'I thought you might,' he said.
'No, Master,' I said. 'I am under no delusion on that score.'
He must have been looking at me. I had the feeling I was being looked at, as a slave.
'Am I dismissed?' I asked.
'Beware,' he said.
'Perhaps I have concealed a coin in my halter,' I said, 'or in a fold of my slave silk.'
'Have you?' he asked, amused.
'You will not know, will you,' I asked, 'unless you have checked?' 'You look well in slave silk,' he said.
'Thank you, Master,' I said.
'You would look better without it,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said. He then unknotted the silk of the halter, from about my neck, and behind my back, and drew it away from me. I stood as close to him as I could, without actually daring to touch him.
I saw him lean forward and, his eyes briefly closed, revel in the scent of my perfume. It was perfume of a sort not worn by free women on Gor. It was slave perfume. Such perfume says to men, in effect, 'This is a slave. Use her as you will.'
'Are you haughty now?' he asked.
'No,' I said.
'There are tears in your eyes,' he said.
'My need is on me,' I said, 'and I am helpless.'
He dropped the silk to the floor, beside him.
'You may kneel,' he said.
Swiftly I knelt, and then looked up at him.
'Speak,' he said.
'I, Doreen, the slave, beg use,' I said.
He looked down upon me.
I squirmed on my knees before him, in misery and frustration, my hands behind my back.
'You are ready, aren' t you?' he asked.
'Yes, Master!' I said.
'Please touch me!' I wept.
'You beg it?' he said.
'Yes, Master!' I wept. 'I beg it!'
'Since first I saw you, when I had unroped the shipping blanket, and put its folds to the sides, revealing you, helplessly manacled, when you first came to the house from Market of Semris,' he said, 'I dreamed that you would one day be so hot and needful before me, and would beg me for my touch.'
I was astonished and delighted to hear this, that so mighty a man as this Gorean master, second in this house to Hendow, my master, might have found me attractive, and from so long ago. But this did not, of course, relieve in the least the desperate needs I felt. It did not reduce my tensions. It did not diminish or assuage my sufferings. I still knelt helpless before him. 'It is interesting,' he said, 'what can be done with a woman.'
'Please, Master!' I wept. I who had once been Doreen Williamson, a shy, lovely librarian on Earth, had now begun to feel slave needs. To be sure, at that time, kneeling before Mirus, I had no idea how acute such things could become. He looked down at me, amused.
'Mock me as a needful slave,' I said, 'but I beg of you, touch me!' He was silent.
'I am a naked slave,' I said. 'I kneel before you! I beg use!'
he savored my desperation. I wished for a foolish moment that I might be again like a woman of Earth, one without needs, or with such low need levels as to be for most practical purposes inert, or with need so rigidly and effectively suppressed as to provide a functional surrogate for such inertness, or, perhaps, even one who might, with some convincingness, pretend to such things. To have no needs, if, indeed, there were women truly without them, would be a tragedy, and if one had any need at all, then it would be only a matter of time until under Gorean tutelage they were revealed, deepened and enlarged; until they were imperiously summoned forth into the open for inspection and encouragement; they would then be cultivated; they would be forced to grow, in both size and intensity; they would soon become such that they would begin to surface periodically and irresistibly within her, like forces of nature, she is powerless to alter or effect them as she would be to alter or effect the tides, the rotation of the earth, the risings and settings of the sun. Too, they would always be with her, ready and meaningful, never far beneath the surface. This would constitute a condition of her existence. She would come to realize hat, as the Goreans say, 'slave fires had been lit in her belly.' She would learn, too, that these fires, even when they seemed most inert, could be suddenly fanned into raging, consuming flames by as little as a command, a glance or touch. Such things the girl must learn to cope with. It does not matter, of course, for she is only a slave. I myself, of course, do not object to such things. I have learned on this world that the insensitivity of tissue is not an indication of virtue but of physiological inferiority.
I looked up at Mirus, tears in my eyes. I was now without pride. I was now only a naked, needful slave. I squirmed before him. I could not attempt to relieve my own tensions, as my hands, by his will, had been bound behind me. Yet for all my anguish I would not have wanted to be other than I was. I had not known such needs, such feelings, such emotions could exist. I was a thousand times more alive than I had ever been on Earth. And complementary, of course, to the pain of such deep needs, the other side of the coin, so to speak, are the incredible fulfillments of having them satisfied, fulfillments in the light of which the anguish of the needs, terrible though it was, then seems negligible. We may be totally at the mercy of masters, and as mere animals, and even to our lives, but just as it is within the power of these uncompromising brutes who own us to do as they wish with us, so, too, it is within their power, when it pleases them, to grant us transport to ineffable raptures, to fling us ecstasies of which the free woman can not begin to conceive.
'The woman of Earth begs use?' he said.
'Yes!' I said. 'She begs use!'
'That is not typical for a woman of Earth, is it?' he asked.
'I do not know!' I could certainly imagine myself kneeling before a Greek or Roman master, or a harnessmaker in Damascus, his Christian slave, in the 14th Century, or a Barbary prince, a captured, harem-silked English lady who had not had time to learn something of the touch of men, in the 19th, and doing so. Indeed, I had wondered sometime if, in a former life, or lives, I might not have done so. The thought of this sort of thing, oddly enough, did not seem unfamiliar to me. To be sure, I have deep and urgent female needs, and had had them, even on Earth. To be sure, they had not been ignited on Earth as they were ignited now, and, too, at this time, of course, I did not have any idea as to how deep and urgent and progressively overwhelming, they could become later. I was still only, in effect, a new slave, and new to the rigors of my condition. I had not yet begun to learn my collar.
He looked at me.
'Surely I am not the first woman from Earth whom you have had at your feet, begging,' I said.
'No,' he admitted.
'What?' I asked.
'No,' he repeated.
'More than one?' I asked.
'Of course,' he said.
'Oh,' I said. Immediately I felt a wave of jealousy for those other girls. 'We learn quickly enough to beg on Gor, do we not?' I asked. 'Yes,' he said.
'I am here,' I said. 'I am at your feet. I am naked, collared and owned. I beg use. I can do nothing more.' I looked up at him. I must now wait. He would do with me as he saw fit.
'Perhaps I should send you out on the floor,' he said.
'Not tonight,' I begged. 'Use me yourself!'
'The schedules could be rearranged,' he mused.
'As Master wills,' I said, bitterly. I was, of course, at the mercy of his schedules.
'Perhaps I could warm you for Hendow' s customers,' he speculated. 'Warm me?' I laughed, bitterly. 'I am already flaming!'
'If I sent you forth on the floor in your present condition,' he said, 'you would probably belly to the first male
