utterly vanquished Gorean slave girl. “I am a slave,” she wept, “ a slave,” she wept, “what will you do with me?” I did not respond to her.
“Will you return me to Earth?’ she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“Will you free me?’ she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“I am totally your slave,” she wept. “What will you do with me, Master?” “I will sell you in Port Kar,” I told her. I then left her.
I awakened shortly before dawn. It was muchly dark, but not as dark as the night. I was cold, and wet. I heard the call of some horned owls.
I rose on one elbow.
At my feet, to one side, a yard or two away, lay Ilene. Her head was on her right arm, and her eyes were open. She was watching me.
I knew the eyes of a slave girl in need.
I looked about. There was already, though before dawn, a dim filtering of light in the forest, the false dawn, the inchoate, fractionated light preceding the true dawn, when Tor-tu-Gor, the common star of two worlds, would, as a Gorean poet once said, fling its straight, warming, undeflected spears of the morning among the wet, cool branches of the forest.
I lay on my back.
The sky was now a darkish gray. I could see the edges of the trees clearly against it. I could detect dim, whitish clouds overhead.
I lifted myself again to my elbow. It was a chilly morning. Dew covered the grass and leaves. Everywhere drops glistened.
I again regarded Ilene. I read the need in her eyes. The bit of yellow pleasure silk, wet with dew, clung to her. Her hair was wet and straight, black, damp and matted back from her forehead, on both sides. Her face was damp. There was dew on her collar. Her legs were drawn up.
She crept to me and put her head to my waist. Then she lifted her head and looked at me. “Master?” she whispered. I did not speak to her. She lay beside me and put her arms timidly about my neck. Delicately, timidly, she kissed me. “Please, Master,” she said, “please.” Her eyes were pleading.
“I do not have time for you now,” I said.
“But I am ready,” she said. “I am ready!”
I took her in my arms and turned her to her back, and touched her. She tore the pleasure silk back that there be less between us.
I marveled. In the night it had taken a full Ahn to an Ahn and a half to bring her to the point of yielding. This morning she had crept to my side as a slave girl in need. To my slightest touch her body responded helplessly, spasmodically. Last night she had been an Earth woman who had had to be conquered, who had had to be taught her collar. This morning she was only a lovely Gorean slave girl, eager and moaning, begging piteously once again for her master’s touch, begging to yield again, and again. On Earth a thousand men might have sued for her hand. On Gor she belonged to only one man, was an article of his property, and was only one slave girl among others.
Twice I used her.
There was little time.
“Please do not sell me, Master,” she begged.
“You are a slave,” I told her. “You will be sold.”
I looked at her. I wondered what she would bring me on the block. Yesterday I would have regarded her as a four-gold-piece girl. But today lovely Ilene’s value had considerably increased. I imagined her ascending the block, turning for the buyers, presenting her beauty for their consideration, responding to the deft guidance of the auctioneer’s coiled whip. And then, when she was unready, when she did not expect it, he would, with the coiled whip, administer to her the slaver’s caress. I could well conjecture, now, the response of the awakened body. The crowd would be much pleased. The movement would be startled, involuntary, sudden, wild, helpless, uncontrollable. Her womanhood would have been betrayed. How enraged, how tearful, she would be. The men would laugh. She had been forced, tricked, before her buyers, on the very block itself, into displaying publicly the ready womanhood of her.
I smiled to myself.
The bids, then, would swiftly increase. The auctioneer, in his skill, would have demonstrated undreampt latencies in the wench, on sale, that her desirablities were not merely placid and visual, but organic, reflexive and sensual, that she, properly handled, was the sort of woman who, as the Goreans say, could not help but kiss the whip that beats her. I smiled. Men would pay well for lovely Ilene. No longer would she be a mere four-goldpiece girl, standard merchandise on a Gorean slave block. The auctioneer, I expected, would close his fist on a price of ten goldpieces for her. I would then have taken a good profit on the Earth-girl slave. Indeed, she had cost me nothing. Last night, I congratulated myself, I had raised her value. I had brought her up by perhaps as much as six gold pieces. I had had a double profit from my work of last night, my pleasure in teaching her her collar and commercially, the considerable improvement of my property, the considerable improvement of my investment.
“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” she whispered. “Sell another girl in Port Kar, not Ilene.” It was dawn.
The red-haired girl, first girl in the camp, she who held the switch, was not up, stretching like a she-panther, yawning like a she-larl. She, though a former paga slave, pulled the skins of panther girls about her body. I had torn the skins at her left thigh, that she might not forget she wore a brand. She was a strong, lithe girl. Ilene, I knew, feared her. And well she might, for she was first girl, and held the switch.
Slowly, stiff-legged, the red-haired girl walked across the wet grass to the dark, dew-stained tarpaulin, to pull the pegs.
It was dawn, time for the prisoners to arise, to be fed and watered, and then, when I wished, to take up their burdens.
“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” said Ilene, snuggling up against me. “Sell another girl in Port Kar,” she whispered, “not Ilene.” “Do you see her?” I asked Ilene, indicating the red-haired girl.
“Yes,” said Ilene, “she is an excellent choice for the block in Port Kar, Master.” “Do you really think so?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Ilene.
“Do you ask that it be she who is sold in Port Kar?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” said Ilene. She kissed me happily.
“Go to her,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” said Ilene.
“Speak to her,” I said.
“I will,” said Ilene. “I will!” she kissed me. “I will tell her that she is to be sold in Port Kar.” “No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You will go to her,” I said. “You will then inform her that you asked me to sell her in Port Kar. You will then ask her to give you ten switches. You will them ask for your duties of the day.” Ilene looked at me, protest in her eyes. Then, fear and tears came into her eyes and she sprang up.
She ran to the girl.
“I asked for you to be sold in Port Kar,” she said.
“Aren’t you a pretty little slave with the master,” said the red-haired girl/ Ilene trembled.
“And what did he say?” she asked.
“I am to ask for ten switches, and then for my duties for the day.” said Ilene. “I see,” said the red-haired girl.
Ilene stood before her.
“Remove your garment, pretty slave,” said the red-haired girl.
Ilene did so.
“Go to that tree,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a slender-trunked tree at the edge of the camp clearing. Ilene went to it. “Hold to that branch, pretty slave,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a branch over Ilene’s head. Tears in her eyes Ilene grasped it.
There was the swift hiss of the switch and then the slap of its strike. Ilene screamed with pain and fell, releasing the branch. She clutched the base of the tree’s trunk. She looked over her shoulder at the red-haired girl. “Please,” she wept.
“Hold the branch, pretty little slave,” said the red-haired girl, not much pleased with her.
Ilene regarded her with horror.
I strode to the tree and, with two short lengths of binding fiber, tied Ilene’s wrists to the branch.
She was weeping in pain.
“Let me beat her,” said the blond girl, one of the panther girls, in her ankle ring.
The red-haired girl went swiftly to the girl who had spoken and struck her twice. The blond girl, tears in her eyes, shrank back in the coffle, shoulder stinging, and hid herself among the other girls.
The red-haired girl then strode to Ilene.
The Earth girl must now endure nine strokes. The red-haired girl was excellent with the switch. She knew well how to beat a slave.
Ilene would not soon forget her beating.
It took more than two Ehn to deliver the next five strokes. Ilene did not know when, or where on her body, they would fall. She would stand there, her wrists bound over her head, apart, on the branch, waiting. Then suddenly there would be the hiss, and, somewhere on her body, the swift, lashing fall of the switch. The red-haired girl had handled the psychological dimension of the beating beautifully.
Even when she was not being struck Ilene would sometimes cry out. “No! Don’t hit me!” Sometimes, waiting, unstruck, she would cry out as though she had been struck. She jerked, trying to free her wrists. She twisted helplessly, but could not free herself. Then, shaking her head, weeping, she began to writhe and beg incoherently for mercy. She, of course, as a slave girl, would receive none. “Be silent, Slave,” said the red-haired girl.
“Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene.
“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl to the slave, “it was not a switch, but the five-strap Gorean slave whip?” Ilene closed her eyes.
“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl, “it was not I who disciplined you, but, with such a whip, a male.” “Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene, her head down.
“Rejoice,” said the red-haired girl, “that you are only switched, and by a woman.” “Yes, Mistress,” whispered Ilene, her face stained with tears. The red-haired girl had thrown Ilene’s long dark hair forward, that it not provide any shielding from the switch.
There were now six stripes on her body, from her ankles to the back of her neck. They were slender and red. Each was well placed. Spreading from each stripe there was a redness of pain. She clenched her fists in her bonds. Now her entire back burned scarlet.
