'Stop,' she said.
I stopped
She then, with her foot, white in that high, bootlike, thonged sandal, slid both the pan of meat and the pan of water out of my reach.
'The slave is completely dependent on the master or mistress,' she said, 'even for food and drink.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
She then, again, with her foot, slid the pan of meat and the pan of water to where I might reach them.
'Say `Thank you, Mistress,'' she said.
'Thank you, Mistress,' I said.
'Put your head down again, and drink,' she said.
Again I put my head down and, frightened, drank.
'Oh,' she said, 'how I despise you, and how I shall enjoy working with you.'
I trembled.
'Look up, Jason,' she said.
I looked up.
'Look into my eyes,' she said.
I did so. It was difficult to meet her gaze.
'Who is stronger?' she asked.
'You, Mistress,' I said. I had never encountered such inflexible resolve in a human being. I knew I could not begin to match the power and strength of her will, her stern character. I could only bend helplessly before it. She was totally superior to me. She was mistress; I was slave.
'Do I frighten you, Jason?' she asked.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'You need only try to be totally pleasing,' she said. 'You will then, to some extent, improve your chances for life.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'The matter rests with me,' she said, 'with whether I am pleased or not.'
'I will try to please you, Mistress,' I said.
'I'm sure you will, pretty Jason,' she said. She then stepped back from me. 'I am not so terrible,' she said. 'I can be kind.'
I looked at her, startled.
'Oh,' she laughed, slapping the whip roughly at her side, 'do not think I will not be strict with you. I am strict with all my charges. All, like yourself, must obey perfectly. All must be fully pleasing.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'But, too,' she said, 'I can be kind. There are worse mistresses on Gor than I.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'On this world, as on yours,' she said, 'there can be rewards for pleasing slaves. For example, perhaps in the future, you need not be chained like a raw slave, naked, in a stinking cell. There are better accomodations in the pens.'
I put down my head. How conscious I was of the chains I wore.
She went to the heavy door of the cell, which she had left open. There she stopped, and turned to face me. I turned to my left, to see her.
'Rewards, like punishments,' she said, 'lie within the prerogatives of the mistress, to distribute, both with respect to type and abundance, as she pleases.'
'I understand, Mistress,' I said.
'You understand, too, do you not,' she asked, 'that you are in my total power?'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'Whether you live or die is up to my whim,' she said.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said, miserably.
'You are a slave,' she said, 'fully. Do you understand?'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'But I am not cruel,' she said. 'If you please me, totally, I may even be kind to you.'
'I will try to please you, Mistress,' I said.
'It is in my power to make your life more pleasant, if I choose,' she said. 'Rewards can be many and varied, different sorts of chains and cells, clothing, and of various sorts, a lighter collar, different sorts of food. I can even have a woman thrown to you.' She smiled. 'Or would you, a male of Earth, know what to do with one?'
She turned about then and went through the heavy door of the cell, that door formed, like that wall of the cell itself, of bars and heavy, lateral crosspieces, set some six inches apart. She swung shut the door and it closed, with a heavy metallic ring that reverberated in the cells and corridor. She stood behind it, looking at me.
'Yes,' she said, 'you are pretty, Jason. I think you will do very nicely.'
'Who are you?' I cried.
She looked at me from the other side of the bars. She was a large woman, tall and strong. She stood very straight. Her figure was striking. Her skin was very white. It contrasted vividly with the brief, confining black leather she wore. She wore, too, a headband of leather. At her waist was the heavy belt, from which hung a coiled chain, a ring of keys, a pair of manacles and a whip. 'I am the Lady Gina,' she said, 'your trainer.'
'Trainer?' I cried.
'Yes,' she said.
'I do not understand,' I said. 'What is your work?'
'Have you not guessed?' she asked. 'I train men to give pleasure to women.'
I looked at her with horror.
She then took the ring of keys from her belt and thrust a key into the lock on the cell door, and turned it, locking the heavy door.
'Sleep well, pretty Jason,' she said. 'Your lessons begin in the morning.'
She then replaced the keys on her belt, and left.
4 LOLA AND TELA
'Put your wrists behind you,' she said.
I stood in my cell. I had been freed of my chains. I put my wrists behind me, obeying the Lady Gina. She took the manacles from her belt and expertly, almost casually, in one motion, threw them on me, snapping them shut. I gathered she had manacled many men.
She tied a belt of soft, rolled cloth about my waist. She then took a long strip of cloth, some five feet long and eight inches wide, thrust it over the cloth belt in front, took it under and between my legs, passed it under and over the cloth belt in back, and, adjusting it, drew it snugly tight.
'This is not for your modesty, Jason,' she said. 'It is because your lessons in Gorean will largely be conducted by slave girls.'
'Slave girls, Mistress?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said. 'They are stinking, meaningless, lascivious little sluts who have been as slaves in the arms of Gorean men. It has spoiled them for freedom. They are worthless, sensuous little beasts whose passions Gorean men have seen fit, as cruel masters, to ignite. Their sexuality, their shamelessness, their needs, their helplessness, makes them an insult to free women. I do not want them falling to their knees by you, to seize you, to fawn upon you, to hold you, to lick and kiss you.'
'No, Mistress,' I said.
She then removed the chain from her belt and snapped it on the metal ring attached to my collar. I had, this morning, when my chains had been removed, felt the attachment. It was as I had conjectured, a ring. It was about
