Slave Girl Of Gor

26
I Return To Ar; What Was Done To Elicia Nevins, My Mistress

"Your bath is ready, Mistress," I said, kneeling, head down, in brief white slave tunic, before the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers.

She seated herself on her great couch, and extended her feet, one alter the other, to me. I, kneeling, removed her sandals, kissing each and laying it aside. She stood up and I, rising and standing behind her, lifted away her robe. I kissed it, and put it upon the couch.

She smiled, approvingly. "Perhaps I shall yet make a serving slave of you, Judy," she said.

"It is my hope that I will be pleasing to my mistress," I said. She gestured and I brought the towel, kissing it, which I then wrapped about her head, that her hair not be dampened.

She then went to the edge of the sunken bath, and slipped her toe within the water, and then stepped down into the bath and reclined, leaning back. "Excellent, Judy," she said.

"Thank you, Lady Elicia, my Mistress," I said. I had well judged the temperature of the water, mixing the water from the cistern with other water, heated in the tempering vessel on its iron tripod. The temperature was acceptable. I would not be whipped.

I served her as she wished, with absolute perfection. I glanced at the beaded, feminine slave whip, hanging by its loop upon the wall. I had no wish to feel it.

I looked at the mistress luxuriating in her warm bath, beautiful in the multicolored foams of beauty.

I was Judy, her house and serving slave. I kept her compartments, dusting and cleaning. I cooked and washed. I did all trivial, unpleasant and servile work for her. It was a great convenience to her to own me. Often she would send me shopping, my hands braceleted behind my back, a leather capsule, a cylinder, tied about my neck, containing her order and coins. The merchant would then fill her order, tie the merchandise about my neck, put the change in the leather capsule, close it and, sometimes with a friendly slap, dismissing me, reminding me that I was pretty, regardless of being a woman's slave, send me back to my mistress. At other times my mistress would shop and I would follow her, deferentially, to carry her purchases, eyes cast down, lest I should be caught so much as looking upon a man. A handsome male slave had once smiled at me and I, inadvertently, had reddened and basked in his pleasure. I had been turned about and marched home, to be put under the whip. The Lady Elicia, as I soon discovered, and had earlier suspected, despised and hated men. Yet, too, she found them, somehow, intensely fascinating and intriguing. Often she asked me questions which a slave girl might respond to intimately and easily if asked by another slave girl, but which were difficult to respond to if asked by a free woman. She would ask questions about the tethering and chaining of slaves, and their feelings, and what men made them do and how they were expected to speak and behave. She wanted to know intimate details of such things as what it was like to be a peasant's girl and what men exacted of girls in a paga tavern. I tried to answer her honestly. She would profess rage and indignation. "Yes, Mistress," I would murmur, putting my head down. "How pleased you must be, Judy," she sometimes said, "to have been rescued from all that, to be a woman's slave." "Oh, yes, Mistress," I would say. How could I tell her the joys of a slave girl, obeying the uncompromising, dominant male and writhing in his arms?

She lifted one fair limb, her left arm, from the foam, and washed it slowly with her right hand, regarding it approvingly.

Like many frigid women she was incredibly vain of her beauty. Did she not understand that it, and she, were biologically meaningless, if not seized in the arms of a master?

"How rude and despicable men are, Judy," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

Often, in the bath, for some reason, she would speak of men and her contempt for them.

"Today," she said, "in the market, I saw a man beating a slave girl, tied to a ring. It was terrible."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. I wondered what the girl had done. I supposed she had been displeasing. I had not accompanied her today to the market. I had been left at home, chained to the ring at the foot of her couch.

"Afterwards," she said, "the miserable girl covered his feet with kisses."

"Terrible, Mistress," I said. I supposed the girl was attempting to placate her master, and express her gratitude, her joy, at his reassertion of his dominance over her.

"Yes, terrible!" said the Lady Elicia of Ar, my mistress, of Six Towers.

"Too," she said, "my errand took me, inadvertently, near the Street of Brands."

"Oh, Mistress?" I asked. Sometimes, when she went on errands, I did not accompany her.

"There," she said, "I saw a chain of girls, stripped, in the open, men looking upon them. Disgusting!"

"Yes, Mistress," I agreed.

She lifted one leg, her right, gracefully from the water. Foam and water fell from it. Her toes were pointed. Her leg was shapely.

"Do you think I am beautiful, Judy?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She often asked me this.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. It was indeed true. My mistress was an incredibly beautiful young woman. She was clearly more beautiful than I.

"Do you think that men might find me pleasing?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Do you think," she laughed, as though jesting, "that I would bring a high price?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She had asked me this sort of thing before. I had answered her truthfully before, and I answered her truthfully now. I wondered at her curiosity concerning such matters. I had no doubt that Elicia Nevins, on the block, naked, under the auctioneer's whip, would sell for at least a piece of gold.

She finished washing her legs, one after the other, dreamily.

I heard the small noise that I had been waiting for, for several days.

She reclined in the tub, easing her lovely body gently lower in the water, closing her eyes. The water, the multicolored foams of beauty, were about her chin. Then she sat a bit more upright in the tub, the water and foam about her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

"What is it like being a man's slave?" she asked.

"Mistress will soon know," I said.

She turned about and then, suddenly, first seeing him, cried out, startled.

"Who are you!" she cried.

"Are you the lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers?" he asked.

"I am she!" she cried.

"I charge you," said he, "in the name of the Priest-Kings of Gor, with being an agent of Kurii, and as such subject to the penalties connected therewith."

"I do not understand a word you are saying," she cried.

He drew forth from his tunic a folded yellow paper, closed with a seal and ribbon. I saw, on the yellow paper, stamped upon it, in black ink, large, the common Kajira mark of Gor. "I have here," he said, "a bill of enslavement, signed by Samos of Port Kar. Examine it. I trust you will find that all is in order." He threw the paper to the tiles.

"No!" she cried, frightened, trying to cover herself. Then she cried out, "Tellius! Barus!"

"Your minions," said the man, "will be of little service. It is understood they are of Cos. They are already in the custody of the magistrates of Ar."

"Tellius! Barus!" she screamed.

"You are quite alone, Lady Elicia," he said. "There are none to hear your screams."

He was tall and strong, clad in a warrior's scarlet. At his belt there was a long leash, looped.

"Emerge from your bath," said he, "and prepare to accept slave bonds."

"No!" she cried. Then she cried out to me, "Run, Judy! Fetch help!"

"Do not," said the man.

"Yes, Master," I said. I looked at the Lady Elicia. "Forgive me, Mistress," I said. "I am a slave girl who has been commanded by a man." I knelt to one side.

"Bitch! Bitch!" she cried.

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my Mistress," I said.

She spun in the tub, agonized, covering herself, to face the tall guest.

"There is some mistake!" she cried. "Leave me! You intrude in a lady's compartments!"

"Emerge from your bath," said he, "to accept the bonds of a slave."

"Never!" she cried.

"Are you a virgin?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, angrily.

"If I must fetch you in the water," he said, "you will be taken in the water."

"Bring me my robe," she said.

He went to the robe on the couch, but, instead of handing it to her, he examined it, lifting it to the light. In one sleeve, in a tiny, narrow sheath, he found a needle, which he held up. Then he approached the bath. She shrank back, frightened. He washed the needle, dried it on a towel and replaced it in the sheath. I had not known the sheath and needle were there, so cunningly had they been concealed in the weaving.

He looked at her.

I had little doubt the needle had been poisoned, probably with Kanda.

"You have disarmed me, Warrior," she said. "Will you now, please, hand me my robe."

He threw the robe to the side of the room. She looked at it, crumpled at the side of the room.

"Please," she said. "I am rich. I can give you much gold."

"Stand in the bath," he said. "I would see your hands above your head."

"You intrude upon my privacy!" she cried.

"Soon," he said, "you will have no right to privacy."

"My modesty!" she cried.

"When you are a slave," he said. "you will not be permitted modesty." This was true.

"Have mercy, Warrior!" she cried.

"Obey, or be lashed," he said.

Elicia Nevins stood in the tub, and lifted her hands over her head, in an attitude of surrender.

The guest regarded her, casually, openly, at length, with the appraisal of a master.

She shook with fear, seen by a Gorean warrior.

The warrior then went to the side of the tub, crouching near what had been the side to her right. She stepped back in the water, away from him. He brushed back the foam. Carefully he examined the wall of the tub. In moments he had retrieved the tiny dagger which lay there, in its small compartment, concealed behind a tile. He cleaned the poison from the side of the dagger, dried it with a towel, as he had the needle, and then threw it to the side of the room, where lay her robe, which he had earlier discarded. I had not known of the existence of either the compartment or the small, poisoned weapon which it concealed.

Elicia stood in the water, on the far side of the large, sunken tub, her hands lifted.

"Free me!" she said. "I will pay you much."

He regarded her.

"I will give you enough to buy ten slave girls in my stead!" she said.

"But they would not be Elicia Nevins," he said.

She shook her head, haughtily. She still wore the colorful towel about her head.

"Would you care to examine the bill of enslavement?" he asked.

"If I may," she said.

"Step forth," he said, "keeping your hands lifted." She did so, and went to stand near the paper on the floor, her hands lifted.

"You will make a lovely slave," he said. Then he said. "You may lower your hands, and kneel." The woman always examines the papers of enslavement on her knees. "Slave Girl," said the man, speaking to me, "remove the towel from about her head and permit her to dry her hands upon it."

"Yes, Master," I said.

I removed it carefully, lest it contain a needle or other device of which I might be unaware. The lovely cascade of dark hair which was Elicia's fell down her back. "Yes," said the man, "a lovely slave." Elicia dried her hands and, miserably, broke the ribbon and seal and examined the paper.

"You are literate?" inquired the man.

"Yes," she said, acidly.

"Do you understand the document?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "It is an order of enslavement"

"You understand further, of course," said he, "that under Gorean merchant law, which is the only law commonly acknowledged binding between cities, that you stand under separate permissions of enslavement. First, were you of Ar, it would be my right, could I be successful, to make of you a slave, for we share no Home Stone. Secondly, though you speak of yourself as the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers, you are, in actuality, Miss Elicia Nevins of the planet Earth. You are an Earth girl and thus stand within a general permission of enslavement, fair beauty quarry to any Gorean male whatsoever."

Earth girls had no Home Stones. No legalities, thus, were contravened in capturing them and making of them abject slave girls.

"The first to capture you owns you," he said. "Prepare to be leashed as a slave." He unlooped the long leash at his belt, with its slip ring and snap lock.

"Wait," she said, extending her hand.

"Yes?" he said.

"Beware of leashing me in this city," she said. "I am truly of Ar!"

"Describe to me," said he, "the Home Stone of Ar."

She looked down, confused. She could not do so.

Young men and women of the city, when coming of age, participate in a ceremony which involves the swearing of oaths, and the sharing of bread, fire and salt. In this ceremony the Home Stone of the city is held by each young person and kissed. Only then are the laurel wreath and the mantle of citizenship conferred. This is a moment no young person of Ar forgets. The youth of Earth have no Home Stone. Citizenship, interestingly, in most Gorean cities is conferred only upon the coming of age, and only after certain examinations are passed. Further, the youth of Gor, in most cities, must be vouched for by citizens of the city, not related in blood to him, and be questioned before a committee of citizens, intent upon determining his worthiness or lack thereof to take the Home Stone of the city as his own. Citizenship in most Gorean communities is not something accrued in virtue of the accident of birth but earned by virtue of intent and application. The sharing of a Home Stone is no light thing in a Gorean city.

"You claim to be of Ar," said he. "Yet you cannot describe her Home Stone. Explain to me then in precise detail the ceremony of citizenship, or, perhaps, the performances enacted upon the Planting Feast."

"I cannot," she stammered.

"Shall I have you taken before the magistrates of Ar," he inquired, "to substantiate your claim of citizenship?"

"No," she mid, "no!" She looked at him, terrified. To claim a Home Stone as one's own when it is not is a serious offense among Goreans. Elicia Nevins shuddered. She had no wish to be impaled upon the walls of Ar.

"Mercy, Warrior!" she begged.

"Are you of Ar?" he asked.

"No," she said, "I am not of Ar."

"Read further in the bill of enslavement," said he.

Her hands shaking, she read further.

"Sex?" he asked.

"Female," she read.

"Origin?" he asked.

"The planet Earth," she read.

"Name?"

"Elicia Nevins," she read. The document designated her by her own name. She trembled. The document shook in her hand.

"Is that your name?" he asked.

She looked at me, and then she looked again at the war-nor. "Yes," she said, "it is my name."

"You are Elicia Nevins?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "I am Elicia Nevins."

"Fate? he asked.

"Slavery," she read. She handed him the document with trembling hands.

"Prepare to be leashed," he said.

He looked aside, casually, as he returned the bill of enslavement to his tunic. In this moment Elicia, springing to her feet, ran to the side of the room and picked up the small dagger. I cried out. She whirled, holding the dagger. He closed his tunic, the bill of enslavement concealed within it. He looked at her, unmoved.

I do not think Elicia realized at this time that he had already begun her training.

"Get out!" she cried. "I have a knife! I will kill you! Get out!"

"You have finished your bath," he said, "and are fresh and ready. Adorn yourself now with cosmetics and scents."

"Get out!" she screamed.

"You seem slow to obey," he remarked.

She looked wildly about her, toward the open door leading from the chamber of her bath and couch.

"There is no escape," he said. "The outer door is secured with a small chain."

She fled through the door and ran to the outer door. We followed her, watching. We were then in the room containing the curule chair, the room in which she had first interviewed me, her new slave girl.

She pulled at the chain on the door, looped in rings, holding the bolt in place, and cut at the door with the knife, hysterically. Then she turned again, wildly, gasping, her hair about her face, viewing us. She fled then again into the chamber she had so recently vacated, and shut the door, throwing its bolts in place.

The warrior rose from the curule chair, in which he had taken his place, and went to the door. I stood back, startled. He kicked it twice, splintering it back, until it hung wildly open, on one hinge. The side of the door and the door frame had been splintered loose. With one foot he then brushed the door back. Within the room, miserable, brandishing her knife, stood Elicia.

"Stay away!" she screamed.

He entered the room, and faced her. I, too, slipped into the room, remaining much behind him.

"You have not yet complied with my command to adorn yourself with cosmetics and scents," he observed. "Are you disobeying?"

"Get out!" she screamed.

"Apparently you require discipline," he said.

"Get out!" she screamed. "Get out!"

He approached her swiftly. She struck down at him, and he took her wrist and, turning her body, suddenly, savagely, thrust her wrist behind her and forced it up high against her back. She screamed with pain. She was high on her toes. His left hand was on her left arm, holding her; his right hand held her right wrist, small, high behind her back. The knife clattered harmlessly on the tiles. With his right foot, he swept it to one side. He held her still for a moment. Her head was back. Her eyes were shut. Her teeth were clenched. Then, with his left foot, he kicked her feet from beneath her and she knelt at his feet, head down, her arm twisted high behind her, the wrist now bent, held between two of his fingers. She knelt near the bath. "You require discipline," he said.

"Please," she wept.

He released her wrist and arm, and taking her by the hair, thrust her on her stomach on the tiles, at the edge of the bath, her head over the water.

"I will buy my freedom!" she cried. "Let me pay you!"

He thrust her head under the water, under the foams of beauty. After a time he pulled her up, sputtering.

"I do not want to be a slave," she gasped, water running from her head.

Again he submerged her head, holding it under the water. After a time, a longer time, he again pulled her head up, freeing it of the water. She gasped. She spit water. She coughed. Water streamed from her head. Her eyes were blinded by water and foam.

"I do not want to be a slave!" she cried. "I do not want to be a slave!"

Again he thrust her head beneath the water. I feared he might drown her.

Again he pulled her head, by the hair, from the water. "I will obey, Master," she gasped.

He kept her on her stomach by the bath and slipped the leather loop of the leash over her head. Quickly his large, efficient hands shortened the loop, sliding the slip ring to a snug fit, then securing it in place, preventing its backward movement, with the snap lock. The leash could then tighten, functioning as a locked choke leash, but could not loosen.

Elicia Nevins turned to her side, unbelievingly. She touched the leather. She had been leashed. She looked up at the warrior. "Master?" she asked.

"Soon," he said.

"Whose leash do I wear?" she asked.

"That of Bosk of Port Kar," he said.

"Not he!" she cried. I gathered she had heard of her enemy.

"He," said Bosk of Port Kar.

She trembled, leashed. I did not think hers would be an easy slavery. I did not envy her. The name of Bosk of Port Kar was dreaded among women on Gor.

He pulled her to her knees by the leash. She looked up at him.

He gestured to me. "Where is the key to her collar?" he asked.

"In the yellow drawer, in the vanity," she said, hastily, "beneath silk."

"Fetch it," said Bosk of Port Kar to me.

I fled to the drawer and found the key. I did not daily to obey. He had spoken to me in the voice of the Gorean master.

He indicated that I should press the key into the hands of Elicia and kneel with my back to her. I did so. "Remove the collar," said he to Elicia. Fumbling, she opened my collar and pulled it away, putting it and the key on the tiles. "Say, 'I no longer own you'," commanded the warrior. "I no longer own you," whispered Elicia, to me, frightened. I sprang to my feet, and turned to face her. She shrank back, leashed. My fists were clenched. She looked up at me. It was sweet to me to see her on her knees, leashed. "Kneel," said Bosk of Port Kar to me. "Yes, Master," I said. I was still a slave. Elicia and I knelt near to one another.

He stood near Elicia, and looked down upon her. Her lip trembled. "You are an agent of Kurii," he said, "and are a valuable as well as beautiful catch."

"Will I be taken to Port Kar to be interrogated?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I will be cooperative," she said. "I will speak all I know." She had no desire to be put under the tortures of Port Kar.

"Of course," he said.

He glanced outside the long, high window in her compartments, out upon the towers of Ar. It was still bright. The blue sky was intense among and over the lofty towers of the city.

"It is early afternoon," she said. "It will be difficult to take me from the city by day." That was true. Tarnsmen, periodic and alight, patrolled the city. "Doubtless," she said, "you are awaiting the fall of darkness."

"That is true," said he, "Prisoner."

She looked up at him, his leather on her throat.

"Do not fear," said he, "we will find a way to while away the time."

"How am I to be taken from the city?" she asked.

"Bound, naked, belly up," said he, "across the saddle of a tarn."

"Scarcely the way to transport a free woman," she said.

"By nightfall," said he, "you will be fit cargo for such mode of transport."

She shuddered.

"Go to the vanity," he said, "and kneel before it." She did this. He then, crouching behind her, crossed her ankles and, with the long, loose end of the leash, tied them together. The leash then ran from her throat back to her ankles. Her hands were free.

"Apply cosmetics and scents," said he. "You are to be absolutely beautiful," he said.

She reached, miserably, for the tiny boxes and brushes.

"Go into the outer room," he said to me. "Among my things you will find an iron. Prepare a brazier and heat the iron. You will find there, too, earrings and a saddle needle. Bring them."

"Yes, Master," I said.

It was in the late afternoon that I, holding its handles with quilted cloths, slid the brazier into the chamber of the couch and bath. I had not done this earlier in order that the room not be made uncomfortably hot.

"How beautiful you are, Elicia," I said, startled. She sat at the foot of the couch, her knees drawn up and together, on furs thrown to the tiles from its surface. She no longer wore the leash. Her ankles were tied and her hands were tied behind her. She was made up beautifully for her branding. Her left ankle, I noted, on a chain of some five feet in length, was fastened to the slave ring at the couch's foot. On many nights I had slept there chained. It had been Bosk's decision that she would be branded at the slave ring of her own couch.

"Judy," she wept, "what is he going to do?"

"He is going to brand you," I said.

"No!" she said.

"You were not forced to come to Gor," I said.

She struggled in the bonds. Bosk of Port Kar, with the quilted cloth, drew forth the iron, and thrust it back. It would soon be ready.

"You are a beast and a barbarian!" she cried to him, drawing back. Then she could move no further back against the stone couch. She could draw her feet up no further.

He took her and threw her to her right side, wedging her in the corner formed by the tiles and the foot of the stone couch. With the leash he tied her thighs tightly together, leaving between the tight, confining leather strips an open space, a small, lovely territory, for the passage of the iron. He gestured that I slide the brazier near to him, and I did so. He indicated that I should give him the quilted cloth with which he might seize the iron, and I did so.

"Help me, Judy!" wept Elicia.

"You were not forced to come to Gor, Elicia," I told her. She lay on her right side, bound, thrust against the foot of the couch. Wadded furs helped to hold her in place. Her thighs had been tied for the iron. Bosk's weight, too, pressed upon her. She shut her eyes.

I looked outside, at the clouds, the blue sky of the late afternoon. It was sunny. The towers were beautiful. I saw some small birds in flight.

I closed my eyes when she screamed. I listened to the iron, patient, performing its identificatory work. I smelled the branding. Bosk did not hurry. He did his work upon her well.

I again opened my eyes. The sky was lovely and blue outside of the window. More birds flew by.

I heard the girl sobbing. There was a new slave girl on Gor.

I looked upon her. She looked at me, tears in her eyes. She had been marked incontrovertibly, and well.

"I am a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Remove the brazier and iron," said Bosk of Port Kar. "Set the iron to cool."

"Yes, Master," I said.

With the quilted cloths I took the brazier from the room, and the iron, too. Outside, in the outer room, I put the iron aside, on the tiles, near his belongings. It would cool.

When I returned to the chamber of the bath and couch he had sat the new slave up, against the couch. He, with a saddle needle, was piercing her left ear lobe. I saw the needle run through and a tiny spot of blood. He had already pierced her right ear lobe. Then he took the earrings I had brought, golden loops, an inch in diameter, and fastened them in her ears. He then gave me the saddle needle to clean and replace in his gear, which I did.

When again I returned to the chamber of the bath and couch he had freed her of her bonds, with the exception of the chain on her left ankle, which fastened her to the slave ring at the foot of the couch.

She lay on the deep furs at the foot of the couch, chained by the ankle, branded, in earrings.

She looked up at me.

"Greetings, Slave," I said.

"Greetings, Mistress," she said.

"Bring wine," said Bosk of Port Kar to me. "I will be served by the slave."

"Yes, Master," I said. I fetched wine, and placed it on the tiles, within reach of the girl.

"Does she not even know how to kneel?" he asked.

Quickly I instructed the girl in the position of the pleasure slave, kneeling, back on heels, back straight, head high, hands on thighs, knees wide.

"What shall we call her?" he asked me.

"Whatever Master wishes," I said.

He saw the discarded collar, inscribed "I am Judy. Return me to the Lady Elicia of Ar, of Six Towers."

He opened the collar. He approached her. "Perhaps," said he, "we shall call you 'Judy. "

She shook with misery. "Please," she begged, "Master." Flow offended and miserable she would be, the proud, former Elicia Nevins, to be forced to wear my name, I of whom she had been so contemptuous.

"What think you?" asked the free man of me, grinning.

"I think, Master," I said, "that the name is not truly fitting for this slave, given her nature and appearance."

There is often a fittingness sought between name and slave. It did seem to me that 'Judy' was not the proper name for the newly enslaved beauty who knelt before us. It was not merely my desire that she not be given a name which I had formerly worn when free.

"True," said Bosk of Port Kar, commending me on my view of the matter.

The girl breathed more easily.

"Bring from my belongings the open slave collar there to be found," said Bosk of Port Kar to me.

"Yes, Master," I said, and hurried to comply. From his belongings I fetched the collar.

He took the collar from me. It was simple, and steel, straightforward and secure.

"Read it," said he to her.

"I am the slave Elicia," she read. "I belong to Bosk of Port Kar."

She looked at him with horror. She would wear her own name as a slave name.

"Submit," he said.

She looked at me, wildly, piteously. I aided her. I showed her how to kneel back on her heels, her arms extended to him, wrists crossed, her head down, between her arms. "Say, 'I submit, " I said. "I submit," she said. He bound her wrists, tightly, before her body. "Look up," I told her. She looked up. He collared her. I was very pleased to see her in the collar of Bosk of Port Kar.

Bosk then left the room, I heard him, too, leave the outer room. I heard him outside, moving to the roof. Doubtless he, a warrior, was checking the avenue of his egress. I did not know if the tarn would be waiting on the roof, or would be summoned from the roof, by tam whistle.

I looked at the new slave girl. She knelt, miserable, collared, branded, her wrists bound before her body, on the thick furs at the foot of the couch.

She looked at the surface of the couch. She would not dare to ascend to it, unless ordered there by a master. Her place, unless commanded otherwise, was at the foot of the couch, at the slave ring. I, a slave, had spent nights at that slave ring, at the foot of my mistress's couch. Now, she who had been Elicia Nevins of Earth, who had been my mistress, knelt there, no more than a lowly slave herself.

She looked at me, disbelievingly. "We are both slave girls," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I have been branded," she said. "My ears are pierced. I wear a collar!"

"That is true, Elicia," I said. I had used her slave name. She understood this.

I looked at her. "Your collar is very becoming," I said.

"Is it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It is a common collar," she said.

"It is still very beautiful on you," I said.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Is it more beautiful because it is locked?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. I did not doubt but what that was true. That the collar was locked did not simply mean that she could not remove it, a fact which played its important role in guaranteeing slave recognition and identification, but, perhaps even more importantly, was momentous in its significance of bondage. A brand might be concealed by clothing, even the brief garb commonly allotted a female slave, but the collar, consistently and openly, proclaimed her girl property. The collar, stressing her vulnerability as a slave, is sexually exciting to the girl who wears it, and to the men who look upon it. Perhaps that is why free women do not wear collars. The steel on her lovely throat, lost beneath her hair, glinting beneath it, contrasting so with her delicious softness, is sexually and aesthetically maddening. No girl is so beautiful, I suspect, as she who wears a Gorean slave collar.

Elicia looked at herself in the mirror across the room. She lifted her head, and turned it to one side. "It is not unattractive," she said.

"No," I said. "It is extremely exciting and attractive."

She looked at me, frightened. "What will men think?" she asked.

'That you are a slave," I said. I shrugged.

She shook with fear. Then again, she regarded herself in the mirror, turning.

"Is my brand pretty?" she asked.

"Why do you ask?" I asked.

"I was only curious," she said.

"Oh," I said.

"Is it?" she asked.

"You were a student of anthropology," I said. "You can look upon the institution of slavery dispassionately and objectively, as an interesting cultural phenomenon, characterizing certain civilizations."

"I am a slave!" she cried. "Do you not understand what that means!" She struggled with the bonds on her wrists.

"I understand very well what it means," I assured her. I thought of Clitus Vitellius. "Where is your coolness?" I inquired. "Where is your objectivity?"

"I am owned," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I did not know it could feel like this," she said. She looked at me, wide-eyed. "It is indescribable," she said.

"You are now experiencing a cultural institution from within," I said. "So, too, one who is a master experiences it from within."

She shuddered as she thought how a master must look upon her, with what desire and power.

"In the past," I said, "you have had some verbal acquaintance with cultural institutions. Now, perhaps for the first time, you have some inkling of what it is to understand one."

She looked at me with fear.

"Do not be afraid, Elicia," I said. "You need only leam how to please men immensely." I laughed.

"I do not even like men!" she cried.

"It does not matter," I said. "The earrings are pretty," I said.

She rose to her feet, the chain on her ankle, and fumed her head back and forth.

"They are pretty," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I never wore earrings," she said, "for they were too feminine."

"You are very feminine, Elicia," I said to her. "You should not have fought your femininity."

She looked angrily at me.

"Your days of fighting your femininity are at an end," I told her. "Men will not permit it. They will force you to yield to your femininity."

"To be feminine is to be less than a man!" she said.

"Whatever it is," I said, "it is what you are."

"Is it what I am?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Judy," she said.

I did not answer her.

"Mistress," she begged.

"Yes," I said.

"Is my brand pretty?"

I laughed. "Yes," I said. "It is deep and clean, and it marks you well."

"The beast put the iron well to my body," she said, angrily. I could also detect a bit of pride in her voice.

"Yes," I said, "he did indeed."

"I wonder if I am the first woman he has ever branded," she said.

"He is a warrior," I said.

"Oh," she said, subdued. Then again she regarded the brand. "It is deep and clean," she said, "and it marks my body well as that of a slave, but Mistress, is it pretty, is it attractive?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

She looked at me in anguish. Then she said, "I think it is beautiful."

"I do, too," I said. "It is a perfectly beautiful brand. Many girls will envy you such a lovely brand."

She looked at me, gratefully. The brand with which she had been marked was the common slave brand for the Gorean female; incised deeply in her thigh, about an inch and a half in height and a half inch in width, was the initial letter, in cursive script, lovely, of the expression 'Kajira, the most common expression in Gorean for a female slave. It was indeed a most beautiful brand. More than half of the branded beauties of Gor, I conjecture, wear that brand.

"Look into the mirror," I said. She did so.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"A slave," she said. She smiled, shyly, lowering her head. It seemed an uncharacteristic gesture for she who had been Elicia Nevins. I smiled.

"But a slave who has much to learn," I said.

She looked at me, questioningly.

"Do you not hear the step of your master, descending the stairs outside the compartments?" I asked.

She listened. "Yes," she said.

"You will learn to listen for that step," I told her.

She looked at me, frightened.

"Is that how you will receive your master," I asked, "standing, like a free woman?"

Swiftly she knelt, in the position of the pleasure slave. "I do not know how to please men," she wept.

"You will be taught," I assured her. "Lift your head a little higher." She did so.

I looked upon her.

I do not know why it is, but the condition of slavery makes a woman very beautiful. It removes inhibitions to the manifestation of her femininity and her deepest needs.

Bosk entered the room. He stopped for a moment, almost startled, then grinned. He saw a slave knelt at the foot of the couch.

"All is in readiness," he said to us. "I shall gag and saddle-bind the slave at midnight," he said, looking at Elicia. "Then," said he, "I will take flight from Ar."

"Master must be wary of the patrols," I said.

"I have counted from the roof," he said. "They are not randomizing their flights."

"I see, Master," I said. Bosk was thorough. He left little to chance. Yet there would be risk. Yet I feared little for him. I did not think I would care to pursue him on tarnback, were I a mounted guardsman of Ar.

He looked down at Elicia. She knelt in the position of the pleasure slave. Her wrists were bound before her body. Her left ankle was chained to the slave ring. "A lovely slave," he said.

"It is not yet midnight, Master," she said.

He untied her wrists. "Serve me wine, Slave," he said. I gasped.

She lifted the vessel of wine I had earlier brought and filled the goblet.

"No," I whispered to her, and then instructed her how to serve him.

"Wine, Master?" she asked.

"Yes, Slave," he said.

Then she knelt before him, back on her heels, head down, lifting the goblet to him, proffering it to the master with both hands.

He took the goblet from her and, regarding her, drank. I could see he was well pleased with his new acquisition, the lovely beauty, Elicia.

"Bring a pan, and pour wine into it," said he to me, "and give it to the animal."

"Yes, Master," I said.

I found a pan and poured wine into it, shallowly, and put it on the tiles before Elicia who, frightened, putting her head down, drank from it. She lifted her head. "You have made me drink like a she-sleen," she said.

"You are a slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said. He was teaching her her slavery.

"Now," said he, "you will serve me the second wine."

Elicia turned to me, frightened. She knew the second wine which was commanded of her. It was the wine of her slavery. Then she looked to Bosk, terrified.

"I shall withdraw, Master," I said.

"I do not know how to please a man, Master," said Elicia.

I saw this did not please Bosk.

"I do not know how, really, Master," she wept. "Forgive a slave, please!"

"Fetch the whip," said Bosk to me.

I went to fetch the whip.

"I will try, Master!" cried Elicia. Then she looked wildly at me. "Please, Mistress," she begged, "help me! Please help me, Mistress!"

"Does a slave wish assistance?" I asked.

"The slave, Elicia," she said, "begs the aid of Mistress."

I looked to Bosk of Port Kar. "Instruct her," he smiled, "with the whip."

I touched her on the neck with the whip. "Put your head down, Slave," I said. She did so. "Although you are only a slave your master is permitting you to serve him," I said. "This is a great honor." She seemed startled. Then it became clear to her that this was, for her, a slave, an honor. "You have a treasured opportunity," I pointed out, "to serve the master." "Yes, Mistress," she said. "A man such as Bosk of Port Kar," I said, "has many women. Will he keep you for himself, or will he throw you to his men, or sell you or discard you?" She trembled. "If you are not pleasing," I said, "you may be slain." She shuddered. "I will try to be pleasing," she stammered. "Do you wish to serve your master?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "yes, Mistress!"

I pointed to the feet of Bosk. "Hold his feet," I said. "Remove his sandals with your teeth."

She did so.

"Begin now," I said, "to lick and kiss below the left shin." She did so. "Desire to please the master as a slave girl," I said.

"I do," she suddenly said, throatily.

I laughed, and stepped back. She seemed startled. She looked up. There were tears in her eyes. "No!" she said, suddenly. "I did not mean that!"

Bosk laughed and slipped to the furs beside her and threw her on her back. She looked up at him, terrified. "I shall have her instructed in long lovings at my leisure," said Bosk to me. "Obviously she is an ignorant slave."

Elicia squirmed on the furs, the Earth girl in her suddenly fighting to retain her self-image.

"No," she wept. "I am not a slave! I am not a slave!"

Bosk kissed her on the throat, and she closed her eyes. I saw her small hands seize at him.

"I am not a slave," she said to him, her eyes open, sternly.

"Touch her," laughed Bosk to me. "Feel the helpless oil and heat of her."

She cried out in misery.

"Naughty, naughty, Elicia!" I laughed.

She looked at me, in fury.

"You are a slave, Elicia!" I laughed delightedly. I was very pleased to have learned this.

She threw back her head, wildly, twisting it from side to side. Bosk had touched her.

I saw her eyes, wild, trying to retain the image of the Earth girl. Then, suddenly, I saw that she was becoming sensuous, uncontrollable, appetitious. She was fighting the Gorean slave girl in herself. In the arms of a man such as Bosk of Port Kar I did not think her struggle would be successful. He toyed with her resistance, sometimes permitting it to become stronger, sometimes even letting her think she might be able to withstand him, but then again he would begin to induce in her, subtly, the surrender spasms of the female slave. She well knew he was playing with her. "Beast," she wept, "how long will you sport with me?" Many times he brought her to the verge of surrender, teeth clenched, eyes shut, and then let her subside, retaining yet, to her cruel disappointment, a shred of her Earth-girl dignity. "I do not want to be a slave," she would cry. But I could see that her eyes, and her body, locked in his arms, were begging him to complete her conquest. How small she seemed in his arms. "You squirm as a slave girl, Elicia," I observed. "No!" she would cry, in her collar. She tried to hold herself still, rigid, but, when he chose, could not do so. "At his least touch, Elicia," I pointed out to her, "you leap as a slave." "No," she would cry. "No!" But it was clear to me that she wanted him to make her a slave girl. She wanted to be his slave girl. "I will show you," she said to me, "how a woman can resist a man." Then he had rolled away from her, turning his back to her. "I am weary," he said. "I would sleep." I suddenly saw, to my amusement, fear, and keen disappointment, registered on the countenance of the beautiful Elicia. "Master?" she said. She turned to him. She touched him on the shoulder. "Please, Master," she said. "What is it?" he asked. Elicia swallowed hard. I was present. "Please do not stop touching your slave, Master," she said. I laughed, but Elicia was not deterred. "Why?" he asked. "Because I am your slave," she said, acknowledging herself his. I smiled gently, but Elicia did not notice. I saw that she was truly his slave. I felt great happiness for her. "Does the slave Elicia beg the touch of her master?" he asked. "The slave Elicia," she said, "piteously and humbly begs with all her heart the touch of her master, Bosk of Port Kar." He rolled over and seized her. "You are a slave, Elicia," I said to her. "Yes," she said, "I am a slave." Then she cried out to Bosk of Port Kar, "The slave is yours. Take her, Master!" Quietly I withdrew.

Gently, with his foot, Bosk of Port Kar awakened me. I had lain asleep at the foot of the curule chair in the outer room.

"It is nearly midnight," he said to me. "I must be away."

"Yes, Master," I said, rubbing my eyes.

Elicia knelt behind him. Her hands were tied behind her back.

He would take her to the roof and tie her over the saddle of his tarn, carrying her away to Port Kar.

I looked at her.

Her. dark hair was loose about her shoulders. I could see the gold of the earrings almost hidden in the hair, the steel collar on her throat. There is something vulnerable, sensuous and soft about a female slave. She was beautiful in her bondage.

"May a slave speak?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

She looked up at him, his slave. "I know," she said; "that I am to be taken to Port Kar and will there be assiduously interrogated."

"Yes," he said.

"I will speak all I know," she said.

"That is true, Slave," he said.

"But then?" she begged. "What then, when I am emptied of information and can be of no further use to you in your strategies? What then will be done with me? Will I then be bound and thrown to the urts in your canals?"

"Perhaps," he said.

"Is there no hope for my life?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "You are beautiful," he said to her, in explanation.

"I will try to be pleasing," she said. She pressed her lips to his thigh. She had been well conquered.

I had little doubt the beautiful Elicia, even when rendered valueless in the conflicts of worlds, would be kept for the pleasures of men; again I looked upon her; no longer was she a high agent of a mysterious power of interplanetary proportions; she was now only a lovely, bound Gorean slave girl.

"On your feet, Slave," said Bosk of Port Kar to Elicia.

She rose lightly to her feet.

In his hand he had the gag he would fix upon her before taking her to the roof.

"Please, Master," she begged. "A moment, please, Master."

He stepped back.

Elicia approached me, her hands tied behind her, the collar on her throat. "We are both now slaves," she said, "Judy."

"Yes," I said, "Elicia."

"The college seems far away now," she said.

"Yes," I smiled.

"I love you, Judy," she said, suddenly.

"I love you, too, Elicia," I said. I embraced her, holding her, her arms bound behind her. We kissed.

"I wish you well," she said, "Slave."

"I wish you well, too, Slave," I said.

Then, from behind, Bosk of Port Kar thrust the wadding in her mouth and secured it in place. She faced me, gagged.

Bosk of Port Kar then tied my wrists behind my back. He then gagged me, as he had Elicia. "Your throat," he said, "is for the collar of another." I could not question him, for I had been gagged. He then said to me, "Kneel," and I knelt. "Cross your ankles," he said. I did so. Then, with the loose end of the fiber which bound my wrists, he tied my crossed ankles together, fastening them, thus, to my wrists. Some six inches of strap separated my bound wrists and bound ankles. He then, not speaking further, freed the door of its control chain, slung his gear about his shoulder and, taking Elicia by the arm, conducted her through the portal. I heard them climbing the stairs to the roof.

I knelt alone on the tiles before the opened door. It was after midnight. I was a gagged and bound slave.

In time I heard steps approaching, climbing stairs to the level of the compartments.

My heart leaped. I knew the step.

Clitus Vitellius stepped into the threshold. He looked at me, troubled. I wanted to cry out my love for him, the helpless, vulnerable love of a female slave.

He looked down at me, angrily. I did not understand his anger.

He untied my ankles and I lay before him on the tiles. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. I could not do so. I was gagged. Angrily he crouched down and, by an ankle, drew me to him, half under him. With his hands he thrust up the brief skirting I had been permitted as a female slave, and, ruthlessly, used me. I threw back my head, reveling in his touch. Swiftly he finished with me and, cutting a length from the loose end of the strap which bound my wrists, rebound my ankles. My wrists and ankles were no longer bound to one another. I looked at him. There were tears in my eyes. I loved him. I wanted to tell him of my love. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. He did not remove the gag. He did not permit me to speak. He threw me to his shoulder and carried me from the compartments.