this point in their new life. The primary point now was merely that they should understand themselves helpless, totally so. The item I had turned over with my foot, as some others, had remained, until then, in the bara position. I took that as an excellent sign, that they were highly intelligent. They recognized that they had been placed in a given position, and realized they had not been given permission to alter that position. Too, given their stripping and binding, they had doubtless begun to sense something of their new condition, and something of the life which would now be theirs. Similarly, several of them, including she whom I had turned over with my foot, when originally placed in the bara position, had maintained the position, docilely, while waiting for their tethering, sometimes Ehn later. All these things are indications of high intelligence in merchandise, and perhaps of something else, as well, something related, perhaps a welcoming, a readiness, a relief, an understanding, such things. Perhaps they had been waiting for years to be so bound.
But there was a third reason, as well, that I had turned her over. It was to better look upon her.
I had found of her interest, of course, weeks ago, when I had encountered her as a clerk in a large store. How startled she had been when I had looked upon her. Her lips had trembled, as with some question, possibly as to an earlier acquaintance. We had not, of course, known one another before. Yet there seemed some sort of recognition, on her part. That pleased me. Then she had backed away, embarrassed. That, I suppose, was to retreat from my regard. I did not lower my gaze, and she seemed suddenly frightened, and turned away, hurrying into another aisle. She was, of course, being assessed. I was conjecturing what she might look like, naked, exhibited on a slave block, responsive to the deft touches of the auctioneer’s whip, what she might look like, barefoot, in a tunic, hurrying through the streets, avoiding free women, her neck fastened in a light, close-fitting, locked, metal collar. Did she sense such things? I do not know. Perhaps. In any event, I placed her, tentatively, on the initial manifest, and arranged for the usual inquiries, looking into her habits, her background, her interests, her tastes, her familiar itineraries, and such. She was also, unbeknownst to herself, videotaped several times, in various garments and against various backgrounds, which tapes were suitably reviewed. As I had anticipated, she was found acceptable for acquisition, or harvesting. Accordingly, I placed her on the final manifest. In education and quickness she was clearly superior. It was conjectured, as well, from a diversity of subtle cues, physical and psychological, that she had unusual sexual latencies, which might, in time, acknowledged and stimulated, enfurnace her belly in such a way that she would be not only excellently responsive but, far beyond that, helplessly, beggingly needful. She suffered from the usual confusions and deprivations common to young women of her milieu. As with so many others, she seemingly found her life largely a round of banalities. Her life was largely boring, empty, and meaningless. She was restless, ill at ease, and unhappy. What she should be, and do, and think, and try to feel, was largely set before her by a culture of idiosyncratic stereotypes, the opinions she was to hold were prescribed for her, and the values she was to maintain, or pretend to maintain, brooked neither question nor deviation. Every culture has its simple scions, naive and unquestioning, dogmatic without inquiring into the credentials of dogmatisms, mindlessly righteous in one of a thousand ways of being mindlessly righteous, each contradictory to the other. On the other hand, some, the highly intelligent, or, perhaps, simply, the more cognitively alive, or aware, in the secret castles of their own mind, ask questions, wonder about alternatives, think for themselves, however secretly, as is prudential in any tyranny, one of edged weapons or edged ideologies, capable of drawing their own blood, and slaying their own millions.
She looked up at me.
I do not think she recognized me from the store, weeks ago. Too, the light was not bright, and I was not now dressed in the cumbersome, barbarous garments in which she had first seen me.
How tiresome, and confining, are such garments! At least they had been removed.
I looked down on her, naked, bound at my feet.
She was beautiful, of course, else she would not have