Chapter 15
Audrey

There is something nice about having a girl lying naked in your arms, who wears bondage strings on her throat.

“I have waited long for your touch, Master,” whispered Thistle, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster. I caressed the side of her face. She looked up at me. She was worth having.

I had won her use in the bone gambling, her use as complete slave, until I chose to leave the tent.

The hunt had gone well. Imnak and I had brought down four tabuk. Poalu, whom Imnak, with my consent, had made first girl, and the other girls, had followed us. Poalu had showed them how to cut the meat and lay it out on stones to dry.

All now slept in the tent, save Thistle and myself. “You were once Audrey Brewster,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“For purposes of my use of you,” I said, “for I have full rights over you, I shall name you, for the tenure of my ownership of you, Audrey.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“But you wear the name now,” I said, “not as a free name, but as a slave name I choose to put on you.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Do you object?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said. “I am Audrey, your slave.” She clutched me. “Why have you made me wait so long?” she asked.

“It pleased me,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I had wanted her to be well ready.

Two sleeps ago I had had to whip Arlene and Audrey apart. “Stay away from him!” had cried Arlene.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” had protested Audrey.

“Do you think I cannot see you putting yourself before him, smiling, brushing his arm!” cried Arlene.

“Liar!” had cried Audrey.

“Do you deny it?” exclaimed Arlene.

“Of course!” cried Audrey.

Arlene had leapt upon her and, in an instant, both girls, scratching and tearing, biting, rolled on the tundra.

“He is my master, Slave!” screamed Arlene. She knelt over Audrey.

“If Imnak gives my use to him I must serve him!” cried Audrey.

“He has not given your use to him!” said Arlene. “Stay away from him!”

“Do not strike me!” cried Audrey.

“He is my master, not yours,” said Arlene, her small fist raised. “Stay away from him!”

“I am a slave girl,” said Audrey. “I must be pleasing to all free men!”

Arlene struck down at her and, suddenly, they again were locked together, tearing and scratching at one another on the trodden turf.

“Do not hurt me!” suddenly cried Arlene, she now on the bottom, Audrey kneeling over her.

“I am a slave. I will be pleasing to any free man I want,” said Audrey.

“Slave!” screamed Arlene up at her.

“Slave!” screamed Audrey at Arlene.

Arlene squirmed free and again, together, they fought. I thought them extremely well matched slave beauties. Arlene might have been a little stronger. Either of them could have been severely bested by blond Thimble.

At last I, with a switch, fell upon them. “Oh,” they cried. I took them, one hand in the hair of each, and threw them to their knees under the pole. “Strip and stand,” I told them, “hands over head, wrists crossed, beneath the pole.” They did so, and I fastened them in position, side by side.

“Now you are going to have us whipped,” said Audrey to Arlene.

“Be quiet, Slave Girl,” snapped Arlene.

Audrey began to cry.

I handed the switch to Thimble, who once had been Barbara Benson. “Discipline them,” I said to her. “Twenty strokes to each.”

“Yes, Master,” had said Thimble.

I had then walked away. Arlene received the first stroke, Audrey the last.

I now looked into the eyes of Audrey, naked in my arms. “I have waited long for your touch, Master,” she whispered. “I wait lovingly and eagerly to serve you.”

“It is well,” I said.

She kissed me delicately on the arm. Arlene could not now attack her. She must serve me, and serve me to the best of her abilities, superbly and obediently. Her use was now mine.

“You have won in the bone gambling before,” she said. “Why did you wait so long to select me to serve you? Am I not pleasing to a master?”

“You are acceptable, Slave Girl,” I said.

“I will try to be pleasing,” she said.

Before, when I had won in the bone gambling, the dropping of the tiny figures of bone and ivory, I had, of intent, selected blond Thimble, whom I would, in the tenure of her service to me, name ‘Barbara’, putting that name on her, though then of course as a slave name.

“I wanted to let the little pudding named Audrey simmer,” I told her.

“You were cruel,” she said.

Imnak, since he had acquired Poalu, had scarcely glanced at his two white-skinned slave beasts. It was not that he had meant to be cruel. It was rather that he was simply otherwise occupied. And even had he thought of it, their deprivation would not have been of concern to him, for they were only animals.

Both girls would kneel to one side, stripped, awaiting the outcome of the bone gambling. Sometimes I won, and sometimes Imnak won. When Imnak won he might have the use of Arlene, if he chose, or a tabuk steak. Not unoften, to my amusement and Arlene’s outrage, Imnak would select the steak. As I explained to her this was not because there was anything intrinsically lacking in her but because Imnak had eyes only, or generally, for Poalu. He was usually anxious to get his little red slave into the furs. His little slave was forced to compensate him well, indeed, a thousandfold and more, for the frustrating years of her freedom and arrogance. Interestingly, too, she did not seem to mind.

Both Barbara and Audrey had knelt to the side, awaiting the outcome of the sport.

Since the coming of Poalu to the tent life had become hard for them. It was not that Poalu, though she was first girl, and firm, was cruel to them, but rather simply that Imnak now had little time for them and paid them scant attention.

Unfortunately, before the coming of Poalu to the tent, both girls had been brought to the second stage of slavery. The first stage is knowing they must obey, the second stage is needing the touch of a man.

Imnak now seldom touched them.

Their needs, accordingly, were much on them.

Freedom permits a woman to live without men. Slavery makes a woman need a man’s touch. The sexuality of a free woman is largely inert; the sexuality of a slave girl, on the other hand, has been deliberately and seriously activated. Men, as it has pleased them, have done this to her. They have, as masters, careless of the consequences of their actions, awakened the poor girl’s sexuality; it can never then, regardless of the torment and misery it may inflict upon her, return to sleep. It has been made hot and alive. She is no longer free; her freedom is gone; she is now only an ignited slave. Sexuality is a glory in a slave girl which sets her apart from free women, but it is also a force within her which she must fear, for it puts her so helplessly at the mercy of masters. The aroused sexuality of the slave girl is surely the strongest of the chains with which she is bound. Some slave girls, lovely fugitives, have been recaptured simply because they have thrown themselves whimpering at the feet of a man on a road, begging his touch, One of the most humiliating things that can occur to a slave girl is to find herself on her belly, unbidden, moaning, crawling to the feet of a hated master. She puts her lips to his feet. “I beg your touch, Master,” she says.

The sexuality of the aroused slave girl is incomprehensible to the free woman. It is nothing she will ever understand. It is a color she cannot see, a sound she cannot hear.

I glanced at the two girls, kneeling to the side. Their sexuality, in the weeks of their slavery, had well begun to be aroused. Sparks had been kindled within them. Already they needed the touch of men.

They did not yet, of course, as slaves still relatively fresh to bondage, suspect the torments and wonders that might lie before them. They did not yet understand how a woman screaming in a cell might break her body against the bars trying to touch a guard.

“You have won,” had said Imnak, cheerfully.

“Yes,” I said.

I had glanced at the two beauties. Both straightened themselves before me. Both now seemed far from the simple Earth girls they had been. I let my eyes move casually from one to the other.

“Please pick me, Master,” said Audrey.

“I am more beautiful, Master,” had said Barbara.

“Please, Master,” begged Audrey.

I glanced at Barbara. Before, when I had won, I had always chosen her. She lifted her body before me. She was a quite lovely slave. How far from Earth she seemed.

No longer was she a blond tease, dressing to excite boys, yet fearing her sexuality.

She was now a slave girl.

I looked at Barbara. Then I pointed to Audrey. “This one,” I said.

“Master!” breathed Audrey.

Barbara looked away, angrily.

Imnak got up and seized Poalu by the arm. He threw her to his furs.

I went to my furs and threw off my garments, and lay down on my furs, reclining, on one elbow.

Audrey remained kneeling, where she had been, though she watched me.

I indicated a place beside me on my furs. She crawled to the furs, head down, and lay timidly beside me.

“On your back,” I told her.

She lay on her back, and I put my left arm under her, that I might lift, turn or control her as I wished, leaving my right hand free to caress her body.

I looked at the line of her body.

“You are a pretty slave,” I told her.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

 

There is something nice about having a girl lying naked in your arms, who wears bondage strings on her throat.

“I have waited long for your touch, Master,” whispered Thistle, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster. I caressed the side of her face. She looked up at me. She was worth having.

“I am pleased that you won my use in the gambling,” she said.

“Are you any good?” I asked.

“Master will use me and tell me,” she said. “I will try to be good.”

I looked down at her.

“Will master use me only briefly?” she asked. Imnak was seldom patient with his white-skinned slave beasts. Not only were they slaves, but they were white.

“You are pretty,” I said. “It is my intention, in these hours of my ownership of you, to use you several times.”

“Several times?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. I smiled at her. “We shall sleep from time to time,” I said.

“But what if we are not awake at the same time?” she asked.

“What a naive slave you are,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, a bit archly.

“Yes,” I said, “you will awaken as you are entered or seized, or slapped awake.”

“Oh,” she said.

“It is very simple,” I assured her.

“You may, of course, do with me whatever you wish, and when you wish,” she said, a little resentfully.

“I shall,” I said.

“I am certain of that,” she said.

“Do you object?” I asked.

“I may not object,” she said. She smiled. “I am a slave,” she said.

“Are you a pert, intemperate slave?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“Will it be necessary to whip you?” I asked.

“No,” she said, quickly.

“You will try to be a good slave?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Please me,” I said.

“Master!” she said.

“Please me,” I said.

“But I am the female,” she said. I looked at her.

“I will try to please you,” she said quickly. She began, clumsily, to kiss and caress me. I laughed at the ineptness of her efforts.

“Why do you laugh?” she asked, tears in her eyes.

“I was thinking,” I said, “that if I had bought you in the Sardar and thrown you to my men you would have been slain by now.”

“Teach me to survive as a slave girl,” she begged.

“I will show you some simple things,” I said. “But girls usually learn from other girls, or from their slave trainers in the pens.”

“Pens?” gasped Audrey.

“Of course,” I said. “Sometimes,” I admitted, “trainers are brought to the compartments, with their whips, but that is more expensive.”

She turned white.

“You are a slave, and you are going to continue to be a slave,” I told her, “so you had better learn how to be a good one.”

She looked at me.

“Do you want to live?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then learn,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Here,” I said, “hold your lips to my thigh. Put your lips thusly.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

 

“It is strange,” she said, looking up at me. “I longed for your touch, but now it is I who must touch you.”

“Do not fear, little slave beauty,” I said, “you, too, will be touched in your turn.”

Her eyes were moist. She pressed her lips to my belly. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

“What is slavery like in the south?” asked Audrey.

“It is the same as here,” I said. “You would be in the absolute power of a man.”

“I know that, Master,” she said. “But how would I be dressed? What would I have to do?”

“You would be dressed, if at all, as your master pleased,” I said, “and you would have to do whatever you were told.”

“Oh, I know that, Master,” she said, laughing, kissing me. Then she lay with her head on my shoulder.

“Would I be branded?” she asked.

“Doubtless,” I said. “It is easier to keep track of a slave that way.”

“Does that hurt much?” she asked.

“At the time,” I said, “not later.”

“Where are we branded?” she asked.

“A girl is commonly branded on the left or right thigh,” I said, “sometimes on the lower left abdomen.”

“I am afraid to be branded,” she said.

“It does not hurt afterwards,” I said. “It is only a mark to help keep track of you.”

“Really, Master?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “if the truth must be told, it does, considerably, enhance your beauty. Also it is sometimes not without its psychological effect.”

“I can well imagine its psychological effect,” she said. She shuddered.

“It can help to impress upon a girl that she is a slave,” I admitted.

I touched her on the thigh.

“There?” she asked.

“Quite possibly,” I said.

Suddenly she clutched me. “Oh, oh,” she cried. “It is the thought of being branded,” she whispered, intensely. “Please, Master, hold me, hold me!”

Her thighs were clenched fiercely. “I am going into orgasm,” she cried out, frightened. I held her, as she gasped and wept in my arms. I had not even entered her, or touched her intimately. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Angrily I thrust apart her legs. “Forgive me, Master,” she wept “It was the thought of being branded.”

“So, Slave,” I said, “you want the iron?”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“If I should have you in the south,” I said, “I would have you soon marked.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept. “Yes, Master!”

“Serve me now, Slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she cried. “Yes, Master!” she cried.

 

“Serve me again,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Audrey will now serve her master again.

“Does Audrey like serving her master?” I asked.

“Audrey loves serving her master,” she whispered.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Audrey is a slave,” she whispered.

“It is true,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she began to cry out with helpless pleasure.

“In the south,” I said, “there are many cities. Many of these cities consist largely of high cylinders, joined by traceries of high bridges.”

“It sounds very beautiful,” she said.

“It is,” I said.

“Are there many slave girls in these cities?” she asked.

“Yes, many,” I said.

“Tell me of them,” she said.

‘They are commonly kept barefoot,” I said, “and are clad in brief tunics. Their hair is usually worn long and loosely. Their throats are normally encircled by collars, which identify their masters.”

“Are such girls treated kindly?” she asked.

“It depends on the will of the master,” I said. “They are slaves.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Most girls are treated kindly,” I said, “provided they are absolutely pleasing in all ways.”

She was silent.

“That is little enough to expect from a slave,” I pointed out.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do you object?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “It is only that the domination to which the Gorean slave girl is subject is so uncompromising, so complete.”

“It is absolutely uncompromising and complete,” I told her. “Goreans are not men of Earth,” I said. “They will have what they truly want from a woman, everything.”

“Though I am destined to be the helpless victim of their will, their power and their lust,” she said, “yet I cannot help but admire and fear such men.”

‘They will make you be a woman, their woman,” I said.

“In my most secret dreams,” she said, “I longed for such a man. I did not know they could exist.”

“Something in your heart,” I said, “whispered to you that there must be somewhere such men.”

“It was only a longing dream,” she whispered, “the yearning of a girl for a true man, one proud and free and strong, one not dishonest, one not broken, one not robbed of himself, one who could by his might and strength make me as much a woman as he was a man.”

“And then?” I asked.

“And then, one day, on a platform in the Sardar, I learned that it was not a simple dream, but that it had been a dream to which there corresponded a fearful reality.”

“You, wench of Earth,” I said to her, “now lie naked on Gor, a slave girl.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Are you frightened?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I am terribly frightened.” She clutched my arms. “Should those of Earth not be told that there truly is a Gor?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It is better that they do not know.”

“How many girls, this very night on Earth,” she asked, “are being brought to Gor?”

“I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps none. I do not know the schedule of the slave runs.”

“The horror, and the joy, of it,” she said.

“Joy,” I asked, “Slave?”

“Yes, joy,” she whispered. “Master?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you please stand over me?” she asked.

I did so.

“Yes,” she said, “that is how I imagined him, the man in my dreams, he for whom I longed, he who would come for me and place me, regardless of my will, resolutely in his total bondage.”

“And what did you do?” I asked.

“I knelt before him, like this,” she said, “and put my head to his feet.” She looked up at me. “You see,” she said, “I knew, in seeing him, that he was my master.”

“And what did he do?” I asked.

“He did not let me speak,” she said, “but took me by the shoulders and gently, but powerfully, pressed me back.”

“Like this?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, I wanted to protest, and speak, and question him, but I saw in his eyes that I must not do so.”

“And then?” I asked.

“He told me that he would try me out,” she said, “and see if I pleased him. If I did not he would leave me alone, and unharmed, and I should not see him again. But to beware, for if he was pleased with me, he would take me away with him, to a far world, one very different from my own, where he could keep me as he wished, and would do so, as a slave.” She smiled at me. “He encouraged me to try to resist him, that I might keep my pride and freedom.” She looked up at me. “You see, he only wanted me if I truly was a slave,” she said.

“What did you do then?” I asked.

“I opened my body to him like a flower,” she said. “I said to him, “Do not leave me, Master. Take me with you. I am truly a slave as you have suspected. You are the first man to discern this. Thus you are the first man to whom I belong.’” She smiled. “’Yes,’ he said, ‘I see that you are a slave, but I do not know if you will please me.’”

“And then?” I asked.

“Then,” she said, “I was very afraid, for I sensed that if he should so much as touch his lips to mine I could never again be anything but a man’s slave. What if I should not please him? Would he not then simply abandon me, leaving me behind, a masterless girl, a lonely, forlorn slave on a world empty of men strong enough to be a woman’s master?”

I supposed it was hard for one who was a slave to be in a world in which there were no masters. Perhaps there were masters on such a world, but she had not yet found them. The slave seeks her master, the master his slave. When they find one another they will know it. She will kneel to him, and he will accept her as his.

“Did he permit you to speak further?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. I opened my arms to him. I said to him, ‘I will try with all, my heart to please you, my master, that I may be found worthy to be taken with you as your slave.”’

“What then did he say?” I asked.

“He said nothing,” she said. “He only held me by the arms, and I could not move. Then he laughed. Then he used me for his pleasure.”

“His domination was ruthless?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled, “lovingly ruthless.”

“He treated you as a slave?” I asked.

“Completely,” she said.

“As was proper,” I said.

“Of course,” she smiled. “I was his slave. Should a slave not be treated as a slave?”

“Of course,” I said.

“When he finished with me,” she said, “I said to him, ‘Have I pleased you, Master?’ He did not respond but, from a bottle, poured a tiny bit of fluid into a cloth. ‘Did I please you, Master?’ I again begged. Then he placed the damp cloth over my mouth and nose, holding it tightly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you have pleased me, Slave.’ I looked up at him. I could sense the fumes in the cloth. ‘You are a pretty slave,’ he said. ‘You will bring a good price in the market.’ I realized then that he would only keep me for a time, and would then sell me. I realized then that I would have many masters. I struggled, but I could not escape. Then I lost consciousness.”

“An interesting dream,” I said.

“Then one day,” she said, “I awakened, chained on Gor,” She kissed me. “Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“The girls who are kept slave in the cities,” she asked, “are they happy?”

“Many are blissfully happy,” I said. “Strange,” I mused, “that that should be so, and yet the facts are incontrovertible, Many of them, collared, subject to the whip, are yet blissfully happy. It makes little sense to me. I do not profess to understand it.”

“I sense how it could be, Master,” she said.

“A girl, of course,” I said, “in having many masters learns how to please men. She must, of course.”

“I am sure that is part of it, Master,” said Audrey. “May I speak?”

“Yes,” I said. “I sense,” she said, “what my true master would be like.”

“Any man who owns you is your true master,” I said.

“That is true,” she laughed. “But I have a dream of a perfect master, to whom I could be but a perfect slave.”

“I see,” I said.

“Other girls, too,” she said, “must sense this sort of thing.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Do not men have some sense of what sort of girl would be their perfect slave?” she asked.

“Some girls are surely more attractive and desirable than others,” I said, “and clearly this is not a simple function of physical appearance. Indeed, some rather plain girls are, for no reason that is clear to me, tormentingly attractive, intensely desirable.”

“There is no simple answer,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I do not think so.”

“Is it not true,” she laughed, “that all men want a woman who will bring them their slippers in her teeth?”

“Sandals,” I corrected her.

“Sandals,” she laughed.

“Yes,” I said, “every man wants such a woman.”

“And a slave girl must,” she said.

“If the master so instructs her,” I said. “Of course.”

“All men want,” she laughed, “is a girl panting in their arms.”

“Surely more than that,” I said. “Any girl can be made to pant in a manes arms,” I pointed out.

“That is true,” she said, bitterly. She was slave. She knew she could be forced to yield to any man.

“What is it that you are trying to say?” I asked.

“You could not easily delineate for me your criteria for the perfect slave,” she said, “nor I to you my criteria for the perfect master. Indeed, one might be a perfect slave to one master and not to another, as one might be the perfect master to one slave and not to another.”

“Go on,” I told her.

“But we both sense,” she said, “that there would be a rightness, or rightnesses, about such matters.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“I think I would know my perfect master as soon as his eyes met mine,” she said.

“I doubt it,” I said.

“I would certainly know,” she said, “that it might well be he.”

“Perhaps,” I granted.

“Too,” she said, “I suspect that you generally have little difficulty in picking from a line of chained girls those who are of the most interest to you.”

“That is true,” I smiled. “But such difficulties, even should they occur, are, of course, not intolerable.”

“Beast,” she said. “But my point, Master, if I may be permitted to continue to speak, is that both of us would sense rightnesses, fittingnesses, matches, agrecabiities. complementarities, in such matters.”

“Of course,” I said. Then I said, “Ah yes, your point is an interesting one.”

“Yes,” she said. “Suppose that a woman is, as I am, a natural slave.”

“Yes,” I said, “the buying and the selling.”

“A girl will often have many masters, will she not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “A comely girl may change hands many times.”

“And a master, of course,” she said, “is likely to own, from month to month, or year to year, several different girls.”

“Yes,” I said. Most Gorean masters could not afford more than one girl. The price obtained on one, of course, can be applied to the purchase of the next. In this sense, after the initial investment, provided one both sells and buys, girls are cheap.

“A man, too,” she said, “buys women who are attractive to him. It is harder for the woman, but she, too, at times, is in a position to influence her sale. She will try to appear more beautiful and pleasing to the man she wishes to buy her than to one she does not wish to buy her.”

“The slaver will take her hide off with the whip if he catches her at it,” I said. “Too,” I said, “at a public auction that sort of thing is difficult or impossible.”

“Yes,” said Audrey, “in a public auction, as I understand it, a woman is completely at the mercy of the men.”

“Your point is an excellent one,” I said. “If women are true slaves, and men are true masters, and slave exchanges are frequent, there is a resonable chance that a man may find his choice slave, and a girl her choice master.”

“Or perfect slave and master,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said.

The bliss of many slave girls now seemed less puzzling to me. First, as girls, natural slaves, they were in a relationship to which, in effect, they were bred by nature, that of the submitting organism in an ancient biological complementarity of male and female; female slavery is but the cultural institutionalization, the expression and perfection, to be expected in conscious, intelligent organisms, intent upon remaining true to nature, rather than violating it, of the male’s control and ownership of his female. Man owns woman by nature; in a complex society, and in a world with property rights and laws, female slavery, as a legalized fact, is to be expected; it will occur in any society in which touch is kept with the truths of nature. Gorean law, of course, is complex and latitudinous on these matters. For example, many women are free, whether wisely or desirably or not, and slavery is not always permanent for a slave girl. Sometimes a girl, winning love, is freed, perhaps to bear the children of a former master. But the freedom of a former slave girl is always a somewhat tenuous thing. Her thigh still bears the brand. And, should her ears be pierced, it is almost certain she will, sooner or later, be re-enslaved. It is hard for men to leave a woman who can be a good slave girl free. She will always dread that in the night men will come again for her, hooding her, carrying her to a distant city, to be again put on the block of a steaming market, that once again her throat will be encircled by a steel collar and that she will kneel at the feet of a new master. Slavery also, of course, encompasses the ownership of male slaves, for which there is less precedent in nature. Where males are concerned the institution is primarily economic. The labor of male slaves is useful and cheap. It is applied in such places as the quarries, the roads, the great farms, in certain types of cargo galleys, on the wharves, at the walls of cities and in the forests. Male slaves are usually debtors or criminals; sometimes they are captives, taken in actions against enemy cities or facilities; sometimes they have merely accrued the displeasure of powerful men or families; some slavers, working in gangs, specialize in the capture of free men for work projects; they obtain a fee per head on a contractual basis.

The second reason for the bliss of many slave girls, that sequent upon the appropriateness of bondage for the beautiful woman itself, her female joy in being made to be true to herself, slave, was that, given the flesh transactions in a given city, sooner or later, masters tended to find girls who were, from their point of view, superb slaves, apd girls tended to find men who were, from their point of view, marvels as masters. It is a beautiful moment when the woman realizes that the man who owns her is her love master, and the man realizes that the girl he bought, looking up at him, tears in her eyes, is his love slave.

Then the only danger is that he will weaken. One must be strong with a love slave. If one truly loves her, he will be that strong. The slavery in which a love slave is kept is an unusually deep slavery. She must serve him with a perfection which would stun and startle other girls; if she should fail in any way, even in so small a way that the lapse would be overlooked in the case of another wench, or bring perhaps a mild word of reprimand, she is likely to be tied at the slave ring and whipped; there is a good reason for this; she is, you see, a love slave; no woman can be more in a man’s power; and with no woman must he be stronger.

Too, of course, if a relationship should weaken, or not prove enduringly satisfactory, the girl is simply put in cuffs and taken to a market.

The relationship which does not prove satisfactory is soon terminated. This termination is completely in the power of the master.

“Enough discussion,” I said. “Let us have you.”

“Yes, have me, Master,” she whispered. Her lips met mine, eagerly.

“You are a highly intelligent slave,” I said, “Audrey.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“You have been instructive to me,” I said. “I am pleased by this.”

“Men of Earth,” she said, “will not listen to a woman.

“Some men will,” I said. “But what you intimate is true. Generally men of Earth will not listen to women. Their minds are closed on the matter. Being men they think all human beings are the same as themselves. It is a natural fallacy. Masculine women, those unfortunate creatures, in their frustration, exploit this weakness in the men of Earth. They tell them what they want to hear. This they then take as evidence confirming their preconceptions. It is sad that the true needs of women must then be sacrificed to the ignorance of men and the political and economic ambitions of hirsute frustrates.”

“You speak cruelly,” she said.

“I am sorry,” I said. “Doubtless the matter is more complex than these simplicities suggest.”

“I pity women who are not women,” she said.

“On Earth,” I said, “they proclaim themselves the true women.”

“That is natural,” she said. “What do you expect them to say?”

“I suppose you are right,” I said.

“I think so,” she said.

“What counts on Earth as the liberation of women.” I said, “is cunformance to a certain stereotype, an aggressive, man-like, Lesbian image, one alien to, and offensive to, most normal women. Most women do not truly wish to be men. They find it difficult to believe that they cannot be true women until they are like men. A true liberation of women might be desirable, one which would permit them to be themselves, whatever they might be, a liberation that would free a woman to be feminine rather than constrict her to the imitation of manhood, a liberation without preset images and goals, which would permit her to find herself, wherever and however she might be, honestly, a liberation that would not be a gibberish of political prescriptions, a facsimile of the most sordid side of alien. malelike egoisms, a liberation that would free women in all their latent richness, their diversities and glories, that would be open enough to accept gratefully and, yes, celebrate such currently denigrated properties as softness, tenderness and love. A liberation of a woman. too, which does not permit her to be wild and free and sensuous, and true to her true needs, is not a liberation but a new imprisonment.”

“I do not want to be liberated,” she whispered to me.

“Do not fear,” I told her. “You will not be.”

She looked up at me, and kissed me.

“A woman as beautiful as you will be kept as a slave.” I said. “You are too beautiful to be free.”

“I will be kept as a slave?” she asked.

“Yes, because men want you as a slave,” I said.

“My will means nothing?’ she asked.

“Nothing,” I told her.

She looked up at me. “I am content, Master,” she said.

“You are a slave,” I said.

“I am a woman,” she said.

“And a slave,” I said.

“Yes, a slave,” she said. Her eyes were moist. “Do you know why I am content?” she asked.

“No, Slave,” I said.

“Because I am a slave,” she said. “It is strange,” she said, “we have talked of freedom, of liberation. And yet I feel that somehow, though I am slave, I am the most liberated, the most free of women. For the first time in my life I am free to obey, to love and be pleasing.”

“You are not simply free to do such things,” I said, “you must do them.”

“Yes,” she said, “and I have found myself, with bondage strings on my throat, in a barbarian’s tent, on a strange world.”

“It is here,” I said, “that you are forced to be true to your own nature. Nothing else is permitted.”

“True freedom,” she said, “is to follow one’s own nature.”

“All else,” I said, “is rhetoric, and the dictates of others.”

“Then I am free!” she cried.

“Be quiet,” I said, “or I will take you outside, tie you to the pole and whip you.”

She looked at me, frightened. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“Do you think you are free now?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“You are not free,” I said. “You are a slave. You are in total bondage.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do not forget it,” I said.

“No, Master,” she whispered, frightened.

“Perhaps I should whip you,” I said.

“Rather let me try to please you,” she begged. She was frightened.

“Very well,” I said. The slave girl then fell to kissing me, eager to placate the master.

It is well not to let a girl grow too enamoured of her bondage. It is well not to let her forget that she is only a slave.

Later Audrey lay in my arms. “I am happy, Master,” she whispered.

“Let us sleep now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.- “Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I am pleased that you won my use in the gambling. I have been pleased to serve you.”

“Let us sleep now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

 

“Master,” she said. She spoke very softly, that she not awaken me, should I be asleep.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you think Imnak will keep me a slave forever,” she asked.

“No” I said, “I do not think so.”

“Will he free me?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Will I be killed?” she asked.

“I do not think it likely,” I said, “if you are sufficiently pleasing.”

“I will be sufficiently pleasing,” she said, earnestly. “What do you think will be done with me?” she asked.

“Imnak now has Poalu,” I said.

“He does not need me any longer,” she said.

“No,” I said, “nor Thimble, though you are both pretty things to have in the tent.”

“What will he do with us?” she asked.

“It is my guess,” I said, “that both Thimble and yourself will be traded south next spring for tea and sugar.”

“Traded! For tea and sugar!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Audrey Brewster sold for tea and sugar!” she said.

“Thistle, the slave,” I said.

“But I am she,” she said.

“Be pleased that panther girls are not selling you for arrow points and a handful of candy,” I said.

“Who are panther girls?” she asked.

“Strong women, huntresses who frequent the northern forests,” I said. “They enjoy selling feminine women like yourself.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You are a slave,” I said. “Do you think you would like to be a woman’s slave?”

“No,” she said, shuddering. She kissed me. “I am a man’s slave,” she said.

“It is true,” I said.

“Are panther girls truly so strong?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said. “Once captured and conquered, collared and silked, their thigh burned by the iron, thrown to a man’s feet. they are as quick to kiss and lick as any woman. Indeed, they make superb slaves. They bring high prices in the markets. They are only girls desperate to fight their femininity. When they are no longer permitted to do this they have no choice but to become marvelous women and slaves. A conquered panther girl is one of the most abject and delicious, and joyful, of slaves.”

“I see, Master” she said.

“How would I be taken south?” she asked.

“Afoot, your neck tied to a sled,” I said.

“I do not want to remain a slave of red hunters indefinitely,” she said. “I think I would like to be taken south.”

“What you like is of no interest.” I said.

“I know,” she said.

“If I were to be taken south,” she said, “would I be sold there?”

“Doubtless,” I said.

“Publicly?” she asked.

“Presumably,” I said.

“Naked?” she asked.

“You might wear chains,” I said. “I do not know.”

“Only a fool buys a woman clothed,” she said.

“That is a Gorean saying,” I said.

“Imnak taught it to me,” she laughed.

“Surely you see the sense of it?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, “if I were a man I would buy a woman only if she were naked. I would want to see what I was getting, completely.”

“Precisely,” I said.

“I would even want to try her out,” she said, boldly.

“That is done in certain sorts of sales,” I said, “such as purple booth sales in the courtyard of a slaver’s house.”

“If there were a handsome buyer, I would try hard to please him,” she said.

“You would try hard to please any potential buyer,” I said, “or your owner, the slaver, would express his dissatisfaction to you.”

“I see,” she said.

A slaver normally expresses his dissatisfaction to his girls with a whip.

“But what of large sales, public sales?” she asked.

“Even in most private sales,” I said, “the prospective buyer is not permitted to use the girl, fully.”

“Fully?”

“He might be permitted to feel her a bit.” I said. “A great deal can be told by simply getting your hands on a girl,” I said. “What does her arm feel like above the elbow? How does she turn when you take her by the shoulders and face her away from you? What of the delights of her thigh, the sweetness behind her knees, the turn of her calves? You lift a foot. Does she have a high instep. A girl with a high instep is often a fine dancer. You turn her again to face you. The eyes are very important. Much can be learned there of her intelligence. You kiss her breasts softly, you brush her lips with yours. You study her eyes, her expressions. Then, unexpectedly perhaps, or perhaps first warning her, you touch her. Again attend to the eyes. You continue to touch her. You watch the eyes. Then she screams for mercy, writhing in her chains or in the grasp of the slaver, his hand in her hair. You then know about all you can, without putting her through slave paces or forcing her to perform on the furs.”

“Then slavers seldom permit their girls to be fully used?” she asked.

“Not for free,” I said. “A common arrangement, however, is to charge a prospective buyer, if he wishes it. a rent fee, which fee may then be, should he want the girl, applied to her purchase price.”

“That seems sound business” she said.

“I think so,” I said. “Why should a slaver give away the use of his properties?” I asked. “After all that is how he makes his living, buying and selling, and leasing and renting women.”

“Of course,” she said. “But there are the purple booth sales,” she said.

‘Those are usually for a well-fixed clientele, known to the slaver,” I said. “They are known to him as serious, bonafide buyers. If they do not buy one girl, they will probably buy another.”

“Oh,” she said.

“But what of large, public sales?” she pressed.

“In which, say, an auction block would be used?” I asked.

She shuddered. “Yes,” she said.

“Such sales are common on Gor,” I said.

“Common?” she gasped.

“Certainly,” I said. “Many women are auctioned from the block in a given year in a given city,” I said. “Do you remember the large blue and yellow pavilion near the platforms where Imnak bought you?”

“Yes” she said.

“Women were being auctioned there,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “I was not,” she said.

“You were not regarded as being sufficiently interesting at that time to be put on the block,” I said. “The platforms were good enough for your sort.”

“But I am beautiful,” she said.

“On Gor,” I said, “beautiful women are plentiful, and cheap.”

“Am I more interesting now, Master?” she wheedled.

“Yes,” I said, “You are perhaps worthy now to grace the block-“

‘Thank you, Master,” she said.

“-in a minor sale in a small city,” I added.

“Oh, Master!” she laughed.

“I jest,” I said, “but, too, I am serious. You will grow in slavery and beauty. Who knows what a woman’s potential is for love?”

She looked at me.

“You have far to go, my lovely little tart.” I said. “But in the end I think you might be worthy of the central block, at the Curulean in Ar.”

She kissed me, frightened. “What a fearful thing it is to be a slave girl, and what a wonderful thing,” she said.

I said nothing.

“How does one know, on the block,” she asked, suddenly, “if a girl is any good?”

“A certification of a girl’s heat, in certain cities,” I said, “is sometimes furnished, with the slaver’s guarantee, among the documents of sale. Her degree of heat, in such a situation would also be listed of course, among her other properties, on her sales sheet, posted in the vicinity of the exhibition cages, available twenty Ahn before her sale. It would also be proclaimed, of course, in such a situation, along with her weight and collar size, and such things, from the block, during her sale.”

“Is that sort of thing done in many cities?” she asked.

“In very few,” I said, “and for a very good reason.”

“Out of respect for the girls?” she asked.

“Of course not.” I said. “It is rather done in few cities because of the possibility of fraud on the part of the buyer. He might use the girl for a month and then claim a refund in virtue of the guarantee. Slavers prefer for their sales to be final. Too, other problems exist For example, a free woman who, before her sale, is cold may become, after her sale, knowing herself then as a vended slave, helpless and torrid in the arms of a master. Similarly a girl who is only average, generally, so to speak, may, at the very glance of a given master, one who is special to her for no reason that is clear, become so weak and paga hot that she can scarcely stand.”

“Generally, then,” she said, “the buyer would not know, from the block information, whether the girl would be any good or not?”

“He will certainly know if he, personally, finds her attractive. Too, even a frigid woman, in the arms of a Gorean master, can be made to sweat and cry.”

“Frigidity is not permitted to the slave girl?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “The master will not accept it”

“Poor girl,” she laughed.

“Frigidity is a neurotic luxury,” I told her. “It is allowed only to free women, probably because no one cares that much about them. Indeed, frigidity is one of the titles and permissions implicated in the lofty status of a free woman. For many it is, in effect, their proudest possession. It distinguishes them from the lowly slave girl. It proves to themselves and others that they are free. Should they be enslaved, of course, it is, for better or for worse, taken from them, like their property and their clothing.”

“Not all free women are frigid,” she said.

“Of course not,” I said, “but there is actually a scale, so to speak, in such matters. But just as some free women are insufficiently inert, or cold, to qualify, strictly, as frigid, perhaps to their chagrin, so none of them, I think, are sufficiently ignited to qualify in the ranges of “slave-girl hot.” so to speak. A free woman’s sexuality may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of inertness, or coolness; a slave girl’s sexuality, on the other hand, may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of responsive passion, or heat. Some slave girls are hotter than others, of course, just as some free women are less cold than others, whether this pleases them or not. Whereas the free woman normally maintains a plateau of frigidity, however, the slave girl will usually increase in degrees of heat, this a function of her master, his strength, her training, and such. The slave girl grows in passion; the free woman languishes in her frigidity, congratulating herself on the starvation of her needs.”

“Do free women know what they are missing?” she asked.

“I think, on some level, they do,” I said. “Else the resentment and hatred they bear the slave girl would be inexplicable.”

“I see,” she said.

“Beware the free woman,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“On the block, of course,” I said, “the girl is under the control of the auctioneer, who functions as her master while she is being sold. He will often exhibit her skillfully. A good auctioneer is very valuable to a slaver’s house. He will guide her with his voice, and touches, or strokes, of his whip. He may put her through slave paces on the block, forcing her to assume postures and attitudes. If she is a dancer, she may be forced to dance. She may be, if he sees fit, publicly caressed on the block.”

“Before the buyers!” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “It does not matter. She is a slave.”

“Of course,” she whispered. “She is only a slave.”

“It is not unusual,” I said, “to even send a girl aroused onto the block, that the nature of her movements may make clear her needs to the audience.”

“And should such a girl be caressed?” she asked.

“She might enter orgasm on the very block,” I said. “Sometimes it is necessary to whip such a woman from the feet of the auctioneer. At the very least she will beg to serve a master within the very Ahn, either a buyer or one of the slaver’s men, to achieve closure on the arousal which has been inflicted upon her.”

“How cruel Goreans are!” she said.

“Is this more cruel than making clear the color of her hair and eyes?” I asked. “The Goreans are buying the whole girl.”

She looked down.

“Do not fear,” I said. “Normally there is no time for a lengthy sale. One must take a few bids and then thrust the wench from the block, to make room for the next girl. A sale often takes no more time than one or two Ehn. Sometimes four hundred girls or more must be sold from a single block in a given night.”

“One might be exhibited and sold before one scarcely knew what was occurring,” she said.

“I suppose so,” I said. “I am not a woman.”

“But I am,” she said.

“It is thus likely to be your problem and not mine,” I told her.

“How you tease one who is only a slave,” she said.

“One does what one pleases with them,” I told her.

“Of course,” she said. “We are only slaves.”

“Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Is there no cure for a free woman’s frigidity?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Total enslavement?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She said nothing.

“Every woman has a need to submit herself to a master,” I said. “When she finds herself at the feet of her master her body will no longer permit her to be frigid. There is no longer any reason. She is now where nature places her, at his feet and in his power. She kisses his feet and, weeping, feeling the heat and oils between her lovely legs, cannot wait to be thrown to the furs.”

She did not speak.

“But I do not speak here merely of the simplicities and negativities of a cure,” I said. “I speak rather of the beginning of a career, a helpless, flowering biography of service, love and passion.”

“You speak of a woman being made a slave girl,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I wonder if I will be pleasing to a master,” she said.

“Any slave girl,” I said, “with the proper management, and master, can become a wonder of sexuality and love.”

“I think I will love being a slave girl,” she said.

I shrugged. What did it matter, what her feelings were? She was a slave.

“No wonder the free women hate us so,” she said.

“Of course,” I said. “You are everything that they desire to be and are not.”

She bit her lip. She looked at me. “Are free women permitted to watch us being sold?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Why not? They are free.”

She looked at me, miserably.

“Ah, yes,” I said. “I see. It would be quite humiliating, one woman, a slave, being sold, while another woman, a free woman, observes.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Let us hope that the free woman is not one of powerful family,” I said, “who has had the other captured, and put upon the block.”

“That would be dreadful,” she said.

“Women are capable of such things,” I said.

She put down her head.

“Perhaps it is well that they are not dominant,” I said. “Perhaps they should all be controlled, and kept in collars.”

“Or bondage strings,” she laughed.

“Yes, or bondage strings, like you, my pretty slave,” I said.

“Men want us as their abject slaves, don’t they?” she asked.

“Yes, like you, my dear,” I told her. “Any man who tells you differently is lying.”

“Are most Gorean women slaves?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Indeed, statistically, in those parts of Gor with which I am familiar, very few. Commonly only one woman in, say, forty or fifty is a slave. This varies somewhat of course, from city to city. The major exception to these ratios is the city of Tharna, in which almost every woman is a slave.” I looked at her. “There are special historical reasons for that,” I said.

“But over a large population,” the said, “there would be literally thousands.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Are the most beautiful and desirable women those who, generally, are the slaves?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “the most beautiful and desirable women on the planet seem generally to be the slaves.”

“Such women would be the prime target for the strike of slavers,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “A girl of low caste, of a poor family, who is truly beautiful, a girl who cannot afford shelter in a protected area, is almost certain, sooner or later, to find her neck ringed with a collar. As far as that goes, a girl of wealth and high caste, who is beautiful, is not out of danger. It is regarded as great sport to take them.”

“A sport of men,” she said.

“Yes, to make beautiful women slaves,” I said.

“A delicious sport,” she said.

“I think so,” I said.

“Beast,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I said. “I think it is true,” I said, “that it is generally the most beautiful and desirable women who are the slaves, but I will tell you something you may find of interest.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“Slavery itself,” I said, “often makes a woman more beautiful and desirable. It removes tensions. It removes inhibitions. It makes women happy. It is hard, I think, sometimes, for a woman who is happy not to be beautiful. Sometimes Goreans ask, is she a slave because she is beautiful, or beautiful because she is a slave?”

She kissed me, gently.

“Are many Gorean slave girls of Earth origin?” she asked.

“I assume all human Goreans are of Earth origin,” I said.

“I mean,” she said, “like me, a girl born and raised on Earth, and then brought to Gor as a slave.”

“Statistically,” I said, “surely few. How many I would not know.”

“Ten,” she asked, “twenty?”

“Perhaps some four or five thousand,” I said. “I would not know.” Such a number, I conjectured, would not even be missed in a population which teemed like that of Earth.

“We are brought here as slaves,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

“And the slaving continues,” she said.

“I suppose so,” I said. “On Gor there is a market for beautiful Earth girls. They make excellent slaves.”

“I am glad to hear that,” she said.

“Please me,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said, obediently, this time without surprise or demur. And then she well pleased me. She was becoming skillful.

“Please tell me more of the south,” she said.

“Please me,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. Yes, she was becoming quite skillful.

 

“Please tell me more of the south,” she said.

“Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira,” I said.

“Oh, Master,” she said.

“That is a Gorean saying,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “Imnak taught it to me.”

“You now know two Gorean sayings,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “’Only a fool buys a woman clothed’ and ‘Curisoity is not becoming in a Kajira.”’

“Yes,” I said.

“Please, Master,” she said.

“You have them down well,” I said.

“Oh, please, please, Master,” she begged.

It was natural that she should be desperately eager to learn the nature of a slave girl’s lot.

“Perhaps,” I said.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Master,” she said.

“What would you like to know?” I asked.

She was at my side, on her stomach and elbows. Her eyes were excited. “In the south,” she asked, “would a master put me in a collar?”

“It is quite likely,” I said.

“I might like a pretty collar,” she said.

“Do not think of the collar as a simple piece of jewelry,” I said, “though it can serve that purpose. Its primary objective is to identify he to whom you belong.”

“What if I take it off?” she asked.

“It locks on your throat. You cannot take it off,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. She looked at me. “Will I be given pretty things to wear,” she asked, “and cosmetics, perfumes?”

“It is quite likely,” I said. “Masters like their girls to make themselves beautiful.”

“I hope that I will please my master in the furs,” she said.

“You will do so or be lengthily and severely punished,” I said. “If you fail, you could even be slain,”

She shuddered. “I will try to be pleasing to him,” she said.

“Most masters,” I said, “own only one girl. Do not think you are likely to spend all your time squirming at the slave ring.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“There is much for a girl to do,” I pointed out. “She keeps his compartments. She dusts and cleans. When they do not use the public kitchens she must cook for him. If he does not wish to take advantage of the public laundries, she must do his washing and ironing. She shops for him, and bargains in the markets, and so on. There is much for her to do.”

“Does it take long to clean compartments?” she asked.

“Only a few moments,” I admitted. “Goreans live simply, and do not much approve of cumbersome furniture.”

“It does not sound to me like the slave girl is overburdened with domestic labors,” she said.

“I suppose, objectively, she is not,” I said. “Still, there are things for her to do.”

“Is she as occupied as the wife of Earth?” asked the girl.

“Of course not,” I said. “That would be foolish. The wife of Earth is, from the Gorean point of view, much overworked. When the husband returns home she is often, actually, engaged in labors. How can she greet him properly? At night, so numerous and excessive have been her labors, she is often exhausted. That would be preposterous from the Gorean point of view. The Gorean master does not buy a girl with the primary objective of obtaining a domestic servant but with the intention of acquiring a marvelous slave. He wants the girl to be a wonder to him. He is quite cheerful about the sacrifice of domestic servitude in order to obtain what is far more important to him. When he returns to his compartments he does not want to find a worn chore woman there but a lovely slave, fresh, vital, eager and fully alive, kneeling before him, waiting to be commanded.”

“What does the girl do in her free time?” asked Audrey.

“Much what she pleases,” I said. “She will have friends among other slaves. She walks, she visits. She exercises, she reads. Within limits she does what she wants to do.”

“Can she work outside the compartments?” asked Audrey.

“If it is permitted by the master,” I said, “and it does not in any way compromise her slavery.” I smiled. “Some women,” I said, “wear to their work the garments of a free woman but, when they return to their compartments, don as they must the silk of a slave, which is their true condition.”

“Is such a thing often permitted by a master?” asked Audrey.

“Commonly not,” I said. “Such a thing is often thought to compromise a girl’s slavery. It is usually not permitted to her. Usually she is kept as full and absolute slave, not so much as permitted to touch the garment of a free woman.”

“I would like my master to be like that,” said Audrey.

“Most masters are,” I said.

“If I am a slave, I would want to be a full slave,” she said.

“I think you have little to fear, pretty Audrey,” I said. “Any master who so much as looks at you would know that you should be kept only as a full slave.”

“Yes,” she said, kissing me, “that is right for me.”

“Sometimes, Masters, as a discipline, rent their girls out to employers to perform repetitious, trivial tasks.”

“How horrid,” she said.

“See that you please your master well,” I said.

“I will certainly try,” she said.

“There are, of course, many slaveries in the south,” I said. “I have described only the most common to you.”

“Tell me of others,” she begged. “For I might be sold into them.”

“There are paga slaves,” I said, “who must please their master’s customers in his tavern. There are the girls who staff the public kitchens and laundries. There are rent slaves, who may be rented to anyone for any purpose, short of their injury or mutilation, unless compensation be rendered to the master. There are state slaves who maintain public compartments, and work in offices and warehouses. There are girls in peasant villages, and girls on great farms, who cook and carry water to the slave gangs. There are beauties who are purchased for a man’s pleasure gardens. There are other girls who work in the mills, chained to their looms.”

She looked at me, frightened.

“Any of these slaveries, or any of many others,” I said, “could be yours. It depends entirely, pretty Audrey, on who buys you, and what he wants.”

“How helpless I feel,” she whispered.

“You are helpless, absolutely helpless,” I told her.

“Surely,” she whispered, “I can attempt to influence the nature of my slavery.”

“Of course,” I said. “But the decision is never yours. In that sense you are absolutely helpless.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, trembling.

“The mills and the public kitchens, and such, are not pleasant.” I said.

“I do not want to go to such slaveries as the mills or public kitchens,” she said. “I will try to be a pleasing slave.”

“Excellent, Audrey, Slave Girl,” I said.

“Do masters much talk with their girls, or take them with them?” she asked.

“Certainly,” I said. “It is extremely pleasurable to talk with a girl one owns. Also, one takes her many places, she heeling him, to concerts, contests, song dramas and so on, both to show her off and because he finds her a joy to be with.”

“I think I could well serve such a master,” she said.

“You would,” I said, “or you, being a slave, would be promptly and efficiently disciplined, most likely whipped.”

“Whipped?” she asked. “Could such a man whip a girl?”

“Of course,” I said. “Do not think that the pleasure he finds in you will be permitted in the least to compromise his mastery of you.”

“I would thrill to be owned by such a man,” she said.

I smiled to myself. Girls sometimes fought one another viciously, merely to be the first to display themselves naked before a Gorean master.

I lay there on my back.

“Master,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“The others, soon, will be awake,” she said.

“Yes?” I said.

“Please, Master,” she said. “Once more, before they awaken, have your slave.”

“Have you?” I asked.

“Yes, have me,” she whispered.

“Does Audrey beg?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“How shall I have you?” I asked. “Gently, tenderly, politely, courteously, respectfully, accomodatingly, solicitously, as would a man of Earth?”

“No, no,” she begged. “Take me as what I am, a slave!”

I touched her, gently, timidly.

“Oh!” she cried, miserably. “No, that is like a man of Earth! How cruel you are! Do not insult the helpless womanhood of a poor slave. Do not play with my needs as a man of Earth, oh, Master; fulfill them as a man of Gor! I beg it of you, Master.”

I laughed.

“You teased a slave,” she said, reproachfully. “How helpless I am as a slave.”

“Spread your legs, Slave,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “My Gorean master has spoken,” she said.

“Wider,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

She watched my hand. Her teeth were clenched. Her eyes were wide.

“Aiii!” she started to cry, but my left hand closed her mouth. She squirmed helplessly. Her thighs were clenched on my hand. She looked at me, over my hand on her mouth.

“You are a pretty slave,” I told her.

With my knee I thrust apart her legs.

Then her body clasped me. Her eyes were closed. I removed my hand from her mouth. She opened her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, “for covering my mouth, that I not be heard to scream.”

“You did not wish to awaken the others,” I said.

“I could not bear to have them know how I yielded to you,” she whispered. “It would be humiliating.”

“It is nearly time for them to awaken,” I said.

“Master?” she asked. “Master, no!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to induce in you,” I said, “the first of your slave orgasms.”

“No,” she wept. “Please, no! There are others in the tent! I do not want the other girls to know what a slave I am! Please, no, Master!”

But I did not choose to show her mercy.

“Cover my mouth!” she begged. “Oh, oh!”

I held her arms pinned to her sides. Then she half reared up under me, squirming and struggling, and then threw back her head, screaming, and I pressed her down on the furs. Imnak lifted his head quickly, and then, understanding the nature of the noise, shook his head and reached over and seized Poalu. She was drawn to him, tightly, and began to kiss him. “I submit,” screamed Audrey. “I submit to you, oh, my Master!” Arlene and Thimble, sullenly, angrily, regarded her.

“Slave!” said Arlene.

“Yes, slave, slave!” sobbed Audrey, then covered my face with tears and kisses. I later held her quiet in my arms while she, with her small, soft tongue, licked clean the stubble of my beard.