began to casually disrobe.

"I am a free man," I said.

"But you have some conception of their duties, do you not?" she inquired.

"Yes," I said.

"Such duties, and others," she said, "will be yours."

"I understand," I said.

I caught my breath. She stepped from her robes, softly dropped, as though from a pool of silk at her feet.

"Well?" she asked.

She was stunningly beautiful. She would bring a high price. She then reclined, on cushions, and strewn silks. These were near the back of the small inner sanctum, near the white hangings forming its rear wall. She regarded me, amusement in her eyes. She leaned on one elbow.

"Well?" she asked.

"You are quite beautiful," I said.

"Do you think I would sell easily?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Your price would be much too high," I said. "Most men would not be able to afford you."

"But if I were at a reasonable price," she said.

"Then, doubtless," I said, "you would be snapped up immediately."

"You do regard me then," she said, "objectively, as being quite beautiful?"

"Yes," I said.

"Even slave beautiful?" she asked.

"Your beauty," said I, "at least in its external lineaments might well be the envy of many slaves, and if it were to become itself a slave's beauty, with the inward transformations bondage effects in a woman, it might, in time, in my opinion, attain at least the minimum standards of being slave beautiful."

"Then only a slave can be slave beautiful?" she asked.

"I would not wish to make it a matter of meanings," I said, "but, empirically, it does seem to be pretty much a matter of the condition, a function of its fulfillments, and such."

"Free women are more beautiful than slaves," she said.

"That is false," I said. "Furthermore, every woman, in her heart, knows it is false. Any beauty a free woman has, for example, is enhanced a thousandfold when she becomes a slave."

"I hate slaves!" she said.

"That is because you are not one of them," I said. "You envy them."

"Beware," she said. "I am a free woman!"

"I know," I said.

"And you are totally in my power," she said.

"I understand," I said.

"Approach me, on all fours," she said. "Perhaps I will forgive you, if you are skillful."

I approached her.

"You see me more closely now," she said. "Have you assessed free women before?"

"Yes," I said.

"Assess me," she said.

"As a free woman?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "That is what I am."

"You are an incredibly beautiful free woman," I said.

"Your body obviously agrees with you," she said.

"Indeed," I admitted.

"And free women," she said, "are a thousand times more, above a mere slave."

"Yes," I said. "There is no comparison. A free woman is inordinately precious. She is a thousand times, and more, above a mere slave."

"Your status here," she said, "is that of a servant, a total servant, until I have you enslaved."

"I understand," I said.

"I think it will be amusing to apply a free man to the duties of a silk slave."

"Doubtless," I said.

"Indeed, I may dally somewhat, as it pleases me, or not, in the matter of your enslavement."

I said nothing.

"And perhaps, if I find you quite good, after you are enslaved, with your fellows, I might not even sell you at the Fair of En-Kara. I might keep you-as a silk slave."

I did not speak.

"You will touch me if, and only as, and exactly as, I direct," she said. "I am total Mistress. I shall obtain considerable gratification from you, and you will obtain gratification, if any, only as it pleases me."

"I understand," I said.

"To the silks, my brawny, helpless servant," she said. She then put her small hands in my hair. She drew me to her. "Please me," she said.

I then began to address myself to her pleasures.

I immersed myself in the exciting, intimate, marvelous, powerful odors of the aroused female.

"Oh, Brinlar," she gasped, suddenly, "you are an excellent servant!"

I took her wrists in my hands and pulled them from my hair, and held them to her sides, meanwhile alternately forcibly and aggressively, and delicately and tenderly, continuing my service.

Her wrists were helpless in my grip. She pressed herself piteously against me.

She began to moan and squirm.

Suddenly she said, "I am helpless! I am being held, helplessly!"

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said, unhanding her, as though my grip upon her might have been an inadvertence.

She seized me again by the hair, drawing me closely to her.

"Oh, Brinlar," she whispered. "Yes, Brinlar! It is marvelous, Brinlar! Do not stop! Yes, Brinlar! Yes!"

In such a; manner can one subdue a female, turning her into an object, totally helpless with pleasure.

"Yes, Brinlar," she whispered. "Yes! Yes!"

I did not think it was necessary to remind her that I was not really according to her the polite courtesies and gentle dignities appropriate to the pleasures of the free woman, but was, in effect, of my own will, by my own decision, subjecting her to attentions more commonly reserved for the imbonded female, the woman who has no choice but to submit to a lengthy and authoritative ravishing, one which well teaches her the meaning of her collar, and what it is to be in the hands of a men, and as he wants her.

"Oh, Brinlar!" she whispered.

Her responses were such that it was difficult to conjecture what her experiences might have been had she truly been a slave, and had she known herself helplessly in my power, and had she know that she must yield totally and without reservation in the last fiber of her very being.

"Brinlar!" she cried, surging against me. "Yes, Brinlar!"

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Yanina!" she cried. "Lady Yanina!"

"Of what city?" I asked.

"Brundisium!" she cried. "Brundisium!"