He hand-picked her from the fields – a formerly angry former-American who had been beat down by the sun and the rain and the hard work. He gave her a new collar, pretty and silver and far lighter than her old one, and she thanked him for it.

So he gave her a place in his bed at night, and her own place to rest during the day, with soft sheets and a solid roof over her head. She thanked him for it, both with words and with her body.

And thus he gave her fine silks to wear and fine food to eat; he gave her easy work and kept the foreman from her. He gave her a golden cage – the room, with gilded-grilled windows, the collar, with its lovely leash, the clothing, too frail to survive outside. And she bowed down and kissed his feet and thanked him for it.

He gave her a day outside in the garden, sunbathing the way few Californian nobles did, an hour of privacy, because she had been so good to him. And she thanked him for it…

Oh, yes, did she give him what he deserved for it.

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