?This time Stephanie ignored her answer and went on: ?Though slavery is in principle for life, slaves can be redeemed after twenty years in certain ci...cumstances but it needs someone to provide a lot of money, which of course they are not permitted to accumulate themselves. ?They come to us every time their owners wish to sell them. There are liberally mind people who try to raise funds for freeing children at fourteen, the earliest age permissible, but release at that age is not very popular. I saw Amy the week before I moved. We went out and got a bite to eat, and then went to her apartment. I can’t say it was love but we sure did have sex. It was much better with both of us being sober. I mentioned to her that it was too bad that we didn’t meet earlier in life. Who knows how we would have gotten along. She was a fun girl but other than sex, I don’t think we had much in common. Now of course I was moving away and this was her goodbye present for me. Before I left her apartment, she. "Do you have any idea who did this to her?"I did not expect what happened next."I can't say," she said. "I swore an oath." Swore to whom?" I said.Mrs. Thimble seemed distressed. "Can't say, ma'am."I was not inclined to show her mercy. "Can't, or won't?"She looked scared now. "It was fifteen years ago, ma'am. I don'tremember." Don't you? What happened fifteen years ago?"She looked wretched. "Please don't ask, ma'am." Very well, Mrs. Thimble," I said. "May I tell you what I thinkhappened? Kindly. Dolores remembered a clip of Anita, or her clone, wearing that dress. "I think I remember you wearing that same dress, with a guy..." Dolores started to giggle. "A guy that was incredibly clueless." Oh Gawd! Did that get out in a bloopers tape? As you can see, I put on by pulling it over my head this tight dress. That idiot thought he could undress me by pulling it down." Dolores, remembering, was starting to go into hysterics. "He tugged and tugged. He yanked sideways. He pulled at it so hard.