Mercenaries of Gor

25 The Tunnels

"Enter," said the woman.

It was now in the evening of the day in which Boabissia had hurried into the house marked with the «Tau near the call rope. That Tau was the design, or trademark, of course, of Tenalion of Ar, one of the well-known slavers of the city. "Tau' is the first letter of the name "Tenalion'. I had recognized it immediately when I had seen it near the call rope. Indeed, it was identical with that on his place of business, which I had passed at various times when in Ar, a large, formidable structure located in the heart of Ar's slaving district, which housed various facilities pertinent to his trade, ranging from beautifully appointed sales room to discipline pits. I had also seen it at different times at the Sardar Fairs, at his display spaces.

I had not met him personally, however, until today. He had entertained Hurtha and myself, sharing some fine paga with us, of the House of Temus, my favorite, after Boabissia had been removed from the room, presumably to be transported to his house of business. By now she was doubtless marked and collared, and chained somewhere there, presumably in the lower pens, as she was for most practical purposes a new girl. He seemed a very pleasant fellow. The Tau on Boabissia's disk had reminded me, I suppose, of his Tau. On the other hand, it had been different, and Tau's, as other letters of the Gorean alphabet, are used in various designs and for various purposes. I had not realized, of course, that the current design of Tenalion's Tau had been changed from an older one, that which had appeared on Boabissia's disk. "Enter," said the woman. "Enter the Tunnels," She was sitting on a stool outside.

I lowered my head and entered through the small iron door, and began to descend a dimly lighted ramp to the interior. At the foot of the ramp there was another woman.

"It is a tarsk bit," she said.

I put a tarsk bit into the copper bowl on the small table near her. To the woman's right was a barred gate. It was now open. Such gates are common in such establishments. They are generally open when the business is open, and closed when the business is closed. On the other side of the threshold hung a heavy curtain of red velvet.

The Tunnels was one of the slave brothels of Ludmilla, for whose establishments the street, the Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla, is named. She does not own all the brothels on the street, incidentally, nor the best of them, in my opinion, nor even the majority of them. It is only that several of them, five, to be exact, are owned by her, whereas no other entrepreneur owns more than two, this accounting apparently for the deprivation of the name. Her brothels, if it is of interest are the Chains of Gold, supposedly her best, costing at any rate a copper tarsk for admission, a common price for a paga tavern, and, all cheap tarsk-bit brothels, the Silken Cords, the Scarlet Whip, the Slave Racks and the Tunnels. On this street, too, of course, among many other sorts of establishments, such as shops and stalls, and smaller residences, are several insulae, among them the insula of Achiates.

I moved to the curtain and brushed it aside.

"Welcome," said a woman. "Welcome to the Tunnels."

I stepped within, permitting the curtain to fall back behind me.

"Come this way," she said.

She was a large, strong woman, rather straight in body and coarse in feature. She was clad in brief leather. It was suggestive of that of a warrior. She wore armlets and bracelets. She carried a whip. Such is useful in keeping the slaves in line.

"This way," she said.

I followed her, threading my way among the small tables, and the mats, and the slave rings and clutching, moving, intertwined bodies, to a small table. I heard gasping, and a small cry of pain, and then a small cry of submission, and the movement of a chain on tiles. The room was crowded, but not too crowded. I heard conversation. Some musicians were playing in the half darkness. Some of these brothels are really not that much different from certain paga taverns. There, too, of course, girls go with the drinks, though dancers are commonly extra. The table was in the second row, or so, from the front of the room, where there was something of an open space. The musicians were on the right side of this, as I faced them. It was not easy to see at first. The room was illuminated, insofar as it was, with a soft, flickering, reddish light, the result of the flames of tiny tharlarion-oil lamps set in narrow red-glass enclosures on certain of the tables. In such a light, of course, interesting colorations, subtle, soft, constantly changing reddish hues, ranging, depending on the color of the glass and the mix of the lights, from dark, rose-colored pinks to creamy crimsons, are imparted to the flesh of white-skinned slaves. Too, there were many dark places and shadows. Some men are fond of privacy in such a place.

"Is this satisfactory?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, sitting down, cross-legged, behind the small table.

"Oh!" said a woman, near me, half rearing up on a mat, and I saw her eyes, startled, for an instant, and that she was blond, and that her flesh appeared interesting in the light, and then she, the chain on her neck fastening her to the slave ring near the mat, was thrust back on the mat. "Oh, yes!" she cried. "Yes, Master!"

"Are you he called Tarl, of Port Kar?" said the woman who had conducted me to my place.

"Why?" I asked.

"I was told to watch for such a person," she said.

"Who told you?" I asked. I had come to the Tunnels in response to a message, delivered to me by Achiates, the owner of the insula in which Hurtha and I were rooming. He had, it seemed, if he were telling the truth, and I had no particular reason to doubt it, found the message thrust under his door. She looked about. "I do not see him here now," she said.

"Are you this Tarl of Port Kar?"

"I am called Bosk," I said.

"Oh," she said. This information did not seem to make much difference to her, one way or the other. I watched her. She did not, as far as I could tell, glance at any particular person, nor in any particular direction. I detected nothing unusual. I did not think, in any case, she would be more than the conveyor of a message.

I looked about. Various folks had entered after us. They, too, in their turns, were being seated. There were two or three hostesses, clad and accoutered similarly to mine.

One fellow was carrying a large sack over his shoulder. Even in the dim light certain curvatures seemed suggested within the sack. Too, there was a squirming within it which suggested that its occupant was bound. He was speaking to one of the hostesses.

"What is that?" I asked my hostess.

"It is a joke," she said. "He has captured a free female. We will put her stripped back in one of the tunnel alcoves. Her wrists will be braceleted behind her, chained to a slave ring. She will be unable to speak, being perfectly gagged. She will be left there in the darkness, helpless."

"But she might be used," I said.

"It is not impossible," she said. "It is a matter of chance. Access to her will be as unrestricted as that to a slave."

"Do you approve of such things?" I asked.

"If she is a feminine female," she said, "of course. Such belong to men." "It is a splendid joke," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"What is done with them later?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said. "We just put them out naked in the back, in the morning. If they have been used, however, we tie their hands behind their back and, on a cord about their waist, suspend a punched tarsk bit on their belly."

"Why would someone do this sort of thing to a free woman?" I asked.

"Perhaps they found her displeasing in some way," she said, "and thought it might do her a bit of good, to discover something about what it is to be a female."

"I see," I said.

"There she goes," said the woman. "She is being taken into one of the tunnel alcoves now," There are small exits from the larger room, on the other side of the open space, that lead to various tunnels, off of which may be found cells and alcoves. From such tunnels the establishment, of course, derives its name. "Yes," I said. We watched the fellow crouch down and enter one of the small openings, the sack now, with its helpless, squirming occupant, dragging behind him. One cannot, on the whole, stand upright in the tunnels. Sometimes one must actually crawl.

The musicians had now stopped playing.

"Are you interested in free females?" she asked.

"Not particularly," I said.

"Let us show you one," she said. "Esne," she called. "Bring Lady Labiena." In a few moments one of the hostesses had emerged from a side door leading a lovely woman, barefoot, in a wrap-around tunic, on a neck chain. She was brought to my table where, unbidden, she knelt.

"She is attractive, is she not?" asked my hostess.

"Yes," I said.

"She is a captive free woman," said my hostess. "We are keeping her for a friend."

"I see," I said.

"Open your tunic," said my hostess.

The woman parted her tunic, and held it to the sides.

"She is pretty, isn't she?" asked my hostess.

"Yes," I said. "Widen your knees," I told the woman. She did so, continuing to hold her tunic open.

"Are you sure she is free?" I asked.

"Yes," said my hostess.

I regarded the woman. "It seems she might as well be a slave," I said. The woman threw me a look of gratitude.

"No, she is free," said my hostess, "though now, to be (pg 315) sure, she doubtless has some notion of what a slave's life might be like."

"One can have no adequate notion of that," I said, "Until one has been truly enslaved.

"True," said my hostess.

"What is your life like here?" I asked the woman.

"I wear a neck chain," she said.

"I see," I said.

"You may lower your hands, but do not close your tunic," said my hostess. "In what manner does she serve here, in this house?" I asked. To be sure she was barefoot, and was naked but for a tunic, and had a chain on her neck. These things suggested some answers to my question."

"Much as a slave, but with little of their skill," said my hostess.

"They will not tell me their secrets," said the woman.

"They have been ordered not to," said my hostess, "our orders countermanding any which she might give them."

"But they are pleased not to tell me!" she wept.

"Of course," said my hostess. "They are slaves, and you are merely free. Too, often the secrets of slaves are perhaps best kept between themselves and their masters."

"We will not even give her training," said the hostess who had brought her in. "That has cost me many beatings," said the free woman.

"Why not train her?" I asked.

"Training would be inappropriate for her, as she is a free woman," said my hostess. "Too, it might scandalize and horrify her. We would certainly not want that. Too, it is not likely that it would even be fully meaningful to her, as she is free, and would thus not be able to fully understand it as it is meant to be understood, in the helpless depths of an owned belly."

"Is she being held for ransom?" I asked.

"No," said my hostess. "But that was your hope, in the beginning, wasn't it, Lady Labiena?"

"No," said the woman, putting her head down.

"But when it was learned that she had been captured," said my hostess, "she was cast off by her family, and sworn from the Home Stone."

"My life as a free person was unsatisfactory to me," said the woman.

"Watch your tongue, prisoner," said the female holding her neck chain. "It seems now," I said, "that you are neither fully a free person nor a slave." "It amuses them," she said, "to keep me as a free person in their power, for their customers."

"Occasionally such women are available in these places," I said.

"You do not know what I have done here," she said, looking up, "what I have been made to do!"

"I can speculate," I assured her.

"But much of what she has done here," said the woman holding her neck chain, "has been simply servile. For example, we enjoy having her naked, on all fours, on a chain, scrubbing floors."

"But surely she has been put upon occasion to the uses of your customers," I said.

"Of course," said the woman holding the neck chain, "haven't you, Lady Labiena." "Yes," said the kneeling woman, her knees wide, her tunic parted.

I regarded her.

"But I have learned things here," she said, "that I never dreamed of as a free woman. I have been able to sense here the ecstasies of bondage, the ecstasies of a life obligatorily sensual, a life under strict discipline, a life where I must obey, a life where I will, and must, surrender myself totally and, subject to penalties, and even death, if I am displeasing, live thenceforth solely for service and love."

"You sing the joys of a love slave, surely," I said, "not the woes of a woman who must crawl beneath the whip of a hated master."

"Do you not think a love slave crawls fearfully beneath the whip of her master?" she asked. "The love slave is still a slave, you see," I said, "and perhaps more a slave than any other."

"Yes," whispered the woman.

"She is held in her bondage by the strongest of all bonds," I said, "that of love."

"Yes," she said.

"It is stronger than the chain on your neck," I said.

"I know," she said.

"It must then be very strong," laughed the woman who held her chain. She gave it a tug, jerking it against the side of the woman's neck.

"It is," I said.

"They give me to anyone here," said the woman. "Some are hideous, some smell, in the fetid breath of some I almost choke and die, and yet I must serve them, unquestioningly, although a free woman, according to whatever their dictates and whims."

I regarded the woman.

"I want a private master," she said. "I want my own master."

"It is a natural desire on the part of a female." I said.

Then she looked up, suddenly, piteously, at the woman who was holding her neck chain. "I want a collar," she said to her. "You know that. I have begged for it. Why will you not give me a collar? You have made me, in effect, a slave. Now I am good for nothing else. I have learned too much! Why deny me the mark, the collar? Why do you so shame me? Put me in a collar, that what I now know I am may be proclaimed to the world! I want to be sold! I want to find a master! I am ready to serve, and fully!"

"Be silent," said the woman who held her chain. "That is no way for a free woman to speak. Put your head to the floor, pull your tunic up over your head!" Frightened, the woman did as she was told. The woman who had her in her keeping then called to another of the hostesses. "Three strokes," she told her. That woman then, with her whip, struck Lady Labiena three times.

"Replace your tunic and kneel straightly," said her keeper.

Lady Labiena, tears running down her cheeks, complied. "We have told you, Lady Labiena," said my hostess. "We are merely keeping you for a friend."

"For whom are you keeping me?" she begged.

"That is for us to know, and for you to wonder," she said.

"Tell him, if you would," she said, "that his capture is now ready to be imbonded, that she is now ready to lick his feet and beg a collar, that she is ready to be used, or sold, whatever be his will."

"That is Lady Labiena," said my hostess. "See how feminine she is? See how right she is for a man?"

"Yes," I said.

"Chain her at his mat's slave ring," said my hostess.

"No," I said.

"What?" asked my hostess.

"No," I said.

"Clearly she is fit for the collar," said my hostess.

"True," I said. "But she is not yet in a collar. She is a mere free woman. She does not yet know the collar. She does not yet feel it in every part of her. Its meaning has not yet soaked into her brain, her skin, her belly, even to the tips of her toes."

"You are not interested in free females?" she said.

"Not particularly," I reminded her. This is not that unusual in one who has tasted of slaves. As women, there is no comparison between a free woman and her imbonded sister. Perhaps that is why free women so hate slaves. To be sure, there is something to be said for free women. It is enjoyable to capture, enslave and train them. That is interesting. But then, of course, in a matter of time, one is not then dealing any longer with a free woman, but only another slave.

"Close your tunic, you brazen slut," said my hostess to the Lady Labiena, who hurriedly drew it together, obeying. Then she said to the woman who held her chain. "Take her away."

The Lady Labiena was led from the floor, through the door from which she had earlier emerged. Presumably she would be fastened by her neck chain to a wall or floor ring within, until she was brought forth again on the floor.

My hostess then lifted her head and looked to the left of the open space, where several females huddled. It was hard to tell in the light, but I thought they were naked. She cracked her whip, and they scurried swiftly to the table, where they knelt. They were naked.

"Now these are slaves," I said. I examined them. How incredibly beautiful and sensuous they were, how soft and vulnerable, how owned. It was not merely that they were nude and that their necks were locked in steel collars. It was something else, almost indefinable, but very real, about them, which marked them as slaves, something which seemed to say, "We are slaves, Masters. We are yours. Do with us as you will."

The woman cracked her whip again and the girls inadvertently cringed and shrank back. They were slaves, and knew well that sound. Two of them had even cried out in fear. The woman then went to the line. "Straighten your bodies," she said. "You are in the presence of a man." She touched more than one with the whip coils, adjusting her posture, and, with the coils, lifted up the chin of another. Then she turned to me. "These are available," she said. "Perhaps you find one or more of them pleasing?"

I surveyed the women.

"Such," she said, "are fit for men."

"Yes," I said.

"They are pleasant, meaningless creatures," she said.

I did not respond to the woman. There was a sense, of course, in which the slave girl is meaningless, the sense in which she is nothing, the sense in which she is a mere property, a rightless object, fittingly to be scorned, to be treated as one pleases, to be made to serve, to be disciplined or whipped, to be kept or cast away, as one might choose, and yet, in another sense, what meaning could a free woman even begin to have, compared to that of a slave at one's feet? "Are they not pretty?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

I regarded the slaves.

They knelt before me, in the half darkness, in a line. They had been well positioned. Their collars glinted, the steel reflecting the dim, reddish light of the tiny lamps. Their flesh, too, that of offerings of the house, so cheaply available, revealed the effects of this same dim illumination. The free woman, Ludmilla proprietress of this establishment, and of several others on the street, had some concept, it seemed, as to at least one way in which female slaves might be presented before men. One does not, of course, buy a woman in such light. Preferably one considers them in strong light with great care. Indeed, preferably one does not put out any money until one has carefully examined every inch of her fair body. Even girls who are to be auctioned are commonly available, in exposition cages or display spaces, and sometimes for handling, for inspection before a sale, that one may determine whether or not he wishes to make a bid, and, also, of course, how high he might be willing to go to acquire her.

The woman turned about, and, lifting her whip, signaled to the musicians at the right side of the room. They began to play. She then cracked the whip again and the slaves sprang to their feet and began to dance before me, as only slaves can dance before men.

"How meaningless they are," laughed the free woman.

How incredibly meaningful, how explosively and thunderingly meaningful, how devastatingly meaningful, how momentously significant they were, these females of my species, presenting themselves before me in the modalities incumbent upon them, modalities constituting civilized and delicious refinements of relationships instituted and determined eons ago by nature, modalities which will always, in one way or another, in one nomenclature or another, be required of beautiful women by strong men, modalities most simply and directly though of, and most honestly thought of, as those of slave and master. One of the glories of the Gorean culture is that it has a body of law, sanctioned by tradition and mercilessly enforced, pertaining, without evasion or subterfuge, to this relationship.

"Yartel," said the woman, motioning to one of the girls who then, obediently, moved forward, writhing before me. She was a short-legged, creamy-skinned, voluptuous blonde. One difference between Gorean sexual tastes and those of earth, I might mention, is that Gorean sexual tastes, at least in my opinion, are much broader and more tolerant than those of Earth, or at least of Western Civilization, and tend to run toward the statistical norms of the human female. For example, many women on Earth who are implicitly taught by their culture, for example, through pictures and accounts, that they do not fulfill culturally approved stereotypes of feminine desirability and beauty, might discover, presumably to their horror, that they would bring a high price in a Gorean slave market. If they should have any lingering doubts about the matter, and think perhaps to escape a discipline more appropriately applied to "true beauties," because they do not regard themselves as such, their delusions are likely to be dispelled under their master's whip. Also, although I suppose the matter is neither here nor there, Goreans also tend to prize women for such things as their intelligence, emotional depth, charm and personality. It is a pleasure to own such a female.

The most fundamental property prized by Goreans in women, I suppose, though little is said about it, is her need for love, and her capacity for love. How much does she need love? And how deep and loving is she? That is the kind of woman a man wants, ultimately, one who is helplessly and totally love's captive, in his collar.

To be sure, it is also pleasurable, particularly in the beginning, to bend a woman, and to teach her her place. Few pleasures can compare, for example, with that of taking an unwilling female, preferably one who hates you, and, against her will, forcing her to yield to you the total and exquisite perfections of slave service. One may then, after she has learned herself a slave, after she has been brought to this self-understanding, do what one wishes with her, say, keeping her or selling her, doubtless now making a profit on her, and putting her into the markets, where, eventually, if she is fortunate, she might eventually become into the hands of an excellent master for her, one whose devoted love slave she will beg to be.

"Louise," said the woman with the whip.

A short, slender, exquisite, very white-skinned, red-haired girl moved forth immediately from the line, dancing before me.

"Louise" is an Earth-girl name. I wondered if she were from Earth. Often, of course, Earth-girl names are given to Gorean female slaves. They are almost uniformly regarded as suitable slave names. Similarly, girls who wear them are taken to be slaves. It is sometimes amusing to Goreans when an Earth girl shows up in a Gorean slave market, insisting that her name is such and such, a name taken on Gor to be a slave name. It is as though she were confessing her bondage. She may be given the name afresh, but now to be worn as a slave name chosen by her master, or, sometimes, presumably that she may better understand her dependence on men's will, and her subjection to male domination, she may be given another Earth-girl name. When more than one Earth girl is in the same lot, their names may be switched, the name "Audrey', for example, being given to the former Karen, and the name "Karen' now being given to the former Audrey. Most often, however, the Earth girls are given Gorean names, and usually Gorean slave names. Many masters discover that this procedure often smoothes and hastens the transition between the background of Earth freedoms, such as they are, and the new reality of absolute bondage. When the former Stacy Smith or Betty Lou Madison discover that they are now, say, Sabita, Dilek, Tuka, Cicek, or Lita, it helps to convince them that their old life is now behind them, and is gone forever. They then hurry, and are well advised to do so, to become the finest, the most superb, the most desirable Sabita, Dilek, Tuka, Cicek or Lita they can.

I regarded the slender girl dancing before me. Her breasts were small, and well formed. The reddish light was particularly lovely, in its shifting hues, reflecting from so fair-skinned a body. The steel collar looked well on her neck.

"Are you from Earth?" I asked her, in English.

"Yes!" she said, startled.

"Do not stop dancing," I told her, in English.

"Are you from Earth?" she asked, wildly.

"Once," I said. "I am an Earth woman!" she said. "Behold me in bondage!" "I do," I said. "And you are very pretty in bondage."

Her fists clenched over her head, as she writhed before me. "Right this wrong!" she begged.

"What wrong?" I asked.

"That I am in bondage!" she cried.

"Dance more superbly," I told her.

She writhed yet more lasciviously, more deliciously, before me.

"You look well in a collar," I informed her.

"Please," she protested.

"Quite well," I said.

"Rescue me from bondage!" she cried.

"No," I said.

"What!" she cried.

"Dance," I told her.

She wept, and danced, and danced well.

I examined her movements. Clearly they were those of a slave.

"The only wrong, my dear," I said, "would have been if you had not been reduced to bondage."

"Please!" she wept.

"How do you address me?" I asked.

"Master!" she wept.

I motioned that she might return to the line, and, sobbing, dancing, she did so. The collar looked well on her neck. Clearly it belonged there. In time she would come to understand that and would then, fearfully, live in love, rejoicing. "Birsen," said the woman with the whip.

A tall thin girl, then, with brown hair about her shoulders, came forward. On Earth such a type, of such a structure, and with her beauty, I surmised, might have become a high fashion model. I indicated that she might return to the line. "Demet," said the woman.

A short, dark-skinned girl, plump and meaty, one about whose femaleness there could be no doubt, with long, swirling black hair, spun forward and writhed before me. She had soft, full, pouting lips, of the sort that seem made for the raping of the master's kiss. If she had ever been a free woman, doubtless she had been warned to keep those lips veiled, lest they attract the attention of slavers. I forced myself to remember that I had come here in response to a message, that I was expected to be partner to some sort of rendezvous. I had left Hurtha at the insula, with Feiqa, though by now, a lusty fellow, he was doubtless somewhere else on the street, Feiqa left behind, chained to her ring in the room. I did not know if there would be any danger, or not. At any rate, if there were to be any danger, it did not seem to me appropriate that I should enter my hearty companion of the road into it. Such perils, if they existed, were properly mine.

"I see that Demet interests you," said my hostess. "She was once a high lady in the Tahari, but you can see, her lips made it inevitable that she would be sold into slavery."

I considered the movements of her sweetly broad love cradle.

"Have you learned submission, Demet?" I asked.

"Can you not read it in my eyes, Master?" she asked.

"Speak," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "I have learned submission."

"You are one of our best girls, aren't you, Demet?" asked the woman with the whip, moving it on her belly as she danced.

"I hope so Mistress," said Demet, frightened.

"Are you happy as a slave?" I asked.

"I beg to be sold," she wept suddenly, "that I may have a private master." Then she cried out in pain, lashed by the woman's whip.

"Forgive me, Mistress," she begged. She did not stop dancing. The other girls, too, frightened, still dancing, shrank back a bit. I saw that the hostess kept these feminine women under good discipline.

"Let us have her chained to your mat ring," said the woman with the whip. "Return her to the line," I said.

"Lale," said the woman with the whip, summoning forward, with a gesture of the whip, the last of the slaves before me.

"I am Lale," said the girl, dancing meaningfully before me. "Examine me. I can give great pleasure," I regarded her. She was a medium-sized, full bodied, stunning brunet. I had no doubt that she could indeed give great pleasure. I observed her with care. How beautiful women are in slave dance. And what a prelude it is to their subjugation and ravishment.

"Master likes Lale," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

She then, suddenly, danced very close to me. "Have Lale chained to your ring," she said.

"Is the belly of Lale needful?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

I regarded her.

"Please," she said. "Lale has not been chosen in two nights."

"You would have yourself chosen not for my pleasure, but for your desperate need?" I asked.

"For both, please, Master," she said. "For both!"

"Perhaps," I said. She was quite beautiful. Until one has seen needful slaves, one has not seen women.

"Too," she whispered, "if Lale is not chosen tonight, she will be whipped. Do not let Lale be whipped. Master does not want Lale whipped."

"I see now why you have not been used in two nights," I said. "Apparently you are not satisfactory."

"No," she said. "No, Master!"

"Return to the line," I said.

"Master, please!" she protested.

"What is going on?" asked the woman with the whip.

"She is trying to influence my choice by extraneous considerations," I said. "I choose not to accept this attempt at manipulation."

The woman suddenly cracked her whip. The girls stopped dancing. "Kneel," she said to them. "You, Lale, remain where you are."

"What did she say?" asked the woman with the whip.

Lale trembled, and moaned.

"Nothing, really, I said. "It was merely that she attempted to elicit my pity, to win my choice, telling me that if she was not chosen tonight she would be whipped."

"Head to the floor!" cried the hostess.

Lale put her head down to the floor. The lash fell once, fiercely, across her back. Lale cried out in misery.

"It is not worth whipping her about," I said. "It is not her fault if she is not popular."

"Not popular?" laughed the hostess. "Oh, she is a sly one, the little she-sleen! She is one of the most popular girls in the house,"

"Oh?" I said.

Lale cried out as the whip fell on her again.

"Look up, little fool," said the hostess, "and see the man you tried to manipulate."

Lale looked up in misery, the tears streaming down her face.

"Does he look like the kind of man you could play your silly little games with, does he look like the kind of man you could manipulate with pity? Can you not see he knows what slaves are, and knows how to handle them. Head down!"

Again the lash fell upon Lale.

"I have told you about that trick! said the free woman, angrily. "You have used it before! Perhaps that is the secret of your popularity! Perhaps that is why you are so often chosen, and are thrown sweets in the chaining bin as rewards! Is that how you compete with the other girls?"

"Please, Mistress!" begged Lale. But the lash fell twice more upon her. I noted that the other girls, kneeling in the background, did not seem at all dismayed with the punishment of the errant Lale. If she were popular in the house, I gathered it was with the customers, and not with her chain sisters. "And now you have lied again, and to a free man!" snarled the hostess. Three more times then the lash fell upon the hapless Lale, and then she lay on her belly, sobbing on the tiles.

"Kneel!" commanded the free woman. Lale struggled to her knees.

"Get on all fours," said the woman. Lale was then on all fours.

"You are now in the modality of the she-quadruped," said my hostess.

Lale moaned.

"Esne," called my hostess. That woman, she who had earlier taken the Lady Labiena from the floor, came over. She, too, carried a whip, and was dressed in brief leather, rather like that of a warrior. At her belt was a chain leash. My hostess made a sign and Lale was leashed.

"Can you understand me, my little she-quadruped?" asked my hostess. "Whimper once for "Yes, whimper twice for "No.

Lale whimpered once.

"Good," said my hostess. "You are a bright little she-quadruped."

The chain shook, as Lale trembled.

"Have you ever served as a she-quadruped before?" asked my hostess.

Lale whimpered twice.

"But you understand something of what is involved, do you not?" asked my hostess.

One whimper.

"For two weeks," said my hostess, "or more, if I choose, you will be chained in the darkness, in one of the back alcoves, serving there as a speechless animal any who may come upon you or desire you."

Lale groaned in pain.

"Do you understand?" asked my hostess.

Lale whimpered once.

"Take her way," said my hostess. "Delta Tunnel, Alcove Twenty-One." That would be the left side of the tunnel, as one entered. The even numbers are on the right.

I watched Lale being conducted from the floor. Her head was down. Once or twice her head was jerked up, as the leash was tautened, Esne hurrying her along. Esne, like my hostess, was a sturdy woman. It interested me that the hostesses here were dressed in rather mannish garb. That was, I supposed, primarily to impress upon the slaves that it was a masculine type discipline to which they were being subjected. Too, of course, it is easier to move swiftly, and to kick, and use a whip, in such garb. On the other hand, it did seem a bit of an empty mockery. The hostesses, when all was said and done, were not really men; they were, ultimately, like their charges, only females. To be sure, they were free females, and this well qualified them for their posts. There are few things a female slave fears more than a free female. Female slaves, so helpless in their collars, so much at the mercy of any free person whatsoever, live in terror of such females, for they know that they despise and hate them.

"Return to your places," said my hostess to the other girls.

"Yes, Mistress," they said, and, leaping up, hurried back into the shadows, at the left, from whence they had been summoned, there to crouch and kneel once more, awaiting their next call forward.

"I am sorry," said my hostess.

"Perhaps you have others?" I asked. I looked about. As yet, as nearly as I could tell, no one had attempted to contact me. I assumed that they would attempt to make the first contact, either having seen me, presumably near the Central Cylinder, or having some sort of description. I would prefer, of course, to get a look at them first, and, if necessary, to count them.

"If you care to wait," she said, "some of these other wenches, on their backs and bellies on the mats, will be relinquished."

"Have you any others, available now?" I asked.

"Not really," she said. "We do have some new girls, in cages, recently brought in. They are not yet fully trained for the floor, however. Indeed, some are only recently marked and collared. We do have the girls in the alcoves, of course." "Who is that woman?" I asked. I indicated a nicely bodied woman, barefoot, in a calf-length, sleeveless white gown, with a low dA©colletage, moving among the tables. The neckline left no doubt s to certain of her excitements. They were such as men might pay for in a slave market. I found it interesting that she, in this place, though apparently not a hostess, was clothed. The slaves I had seen here were stripped. Golden bangles encircled her ankles, and golden bracelets encircled her wrists. Too, she had golden armlets.

"She is a free woman," said my hostess.

"Here?" I asked.

"She has paid her tarsk bit," said my hostess. "Beware of her."

I saw the woman approaching a fellow at a table. She knelt near the table, in the position of the free woman. She smiled at him.

"Where are the cages?" I asked.

"I will show you," she said.

I rose to my feet.

My hostess paused for a moment beside one of the girls serving on a nearby fellow's mat. The chain on her neck ran to the mat ring. Becoming suddenly aware of the presence of the hostess, the girl, who was kneeling, swiftly put her head to the floor.

"Leitel," said the hostess, kindly.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl, her voice quavering.

"You can lick and kiss more salaciously than that," she chided.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Our customers do not come here," said the hostess, "for attentions which they could receive at home from their free companions. They come here for the kisses of slaves, and the pleasures of slaves."

"Yes, Mistress," whispered the girl.

"Are you a slave?" asked the hostess.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Wholly?"

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"And this is a customer?" she asked, indicating the house's client in question. "Yes, Mistress," she wept.

"See, then," she said, "that you give him the pleasures of a slave." "Yes, Mistress!" she wept.

"The total pleasures of a slave," said my hostess. "Yes, Mistress!" she cried.

My hostess then continued on her way, and I followed her. We went past the girls at the left, Yartel, and the rest. They shrank back in fear as the hostess passed them.

"You keep these females under excellent discipline," I observed.

"Yes," she said.

"You seem to enjoy making them serve men," I said.

"Yes," she said, "it is enjoyable to make such women serve men. That is what they are for."

"Such women?" I asked.

"Feminine women, slaves," she said. "It is what they should be doing. It is their nature and destiny. Every truly feminine woman desires to belong to some man. No such woman will ever be truly happy until she is helplessly in the collar of her master, and subject to his lash."

I continued to follow her.

"Through here," she said.

"I see," I said.

Within this room there were some fifteen or twenty slave cages, some four to four and a half feet square, such confines dictated by the consideration that their contents are not to be permitted to stand upright within them, or stretch out, completely, within them. They may be comfortably knelt within, and curled up within, of course, postures suitable for slaves. Seven of these cages were occupied, the occupants stripped and collared.

One of the girls, seeing the hostess, scrambled, frightened, to the back of her small cage. She cowered there, not daring to look at the hostess. Her back was marked.

"Little Ila first learned discipline today," explained my hostess. The name "Ila' was on a small card inserted into a frame on the front of the cage, at the upper right-hand corner. "Do not disturb these two," said my hostess. "They have had a hard day," We saw two slaves curled up in their cages, asleep. They had tiny bits of blankets clutched about them. These did not, however, much cover them, or leave much doubt as to their beauty. Bits of blanket, too, floored some of the other cages. On these some of the other girls knelt or lay. From the cards in the frames I noted that the two slaves, so tempting to awaken suddenly with a master's rape, were Sucha and Takita.

"Food," whispered a woman, extending her hand piteously through the bars, toward the hostess. "Please, I am hungry!"

"Learn your lesson better in the training periods," said my hostess to her, "and you may be fed."

The name of that one, I read, was "Chelto'.

"Perhaps," I said, "she might do better if she had a more suitable name." "What is wrong with "Chelto'?" asked the woman.

"It is a rather masculine name," I said. "It is the sort of name which might be used as the nickname for a male sleen, or something."

"Perhaps you are right," said the woman, looking at the cage's occupant, a shapely, wide-hipped brunet. "What would you suggest?"

I shrugged. "I do not know," I said. "Perhaps "Tula' or "Tuka'." "Please, no!" begged the woman in the cage, shrinking back. "They are such slave names! Mock me, if you will, with a name such as "Chelto'. Better that a thousand times than names such as "Tula' and "Tuka', the names of slaves, of soft, perfumed girls who must helplessly serve in all things!"

The hostess removed a marking stick from her pouch and removed the card from the cage frame. She leaned on the top of the cage. She crossed out the name "Chelto' and replaced it with another name. She then replaced the card in the frame. "Mistress?" asked the kneeling slave within.

"You are now "Tula, " said the hostess. I saw that that was the new name written on the card.

"No, please!" begged the woman.

"What is your name?" asked the hostess.

" "Tula', " said the woman in the cage, shuddering.

"Who are you?" asked the hostess.

"I am Tula," said the kneeling, stripped woman. She was pretty in her collar. "And tomorrow you will learn your lessons well, will you not?" asked my hostess.

"Yes, Mistress," said the woman, trembling.

"And who is going to learn her lessons well from now on?" asked my hostess. "Tula is going to learn her lessons well from now on," said the woman. "And who is going to be a superb slave?"

"Tula is going to be a superb slave," said the woman.

We then left her cage. I glanced back, briefly. The woman was kneeling there, shaken, wide-eyed. It was almost as though some sort of explosion had taken place within her. She knelt there, as though trying to come to grips with what had been done to her, with what had occurred within her. She was now, by the will of masters, a new person. She shuddered. Then she widened her knees, trembling. She was now Tula.

We went to the next cage. In this one there was a blond girl sitting with her left side to the back of the cage, her knees drawn up, her head down, her arms about her knees, her left hand clasped about her right wrist. She looked up, dully, and then lowered her head again. Beneath her hair I could see the steel of the collar on her neck.

My hostess tapped on the bars with the whip. The girl then came forward and knelt before us, in the center of the cage.

The hostess tapped on the bars with the whip. The girl widened her knees.

"This one," said my hostess, "was to have been trained with gentleness, but she made the mistake of expressing a concern for her privacy. We then stripped her and put her in a slave cage.

"I see," I said. There was not much privacy for a naked woman in a slave cage. "It was a mistake to have begun gently with her," said the hostess.

"It probably depends on the girl," I said. Some women, whose hunger for bondage is just under the surface, if not manifest, are probably prepared to be superb slaves almost instantly, with no pain, or perhaps no more than a modicum of pain, perhaps only enough to assure them of the reality of their condition, that they are truly slaves, and subject to the strict discipline of an uncompromising master. Such women, eager to serve, rejoicing in the achievement at long last of this profound fulfillment, hitherto only dreamed of, ask little more than what to do, and how to do it.

"True," she said.

"Did this one cause difficulty?" I asked.

"Not really," she said.

The girl in the cage looked up, angrily.

"Are you still determined to resist slavery, pretty Lupita?" asked the woman. That was the name on the cage card.

"Yes, Mistress!" said the girl.

"But you will not be successful, will you?" asked my hostess.

"No," said the girl, putting her head down, sobbing suddenly, "I will not be successful."

I looked at my hostess.

"She has had time to think in the slave cage," explained the woman.

The girl in the cage kept her head down. Tears fell from her cheeks to the bit of a blanket on which she knelt. The shadows of the cage bars made an interesting pattern on her flesh.

"For several days, I suppose as a matter of pride, she was pretending to resist slavery," said the woman, "though, clearly, to a trained eye, she wanted it, more than anything."

The girl looked up in agony.

"That is true, is it not, pretty Lupita?" asked the hostess.

"Yes, Mistress," she sobbed.

"Give me your hands," I said to the girl. She extended them through the bars. I then drew her toward me, and moved my hands up her arms, until I held her near, high on her arms, until her right cheek was pulled against the bars. I held her there. "Your resistance, or pretended resistance, is now is nearly at an end, is it not?" I asked her.

"Yes, Master," she said. I then let her loose, and she fell back, twisting, on her shoulder, to the floor of the cage. She pounded on the floor of the cage with her small fists. She tore at the blanket on the floor with her fingernails, sobbing. Then she lay quietly. "Put me out on the floor," she said. "Chain me to a ring."

"Why?" asked the hostess.

"Because I am a slave," she said.

"You are not yet sufficiently skilled, slave," said my hostess.

The slave wept.

We then went to the next occupied cage.

Here a brunet, well-curved, with sweet, full thighs, knelt close to the bars, grasping them with her small hands, her face pressed between two of them. The bars in these cages are set about four inches apart, and are about an inch in thickness. They are heavy, sturdy cages. Here the card read "Mina'.

"This is the former Lady Mina, a huntress, from the luxurious Noviminae villas in the vicinity of Lydius. But she is a huntress no more."

I regarded her.

"Speak," said my hostess to the woman.

"I went hunting," she said, "but it was I who was caught and put in a cage." "How were you taken?" I asked.

"Please," she said.

"Speak," I said, "or will it be necessary to draw you forth from the cage and whip you?"

"I was the Lady Mina," she said, "of the villas of Noviminae, near Lydius. I set out in my hunting leather with crossbow, upon a pacing tharlarion, after tabuk." "You were alone?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"A fool, fit for the collar," commented my hostess.

"I was after tabuk," she said, "but others, too, were abroad that day, who sought a slower, softer game."

My hostess laughed, and the slave clasped the bars yet more tightly.

"I did not suspect they were in the vicinity," said the slave.

"That is not unusual," I said. Such men, of course, commonly know their business. "I spotted a tabuk, and set off in hot pursuit, across the fields," she said. "It was an agile, wily beast, and led me a splendid chase. Intent upon it I did not note the other riders, closing in upon me. The tabuk harried to exhaustion, helpless, lying gasping on the grass, I rode to it, my crossbow ready. It would not be a difficult shot. I would enter my bolt into its heart. I took aim. But the bow was lifted from me. "Greetings, said a man. "How dare you interfere! I cried. "The tabuk is mine! "No, he said, "it is you who are ours. "What? I cried. "Greetings, said he then, "slave. "What! I cried. But I felt then two ropes, from opposite sides, encircle my neck. I was dragged back off the tharlarion into the grass. I sprang to my feet. I reached for my dagger, but it had been removed from my sheath! I stood there, wild, on the grass, between them, the two ropes on my neck. Then in short order I was stripped and bound, my ankles together and my hands before me. I saw the exhausted tabuk recover and rise unsteadily to its feet, and trot away. I, on the other hand, was thrown on my back before the saddle of the leader of these men. Both my bound ankles and wrists were thonged to rings. I was in the place in which I would have brought home the tabuk, save I would have had him on his belly, so bound. My captor had put me on my back, I suppose, so that I might see him. We then began to move slowly toward a distant wood, that of Nina. It was in that place that they had their camp. "Oh! I cried. I had never felt the hands of a man on my body. "You cannot do this to me! I cried. "I am a free woman! "Be silent, said he, "slave. I struggled wildly. Then he leaned down and seized me by the hair with his left hand, and pulled my head up, and then, then with the flat of his right hand, cuffed me, and then flung me back where I had been, as though I might have been a mere object. I could not believe it. He had cuffed me! Me! A woman from the villas of Noviminae! I lay there before him. We rode slowly. I could not believe what he was doing to me. I was a free woman! I dared not protest. I had learned my captor was not a weakling, and that he was quite capable of punishing me. Soon I began to squirm before the saddle. I could not even begin to understand such feelings. Some of the men laughed. At last, as we entered among the trees of the woods of Nina, he gave me respite. "Thank you, I said pridefully, in haughty irony. But in a moment I jerked helplessly, writhing, looking up at him, in frustration against the rings. The men laughed. "Yes? he asked. "Nothing! I said. I dared not confess to him how distressed I was at the stoppage of his touch, at the cessation of those intriguing, unfamiliar, troubling sensations which seemed to radiate through my entire body, seeming to change everything within me and my whole concept of myself. I dared not beg for more. We were then at his camp, and I was put bound on the leaves of the wood's floor. They had brought my tharlarion along. I supposed they would sell it. I wondered what my own fate would be."

My hostess laughed.

"Go on," I said.

"There were other girls, too, in this camp," she said, "but they appeared to be mere peasant lasses. They were on a common neck chain, stripped, fastened between two trees. They seemed, unlike myself, suitable candidates for slavery." My hostess smiled.

"Continue," I told the slave.

" "You will now beg to wear shackles and cook, said the leader. "Never, I said. They then untied me, but only to string me up by the ankles to a tree branch. In moments I begged to wear shackles, and cook. They took me down, and, in horror, I saw the metal put on my ankles. They were close shackles, and gave me a play of no more than three horts. They need not fear I would run away. I then, though I was of the villas of Noviminae, cooked. It was the first time I had ever served men."

"How did you feel about this?" I asked.

She looked down.

"Speak," said my hostess, sternly.

"I was unutterably thrilled, so to serve men," she whispered.

"Of course," said my hostess, "for you were not truly a huntress. You were only a slave pretending to be a huntress."

"Yes, Mistress," said the woman in the collar.

"The pretense is now over," said my hostess. "Yes, Mistress," she said.

"What occurred then?" I asked the slave.

"There is little more to tell," she said. "After the meal I lay at the feet of my captors. I was docile. I hoped that they would touch me. After they had drunk they removed the shackles from me and I was passed about, among them. I could not believe the things I did, nor the feelings I experienced. There were cries of rage, and denunciation, from the other girls, who could see everything. But I did not care. I could not help myself. They had a wagon there, with a cage on it. They would leave the camp after darkness. When they left, I, and the others, were bound hand and foot, and put in gag hoods, so that we could neither see nor speak. We were then put in the wagon cage. It was locked. We then were taken from the woods of Nina. Eventually, when our solicitations for aid would be meaningless, for who cares about the lamentations of unknown females, our gag hoods and bonds were removed. Then, still sturdily encaged, but mercifully now only stripped, we were brought south. It was a long trip. In the beginning I was much at the mercy of the other girls, and was much beaten by them. They resented my behavior in the woods. Then, at a night camp, another girl was taken from the wagon, for the pleasure of the captors. She learned, too, she was a woman. There were then two to abuse, and beat. Then there were three. And, soon, there were more in the cage who now knew themselves than did not. The beatings then must stop, save for those administered, and often harshly by the captors. Then, in time, there were none in the cage who has still to learn the meaning of their sex, none who had not now learned that they were slaves, and fully."

"Excellent," I said.

"We even began to beg for the attentions of our captors,"

"Of course," I said.

"What had begun in the vicinity of Lydius, as, with the possible exception of myself, a cage of free women had become, by the time we had reached Venna, on the Viktel Aria, a cage of competitive, amorous slaves."

"Was it at Venna that you were legally imbonded?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "it was there that the legal details were attended to. Our captors, quite rightly, adjudged us now ready for our brands and collars. The technicalities were attended to. We were legal slaves.

"I see," I said.

"It was only a short trip then," she said, "to the sales rooms of Ar." "I understand," I said.

She, kneeling there in the cage, her hands on the bars, looked up at me. "I had been a rich woman of the villas of Noviminae," she said. "I think my captor enjoyed selling me to a brothel."

"Doubtless," I said.

She moved back a bit from the bars. She put down her head.

"What did you pay for her?" I asked.

"Three silver tarsks," said my hostess.

"That is a high price," I said.

"You had better be worth it on the floor, Mina," said my hostess.

"I will try, Mistress," said Mina.

"Perhaps you will come into the keeping of a private master someday," I said. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. "Such men," she said, "seldom buy girls out of brothels."

"Some might," I said. I looked at my hostess. "If someone were interested in her," I asked, "would she be for sale?"

"She is the only wench we have from the villas of Noviminae," said my hostess. "That is a rather special background. It is almost like once having been of high caste. That background is likely to be of interest to many of our customers. We expect her to be in frequent demand." She looked down upon the slave. "Perhaps you can tell them of the beauty of the villas, and of how spoiled and rich you were," she said, "while you squirm in their arms."

"Yes, Mistress," whispered the girl.

"But if an offer were made?" I asked.

"It would depend, of course," she said, "on the offer." "She is then for sale?" I asked.

"All our slaves are for sale," said my hostess.

"You could sell any of them to anyone then?" I asked.

"Of course," said my hostess. "To anyone who has the price."

We then proceeded to the next cage. It was the last one which was currently occupied.

This girl, like Mina, was a sweetly bodied slut, with luscious swelling breasts, a stocky, but considerably narrower waist, and wide hips, nursing a marvelous love cradle in which a man might lose himself with pleasure. She, too, like Mina, was nicely thighed. She, too, like Mina, was a brunet. She, too, like Mina, wore a close-fitting steel collar. She, kneeling in her cage, had not been unaware, of course, of our progress. When we appeared before her cage, she put her head down to the blanket, the palms of her hands on the floor of the cage, beside her head. It is a lovely gesture of obeisance, and required by many masters of their women.

"Her name is "Candice'," I said, reading the cage card. "That is an Earth-girl name. Is she an Earth-girl?"

"No," said my hostess. "She is from Tabor. We thought it a lovely name. We put it on her."

I nodded. It was a lovely name. If any girl were to appear on Gor with such a name, of course, she would be immediately taken to be a slave, and would be treated as such. She would soon be in a collar. Her fate would be bondage. "A very attractive slut," I said.

"Yes," said my hostess.

"How much did she cost?" I asked.

"Two silver tarsks," said my hostess.

"Interesting," I said. "Her beauty seems quite comparable to that of her chain sister, Mina, and yet Mina brought a full tarsk more."

"It is the Noviminae background," said the hostess.

"Interesting," I said. "It seems that sometimes what is being paid for is not the mere female herself."

"Of course not," said my hostess. "Suppose she was a Ubar's daughter." "I see," I said. "The daughter of a Ubar may bring ten thousand pieces of gold in a private sale," said the hostess, "but, as a woman, as a mere female on a chain, she may be worth far less than thousands of wenches one might lead home for a few copper tarsks."

"That is true," I said. And it is not unoften the case that such a common wench, of which little is expected, bought originally perhaps with the mere object of keeping her for week or so and then reselling her, will be discovered to be an astounding value. Fortunate is the master who gets so much for so little.

Fortunate is he who discovers that for his pittance he has purchased a treasure. He does not take her back in a week. She tugs at her chain; it is fastened securely to his ring. What counts ultimately, in my opinion, is not the cost of the merchandise, but its value, its quality; it is not what one pays that is ultimately important, but what gets for one's money. One day he considers himself, looking down at the slave at his feet; it is he whom she struggles so hard to please, as a slave must; it is he who is he in whose complete power she finds herself; it is he whom she must serve so humbly, and who is so strict with her, it is he who is her master; he looks down into her eyes; he sees that she, looking up at him, unable to help herself, has become his love slave. He smiles. He fingers his whip. He wonders if perhaps he is her love master. She bends down, kissing his feet. He knows he must guard against weakness. He must never forget the whip. She understands the whip. All slaves do. He watches her, her hair about his feet, and feels her lips and tongue. The sensations are not unpleasant. If he does not find the relationship satisfactory, of course, he may always sell her.

"I think I will return to the table," I said. "Thank you for showing me these wenches. They seem superb merchandise. I think, in time, with training, they will all prove excellent upon the floor."

"That is our hope," said my hostess. "We want the Tunnels to be one of the best brothels on the entire Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla."

"Who is Ludmilla?" I asked.

"I have never met her," said my hostess. We then returned to the floor. In our return we paused briefly by the girls at the side of the open space. "Yartel and Demet are now serving," said my hostess. "These two others are now open, ready for new rings," She indicated a blond and a brunet. "Ita and Tia," she said.

"Lovely," I said.

Louise, the Earth girl there, looked at me, aghast. Then she looked away. I gather she had not known that men from Earth, or once from Earth, could look in such a way upon women.

"But you will return to the table?" asked my hostess.

"Yes," I said.

"I shall have one of the slaves fetch you a drink," she said.

"That one," I said, indicating Louise.

"Certainly," she said. She snapped her fingers and Louise sprang up, and came to where we stood. Then she knelt.

I looked to one of the tables near my own. There was the free woman, in the sleeveless dress, with the low dA©colletage. She looked about. The fellow she had earlier approached was now slumped on the table. On the table was a bottle of ka-la-na. There were two glasses there. I saw her cut the strings of his purse and slip it inside her dress. On her left hand, as she did this, I saw a ring. I did not think she had had it on her hand before. I had seen such rings before. "What would you like?" asked my hostess.

I had been considering a glass of paga, perhaps, if it were available in a place such as this, of the brewery of Temus. I now, considering the rather revealingly clad free female, changed my mind.

"I think, upon reflection," I said, "that I shall order later."

"Very well," she said. Then she turned to Louise, kneeling in attendance. "When you are dismissed, if you are dismissed, return to your post," she said. "Do not neglect, however, to observe this table. When he wishes to order, and lifts his finger, hurry to him. Then obtain what he wishes from the bar."

"Yes, Mistress," said Louise. "I may be ordering a bottle," I said to the hostess.

"The admission price was only a tarsk bit," she reminded me.

"Forgive me," I said. I then counted her out five copper tarsks. I did this a bit obtrusively. The free woman, she with the low dA©colletage, as I had expected, did not fail to note this. She glanced back at the fellow slumped over the table. He would not awaken, doubtless, for some time, perhaps an Ahn or more.

"Ah!" said my hostess. "You are generous! For so much whatever you might like in the house, and as much of it as you like, is yours."

"Thank you," I said.

My hostess then took her leave.

I regarded Louise.

She looked up at me.

"Master?" she asked.

"You are dismissed," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She rose to her feet, her head down, backed away a step or tow, and then turned and hurried back to her place with the other girls. The female, I saw, was kept under good discipline. This pleased me. It is good for them.

"I see that you have dismissed a slave," said the free woman, she with the low dA©colletage.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you from out of town?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. The ring was not on her finger now.

"Are you enjoying Ar?" she asked.

I shrugged.

"It can be lonely for a stranger," she said.

"Would you care to join me?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It would not be proper, I do not even know you." "Forgive me," I said. "I did not mean to be forward."

She moved her left foot a little, causing the bangles on her left ankle to move slightly. Most free women, of course, would never wear such things. They are regarded as suitable and appropriate only for slaves. She moved the bracelets on her left wrist up her forearm an inch or two. The tiny noise this made was exciting, slave exciting. With one hand she threw her hair back. It was loose. Slaves commonly wear their hair loose. She moved subtly, charmingly, seemingly inadvertently, within the dress. Then she seemed, suddenly, concerned with it. Could there be something wrong with it? She then, almost apologetically, adjusted one of the shoulder straps of the dress, pulling it up tighter and more to the side. She did this as though not giving it much though, and as though modestly, but in such a way, with such a movement of her body, and with such an effect, that she called dramatic and inevitable attention to the marvelousness of her breasts. Such breasts, I thought, would probably increase her value as a slave.

"That is all right," she said. "No offense was taken."

"I am really very sorry," I said.

"It is my fault," she smiled. "I should not have been so forward. I should not have spoken first."

"Please join me," I said.

She knelt at the table, in the position of the free woman.

"I spoke," she said, "for I was pleased to see that you had dismissed the slave."

"She is only an Earth girl," I said.

"So low?" she inquired.

"Yes," I said.

"I do wish they would put them in clothing," she said.

"They do have their collars," I said.

"True," she laughed.

"Are you sure you could not accept a drink?" I asked.

She seemed to consider the matter, and then, after giving it some thought, smiled. "All right," she said.

"What would you like?" I asked.

"Perhaps a tiny glass of ka-la-na," she said, "among friends."

I looked to the left, Louise, as she had been bidden, was watching. I lifted my finger. The Earth girl then leapt up and hurried to the table. At the table she knelt.

"A small bottle," I said, "of the Slave Gardens of Anesidemus." "I have heard that is a marvelous ka-la-na," said the free woman, her eyes alight.

"So, too, have I," I said.

"It is very expensive," said the woman.

"Are you familiar with it?" I asked.

"Oh," she said, lightly, "I have had it a few times."

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Yes!"

"Fetch it," I said to Louise.

"Yes, Master," she said, rising to her feet, and hurrying to the bar.

"That is the slave whom you earlier dismissed, is it not?" she asked.

"I think so," I said.

"You hardly noticed," she said, pleased.

I shrugged.

"I am so pleased to meet a man such as you," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"One who understands the value of a free woman," she said.

I supposed free women did have value. Slavers, for example, will pay for them. "So many men," she said, "are interested only in slaves."

"Really," I asked.

"Yes," she said. "There is no understanding it. I find it unaccountable." "I can see you are astounded," I said.

"What can a man see in any of those sluts?" she asked.

"A slave," I said.

"Precisely," she said. "Disgusting!"

"Some men like them," I said.

"Is that what men really want?" she asked. "A woman who is totally theirs, one who is fully in their power, one who must strive desperately to serve them perfectly in all things, one who is absolutely and helplessly at their mercy, one who must lick and kiss at their least word?"

"I am afraid there are some men who do not object to that," I admitted. "I am sure you find free women of some interest," she said.

"Certainly I find them of interest," I said. The most interesting thing about them, of course, was that they could be seized and enslaved. After that they might become of real interest to a man. The female slave, of course, yours in her servitude, is ten thousand times more interesting than a free woman could ever dream of being. In any contest of desirability the free woman must always lose out to the slave, and if she does not seem to do so, then let her be enslaved, and see how she then, suddenly, in a moment, competing then with her former self, becomes ten thousand times more desirable than she ever was as a mere free female.

"Master," said Louise, the nude, slender, red-haired Earth-girl slave, returning. She knelt near the table. She placed the small bottle of ka-la-na on the table, and two tiny cups.

"She is a pretty little thing," said the free woman.

I flicked my finger, dismissing the slave, not bothering to look at her. This pleased the free woman. I wondered how one of the usual, close-fitting Gorean slave collars would look on her own throat. Well, I thought. Such collars set off the beauty of a woman, the encircling steel, significatory of bondage, contrasting nicely with the softness of her throat, shoulders and breasts. "Yes, please," said the woman.

I poured.

"To you," she said, lifting her glass.

"No," I said, "to you."

"Thank you," she said. I saw that she was flattered by this. She glowed. Her breasts were very nice.

We touched glasses. We drank.

"Oh, it is marvelous ka-la-na," she purred. I gathered that she had never before had such ka-la-na. True, it might run the buyer as much as three copper tarsks, a price for which some women can be purchased.

"I am pleased that you like it," I said.

"I am Tutina, Lady of Ar," she said, warmly, intimately, leaning forward. "That is a lovely name," I said. To be sure, if I owned her, I thought I would shorten it to Tina. That is an excellent slave name. Indeed, I had owned slaves with that name.

She basked in my praise.

"I am called Tarl," I said.

"Oh," she said, reprovingly, "that is such a fierce name."

I shrugged.

"It is a northern name, is it not?"

"It is common in the north," I said, "particularly in Torvaldsland." "Men from Torvaldsland frighten me," she said. "They are so strong with women. You are not from Torvaldsland, are you?"

"No," I said. To be sure, I had been in Torvaldsland, and I felt that I knew as much as any fellow there about what to do with a woman at his feet. But then any true master anywhere knows as much. Indeed, although the men of Torvaldsland are find and strong masters, they are generally rather direct and straightforward about what they are doing. In the south, in the cities, in my opinion, because of the richness in history and tradition, and the much greater cultural sophistication and complexity, a female is likely to find herself placed under a much stricter and more exacting bondage than in the north. To be sure, much depends on the girl and the master. Some girls thrive best with uncompromising barbarian masters who will put them on the oar or under the whip at the least sign of their being displeasing and others find that they did not truly understand helplessness and submission until they found their chain fastened to the couch ring of a gentleman.

"That is reassuring, " she smiled. "Where are you from?"

"From the northwest, near Thassa," I said. I saw no reason to tell her I was from Port Kar. She might then have become not feignedly, but actually, alarmed. Most of the fellows of Port Kar have something of the ruthless lust of pirates in their view of females, coupled with some knowledge, because of a popular form of commerce in the city, of sophisticated techniques of slave handling and management.

"Where did you just come from?" she asked.

"Torcadino," I said. "Oh," she said, disappointed.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"You are not a refugee, are you?" she asked.

"Why?" I asked.

"Then you might have had a difficult trip," she said.

"I see," I said.

"I do not believe things are as bad in Torcadino as they say," she said. "Oh?" I asked.

"No," she said. "They are just trying to frighten us," I saw her eye on my purse.

"I came in by fee cart," I said.

"I see," she said. I saw she liked that information. I had thought she would. It suggested I had money.

"Are you of the Merchants?" she asked.

"I have sometimes bought and sold things," I told her. I saw that this pleased her. I did not tell her that many of the things I had bought and sold were much like herself.

"May I call you Tarl? ' she asked.

"Of course," I said. She was after all, a free woman. If she were to become a slave, of course, there would be no such liberty in such matters.

I poured her more ka-la-na.

She drank. She leaned forward, her elbows on the small table. Her breasts seemed to invite my touch. Her lips were warm and soft. "There was another reason," she said, "other than the splendid dismissal of a slut slave from your presence, why I came to your table."

"Oh" I said.

"I feel drawn to you," she said.

"I understand," I said. I glanced at the fellow still slumped on the other table.

"Tarl," she whispered.

"Yes," I said. She knew her business, this woman. The sooner she was in a collar the better.

"Yes," I said, softly, encouragingly. "Oh, no," she said, drawing back, suddenly, seeming to wipe a tear from her eye, "I must not say such things to you."

"What?" I asked, kindly.

"I must leave," she said. "I must hurry away now." She put her hands out, that I might gently take them in mine, holding her at the table, restraining her sweetly, in earnest, gentle persuasion, from departing. But I, curious to see what would happen, apparently did not notice this opportunity.

She did not leave.

"I just do not know what to do," she said, turning her head from side to side. "What is wrong?" I asked, seemingly concerned.

"How terrible you must think me," she said, wiping away another tear, it seemed, from the corner of her eye.

"Not at all," I said. I certainly did not think her terrible at all. Indeed, I thought she was luscious.

"I have been too bold," she said. "I approached your table. I have spoken to you first. I have permitted you, a man I scarcely know, to buy me ka-la-na. I am so ashamed."

"There is no need to be ashamed," I said.

"But far worse," she said, "I revealed to you my feelings, I told you of my unspeakable loneliness. Are you lonely?"

"Not particularly," I said. It is normally only free folks among free folks who are lonely, each so separate from the other. It is not easy for men to be lonely who have access to slaves. Similarly the slaves, so occupied, and of necessity so concerned to please the master, are seldom given the time for the indulgence of loneliness. Too, of course the incredible intimacy of the relationship, intellectual and emotional, as well as sexual, for the master to inquire into, and command forth, and is normally inclined to do so, her deepest thoughts and feelings, which must be bared to him, as much as her body, as well as command, even casually, her most intimate and delicious sexual performances, militates against loneliness.

In slavery total intimacy is not only customary, but it can be made obligatory, under discipline. Masters like to know their girls. They want to know them with a depth, detail and intimacy that it would be quite inappropriate to expect of, or desire from, a prideful free companion, whose autonomy and privacy is protected by her lofty status. In a sense, the free woman is always, to one extent or another veiled. The slave, on the other hand, is not permitted veils. She is, so to speak, naked to the master, and fully.

There is no doubt that slaves without private masters, or slaves in multiple-slave chains, arrangements, households, institutions, and such, may experience terrible loneliness. There is doubtless great loneliness, for example, in a rich man's pleasure gardens. Indeed, the presence of a lovely slave there might not even be known to the master, but only to her immediate keepers, and the master's agents, who may have purchased her, or accountants, who keep records of the master's properties and assets. Perhaps she must beg piteously to be called to the attention of the master. Some women in such a place, even those whose existence is known, or remembered, at least vaguely, might wait for months for a summons to the couch of the master, he perhaps selecting a ribbon with her name on it, from a rack of slave ribbons, and tossing it to an attendant, that she be brought in chains to this quarters that night, the ribbon on her collar. Too, it can doubtless be lonely in the house of a slaver, especially when the guards do not choose to amuse themselves with you, or have you perform for them, or, say, when you find yourself alone at night, perhaps a work slave, in the basement of a cylinder, chained in a cement kennel. "Oh," she said.

"With you here," I said, "how could I be lonely?"

"What a lovely thing to say," she said.

I thought it has been pretty good myself. To be sure, it had required quick thinking.

"But mostly," she said, as though tearfully, "I am distressed at the boldness with which I spoke before."

"Boldness?" I asked.

"When I admitted, as I should never have done," she said, "that I was drawn to you."

" "Drawn to me'?" I inquired.

"Yes," she said, lowering her eyes.

"I understand," I said. "You were drawn to me because something within you seemed to sense, and delicately, that I might prove to be a sympathetic interlocutor, an understanding fellow with whom you might, assuaging therein to some extent your loneliness and pain, hold gentle and kindly converse."

"It was more than that," she whispered, not looking up, as though she dared not raise her eyes.

"Oh?" I asked.

She looked up, as though distressed. "I felt drawn to you," she said, and then she lowered her head, as though in shame, "a€”as a female to a male."

I said nothing.

"Free women have needs, too," she whispered.

"I do not doubt it," I said. At the moment, of course she had no real idea of what female needs could be. As with most free females they were doubtless far below the surface and seldom directly sensed. Their effect upon conscious life, because of her conditioning, would normally be felt in such transformed and eccentric modalities as anxiety, uneasiness, misery, discomfort, ill temper, imaginary complaints, frustration and loneliness. These things would be connected with her lack of feminine fulfillment, she not finding herself in her place, in her natural biological relationship, that of submissive to dominant, to the male of her species. These things, the result of her loss of sexual identity and fulfillment, too, often produced a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. Too, they sometimes produced an envy and resentment of men, whom she, perhaps with some justice, would blame for this lack of fulfillment. When one sex needs the other to fulfill it, and the other refuses, what is to be done? One way of striving for vengeance, of course, is to attempt, socially and politically, to bring about the debilitation and ruination of anatomical males, whether they be men or not. This, of course, might prove dangerous, for it might provoke an upsurge of nature, like a natural phenomenon, in which her order, artificialities then scorned and abolished, would be harshly restored.

Another danger, and perhaps one more serious, is that a misdirected response would be provoked in which, say, angry males, perhaps unable to take direct action because of the numerous, carefully wrought political traps and snares trammeling them, would think themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to have no recourse but to engage in the undeniably masculine games of war, games which might destroy worlds, but, with them, perhaps, the walls within which they have permitted themselves to be imprisoned. It would be unfortunate, indeed, if the female, returned at last to her rightful chains, were to find herself kneeling in ashes.

"You are kind not to scorn me for my needs," she said. She looks up at me. "Sometimes they are very strong."

"I am sure of it," I said. She had as yet, of course, as a free woman, as I have mentioned, no real idea of what female needs could be. They were in her, as in all free women, muchly suppressed. She had no idea as to what they could be. Never had she confronted them wholly and directly. She was as yet alienated from the depth and richness of the extensive sexual tissues in her body; she did not understand how her entire skin, from her scalp to her toes, could awaken into life, startled and rejoicing, stimulated by the hot, surgent, wave-like irradiations emanating not only from her helpless, lovely exploited centralities, but as well from all the other sensitive curvatures and beauties of her, curvatures and beauties so much at a master's mercy; too, she could not even now begin to suspect the momentous emotional dimensions of bondage for the female, its entire, totalistic matrix, of what it was to be a slave, the nature of the slave's feelings, how she is affected by what she is, and what can be done to her, of what it is to be owned, absolutely, to be under uncompromising discipline, of what it is to know that you must, and will, under strict and uncompromising enforcements, give yourself up wholly to service and love, no alternatives permitted.

"You are very kind to take pity on a woman," she said.

"It is nothing," I said. I speculated that her needs might be rather strong, as a matter of fact, for a free woman. Certainly her body suggested the influence of a rich abundance of female hormones. One does not get curves like that by being hormonally deficient. It might be interesting, I thought, to see what those needs might be like if permitted to develop fully under bondage. "When I spoke your name before," she said, "I hesitated."

"I remember," I said.

"It was so hard to speak," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

"May I speak?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I was thinking that I might perhaps let you see my body," she said, "that I might even permit you to touch it."

"Yes," I said.

"That I might tonight," she said, "as you have been so kind to me, and I am drawn to you, give you my body."

"I am overwhelmingly impressed," I said. This seemed to me a suitable response, as she was a free woman. It is really difficult to know what to say when one hears something so stupid. If she were a slave, I would have enjoyed hearing her try to speak in that fashion, speaking of "giving her body" and for such-and-such a period. That would earn her a swift whipping. If one could speak in that fashion, of "mere bodies," so to speak, and it was not typically Gorean to do so, she would not in bondage be considering whether or not to bestow her body, and for how long, but rather she would discover that it was his for the master to take, whenever he wished, however he wished, and for as long as he wished, for it would then belong not to her but to him, or he could order her to bring it to him, his property, in whatever attitude or posture he might please. The slave, for example, does not ask if the master now wants the body of Gloria but, rather, does he want Gloria. In Gorean thought, and, indeed, Gorean law is explicit on this, what is owned is the whole slave. It is she who is owned, the whole woman, and uncompromisingly and totally.

"How kind you are," she said, "to a woman met in such a place, one so poor she cannot afford sandals, a suitable gown, and proper veiling. Do you object that I am so revealingly clad, and am not properly veiled? Does it scandalize you?" "No," I said. "Doubtless it is an inevitable concession to the cruelties of poverty."

"Yes," she lamented. "Perhaps you could try to think of me veiled," she suggested.

"That is a thought," I said. That much, surely at least, could be said for it. I conjectured what she might look like, stark naked, save for chains, perhaps, holding her as a tight love bundle, for a master's pleasure, at a ring, and the locked, steel slave collar that belonged on her neck.

She looked at me, gratefully. In my imagination I tightened her chains a notch or two.

"Is it true that you are drawn to me?" I asked.

"Yes!" she whispered, daring to touch my hand.

"Then shall we leave this place," I asked, "and to venture to your domicile?" She drew back. As I had anticipated, she would not find a suggestion of this sort acceptable. She would not want her address known. That might put her at the mercy of furious, outraged victims. Too, it could make it simple for guardsmen, acting on complaints, to bring her in for identification and questioning, these details doubtless, in her case, to be followed by a hearing and sentencing, an almost inevitable reduction to bondage and then perhaps, initially, while her disposition is being more carefully considered, a placement in the public slave gardens.

"Perhaps then my room?" I suggested. "It is nearby."

"Sir!" she said, reproachfully. As I had thought, this would not be satisfactory either. She would prefer to complete her work here, where apparently it was tolerated, with the stealth of a drug, rather than go to the expense of employing confederates outside or take the risk of being recognized by others who might be in the vicinity of the victim's environs. "What sort of girl do you think I am?"

"Forgive me," I said, earnestly. "I did not mean to offend you." She was skillful at this type of game, it seemed, to provoke a male response, and then to claim she had been misunderstood, and was offended, thus confusing the male, keeping him off balance, and, in general, thusly guaranteeing, with a glance or tear, that she would have things her own way. She was, at least, manipulative in a feminine fashion. That I granted her. It said something for her femaleness. It is pleasant later, of course, to manipulate such women in a masculine fashion, by command and the whip.

"I knew I should not have come here," she sobbed, wiping away a tear, one at least in theory, from the corner of her eye. She made as though to rise but, as I did not restrain her, she remained where she was.

"I have been clumsy," I said.

"I do not really blame you," she sobbed. "What else could you think, meeting me here? Surely you must think me the same as these other, lower women."

"No, certainly not," I said. "You are quite different, obviously, from them." "Thank you," she whispered.

I nodded. Of course she was quite different from them. That was obvious. She was not yet nude. She did not yet have a slave collar on her neck. She had not probably never yet, in her life, felt a slave whip.

"Perhaps you are wondering," she said, wiping away yet another supposed tear, "what I, a gentlewoman, of breeding and refinement, am doing in this place?" "Perhaps," I said, encouragingly. I tried to look puzzled. Actually I had a rather clear idea what she was doing in this place.

She looked down. "I think the real reason," she said, "under everything, as you may have suspected, is that I was driven here, almost helplessly, a woman in desperate need of love, daring to enter this terrible place, but one where I knew men were, by my desire to meet a kindly man, by my loneliness."

"Yes," I said.

"But I should never have come."

"But then we would never have met." I said.

"Yes," she whispered, again touching my hand. "That is true."

"You spoke of a real reason," I said, "that having to do with your need of love, and such. That suggests, then, I take it, that there was some other reason, or pretended reason, for coming."

She smiled, ruefully. "Yes," she said. "I am a proud free woman. I could not permit myself to recognize such things as my loneliness, or need for love. I must tell myself there was another reason for coming."

"And what was that?" I asked.

"I am in need of money," she said. "I have a ring. I told myself that I would try to sell it, that I would try to find a buyer in this place."

"I see," I said.

"But I have never been able to bring myself to part with it," she said. "It is one of the few things left to me from the time when I was proud and wealthy. It is so laden with memories. I could never really bring myself to part with it." "I understand," I said.

"Would you like to see it?" she asked.

"It is not necessary," I said.

"Please, let me show it to you," she said.

"Very well," I said.

From the tiny pouch, hung on strings at her belt, she produced the ring. She slipped it on her finger.

"Lovely," I said. Its oval stone was of white porcelain, mounted in a red-metal bezel. On the porcelain, very delicately done, in red, was the representation of a Tur tree. The band was gold.

"It was wrought in Turia," she said. I found that easy to believe. It had the Tur tree, emblem of Turia, in the southern hemisphere, on the porcelain stone. Too, I knew such rings were manufactured in Turia. Indeed, I had even seen them there. Rings of this design, however, though perhaps not of this purpose, were rare in Ar, in the northern hemisphere. Most fellows of Ar would not recognize the ring, or suspect its purpose. She had probably purchased it in an import shop on the Avenue of Turia, which was nearby. To be sure, perhaps the setting was solid, and not hollow. Many rings of this appearance are totally innocent. "Would you let me buy it?" I asked. "Surely you could use the money." "Do not tempt me," she smiled. "I could never bring myself to part with it."

"I am sorry," I said.

"How fortunate I am to meet a man such as you," she said. "How understanding you are."

I shrugged.

"I am becoming excited," she whispered.

"Oh?" I said.

"I want to go to your room," she whispered.

"Let us go," I said.

"Oh, the wine is gone," she pouted.

That was true.

"May we have more wine?" she wheedled. "It would help me to get even more into the mood. With a little more wine I do not know if I could control myself. I might find myself hurrying after you, going to your room, heeling you through the streets like an amorous slave!"

"I will get some more wine," I said. I glanced over to the left. In a moment or two, I had managed to catch the eye of Louise. She had not, of course, after her initial command, been concentrating on our table. I was pleased that she was not in use. I enjoyed having her serve me. Had she been, of course, I would have made do with another girl, say, Ita or Tia. They were both very nice slaves. Louise was now looking at me, aware that I was looking at her. I lifted my hand. She leaped up, hurrying toward me. I noticed the fellow nearby, slumped over the table. He had not yet stirred. He might be out for another Ahn or so. I leaned over to where Louise now knelt and gave her the wine order. The collar, such fine, strong steel, looked nice under her right ear.

Lady Tutina smiled at me.

I, too, smiled at her.

"Do you like me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. I thought, properly trained and disciplined, she would make an excellent slave.

"I wish that slave would hurry," she said.

"I'm sure she will be back in a moment," I said.

"Perhaps you should beat her," she said. "An excellent suggestion," I said, "but let us give her a few more Ihn."

"I think I shall soon be in the mood," she whispered, confidingly, intimately. "Excellent," I said. It amused me to hear her speak of moods, and such. I wondered if she might think, perhaps for the first few Ihn of bondage, until the hand, the whip or boot taught her differently, that she might make a master wait upon her pleasure, until, say, she might be in the "mood," or something like that.

"I suspect," she said, looking into my eyes, intimately, "that this meeting may change my life."

"It is not impossible," I said.

"Master," said Louise, arriving at the table, kneeling, another small bottle of wine on her tray. I removed it from the tray and set it near me. I then dismissed her.

I poured two small glasses of wine. I did not know how skilled the Lady Tutina was. I had known at least one fellow, Boots Tarsk-Bit, who was marvelously skilled at such things as misdirection and sleight of hand.

"She is rather pretty, isn't she?" asked the Lady Tutina, looking after Louise. She, the Earth-girl slave, nude and collared, hard to see in the flickering reddish light, carrying the tray over her head, was making her way back among the tables and mats to the bar. "In a trivial, servile way, suitable for a slave, of course," added the Lady Tutina.

"Perhaps," I said. I looked after Louise.

"That fellow seems to think so," said the Lady Tutina. A fellow had reached out to touch Louise's branded flank as she moved past his table. She withdrew, frightened, hurrying on, from the touch. Then the fellow sprawled to the side, drunk.

"Yes," I said.

Louise was lovely, indeed. She had not yet, however, I suspected, fully learned her collar. I did not think she, as yet, realized fully, in the depths of her, that she was a slave girl, and only that, and what that meant. She could, of course, be taught.

"She is bit skinny," said the woman.

I shrugged. She was not skinny. She was slight, and slender. But such often make superb slaves. Certainly for her size and weight, she was well curved.

"Let us drink," said the Lady Tutina. I decided that she was not particularly skilled after all. It is no great trick to put something in someone's drink when they are not looking. Boots, I was sure, could have managed it while engaged in face-to-face conversation. He, of course, was unusually good at that sort of thing.

"To you," breathed the Lady Tutina, smiling.

"No," I smiled, "to you."

She then sipped the wine. I, on the other hand, after lifting it toward my lips, merely returned it to the table.

"This is not the same wine," she said, lowering the glass. "It is different." "Yes," I said. "Do you like it?"

"Yes," she said, smiling. "Of course. It is wonderful."

"Perhaps you will come to like it," I said. In the beginning perhaps it would be down her throat, her head held back by the hair, by masters. Later, she might find herself wheedling and groveling for it, grateful to have anything that good.

"You haven't touched your wine," she said, reproachfully.

"Come here," I said.

She came about the table, kneeling near me. It was the first time she had obeyed me. It pleased me to have her obeying me.

"Close," I said.

She then became quite close to me.

"Cuddle," I said.

She snuggled up close to me. Her nearness made me master hot. Her breasts were exciting. I put my arm about her, that I might hold her to me. She looked up into my eyes. "You haven't touched your wine," she pouted.

"Oh?" I said.

"Drink, drink," she wheedled, picking up the glass, lifting it toward my lips. "Drink," she said, "and then we may hurry to your room, where I may serve you, even as a slave."

"You are luscious, and tempting," I said. "Drink," she said.

I forced myself to remember that she was for the other fellow, the one slumped across the nearby table.

"Drink," she whispered.

I took the glass from her. I set it down on the table.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"Encourage me," I said.

She then began to kiss me, and lick me, about the face and neck. She did it quite well. With training she would do it much better.

"Do you know the wine?" I asked.

"No," she said.

I turned the bottle so that she might read the label. It was a small bottle of Boleto's Nectar of the Public Slave Gardens. Boleto is a well-known winegrower from the vicinity of Ar. He is famous for the production of a large number of reasonably good, medium-grade ka-la-nas. This was one of the major wines, and perhaps the best, served in Ar's public slave gardens; indeed, it had originally been commissioned for that market; hence the name.

"Oh," she said.

"I hope you like it," I said.

"It's very nice," she said.

"I'm glad you like it," I said.

"Here," she said, picking up the glass, "hurry, drink. I wish to hurry to your room."

"Let us go to the room now," I said. I considered giving her this option, this chance to save herself. Did she accept it I would release her from the ring in the morning, with perhaps no more than an admonitory bruise or two.

"Hurry," she whispered. She lifted the glass to my lips. "Drink," she whispered, invitingly, seductively.

I smiled to myself. She had had her chance. To be sure, I had offered it to her only as an irony and amusement. That would doubtless sometime become quite clear to her. I had known she would not accept it.

"Drink," she whispered. I took the glass from her hand. "Drink," she whispered. "But it is for you," I said. "What?" she said.

"I bought the wine for you," I said.

"But I have had some," she said.

"Have some more," I said.

"You may pour me some," she said, uneasily.

"Take mine," I said.

"I could not do that," she said.

"Of course you could," I said.

"I do not want any more," she said.

"You were willing, a moment ago, to have me pour you more," I reminded her. "I have really had enough," she said. She squirmed a bit. She was locked, kneeling, in my arm.

"No," I said, "you have not."

She looked at me, frightened. "I do not want it," she said.

"Of course you do," I said.

"No," she said.

"Is there anything wrong with it?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Of course not."

"Then drink," I told her. I lifted the glass toward her lips. She tried to pull back. "What is wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Drink," I said.

"No," she said.

"You are going to drink this," I told her.

"No!" she said.

"Shall I call for a slave tube?" I asked.

"No," she begged. My grip on her was merciless. The slave tube is a device for force-feeding a slave. It is not a pleasant device. A round, cylindrical, truncated cushion, usually of cork or leather, with a circular hole in its center, is forced into the slave's mouth. This prevents her from closing her teeth on the tube. The tube is then introduced through the circular opening in the bite cushion into her mouth and run down to her stomach. There is a funnel at the mouth-end of the tube. It may be used for such purposes as feeding a recalcitrant slave liquids, such as juices or broths. Some tubes come, too, however, with plungers, so that semisolid food, such as slave gruel, or hash, or even damp bread and tiny pieces of meat, indeed, about anything the master may please, may be forced into her stomach. The girl is usually on her knees when this is done, with her head back and her hands tied or braceleted behind her. Afterwards her hands are usually left confined for an Ahn or so in this fashion, so that she cannot rid herself of the nourishment.

"Drink," I said.

"Please, no," she wept.

"Then you desire the slave tube?" I inquired.

"No," she said. "Mercy!"

I pulled her head back, by the hair, with my left hand. "Open your mouth," I said. "Do not spill a drop."

She squirmed, helplessly. Her teeth were gritted.

"I see that it is your intention to be difficult," I said.

She struggled but then, by the hair, I held her precisely; where I wanted her. Her mouth remained tightly closed. I gathered she did not wish for so much as a drop of that liquid to cross her lips. It must be rather strong, I surmised. To be sure, the dosage had been intended for a male.

I looked up, and noted Louise, who had been returning to her place to the left of the open space, coming back from the bar. She was standing there, observing me with horror.

"We are going to give her a little drink," I said to Louise.

"Master?" asked Louise, frightened.

"The slave tube is not going to be necessary after all," I told the Lady Tutina. She looked at me wildly, her mouth tightly shut.

"A simpler, more primitive method, quite suitable for small amounts, is at our disposal," I told her.

"No!" she said.

I put the tiny glass of wine to the side, on the floor.

"Slave," I said to Louise.

"Master?" she said.

"Take the Lady Tutina's belt," I said, "and tie her hands behind her back." "Master!" protested Louise.

"No!" cried the Lady Tutina.

"She is free," said Louise.

"Must a command be repeated?" I asked Louise. "No, Master!" she said.

She took the Lady Tutina's belt off and pulled her hands behind her back, and tied them there.

"Good," I said. The Lady Tutina squirmed, on her knees, her hands tied behind her.

"Master," moaned Louise, frightened.

"Here," I said, handing her the tiny glass of wine. "Obey me, unquestioningly, when I speak."

"Yes, Master," whispered Louise.

"No!" said the Lady Tutina. "Oh!" I had then, reaching about her head with my left hand, pinched her nostrils tightly together between my fingers. She could now not breathe through her nose. With this same grip, and its afforded leverage, I pulled her head back. Perhaps I was not as gentle as I might have been, considering she was free. Still it might do her some good, like the binding of her hands behind her, to accustom her to being handled in this fashion. She gasped for air. I then wedged my right hand in her mouth and, with my thumb and fingers, my thumb on her upper teeth, my fingers on her lower teeth, forced it open, very widely. Held so, she could not bite.

"Now," I said to Louise. "Now."

The Lady Tutina whimpered. She squirmed. She tried to shake her head, but I held it in position, exactly as I wanted it. Louise carefully poured the wine into that lovely, widely opened orifice, that lovely, widely opened vessel that was the mouth of the Lady Tutina.

"Good," I said to Louise.

Louise looked at me, gratefully. She would not be immediately beaten, at least. She was pretty, naked.

I continued to hold the head of the Lady Tutina in place. As I had timed the matter she had not had a breath left at that point to exhale or blow the fluid from her mouth. She looked at me, wildly.

"I would suppose, sooner or later," I said, "that you would like to breathe. No breath, however, can enter your lungs until you have first cleared your mouth of the fluid in it. There is only one way for you to do that, in your present predicament. That is to swallow it. Perhaps your body will make the decision for you."

She whimpered piteously in protest.

"There is not really much point in holding your breath," I said. "The matter is one of inevitability."

Another whimper.

"You are very pretty," I informed her.

Then wildly, tears plunging down her cheeks, she swallowed the liquid and, choking, gasping wildly for breath.

"You may now unbelt the hands of the Lady Tutina," I said to Louise.

"Yes, Master!" she said, hastening to do so.

"Oh, no, Lady Tutina," I said, holding her hands now. "You would not want to do that."

She jerked her hands, but could not remove them from my grasp. "I hate you!" she said. "I hate you!"

"There is nothing to fear," I said, "unless there might have been something in the wine."

"I hate you," she sobbed. She threw a wild look at the fellow slumped over the nearby table. He was still unconscious. She was clearly frightened. The dosage she had imbibed, assuming there might have been one in the drink, would doubtless have been one fit for a male. Accordingly, her own period of unconsciousness, given this possibility, might possibly last several Ahn, more than enough time to be carried to a cell in a praetor's holding area. She jerked her hands again, wildly, but I held them tightly.

"I hate you!" she hissed.

"Do not forget your loneliness, and your need for love," I said.

"Sleen! Sleen!" she hissed. She again tried to free her hands, and again, of course, could not. How could she expect to do so, with her strength, only that of a female? But this time, even so, it seemed to me she had pulled less strongly than before. Even her small woman's strength seemed now less than it had been. Apparently there had indeed been something in the wine. It was beginning, it seemed, to take effect. She seemed suddenly unsteady.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked. "When you awaken," I said, "you will discover what has been done with you."

"I love you," she said, suddenly. "Take me to your room. It was not necessary to drug me. I would have gone happily."

"It is nice to hear that," I said.

"I love you," she said. "You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?" I regarded her, not speaking.

"I will serve you therea€”even as a slave!" she whispered. "Then you will let me go in the morning."

I did not answer her.

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

I did not answer her.

"You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?" she pleaded.

"No," I said.

"Then what are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"I do not think I am going to do much of anything with you," I said.

She looked at me, puzzled. She wavered.

I glanced at the fellow slumped over the nearby table.

"No!" she said. "No!"

"It is a pretty ring," I said. I then removed it from her hand. I put the ring on the floor. She leaned back. I did not think she could get up. She watched as I crushed it beneath my heel.

I glanced at Louise, who was kneeling to the side, frightened.

I looked again to the Lady Tutina. She was now slipped to the floor, beside the table, on the tiles, unconscious.

I took the unconscious Lady Tutina by the wrist and pulled her over a bit, onto a nearby met, to the left of a nearby table. It was the table, of course, across which the unconscious fellow lay slumped. There was a heavy slave ring there, too, fixed in the floor. It was near the head of the mat. The mat and ring, both, of course, were those appropriate to the fellow's table. There, she lying on the mat, I pulled down her now-beltless dress until it was about her knees. In doing this I retrieved his purse. I tied it about her neck. I then, with some binding fiber, cored with wire, from my wallet, bound her wrists tightly together and then tied them tightly to the ring.

In tying the hands tightly to the ring it makes it harder for the female to get her teeth on the binding fiber. But of course, even if she should manage this, trying desperately, determinedly and elatedly, with wild hopes, to free herself, she would discover shortly, at least in this case, this discovery dashing these wild, absurd hopes, mocking all her efforts, and plunging her into despair, the fiber's stern wire coring. She was not tied there, in such a fashion, by a man, she would then learn, that she might escape. It seemed to me extremely unlikely that she would recover consciousness before the fellow. If that should however, somehow occur, she would still be found at his ring, awaiting his pleasure. I looked down upon her. She lay there then, on her belly, mostly stripped, her arms extended over her head, her head turned to the side, her wrists crossed and bound tightly together, lashed to the slave ring, his purse about her neck. I considered matters. I then pulled the mat from beneath her, and with my foot, thrust it to the side. She would lie naked on the tiles, I had decided. Such a woman was not worthy of a mat. I also kicked her belt over beside her. It was a small detail, but it, like herself, like all she was and all she would be, now lay at the disposal of the fellow slumped across the table.

I then returned to my own table. Louise was still there, kneeling. I had not yet dismissed her.

"Am I dismissed, Master?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She gasped.

"Are you any good on a mat?" I asked.

"But you are Earth," she said. "And I am of Earth! I am from Earth! You are from Earth! We are both from Earth! You could not for a moment be thinkinga€”!" "Fetch a slave whip," I said.

She uttered a cry of misery and regarded me in disbelief. Then she leaped to her feet and hurried away. In a moment she had returned and knelt before me. She put down her head, as she had doubtless been taught, in submission. She then, lifting and extending her arms, her head still humbly down between them, lifted her hands to me. The backs of the wrists faced me. This was rather as in several common submission ceremonies. With the backs of the hands in this position it is easier to pull them together and tie them. Indeed, in most of these submission ceremonies the wrists are presented already crossed to the male, sot that he may the more conveniently lash them together. Every Gorean woman, incidentally, a slave or free, is taught by the age of puberty how to render submission. Her life may depend on it. Now however, held in these small, lovely hands, her hands about ten inches apart on it, lifted to me, there was an object.

"Yes," I said.

"I bring you a slave whip, Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Use it on me," she said, "if I do not please you."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Louise," she said.

"Again," I said.

"Louise brings you a slave whip, Master," she said. "Use it on Louise, if she does not please you."

"I will," I said.

She shuddered.

"And I might use it on you anyway," I said.

"Of course, Master," she said. One owns slaves and commands them. One does what one likes with them. One does not bargain with them.

"Go to the mat," I said.

"I am of Earth!" she said.

I shook out the blades of the whip.

She hurried to the mat, to kneel upon it.

I regarded her.

She looked lovely, nude, deliciously curved, frightened, in the glinting collar, in the flickering reddish darkness.

I folded back the blades of the whip and inserted them in their clip, near the butt end of the staff. By means of the hook at the end of the butt, I attached the whip to my belt. This action seemed to be greeted with relief on her part. Perhaps she thought, being of Earth, she would get off easily. Did she not know that she was now on Gor, and that a whip so easily placed on a belt may be as easily, and indeed, even more easily, removed from it?

A girl cried out, nearby, moaning, sobbing, being well mastered.

I looked about, for a loose chain. In a moment or two I had found one, near another slave ring. I looped it in my hand, and carried it to the ring near my mat. The key, the same key fitting both the padlock-type terminations of the chain, was in one of the locks. I crouched down beside Louise and looped one end of the chain about her neck, where I locked it snugly into place with one of the padlock-type terminations. The chain depended from her neck, between her breasts. I then looped the other end of the chain about the slave ring and, with the termination at that end, locked it there. She had about five feet of play between her neck and the slave ring. That is more than sufficient to allow a female to perform. Many men give her even less chain, some only six inches or so, such adjustments being made with different length chains, and also, often with the same chain, by loopings, doublings and such, secured by fastening the padlocklike terminations through various links. She put her fingers on the chain. She surreptitiously pulled it a little. It was on her.

"Master?" she asked. I walked over to the wall and hung the key on a nail there, with other keys. That is where the key should have been in the first place. There it is out of the reach of all the slave rings. Too, in this way, it is easier to keep track of them, and a customer is less likely to inadvertently walk off with one. No chains hung there, incidentally. They were apparently, at least those usually there, in use, or like the one I had found, loose on the floor. I glanced around. The place seemed crowded. Ita and Tia were dancing, summoned forth by a hostess, before a customer. I recalled Louise dancing. She had done at least that very well, surely. I wondered if she, and Earth girl, going about her business on Earth, had ever suspected that she would one day be so dancing on Gor, as a nude, collared slave. I supposed not. I wondered what she would have thought if someone had suggested this to her. Doubtless she would of thought it absurd, or amusing. But then, a moment later, she might have felt the thick layers of the chemically treated cloth held firmly over her nose and mouth. Business seemed good this evening. Indeed, it seemed to be thriving. This Ludmilla, whoever she was, I conjectured, had something of a gold mine in this little establishment. Tonight's receipts, at any rate, would probably prove quite gratifying.

I returned to the slave mat.

"Master?" asked Louise.

She looked up at me, the chain on her neck.

I removed the whip from my belt, freeing the blades. I shook them loose.

"I am from Earth!" she said.

"Spread your knees," I said.

Swiftly did the Earth girl comply.

I looked down at her. She was incredibly lovely.

"Surely you will treat me gently, and with respect," she said.

"How do you lie on a mat, Earth girl?" I asked.

"However a master pleases," she whispered.

I gestured to the mat with the whip. Immediately she lay upon it.

"Perhaps you can interest me," I said.

"Please!" she said.

"Move," I told her.

She moved then, and turned, upon the mat, sometimes on her belly, sometimes on her back, sometimes on her side, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting, sometimes curled up, sometimes bending backwards, pausing every moment or so, for a moment or so, stock-still, posing, that I might feast my eyes upon her loveliness, revealing thusly for me her imbonded beauty in numerous and various attitudes. There were tears in her eyes. I saw that she had had some training. She was then breathing heavily.

I let the loose whip blades brush her back. "Master?" she asked.

"Is that all you show Gorean men?" I asked. "If so, I am surprised you have not yet been fed to sleen."

"You are from Earth," she wept. "And so you, a slave, think to cheat me, and give me less?" I asked. "No," she said.

"Do you dare, slave," I asked, "to think that you can behave toward me as a typical Earth female behaves toward a man of Earth?"

"No," she said. "No!"

"Do you think you can treat me as the typical females of Earth treat the men of Earth?" I asked.

"No," she wept. "No!"

"Have you ever felt the slave whip?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, terrified.

"Do you want to feel it again, now?" I asked.

"No! Master!" she said.

"Perform," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Better," I said, "better. Remember you are no longer a woman of Earth now. More leg extension. That is behind you. You are now only a Gorean slave. Good. You are not even a person any longer. You are now only a lascivious animal that exists only for the pleasure of men. Only an animal. Do not forget it. But an incredibly desirable animal. Lift your hand more piteously. Good. The most desirable form of animal in existence, the female slave. That expression, improve it. Let it show that you beg a man for his touch. Do you beg a man for his touch?"

"Yes," she cried, suddenly, "I do!"

"Use the chain," I said. "It is on your neck. Use it! Use it in this mat dance." "Dance?" she wept.

"Yes," I said, "You can consider it a dance. You can treat it as a dance. You are writhing for a master, pausing now and then to startle him with your beauty, on your chain. There is even music here. Feel it in your belly. Deep in your belly! Deeper! Yes! Yes!"

"Take me!" she cried in English!" "I beg you to take me!"

I took her in my arms, and kissed her. She was helplessly hot and open. "Oh, yes," she cried. "Now! Now! I beg it! I beg it!"

"As a woman of Earth?" I asked.

"No," she sobbed, "as what I am now, as a Gorean slave of her master!" Later I used her once more, this time on her belly, that she might not forget she was a slave, nor grow too proud. I then turned her to her back. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I am yours," she wept. "I want to live for you, and to serve you in all ways."

I kissed her.

"Buy me! she begged. "Buy me!"

"I think you will one day, now that you have learned how to serve, find a fine, strong Gorean master," I said.

"Then, I, an Earth woman, will belong to a Gorean," she said.

"Yes," I said, "as do may others. And I think you will make him a splendid slave."

"Yes," she whispered softly, "a slave."

"You are a female of Earth," I said. "Such as you are fit only to wear the collars of such men."

"I know," she said.

"Aspire to nothing higher here," I said.

"I do not," she said.

"He would have you in no other way, of course," I said.

"I know," she said.

"Are you discontent?" I asked.

"No," she said. "It is a thousand times better to be the slave of such a man than to be an Empress on Earth."

I kissed her.

"Nor would I wish to be had in any other way," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Because," she said, "it is what I have now learned I am, a slave." I considered her softness and beauty, and her helpless, loving responsiveness in my arms. "Yes," I said. "You are a man's slave."

"I do not dispute it," she said. "I learned it indubitably while finding myself helpless in your power. You have taught it to me, and the lesson can never be unlearned." I did not speak.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I think there are many slaves on Earth, only they have not yet found their masters. They do not yet wear their collars."

"Perhaps," I said.

"I think there are few men on Earth who can, or will, answer the cry of the slave in a woman."

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"Why will they not do so?" she asked.

"Perhaps it is too late for them to reclaim their manhood," I said. "Perhaps it is easier for them now, at this late date, their opportunities slipped away, surrendered to the enemies of manhood, to pretend to find it disgusting, or amusing."

She sighed.

"But here on Gor," I said, "have no such fears. Here, even for all their harshness, the cultures have not taken so unnatural, demeaning and debilitating a turn."

"True," she said.

"Here you will men such as you have only dreamed of on Earth," I said. "Yes," she said, softly.

"Here you do not have to fear even initially that men will not answer the cry of the slave in you," I said. "You will probably not even have time for that. You will be too busy kneeling, and obeying."

"True," she laughed, and kissed me. "Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"May I say something?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. "But if I am not pleased with it I may beat you." "Of course," she laughed.

"Do you recall that I expressed a wish that I be treated gently and with respect?" she asked.

"Vaguely," I said.

"I do not think you treated me too gently," she said.

"Perhaps not," I said. She had been manhandled a bit, put where I wanted her, and so on, allowed to understand that she was an instrument of my pleasure.

"And surely you did not treat me with respect," she said.

"No," I said. "But then you are not the sort of woman who is to be treated with respect. You are a collared slave."

"I wait for my master," she whispered.

"I do not think, now, given the recent confirmation of these insights in you, you will have to wait long for your rightful chains, but, in the meantime, you will serve the customers in the Tunnels."

"The customers!" she wept.

"Yes," I said, and then I turned her over, putting her again on her belly on the mat.

"Oh!" she said.

"Yes, the customers," I said, "of whom I am one."

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!"

"Excellent," I said.

I saw that her fingernails had scratched at the mat. I put my hand on the mat, near her face. The mat was damp there, from tears.

"Master well knows how to use a slave," she said.

"You yielded well," I said.

"I cannot help myself," she said. "I am a slave."

"And only that?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I gently parted her hair, putting it delicately on either side of her neck. In this way I could see the collar on her neck, and the small, sturdy lock at the back of the neck.

"I wonder who truly loves himself, and women," she whispered, "he who is so true to himself and his nature, refusing to deny it or pretend it doesn't exist, and who fulfills women, as what they really are, or he who betrays himself, who lies to himself and who denies the true needs of women?

"It is true," I said. "There are two sexes, and they are quite different." "Is that not heresy, for a man of Earth, to say that?" she asked.

"This is Gor," I said. I pulled at her collar a little. "Are you not aware of that, slave?" "Yes, Master," she said. "I am aware of it."

"In a world where nature is free, a world not subjected to ideological poisonings, a world where she is not crippled, and hobbled," I said, "what is the place of women?"

"At the feet of men, Master," she said.

"And where are you, Louise?" I asked.

"At the feet of men," she said.

"Such does not prove, of course," I said, "that Gor is the ideal world, but it does indicate that Gor possesses at least one feature of the ideal world." "Yes, Master," she said.

"To be sure," I said, "it is not unknown for females, free women, of course, to seek power."

"Such pursuits, to me," she said, "seem disgusting and unnatural in a woman." "They are," I said. "But perhaps they are to be forgiven when men abdicate their responsibilities. Perhaps it is fit then that they be destroyed as males." "No, Master!" she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"For then we cannot be truly women, Master. The equations of nature would be disrupted. It would be madness and sickness. It could mean the end of a world." "What do you think would happen if you were to seek power, Louise?" I asked. "Doubtless I would be whipped and used," she said, "and then thrown naked, chained, into a tiny cage or slave box, and kept there until I learned my lesson, and begged to be suitably subservient. I might even be killed."

"Yes," I said, "but then you, of course, are a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are not a free woman,"

"No, Master," she said.

"That makes a great difference," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"They do much what they please," I said, "even if its ultimate objective is clearly the subversion of nature, involving the reduction and debilitation of an entire sex, a sex crime than which, it seems, none could be more heinous." "How filled with hate they must be," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Unable to be men," she said, "they try to destroy them. In this they fail also to be women."

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"They will attempt to use law," she said, "using men against men, using them as their dupes and tools, until the last man can be destroyed."

"That seems the intent," I said. "It is not even well concealed."

"No, Master," she said.

"It is an interesting concept," I said, "that legislation could be passed against manhood, that nature can be dismissed with a statute, that her reality and aristocracy can be declared illegal. Surely there is some sort of category confusion here. Laws cannot validly be passed against facts. Any such law is automatically null and void. It is like the English king who in the legend sat upon the beach and forbade the incoming waves to touch his robes."

"What happened?" she asked.

"He got wet," I said. "To be sure, he may have ordered the waves beaten, but, as far as we know, the ocean failed to take note of this."

"At least he moved before he was drowned," she said.

"Let us hope that all kings, however stupid they may be, would have that much sense at least."

"Surely they would," she said.

"Not necessarily," I said. "If they are sufficiently stupid, and sufficiently strongly conditioned, closing their minds to options, and such, they might remain right where they were, proceeding righteously to a watery grave. Such things are not unknown. Many people have given their lives for absurdities. Some are called heroes."

"Surely at least some of them were idiots," she said.

"That might seem a juster appraisal, scientifically," I admitted. "Still one might regret the tragedy involved, even in the case of the idiot."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I stood up. "Master is leaving?" she asked.

I brushed her waist and flank with my foot. She shrank back a bit, on her belly, to the side. Women are so inutterably beautiful. I then put my foot on her, and let her feel a little of my weight, but not much. I then thrust down a bit, and stepped away from her. It had been an admiring, spurning caress. She lay there, the chain on her neck, on the mat. "I am through with you now," I said. "The hostess will soon come to unchain you, and send you back to your waiting station. The key is on its nail."

"And thus you leave me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. I glanced over at the nearby table. The fellow who had been unconscious there, the free woman, the Lady Tutina, now chained half naked at his slave ring, she still unconscious, was showing some signs of reviving. "Master!" said the girl.

"Remain on your stomach until unchained." I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then stepped away from her, looking about myself. I had received a note to come to this place. I had waited, but no one, it seemed, had attempted to make contact. There could, of course, be various reasons for this. I did not think, however, that among these reasons would have been the inability to recognize me. Presumably the individual, or individuals, would be familiar with my appearance, either from the plaza near the Central Cylinder or from a description. This made it seem plausible, then, as they had not yet contacted me, that their business with me might be of a clandestine nature. One might think then in terms of the possible transmission of secret information, or, perhaps more likely, of the enterprise of the assassin, the covert business of unsheathed daggers.

I looked about. I did not think there would be more than two of them. I considered the openings to the Tunnels. The main egress, which served also as the entryway, would surely be under observation. The hostess, in earlier speaking to me of the free women brought in for a joke, had spoken of putting her out back in the morning, naked, and, if she had been used, with her hands tied behind her, with a punched tarsk bit tied on her belly. That suggested a rear exit. If they thought I were making for the that they might move swiftly, hastily, too hastily. It would be dark in the tunnel. I glanced back at the Earth redhead on the mat. She was still on her belly, as she had been commanded. She looked back and up at me, pleadingly. I then left her. She was only a slave.

I walked past the waiting station. The only girl there now, the only one not now on a chain, this testifying to the traffic of the house, was Birsen, the brown-haired girl who seemed as though she could have been a fashion model on Earth, "head down," I said. Immediately, kneeling, she put her head to the floor, the palms of her hands, too, resting on it. It is pleasant to own and master women. Too, it is correct to do so. Bondage is merely an institutional recognition and formalization of the proper and natural relationship between the sexes. In a moment I had come to the low opening of the Al-Ka Tunnel, the first tunnel. I glanced back. In the light I could not detect whether or not anyone was noting my entrance into the tunnel. Somehow I felt, however, that my entry therein would not go unnoticed.