Abigail was the sweetest, kindest girl I ever met. Women two hundred years from now might look back on a girl like her, and point out her flaws and her errors – but whatever bad qualities she had, she learned from millions of her contemporaries – and shared with a few of the worst of them. On the other hand, her good qualities were all her own. There was no one else who compared. 

It took me about a year to see this with clear eyes. I forgave her a long time ago – and I hope that, one day, you’ll be able to love and esteem her as much as I always will. I can’t help but show my feelings so openly. On the one hand, yes, she kept male slaves. But so did every other society woman – that wasn’t her fault. It was the fault of the society she lived in. I know, because she told me, that she felt guilty keeping men as pets or slaves, but that she felt that there was nothing she could do about it – not until the last month or so. Even the best people made mistakes, and she was one of the best. I regret holding my tongue when she needed my help the most, even though I don’t know what I could have said.

This is the day I first met her. 

“Hold on,” Jennifer said, and knelt down – I remember noticing her legs for the first time that day, and that she was wearing faded blue jeans, scuffed at the knees and frayed about the ankles.

She peeled the large, cherry-colored flat from her left foot. There was the anonymous man, exposed. He lay half-awake (and lived maybe half-alive) under the toes of this giantess, and his whole bare body shivered as she slowly, daintily, lifted him off her sweaty, very red and very hot insole. All at once I had flashbacks of Holly, nightmarish in their intensity. I don’t know how long he was there. Longer than a week, and maybe longer than a month. 

“Why do you do this to them?” I asked her, as she dropped him down into the very heart of the sock.

“What did you say?” Absentmindedly, she curled the cotton sock in her hand, and put her other hand – the one that held me – closer to her ear.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you know? I’m a trainer.” She continued, under her breath, “Depending on the slave – how strong he is, what his diet is, whether or not I’m dealing with an aggressive personality – it takes from one day to about a month. Many women pay people – people like me – to train their slaves for them. They like their pets to be submissive and obedient – and who could blame them? Wasn’t Holly a trainer?”

“No,” I said, stung by the question. “It was different.”

“Of course, I know, I know,” Jennifer laughed to herself, coldly. “Sometimes the slave develops an unhealthy attraction, begins to feel attached, grow affectionate, starts to cling to the trainer. And when that happens – well, that’s not very good for the buyer, is it?”

What was she driving at?

“It happens oftener than you might think. Just the other week, there was a slave-in-training who fell in love with me, if you want to call it love. Some are naturally obedient, and others (though fewer) are naturally spirited, indomitable, and will never be trained. But then there are always a few who develop an unhealthy, unnatural, affectionate devotion for their trainer – this happens relatively fast, after the first five days or so. Not an obedient, but an adoring kind of devotion. You have to watch out for that. These weeds always spring up out of the ground, no matter how rocky and dry the soil is. When that happens, all further training is impossible. Those men must be sold at once – otherwise they build up their resolve and then one can get nowhere with them. They must be handed over at once to the prospective buyer, otherwise their value depreciates enormously, by leaps and bounds. 

 “Take care,” she winked at me, “not to mention anything. Chloe suspects nothing. You weren’t low-grade. I can tell you that. But Chloe expects you to serve her – not out of duty (this is the relationship between the trainer and the slave), but out of love. If you can’t love her, then she’ll send you back – but not to Holly. God knows there’s not a better mistress in the country than yours. You’re lucky.”

This was too much for me to take in all at once.

“Abby,” she looked in my eyes, “Abby is too lazy to do the training herself. So, sometimes – for instance, with this poor guy—” and as she said this, her fingers gently nudged, caressed, and toyed with the lump in the sock “—I have to do it myself, because otherwise no one else would. It’s a lot of work – she doesn’t appreciate it yet, but one day she will.”

 The fuchsia sock scrunched up in her one hand, and me burrowed into her other hand, lost somewhere in the space between her sweaty fingers and palm, Jennifer stood by the open door of Abby’s room and looked inside. By the west window of this broad, high, spacious, beautiful, and airy chamber, there was a girl with one bare leg hanging out into the dusk, and the other inside. Her arms reached for a thick, leafy branch that jutted out from an old beech tree, not far from the eaves above her head. Jennifer watched this little absurd drama play out for a moment, and then coughed. Abby (because she was the girl) flinched –  then looked over her shoulder, while a few blue-brown strands of frizzy hair seemed to catch fire in a dying sunbeam. Slowly, very slowly, she swung her leg back over the windowsill. 

“I surprised you,” said Jennifer. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“No, it’s okay. I was just going…”

“Where? Out the window?”

“To the car… I thought I heard... Chloe.”

Jennifer walked up to the window, and looked outside. Then she set me down on one of Abby’s books, by the computer desk, and closed the window.

“Chloe?”

“Well,” said Abby, shrugging, and smiling in my direction, “it might have been a crow.”

Jennifer frowned darkly, and then nodded in my direction. “That’s Meredith. She’ll be staying with Chloe.”

“Oh! That means Jennifer showed you the photograph,” said Abigail. “Did you like it?”

My throat caught for a moment, but made a sign that I did like it.

“How old was she,  Jennifer, when you took that photo? Fifteen?”

Jennifer cleared her throat loudly, and then made a move to pick me up. “Don’t listen to her. They really love each other very much.”

“…which means she must be at least 40 by this time. You should take a new photo, Jennifer. These days, she looks much... wiser.” Jennifer scooped me up in her hand again. “Oh, wait!” Abigail cried out, holding up her hand. “Wait a second. I was just joking – I want to meet her.” 

Jennifer hesitated for a moment, in thought, and then set me back on Abby’s book.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “There’s one more thing.”

The moment Abby saw the purple, cotton sock, she blushed deeply, thanked Jennifer, and told her to toss it on the bed. I was taken aback – after all I’d seen and experienced, I couldn’t have been more surprised.

Jennifer closed the door behind her, and her footsteps receded down the hallway, and echoed down the stairs. When they died out altogether, Abby approached me. Instinctively, I backed away. She froze in midstep about a yard away from the desk.

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Yes,” I said. I was honest. Why did she want to be alone with me?

“Don’t be.” She came closer, up to the edge of the desk, and studied me for a few seconds – though it felt like an eternity.

“What is it?”

“Don’t listen to anything that silly, servant woman tells you. She doesn’t know what duty means when she’s not following orders.”

“She was nice to me.”

Abigail sighed, and looked toward the door again. She was thinking.

“I know where you’re coming from – I mean, I don’t know much. But enough. I know about Holly, for instance. Everything."

“Everything?”

“Everything and everyone.”

“And you have your own slaves?”

“Who doesn’t?” She thought for a moment, and then grimaced. “The only difference between me and some dumb, pious hands-off goody-girl like Emma, or Jennifer, is that I know I’m a part of the problem.” She paused to let that sink in. “It’s this system that’s changing everyone – changing everyone for the worse. That’s how I feel about it.”

“Who is Emma?” It was the second time I’d heard her name today.

“You want to see Emma? I’ll show you. Move over a little.” Before I knew what had happened, she swooped in and hooked me around the waist with her pinky finger, and sat down at the desk. With a roll like thunder, she pulled the desktop keyboard out of its compartment, and started typing.

“Is she important?”

“No, not really. Unless you’re really into sports, but I don’t know much about that stuff, so…”

“What kind of sports?”

“Oh. Jousting. She’s pretty much a murderer. Don’t believe me? Look at this –“

The lightbulb behind the monitor dazzled my eyes, but I could make out the image on the screen – a zoomed-in photo of a beautiful woman, mounted on a little mouse. In her left hand was a long blade, like a claymore, and in her right she held by the hair a decapitated human head. Judith gripping the head of Holofernes.

“That’s Emma? Chloe’s Emma?”

“Disgusting, isn’t it?”

“Really horrible!”

“Gladiatorial. A couple months ago, Chloe discovered Emma’s – talent, I guess – for fighting, and decided to introduce her into sports – or what they’re calling sports. Think of it as a mix between a medieval tournament – and a cockfight. But the idiots – the sadistic idiots, of which there are millions – seem to find it entertaining. So they continue to show it. She’ll be a little murdering one-eyed outlaw before you know it. But here’s the thing. There’s you, and,” she stopped, and looked over at me, “well, I’ve been waiting for you for the last month.”

“Me?”

“We can help each other. Next week, Emma leaves again, on tour, and I go with her.”

There were footsteps sounding on the stairs again. “Jennifer’s coming.”

“Then I’ll tell you more later. I know it’s confusing, but trust me –“

In my mind’s eye I saw her climbing out the window again, and something about this girl began to intrigue me. She couldn’t be putting me on – but she seemed more than capable of using me and then throwing me away. “Okay,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

“Good. Anyway, remember your alternative. Your alternative is to spend the rest of your life as Chloe’s little pet. Her foot-pet, to be precise. Do you know how easy it is for her to find new slaves? Time is short… can I call you Meredith?”

“Yes.”

“Abby.”

“Yes… Abby.”

The door opened with a squeak, and Jennifer peered inside. “Meredith,” she announced, as she walked in, “let’s have that tour now.”

Abby quickly shut down her computer – and as I left the room with Jennifer, I looked behind me toward the bed. In the pale, sinking sunlight of the room, Abby sat down on the mattress, and said, “I’ll be right after you, Jennifer. Don’t wait up.” She started to get herself ready, put on a light jacket, and pushed the window shut with both hands (it was a large window, and she had to use her full bodyweight to close it).

The last thing I saw, before we left the room – just as Jennifer was closing the door – was Abby, pulling on her old pair of rolled-up purple socks. And there was someone wriggling inside them.