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kept the IOUs in a cardboard box under our bed. One
day, the landlord asked when I was going to pay him back. I was floored. I
didn’t have a job. I earned no wages. He said that he’d been carrying me for a
year and that I couldn’t expect him to wait forever.
    “I added up the IOUs. I owed
almost three thousand plaqs . Three thousand! I
couldn’t imagine that much money. I couldn’t believe that I’d spent that much.
I looked for a job but nobody was hiring. I begged the landlord to give me some
time. He was willing to take sexual favors as payments on the interest but not for
the nut. He let me ride for six months that way. By my letting him ride me.
    “After six months, a messenger
delivered a legal paper that said that I had to pay my debts in full within one
month or be found in default. I put the paper in the box with the IOUs and kept
letting my landlord fuck me any time he wanted. I hoped that everything would turn
out all right by some magic.
    “Early one morning, the deputies
came to my house and took me into custody. I was still in my nightgown. I asked
to be allowed to get dressed but they said that I wouldn’t need even a
nightgown where I was going.
    “The next day I was tattooed and
sold at auction.
    “A knight, Sir Cotslake ,
bought me for twenty-three thousand plaqs . I was
astounded. I was worth a fortune. My family could have lived on that for four
or five years. But they couldn’t sell me. Only my landlord could sell me because
he was the one who had lent me enough money to allow him to press me into his
ownership.”
    Irene was appalled. She knew that
women were pressed into ownership when they were declared bankrupt but she had
never bothered trying to find out exactly how it was done.
    “What happened to the money?”
    “It paid for my debts.”
    “Your debts were three thousand.
You sold for twenty-three-thousand . What happened to
the twenty-thousand extra?”
    Cherry shrugged. “I don’t know.” She
smiled bitterly. “People in my neighborhood don’t know anything about the
business of slavery. Only about people who get pressed or
adjudicated into it. Most don’t get pressed. I never knew anyone who was
as foolish as me and got herself into debt. I knew a couple of boys who were
caught stealing and were adjudicated. Not the first time they were caught, they
were only declared incorrigible after their third conviction.” She smiled
again. “Only bankrupts get sent directly to slavery.”
    “Or murderers?”
    “Murderers get hung. Nobody wants
a murderer for a slave. Not even as a labor slave.”
    “I’m sorry that you were made a
slave,” Irene said.
    Cherry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
    “You lost your freedom over three thousand plaqs .” Irene couldn’t help but think that she had owned
shoes that cost that much. They were lovely shoes, but they weren’t worth a
nineteen-year- old’s life.
    “That was my own fault. Everyone
told me that I was foolish to borrow money. I had lots of warning.”
    “Then I’m sorry that you didn’t
take their advice.”
    Cherry looked hard at Irene. “You
told me a moment ago that you don’t regret trading a lady’s life to become a
slave. Do you think that I had a better life in the ghetto than a lady in her
manor? Here, I get fed regularly. I have lots of leisure time. I get the best
medical care. My cell is warm and dry. I’m twenty-five years old. You know what
twenty-five-year-old women are like in my old neighborhood? We weren’t the middle class . We were at the bottom of the heap. My childhood
friends are starting to lose their teeth. Their bodies are worn out from
bearing children. They collapse into bed in exhaustion every night and have to
crawl back out before dawn to take care of their families as best they can
before they go out looking for work.
    “Me? I get fucked every day or two
and a bunch of times some evenings. I do a little light housework most days. You,
I don’t understand, but me? I know exactly why