'Sometimes,' he said, 'it is hardly worth winning.' He shrugged.
'I will return in a moment,' I said.
I went back of the tent to Arlene.
'I want to talk to you,' she said. 'I will have no more of this treatment on your part. You cannot simply give me to anyone you please.'
'I did not hear you say, 'Master',' I said.
'Master,' she said.
'You are never again,' she said, 'to give me to another man.' Her eyes flashed.
'I gather linnak was not pleased,' I said.
'Imnak!' she cried.
'Yes, Imnak,' I said. I reached up and cut her loose. I, with my left hand, then took her by the hair.
'Please, stop!' she said.
I turned her face to look at me. With my right hand I jerked the leather at her throat. 'What is this?' I asked.
'A collar,' she said.
'You are a slave,' I said.
'Yes,' she whispered, 'Master,' frightened.
I threw her to my feet and she looked up at me. 'You will now crawl to Imnak,' I said, 'and beg to try and please him again. If he is not pleased, do you understand, I will feed you to the sleen.'
'No, no!' she whispered.
'It is up to you, Slave Girl,' I said. 'For what do you think you are kept and fed?'
'No,' she whispered.
I looked down at her.
'You would not,' she whispered.
'I should have left you at the remain of the wall,' I said.
'No,' she whispered. Then she looked up at me, and reached out her hand. 'Sometimes I feel so slave,' she said. She touched my thigh with her finger tips. 'Sometimes I feel I want your touch, and as a slave girl.' I could scarcely hear her. 'Your touch,' she said, 'not his.'
'What you want is unimportant,' I said. 'If Imnak is not pleased,' I said, 'you will be fed to the sleen.'
She looked up at me, in horror. 'Would you do that?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'I do not even know how to please a man!' she wept.
'You are an intelligent woman,' I said. 'I suggest, if you wish to live, that you apply your intelligence to the task.'
Her tears, her head down, shaking, fell into the turf.
'Do you obey your master?' I asked.
'Yes,' she whispered. 'I obey my master.'
'On your belly,' I told her.
On her belly she crawled to Imnak. No longer was she a commander among the agents of Kuril. She was now a naked slave girl obeying her master.
'Have you had a good day?' I later asked Imnak.
'Yes,' he said, 'I have had a good day.'
'How is the auburn-haired slave beast?' I asked him.
'Splendid,' he said. 'But Thimble and Thistle are better.'
I did not doubt but that this was true. But then they had been slaves longer, too.
'Make us tea, Arlene,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said. She was very pretty. I wondered what she would look like in a snatch of a slave silk, and a true collar.
Imnak, and Thimble and Thistle were asleep. Outside the low sun, as it did in the summer, circled the sky, not setting.
'Master,' whispered Arlene.
'Yes,' I said.
'May I share your sleeping bag?' she asked.
'Do you beg it?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I permitted her to creep into the bag, beside me. I put my arm about her small body. Her head was on my chest.
'Today, you much increased your slavery over me, did you not?' she asked.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'You forced me to crawl to a man and serve him,' she said. 'How strong you are,' she said, wonderingly. She kissed me. 'I did not know what it was like to be a slave,' she said.
'You still do not know,' I told her.
'But you are teaching me, aren't you?' she asked.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'It is a strange feeling,' she said, 'being a slave.'
'Does it frighten you?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, 'it frightens me, terribly.' I felt her hair on my chest. 'One is so helpless,' she said.
'You are not yet a true slave,' I told her.
'Sometimes I sense,' she said, 'what it might be, to be a true slave.'
'Oh?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'And it frightens you?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, 'but, too, and this is frightening, too, I-' She was silent.
'Go on,' I told her.
'Must I speak?' she asked.
'Yes,' I told her.
'Too,' she wept, 'I–I find myself desiring it, intensely.' I felt her tears. 'How terrible I am!' She said.
'Such feelings are normal in feminine women,' I told her. 'Sometimes it takes courage to yield to them.'
'I must try to fight these feelings,' she said.
'As you wish,' I said, 'but in the end you will yield to them, either because you wish to do so or because I force you to do so.'
'Oh?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said, 'in the end you will become a true slave.'
She was silent.
'You were brought to Gor to be a slave,' I said. 'When your tasks were finished at the wall, you would have been put in silk, collared and placed at a man's feet.'
'Do you truly think so, Master?' she asked.
'Of course,' I said. 'Consider your beauty, and the nature of the men of Gor.'
She shuddered. 'I fear slavery, and myself,' she said.
'You are a true slave,' I told her, 'No,' she said.
'Only you do not yet know it,' I said.
'No,' she said.
'Fight your feelings,' I said. 'I will,' she said.
'In the end it will do you no good,' I said.
She was silent.
'You have been counter-instinctually conditioned,' I said. 'You have been programmed with value sets developed for competitive, territorial males. There are complex historical and economic reasons for this. Your society is not interested in the psycho-biological needs of human females. The machine is designed with its own
