“You are, clearly,” he said.
“I am in a collar,” I said.
“The collar,” he said, “does not make the slave slut. It releases the slave slut.”
“I see,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We do not wish to be lashed,” I said.
“That is only an excuse,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
It was true that I felt extraordinarily free, marvelously liberated, in a collar. How right I felt in it! It was as though the sign of something inside of me had been put on the outside of me, for all to see, something which was now obvious, something it was no longer possible to deny.
“I am now ready to be shackled,” I said.
“Not quite,” he said.
“Master?” I said, hopefully. I approached him, closely, with slave closeness. It seemed my body was afire.
I felt weak and slave before him. He could dominate me with a glance, a word, a gesture. I sensed myself his.
Then I was turned abruptly about and, to my consternation, my wrists were again corded behind my back.
I was then, again, lifted lightly into his arms.
“I am bound,” I said.
“Kiss me,” he said.
“Oh, yes, Master!” I said.
“You do that well,” he said.
“I have been trained,” I said.
Again our lips met.
“Buy me, buy me, Master!” I whispered. “Please, buy me!”
“Only a slave begs to be bought,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Buy me! Please buy me!”
Shortly thereafter I was shackled to the central bar. Jane and Eve were asleep.
“Will Master not unbind me now?” I said.
“No,” he whispered.
He then prepared to slip from the wagon.
I jerked at my bound wrists. What a monster he was, to leave me in this fashion, not only naked and shackled, but bound helplessly, as well!
He was Gorean.
He knew what might be done with women, with slaves.
“What was Master doing, earlier?” I asked.
“Examining the contents of the new wagons,” he said. “They contain no common haulages. There are various metals, subtle metals, alloys, and such, with not all of which I am familiar, coils of wire, unusual machines, unfamiliar tools, boxes of tubing, canisters of diverse powders, and other objects, crated and secured, which I could not examine. I suspect that Pausanias, and his drivers, do not even understand the cargo they carry.”
“Do you understand it?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “but I suspect its nature.”
“You are not of the Metal Workers,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“What is your interest in the card-sport of Pausanias and Kleomenes?” I asked.
“Import I am sure is borne within those cards which has little to do with the games of men.”
“If not of men,” I whispered, “of what?”
“Of things other than men,” he said.
“Games?” I said.
“Dark games,” he said.
“From Ar,” I said, “you know of Kurii.”
I recalled this from Six Bridges.
“Yes,” he said.
“And doubtless you know of the beast, who resided with the Lady Bina?”
“Of course,” he said. “Many did.”
“A guard animal,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“I understand now,” I said, bitterly, “your presence here, which has in fact little to do with a slave. I understand now the interest you have feigned in me, following me about, as though you might have been intrigued, aroused, slave stimulated, perhaps even a prospective buyer or slave thief. I understand now your protecting me, your petitioning for my charge, why you have attached yourself to our party! It is not to be near me! It is to pursue some other purpose, one of your own!”
“Do not underestimate your slave interest, barbarian,” he said. “It is true, of course, that a useful confluence of conveniences has occurred here.”
“Would not any girl do?” I asked.
“Yes,” said he, “but not as well.”
“I see,” I said.
“I find it difficult to understand my interest in you,” he said, “given the pettiness and mediocrity of your character.”
“Surely my beauty is not negligible,” I said.
“No,” said he.
“I have seen myself in the mirror,” I said.
“There are many women more beautiful,” he said.
“What, then?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said. “Your ankles look well, shackled, of course.”
“You do not care for me,” I said.
“A slave is not to be cared for,” he said. “She is to be purchased and owned, worked and enjoyed, tied and mastered, humiliated and ravished, reduced to needful, whimpering meat, writhing helplessly in her chains, crying, begging for another touch.”
“Yet,” I said, “some men care for their slaves.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Suppose,” I said, “these matters of alleged import did not obtain.”
“Then,” said he, “you would by now be cowering at my slave ring in Harfax.”
“I see,” I said.
“You would find yourself, ignorant barbarian,” he said, “as you would never have dreamed on your old world, mastered.”
I knew that any woman can be mastered.
I had already been mastered, and thoroughly, in the house of Tenalion, in the eating house of Menon, in the gambling house, on the Street of Chance. Indeed, I now realized that I had been mastered, as I had lain naked and bound, in the conveyance which had transported me from the house on my former world to some collection point, from which I had been shipped, as one of several captured beasts, to the markets of Gor.
“You would kneel me and put your whip to my lips?” I asked.
“And you would lick and kiss it lengthily, devotedly, splendidly,” he said.
“And if not?”
“Then it would be used upon you.”
“I would try earnestly to please my Master,” I said.
“And I would see to it that you were successful,” he said.
