I turned to face her.
'Let me beg on my belly for what I want!' she said, her face pressed against the bars, tears in her eyes.
I went to the gate of the kennel and unlocked it, and flung it upwards, and stepped back.
The slave then, on her belly, squirmed forth from the kennel. I stepped back five paces, that she must follow me. Then she lay before me, submitting and prone, on the tiles.
'Did you wish to speak?' I asked her.
She lifted her head. 'I beg your touch, Master,' she said.
I looked down upon her. The depth, extent and distribution of sexually active areas on the female body is, of course, considerable. Indeed, in sexual arousal, her entire body can become sensitized, and, so to speak, sexually vulnerable and flammable. Her sexual response can become one of the entire squirming, yielding, overwhelmed organism. When a woman yields it is all of her that yields.
Her response, of course, is far more than crudely physical. It constitutes a psychophysiological ecstasy, a rhapsody of being owned and had. Her sexual response, thus, is far more than a simplistic response to physical stimuli. It is a function of an entire situation and condition. It is thus, perhaps, that the female slave, knowing herself slave and owned, attains sexual heights and depths, orgasms and totalities of response, forever denied, in the nature of things, to her ignorant sisters, cool and inhibited, smug in their prides and freedoms.
The slave girl, in effect, is the woman in her place in nature. It is there, in her own place and world, and there only, that she can attain her biological destiny, that she can find her total female fulfillment. Free, she is enslaved, the prisoner of inhibitions, artifices and conventions; enslaved, she is free, liberated to the self- fulfillment of her deepest nature. Free, she is enslaved; enslaved, she is free. That is the paradox of the collar.
'I am the only woman in the house, Master,' said the slave.
I did not speak.
'Do not lock my softness away from you tonight, in the kennel,' she begged. 'Let it be near to you.'
'Do you have sexual needs?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Do you want them satisfied?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Do you confess yourself to be a lowly and passionate slave?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said. 'I am a lowly and passionate slave.'
'One who is eager to please her Master?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I looked down at her, on her belly, her small hands chained behind her. The passions of the female slave are a mystery to many free women who, unaroused and sexually inert, never collared and owned, cannot even understand them; to most free women, of course, the passions of the female slave are not so much a mystery as a source of envy and fury; she senses that they, deep and precious, making the slave so helpless and vulnerable, are far beyond anything which she herself possesses. Sometimes, perhaps, twisting on her couch at night in frustration, the free woman may dimly sense what it is to be an aroused slave, a woman so much at the mercy of men, and so precious and beautiful to them; the free woman clenches her fists and moans; the slave may throw herself to the feet of men and beg to please them, as she cannot.
'Master, Master,' whimpered the small slave, lying before me.
I looked down at her. Her passions had been well ignited. This had been done, doubtless, by her condition, and by masters. She was a slave.
'Do not kennel me, Master,' she begged. 'Sleep me at your slave ring.'
I smiled. The girl whom I had known on Earth, now my nameless slave on Gor, had begged to be slept at my slave ring.
'Chain me by the neck at the foot of your couch, my Master,' she begged, 'as you might a slut or a she- sleen. You need not even touch me. It will be enough for me, if I am merely allowed to lie near you.'
'On your feet,' I told her.
Swiftly she scrambled to her feet and stood before me. I looked at her, and she, swiftly, deferentially, put down her head. 'Now you are beginning to be pleasing,' I told her.
'Thank you, Master,' she said.
I touched the side of her face, gently. She lifted her head. 'Perhaps I will deign to touch you,' I said.
'Thank you, Master,' she whispered.
'Strip me,' I said.
'But I am chained!' she cried, trying, futilely, to pull her wrists apart.
I smiled.
'Forgive me, Master,' she laughed. 'I am such a stupid slave!'
Then she fell to her knees before me and, with her teeth, untied the sandals and removed them from my feet. She then stood, and, bending over, her hands helplessly chained behind her, bit and pulled at the knot in the cord that belted my tunic. When she had freed this knot she went behind me, first to my left shoulder, and then to my right shoulder, and, with her small, fine teeth, drew the tunic from my body.
'Ohh,' she said, softly, 'Master is beautiful.'
'I cannot be beautiful,' I said, rather irritatedly. 'I am a man. I might be good-looking, or handsome, perhaps, but I cannot be beautiful. And even such things, I suspect, would be rather controversial.'
'To me,' she said, 'you are lean, and strong and beautiful.'
I looked at her, angrily.
'And you own me,' she smiled.
'That, at least, is uncontroversial,' I said.
'Shall I heel my Master to his bedroom,' she asked, 'or does he desire that I precede him?'
'I shall carry you,' I said.
'As Master wishes,' she said, breathlessly.
I put my hands on her.
'Oh!' she said.
I then rubbed my fingers and smelled my hand. 'Slaves, too, it seems,' I said, 'sometimes find it difficult to conceal their desire.'
'Yes, Master,' she laughed.
'Oh!' she said. 'You are going to carry me like this,' she asked, 'upside down and in front of you?'
'Yes,' I said, 'and as I ascend the stairs slowly, you will please me.'
'Yes, Master,' she laughed.
At the top of the stairs I stopped, and shuddered, and cried out.
'Perhaps I should have gagged Master,' she said.
I then carried her, over my shoulder, into the bedroom, to throw her to the foot of my couch, beneath the slave ring.
Chapter 21 — THE SLAVE RING; THE WHIP IS KISSED; BLACK WINE; A SLAVE IS NAMED; ECSTASY
How small and soft she was, and how beautiful, lying in my arms, on the furs of love, at the foot of my couch, in the soft light of the ravishment lamp.
About her throat, over the slender, identificatory collar, a heavy, thick iron collar had been locked, with a heavy chain, leading to the stout loop of the slave ring, some eight inches in width, fixed in the foot of the couch.
'I am so happy, my Master,' she said. 'I am so happy:'
Her first taking had been on the floor of the bedroom, she still locked in the body chain. I had then relieved her of its restraint, that the evening might properly begin.
With her own hands I had forced her to spread the furs of love and light the ravishment lamp. I had then
