"Do masters ever love their slaves?" she asked.
"Often," I said. Indeed, a female slave is the easiest of all women to love; too, of course, she is the most natural, of all women to love; these things have to do with the equations of nature, in particular with thos of dominance and submission. To a man a female slave is a dream come true. A free woman, understandably, cannot even begin to compete with a female slave for a man's love. That is perhaps another reason why free women hate their vulnerable, imounded sisters. If a free woman would assure herself of a man's love she could not do better than, in effect, become his slave. She can beg of him, if she senses in herslef he true bondage of love, and enslavement ceremony, in which she proclaims herslef, and becomes, his slave. In their most secret and intimate relations thereafter she lives and loves as his slave. If a woman fears to do this she may, on an experimental basis, resport to limited self-contracting, in which her documents will contain stated termination dates. Thus, by her wone free will, she becomes a slave for a specific period, ranging usually from an evening to a year. The woman enters into this arrangement freely; she cannot, of course, withdraw from it in the same way. The reason for this is clear. As soon as the words are spoken, or her signature is placed on the pertinent document, or documents, she is no longer a free person. She is then only a slave, an animal, no longer with any legal powers whatsoever. She is, then, until the completion of the contractual period, unto the expiration date of the arrangement, totally subject to the will of her master.
"And still keep them as slaves?" asked the girl.
"Of course," I said.
"Then I could be loved," she said, "and still kept as a slave, totally."
"Of course," I said.
"Even to being beaten?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Of course," she said, "for I would still be only a slave."
"Of course," I said. "How is your back?" I asked.
"Sore," she said.
"You have felt the quirt," I said. "YOu will be a better slave for it."
"How strange it is to think of myself in such terms," she mused.
"What terms?" I asked.
"That I am a slave," she said, "that I am owned, that I belong to a man."
"Perhaps it seems strange to you, sometimes, lingeringly," I said, "because you are from Earth. It is not strange on Gor, of course. Bondage for a beautiful woman, such as yourself, is a common reality on Gor."
"I gather that it is so," she said.
"It is," I said. "On Gor thousands of beautiful women, branded, and in collars, serve, and must serve, their masters with the fullness of their female perfections."
She nodded. She had seen female slaves. She herself had been sold in the town of Kailiauk, near the Inhanke.
"And you, in the Barrens," I said, "are such a woman."
"I know," she said. She had seen slaves, too, in the Barrens, of course, generally white women, the helpless, obedient, collared slaves of red savages.
"It is your reality," I said.
"I know," she said.
"I think it is time we went to the lodge of Canka," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She then sat up on the robes. She held the hide blanket about her neck.
I almost wanted to cry out, to tear it from her, to fling her beneath me.
"I love Canka," she said. "I love him, more than anything."
I nodded.
"And I want him to love me," she said, "even though I am only a slave, if just a little."
"I understand," I said. It was natural for a slave helplessly in love with her master to hope that he might see fit to cast her at least a particle or crumb of his affection. That much he might bestow even upon a pet sleen.
She looked at me. "Canka wanted me punished," she said.
I shrugged.
"But you did not do so," she said.
"No," I said.
"Punish me," she said.
"No," I said.
"Very well," she said.
She, moving slightly, but mostly sitting as sh was, let the hide blanket slip to her thighs. It seemed an accident.
"Let us hurry to the lodge of Canka," I said. I did not know if I could retain my control.
"Please," she said, "let me adjust my collar." She then, carefully, with her small hands, aligned the beaded collar on her throat. At certain points she ran a finger around and under it, adjusting it for comfort. She then, again, aligned it, setting the central knot under her chin. "There," she said. "That is better, and more comfortable. How does it look?"
"Fine," I said.
"Good," she said. "It is important to us that our collars both look well and be comfortable."
I was driven hald wild, seeing her small hands so carful and attentive upon that encircling badge of servitude, calling attention to it. It was, of course, a slave collar.
"Let us go," I said.
"My hair," she said, "please-Master."
I watched her putting back her head and, carefully, apparently paying me no attention, arrange her long, lovely red hair. This action, of course, raised the line of her lovely breasts.
"One of the things most startling to an Earth girl, brought to Gor," she said, "is that she finds herself the object of such ardent desire."
"Perhaps," I said. To be sure she would have encountered little on Earth to prepare her for the sexuality of Gorean men.
"Another thing which they find startling, and almost unbelievably so," she said, fussing with her hair, "is how irreservedly and passionately, and sometimes mercilessly, they are used."
I nodded. Such women, to be sue, would seldom be given much choice in the matter.
"And how ruthlessly they are owned and dominated, and made to obey," she said.
I did not speak.
"But then," she said, softly, putting her head down, her hands still at her hair, her brasts still lifted, in what was almost a delicate token of submission, "that is fitting and proper, for they are only slaves."
"Yes," I said. My fists were clenched.
"How does my hair look?" she asked, bringing her hands down and lifting her head.
"Fine," I said.
She then turned and, putting her lright leg under her and lifting her left knee, she threw aside the hide blanket. She smiled at me. She ahd done this shamelessly, as a slave. The body of a slave, of course, is public, in a way that it would be unthinkable that the body of a free woman could be public.
"I think you find me attractive," she said.
"Yes," I said.
She then knelt back on her heels, facing me, but her hands were on the robes.
"Alas," she said, in mock sorrow, "how weak and vulnerable are slaves."
"Yes," I said.
"How helpless and powerless we are," she said.
"Yes!" I said, angrily. I saw that she had allure, and power.
"But perhaps we are not completely powerless," she said. She put her hands behind her head and straightened her back. She thrust out her breasts and stretched.
"Perhaps not," I said.
She then lowered her hands and looked at me. She was kneeling, facing me, then, her hands on her thighs. Her thighs were closed.
"I am more powerful," she said, "than was that little snip and chit, Millicent Aubrey-Welles, from Earth." This was who she had once been. Then she had been enslaved.
"How is that?" I asked. At the merest word from one such as the former Miss Millicent Aubry-Welles, from Pennsylvania, a free woman, a Gorean slave girl, such as Winyela,
would have to grovel, lick her feet and serve her in any way that she might desire.
"I am much more powerful than she," she said.
"How is that?" I asked.
"I am a slave girl," she said.
"You speak in riddles," I said.
"More powerful, of course," she said, "only in certain ways."
I smiled. I saw that she did now wish to be quirted fr insolence. A slave, of course, can be quirted for any reason, or for no reason.