She did so.
'Begin now,' I said, 'to lick and kiss below the left shin.' She did so. 'Desire to please the master as a slave girl,' I said.
'I do,' she suddenly said, throatily.
I laughed, and stepped back. She seemed startled. She looked up. There were tears in her eyes. 'No!' she said, suddenly. 'I did not mean that!'
Bosk laughed and slipped to the furs beside her and threw her on her back. She looked up at him, terrified. 'I shall have her instructed in long lovings at my leisure,' said Bosk to me. 'Obviously she is an ignorant slave.'
Elicia squirmed on the furs, the Earth girl in her suddenly fighting to retain her self-image.
'No,' she wept. 'I am not a slave! I am not a slave!'
Bosk kissed her on the throat, and she closed her eyes. I saw her small hands seize at him.
'I am not a slave,' she said to him, her eyes open, sternly.
'Touch her,' laughed Bosk to me. 'Feel the helpless oil and heat of her.'
She cried out in misery.
'Naughty, naughty, Elicia!' I laughed.
She looked at me, in fury.
'You are a slave, Elicia!' I laughed delightedly. I was very pleased to have learned this.
She threw back her head, wildly, twisting it from side to side. Bosk had touched her.
I saw her eyes, wild, trying to retain the image of the Earth girl. Then, suddenly, I saw that she was becoming sensuous, uncontrollable, appetitious. She was fighting the Gorean slave girl in herself. In the arms of a man such as Bosk of Port Kar I did not think her struggle would be successful. He toyed with her resistance, sometimes permitting it to become stronger, sometimes even letting her think she might be able to withstand him, but then again he would begin to induce in her, subtly, the surrender spasms of the female slave. She well knew he was playing with her. 'Beast,' she wept, 'how long will you sport with me?' Many times he brought her to the verge of surrender, teeth clenched, eyes shut, and then let her subside, retaining yet, to her cruel disappointment, a shred of her Earth-girl dignity. 'I do not want to be a slave,' she would cry. But I could see that her eyes, and her body, locked in his arms, were begging him to complete her conquest. How small she seemed in his arms. 'You squirm as a slave girl, Elicia,' I observed. 'No!' she would cry, in her collar. She tried to hold herself still, rigid, but, when he chose, could not do so. 'At his least touch, Elicia,' I pointed out to her, 'you leap as a slave.' 'No,' she would cry. 'No!' But it was clear to me that she wanted him to make her a slave girl. She wanted to be his slave girl. 'I will show you,' she said to me, 'how a woman can resist a man.' Then he had rolled away from her, turning his back to her. 'I am weary,' he said. 'I would sleep.' I suddenly saw, to my amusement, fear, and keen disappointment, registered on the countenance of the beautiful Elicia. 'Master?' she said. She turned to him. She touched him on the shoulder. 'Please, Master,' she said. 'What is it?' he asked. Elicia swallowed hard. I was present. 'Please do not stop touching your slave, Master,' she said. I laughed, but Elicia was not deterred. 'Why?' he asked. 'Because I am your slave,' she said, acknowledging herself his. I smiled gently, but Elicia did not notice. I saw that she was truly his slave. I felt great happiness for her. 'Does the slave Elicia beg the touch of her master?' he asked. 'The slave Elicia,' she said, 'piteously and humbly begs with all her heart the touch of her master, Bosk of Port Kar.' He rolled over and seized her. 'You are a slave, Elicia,' I said to her. 'Yes,' she said, 'I am a slave.' Then she cried out to Bosk of Port Kar, 'The slave is yours. Take her, Master!' Quietly I withdrew.
Gently, with his foot, Bosk of Port Kar awakened me. I had lain asleep at the foot of the curule chair in the outer room.
'It is nearly midnight,' he said to me. 'I must be away.'
'Yes, Master,' I said, rubbing my eyes.
Elicia knelt behind him. Her hands were tied behind her back.
He would take her to the roof and tie her over the saddle of his tarn, carrying her away to Port Kar.
I looked at her.
Her. dark hair was loose about her shoulders. I could see the gold of the earrings almost hidden in the hair, the steel collar on her throat. There is something vulnerable, sensuous and soft about a female slave. She was beautiful in her bondage.
'May a slave speak?' she asked.
'Yes,' he said.
She looked up at him, his slave. 'I know,' she said; 'that I am to be taken to Port Kar and will there be assiduously interrogated.'
'Yes,' he said.
'I will speak all I know,' she said.
'That is true, Slave,' he said.
'But then?' she begged. 'What then, when I am emptied of information and can be of no further use to you in your strategies? What then will be done with me? Will I then be bound and thrown to the urts in your canals?'
'Perhaps,' he said.
'Is there no hope for my life?' she asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'You are beautiful,' he said to her, in explanation.
'I will try to be pleasing,' she said. She pressed her lips to his thigh. She had been well conquered.
I had little doubt the beautiful Elicia, even when rendered valueless in the conflicts of worlds, would be kept for the pleasures of men; again I looked upon her; no longer was she a high agent of a mysterious power of interplanetary proportions; she was now only a lovely, bound Gorean slave girl.
'On your feet, Slave,' said Bosk of Port Kar to Elicia.
She rose lightly to her feet.
In his hand he had the gag he would fix upon her before taking her to the roof.
'Please, Master,' she begged. 'A moment, please, Master.'
He stepped back.
Elicia approached me, her hands tied behind her, the collar on her throat. 'We are both now slaves,' she said, 'Judy.'
'Yes,' I said, 'Elicia.'
'The college seems far away now,' she said.
'Yes,' I smiled.
'I love you, Judy,' she said, suddenly.
'I love you, too, Elicia,' I said. I embraced her, holding her, her arms bound behind her. We kissed.
'I wish you well,' she said, 'Slave.'
'I wish you well, too, Slave,' I said.
Then, from behind, Bosk of Port Kar thrust the wadding in her mouth and secured it in place. She faced me, gagged.
Bosk of Port Kar then tied my wrists behind my back. He then gagged me, as he had Elicia. 'Your throat,' he said, 'is for the collar of another.' I could not question him, for I had been gagged. He then said to me, 'Kneel,' and I knelt. 'Cross your ankles,' he said. I did so. Then, with the loose end of the fiber which bound my wrists, he tied my crossed ankles together, fastening them, thus, to my wrists. Some six inches of strap separated my bound wrists and bound ankles. He then, not speaking further, freed the door of its control chain, slung his gear about his shoulder and, taking Elicia by the arm, conducted her through the portal. I heard them climbing the stairs to the roof.
I knelt alone on the tiles before the opened door. It was after midnight. I was a gagged and bound slave.
In time I heard steps approaching, climbing stairs to the level of the compartments.
My heart leaped. I knew the step.
Clitus Vitellius stepped into the threshold. He looked at me, troubled. I wanted to cry out my love for him, the helpless, vulnerable love of a female slave.
He looked down at me, angrily. I did not understand his anger.
He untied my ankles and I lay before him on the tiles. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. I could not do so. I was gagged. Angrily he crouched down and, by an ankle, drew me to him, half under him. With his hands
