'Stand up,' I said, 'back a bit, where I may see you.' I put the pan to one side, on the straw, on the stone, and looked at her. She was not a woman of Earth. A woman of Earth, if not beaten, and swiftly forced to learn her womanhood, would doubtless have held out for a time, confident that Gorean men, like those to whom she had become accustomed on her native planet, would prove to be weak, that they would yield to her. They learn, soon enough, however, that the average Gorean male simply does not share the conditioned political conceptions of the female, which in so many cases have succeeded in crippling, weakening and demasculizing the men of Earth. She finds that she is viewed rather in the context of biology and nature. She quickly learns, too, that where women are concerned, and thus where she is concerned, the average Gorean male has a will of iron. She also quickly learns that he has, personally and culturally, the power to enforce this will.
'Stand straight,' I said, 'the palms of your hands on the sides of your legs.' She did so.
The spy was lovely, though there was a kind of hardness, and nastiness, about her.
'Perform,' I said.
'For such performances,' I said, it is hard to believe that the guards would have fed you.'
She looked at me, angrily. 'Now,' I said, 'perform for me, as you did for them.' 'Not bad,' I said, fingering more of the meal into my mouth. I was, after all, hungry, too. I had not eaten since early morning, at the small tent I had shared with Phoebe. To be sure, Lady Claudia would not have had anything since noon, the day before.
'Please!' she said.
'But I,' I said, 'am more demanding than the guards. Do you understand?' I put more meal into my mouth.
'Yes!' she said. She then began, again to try to please me, this time even more desperately. She did not do badly. Then, after a time, I helped her, giving her detailed instructions, putting her, here and there, and about the cell, through detailed woman paces. Then she lay on her belly before me, gasping, covered with sweat. I motioned that she should kneel near me, and I placed her hands on her thighs. I rubbed my hand on her head. The short- cropped hair was wet with sweat. I then, having her lean forward, eagerly. Sometimes I made her stretch, holding the food just a little out of her reach. Sometimes I had her lick and suck my fingers, too, which she did eagerly enough, that none of the meal would be lost. Then we had finished the bit of meal and bread between us. She knelt back, regarding me reproachfully.
'Stand,' I said, 'back a bit, where I can see you, straightly, with your hands on the sides of your legs, as you did before.'
I then rose up and went to her, and looked at her, walking about her. Then I stood again before her.
I put my hands on her upper arms. 'Look at me,' I said. She lifted her head. 'You are hard, and petty, and nasty,' I said.
She looked up at me, angrily.
'But you are pretty,' I said.
She did not respond.
'Yes,' I said. 'You will do.'
'Do?' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'I do not understand,' she said.
'Do not tire me,' I said. I then flung her back, behind where we had stood, to the straw, and put her to my purposes.
13 Food
'My hair,' she said, 'is grown our more now.'
'Yes,' I said, rubbing the brush of it near my thigh, where her head rested. 'I want my hair to grow out,' she said.
I did not respond.
Chloe looked up at me, from where she lay, beside my thigh. 'You have made me soft, and female,' she said. 'You would have it so, and have had it so. Now I can be no other than that, nor do I desire to be other than that.'
'Kiss me,' I said.
She did so, softly, obediently, much as might have a slave.
I had given her, for my purposes, the name 'Chloe'. Technically, of course, as she was still a free woman, she was still Lady Claudia of Ar's Station. She had, however, however deceitfully, several days ago upon the wall, lowering her message in the basket, declared for Cos. Accordingly I had given her a Cosian name. It was a lovely name. She responded well to it, psychologically, socially and sexually. Further, she understood the propriety of its having been put on her.
Five days ago the walls of Ar's Station had been breached. Cosians were now within the city. The defenders, sometimes fighting street by street, and building to building, and those who could reach it, had now withdrawn to the citadel, bringing with them what belongings and supplies they could. In the citadel now hungry and miserable, besides he defenders, were crowded hundreds of women and children. Ar's Station was in flames. Smoke drifted even to our cell.
'What was that?' cried Chloe, leaping up.
I, too, leaped up.
There had been a rumbling crash from somewhere outside the citadel.
'I am not sure,' I said.
Later that afternoon there were several more such crashes, all on the land side of the citadel.
'There is another,' said Chloe, toward dusk.
'It is Cosians,' I said. 'They are clearing the ground outside the citadel, destroying the buildings, that they may bring their engines within range.' We heard, from somewhere outside, the long, wild scream of a woman, perhaps from among the buildings, outside the wall.
Chloe looked up at me.
'She has been caught,' I said.
It had had a sudden wild ring about it, as though she might suddenly, to her dismay, have felt ropes settle about her body, and draw tight.
'I, too, was caught,' said Chloe. 'And then, later, you too, caught me. I do not mind having been caught by you. I am pleased to have been caught by you.' I pulled her up beside me, and kissed her. She snuggled into my arms, frightened.
'The slaves are out there, somewhere, aren't they?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'With their cages, and chains, and wagons,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'For hundreds of pasangs about,' she said, 'Women will be cheap for months.' 'Perhaps,' I said.
'I envy them their chains,' she said, 'especially with what I have learned in your arms.'
I put my hand gently on her head. She was still a free woman, and in the keeping of those she had betrayed. Well might she envy those whose fate would be merely a brand, a collar and the absolute helplessness and submission of Gorean bondage.
'Many of those captured,' I said, 'might be shipped to the islands, Cos, Tyros, Tabor, Asperiche and so on. If that is the case, they might not depress the market as much as you feared.'
'You are kind,' she said.
'Do you wish to be beaten?' I asked.
'No,' she said quickly.
'And many, most, I suspect, of those women of Ar's Station who had not managed to flee earlier, at the approach of Cos, or somehow escape the city, are in the citadel.'
'There must be hardly room to move in the citadel,' she said. 'Our quarters are doubtless among the most
