as ‘sir’ by this delectable creature. If there were some subtle inconsistency here, he did not find it objectionable. Besides, by the waiters in restaurants, by the male attendants in conveyances, in hotels, and such, he would often have been addressed as ‘sir’. And the locution, he reminded himself, was probably required of her by her contract holder. He thought of having her address him by the proper neuteristic term of ‘pers’, but then, for some reason, decided against it. He would permit her, devolved though it might be, to continue to address him not only by an appellation indicative of respect, but by one, in her case, appropriate to a member of an opposite sex.
“Do you like them?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I think they make me pretty,” she said. As she had looked down and whispered this, her thighs had moved slightly under the silk. This suggested to him that there might be more involved here than a simple matter of aesthetics. Rather he suspected that the cosmetics, perhaps because of some meaning or other, also made her feel in a certain way, a way which, it seemed, she might not be likely to mention explicitly to Brenner.
“They demean you,” said Brenner.
“Then I like being demeaned in this way,” she said.
“They make you attractive, as a decorated animal,” he said, irritably.
“It is my hope that they make me attractive,” she said.
“And,” said Brenner, irritably, deciding to risk a shot in the dark, “they also make you feel attractive.”
She looked up, startled.
“And you personally find them arousing, and exciting,” he said.
She put her head down, quickly. “Yes, sir,” she whispered.
Brenner was pleased with this outcome. His shots, it seemed, had exactly and decisively struck home. To be sure, if Rodriguez, and other renegades, was right, and females really had sexual needs, and such, perhaps the shots, so to speak, had not been fired so much in the dark as he had thought. She kept her head down. He then became vaguely conscious for the first time, in a real sense, of the power he held over this creature. He did not, of course, bother to mention the effects of the cosmetics upon himself. He had heard, incidentally, that on some worlds slaves were by custom refused cosmetics. He thought such worlds must be rather puritanical. To be sure, it seemed strange to think of a world as puritanical on which beautiful slaves might have to labor for months, striving to improve their services, and to become more and more pleasing, before they would be thrown a garment.
“I think you should leave now,” said Brenner.
She lifted her head. She looked up at him, frightened. “Please do not send me away,” she begged.
Brenner looked down at her. He then became even more conscious of his power over her. This pleased him. She was, in some way he was not clear about, at his mercy.
“Why not?” he asked. After all, he was of the home world. Surely he should not keep this person beside him, in this degraded position, one of respect, at his feet.
“I am sorry I was cross with you earlier today,” she said.
“It is nothing,” said Brenner. “The accident was trivial. It was of no importance, and it was as much, or more, my fault than yours.”
“But I did not behave well!” she said.
This interested Brenner, that she should even consider the matter as to whether or not she had behaved well. Certainly the women of the home world, or the typical women of the home world, never concerned themselves with such things. To be sure, this woman was not on the home world, but on this world, and was under contract, apparently to the proprietor of the bar. Brenner gathered that there might be sanctions on the behavior of such women, those on this world, or at least those under contract on this world. She was not, of course, a slave. He did not doubt, of course, that the sanctions placed on a slave for behaving well might be quite severe, and even extreme.
“You did not expect to see me tonight,” said Brenner, “or to find yourself where you are now.”
She put down her head, not responding to this. Her hair was dark brown, and glossy. Doubtless it had been washed, and brushed and combed, before she had come to the floor tonight. He considered that dark, glossy hair, and the compact, sweet curves of her in the silk. Her entire body had been washed, he did