I released her, and she looked at me, shaken. She grasped the chains above the manacles tightly. Then she recovered herself. She released the chains above the manacles and her small hands now appeared as they had before, the clasping iron of the upper part of the shackles close below the fleshy part of her palms, below the thumbs, and at the sides of the hands. She squirmed a little. "Redeem me," she said, slyly.

"Taste me!" said the lovely, slighter girl, who was fourth, who had seemed perhaps the quieter of the five. I thought she might go the gentlest, and the most willingly, and the most gratefully, to her chains.

"Slut!" cried the third woman. I then kissed her.

I saw that she would make a superb slave.

"Do you not wish to be redeemed?" I asked her.

"Yes!" she said suddenly. "Yes, of course!" But I saw she would never be truly happy, except where she belonged, in a collar.

"Me!" said the third woman, suddenly. "Kiss me, too! Taste me, too!" I gathered that she, too, did not wish to be left out in these competitions. She did not wish to miss her opportunity to see if she might, by the bestowal of her favors, and the promise of such favors, as well, please me, and, by enticement or trickery, inveigle me into purchasing her redemption. I also saw, from her behavior and attitude, that she regarded herself as the most beautiful of the five, and the most likely to succeed in any such contest. Accordingly I gave her little time but merely took her in my arms and unilaterally, forcibly, briefly, crushed her lips beneath mine, and then flung her back against the logs. She looked at me wildly, disbelievingly. Was she not blond? But she would have to learn to please men.

I then stood back, and regarded the three women.

"You have not tasted me," said the second woman. I think she feared I was pondering a choice among the other there.

I kissed her. I would have to admit it, women kiss well in shackles, even free women. She looked at me. Then, she, too, recovered herself. "Though I am of high caste," she said, "I have permitted you to kiss me, and not merely upon a sleeve or gloved hand, but wholly upon my lips, and not even through a veil, no, upon my exposed and naked lips themselves, unveiled, almost as though I might be a slave! Therefore, in return for this inestimable gift, it is I whom you must now in honor redeem."

"You are a female," I said, "and such are made for the kisses of men." "I am of high caste!" she said.

"Perhapsa€”now," I said. Slaves, of course, are casteless, as are other animals. No longer is one woman divided from another by artificial distinctions. In this sense there is a democracy of slaves. They all begin the same, regardless of previous distinctions, such as position or wealth. They all begin at the same point, as naked women, branded and collared, who must then strive with one another to see who can be most pleasing to masters.

She looked at me in fury.

"Unfortunately," I said, " I do not have a slave whip with me." "You would beat me?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

She shrank back against the logs.

I thought she would look well, in her curves, crawling at the feet of men, reduced to the centrality of her womanhood, the female slave.

I then regarded the four women whose lips I had tasted. Each had, in a sense, though free, prostituted herself to me, that she might thereby influence me to rescue her from her clear and obvious plight, that of a debtor slut. Each was willing to bestow her favors in order to obtain her redemption. These were women, I had gathered, who had made a practice of relying upon the generosity and nobility of men, or of some men, to obtain their way in life, in a sense resorting frequently to types of female fraud, regularly exploiting and, in a sense, making dupes of men. Doubtless they had, at least until now, congratulated themselves on their success in such matters. Now, however, they were chained to a log wall in an inn's court. Frightened now, it seemed that they, even though free, were ready to escalate the level of their artifices. Perhaps in more normal times, perhaps even while they were still fully clothed, and veiled, they might have found eager fellows to make good their bills, perhaps at the first sign of distress, even the moistening of an eye. These, however, were not normal times. I considered the four women. They had requested to be tastes, as slaves. One had even begged explicitly, as I had seen to it she would, she who reputed herself to be of high caste. That had amused me. Only the first woman had not so demeaned herself. She, of all of them, was different. I heard the small sound of her shackle chains on the ring. "I beg to be tasted," she said.

I looked upon her.

I saw that she was beautiful, and not different from the rest. She, too, was only a slave.

"I beg it," she said. I regarded her.

"Are you disappointed in me?" she asked.

"If you were a free woman, perhaps," I said, "but not if you are a slave." Even in the apparently freest of women, of course, there is a slave who waits for her master. There is a Gorean saying to the effect that among women there are only slaves who have masters and slaves who do not have masters. Some men fear the slave in a woman; others provide it with the mastering it longs for, and needs.

"Please," she said.

"Who begs to be tasted?" I asked.

"The Lady Amina of Venna begs to be tasted," she said.

Her sisters at the wall gasped at her boldness, that she should use her own name in this fashion, rather as might a slave.

She looked at me.

She could not pull far from the wall because of her shackles. If she were to be kissed, it would be at my discretion.

"Lady Amina begs it," she said.

She was a free woman. Yet I saw that she was well curved, and would nestle well within the arms of a master.

"Please," she said.

I went to her and took her in my arms. I drew her toward me, from the wall. The shackle chain moved in the ring. Because of the chaining she was bent back. I looked upon her. Though she was free she, like the others, was neither clothed nor veiled. Thus, though she was a free woman, her lips were open to me, naked to me, exposed, in the manner of the slave. She looked up at me, those lovely, vulnerable lips parted. She felt slave good in my arms. I kissed her.

"Oh!" she said, softly, as I drew back.

I had made the determination in which I was interested. She belonged in a collar.

I against considered them. They were all beautiful, stripped, and shackled close to the wall. They had all, it seemed, more or less recently, chosen to live dangerously. But perhaps they had chosen to live a little too dangerously. I thought they might all look well on a slave block.

But I proceeded under the overhang to the open space between the two parts of the inn, the covered way there, with its high roof, that which it shared with the two parts of the inn, and then across it, to the right portion of the inn, in which the porter had informed me was the keeper's desk. In this covered way, too, it might be mentioned, passengers, with some protection from the weather, may board and alight from fee carts, and such. It was late. It was not raining much now. The night had turned chilly, however. I was looking forward to a hot bath, a place to dry my clothes, some food, some drink, a warm bed. "Please!" I heard the first woman calling after me. "Please!" But I left them behind me, at the wall, stripped and shackled, and tasted.