She did not raise her head but glared savagely down at the rug, her small fists clenched.
I went across the rug and sat down cross-legged near the fire bowl, and looked at the girl.
'Approach me, slave girl,' I said, 'and kneel.'
She lifted her head and looked at me, angrily, proudly, for a moment, but then she said, 'Yes, master,' and did as she was commanded.
I looked at Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, kneeling before me, head down, clad only in the collar of a slave.
'What are you?' I asked.
'A slave,' she said bitterly, not raising her head. 'Serve me wine,' I said.
She did so, kneeling before me, head down, handing me the black, red-trimmed wine crater, that of the master, as had Aphris to Kamchak. I drank.
When I had finished I set the wine crater aside and looked on the girl.
'Why have you done this, Elizabeth?' I asked.
She looked down sullenly. 'I am Vella,' she said, a Gorean slave.' «Elizabeth» I said.
'Vella,' she said angrily.
'Vella,' I agreed, and she looked up. Our eyes met and we ~ looked at one another for a long time. Then, she smiled, and I looked down.
I laughed. 'It seems,' I said, 'that I will not make it to the public slave wagon tonight.'
Elizabeth looked up, shyly. 'It seems not, master.' 'You are a vixen, Vella,' said I.
She shrugged. Then, kneeling before me in the position of the Pleasure Slave, she stretched indolently, with feline grace, lifting her hands behind the back of her neck and throwing her dark hair forward. She knelt so for a languorous mo- ment, her hands over her head holding her hair, looking at I me.
'Do you think,' she asked, 'that the girls in the public slave wagon are as beautiful as Vella?'
'No,' I said, 'they are not.'
'Or as desirable?' she asked.
'No,' I said, 'none is as desirable as Vella.'
Then, her back still arched, with a half-smile, she stretched even more, and, as though weary, she slowly turned her head to one side, with her eyes closed, and then opened them and with a small, lazy motion of her hands threw her hair back over her head, and with a tiny motion of her head shook it into place.
'It seems Vella wishes to please her master,' I said. 'No,' said the girl, 'Vella hates her master.' She looked at me with feigned hatred. 'He has humiliated Vella. He has stripped her and put her in the collar of a slaver' 0f course,' I said.
'But,' said the girl, 'perhaps she might be forced to please him. After all she is only a slave.'
I laughed.
'It is said,' remarked the girl, 'that Vella, whether she knows it or not, longs to be a slave the utter slave of a man if but for an hour.'
I slapped my knee with amusement. 'That sounds to me,' I said, 'like a silly theory.'
The girl shrugged in her collar. 'Perhaps,' she said, 'Vella does not know.'
'Perhaps,' I said, 'Vella will find out.'
'Perhaps,' said the girl, smiling.
'Are you ready, Slave Girl,' I asked, 'to give pleasure to a master?'
'Have I any choice?' she asked.
'None,' I said.
'Then,' she said, with resignation, 'I suppose I am ready.' I laughed.
Elizabeth was looking at me, smiling. Then, suddenly, playfully, she put her head to the rug before me. I heard her whisper, 'Vella asks only to tremble and obey.'
I stood up and, laughing, lifted her to her feet.
She, too, laughed, standing close to me, her eyes bright. I could feel her breath on my face.
'I think now I will do something with you,' I said. She looked resigned, dropping her head. 'What is to be the fate of your beautiful, civilized slave?' she asked. 'The dung sack,' I replied.
'No!' she cried, suddenly frightened. 'No!'
I laughed.
'I will do anything rather than that,' she said. 'Anything.' 'Anything?' I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled. 'Yes,' she said, 'any- thing.'
'Very well, Vella,' said I, 'I will give you but one chanceif you well please me the aforementioned miserable fate will not be yours at least for tonight.'
'Vella will well please you,' she said earnestly.
'Very well,' I said, 'please me.'
I recalled keenly how she had sported with me earlier and I thought there might be some point in giving the young American a taste of her own medicine.
She looked at me startled.
Then she smiled. 'I will teach you that I well know the meaning of my collar, master,' she said.
Suddenly she kissed me, a deep kiss, moist, rich, too soon ended.
'There' she laughed. 'The kiss of a Tuchuk slave girl!' Then she laughed and turned away, looking over her shoul- der. 'You see,' she said, 'I can do it quite well.' I did not speak.
She was facing the other way. 'But,' she said, teasingly, 'I think one will be enough for master.'
I was a bit angry, and not a little aroused. 'The girls in the public slave wagon,' I said, 'know how to kiss.'
'Oh?' she said, turning about.
'They are not little secretaries,' I said, 'pretending to be slave girls.' Her eyes flashed. 'Try this!' she said, approaching me, and this time, my head in her small hands, she lingered with her lips upon my mouth, warm, wet, breaths meeting and mingling in the savoring touch. My hands held her slender waist. When she had finished, I remarked, 'Not bad.' 'Not bad!' she cried. Then fully and for much time, she kissed me, with increasing determination, yet attempted subtlety, then noxlety, then woodenly, and then she dropped her head. lifted her chin with my finger. She looked at me angrily. 'I should have told you, I suppose,' I remarked, 'that a woman kisses well only when fully aroused, after at least half an Ahn, after she is helpless and yielding.' She looked at me angrily and turned away.
Then she spun about laughing. 'You are a beast, Tarl,' she cried. 'And you, too,' I laughed, 'are a beast a beautiful little collared beast.'
'I love you,' she said, 'Tarl Cabot.'
'Array yourself in Pleasure Silk, Little Beast,' I said, 'and enter my arms.' The blaze of a challenge flared suddenly in her eyes. She transfused with excitement. 'Though I am of Earth,' she said, 'try to use me as slave.' I smiled. 'If you wish,' I said.
'I will prove to you,' she said, 'that your theories are false.'I shrugged. 'I will prove to you,' she said, 'that a woman cannot be conquered.'You tempt me,' I said.| 'I love you,' she said, 'but even so, you will not be able to conquer me, for I shall not permit myself to 'he conquered, not even though I love your' 'If you love me,' I said, 'perhaps I would not wish to conquer you.' But Kamchak, generous fellow, gave me to you, did he,' she asked, 'that you should teach me as slave to be female?' 'I think so,' I admitted. 'And in his opinion, and perhaps yours, would that not be In my best interests?'
'Perhaps,' I said. 'I do not really know. These are compli- cated matters.'
'Well,' said she, laughing, 'I shall prove you both wrong' 'All right,' I said, 'we shall see,'
'But you must promise to try to make me truly a slave if only for a moment.'
'All right,' I said.
'The stakes,' she pronounced, 'will be my freedom against'
'Yes?' I asked.
'Against yours?' she laughed.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'For one week,' she said, 'in the secrecy of the wagon where no one can see you will be my slave you will wear collar and serve me and do whatever I wish.'
'I do not care much for your terms,' I said.
'You seem to find little fault in men owning female slaves,' she said. 'Why should you object to being a slave owned by a female?'
'I see,' I said.
She smiled slyly. 'I think it might be rather pleasant to eve a male slave.' She laughed. 'I will teach you the bearing of a collar, Tarl Cabot,' she said.
'Do not count your slaves until you have won them,' I cautioned.
'Is it a wager?' she asked.
I gazed on her. How every bit of her seemed alive with allengel Her eyes, her stance, the sound of her voice I saw e tiny nose ring, barbaric, glinting in the light of the fire bowl. I saw the place on her thigh where not many days before the fiery iron had been so cruelly pressed, leaving hind it, smoking for the instant, deep and clean, the tiny ark of the four bask horns. I saw on her lovely throat the ring of Turian steel, gleaming and locked, so contrast g with, so barbarically accentuating the incredible softness her beauty, the tormenting vulnerability of it. The collar, I knew, bore my name, proclaiming her, should I wish, my slave. And yet this beautiful, soft, proud thing stood there, trough ringed and branded, though collared, bold and brazen staringing at me, eyes bright, her challenge, the eternal chal- lenge of the unconquered female, that of the untamed woman daring the male to touch her, to try, she resisting, to reduce her to yielding prize, to force from her the uncondi tional surrender, — the total and utter submission of the woman who has no choice but to acknowledge herself his, the help less, capitulated slave of him in whose arms she finds herself prisoner.
As the Goreans have it, there is in this a war in which the woman can respect only that man who can reduce her to utter defeat.
But it seemed to me there was little in the eyes or stance of Miss Cardwell which suggested the plausibility of the Gorean interpretation. She seemed to me clearly out to win, to enjoy herself perhaps, but to win, and then exact from me something in the way of vengeance for all the months and days in which she, proud, independent wench, had been only slave. I recalled she had told me that she would teach me well the meaning of a collar. If she were successful, I had little doubt that she would carry out her threat.
