on his successful bid for the contract. The surcharges, of course, were made clear to the clientele of the auction, as well as, naturally, the house’s commission. The contractee’s earnings, as Rodriguez had suggested to Brenner, are usually arranged in such a way as to either fall short of the contractee’s debits, or to equal them. In this case, as the zard, though severe, was an honest sort, he had arranged matters in such a way that the blonde’s earnings, and those of her fellow contractees, as well, were exactly balanced by her debits, for example, those charged against her for her keep and food. In this fashion the blonde, and the others, would remain under contract, could make no progress in paying it off, and would have, naturally, not even one credit of their own. In this the zard was not cruel, as were some contract holders, for example, in letting a contractee seem to make progress toward buying back the contract, and then, again and again, on one pretext or another, at the last moment, levying new and large charges against them, bringing them back to their original position. By now, it might be mentioned, it was clear to the blonde, as it eventually becomes clear to most contractees, that she was absolutely helpless in herself, and that she must depend on others. That was doubtless the motivation for her letter. Out of her earnings, incidentally, the zard had recovered both the surcharge on his purchase of the contract and the broker’s commission. He had then raised the cost of her food and lodging to equal her earnings. One need not bother with this sort of accounting in the case of slaves, of course, as they are domestic animals.
Brenner handed the letter back to Rodriguez.
He lifted it up, and looked at it again, and then put it back on the table.
The blonde was in consternation, but she dared not reach over to snatch it up, nor, I think, given the temper of Rodriguez, would this have been a wise action on her part.
“Hide it,” she whispered, frantically. “Do not let him see it!”
But Rodriguez left it lying before him, on the table.
Brenner glanced at the brunette. She, too, seemed frightened, though apparently not for herself. Brenner noticed that she had her hands on her thighs, as he had once, earlier, ordered her to place them. The dark collar looked well on her neck, the chain dangling from it, running to the ring on the floor. He recalled he had put it on her. He did not feel for it, but he remembered the key was in his upper, left-hand shirt pocket, away from her.
“You planned to use this fellow, the one to whom the letter is addressed,” said Rodriguez to the blonde.
“He wanted to paw me,” she said.
Brenner thought the locution was an odd one, considering that the fellow in question was doubtless of her own species, and, accordingly, would be highly unlikely to possess paws. On the other hand, he was willing to grant that the usage was intended to be metaphorical, and derogatory. As such, however, it seemed demeaning to various sorts of life forms, which possessed paws. Did she not realize the equivalence of all life forms, and their equal merits, regardless of such trivial differences as size, weight, quantity of population, frequency of gene replication, nature of consciousness, emotional development, and intellectual capacity? Too, he supposed that the females of some species, at least, might find the touch of paws, and even those which contained claws, as most did, interesting, and even tactually stimulating. Certainly several rational species pawed one another in play and love, and so on. Indeed, he knew, beyond this, that the lovemaking of certain species tended to be quite rough, and even violent. Her use of the locution, however, Brenner decided, was largely internal and subjective, not so much indicative of an external reality, suitably appraised, as expressive of her aversion to sexuality.
“Surely,” she said to Rodriguez, “as a gentleman, you can understand!”
Brenner considered the matter. Things were doubtless more complex than the blonde’s locution suggested. He decided to dismiss, at least for the time, the expression ‘pawing’, which in this context seemed to function more emotively than cognitively. Suppose one took another expression, one somewhat more literally intended, but nonetheless certainly explicit, such as ‘handling’. He then regarded the blonde and the brunette. Certainly it seemed their bodies invited handling, holding, grasping, seizing, touching, caressing and such. Indeed, it