sales. It was not just that we wished to be out of the House of Andronicus. It was rather, I think that we were now eager to belong to Masters. You see Master in the past few days, a startling transformation had come over us.
Few of us mentioned this, but I think there was not one among us who did not clearly recognize it. We had become, honestly, female slaves.
Here we may distinguish between two concepts of slavery, that which can be imposed and constitutes an absolute and legal condition, and that which is instinctual and innate, which under certain conditions, can be manifested and released. The fullest slave, of course, is she who is a natural slave, and then beyond this, truly wears the collar, that slave who is a slave by nature and whose slavery, released, is then confirmed and fixed upon her openly, publicly, by all sanctions of custom and law, for all the world to see.
What we discovered, Master, all of us, in the dungeons and training rooms of the House of Andronicus, was that we were natural slaves. There our slavery had been by such devices as brands and collars, and whips and hoods, fully, for the first time, released in us and made manifest. Many of us were timid and thrilled to discover that we were natural slaves. At last there could be an end to the lies and pretenses. At last we could stop fighting ourselves and pretending to be what we were not. We now, though women of Earth, could admit to ourselves what we knew we were, categorically and absolutely legal slaves, lovely propertieis, which might be barted and sold, and who might figure in transactions which would be upheld in any court of law. This we found frightening, but absolutely thrilling. It so confirmed our slavery upon us! There was no escape for us! Even if we should pull at our chains, or cry or rebel, we would still be only troublsome slaves, who might then be disciplined and brought swiftly into line. any person on the street, seeing us, would know what w were. Even children would know us as mere slaves, for categorically and legally that is what we would be. Owned animals, that is what we would be! You are a man, Master, so perhaps you cannot understand or fully understand, how exciting it is for a woman to be owned, to find herself a slave. But I am a slave, and a natural slave, and a legal slave. I am fearful. But I am joyful!'
Angrily I rose from the couch. I seized up the whip. I thrust it into her mouth. 'I kiss your whip, joyfully, Master.' she whispered. I looked down at her enraged. Beverly Henderson had kissed the whip.
'Master?' she asked, frightened. She was very beautiful bound before me on her knees.I returned to the couch and sat down upon it. I again regarded her.
She smiled uncertainnly. 'I have kissed Master's whip,' she said. 'Does he not know wish to use me? Does he not know wish to try out an Earth girl?' I did not respond.
'Surely I have told Master enough now about girls of Earth,' she said. 'Is his curiosity not now satisfied?' Does he not understand us now to be natural slaves, the rightful propertieis of men asuch as he?' I did not respond.
'After that night,' she said. 'we were divided into smaller lots and distributed through various markets. I think they did not wish for some reason to sell to many Earth girls in a given market. I found my sale indescribably thrilling. I was exhibited naked. I was forced to perform lasciviously on the block as a female slave. Even my slave reflexes were exhibited to the crown. I was auctioned. I was sold to the highest bidder. I have had various Master and various names. Eventually I came into the possession of the holding of Policrates, wherein you find me. There is little more to tell.'
I did not respond. 'Here I am called Beverly,' she smiled. 'It was my name originally, on Earth, as you may recall I mentioned earlier. Now of course I wear it only as a slave name, by the whim of Masters. Still it pleased me. I think it is an excellent slave name.' I too thought so, looking upon her.
'You understand of course Master,' she said, 'that I would not have spoken to a man of Earth, those pathetic and ineffectural fools, with the intimacy, the frankness and honesty with which I have addressed youl a man of Gor.' I said nothing. 'What miserable weaklings they are,' she said. I said nothing.
Suddenly she leaned forward. She strained against the loops of yellow which confined her wrists behind her body. Her knees moved on the furs, among the chains.
I saw the steel at her throat.'The slut in me desires to serve a Master,' she whispered, suddenly, intensly. 'Please Master!'
I rose to my feet and looked down at her. 'I am the slave of a man such as you!' she said.I thenk suddenly, savagely, seized her by the upper arms. I dragged her to the center of the room. I lifed her high above me, bound, her dark hair, unbound, loose and wild about her. I then, slowly, lowered her, to where her toes could just touch the floor. Then suddenly, angrily, I shook her. 'Master!' she cried out miserably. I then dragged her back before the couch where I stood her on her feet before me. She felt the furs beneath her feet, the chains. I regarded her in fury. I snapped my fingers. Immediately she knelt before me, bound, among the chains. She looked up, though she could see nothing in the confines of the blindfold.I looked down at her.
Beverly Henderson, a self-confessed slave, and the most desirable woman I had ever seen, was at my feet. She was naked and bound, mine!
I was filled then with emotions so powerful, so primitive and exultant, so ancient, so overwhelming, so mighty and glorious, that I knew then I had caught the scent of the meaning of man and of woman. Could I again deny my blood? Could I again repudiate the heritage of my manhood?How could it be? The meat of the mammoth roasted then again upon the greenwood spit. Once again, after an interim of ten thousand years, sparks were struck from blue flint as heavy, hairy hands shaped the head of a spear. Once more were heard the love whimpers of the thonged female who had been displeasing, begging to be released that she might lick the thighs of her Master.
I looked down at her. I knew then that I had always wanted Beverly Henderson as my slave. From the first instant I had seen her I had wanted her as my slave.
'Master,' she whimpered, 'Master!'
Then I stood before her with my fists clenched and threw back my head and wanted to howl with misery. Surely she must be a free woman! She must be free! She was from Earth! But could everything that my blood and my instincts and impulses told me be wrong? But it must be, else a civilization structured upon and predicated upon, pathologies must disintegrate and perish. But could there be a civilization congenial to the truths of the blood, to the nature of human beings.
Is man so foolish, so naive and habit-bound, so fundamentaly irrational, so ready to believe anything that he might be taught, no matter how absurb, that he cannot understand that torture cannot be truth. The test for truth, surely must not be pain, misery and frustration, but happiness and joy.
'Master,' she whimpered. But surely she must be free! But what if she were a true slave, as she had indicated? But she could not be a true slave. She was from Earth!
But what if, even though she were from Earth, she were a true slave, as in accord with her own avowals? could such a thing, she from Earth, be possible, even thinkable? I scarcely dared even consider this possibility, for then she, a slave, could be mine!
I determined, cruelly, to make a test of the matter. I untied her hands. I waited then for her to shrink back in terror, to, feeling her way, try to retreat to the far wall, perhaps cowering there, at my mercy. But her head was at my feet. I felt her lips kissing my feet. Beverly Henderson was at my feet! 'Forgive me Master,' she said, 'if I have displeased you.' She was then holding my legs, putting her cheek against them and kissing them. 'Forgive you slave,' she said, 'and let your slave please you.'
I then seized her by the arms and jerked her to her feet. She was startled. Savagely I jerked her small hands behind her back and, with the yellow cord, tied them there, tightly. 'Master?' she asked, frightened. I snapped my fingers. She knelt. I snapped my fingers again. She stood. I then threw her, bodily, onto the deep furs on the surface of the couch. She lay there on her side. I picked up the whip and shook out its coils. She heard the sound and moaned. I approached her. She was tense and frightened. She in the darkness of the blindfold could see nothing. She shuddered in fear as I touched the whip lightly to her body, moving it upon her right calf. She gasped. Then I moved the whip about on her body, slowly curiously, observing her responses. She was tense, and frightened. 'Please do not whip me Master,' she said. I put the flat leather coils of the whip to her mouth. She lying on her side, fervently, frightened, kissed them again and again. 'Please do not whip me Master.'
I put the whip on the couch to one side, where I might have it at hand, to lash her if she were not totally pleasing. I then had her, and as the bound slave she was.
She cried out, startled, taken with such force. I looked down at her, gripped in my arms. I dragged her from the couch and threw her then on the chains and furs at its foot. In my desire, my eagerness, and in my fury an joy,
