'No,' I said.
'Let me negotiate for my freedom,' she said.
'Begin moving,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
31 WE CONTINUE OUR WAY SOUTHWARD
It was the heat of the afternoon. The sun was high. 'On your back,' I told her. She lay down, and I took her. Then I put her on her stomach, and untied her hands from behind her back. Then I put her on her back and retied her hands, wrists crossed, before her body, holding them in place, at her belly, with a loop of strap. 'On your feet,' I told her, 'and face again southwards.'
'Why have you tied my hands in this fashion?' she asked, her back to me.
'Because you are beautiful,' I said.
'I see,' she said.
'Begin moving,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
32 I DO NOT LISTEN TO THE ENTREATIES OF THE LADY FLORENCE
'I did not think you would have the nerve to leash me,' she said.
We lay together on the soft dirt and leaves, in a small clump of trees in a meadow. I was on my back, looking up at the moons through the branches of the trees. The stars were fine and beautiful, bright in the black sky. She pressed herself against me. I had again tied her hands behind her back. She was tethered by the neck beside me, by the strap which had earlier served as her leash. The tether was fastened to a tree which I could reach out and touch. The knot was under her chin.
'How is it that you have dared to put me on a leash?' she asked.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'I am still free, truly, you know,' she said.
'Yes,' I said, 'legally.'
'I am furious,' she said, 'that you have leashed me.' She kissed me.
'Why?' I asked.
'I am free,' she said, 'and it is so degrading. It is like I am a slave girl.'
'I see,' I said.
'I suppose it was necessary to leash me,' she said, 'as a matter of prisoner security.'
'I do not think it was necessary,' I said, 'but it was convenient.'
'Convenient!' she cried. 'You leashed me because it was convenient!' She struggled up to one elbow beside me, the tether on her throat
'Yes,' I said, 'but, too, there was another reason.'
'What was that?' she asked.
'Because you are pretty in a leash, Lady Florence,' I said.
She looked at me, not speaking.
Shortly after dark, while we were still trekking, I had put her to her back, untied her hands, then put her on her stomach, tying her hands again behind her back. I had then put her on her back again and unwrapped the long strap from her throat. I had then, holding the coiled strap about two feet from her throat, jerked it twice, that she could feel the pull against the back of her neck. She had looked up at me. 'Not bad,' I said. She had gasped. Then, loosening the coils. giving her some slack, I had pulled her to her feet. She had looked at me, her eves wide. 'I am leashed,' she had whispered, disbelievingly. Then I had turned about and pulled her after me. In a moment she was hurrying behind me, hands bound, on the leash. Twice, that she might rest, we had stopped. Each time she had knelt quite close to me. The second time she had looked up at me, piteously, the tether on her throat, and kissed me on the thigh. It is interesting, the effect that a device such as a leash can have on a woman. The common Gorean leash, incidentally, unlike the simple strap I was using, has a lock snap and closes either about a collar or a collar ring. It might be mentioned that there are also such devices as wrist leashes and ankle leashes.
'What are you thinking?' I asked her.
'I was thinking,' she said, 'that you were once my silk slave.'
I did not speak.
'If you were a gentleman,' she said, 'and I more fully free, I might beg to attempt to earn my freedom, by the performance of intimate services for you.'
'Any such services which you might perform,' I said, 'are already mine to command.'
'That is true,' she said.
'I command them,' I said.
'That I might earn my freedom?' she asked.
'No,' I said, 'that you might, through practice, improve your skills as a slave.'
'I am not a slave,' she said.
'You will behave as one,' I said.
She looked at me, angrily.
'Come here,' I said. I held the leash.
'You hold my leash. I obey,' she said.
When she was but inches from me, I pulled her by the leash even more closely to me. Her lips were then but the breadth of fingers from mine.
'Are you taking me tomorrow to the camp of Tenalion?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Do not lead me in on a leash,' she said.
'It is common to take a girl to and from a market on a leash,' I said.
'But Tenalion has known me as a free woman,' she said.
'You will soon be known to him only as a lovely slave,' I said.
'Not on the leash, please,' she wept.
'On the leash,' I told her.
'My will means nothing?' she asked.
'Nothing,' I told her.
She sobbed then, and I threw her beneath me.
'Do not sell me!' she begged.
'Be silent, lovely slave,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Tomorrow,' she whispered to me, confidently, 'you will return with me to my estates and free me.'
'No,' I told her.
'You cannot be serious about selling me,' she said. 'It is madnessl'
'No madness is involved,' I said. 'You will be an object in a simple business transaction.'
'You cannot sell me, after all I have done for you this night!' she wept. 'I have behaved as a full slave to you!'
I pulled her again to me, by the leash. She moaned. Then I turned her to her back, and put my hand under
