“I do not know why,” he said. “The pens are filled with slaves, well worth collaring, and training to one’s taste.”
“Yet Master did not forget me,” I said.
“You are shoddy, inferior, meaningless merchandise.”
“Perhaps less so now than before,” I said.
“Speak,” he said.
“I remain unimportant, and meaningless, of course, as I am a slave, Master,” I said, “but I think I am different now from what I was, perhaps a little better, perhaps a bit more worth owning. Perhaps I am not now so shallow, so sly, so cunning, so petty, so selfish, so trivial, so worthless, as I once was. I have learned much in the collar. In the collar a slave is well taught. I want now to be worthy of my collar. It is a gift bestowed upon me by a man. I want now to be pleasing to my Master. I would hope to be worthy of wearing his collar, not only in service, devotion, and helpless passion, but in character. I desperately want him to approve of me. I will try to be a slave who is worthy of his ownership!”
“How clever you are,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“Do you think I do not know you?” he asked. “From Ar, from the wagons, from the Voltai, from the small feast in the domicile of Epicrates?”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You are a lying little slut,” he said.
“No, Master!” I said.
I wondered how much this had to do with me, and how much it had to do with him. Was he fighting his own feelings? Might that be? Was he afraid of himself, and his feelings, standing before one who was no more than a kneeling, helpless, collared, branded animal? Did he now fear that he might care for a mere slave?
How absurd!
What had he to fear? The collar was on my neck, and his was the whip.
“I have waited a long time to own you,” he said.
“And have I not waited a long time to be owned?” I said.
I looked up at him, and was suddenly afraid.
How bright his eyes were, how tense his body!
Might not a starving larl so gaze upon a tethered tabuk doe, a hungry sleen upon a penned verr?
In the streets of Ar I had once seen a leashed slave being dragged running and stumbling, weeping, toward a domicile, but the master found himself unable to wait, and she was thrown to the paving stones of the street, there to be publicly and rudely ravished. I had turned aside, and hurried away, but had been stirred. I had heard, too, of purchases made off the block which were unable even to reach the holding rings or slave cages, but were enjoyed in the very aisles of the market.
I was afraid but stirred, too, as only a slave can be stirred, for she knows herself helpless and choiceless, that it will be done with her as masters will. She is without recourse.
Gorean men, I knew, had not been culturally reduced, societally diminished, confused, crippled, taught to mistrust themselves, to doubt themselves, to castigate themselves for the simplest and most natural feelings and desires, to misinterpret and fear them, not taught to betray themselves and their manhood. As well, for the purposes of the deficient, insane, or eccentric, might one be taught the wrongness of breathing, of eyesight, of the circulating of blood, the pumping of a living heart?
It had not occurred to Gorean men, I knew, to denounce manhood, no more than to proclaim it. They just lived it, as they were men. And without men, how could there be women?
How frightening it can be to be a slave, but, too, how can one feel more female?
I looked up at him, and was frightened.
How I sensed that I was seen!
“Master?” I said.
How he was looking upon me!
He did think me unworthy, still, I realized, a liar, a would-be thief, a deceitful, self-centered, manipulative, worthless, little hypocrite.
That was how he saw me!
Perhaps I had been such, more so on Earth than here, but I did not think I was such now.
“No, Master,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, Master.”
Of course, he was looking upon me as a purchasable chattel, for that is what I was, but, too, he seemed to see me now not as a mere chattel, but as a particularly worthless one, one suitably despised, yet one that he found, despite himself, and perhaps against his best judgment, one of interest, of slave interest, of keen slave interest.
I sensed he was angry with himself.
He was perhaps furious with himself, to find himself attracted to me. Did he despise himself for this? Could he not help himself? Was I, I wondered, as irresistible to him, as he was to me?
Could that be?
I was beneath his gaze.
I was naked before him, and kneeling.
I fear I trembled.
I knew myself desired, and not as a free woman might be desired, in all her lofty, precious, august dignity, encircled with customs, codes, traditions, conventions, proprieties, and rights, but as a slave is desired, with all the raw, uncompromising, unmitigated lust with which a slave is desired, a rightless animal whose obedience is to be instantaneous and unquestioning, who hopes to be pleasing, who hopes to serve the master, whose passion is to be unqualified and unrestrained, who exists, as a belonging, an owned female, to give him inordinate pleasures.
“You are a despicable, vain, pretentious, tormenting little she-sleen,” he said, “but, little she-sleen, your time of tormenting is now over.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You have played your games enough,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Get your knees apart,” he snarled.
“Master?” I said.
“Now,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Now,” he said, “that is the way you should be.”
Yes, I thought to myself, this is how I should be, and how I want to be. On Earth I had been a slave, not collared. I had been exploitative, selfish, shallow, petty, and nasty. Then, suitably enough, appropriately enough, I was brought to Gor and must wear the collar for which I was born.
“I am in the position of a slave, a pleasure slave,” I said, “before my Master.”
“You were trained as a pleasure slave, were you not?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said, “in the house of Tenalion, in Ar.”
“Stand,” he said, “face away from me, put your hands behind your back.”
I did so, and was braceleted.
He then took me by the hair, forced my head down to his hip and then, I in leading position, he drew me beside him deeper into the courtyard, and then, in a concealed place, on the thick, soft, flowing grass, so rich and deep, so living, threw me to his feet.
I looked up at him.
I jerked a little at the bracelets.
“Here, Master?” I said.
“I am tired of being tortured,” he said. “You may be worthless, but you are an interesting piece of meat, on which I intend to feast.”
Then he took me in his arms, and I felt ecstasy.
“Yes, yes, Master!” I cried out, a third time.
“Please free my hands!” I begged.
“No,” he said.
Later, my hands freed, I clung to him, under the moons of Gor. Later he let me creep to his thigh. Still later, he lifted me in his arms, almost as though I might be free, and he carried me into the domicile, and up to his room. There he lit a lamp, and chained me by an ankle, to the ring at the foot of his couch. I gathered I would be slept there, chained at his feet.
“Thank you, Master,” I wept.
In the collar I had found my fulfillment, my joy, and my redemption.
“Oh, please, Master, again,” I begged.
He then drew me to him, again.
“Surely I am not to be back-braceleted again?” I said.
Then my wrists were again braceleted behind my back.
“On the furs,” he said. “Kneel, get your head down!”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
His hands were then on me.
I jerked at the bracelets, but was helpless within them.
“Ohh,” I cried, softly. “Oh! Oh! Yes, Master, yes!”