Rogue of Gor

24. What Occurred in my Chambers. When Miss Henderson Thought me to be the Courier of Ragnar Voskjard

"Master," she asked.She stood within the door to my chambers. The door had been shut behind her. A guard had conducted her to my chambers. He had opened the door. Timidely, blindfolded, conducged by his hand on her arm, she had entered. The door had then shut behind her. She stood no now withinmy chambers. We were absolutely alone.

"Master?" she asked. "I have come to serve you." she said.I did not respond to her, but observed her. She stood timidly, blindfolded near the door. She wore a tiny, diaphanous bit of brown silk about her body. It was high on her thighs. It was off her right shoulder and held loosly on her by a casually knotted, narrow disrobing loop, fastened over her left shoulder. A single tug would open the garment, dropping it to her ankles.She carried, folded, several large, colored soft towels, with two sponges and oils for the bath. On the towels too were certain other articles. Among them was, opened, the rounded steel loop she had worn about her neck earlier. It, with its key lay on the top towel. I had been removed from her for she was to assist me in the bath. It accompanied her, that it might be again, when she had bathed me, replaced on her.

Similarly the steel loops from her wrists and ankles had been removed. They, however, had been kept elsewhere. They did not accompany her. On the towels, however, coiled, there was a whip and slave cuffs and anklets, of leather with snaps. too, it might be mentioned, there were as is usual, chains at the foot of the great couch, which might be lengthened or shortened. One chain terminated in a collar, which might be locked about a girl's neck. The other chain terminated in the smaller loop of steel, an ankle ring, suitable for a girl's ankle.

I regarded her.Her hair was still coiffured high upon her head, and held as before, with the braided yellow cord, stout enough to bind her. She was barefoot as is common with slaves.

"Master?" she asked. "Are you in the room?" I moved, that she might know my presence.

"Forgive me Master," she said, "if I have awakened you or disturbed you." I pulled away the mask I wore and discarded it to one side of the great couch. I snapped my fingers."Yes Master," she said. She approached the sound and knelt before me. "I am Beverly," she said. "I have been sent to serve you."I did not speak.

"It is a great honor for me, Master," she said, "that one such as you should select Beverly to serve you" I did not respond to her.

"The water wil have been readied," she said. Near the couch was a large, round, sunken tub, with some six inches of water in it. Too, to one side thre were rising jars.She put the objects she carried on the floor to her right.

"Here Master," she said, feeling for it, "I s a salve collar. You may place it on me when you wish." She put it with the key at my feet. "Here too," she said, putting the objects near the collar, "are slave cuffs and andkets." I regarded the objects, with their tiny belts and buckles, with their attached, sewn in metal snap rings. "And here, Master," she said, "is your whip." She kissed it and put it too at my feet.

"Beverly is not ready to serve her Master," she said. I again snapped my fingers and the girl stood.

She stood lovely and straight, her hands now empty, the towls and oils and other articles on the floor near me."Am I to bathe you now, Master?" she asked.

I regarded the blindfold. It was efficient and Gorean. Most blindfolds of a sort used on Earth are inefficient for one may see under them. This is not the case with the common Gorean blindfold. It consists of, commonly, three pieces, usually two rounded pieces of soft felt, three to four inches in diameter and the binding, which usualy consists of two or more turns of a dark, thick, folded cloth, or scarf, knotted behind the head. The pieces of rounded, face-hugging felt, the eyes coverings, in the girl's blindfold were about three a half inches in diameter. They were yellow. the binding, tightly behind her head, held the ey coverings securely in place. The blindfold, of course, is seldom used in the transportation of a slave. Slave hoods are much more common in such a role. Some of these are fitted with gags. Also, they may be, or some of them, locked upon the girl. The blindfold of course as will be recalled by those who hae seen a girl in one, has its own advantages. It permits, for example, something of the beauty of her face, such as her trembling lips to be seen. Also it permits you to place your teeth upon hers, to tease her tongue for responsivenesss with yours, and if one wishes to run the tip of one's finger lightly inside her mouth, between her teeth and the interior of her cheek.

"May I bathe Master now?" she asked. I jerked loose the disrobing loop at her left shoulder. Beverly Henderson was stripped before me.I walked around behind her. She lifted her chin. She trembled slightly. She was extremely aware of my presence. I bent forward, slightly. She had been subtly perfumed. She shuddered. She had felt my breath at the left side of her neck, and on her left shoulder. I then walked about her and stood before her."Yes, master," she said. She reached out and gently first touching my chest, her hands lingering there for a moment, found the knot in the belt of soft cloth with which I had closed the casual tunic I had donned. She undid the knot and parted the tunic, kissing me at the belly. She then went behind me and gently removed the tunic, kissing me beneath the left shoulder blade. She then stood again before me.

She folded the tunic and belt, kissing them, and then knelt down placing them to the side. She then stood again before me her head down.

I smiled. The girl had been taught how to disrobe a Master for his bath.I then placed the articles for the bath in her hands, and conducted her to the side of the tub. She placed the articles where she might find them. She then took a vial of oil and one of the sponges in her hands. I then helped her step within the tub. I looked at her. She stood in the water, blindfolded, waitning for me. Miss Bevely Henderson, once a proud girl of Earth, now only a Gorean slave girl, waited to bathe a free male, one whom she must address as Master and serve as he pleased. I stepped down within the tub.

Then kneeling or standing as was fit, humbly, Miss Beverly Henderson, with the oils and sponges and rinsing waters bathed me. Then after a few Ehn, she toweled my body dry and then knelt before me head down.I snapped my fingers, and she stood.

I then looked at her carefully, I sensed the nature of her breathing. I touched my fingers to her side, and noted her sudden involuntary movement. I smiled. The Gorean bath of such a sort has many purposes. The cleaning of the body, of course, is only one such purpose. It has two major purposes with respect to its effect on the girl. The first is that she is performing a lowly and humble task for a man. This helps to remind her that she is a slave. Also of course, serving a man, particularly in small and humble ways, probably for biological reasons, tends to be sexually arousing for a woman. Many men, I think, fail to understand that. When a girl brings a man his sandals and ties them on his feet, she is having a sexual experience. Many men, I think, fail to understand the pervasiveness and radiance, the depth, and contextual richness of female sexuality. It is such a wonderous, deep, and marvelous thing. He who denies a woman her right to serve man, and particularly in such small ways, denies to her a portion of herself; that man is not only a fool, for he is the natural recipient of such attentions, but he is cruel; such a denial too, can make a woman ashamed to seek sexual gratification for such small services, usually unbeknowst to the boorish male, are intimately connected with such gratification; this is one resaon, incidentally, that those who secretly fear sexuality and would repudiate it, will be among the first to denounce such homely serves of love. In the case of the slave girl, of course, such services are commanded of her. She must perform them. This tells her then, on some deep level, that it is all right, truly to be a woman. Indeed, she is given no choice but to be a woman. Thusly is her love unqualifiedly liberated. This type of thing, I think, accounts for something of the joy which is experienced by many slave girls, a joy which, otherwise, would seem inexplicable. The second major purpose with respect to the effect on the girl, is that she is touching and in feect in the bathing, caressing a man's body. She is intimately close to the male, even to the extent of sensual tactuality. Being alive and hormonally active, of couse, this is arousing to her. And it is particularly arousing to a slave female, for she knows she is fit meat for the lust of men. Does her very condition not tell her that? Too, she herself, though is not touched. This is frustrating to her, naturally, and intensified her desire, usually near the surface in a slave, to be taken in the arms of the Master.He is Master. Second, it is not unpleasant to be washed humbly by a beautiful woman. Third, such service tends to arouse the girl. It is not uncommon, when such a bath has been finished, and he has been toweled by the beauty, that she kneels before him and begs to be raped.

"The bath is finished, Master," said the girl, standing before me. I jerked loose the yellow cord from her hair. I then, with the cord, tied her wrist behind her back. I thought it well that she should feel herself tied.

I then threw thick love furs at the foot of the couch. She heard them. I lifed the chains there and put them on top of the furs.

I conducted her to a place at the foot of the couch. She stood there on the furs. Often slave girls are not permitted on the couch. They are used at its foot. I took the steel collar, the rounded, narrow metal loop, with its lock, which she had brought with her into the room.

I snapped it about her throat. It fitted closely."I am now a collared female," she said. I walked away from her and placed the key among my things.I returned to her then and looked at her. Gorean men truly look at women and they know themselves looked at truly.

"My brand," she said, "is the common Kajira mark. I hope it pleases Master."I regarded it, the staff and fronds, delicate and incisive, beauty subject to discipline.Quickly I snapped my fingers, sharply. She knelt immediately on the furs among the chains. She knes well where she knelt. She knelt back on her heels, spreading her knees.I then sat on the edge of the couch, at its bottom, the plams of my hands resting on its furs and looked upon her.I wanted to howl with pleasure.

Beverly Henderson, naked and bound, knelt before me in the position of the pleasure slave. "Master?" she inquired. I noted that she has assumed the position spontaneously. That interested me.

I knew that come what may I must have her, and have her well. If she were not sent forth in the morning, perhaps bruised and sobbing, as a well-ravished slave, the men of the holding of Policrates, and its master himself, would grow throughtful. My failure to subject her uncompromisingly to the predations of my mastery would be certain to generate suspicion. The true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, I knew, would be expected to handle women well.

"Master has not deigned to speak to me," she said. "Am I to be whipped? Am I not pleasing?" I did not of course, as was my intent, respond to her. "It Master not going to rape me?" she asked."Did Master not select me out from the other girls for his pleasure?" She squirmed miserably before me. "Perhaps I am not pretty enough now for Master," she said, "now that he has seen me closely. I know that I am not as beautiful as many of the girls. I know that they say that I am not a good slave, and that I am not well broekn as yet to my collar, but I wil try to please you well."

It interested me to her her speak. She spoke as might hae a slave. Did she not know she was from Earth?

"I cannot dance," she ssid. "And I do not know the love songs of slaves."I said nothing."They have not taught me to dance," she said. "nor have I been permitted to learn the desiresongs of heated slaves." I said nothing.

"They have not taught me to dance," she whimpered, "not have I been permitted to learn the desire songs of heated slaves." I said nothing.

"What does Master want of me?" she askedpiterously. I did not respond to her.

"I acknowledge you as the coruier of Ragnar Voskjard," she said. "I acknowleed you as aa great and important man. An I acknowledge myself as only a miserable slave. It is a great honor for me that you hve selected me out, from the others, to be sent to your chambers this night to serve you." She looked toward me, piteously, though she could see nothing in the dark confines of the blindfold. "I will try to be worthy of your choice," she said. "I will try to please you." Again I did not respond to her.

"I am frightend!" she said. "Obviously I must not be pleasing toyou. Then whip me, and call for another girl!" I did not move. "But you are not ata this moment whipping me," she said, "nor calling for another girl. Now I am truly frightened for I know that somehow, now, you must find me pleasing, or of interest. But I am terrified that man such as you might find me pleasing or of interest. What will he do to me? Oh, please, Master, speak to me! Let me tell, if only by the tone of your voice, what are you intentions with respect to me! Oh, I am so helpless! I am so helpless!"

I regarded her and the sttel collar on her throat, placed there by my own hand. "I am so helpless," she wept. Then she tossed her head and smiled. "You have me at something of a disadvantge, Master," she laughed, "for whereas you may see. I am blindfolded and where you are free, I am kneeling, collared, nude and bound." Her lower lip sudden trembled. "Please speak to me Master," she begged.

She was very beautiful. She squirmed in the loops of yellow cord holding her wrists behind her back. "I understand," she said, "why I must be blindfolded, that you have doubtless here, in the privacy of your own chambers removed you mask. I am not to be permitted to see the face of the courier or Ragnor Voskjard, no more than others, even though I am a lowly slave. Who knows through what sales or changings of hands a girl who is mere property such as I might pass? You cannot reisk that I might, somedsay, somewhere, if only by inadvertence, perhaps by a startled cry or gesture, or a too-eager licking at your feet, compromise your secret."

I was interested that she had spoken, and naturally, of the licking of feet. That sort of thing is common in a slave girl. Did she not know she was from Earth?.

"But you cannot even spek to me, Master?" she begged. "Ah!" she said, "that you do not speak to me must also be intended to conceal your identity! You would not wish me to be able to recognize even your voice!" She trembled. "Or is it rather," she asked, "that I am so low a slve that you do not concern yourself even to speak to me?"

I smiled.Whereas the frightened, deferential slave had not recognized me sitting regally with Policartes and Kliomenes in the feasting hallk in the robes and mask of the courier of Ragnar Voskjart, I did not doubt but what she might quickly recognize my voice.

"I have it Master," She said happily. "I fyou do not speak to help protect your identity, touch me once upon the elft shoulder. If you do not speak because you regard me as only a contemptible slave, unworthy to be spoken to, touch me once upon the left arm." She lifted her body, tensing to see where she might be touched. "Please Master!" she begged. But I did not move.

"She then knelt back on her heels. "I see Master," she said miserably. "Not even that is to be made known to me." She shuddered. "Do you not know how terrifying it is to be in a room, blindfolded, with one who does ot speak to you? Ah, perahps you do!" She smled. "You well know how to treat a slave, Master," she said.

I was interested to note that she spoke of herself, naturally, as a slave. "But yet," she said, "you are permitting me to speak. You have not struck me to silence, nor put a block of wood in my mouth, or gagged me. I may gather then, that a least until I feel your blow, or the lash of your whip, that you wish to hear me speak. But why would this be? What could I, a mere slave, have to say that might interest you? She pulled at the cord loops. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

"How am I different from other girls?" she asked herself, aloud, thinking. " Of course!" she said suddenly delightedly. "Now I have it, I am the only Earth girl in the holding! They told you I was from Earth didn't they? You are not familiar with EArth girls. That ingrigued you! They must have told you. You did not take me in your hands and force open my mouth to look for bits of metal in my teeth. I do not think my accent betrayed me, for there are many barbarian accents on Gor, and I speak Gorean excellently!"

I smiled, the vain little thing but it was true that she did speak a liquid, fluent Gorean. Her linguistic skills in this respect, and I have unusual aptitude in such matters, approached my own.

"That my masters call me Beverly," she said "would not in itself tell you that I was from Earth. Not unoften Gorean girls, particularly if they are to be consigned to a low slavery, are given such names. Perhaps then you might have seen the tiny scaring on my left arm. It is called a 'vaccination mark'.

"But, on the whole," she said, "I think it most likely that you were merely told that I was from Earth. This then you found of interest. You decided then that it was to be I who would come to your chambers this evening. Did you wish merely to see, being lower, were juicier puddings than our Gorean sisters, or beyond this, as a matter of curiosity, did you wish to learn something of our nature?"

It amused me that Miss Henderson had used the graphic Gorean expression that she had, an expression almost always applied to a slave, a hot and helpless lay. From my own experience, I did not think Earth girls were juicier puddings, so to speak, than Gorean girls, nor really, that Gorean girls tended to be juicier puddings than Earth girls. It is true of course that the slae tends to be a far juicier pudding so to speak than the free woman of either world. Some Earth girls are marvelous in the furs, and some Gorean girls are. Much depends on the individual girl. This is to be expected, of course, for all Gorean girls as far as I know have ultimately an Earth origina. I think it is true, however, that an Earth girl may sometimes have an extra dimension of lovely, yielding slavishness in her, which is perhaps natural, considering the sexual desert from which she has been rescued. She can remember her loneliness and frustration, how she, a slave, languished in a world where she could find no masters. Such women, in time, find themselves overwhelmed in gratitude for the collar. For the first time, in spite of the world from which they come, they are forced to become true women. Thus they find fulfillment and joy. To the Gorean free woman the joys of the slave girl, though they may be despised and disparaged, are at least culturally not unknown, and are the envy of such free women. To the Earth woman, on the other hands, who finds herself in the collar of a Gorean master, such joys come as a revelation. Only in her wildest and most secret dreams had she dared even to suspect their existence. Then she finds herself a slave girl.

"I think," said Miss Henderson, "that it is your intention to try me, to try me out, to sample an Earth girl, to see if we might be of interest, but as of yet, in spite of my helplessness before you, you have not done so. Further you have permitted me to speak. I gather thus tht you will use me when it pleses you and in the meantime that I, though only a slave, am to speak before you." She smiled. "I shall do so Master."

It was natural for her to think that I, whom she believed to be Gorean, would be interested to hear of her world, and of the nature of the female slaves taken from it. Earth slave girls are controversial on Gor, though I think they are not more accepted than formerly. Some man have a taste for Earth females. Other men will not even own them. A not uncommon task for an Earth female on Gor is to attempt to seure the affetions of a Gorean master who regards her as nothing and despises her.

For months through assiduous application, through attentivness and study, through a selfless love and serve, such a woman may labor to convince the brute who owns her that she is worthy to wear his collar. then perhaps one day he looks down upon her kneeling before him. His hand touches the side of her head Was it a gentle gesture? She takes his hand and presses her lips, sobbing, fervently to it. He takes her by the arms and presses her back, gently, to the tiles, a love slave. When he is finished with her he takes his whip and orders her to her knees. Perhaps he strikes her, perhaps he puts the whip to her mouth and she kisses it. Well then does she know she is still a slave. He turns away. She, kneeling, her had down, smiles shyly, happily.

"My name was Beverly Henderson," she said, "and I am from a world called Earth. Doubtless you have heard something of it.I assure you that it exists. I was captured there by slavers and brought to Gor, that I might wear a collar and learn to serve true men — such as you, Master, who are so strong that you have stripped me, and bound me and put me at your feet, your slave."She smiled, "No man of Earth," she said, "is strong enough to do that."I smiled.

"The women of Earth," she said, "are starved for strong men. I cannot tell you the restlessness, the misery and frustration they feel. The men of Earth are not true men. Perhaps they were long ago, but that is now history. Now they are weak and ineffectual. Manhood among them is measured by its lack. No longer are they capable of true manhood."

I doubted what she said, but surely, I had no intention of explicitly gainsaying her. I thought it best to let her speak.

"Females," she said, "are the natural property of men such as Goreans, not of men such as those of Earth. It is men such as Gorean and not men such as those of Earth who recognize the meaning of our beauty and simply take us, and make us serve them. But I have bathed Master and now kneel naked and bound before him, I tell him nothing.She squirmed in the close confines of the loops of braided yellow cord. They held her well.

"I was taken to the House of Andronicus in Vonda," she said. "There with other girls from Earth, more than fifty of us, I was branded.

I remember one of the girls, pulled sobbing and in pain from the rack, crying out joyfully, "I am a slave girl!" How startled and strange seemed her cry. Yet I too, later, after I had screamed and sobbed, and had been pulled, my thigh stringing from the iron, from the rack and found myself alone, chained on the straw by the damp wall, was filled with strange emotions. Though I could scarcely admit it to myself I knew, with wild strange feelings, that I was glad that I too had been branded.

"You were born for the brand," I whispered to myself, "and now incomprehensibly, wonderfully, on this strange world, it has at last been put upon you. In your pain, rejoice, slave girl. Youi are now publicly marked, clearly and incontrovertibly as what is your secret heard you have always been. Serve you Masters well, slave girl."

I sat on the couch. My fists were clenched. Did she not know she was from Earth!

"Most of use, of coures, including myself, dared not yet admit we were pleased with our brands. We lamanted together, pretending to bemoan the misery of our plights. Our masters, of course, did not give us a great deal of time to indulge our self-pity. We must be prepared for markets. We were then separated and sent to different training rooms. There I was forced to kneel and was put in a house collar. I was then chained at a ring and given my first whipping. Thus did I learn what the last might feel like upon me and that I was under discipline. My slave reflexes were tested and found, as is the case with most Earth females, initially inert. Held on my knees, my head held back, my nose pinched shut, my mouth forced open, slave wine was poured down my throat. I must needs swallow. I was then hooded and men were called in, who abused me, as it pleased them. Then a day later, still hooded, I was returned to the central dungeon."

She paused. "I have not been struck," she said. "Therefore I gather that I have the Master's permission to continue." "How beautiful y ou are," breathed a girl in the dungeon to me when I had been unhooded. "How beautiful you are," I whispered seeing her. "Were you whipped?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "I too," she said head down. I looked about the dungeon at the girls there. How soft and beautiful they were in their collars. The collar, as Master well knows, considerably enhances the beauty of a woman. "Were you raped?" asked the girl, a lovely blonde. "Yes," I said.

"They used me well." "I too," she said. "I enjoyed my rape," said a redhead, collared, in an ankle ring and chain, lying near us in the straw. "Slave!" hissed another girl to her. "Yes, slave," smiled the redhead. My intimacies sprang aflame when I heard her words. How bold she was! I myself would not have dared to admit such a thing to another woman! What might she thing of me? I had not even, scarcely, dared to admit to myself, or recall, that in the arms of the fifth man my body had clapsed his and my arms, and I had in the darkness of the hood, a moaning slave, subdued, cried out with pleasure.Then, too soon, they had been finished with me. That night I had lain in the darkness of the hood, hungry, recollecting the sensations they had induce in me. Now, though I could scarcely admit this to myself, I feared, and feared correctly, that the first fires of a slave's passion had been ignited withing me. I had know that I was a slave and a true slave, before they had touched me, but I had not know until they took me in their arms, how helpless and low a slave I could be."

I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed that Miss Henderson, without thought before me was confessing herself a slave. She was from Earth!

"What is to be done with us?" asked one of the girls. "I think we are to be readied for markets," said another girl. There was then a beating on the bars of the dungeon and we knelt. A man entered, with a whip. Our training began."

She smiled at me, "We were taught to kneel and to crawl, to move and to walk. We were taught the use of our hands, and of our total body, and our hair, and of our mouth and tongue. We were taught many things. The first words of Gorean I learned were, 'I am a slave girl. But our Masters did not waste much time on us. Our new Masters, those who would buy us, could teach us more. The night before we were to be sold, we were permitted to speak to one another. We kissed one another and cried for we knew that we might soon never see one another again, and we did not know what lay before us, outside the confines of the House of Andronicus, in the harsh world of Gor.None of us, of course, had been sold before. Intereseting, however, we were looking forward to our sales. It was not just that we wished to be out of the House of Andronicus. It was rather, I think that we were now eager to belong to Masters. You see Master in the past few days, a startling transformation had come over us.

Few of us mentioned this, but I think there was not one among us who did not clearly recognize it. We had become, honestly, female slaves.

Here we may distinguish between two concepts of slavery, that which can be imposed and constitutes an absolute and legal condition, and that which is instinctual and innate, which under certain conditions, can be manifested and released. The fullest slave, of course, is she who is a natural slave, and then beyond this, truly wears the collar, that slave who is a slave by nature and whose slavery, released, is then confirmed and fixed upon her openly, publicly, by all sanctions of custom and law, for all the world to see.

What we discovered, Master, all of us, in the dungeons and training rooms of the House of Andronicus, was that we were natural slaves. There our slavery had been by such devices as brands and collars, and whips and hoods, fully, for the first time, released in us and made manifest. Many of us were timid and thrilled to discover that we were natural slaves. At last there could be an end to the lies and pretenses. At last we could stop fighting ourselves and pretending to be what we were not. We now, though women of Earth, could admit to ourselves what we knew we were, categorically and absolutely legal slaves, lovely propertieis, which might be barted and sold, and who might figure in transactions which would be upheld in any court of law. This we found frightening, but absolutely thrilling. It so confirmed our slavery upon us! There was no escape for us! Even if we should pull at our chains, or cry or rebel, we would still be only troublsome slaves, who might then be disciplined and brought swiftly into line. any person on the street, seeing us, would know what w were. Even children would know us as mere slaves, for categorically and legally that is what we would be. Owned animals, that is what we would be! You are a man, Master, so perhaps you cannot understand or fully understand, how exciting it is for a woman to be owned, to find herself a slave. But I am a slave, and a natural slave, and a legal slave. I am fearful. But I am joyful!"

Angrily I rose from the couch. I seized up the whip. I thrust it into her mouth. "I kiss your whip, joyfully, Master." she whispered. I looked down at her enraged. Beverly Henderson had kissed the whip.

"Master?" she asked, frightened. She was very beautiful bound before me on her knees.I returned to the couch and sat down upon it. I again regarded her.

She smiled uncertainnly. "I have kissed Master's whip," she said. "Does he not know wish to use me? Does he not know wish to try out an Earth girl?" I did not respond.

"Surely I have told Master enough now about girls of Earth," she said. "Is his curiosity not now satisfied?" Does he not understand us now to be natural slaves, the rightful propertieis of men asuch as he?" I did not respond.

"After that night," she said. "we were divided into smaller lots and distributed through various markets. I think they did not wish for some reason to sell to many Earth girls in a given market. I found my sale indescribably thrilling. I was exhibited naked. I was forced to perform lasciviously on the block as a female slave. Even my slave reflexes were exhibited to the crown. I was auctioned. I was sold to the highest bidder. I have had various Master and various names. Eventually I came into the possession of the holding of Policrates, wherein you find me. There is little more to tell."

I did not respond. "Here I am called Beverly," she smiled. "It was my name originally, on Earth, as you may recall I mentioned earlier. Now of course I wear it only as a slave name, by the whim of Masters. Still it pleased me. I think it is an excellent slave name." I too thought so, looking upon her.

"You understand of course Master," she said, "that I would not have spoken to a man of Earth, those pathetic and ineffectural fools, with the intimacy, the frankness and honesty with which I have addressed youl a man of Gor." I said nothing. "What miserable weaklings they are," she said. I said nothing.

Suddenly she leaned forward. She strained against the loops of yellow which confined her wrists behind her body. Her knees moved on the furs, among the chains.

I saw the steel at her throat."The slut in me desires to serve a Master," she whispered, suddenly, intensly. "Please Master!"

I rose to my feet and looked down at her. "I am the slave of a man such as you!" she said.I thenk suddenly, savagely, seized her by the upper arms. I dragged her to the center of the room. I lifed her high above me, bound, her dark hair, unbound, loose and wild about her. I then, slowly, lowered her, to where her toes could just touch the floor. Then suddenly, angrily, I shook her. "Master!" she cried out miserably. I then dragged her back before the couch where I stood her on her feet before me. She felt the furs beneath her feet, the chains. I regarded her in fury. I snapped my fingers. Immediately she knelt before me, bound, among the chains. She looked up, though she could see nothing in the confines of the blindfold.I looked down at her.

Beverly Henderson, a self-confessed slave, and the most desirable woman I had ever seen, was at my feet. She was naked and bound, mine!

I was filled then with emotions so powerful, so primitive and exultant, so ancient, so overwhelming, so mighty and glorious, that I knew then I had caught the scent of the meaning of man and of woman. Could I again deny my blood? Could I again repudiate the heritage of my manhood?How could it be? The meat of the mammoth roasted then again upon the greenwood spit. Once again, after an interim of ten thousand years, sparks were struck from blue flint as heavy, hairy hands shaped the head of a spear. Once more were heard the love whimpers of the thonged female who had been displeasing, begging to be released that she might lick the thighs of her Master.

I looked down at her. I knew then that I had always wanted Beverly Henderson as my slave. From the first instant I had seen her I had wanted her as my slave.

"Master," she whimpered, "Master!"

Then I stood before her with my fists clenched and threw back my head and wanted to howl with misery. Surely she must be a free woman! She must be free! She was from Earth! But could everything that my blood and my instincts and impulses told me be wrong? But it must be, else a civilization structured upon and predicated upon, pathologies must disintegrate and perish. But could there be a civilization congenial to the truths of the blood, to the nature of human beings.

Is man so foolish, so naive and habit-bound, so fundamentaly irrational, so ready to believe anything that he might be taught, no matter how absurb, that he cannot understand that torture cannot be truth. The test for truth, surely must not be pain, misery and frustration, but happiness and joy.

"Master," she whimpered. But surely she must be free! But what if she were a true slave, as she had indicated? But she could not be a true slave. She was from Earth!

But what if, even though she were from Earth, she were a true slave, as in accord with her own avowals? could such a thing, she from Earth, be possible, even thinkable? I scarcely dared even consider this possibility, for then she, a slave, could be mine!

I determined, cruelly, to make a test of the matter. I untied her hands. I waited then for her to shrink back in terror, to, feeling her way, try to retreat to the far wall, perhaps cowering there, at my mercy. But her head was at my feet. I felt her lips kissing my feet. Beverly Henderson was at my feet! "Forgive me Master," she said, "if I have displeased you." She was then holding my legs, putting her cheek against them and kissing them. "Forgive you slave," she said, "and let your slave please you."

I then seized her by the arms and jerked her to her feet. She was startled. Savagely I jerked her small hands behind her back and, with the yellow cord, tied them there, tightly. "Master?" she asked, frightened. I snapped my fingers. She knelt. I snapped my fingers again. She stood. I then threw her, bodily, onto the deep furs on the surface of the couch. She lay there on her side. I picked up the whip and shook out its coils. She heard the sound and moaned. I approached her. She was tense and frightened. She in the darkness of the blindfold could see nothing. She shuddered in fear as I touched the whip lightly to her body, moving it upon her right calf. She gasped. Then I moved the whip about on her body, slowly curiously, observing her responses. She was tense, and frightened. "Please do not whip me Master," she said. I put the flat leather coils of the whip to her mouth. She lying on her side, fervently, frightened, kissed them again and again. "Please do not whip me Master."

I put the whip on the couch to one side, where I might have it at hand, to lash her if she were not totally pleasing. I then had her, and as the bound slave she was.

She cried out, startled, taken with such force. I looked down at her, gripped in my arms. I dragged her from the couch and threw her then on the chains and furs at its foot. In my desire, my eagerness, and in my fury an joy, I had had the wench on the surface of the great couch itself. But she now lay bound at the foot of the couch, in the shadow of the slave ring, trembling, in a more fit place for a slave such as she. I then again took her. She was gasping and shuddering. It is sometimes months before a girl is permitted, commanded to ascend her Master's couch. Even then she commonly enters it not as a free person, directly, but as a slave, from the lower left, or bottom, after first kneeling and kissing its furs.

She cried out, shuddering in my arms, suddenly had again. "Oh, Master," she sobbed, "Master!" My hands were again hard on her arms. I, kneeling then, pulled her to her knees. Then I shook her and threw her to her side on the furs and chains against the bottom of the couch. She was sobbing and gasping. She pulled against the cord loops on her wrists. There were marks from my hands on her arms. "Please, Master," she sobbed. She rose, terrified to her knees and then to her feet trying to escape. She stumbled in the blindfold against the edge of the couch, crying out, bruising herself. She then stumbled from the couch, frightened, lost her footing and crying out, turning, fell into the tub. She tried to scramble, weeping, to her feet, but I was on her in an instant. I forced her to her knees in the water and then, holding her by the hair, not permitting her to leave her knees, I forced her head back until her dark hair, beneath where I had it knooted in my hand, was loose, floating in the water, and the bow of her exquisite slave beauty was well exposed to me. I regarded her for at ime, so hdle. "Please, Master," she wept, "be gentle with me." Angrily then, my hand still in her hair, I jerked her head forward and sill keeping her on her knees, crouching over her, I thrust her face beneath the water. I held it there for a time, and then pulled it up. Sputtering, half blinded by the water, gasping, she wept. "Please, Master, forgive me! I did not mean to displease you."

I then flung her on her back inthe water and she strubbling, gasping, trying to keep her head above water, again had her.

Then I thrust her up, half sitting, half lying, againt the edge of the tub. She turned her head toward me, gasping. The blindfold was sopped, but secure. Her hari and body were soaked and wt. The cord loops, soaked, were still tight on her small wrists. Her body, wet, was interesting to touch. Then I again had her."Master," she sobbed.

I rose to my feet and stepped from the tub. I walked slowly, shuddering, about the room. Then I was calm. I looked back at her. She was half lying, half kneeling, against the side of the but. I went to her and took her by the collar and pulled her to her feet and from the tub, and to the foot of the couch, where I put her to her knees. Crouching near her I toweled dry the steel loop on her throat. It, like her, belonged to Policrates. I then, gently, dried her hair, and wrapped a towel about it.Also, because I intended to put her in the ankle ring, I dried her left ankle. I did not dry her beyond those things, however, what was necessary to protect the collar and steel of Policrates. I then locked her left ankle in the ankle ring, thus fastening her, by a length of chain, to the foot of my couch. Had she been my own girl I probably would have dried her completely. It is pleasant, as one my well imagine, to towel one's slave.

"Master," she wept, "Master."I made her lie down there at the foot on the great couch. I then, satisfied, and fulfilled as I would not have believed possible, entered upon the great couch and lay wearily upon its furs. "Master," she sobbed. I was soon asleep.

I dreamed that Beverly Henderson was chained naked at my slave ring. I awakened. I left the couch and walked about it, to its foot.Beverly Henderson was chained there, maked, at my slave ring. I kicked her softly, with the side of my foot. She was not asleep.She rose to her knees and put her head down, humbly.

It was near dawn. Gray light entered the room Her wrists were still tied behind her. I had not released them.

"It must be near morning, Master," she said. She could not be certain. She wore the blindfold.

I took her by the upper arms and lifted her to her feet. The towel, in the night had come loose from her hair. I touched her hair. It was still damp. I lifted her in my arms, gently, and placed her on the furs of the couch."Thank you Master," she said, "for permitting me the honor of your couch." I said nothing.

"I gather it must be now be morning," she said, "though I cannot know that. I gather too, that Master is now refreshed. I have been lifted and placed upon his couch. Doubtless I am not to please him, his slave." I said nothing.

"Master well brutilized me last night, " she said. "He taught me well that I am a slave. I shall endeavor to please him well." I said nothing. "But how can I please him?" she asked, "I am bound."I did not of course respond to her.

"Ah yes!" she said. "I am an Earth girl! Master is still curous about Earth girls! He wants to know if we know how to give pleasure to Masters."So saying, attentively and lasciviously, as a bound slave she addressed herself to my pleasure.She did well.

When she had finished and I had rested, I threw her to her stomach and unbound her hands. Swiftly then, and eagerly feeling for me she knelt beside me. "I will show you know, Master," she said, "what truly an Earth girl can do!"

I lay there then and wondered if ever other men of Earth had experienced such pleasure, if ever they had had such pleasure from their females. Perhaps only, I thought, if their females, like Miss Henderson, were their slaves."It is thus, " whispered Miss Henderson to me, "that we serve our Gorean Masters!" I said nothing.

"Do you often wonder," she laughed softly, holding me, quietly snuggling against me, "why it is that we are sought in the slave markets, why it is that we bring high prices?" Though I did not respond to her, her services had come as a revelation to me.

I had not even suspected that Earth women were capable of such marvels. Collared, and under discipline, what incredible treasures they were! They were joys, and priceless! Men, I knew, would kill to possess such women. Petty, arrogant, smug, cold, proud, inert, frustrated, the women of Earth trod the sands of their native world; the men of Earth, I thought, did not begin to suspect the gold into which such pain and dross could be transmitted; how long, I wondered, before such creatures were brought naked to their knees before Masters.

"How I despise the men of Earth," said the girl to me. "How I love my Gorean Master!" I then began, for the first time to truly, attentively caress her.

"You are going to make me yield, aren't you?" she gasped. I then continued, patiently, carefully, to touch her. She then began to tremble and sometimes tried to pull away from me, and at other times to press aainst me. I controlled her, sometimes letting her do as she wished and at other times not permitting it. She lay on her back, her lips parted. She began to maon, the whimpers of a collared slave girl. I felt her. She was hot and open, gasping, saturated with the lubricating oils of her readiness.I smiled to myself.The slut was a hot slave. I was pleased with Miss Henderson. "I'm yours Master," she whispered. "Please have me," I then took her, and she cried out with the unmistakable, rapturous, submission of the surrendered slave girl. She then grasped me tightly, fearing that I would leave her. When she understood that I was content to hold her, she lay warmly in my arms, somtimes kissing me. "You have conquered me, Master" she said, "asyou have doubless conquered man other girls before me." I said nothing." I am owned," she said. "That pleases me."

I began to kiss her about the neck and throat. She put her head back, laughing. "I am an Earth girl," she said. "Do you like us?" I continued to kiss her."Are we not juicy puddings" she laughed. "Is it not clear now why men will buy us?" She clutched me to her and kissed me. "Would you not like to buy one of us?" she said.I held her from me.

"Buy me Master," she said suddenly, "Buy me!"

I did not let her touch me, though she strained toward me, the pretty slut, the clever slut, to press her eauty, piteously, entreatingly against me."I have never been in the arms of a man such as you," she said. "I love you! I want to be your slave."I did not speak."Put me beneath your whip," she said. "Put me in your chains. Lock your collar upon my throat! Own me!" I did not permit her to touch me.

"Then she laughed, a tear running from beneath the blindfold. "How brazen we Earth girls are," she laughed, "how shamelss, that we would be to be purchased! How you must despise us, such lowly, desperate slaves!"

I then entered Miss Henderson and she gasped, clutching me. I smiled. It was not unusual for a slave girl, fervently, to desire to be purchased by a given man, one before whom she knws she could kneel as a suberb slave. In such a case it is natural for her to present herself as piteously and excitingly before him as possible, in order that his interest might be aroused. She, obviously, has nothing to say about her purchase. The choice is his, fully. It is he who is the buyer. This sort of thing is not unusualy in slave markets, particularly on open platforms. I have seen, many times, a girl attempting to interest a given man, singled out, in the crowd in buying her. And, not unoften, such a fellow will bid upon her, knowing well the wonders which she, purchased from her owner, is offering him. Still in the end, it is his which is the choice. She can do no more than present herself, displaying her owner's merchandise as attractively as she can. It is he who will buy or not. He is the Master.

"I love my Gorean Master," breathed the girl, "Buy Beverlyk please!" I have also seen girls attempt to influence their sales in public auctions, while being exhibited naked on the block, trying to present themselves particularly to a given man, but this disposition is usually curbed by the auctioneer's whip. She is not there to be sold to the man of her choice but to the highest bidder.

Indeed, in most public auctions, such actions on the part of the girl are for most practical purposes impossible. Such auctions are usually held at night, when men are off work and can come to the biddings, under torches. The block tends to be illuminated and the house is much in darkness. The girl, naked, in the light exhibited, can be well seen but she herself can see few of the buyers. She is intensely aware, of course, of their presence, in the crowds, in the tiers. Their sounds, their cries, their breathing, their movements, the sweat, the smells, their interest are clearly evident to her, almost engulfing her on the block, almost like possessive hands upon her body. She can then influcne her sale, guided by the auctioneer's whip only in such a way as to present herself as the most luscious slave meat she can, hoping thereby to improve her price, that she may be purchased by a more well-to-do Master. Yet most girls are sold for prices in similar ranges and there are few men who can not, by spending an extra coin or two, secure the slave of their choice. Often when the hand of the auctioneer has been closed, a girl will not know to whom she has been sold. She may not have seen the bidder, or she may have been purchased through an agent. Sometimes it is a day or more before she learns to what chain she has been sold. In this time she does not know if she has been purchased by the man of her dreams, who will control her well, or by some harsh, cruel brute, before whom she must kneel in terror. To be sure, she will soon learn.

"Buy me Master," begged Beverly. I then made her respond to me, and she began to moan. "I want to be bought," she moaned.

To beg to be purchased is a slave's act. That is a saying of Goreans. I think it is true. In this, then, Miss Henderson provided further confirmation of the rightness of the collar upon her throat, that she was a natural and true slave.

"If I yield well to you, Master," wheedled Miss Henderson, "will you buy me?" I then, savagely, struck her face, back and forth, with the palms of my hand, and then its back."Forgive me, Master," she cried, "I did not mean to bargain! I will yield to you fully, and perfectly, at your least command! Do not kill me Master, please!"

There was blood on my hand and at her mouth. Her lip was swollen. I kissed her upon the swollen lip, and she whimpered. I tasted her blood.

"Please do not kill me, Master," she begged. I then took her.When I finished with her, I rose up from the couch. She lay there, frightened.

"I did not mean to displease my Gorean Master," she said. "I did not think. Take pity on me. I am only a slave."I pulled her from the couch to her knees at the slave ring. "Permit me to please you Master," she begged.

I permitted her to perform intimate services for me. I then buckled the thick leather slave cuffs on her wrist. "Master?" she asked. I then thrust her right wrists through the slave ring and with the heavy metal snaps, sewn into the cuffs, secured her there.

She heard the strands of the whip shaken out. "Please do not whip me Master," she begged. Then she put down her head. Then I lashed her, for she had been displeasing.I cast aside the hip and drew on my tunic and gathered together my things.

At the door I turned to look back at the sobbing girl. She turned her head toward me, it still secured in the blindfold. She knelt naked at the ringk fastened to it by the cuffs and too by the ankle ring, still locked upon her left ankle. She wore her collar.

"I love you Master," she said, "It is to such a man as you that I wish to belong."I put down my things at the door. I went back to her. I pulled her out from the ring, half on her back, her hands above and behind her, twisted and helpless in the slave cuffs, held at the ring."Forgive me, if I was displeasing to you, Master," she begged.I looked at her.

"I love you my Gorean Master," she said.I then, again, took her. Spasmodically she shook and yielded, as I would not have thought it possible for a woman to do. She sobbed and shuddred in ecstasy, a had slave."I submit to you, Master," she wept, "totally and completely. You are my Master. I am your slave."

I withdrew from her and stood and looked down upon her. "Do not leave me, Master," she begged. "Take me with you. You have made me yours, my Gorean Master. I am yours. Take me with you. Policrates, my Master, would give me to you, if you should but ask!"

I picked up my things at the door. I slung them about me. I donned my mask. There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. A pirate stood there, he who had brought Beveraly to me last night, who had now come to fetch me to breakfast.I must soon leave the holding of Policrates, theoretically to journey downriver to the holding of Ragnar Voskjard, that his fleet might be soon launched, that the two fleets, in fierce force, might overwhelm the garrisons of Ar's Station, and then of Port Cos, that the river, for hundreds of pasangs, would then become theirs, subject to their predations or levied tributes as they saw fit.

I nodded to the pirate, indicating my readiness to accompany him.He looked beyond me, to the slave ring. The girl now knelt there cuffed to the ring. He seemed startled. "Is it Beverly?" he asked. The girl, suddenly, shrank back against the stone of the couch, a slave's movement. Curious, the pirate brushed past me, going to the girl. He crouched down beside her. "It is Beverly," he said. She trembled. He put forth his hand, touching her at the shoulder. She shuddered beneath his touch putting her head down.»

What have you done to her?" he asked grinning. "Last night she was an enslaved female. This morning she is a female slave."He put forth his hand and held her, with one hand, his fingers about her chin and throat. She shuddered. "I would say," he grinned, "that she is now more truly aware of her condition, that you hae much improved her." He did not remove his hand from her throat and chin. "Were you much improved last night, Beverly?" he asked.

"Yes Master," she said."Policrates," he said, "told me that if you were troublsome you were to be fed to sleen." She shuddered. "But I see that you were not troublesome," he said. "No, Master," she said.

He removed his hand from her throat and chin, and continued to regard her.

She knelt, soft and helpless, trembling, held in the leather cuffs at the slave ring."I see that you are much different this morning, from last night," he said. "Yes Master," she said.

He then, with his hand, touched her left calf, running his fingers lightly over it. She whimpered and drew back. "Interesting," he said.Her response had been that of a helpless superb slave."What was done to you last night," he asked. "I was Mastered," she said."It is obvious," he said and rose to his feet. He turned to face me and grinned. He jerked his thumb back toward the kneeling slave. "Policrates will be pleased," he said.I shrugged.When a girl has been Mastered, of course, she is more fit for any man.

Miss Henderson, in the blindfold, on her knees at the ring turned to face us as she could. We looked back on upon her. It was a superb slave who kenlt there. Miss Henderson in the night I saw, had been brought to a new dimension in her slavery.The priate laughed. The girl shrank back against the sonte of the couch. The snaps on the cuffs rubbed against the slave ring.The priate then walked lsowly towards her. She cowered back, fearing to be struck.He stopped standing before her.

She lifted her had to him but was of course unable to see him, prevented with perfection from doing so by the efficiency of the Gorean blindfold. She squirmd in the cuffs, unable to see, in a slaves fear.The pirate stood looking at her, his hands on his hips.Every inch of her was beautiful and enslaved. She would not be a dream of pleasure for any man.

"Who owns you," he asked."Policrates," she said."And more generally," he said, "who owns you?" Men," she said.

The pirate turned about and rejoined me byt he door. He then went through the door, and I was to follow him.

I did turn about once to look again upon the girl. "Master!" she cried out to me, piteously, in the darkness of the blindfold, stretching her small cuffed hands, as she could, entreatingly toward me. "Master, Master!"

Then I want through the door and closed it behind me. "Master!" I heard her cry. "Master!" Then I had left her behind me, merely a girl fastened as the foot of a couch, only a slave who had served one of her Master's guests.