The Venna road is smooth, but even so it has its irregularities. Indeed, over the years, its surface, in shallow grooves, records the passage of countless wagons. A wheel may scrape into, dip into, or climb from, such a groove. Too, the shifting of the earth, the occasional softening of the soil by rain, differences in weathering, various temperature changes, and such things, may produce a shifting of one stone in relation to another.
I crawled forward, to the back of the wagon box, the chain sliding along the wooden floor, along the metal bar.
I seized the blanket there and spread it beneath me. It was but one blanket, but it was welcome. I did not take it to the rear of the wagon, as it seemed clear its placement was meant to bring me, if I wished its comfort, to the front of the wagon. I was then close enough that he might turn and touch me, but he did not do so.
Was I not smooth, and attractive? Why did he not reach back and touch me? What difference would it make? Was I not a slave?
“A slave is grateful for the blanket,” I said.
“It rained a while ago,” he said.
I knew that, from the sound, earlier in the afternoon, the light patter on the canvas. It darkened, but, closely woven, it had not leaked.
“I think it will rain more, later,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“It rained last night,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“This morning,” he said, “I saw strange prints about the edge of the camp. Do you have an account of such things?”
“No,” I said. How would I know what beasts might lurk about the camp? I suspected, of course, that they might be the prints of Lord Grendel, or his fellow, the blind Kur.
“Perhaps you have a conjecture?” he said.
“Curiosity,” I said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
He had seen the blind Kur in the market of Cestias, though I suspected he had not realized it was blind. If he had been with the party, with the wagons, I suspected he knew of the presence of one, or both, of the beasts. Presumably, as might others, he thought them some sort of pet, or guard animal. I doubted that he recognized them as a form of rational life, of fearfully rational life.
I wondered if he had been testing me. Certainly he knew I would be aware of the existence of such things, from the market of Cestias that earlier night, some days ago.
I supposed that I had inadvertently told him what he wanted to know, that the wagons undertaking this mysterious journey might harbor secret denizens, of which I, and others, were not to speak, denizens which might be embarked on projects of a nature best concealed from public scrutiny.
“Tomorrow, we should reach Venna,” he said. “Have you ever been to Venna?”
“No,” I said.
“Nor I,” he said.
“Can you cook?” he asked.
“I am not a cook slave,” I said.
“What sort of slave are you?” he asked.
“I am a woman’s slave,” I said.
“You should be a man’s slave,” he said.
“What sort of man’s slave?” I asked.
“You have the curves of a pleasure slave,” he said.
“Oh?” I said.
“Are you hot?” he asked.
“Perhaps Master remembers, from Six Bridges,” I said.
“As I recall, you begged, liked a piteous little bundle of collar meat, to be bought.”
I was silent.
How he demeaned me!
How I loathed the brute!
But I knew I was a slave, in need of a master. What would it be, I wondered, to be his slave? I had little doubt I would be an excellent slave to him. He would see to it.
“I wager,” he said, “in a matter of Ehn, I could have you kicking and squirming, and moaning, and begging for more.”
“I am stronger now,” I said.
“No,” he said, “you are weaker now, and more needful, for you have been longer in bondage.”
I feared it was true. Slaves need their masters.
“I am a free woman,” I said, “who has had the misfortune to be placed in a collar.”
“No,” he said, “you are a slave.”
“Oh?” I said.
“You were never a free woman,” he said. “You were always a slave, though perhaps not always in a collar.”
“I see,” I said. How often I had sensed that true, even from girlhood.
“I tasted your lips, at Six Bridges,” he said. “They are those of a slut, and slave, a slab of worthless, needful collar meat.”
“I see,” I said.
I well recalled, to my humiliation, how he had aroused me, so profoundly, so quickly, so easily. But I, a slave, had been unable to help myself, even had I desired to do so.
“It is fortunate,” he said, “that you were captured on the barbarian world and brought to the markets of Gor. Otherwise you might never have fulfilled your birthright, heritage, and destiny, that of a female, to be a slave, to be owned, and mastered.”
“Perhaps you believe all women are slaves,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I am not your slave,” I said.
“You would be, if I bought you,” he said.
We then drove on, for a time.
He pointed to the side, to the left. “There is a pasang stone,” he said.
“I cannot read,” I said.
“Fifty,” he said.
On the Venna road, from Ar, there is usually a well every ten or twenty pasangs. Sometimes there is an inn, or a camping ground, where there will be shops.
“Fifty pasangs to Venna,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We will camp tonight,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “in an Ahn, or so.”
“I am in your care, I gather,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Will you let me leave the wagon?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
“When I am out of the wagon, will you remove my shackles?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“‘No’?”
“No,” he said. “Do not be concerned. There will be many wagons there, and there will doubtless be other kajirae there, several more closely shackled than you.”
“More closely shackled than I?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Presumably because they will be regarded as more valuable,” he said.
