I knelt before him, my head down, the palms of my hands On the tiles, in the fashion which Ligurious had required of his girls. 'I beg for love, Master,' I whimpered. 'I beg for love!' I licked at his feet. 'I beg for love, Master!' I said.
'You do it very well,' he said.
I lifted my head, tears in my eyes. 'But I do beg for love!' I said. 'I have not been contented in weeks!'
'How many of you other girls,' asked the whip master, regarding the class, 'beg for love?'
'I, Master!' cried a girl. 'I, Master!' cried others.
'How many?' he asked.
And there was not one girl, naked and in her collar, in the entire class who did not raise her hand.
'Good,' said the whip master. 'Then you are hungry.'
Our training then continued.
'No two masters are the same,' said the whip master, 'except in so far as each is the total master, just as no two slaves Eire the same, except that each is a total slave.'
We all sat facing him, our backs against the wall of the Training room. The palms of our hands were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended 'before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.
'You must, accordingly, strive to understand, relate to, serve and please the unique master in each man. You must bring your own individual personalities and talents to bear on his challenge. Try in your uniqueness to be perfect and special for him in his uniqueness. Read him. Learn him. Be one acutely aware of him. Be sensitive to his moods, and their changes. Find out what he wants from you, and then see that he gets it, and more. Find out what he wants you to be and then be it, beyond his wildest dreams. Remember that you are the slave. You exist for his service and pleasure.'
'That is it, Tiffany,' he said. 'Stretch your limbs. Examine their fairness. Now look at the master. That is how you take bath before a man. Will he drag you forth and have you on lie slippery tiles or will he take you in the bath itself?'
'Do not forget to kiss the sandal, humbly, before eyeing it on his foot,' said the whip master, 'just as, when you remove them, you kiss them, before putting them away.'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'Gently, Tiffany,' said the whip master. 'You are not rubbing down a tharlarion.'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'Use the sponge well,' he said. 'Remember that it must not only clean but caress, and do not forget, in this service, to fondle and kiss the master, humbly and lovingly.'
I kissed the wet shoulder of the man in the bath, and then kissed his cheek, through the wet canvas hood drawn over his face. He moaned. He was a male slave. 'Similarly,' said the whip master, 'do not forget to press your body sometimes against that of the master, sometimes seemingly inadvertently. Along these lines, for example, it is easy, seemingly accidentally, to brush his lips with a pendant breast. if his lips should part you might then press it more closely against him, begging. You might then be cuffed back in the water, but later you will doubtless 'be well used.'
I knelt before the whip master, anxiously lifting the tray to him. He picked up one of the biscuits. He turned it over.
'This biscuit is burned on the bottom,' he said. 'If this happens again, you will be whipped.'
'Yes, Master,' I said. 'Forgive me, Master.'
'Good, Ruby,' said the whip master. 'That is how to remove a man's tunic. Make it a sensuous experience for him, in which you show him your slavery and your eagerness to serve. You may replace your tunic, Abdar.'
'Yes, Master,' said the hooded slave.
'You next, Tiffany,' said the whip master.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'These biscuits are acceptable,' he said. 'In fact, they are good.' 'Thank you, Master!' I said.
'Good, Tiffany,' said the whip master. 'That is how you belly to a man. Put your head down, now. Let me feel your lips and tongue.' 'Yes, Master,' I whimpered. 'Good,' he said.
'Later, too, when your hair reaches a suitable length, make certain that it falls about the master's sandals.' 'Yes, Master,' I said.
I sensed that our training was coming to an end. We were returning to various basics, almost as elementary as scales to the musician, such things as basic kisses, caresses, position, attitudes and movement.
'Good,' he said.
I had once been Miss Tiffany Collins, of Earth. I now lay on my belly on the tiles, naked and in a collar, licking and kissing at the feet of a Gorean male. It was my hope that he would find me pleasing, totally.
'Attention, Class,' said the whip master.
We all straightened up, sitting, facing him, our backs against the wall of the training room. The palms of our hands, were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.' 'The results of your tests, your examinations, are now in. It is my pleasure to inform you that you have all passed.'
We dared not break position, so well trained we were, but we cried out with pleasure. We had worked hard. We did not wish to be fed to sleen, or, perhaps, if our internal slavery was adequate, but our external performances insufficient, being sent to a laundry or returned to a mill, where we might have to remain perhaps indefinitely.
'It is an excellent class, one of the best I have had,' he said.
'Thank you, Master,' said several of the girls.
'Too,' he said, 'there is not one of you, as the tests have shown, who is not an authentic slave; there is not one of you who, from the bottom of her pretty belly, does not belong in a collar.'
I knew this was true of me. I did not know, of course, if it were true of the other girl or not. And the last doubts on the rightness of the collar on my neck had been dispelled in my training. I now knew it belonged there. I was pleased to have been brought to Gor where I, whether I wished it or not, with absolutely no compromise, would be put in it.
'I am proud of all of you,' said the whip master. 'You are all luscious and exciting sluts. Indeed, I think there is not one of you would not bring a silver tarsk on the open market.'
We cried out, elated, to hear this. We looked at one another, joy in our faces. I almost lifted the palms of my hands from the floor and uncrossed my ankles, but, of course I did not do so. How pleased we were. What high praise this was. We had not understood how valuable we might have become as women.
'But, remember,' said the whip master, 'you have, really, learned only a little. You have been familiarized with only a small selection of basic skills, apprised of only a handful of fundamentals. Your education, when you leave here, is not complete, but only begun. You may learn more in your first few days out of school, in the practical contexts of bondage, under the control and whips of masters, than you have here in five weeks. But even then, remember that you, in your collars, are still amateurs at slavery. You could not begin to compete with an experienced girl. Continue to apply yourself, to learn, to work, to love and serve. Some years from now you may begin to grasp an inkling of what can be the skills, the sensitivities and talents, the emotions, the depths of feeling, of the slave The other side of the coin of freedom is bondage. One cannot exist without the other. The master is free and you are slave.'
We looked at one another. There was much in what he said. We must strive desperately to please. We were, for most practical purposes, new girls, untutored in our collars. Most of us, even, were from the mills. We would be zealous to please. Most masters are sensitive to this. They are likely to be kinder to an unskilled girl zealous to please than a skilled one who permits her performances to lapse from standards of perfection. She may, of course, at the master's whim, by various correctional devices, be swiftly restored to zealousness.
Sometimes, too, of course, she is merely sold into a lower slavery, that she may earnestly endeavor, perhaps through years of effort, to work her way up again to, say, a single-master-single-slave relationship. The 'mistake of even minutely relaxing or reducing the quality of her service is not one a girl is likely to make twice.
'All that remains now,' said the whip master, 'is to give you some experience in the types of situations in which you are likely, at least in your initial bondage applications, to find yourself.'
