her chin, forcing her head back. 'As a full slave,' she said.
I kissed her, on the lips. Then I lifted my head. 'And you will do so again,' I whispered.
'I must,' she said. 'You hold my leash.'
She writhed in my arms, squirming and moaning. Then I held my left hand behind the small of her back and touched her well and fully with my right hand. The tether was on her
throat. Her hands were bound behind her back. She lifted her body to me piteously.
'You will make some master a hot slave,' I said.
'I am leashed,' she said. 'I must obey!'
'Your condition is that of a slave,' I said. 'It is a thing far beyond leashes and collars.'
'Do not stop touching me!' she begged. She thrust herself, rearing, up against me.
'You are superb, Lady Florence,' I said.
'I want-I want-' she whispered, terrified.
'Yes?' I said.
'I want to scream myself a submitted slave!' she wept.
'Do so,' I told her.
'I am a slave!' she sobbed. 'I admit it!' she sobbed. 'I am a slave!' she cried out. 'I am a slave!' Then she shuddered and shook in my arms, and I could scarcely hold her, and then she was crying, and sobbing joyfully. I continued to hold her, and kiss her, and then, as she was so beautiful, I entered her and, in fierce silence, exulted within her. 'Thank you, Master,' she whispered, and I then continued to hold her. 'I am a slave, aren't I?' she asked. 'Yes,' I said. 'I have always feared so,' she said. 'In itself it is nothing to fear,' I said. 'Fear rather the actual state of bondage, and those who will be your masters.'
'I do fear it, and them,' she said. 'But should not a true slave, like myself, be placed in actual bondage, and have a master? Otherwise she could not be truly fulfilled.'
'On the world which I once knew, one called Earth,' I said, 'it is common to deny the fulfillment of slaves. Laws, even, are sometimes opposed to their fulfillment.'
'Cruel laws,' she said.
'The Gorean world, in many ways, is cruel,' I said, 'but its cruelties are unhypocritical and open. They are honest-and comprehensible. They are not pernicious and insidious. It would not occur to a Gorean to deny a slave her collar. She would not be forced to thwart and frustrate her deepest biological dispositions and sentiments, her desire to be, fully, a male's female.'
'I am a slave,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'I want to be a slave,' she said, 'but I am terrified to be a slave.'
'As well you might be,' I said.
'What can a master do to me?' she asked.
'Anything,' I said.
'I am afraid,' she whispered.
'As well you might be,' I said.
Suddenly she scrambled from my side, miserably, scattering leaves and dirt about. She backed away, frightened, to the end of her tether. She struggled against it, her head down. She struggled to free her wrists, futilely. She was very beautiful as she tried to free herself. She could not do so.
'I do not want to be a slave!' she cried.
'By tonight,' I told her, 'you will have felt the iron and will wear the collar.'
'I do not want to be a slave!' she cried.
'The decision is not yours,' I said.
'I do not want to be a slave,' she wept. She fell on her knees at my side. 'Free me,' she begged. 'Free me!'
'Try to be pleasing to your masters,' I said. 'Perhaps then you will be permitted to live.'
She looked at me, aghast.
'Now lick and kiss me,' I told her. 'It is dawn, and we must soon be on our way.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
33 WE WILL ENTER THE CAMP OF TENALION; THE LEASH
'There!' I said. 'That is it!' I indicated to her, in the shallow valley between the two sloping hills, some half pasang from the southern road, the blue and yellow canvas of the distant tents. Too, we could see cages, and palisaded pens, and slave wagons. In the late morning we had asked directions from a surly, armed fellow herding two trussed women, a stick bound behind the back of their necks. We had seen a tarnsman, too, flying in this direction, four girls tied at his saddle rings. We stood at the top of the hill, in the grass, in the shade of some Ka- la-na trees, the yellow wine trees of Gor. 'It is the camp of Tenalion,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I took the leash and wrapped it about her throat, tucking it in.
'Will you not take me into the camp immediately?' she asked.
'Are you so eager to be branded?' I asked.
'They will brand me, won't they,' she said, 'as though I might be any girl.'
'You are any girl,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'We will rest here for a time,' I said. 'There are grapes here. Feed me.'
I lay down on one elbow and watched her picking the grapes with her teeth. Then she came and knelt humbly beside me and, one by one, from her mouth, as I fed, placed the grapes in my mouth.
'Bring me water,' I told her.
She went to a nearby stream and, lying beside it on her belly, in the gravel, took water in her mouth. She then returned to me and, as she knelt above me, I took the water from her mouth.
She straightened up, kneeling. 'Were you not afraid I would try to escape?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
She looked down at me. 'There is no escape for me,' she said.
I then took her and flung her, twisting her, on her back in the grass beneath me. 'It is true,' I told her. 'There is no escape for you.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'I watched you bring me food and drink,' I said. 'You did well. I think you are learning swiftly.'
'You have taught me much,' she said.
'We are near the camp of Tenalion,' I said. 'Do you not now wish, again, to beg me piteously for your freedom?'
'No, Master,' she said. 'I now beg piteously only to be permitted to please you.'
I later lifted my lips and hands from her body.
'Am I pleasing?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
I then stood, unsteadily for a moment. I picked up the steel of Orgus, in its sheath, and looped it over my shoulder. She knelt in the grass, in the position of the pleasure slave, as she could, her hands bound behind her.
'Do you think I will make a good slave, Master?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said. 'I think you will make a superb slave, Lady Florence.'
'Do you think I will bring a good price?' she asked.
'You are raw, and untrained,' I said.
'Do you think I will bring a good price?' she asked.
