slave whip.
I tensed.
'When I first saw you,' she said, 'I felt, for a moment, looking into your eyes, that they might be the eyes of a man. I thought this even though I had been informed you were of the planet Earth.'
I did not speak.
'I thought, for a moment,' she said, 'looking into your eyes that they were the sort of eyes before which a woman fears that the lineaments of her features, even though veiled, may be clear to him under whose observation she finds herself. Indeed, she fears, as his eyes imperiously, casually, rove over her, that her beauty and needs, in spite of the intervening robes, the intervening layers of cloth, may be exposed as helplessly to him as those of a slave girl.'
I did not speak. She moved the whip and its coils gently upon my body, half caressing it, half instructing it in its bondage.
'Please do not whip me,' I said.
'But then,' she said, 'I discovered that you were not a man, but only a slave, and one who was despicably weak.'
'Please, Mistress,' I begged, 'do not whip me.'
She put the whip aside, on the couch beside me. 'Do not fear, Jason,' she said. She looked down at me. 'You are not worth whipping,' she said.
She put her hands to the high, ornate collar of her robes, undoing the silver clasp. She slipped the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. She was strikingly beautiful.
'I will not play long with you, Jason,' she said. 'I will soon send you back to your chains.'
'What are you going to do with me?' I asked.
She laughed. She went then to the wine and poured the goblet half full. Then she came and sat near me, at the top of the couch. I struggled to my elbows, as I could. I put my head back. She supported my head, and put the goblet to my lips. 'Drink, pretty Jason,' she said. 'It will make you less tense.' She then tilted the goblet and poured the wine, bit by bit, into my mouth. I drank, frightened. Then she left the couch and returned the goblet to a small table. In a moment she had returned to the side of the couch, where she stood, looking down at me.
I could already begin to feel the wine. I was still half on my elbows. 'What are you going to do to me?' I asked.
'Treat you as what you are,' she said, 'a man of Earth, a weakling, at the mercy of a Gorean free woman.'
I regarded her, frightened.
'Lie back, pretty Jason,' she said. I lay back. The furs were deep about me. I felt the inflexible clasp of the steel on my ankles and wrists.
Then suddenly, lightly, like a cat, she slipped onto the couch beside me.
'I do not understand,' I said. 'What are you going to do with me?'
'Own you,' she whispered. 'Use you for my pleasure.'
I looked at her with horror.
She smiled and then thrust the whip, crosswise, in my mouth, between my teeth.
She then aroused, and raped me.
11 THE ROOM OF PREPARATION
'Poor slave,' said the girl. 'How the Mistress has abused you'
I lifted my head, slightly, from the flat stones. I lay on my side. The room was quite dark. My feet and ankles were chained together, the chain joining them apparently run through a ring in the stone. I was naked. I wore my collar.
'Lie quietly,' said the girl.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
I felt a cool rag, moistened with water, bathe my forehead.
'I am not a Mistress,' she laughed. 'I, too, am only a poor slave.'
'What has happened?' I asked. 'What time is it? Where am I?'
'Last night,' she said, 'you were sent to the chamber of the Mistress'
I was silent.
'I wager she well taught you that you were a slave,' she said.
'Yes,' I said. 'I was well taught that I was a slave'
The girl continued to bathe my forehead. 'What time is it?' I asked.
'It is early evening of the day following that in which you were sent to the Mistress' chamber,' she said.
'How can that be?' I asked.
'When the Mistress was finished with you,' asked the girl, 'did she not remove your chains and place a bowl of meal for you at the foot of her couch?'
'Yes,' I said. I had been made to eat from it on my hands and knees, head down, not permitted to use my hands.
'Did she not then thrust your tunic under your collar and tell you to find the guards, that they would know what was to be done with you? And did she not then send you from her presence?'
'Yes,' I said. 'But I do not recall finding the guards'
'The meal was drugged,' she said.
'Where am I?' I asked.
'In one of the rooms of slave preparation,' she said. 'It is in such rooms as these that slaves are often readied for their sale.'
'Am I to be soon sold?' I asked.
'I fear so,' she said, 'since you have been placed here.'
I sat up, bitterly.
'I am so sorry for you,' she said. 'It is such a horrifying and degrading experience to be sold, almost incomprehensible.'
'Have you ever been sold?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, 'many times.'
'I am sorry,' I said.
'It does not matter,' she said, softly. 'I am only a slave.' I sensed that she leaned back. 'Do you wish me to bathe your forehead more?' she asked.
'No,' I said. 'But you have been very kind' I heard her wring out a rag, hearing the water drip into a pan of water. Then she got up, apparently taking the rag and water to the side of the room. In a moment or two she had returned.
'Are you thirsty?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
She held a flask of water to my lips from which, gratefully, I drank.
'How cruelly they have chained you,' she said. As I had sat up, my wrists, chained closely together, were near my ankles, similarly closely chained. A length of chain, joining my wrists and ankles, running through a heavy ring, secured me in place.
'Are you hungry?' she asked
'Yes,' I said.
From a loaf of dried bread, breaking pieces from it, she fed me.
'Would you like again to drink?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said. She again held the flask of water to my lips.
'I stole some meat for you,' she whispered. She then, piece by piece, fed me small pieces of boiled
