offering him. Still in the end, it is his which is the choice. She can do no more than present herself, displaying her owner's merchandise as attractively as she can. It is he who will buy or not. He is the Master.
'I love my Gorean Master,' breathed the girl, 'Buy Beverlyk please!' I have also seen girls attempt to influence their sales in public auctions, while being exhibited naked on the block, trying to present themselves particularly to a given man, but this disposition is usually curbed by the auctioneer's whip. She is not there to be sold to the man of her choice but to the highest bidder.
Indeed, in most public auctions, such actions on the part of the girl are for most practical purposes impossible. Such auctions are usually held at night, when men are off work and can come to the biddings, under torches. The block tends to be illuminated and the house is much in darkness. The girl, naked, in the light exhibited, can be well seen but she herself can see few of the buyers. She is intensely aware, of course, of their presence, in the crowds, in the tiers. Their sounds, their cries, their breathing, their movements, the sweat, the smells, their interest are clearly evident to her, almost engulfing her on the block, almost like possessive hands upon her body. She can then influcne her sale, guided by the auctioneer's whip only in such a way as to present herself as the most luscious slave meat she can, hoping thereby to improve her price, that she may be purchased by a more well-to-do Master. Yet most girls are sold for prices in similar ranges and there are few men who can not, by spending an extra coin or two, secure the slave of their choice. Often when the hand of the auctioneer has been closed, a girl will not know to whom she has been sold. She may not have seen the bidder, or she may have been purchased through an agent. Sometimes it is a day or more before she learns to what chain she has been sold. In this time she does not know if she has been purchased by the man of her dreams, who will control her well, or by some harsh, cruel brute, before whom she must kneel in terror. To be sure, she will soon learn.
'Buy me Master,' begged Beverly. I then made her respond to me, and she began to moan. 'I want to be bought,' she moaned.
To beg to be purchased is a slave's act. That is a saying of Goreans. I think it is true. In this, then, Miss Henderson provided further confirmation of the rightness of the collar upon her throat, that she was a natural and true slave.
'If I yield well to you, Master,' wheedled Miss Henderson, 'will you buy me?' I then, savagely, struck her face, back and forth, with the palms of my hand, and then its back.'Forgive me, Master,' she cried, 'I did not mean to bargain! I will yield to you fully, and perfectly, at your least command! Do not kill me Master, please!'
There was blood on my hand and at her mouth. Her lip was swollen. I kissed her upon the swollen lip, and she whimpered. I tasted her blood.
'Please do not kill me, Master,' she begged. I then took her.When I finished with her, I rose up from the couch. She lay there, frightened.
'I did not mean to displease my Gorean Master,' she said. 'I did not think. Take pity on me. I am only a slave.'I pulled her from the couch to her knees at the slave ring. 'Permit me to please you Master,' she begged.
I permitted her to perform intimate services for me. I then buckled the thick leather slave cuffs on her wrist. 'Master?' she asked. I then thrust her right wrists through the slave ring and with the heavy metal snaps, sewn into the cuffs, secured her there.
She heard the strands of the whip shaken out. 'Please do not whip me Master,' she begged. Then she put down her head. Then I lashed her, for she had been displeasing.I cast aside the hip and drew on my tunic and gathered together my things.
At the door I turned to look back at the sobbing girl. She turned her head toward me, it still secured in the blindfold. She knelt naked at the ringk fastened to it by the cuffs and too by the ankle ring, still locked upon her left ankle. She wore her collar.
'I love you Master,' she said, 'It is to such a man as you that I wish to belong.'I put down my things at the door. I went back to her. I pulled her out from the ring, half on her back, her hands above and behind her, twisted and helpless in the slave cuffs, held at the ring.'Forgive me, if I was displeasing to you, Master,' she begged.I looked at her.
'I love you my Gorean Master,' she said.I then, again, took her. Spasmodically she shook and yielded, as I would not have thought it possible for a woman to do. She sobbed and shuddred in ecstasy, a had slave.'I submit to you, Master,' she wept, 'totally and completely. You are my Master. I am your slave.'
I withdrew from her and stood and looked down upon her. 'Do not leave me, Master,' she begged. 'Take me with you. You have made me yours, my Gorean Master. I am yours. Take me with you. Policrates, my Master, would give me to you, if you should but ask!'
I picked up my things at the door. I slung them about me. I donned my mask. There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. A pirate stood there, he who had brought Beveraly to me last night, who had now come to fetch me to breakfast.I must soon leave the holding of Policrates, theoretically to journey downriver to the holding of Ragnar Voskjard, that his fleet might be soon launched, that the two fleets, in fierce force, might overwhelm the garrisons of Ar's Station, and then of Port Cos, that the river, for hundreds of pasangs, would then become theirs, subject to their predations or levied tributes as they saw fit.
I nodded to the pirate, indicating my readiness to accompany him.He looked beyond me, to the slave ring. The girl now knelt there cuffed to the ring. He seemed startled. 'Is it Beverly?' he asked. The girl, suddenly, shrank back against the stone of the couch, a slave's movement. Curious, the pirate brushed past me, going to the girl. He crouched down beside her. 'It is Beverly,' he said. She trembled. He put forth his hand, touching her at the shoulder. She shuddered beneath his touch putting her head down.»
What have you done to her?' he asked grinning. 'Last night she was an enslaved female. This morning she is a female slave.'He put forth his hand and held her, with one hand, his fingers about her chin and throat. She shuddered. 'I would say,' he grinned, 'that she is now more truly aware of her condition, that you hae much improved her.' He did not remove his hand from her throat and chin. 'Were you much improved last night, Beverly?' he asked.
'Yes Master,' she said.'Policrates,' he said, 'told me that if you were troublsome you were to be fed to sleen.' She shuddered. 'But I see that you were not troublesome,' he said. 'No, Master,' she said.
He removed his hand from her throat and chin, and continued to regard her.
She knelt, soft and helpless, trembling, held in the leather cuffs at the slave ring.'I see that you are much different this morning, from last night,' he said. 'Yes Master,' she said.
He then, with his hand, touched her left calf, running his fingers lightly over it. She whimpered and drew back. 'Interesting,' he said.Her response had been that of a helpless superb slave.'What was done to you last night,' he asked. 'I was Mastered,' she said.'It is obvious,' he said and rose to his feet. He turned to face me and grinned. He jerked his thumb back toward the kneeling slave. 'Policrates will be pleased,' he said.I shrugged.When a girl has been Mastered, of course, she is more fit for any man.
Miss Henderson, in the blindfold, on her knees at the ring turned to face us as she could. We looked back on upon her. It was a superb slave who kenlt there. Miss Henderson in the night I saw, had been brought to a new dimension in her slavery.The priate laughed. The girl shrank back against the sonte of the couch. The snaps on the cuffs rubbed against the slave ring.The priate then walked lsowly towards her. She cowered back, fearing to be struck.He stopped standing before her.
She lifted her had to him but was of course unable to see him, prevented with perfection from doing so by the efficiency of the Gorean blindfold. She squirmd in the cuffs, unable to see, in a slaves fear.The pirate stood looking at her, his hands on his hips.Every inch of her was beautiful and enslaved. She would not be a dream of pleasure for any man.
'Who owns you,' he asked.'Policrates,' she said.'And more generally,' he said, 'who owns you?' Men,' she said.
The pirate turned about and rejoined me byt he door. He then went through the door, and I was to follow him.
I did turn about once to look again upon the girl. 'Master!' she cried out to me, piteously, in the darkness of the blindfold, stretching her small cuffed hands, as she could, entreatingly toward me. 'Master, Master!'
Then I want through the door and closed it behind me. 'Master!' I heard her cry. 'Master!' Then I had left her behind me, merely a girl fastened as the foot of a couch, only a slave who had served one of her Master's guests.
