Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 12 I UTILIZE THE ENTITLEMENTS OF THE BEADED QUIRT

"What do you want?" cried the boy, reining in his kaiila but feet before me. His words had a sibilant, explosive quality. This is a general characteristic of many of the languages of the red savages. It is even more pronounced, of course, when the speaker is excited or in an emotional state.

"Greetings, young man," I said, calmly. "You are Isanna, are you not?"

"I am Isanna," said the youth. "Who are you?" Another two lads, on kaiila, now approached me, remaining, however, some yards away.

"I am Tatankasa, a slave of Canka, of the Isbu," I said.

"He is a great warrior," said the youth, impressed.

"That is my understanding," I said.

"What are you doing here?" asked the youth.

"A man hunger is on me," I said.

"You should have a beaded quirt," said the youth.

"He is the slave of Canka," said another. "Let us not require the quirt."

"Behold," I smiled. I unwrapped the object which I carried.

"A beaded quirt," said the first youth, pleased.

"Yes," I said. About my left shoulder, in five or six narrow coils, there was a rope of braided rawhide. It was a light rope but it was more than sufficient for the sort of animal in which I was interested.

"You should have said you had the quirt," said the youth. Then he said to the two others, "Round them up!"

They raced away, through the grass.

"Follow me," said the first youth, and then turned his kaiila, and led the way from the place. These youth were naked save for the breechclout and moccasins. They carried ropes and whips.

In a few moments we had surmounted a small rise, and I was looking down into a wide, shallow, saucerlike valley, some half a pasang in width. "Hei! Hei!" cried the boys, in the distance, bringing together the members of the herd. Their ropes swung. Their whips cracked. Then the herd was together, well grouped by its young drovers. It now occupied, its members bunched and crowded closely together, a small, tight circle. It was now, in effect, a small, relatively fixed, directionless, milling mass. In such a grouping it may be easily controlled and managed. In such a grouping it has no purpose of its own. In such a grouping it must wait to see what is to be done with it. It must wait to see in what direction it will be driven.

"Hei! Hei!" called the young drovers, kicking their heels back into the flanks of their kaiila, waving their ropes, cracking their whips.

The herd now, the young drovers on either side of it, and slightly behind it, began to move in my direction.

"Hei! Hei!" cried the young drovers, ropes swinging, whips cracking. The herd then began to run towards me. I could see the dust raised. Lagging beasts were incited to new speeds, treated to the admonishments of hissing leather, falling across their backs, flanks and rumps. Then one of the lads sped his kaiila about the herd, heading it off and turning it. He had done this expertly. Not more than a few yards away, below me, below where I stood on the small rise, the herd was again in a small tight circle, turned in on itself, purposeless, milling, stationary.

"You boys drive them well," I said.

"Thank you," said the young man on the kaiila, with whom I had been waiting. "We practice it, of course. If danger should threaten we wish to be able to move them quickly into the vicinity of the camp."

"It is the same with kaiila," said another lad.

I nodded. These lads, and lads like them, were set to watch the herds, not to defend them. At the first sign of danger, such as the apperance of an enemy party, they were to bring the herds back to the village, sending one lad ahead to sound the alarm. Under no circumstances were they to engage the enemy. Red savages do not set boys to fight men. Too, the lads were in little danger. It would be very difficult for a mounted warrior, even if he wished to do so, to overtake a boy, lighter in weight than he, on a rested kaiila, by the time the lad could reach the lodges, usually no more than two or three pasangs away.

"It is a fine herd," I said. It was the third wuch herd I had looked at this morning.

"We think so," said the first lad, proudly. "There is one with nice flanks," he said, indicating a brunet with his whip."

"Yes," I said.

The girl, frightened, seeing our eyes upon her, tried to slip back, unobtrusively, among her fellow lovely beasts.

"I have used her myself," said the first lad. "Do you wish to have us cut her out of the herd for you?"

"No," I said.

"There is a pretty one," said another lad, "the one with brown hair and the little turned up nose."

"She is pretty," I said. "What is her name?"

The lads laughed. "These are herd girls," said one of them. "They have no names."

"How many are here?" I asked. I had not bothered to count.

"Seventy-three," said the first lad. "This is the larges of the Isanna girl herds."

"And the best," added another lad.

"They seem quiet," I said.

"In the herds they are not permitted human speech," said one of the boys.

"No more than she-kaiila," laughed another.

"They may, however," said the first, "indicate their needs by such things as moans and whimpers."

"This helps in their control," said another lad, "and helps them to keep in mind that they are only beasts."

"Do you drive them sometimes to water?" I asked.

"Of course," said one of the lads.

"We feed them on their knees," said another lad.

"They supplement their diets by picking berries and digging wild turnips," said the first lad.

"We make them chew carefully and watch closely to see that they swallow, bit by bit, in small swallows, sip roots, as well," said another.

"We then examine their mouths, forcing them widely open, to determine that they have finished their entire allotment of the root," said another.

I nodded. Sip roots are extremely bitter. Slave wine, incidentally, is made from sip roots. The slaves of the red savages, like slaves generally on Gor, would be crossed and bred only as, and precisely as, their masters might choose.

"Do you often have strays?" I asked.

"No," laughed a lad, slapping his whip meaningfully into his palm.

"At night," said another lad, "to make it hairder to steal them, we put them in twist hobbles and tie them together by the neck, in strings, thier hands tied behind their backs. These strings are then picketed near the village."

"Do they ever try to escape?" I asked.

"No," said one lad.

"Not more than once," laughed another.

"That is true," said the first lad. "No such beast ever tries to escape from the Isanna more than once."

"Some who try to escape are killed by sleen on the prairie," said one of the lads. "The others are trailed and brought back to the camp where they are tied down by our women and, over three days, taught that escape is not permitted."

"What is the penalty for a second attempt at escape?" I asked.

"Hamstringing," said one of the lads, "and then being left behind when the camp moves."

"I see," I said. "May I speak to one of them?"

"Surely," said the first lad.

I approached the women.

"You," I said, indicating a dark-haired woman, "step forward."

She came forward immediately, and knelt before me.

"You may speak briefly to me," I said. "After that, you are returned, once more, to the linguistic conditions of the herd, that condition in which, without permission of a master or masters, or one acting in such a capacity, you may not use human speech. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Is there any escape for you?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said, frightened, and then put down her head, trembling. I saw, too, several of the other women shrink back.

"Are you certain?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, frightened.

"What of these other women," I asked, "do they, too, know that?"

"Yes, Master," said the woman. "We all know it! We all know that escape is impossible for us!"

"You may withdraw," I said.

Quickly the woman scrambled back, into the herd.

Several of the other women in the herd, I had noticed, had been following these conversations, my conversations with the boys and then, later, my conversation with the woman. In their eyes I had seen terror. Well did they understand, I saw, the hopelessness of even the thought of escape. Even if they should elude their red pursuers, which seemed almost unthinkable, there would be waiting for them only the prairie, and the sleen. These women, like most white women in the Barrens, and they well knew it, to their terror, lived at the mercy of, and on the sufferance of, red masters.

"In a moon or two it will be time to think the herds," said one of the lads.

"We will trade some off and sell some others," said another lad.

"It seems that any of these would be worth keeping," I said, admiringly.

"It is a sleek herd," said one of the boys. "Doubtless serveral will be clothed and taken into private lodges for the winter moons."

"They are useful for digging under the snow for kailiauk chips," said a lad. Kailiauk chips were a common fuel on the plains.

"They are good, too," said the first lad, "for squirming in the robes."

"Yes," said another.

"If you like," said the first lad, "we will cut a girl out of the herd for you."

"He is the slave of Canka," said another lad. "Give him a good one."

"Would you like the dark-haired one you spoke to?" asked a lad. "It will take only a moment ot put a rope on her neck."

"No," I said. "Thank you." To be sure the dark-haired woman was a lovely specimen, a fine example of the lovely two-legged beasts in the herd. She was sweetly breasted, narrow-waisted and widely hipped. She had a delicioius love cradle. I had little doubt but what she might be worth two hides.

"There is a good one," said one of the boys, pointing out an auburn-haired beauty. "One lash of the quirt and she juices superbly."

"Actually," I said, "I am looking for a particular beast. May I examine the herd, to see if it is here."

"Of course," said the first lad.

I had thought that I had seen the particular animal I sought, shapely and blond, trying to hide itself in the herd.

It would take but a moment to make the necessary determination. I thrust the quirt I carried and the hide in which it had been wrapped, in my belt.

I entered among the women. "Give way," I said. "Kneel." The herd knelt.

I threaded my way among the kneeling slave beasts of the Isanna. Then I stopped beside one. She knelt low, her head down to the grass. I stood beside her and she began to tremble. I then took her by the hair and, crouching beside her, threw her, twisting her, to her side in the grass. My hand inher hair I then turned her face forcibly towards me, and held it thusly, so that I might see her featuers, fully. Yes, it was she whom I sought. I then put her again to her knees, pushing her head down to the grass.

"Place your wrists behind you, crossed," I said. She did so and, in a moment, with one end of the light, narrow rope. I carried, removed from my shoulder, I bound them together. I then took the rope up from her wrists and, pushing up her collar, looped it five times about her throat, and then took the free end of the rope under the rope leading up from her bound wrists, and then brought it forward. In this fashion a convenient, unknotted tether is formed. This type of tether is suitable for short leadings. The free end of the tether is slipped under the bond leading up from the wrists to prevent the girl from slipping it by the simple expedient of lowering and dipping her head a few times. She would still, of course, even in such a case, remain bound by the wrists.

The usual tether, it might be mentioned, is tied snugly but not tightly. There should be room to place two fingers between the throat and the inside of the tether. Any pressure felt by the prisoner must be felt on the back of the neck. A good Gorean tether constitues no impediment whatsoever to a girl's breathing. An exception is the choke collar which does interfere with a girl's breathing, but only if she is in the least bit recalcitrant. In the cities it is more common to use collars and leashes than tethers, or knotted tethers. The common leash has a snap clip, sometimes a locking one. This snap clip has a variety of uses. It can snap about a link or ring in its own leash, the leash then functioning as a self-contained collar-and-leash device, or about such things, say, as a collar, collar ring or neck bond, perhaps of rope or chain.

"On your feet," I said. The girl stood. I then led her forth from the herd, a sleek, curvaceous animal on her tether, my choice. She hurried behind me, that the slack in the tether not be taken up, as it was a wound, and unknotted tether, that it not tighten on her throat.

"She is pretty, but she is not the best choice," said the first lad.

"Oh?" I said.

"She is a block of ice," he said.

"I saw her twice, in the village," I said, "once in the entry of your band into the camp, and then, again, a day or so later. She seemed of interest."

"We send them into the villages, upon occasion, some of the," said the first lad, "to work, if there is a call for them, or to deliver roots and berries which they have gathered to the women. Too, of course, they are useful in twisting grass for tinder and gathereing wood and kailiauk chips for fuel. These things, then, too, they must deliver to the villages."

"Surely some are sent in occasionally for wench sport," I said.

"Sometimes we deliver a string of five or six into the camp for that purpose," said the first lad.

"Does this wench," I asked, indicating the girl on my tether, "often occupy a place in such a string?"

"No," laughed one of the lads.

"She is a block of ice," said the first lad.

"Choose another," invited one of the lads.

"How long may I keep her?" I asked.

"Until sundown," said the first lad. "She must then be put with the others."

I glanced at the slender ankles of my charge. I thought they would look well in close-fitting leather hobbles, twist hobbles, knkotted on the outside of the left ankle, which she, her hands bound behind her back, would be unable to remove. Such hobbles are also used, of course, for the two frong legs of kaiila.

"My thanks, lads!" I said. "You have been very helpful!"

I then led the girl from the vicinity of the herd, to a place I had picked out, in the shelter of some trees, near a small stream.

I had glanced back once. The lads exchanged waves. Several of the women in the herd, I had noted, had seemed quite pleased to see the blonde being led away on my tether. I gathered that she was an arrogant, proud girl, and not popular with her fellows. From what I knew of her, I did not find this surprising.

"Here we are," I said, entering among the trees.

In a moment I had tied her tether about a branch. I looked about myself.

A parfleche, containing some food, hung in one of the branches. I had placed it there earlier. With it, too, I had placed a large hide, rolled. That hide I now unrolled and spread, carefully, on the grass. The small hide, that in which the quirt had been wrapped, I dropped to one side. "That hide," I said, indicating the smaller hide, "is about the size of a Tahari submission mat."

I looked at the girl.

"You may kneel," I said.

She knelt, her tether looping gracefully up to the branch about which I had fastened it.

"I see that you speak Gorean," I said. That pleased me for it was much easier for me than the complexities of Kaiila. She did not respond.

"Spread your knees, widely," I said.

She did so.

I regarded her. In this place, until sundown, she was mine.

"In the herd," I said, "you attempted to conceal yourself from me."

She looked away, angrily.

"You seem very quiet," I said. "Perhaps your tongue has been removed, or slit, for insolence." I went to her and held her head back, my hand in her hair. "Open your mouth," I said. She did so. "No," I said. "That is not the case."

She made an angry noise.

"At least you are capable of sound," I said.

She tossed her head.

I then walked about her. "Your curves," I said, "suggest that you do not need to be a block of ice. They suggest that you are capable of responding as a hormonally normal woman. I see that you are not branded."

I then crouched before her and touched the side of her neck. She pulled away, angrily.

This gesture displeased me. The slave must welcome the touch of a man. Indeed, she must even beg for it.

Angrily I drew the quirt from my belt. She eyed it, fearfully. She shook her head. She uttered tiny, protesting, begging noises. She lifted her head, turning her head so that the side of her neck faced me, that I might touch it, if it pleased me.

"Ah," I said, "of course. You are a herd girl. You may not use human speech without permission." I had taken it for granted, mistakenly, as it had turned out, that the prohibition against human speech imposed on the herd girl would cease to obtain when, say, as in the present context, she had clearly been removed from the vicinity of the herd. I understood now that was not the case. This made sense, of course. One would not expect human speech from a she-kaiila, for example, even if she were not in her herd. Too, I now had a much clearer notion of the effectiveness of the discipline under which the red masters kept their white beauties.

She nodded her head, vigorously.

"i wonder if I should give you permission to use human speech," I mused. "Perhaps, rather, I should feed, train and use you as a mere curvaceous brute, not bothering to complicate our relationship by according you human speech."

She made piteous noises.

"It has been a long time since you were permitted to speak, hasn't it?" I said.

She nodded.

"Do you wish to be permitted to speak?" I asked.

She nodded, anxiously.

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

She nodded, desperately.

"Very well," I said. "You may speak." I usually permitted my slaves to speak. Sometimes, however, when it pleased me, I had them serve me mutely, as only delicious beasts. Only one or two slaves had I never permitted to speak in my presence, and those I had, later, sold off.

"That is good," she said, "to be able to speak!"

"You may thank me," I informed her.

"I do not wish to do so," she said.

"The permission accorded," I said, "may as readily be withdrawn."

"Thank you," she said. It pleased me to obtain this small amount of courtesy, this conciliatory token, from this woman.

"Thank you-what?" I asked.

"You are a slave!" she said. "You wear a collar!"

"Thank you-what?" I asked.

She was silent.

"Are you familiar with the quirt?" I asked.

"Thank you, Master," she said, quickly. "Yes, Master!"

"I see you have felt it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you know what you are doing here?" I asked.

"You are going to use me," she said, "one or more times. Then you will return me to the herd. I am ready. Let us get on with it."

I regarded her.

"I do not wish to be quirted," she said.

"Why a moment ago, did you withdraw from my touch?" I asked.

"I found it irritating," she said. I saw her body, as she said this, tighten, and draw back. It was very different from the normal body of a slave, which seems so warm and soft, so vital and alive, so eager to be touched, caressed and held. I saw that she was a rigid, unhappy woman.

"You are not branded," I said.

"No," she said.

"Are you from the Waniyanpi compound?" I asked. Teh Waniyanpi, slaves of red savages, lived in tiny, isolated agricultral communities. They supplied their masters with corn and vegetables. They subscribed to a unisex ethos.

"No," she said.

"How did you come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"You do not need to know anything about me, to have me," she said.

"Speak, Slave," I said. I touched the quirt to the palm of my left hand.

"Yes, Master," she said quickly. "I was once a woman of Ar."

Her accent, soft and liquid, had suggested this to me.

"I was of the merchants. I formed a company to trade along the Ihanke. I hired five men. I regarded the red savages as ignorant barbarians. I sent my men to nearby trading points, opened by the Dust Legs to any white traders. I furnished them with inferior trade goods, which they were to misrepresent to the savages. I would become rich in hides and horn. Imagine my surprise when, standing on the front porch of my small trading post, I saw my five men, afoot, bound and gagged, each dragging a travois, returning from the Ihanke. At the same time I fet myself seized from behind by red savages, Dust Legs. I was stripped and bound. I was shown the materials on the travois. They were the inferior trade goods I had sent to the trading points, being returned. One item, however, on one of the travois was not mine. It was a fine kailiauk robe. One of the Dust Legs showed it to me, and then pointed to it, and then to me, and then threw it on the porch of the trading post. It was their payment for me. I was then carried into the Barrens. I have been a slave of red savages ever since."

"At least you were properly paid for," I said.

"Yes," she said, angrily.

"How did you come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"The Dust Legs traded me to the Sleen," she said, "and the Sleen traded me to the Yellow Knives."

"It seems that no one was eager to keep you," I said.

"Perhaps not," she said.

"Waht did you bring?" I asked.

"The Sleen got me for two knives," she said, "and the Yellow Knives had be for a mirror."

"The Dust Legs," I said, "apparently originally conjectured that you would be worth a hide. You then went for two knives, and then a mirror."

"Yes," she said, bitterly.

"YOu have not failed to note, I suppose," I said, "that you have seemed to undergo a certain decreasing in value."

"No," she said, angrily, "I have not failed to note that."

"How did you finally come to the Isanna?" I asked.

"I was taken in a girl raid by the Isanna, with two-dozen others," she said. "We were herded into the Isanna country."

I nodded. This was around Council Rock, north of the northern fork of the Kaiila River and west of the Snake River.

"But you are not kept in a private lodge," I said. "You are kept in a girl herd."

"I was tried out, and then put in the herd," she said.

"You are apparently not regarded as much of a slave," I said.

"I am beautiful," she said, squirming in her bonds, the tether, attached to the branch, above her head, on her neck. "You saw that I was marched at the stirrup of an Isanna warrior in the Isanna procession into the camp of the Isbu!"

"That is true," I said. "You were seen fit to be displayed as Isanna loot."

"Yes," she said.

"Then you were sent back to the herd," I said.

"Yes," she said, sullenly.

"Why," I asked, "did you, in our two pervious meetings, regard me with such contempt?"

She tossed her head.

"I advise you to speak, Slave," I said. I tapped the quirt in my palm.

"You are only a male slave," she spat out, suddenly. "I despise male slaves. I hold them in contempt. I am too high for them. I am too loftly for them. I am above them! Girls such as I belong to and are for free men!"

"I see," I said.

"Too," she said, "I am the property of a red master."

I nodded. I saw that she had come to know and respect red savages. From a woman who had once regarded them as dupes and ignorant barbarians she had now come, as their slave, to understand them as the redoubtable hunters and warriors they were. Astride their kaiila, lance in hand, they were the rulers of the prairies, the Ubars of the plains. In the Barrens, obviously, it is something of a distinction for a woman, particularly a lowly white woman, to belong to one.

"But you are apparently not much of a property for your master." I said.

"Oh?" she said, angrily.

"You are kept in a herd," I reminded her.

She looked away, angrily.

I freed her tether from the branch and, slipping it back under the bond coming up from her wrists, I unlooped it from her neck. I then freed her hands. I dropped the rope to the side.

"Perhaps you had better keep me bound, or put me in a leg stretcher," she said.

"That will not be necessary," I said.

She rubbed her wrists. I had perhaps bound her too tightly. But then it is important that a girl knows herself bound.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

"Many things," I said, "but among them I am going to improve your master's property."

She looked at me.

"Get on your hands and knees," I said.

She complied.

"See the quirt?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I will give you a moment or two to crawl to the robe which I have spread on the grass," I said. "After that, if you are anywhere else for the next Ahn, the quirt will be used on you, and liberally. And, indeed, it may, if I choose, be used on you, even on the robe."

"I understand, Master," she said.

"Go," I said.

She crawled to the robe. Crouching on it, she looked at it, and its edges. It was an island of safety for her, or possible safety. Off it, in the next Ahn, she knew she would be whipped. On it, she did not know. This was, of course, a familiar master's tactic, usually used only with new slaves, young, inexperienced girls, fearful of the sexual aspects of their slavery. They find themselves in a large room, usually empty, or rather empty, save for an imposing couch. They are then informed that they will be whipped anywhere in the room except on the couch and may, perhaps, be whipped upon it. Needless to say, the girl scurries to the couch, regards it, in effect, as a place of possible refuge, in spite of the fact that her secual expoitation and domination will clearly take place upon it, and, for the time limits set, whatever they may be, fears to leave it. Some masters, if not pleased, will force the girl from the couch, and, keeping themselves between the girl and the couch, whip her, then letting her, after a few strokes, flee back to the couch. There, in that place of possible safety she will try again, desperately, to be more pleasing. This may be the last time in months, incidentally, that the girl will be on the surface of the couch. Until her slave skills imporve her place will be on furs, or a mat, or on the bare stones or tiles, at the foot of the couch. Indeed, some masters will sleep even a superb slave at the foot of the couch. Perhaps it is too obvious to mention but a point served by this original use of the couch is to break down the new slave's fear of the couch and encourage her to see it in a favorable light, indeed, as a place of relative safety, comfort and favor. In a possibly hostile environment she desires its protection and significance. She wishes to be upon it. Later, of course, for nobler reasons, she will presumably come to view it with greater eagerness and affection. On it she will be permitted to serve her master and on it, in turn, she will come to know his touch, as a loving, yielding slave.

"Get on your left hip," I said, "your right leg extended, the palms of your hands on the robe."

"You can't kill me," she said. "I do not belong to you!"

"That is an interesting question," I said. "As I hold the beaded quirt I think I do, in this context, have such rights over you. At any rate, even if I do not, a complaint to the boys, relayed by them to your master, would surely be in order. He may then decide whether or not your least difficulty or disobedience is to be punished by death. And since you are a herd girl, I doubt that he will think twice about the matter. That is better." She had assumed the position which I had prescribed.

"Do not complain to the boys," she said. "They are cruel!"

"They are not cruel," I said. "They are only good herders."

"If I do not please you," she said, "just quirt me."

"Have no fear," I said. "If I am not pleased you will be well quirted. Then I will decide whether or not to complain to the boys."

She moaned.

"You ahve good slave curves," I said, regarding her. "You may thank me."

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"One wonders why, then, you are so valueless. You went for a hide, and then two knives, and then only a mirror. Now you are in a herd. Why are you worth so little?"

"I do not know, Master," she said.

"The boys tell me that you are a block of ice," I said.

"I cannot help it if I am unresponsive," she said. "It is my nature."

"I also gather," I said, "that you are arrogant and surly. You are thus, in various respects, a poor slave."

She tossed her head, irritably.

I struck her once, on the right thigh, with the quirt. She cried out with pain, and looked down at the welt.

"I would think twice, if I were you," I said, "before I made angry little noises or impatient gestures."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you find men attractive?" I asked.

"Since I may be raped at their pleasure," she said, "what difference does it make?"

"Do you find them attractive?" I asked.

"Sometimes," she said, "they make me feel uneasy."

"What were you relations with men, prior to your enslavement?" I asked.

"Cannot you simply take me and be done with it?" she asked.

"Speak," I said.

"At one time," she said, "in spite of being a proud free woman of Ar, I felt the desire for the companionship of men."

"I understand," I said.

"I decided that I would permit them, certain ones of my careful choosing, of proper means and stations, to become acquainted with me, and that I might then, from among these, favor certain ones with the dignity and honor of my friendship. Then, perhaps, in time, if I felt so inclined, I might, if he were thoroughly pleasing and wholly suitable, consider acceding to the please of one to enter into companionship with me."

"And how did matters proceed?" I asked.

"I called together a number of young men," she said. "I informed them of my willingness to form acquaintances, and specified to them the strict conditions to which these relationships, absolute equality, and such, would be subject."

"And what happened?" I asked.

"All withdrew politely," she said, "and I never saw them again, with one exception, a little urt of a man who told me he shared my views, fully."

"You entered into companionship with him?" I asked.

"I discovered he was interested only in my wealth," she said. "I dismissed him."

"You were then angry and hurt," I said, 'and began to devote yourself wholly to the pursuits of business."

"Yes," she said.

"Too," I said, "I gather, from other aspects of your story, that you became mercenary and greedy."

"Perhaps," she said.

"And then you were captured, and brought into the Barrens, and made a slave," I said.

"Yes," she said. "May I break this position?"

"No," I said.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked.

"You had better hope that I like what I see," I said.

She swallowed, hard.

"Yes," I said. "I like what I see."

"I suppose I should be grateful," she said.

"I think that I would be grateful if I were you," I said, "since you are a female slave."

"Of course," she said. "I do not wish to be quirted, or slain."

"Yes," I said.

"Do you enjoy posing naked women for your pleasure?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh," she said.

"I think you feared your womanhood," I said. "That seems clear, even from your behavior in Ar. This is not unusual, incidentally, in a free woman, because deep womanhood, they sense, involves love, and love, for a woman, seems always to involve a bondage, if not of ropes and chains, of one sort or another."

She looked at me, tears in her eyes.

"Then, when you were, in effect, rejected as a woman, you were hurt and angry. You determined never to endure another such humiliating rejection. Too, understandably, you became hostile towards men. You would hate them. You would outdo them. You would have your vengeance on them. You came to fear certain sorts of feelings. You drew back even further from your womanhood."

"No, no, no," she wept. "I am a poor slave only because I an unresponsive! That is my nature! I cannot help it!"

"That is not your nature," I told her. "And you are going to help it."

"Master?" she asked.

"Crawl to the grass, there," I said. "Hurry!"

She crawled to the point, trembling, where I had indicated.

"Kneel to the whip," I ordered her.

She knelt there, trembling, her head down to the grass, her wrists crossed beneath her, as though bound.

I strick her thrice.

"Are you a whipped slave?" I asked.

"Yes," she wept, "I am a whipped slave."

"You belong to men," I told her. I gave her another stroke.

"I will try to be pleasing!" she wept.

"I am sure you will, my dear," I said. "But the interesting question is whether or not you will succeed." I then gave her two more strokes.

"Oh," she wept. "Ohh."

"Do you beg now," I asked, "to return to the robe?"

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Return, then, to the robe, Slave," I said.

Swiftly she crawled back to the robe. She lay on her stomach on its surface, grateful to be again within the perimeters of its relative safety. She was half choking and crying.

"On your back, Slave," I said, "hands at your sides, palms up, right knee lifted."

Wincing, she complied.

"What is the place of women!" I demanded.

"At the feet of men!" she wept.

"And where are you?" I asked.

"At your feet!" she wept.

"What are you?" I asked.

"A slave, a slave!" she said.

"Men have been patient long enough with you, Salve," I said. "That patience is now at an end."

"Yes, Master!" she wept.

"No longer are you a free woman," I said. "That is all behind you now. You are now only an imbounded female, only a slave, at the mercy of men."

"Yes, Master," she gasped, frightened.

"Accordingly," I said, "you are no longer to think of yourself as, or permit yourself to act like, a free woman. You are now, henceforth, to think and act like a slave. You are to feel as a slave, and live and love as a slave!"

"Yes, Master," she wept.

"Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"No impediment exists now," I said, "between you and your womanhood."

"No, Master," she said, frightened.

I dropped the quirt down near the robe. I then crouched down beside her. "When I touch you," I said, "you will feel, deeply and fully, richly and beauitfully, gratefully, joyfully and submissively, and later, when you yield, you will yield totally and completely, irreservedly, helplessly, holding nothing back."

"But then I should be naught but a slave," she said, "helpless in the arms of her master."

"Yes," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

I knelt beside her. "Sit up," I said. "Put your arms about my neck."

She obeyed.

"Slave lips," I commanded.

She pursed her lips and then I, gently, kissed them. "That was not so fearful now, was it?" I asked, drawing back.

"What do men, truly, want of slaves?" she whispered.

"Everything," I said.

"And what must a slave give them?" she asked.

"Everthing," I said, "and more."

"I had feared, and hoped, it would be so," she said.

I smiled.

"You see," she said, "I am a slave."

"I know," I said. She was a woman.

"Have you read the Prition of Clearchus of Cos?" she said.

"What is a former free woman of Ar doing reading that?" I asked. It was a treatise on bondage.

" 'The slave," " she quoted, " 'makes no bargains; she does not desire small demands to be placed upon her; she does not ask for ease; she asks nothing; she gives all; she seeks to love and selflessly serve. »

"You quote it well," I said.

"You have read it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. I remembered the passage clearly. The girl had perhaps, at one tim, memorized it.

"I have always been fascinated with bondage," she said, "but I never expected, then, to find myself a slave."

"Kiss me, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you fear now," I asked, "as a slave, that you will be rejected?"

"I see now," she said, "as a slave, that it does not matter. It is not mine to fear such things, but rather to see to it that I am completely pleasing. If I am rejected, it matters not, for I am only a slave. As a slave I am nothing. I am meaningless and worthless. Thus what does it matter if I should be despised and spurned? I must then, only, try again, seeking anew, helplessly, to serve and love."

I did not respond to her. I did not think it necessary to tell her, and she would, in any case, soon learn it, that the least of the slave's fears is rejection. Rather she must fear quite the opposite. She must fear that the very sight of her will drive a man half mad with passion, and that he may not wish to rest until he gets his chains on her.

"In the Prition," I said, "Clearchus, of course, is primarily concerned with only one form of bondage, that of the love slave."

"That is true," she said.

"There are many slaveries," I said, "and some are doubtless quite fearful and unpleasant."

"Yes," she shuddered. she had heard, I gathered, of certain agriculteral slaveries, and of slaveries such as those in the public kitchens and laundries. Too, she was doubtless familiar with contempt slaveries and vengeance slaveries. One form of vengeance slavery is the proxy slavery, in which one woman, totally innocent, is enslaved and made to stand proxy for a hate, at-least-temporarily-inaccessibly woman, even being given her name. The proxy, of course, being enslaved, is truly enslaved. Even if the hated woman is later captured the proxy is not freed. She is generally, merely, given away or sold.

"The common denominator," I said, "appears to be that the woman must be totally pleasing and, in all ways, is totally subject to the will of the Master."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You may now kiss me again, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then lowered her to the robe. Her arms were still about my neck.

"Are you going to teach me to be pleasing?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"You will then," she smiled, "be imporving, as you suggested, my master's property."

"Yes," I said. "But I am going to do more than teach you how to be pleasing."

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "When I am finished with you, my naked, collared beauty, you will be quite different than you are now."

She looked at me.

"I am going to make you into a man's dream of pleasure," I said.

"Do so," she said.

"Please, please," she wept. "Do not leave me! I beg you! Touch me more, please! I beg you to stay with me! I did not know it could be anything like this! Please, I beg you, touch me again!" She clutched me. Her tears were on my arm and chest.

"Do you beg it, as a slave?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. "I beg it as a slave!"

"Very well," I said.

"What a fool I was as a free woman!" she whispered.

"You were only ignorant," I said.

"I did not know what it was like to be a slave, the helplessness, the sensations."

I did not respond.

"I did not know such feelings could exist," she said. "I never felt anything like them. They are so overwhelming."

"They have to do with dominance and submission," I said.

"I was afraid, in my yielding," she said, "that I might die."

"It was only a small slave orgasm," I said.

She looked at me, wonderingly.

"Beyond what you have experienced," I said, "lie indefinite horizons of ecstasy. No woman yet, I speculate, has numbered them."

"It is so much more than mere physical feeling," she said.

"It is such feeling in a cognitive matrix," I said. "It is psychophysical. It is an indissolubly emotional, physical and intellectual whole."

"I shall now need, often, the touch of a man," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"You have done this to me," she chided.

"It should have been done long ago," I said.

"But now," she said, "what if a man does not choose to satisfy me?"

"Try to be such that he will show you kindness," I said.

She shuddered. She was now much more at the mercy of men thatn she had ever suspected she could be. The slave fires in her belly, as it is said, had now been lit. She was now susceptible to the torments of the deprived slave. Free women, whose sexuallity is usually, for most practical purposes, sluggish and inert, often have difficulty in understanding the desperation and intensity of these needs on the part of a female slave. They think that she is different from, and inferior to, themselves. If they themselves should be enslaved, of course, they are likely to soon revise these opinions. They, too, then may well find themselves moaning and scratching in their kennels, begging rude keepers for their touch, and being despised, in turn, by free women.

"You have ruined me for freedom," she said.

"Do you object?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I want to be a slave. I love being a slave."

"That is fortunate," I said, "for that is what you are."

"I have been a slave for months," she said. "I regret only that I have wasted all this time. I have waited until today to discover what it can be, truly, to be a slave."

"What do you feel about men?" I asked.

"They are interesting and beautiful," she said.

"Beautiful?" I asked.

"To my eyes," she smiled.

"And what else?" I asked.

"I know that they are my masters, that I need their touch and that I wish to serve them."

"Can you conceive of yourself kneeling before a man, head down, begging him for his caress?" I asked.

"Clearly," she said, "now that my sexuality has been awakened."

"Will he accede to your plea?" I asked.

"It would be my hope that he would," she said.

"Sometimes he may, sometimes he may not," I said. "There may come times when you will be grateful for so little as a cuffing or a kick."

"I must accept what I am given," she said. "I am a slave."

I then took her again in my arms. "Yes!" she breathed.

I lay on my side and the girl put a tiny piece of pemmican in my mouth.

I enjoyed having her feed me. She had, earlier, brought me water in her mouth, but, in its transfer, at the touch of her lips, it had only led to a new ravishment of her. I had then gone to the stream to satisfy my thirst.

"It is nearly sundown," I said.

"Then I must be returned to the herd," she moaned. "I must then be taken near the village with the others. I must then be hobbled and, a rope on my neck, be picketed with my string. How can I bear, now, to return to the herd?"

"I doubt that you will now be long kept in the herd," I said.

"I now need a man," she said. "I will do anything to be taken into a lodge, to serve."

"You are helpless now, aren't you?" I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "May I leave the robe?"

"Yes," I said.

She went to the small hide in which the quirt had been wrapped. She picked it up and brought it to the edge of the robe. She spread it out there. "You told me," she said, smiling, "that this hide was about the size of a Tahari submission mat."

"Yes," I said.

"Behold," she said, smiling, her head down. "I kneel upon the mat."

I regarded her. A thousand memories rushed int my mind, of the vast, tawny Tahair, of its bleakness, and its dunes, of its caravans, of its oases and palaces. In the Tahari culture the submission mat has its place.

"In the Tahari," she asked, "might not girls, such as I, kneel on such mats?"

"Yes," I said. Many times I had seen such slaves, blond and beautiful, kneeling on such mats before dark masters.

"Oh!" she cried, seized and taken.

The girl knelt before me on the robe. Her head was down. "I beg your caress, Master," she said.

I smiled. Well did she remember our earlier conversation.

I looked at the sun though the trees. I thought there was time.

"Earn it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, happily.

Later I held her, again, in my arms. "We must start back now," I said.

"I know," she whispered.

I got up, and gathered my things together. "Roll the robe," I said. She did so. Then she knelt on the grass.

"Bind my hands and arms," she said, "so tightly that I cannot move the. Then march me back to the herd, a rope on my neck."

"No," I said. "You will walk back, quietly, before me."

"Yes, Master," she smiled.

I tied my things together with the rope. Then, the girl preceding me, we left the small grove. I looked back on it once. I had had a good time there.