'Slave!' screamed Arlene up at her.
'Slave!' screamed Audrey at Arlene.
Arlene squirmed free and again, together, they fought. I thought them extremely well matched slave beauties. Arlene might have been a little stronger. Either of them could have been severely bested by blond Thimble.
At last I, with a switch, fell upon them. 'Oh,' they cried. I took them, one hand in the hair of each, and threw them to their knees under the pole. 'Strip and stand,' I told them, 'hands over head, wrists crossed, beneath the pole.' They did so, and I fastened them in position, side by side.
'Now you are going to have us whipped,' said Audrey to Arlene.
'Be quiet, Slave Girl,' snapped Arlene.
Audrey began to cry.
I handed the switch to Thimble, who once had been Barbara Benson. 'Discipline them,' I said to her. 'Twenty strokes to each.'
'Yes, Master,' had said Thimble.
I had then walked away. Arlene received the first stroke, Audrey the last.
I now looked into the eyes of Audrey, naked in my arms. 'I have waited long for your touch, Master,' she whispered. 'I wait lovingly and eagerly to serve you.'
'It is well,' I said.
She kissed me delicately on the arm. Arlene could not now attack her. She must serve me, and serve me to the best of her abilities, superbly and obediently. Her use was now mine.
'You have won in the bone gambling before,' she said. 'Why did you wait so long to select me to serve you? Am I not pleasing to a master?'
'You are acceptable, Slave Girl,' I said.
'I will try to be pleasing,' she said.
Before, when I had won in the bone gambling, the dropping of the tiny figures of bone and ivory, I had, of intent, selected blond Thimble, whom I would, in the tenure of her service to me, name 'Barbara', putting that name on her, though then of course as a slave name.
'I wanted to let the little pudding named Audrey simmer,' I told her.
'You were cruel,' she said.
Imnak, since he had acquired Poalu, had scarcely glanced at his two white-skinned slave beasts. It was not that he had meant to be cruel. It was rather that he was simply otherwise occupied. And even had he thought of it, their deprivation would not have been of concern to him, for they were only animals.
Both girls would kneel to one side, stripped, awaiting the outcome of the bone gambling. Sometimes I won, and sometimes Imnak won. When Imnak won he might have the use of Arlene, if he chose, or a tabuk steak. Not unoften, to my amusement and Arlene's outrage, Imnak would select the steak. As I explained to her this was not because there was anything intrinsically lacking in her but because Imnak had eyes only, or generally, for Poalu. He was usually anxious to get his little red slave into the furs. His little slave was forced to compensate him well, indeed, a thousandfold and more, for the frustrating years of her freedom and arrogance. Interestingly, too, she did not seem to mind.
Both Barbara and Audrey had knelt to the side, awaiting the outcome of the sport.
Since the coming of Poalu to the tent life had become hard for them. It was not that Poalu, though she was first girl, and firm, was cruel to them, but rather simply that Imnak now had little time for them and paid them scant attention.
Unfortunately, before the coming of Poalu to the tent, both girls had been brought to the second stage of slavery. The first stage is knowing they must obey, the second stage is needing the touch of a man.
Imnak now seldom touched them.
Their needs, accordingly, were much on them.
Freedom permits a woman to live without men. Slavery makes a woman need a man's touch. The sexuality of a free woman is largely inert; the sexuality of a slave girl, on the other hand, has been deliberately and seriously activated. Men, as it has pleased them, have done this to her. They have, as masters, careless of the consequences of their actions, awakened the poor girl's sexuality; it can never then, regardless of the torment and misery it may inflict upon her, return to sleep. It has been made hot and alive. She is no longer free; her freedom is gone; she is now only an ignited slave. Sexuality is a glory in a slave girl which sets her apart from free women, but it is also a force within her which she must fear, for it puts her so helplessly at the mercy of masters. The aroused sexuality of the slave girl is surely the strongest of the chains with which she is bound. Some slave girls, lovely fugitives, have been recaptured simply because they have thrown themselves whimpering at the feet of a man on a road, begging his touch, One of the most humiliating things that can occur to a slave girl is to find herself on her belly, unbidden, moaning, crawling to the feet of a hated master. She puts her lips to his feet. 'I beg your touch, Master,' she says.
The sexuality of the aroused slave girl is incomprehensible to the free woman. It is nothing she will ever understand. It is a color she cannot see, a sound she cannot hear.
I glanced at the two girls, kneeling to the side. Their sexuality, in the weeks of their slavery, had well begun to be aroused. Sparks had been kindled within them. Already they needed the touch of men.
They did not yet, of course, as slaves still relatively fresh to bondage, suspect the torments and wonders that might lie before them. They did not yet understand how a woman screaming in a cell might break her body against the bars trying to touch a guard.
'You have won,' had said Imnak, cheerfully.
'Yes,' I said.
I had glanced at the two beauties. Both straightened themselves before me. Both now seemed far from the simple Earth girls they had been. I let my eyes move casually from one to the other.
'Please pick me, Master,' said Audrey.
'I am more beautiful, Master,' had said Barbara.
'Please, Master,' begged Audrey.
I glanced at Barbara. Before, when I had won, I had always chosen her. She lifted her body before me. She was a quite lovely slave. How far from Earth she seemed.
No longer was she a blond tease, dressing to excite boys, yet fearing her sexuality.
She was now a slave girl.
I looked at Barbara. Then I pointed to Audrey. 'This one,' I said.
'Master!' breathed Audrey.
Barbara looked away, angrily.
Imnak got up and seized Poalu by the arm. He threw her to his furs.
I went to my furs and threw off my garments, and lay down on my furs, reclining, on one elbow.
Audrey remained kneeling, where she had been, though she watched me.
I indicated a place beside me on my furs. She crawled to the furs, head down, and lay timidly beside me.
'On your back,' I told her.
She lay on her back, and I put my left arm under her, that I might lift, turn or control her as I wished, leaving my right hand free to caress her body.
I looked at the line of her body.
'You are a pretty slave,' I told her.
'Thank you, Master,' she said.
There is something nice about having a girl lying naked in your arms, who wears bondage strings on her throat.
'I have waited long for your touch, Master,' whispered Thistle, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster. I caressed the side of her face. She looked up at me. She was worth having.
'I am pleased that you won my use in the gambling,' she said.
'Are you any good?' I asked.
'Master will use me and tell me,' she said. 'I will try to be good.'
I looked down at her.
