"Klio looked about. I could see she was pleased to be so approved of, in her basic elements, as a naked female, but too, she was alarmed, having some inkling as to what might be the entailments of such preferences. 
"Have her perform," said one of the men. 
I shook the slave leash, now on her, This movement was transmitted through the leather, until it jerked and snapped at he ring, on the leash collar. 
"Oh, please , no!" she wept. 
"I have shaken the leash, once," I said. "You did not then perform. Fortunate it was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not pleased. Do you understand?" 
"Yes!" she said. 
"Now, when I shake it again, you will perform." 
She put her head down, trembling. 
"Do you understand?" I asked. 
"Yes," she whispered. 
"You must remember, gentlemen," I said, "she is only a free woman." 
I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform. 
Some of the men laughed. 
"Surely you can do better than that," I said. 
She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping. 
"Whip her," said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded. 
She looked up at him, frightened. 
His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and recognition, that she had seen him as her Master. 
Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered. 
"On your knees," I said. "Now." 
She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees. 
"Knees spread," I said. 
She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not take her eyes off the tall fellow. 
"Perform," I encouraged her. "Move. Call attention to your charms." 
Again Lady Klio began to perform, as she could. 
"It may not be much, gentlemen," I informed them, holding the leash, "but surely for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen. Little as it may be. I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills. 
"Continue to perform," I said. You may leave your knees, but do not rise to your feet. 
She regarded me, in wild protest. 
"Yes,?" I said. 
"Do not make me do these things," she begged. "Do not make me dance and writhe so. I am a free woman!" 
"Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past," I told her. "How well you do now could influence the quality of your life in the future." 
"Do not fear," I said. "I know you are truly a slave. I learned it in your kiss, when you were shackled at the wall at the Crooked Tarn. I think that perhaps, in the same kiss, you learned it." 
The men laughed. She sneaked a glance at the tall fellow, and then, hastily, put down her head. He smiled. 
"Lady Elene, of Tyros, your friend, whom you remember front he Crooked Tarn, and the coffle," I said, "is even now in a slave collar." It had been put on her within moments of her sale. 
Klio looked back at me. 
"In her performance," I said, "the slave, unrestrained, emerged quickly and in moments the woman discovered that it was she. It pleased the men abundantly. It brought a good price. It is now collared." 
Klio sobbed. 
"Frankly," I said, "I had not expected you to be inferior to her." 
She looked at me, angrily. 
"But perhaps the women of Tyros," I said, "are superior to those of Cos?" 
"I think not," said a man, rather angrily. 
There was laughter from the others. I supposed he must be Cosian, natively. 
"But then," I said, "it is said, I have heard, that those of Port Kar prize Cosians as slaves." 
"Show us what a Cosian can do," said a man. 
"Thus," I said, "it seems that it is not, really, that the women of Tyros are superior to the women of Cos, but merely that, in your particular case, you are inferior to the Lady Elene." 
She looked at me, again angrily. 
"But that is only to be expected, upon occasion, I suppose," I said, "that some woman of Tyros would be superior to some woman of Cos. Too, it is no disgrace to be inferior to the Lady Elene, who is quite attractive and, in time, might even make a dancer." 
"I am inferior to Elene," she said, angrily. 
The men laughed at her vehemence. 
She looked at the tall fellow. 
I quickly then, that she would feel the authoritative signal of the leash and collar rings while she was looking at the tall fellow, shook the leash. 
"Ah!" said a fellow. 
I was quite pleasant then with Klio. 
My expectation, I then felt, that she would prove to be the most exciting and desirable of the two, was borne out. That was why I had saved her for last, of course, for use in the trench closest to Ar's Station. To be sure, I might have been somewhat prejudiced, for I remembered Klio's lovely dark hair, and I tend to be partial to brunets. Who, eventually, would prove to be the best slave I did not know. Let such women compete desperately with one another, and with other slaves, each striving to be the best. 
One of the men cried out with pleasure. 
That had been an excellent leash move, to be sure. Klio displayed herself brilliantly on the leash. Such things seem very natural for a woman. Perhaps they are, to some extent like slave dance, instinctive, the biological template, or genetic dispositions for them, having been selected for , the biological need of a woman to belong, to be approved of and to love.
"Superb!" said a fellow. 
I wondered if Klio, sensing these deep, dark, wonderful, frightening things within her, the rightfulness of the destiny of submission to men for her, and such, had not, perhaps in the privacy of her own chambers, before her mirror, put the leash on herself. Perhaps she had then, there, before the mirror, in the privacy of her own quarters, moved similarly. It is not unusual for women to do this sort of thing, alone, often in bonds and chains, expressing plaintively therein their longing for a master. 
"Superb! Superb!" cried for another fellow. 
Klio, I recalled, had chosen a dangerous way of life, one which she must surely have realized, on one level or another, might lead to the collar. 
" 'Klio', " I said to the men, "might be an excellent name for a slave, do you not think so?" 
"Yes!" said more than one. 
Klio flushed with pleasure. Somehow it seemed she became even more sinuous, more sensuous, then. 
I saw that she was paying a bit too much attention to the tall fellow. 
"On, your belly," I said to Klio. "There, that fellow," I said, indicating a grizzled sapper to one side, his hooks near him, "address yourself to him, about the feet and legs." 
He grinned. 
"No!" said the tall fellow. 
I had thought this move on my part might bring him into action. 
Klio stopped, and turned, from her knees, to regard him. 
"I will buy her!" he said. 
"She is not cheap," I said. It seemed to me I might as well get what I could for Klio. I fear I must admit occasionally to a streak of opportunistic greediness. 
"A silver tarsk!" he cried. 
"Done!" I said. I had not really expected anything like that. Klio, redeemed through Ephialtes, had only cost me thirty copper tarsks. Perhaps I should have held out for more, seeing the eagerness of the fellow, but, after all, I was taken by surprise by the splendid offer, and even opportunistic greediness has its limits, particularly when surprised. 
"On all fours," I said to Klio. 
Immediately she went to all fours. 
"A silver tarsk," I said. 
It was placed in my palm and I put it in my pouch. I then removed my leash and collar from her neck. I had not even returned the leash and collar to my pouch before I heard a decisive click and a small cry from Klio. She looked up, collared, a slave, at her Master. 
"She dances, the leash dance well, does she not?" I asked. 
"I will improve her in it," said he, grimly. 
Klio quickly bent her head, unbidden to his feet, and kissed them."

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