were responsible for first bringing her pretty little neck into the collar. It is not only fitting then that it be she, now a slave, whom I used for your acquisition?'
'Yes, Master,' he said.
'Doubtless she finds her triumph rich and amusing,' I said.
'Please, Master, may I speak?' begged Lavinia.
'No,' I said.
She sobbed.
'You did your work well, pretty little seduction slave,' I said to her.
'Please, Master!' she begged.
'No,' I said.
'I had hoped you cared for me,' he said.
She threw back her head in anguish.
'I had hoped you cared for me,' he said. 'I had never forgotten you!'
She looked wildly at him.
'You seemed so tender, so real, so helpless!' he said.
'Surely, as one who has had, as I understand it, experience on the stage,' I said, 'you can understand such things.'
'She was responsive!' he said.
'She had better have been,' I said. 'Indeed, slave girls are trained to helpless responsiveness. They can juice, for example, in a matter of Ihn.'
'She responded!' he said.
'She is a slave,' I said. 'She has strong and recurrent needs. Indeed, she is the prisoner, and victim, of such needs. Why should she not have utilized you to temporarily satisfy them?'
'Please, Master,' wept Lavinia.
'No,' I said.
'Well did you trick me,' he said to the girl.
She regarded him with anguish.
'I do not blame you,' he said. 'You must do as your master commands.'
I smiled to myself, despite my remarks to the male slave, had little doubt of the genuineness of Lavinia's words, her protestation, and such. The authenticity of a slave's words and responses, of course, are attested to by numerous bodily ones, many of which are unaware of, and cannot control. A master who is alert to these can then determine, particularly over a period of time, whether or not the slave's words, feelings and responses are genuine or not. The alternatives accorded to the Gorean slave girl are, in effect, to become an authentic slave, or die. Interestingly this understanding, particularly on the part of a woman who has been the victim of an antibiological conditioning program, as some Earth females, can be received as a liberating and joyful revelation, permitting them then in good conscience to yield at least, as they have long wished, to their femininity. Most women, of course, including most Earth females brought to Gor, as slaves, for that is the usual reason for which one is brought to Gor, do not need anything of this sort. Most are so joyful to find themselves on a natural world where their beauty, their dispositions and feelings are meaningful, that they can hardly wait to fulfill their depth nature, to be at last the women they are in their hearts, and bellies, and have always desired to be.
'She is not hard to take,' I said.
'No, Master,' he said.
'And if you had to be seduced,' I said, 'surely you must not object to my using her for the purpose.'
'No, Master,' he said.
'Indeed,' I said, 'perhaps you commend my perception, and generosity.'
'Yes, Master,' he said.
'Now,' I said, 'you both belong to me.'
They looked wildly at one another.
'And I expect, seduction slave,' I said to the girl, 'that he will be good for your discipline. If you are not pleasing, perhaps I will throw you to him.'
'Yes, Master!' she said. 'Chain me, and throw me to him. Let me be his to do with as he pleases!'
The male slave gasped, staggered with the thought of such power over the beauty. 'But then, on the other hand,' I said, 'I do not know if I would permit dalliance among my slaves.'
He could not but drink in the beauty of Lavinia.
'Look away from her,' I commanded.
With a moan he averted his eyes.
'To be sure, I might upon occasion,' I said, 'let you look upon one another, each chained to an opposite wall, or perhaps I might even allow you each enough chain to approach, but not touch, one another. Too, of course, I might have you chained helplessly and then have her dance naked, in her own chains, before you, thence to be dismissed to her kennel.'
He hung down his head, in misery.
'No,' I said to Lavinia, reading her anguished expression. She put her palms down, again, on her thighs. Tears were upon her cheeks and breasts.
'You noted when you saw her this morning, of course,' I said, 'that she was not in seeming state garb.'
'Of course, Master,' he said.
'Nor in a collar, to be sure, one she could not remove, seemingly one of the state.'
'Yes, Master,' he said.
'Did this excite your curiosity?' I asked.
'No, Master,' he said. 'As this was the morning of the putative assignation, I supposed it might be a disguise prescribed by her Mistress, that the curious, if they saw her in this neighborhood, would not be likely to link her with the Central Cylinder.'
'That was an intelligent conjecture on your part,' I said.
'And doubtless one on which Master counted,' he said.
'Yes,' I said.
'It did excite me,' he said, 'to see her not in the drab state garb, but in the tunic she wore, with the disrobing loop.'
'Did she drop the tunic well?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' he said. 'She is a superb seduction slave.'
Lavinia sobbed.
The male slave looked up at me. 'I am an actor,' he said. 'Master does not appear to be of the theater.'
'No,' I said. 'I am not of the theater.'
'I do not understand why master has brought these things about,' he said, 'why he has brought me into his possession. Of what possible use can I be to master?'
'Perhaps I could sell you to the quarries, or into the fields,' I said. 'Perhaps I could take you to the Vosk, or the coast, and sell you to a captain. You might look well, chained to the bench of a galley.'
'I do not think it was for such purposes that master purchased me,' he said. 'You think you are valuable?' I asked.
'Surely master thinks so,' he said. 'I heard master himself conjecture that there were free women in Ar who would pay a thousand pieces of golf for me.'
'And there are perhaps men,' I said, 'who would pay fifteen hundred.'
'Yes, Master,' he said, putting his head down, and clenching his fists. Then he looked up. 'But master did not sell me, not offer me for sale,' he said. 'But surely I have been purchased on speculation,' he said, 'for resale?'
'Do not concern yourself with the matter,' I said.
'Does master intend to keep me long in his possession?' he asked.
'Do not concern yourself with the matter,' I said.
He looked at me.
'Curiosity is not becoming in a kajirus,' I said.
