***
Flora walked unsteadily down the hall, almost unable to keep her balance.
She was not with a guard, and on a leash, as a slave is often taken to the room of a guest, whom she is to serve. Rather she had just been told the room, and sent on her way.
Bitter tears ran down her cheeks.
She stopped, to put one hand against a wall, to steady herself.
She feared she might fall.
She saw a guard before one door, and she counted the doors to that door. No, that was not the door. There were two sames under arrest in the house. That must be the room in which the other same, the woman was. Neither, she understood, was below, secured in cells. The guard was watching her approach. She feared she was not walking well. He must, of course, over the years, have seen thousands of slaves. She had heard the guards refer to her as “a pretty one.” She was confident she would bring a better price than many, though, of course, not so good a price as many others. He was watching her approach. She tried to walk well. She did not wish to risk being struck. She had, of course, in her bondage, grown accustomed to men looking at her, watching her, considering her, speculating openly on what it might be to own her, to have her, theirs, in their arms.
When she reached the guard, before passing him, she would kneel, and bow her head.
She did so.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Lift your head. Straighten your back. Do not rise,” he said.
He walked about her.
Then, again before her, he looked at her, in detail.
It pleased her to kneel before men.
“You carry the slave flower,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You may continue on your way,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She looked at the door he guarded. Behind it was one of the sames in custody, the woman.
In a moment she had rounded a corner and was no longer in sight of the guard.
I hate Tuvo Ausonius, she thought. Rather would I be thrown to guards, to be put to the tiles, to serve for fear of my very life, each to tear a petal from the slave flower, than to be touched by one such as Tuvo Ausonius.
But then she thought, suddenly, wildly, that she might master Tuvo Ausonius, manipulate him, govern him, overcome him with misery and guilt. Was he not a same? Might she not take advantage of that complex, subtle, pervasive conditioning program used on the “same” planets to deprive men of their manhood, that program so gradually instituted and promulgated, bit by bit, rule by rule, law by law, that many did not even realize it existed, that program designed not so much to challenge healthy, natural modalities of human existence as to preclude its victims from even understanding that they existed? Yes, she thought wildly to herself, there is nothing to fear. He is already demeaned, degraded, and debased, and conquered. I need not fear him. His entire world has prepared him for defeat. There is no doubt that I will be victorious!
She looked wildly about. No guard was in this corridor. There were various rooms. They would be, presumably, mostly empty, mostly unlocked. In some there must be wardrobes, or chests, containing garments. Surely guests must come to this holding upon occasion. Some must surely be free women, perhaps sisters, or relatives, of one degree or another, of the master of the house! Or perhaps there might be garments of sufficient opacity and modesty as to be mistaken for, or which would serve as, the garments of a free woman. If slaves were to serve at suppers at which free women were present, they might well be attired decorously. Surely, at such suppers, they would not serve naked, save for their collars. There must be something, somewhere!
It was in the third room that she found a chest which contained suitable robes, white, even sleeved. Too, there were hose, and even shoes, small, soft, colored, delicately embroidered. Too, there were scarves which might encircle her throat, useful in concealing a steel collar.
She thrust the slave flower in her belt, that formed from the twice-turned black cloth cord.
She then turned her attention to the chest.
It was seemingly a different woman who emerged from the room, after first carefully looking to the left and right.
Doubtless there would be a guard at the door, but the door was about the next corner, across the structure, its room well separated from that of the other same, doubtless that there might be no communication between them.
She did not think the guard would take her for a free woman. Indeed, it was altogether probably that he would recognize her. Thus, in greeting him, she must kneel. She trusted that Tuvo Ausonius would not know she had done so.
The guard, when she turned the comer of the corridor, looked up, and leapt to his feet, from the chair, having mistaken her, naturally enough, under the circumstances, for a free woman. Then, as she approached, he regarded her closely. She knelt down a few feet from him, primarily because she feared to prolong his doubt as to her status, which might irritate him, but also because she wanted to be further from the door. She lowered her head.
He stepped to her.
“Flora,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I prefer slave garb on a slave,” he said. “It is more fitting.”
“If we are permitted clothing,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I am sent to the prisoner,” she said.
“Never have I seen a slave so clad sent to a prisoner,” he smiled.
She said nothing.
“But then he is a same,” said the guard.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She went to the door, while the guard resumed his post, the chair a few feet from the door.
At the door she trembled, just for a moment, for she was a slave, of course, truly, and her charade had not been commanded by her master. Indeed, it had been undertaken without his knowledge. Her hand shook, and she thought, for a moment, to knock softly, even timidly, at the door, as befitted a helpless, vulnerable slave who had been sent to a guest, to be as though his until morning. But then, suddenly, angry with the thought of Tuvo Ausonius, and contemptuous of him, she struck the door clearly, decisively.
In a moment the door was opened.
She was taken aback a bit, for he who opened the door was not precisely what she had expected to find. Oh, it was Tuvo Ausonius all right, or bore at least some resemblance to him. That could be told from the pictorials. But those had displayed something seemingly inhibited, deceitful, venal, petulant, sullen, hypocritical, weak. The fellow who had opened the door was not only considerably larger than herself, and above average height for a male of the empire, but, more importantly, carried himself, and seemed such, as one would not expect of a same. She feared for an instant that he might not be a same, but a man, one of those creatures in the presence of which a woman could be only a woman. But, reassuringly, he wore same garb. She wished, suddenly, that she had been able to avail herself of same garb, but none, not surprisingly, had been in the rooms she had investigated.
“Tuvo Ausonius?” she brought herself to ask.
“Yes,” he said.
He looked beyond her.
Had he expected another? Had he hoped for another? This angered her.
“May I come in?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She thrust past him, and closed the door, firmly, behind her. She noted, to her satisfaction, that the door was thick. She did not think that, given the thickness of the portal, for those of the empire’s upper classes tend to be fond of their privacy, and the position of the guard, down the hall, they would be likely to be overheard. Tuvo Ausonius seemed surprised that she had closed the door herself.
In the center of the room she turned to face him.
“What is wrong?” she asked.