"Would you risk your virginity here, in this place, at this time?" he asked. "My virginity," I said, "belongs to my master. He may do what he wishes with it."
"I have plans for it," he said.
I was silent. It would be as he willed. He was Master.
"How do your lessons proceed?" he asked.
"I think well, Master," I said. It seemed to me in my best interests to be conservative in my estimations. Doubtless he had better information at his disposal that I could give him, from his dancing slaves, and his whip master. "You are a dancer," he said, "and have in you the makings of a superb pleasure slave."
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"It is interesting that you are from Earth," he said. "One might have thought that you were Gorean."
"I am a woman," I whispered.
"Yes," he said. "That is probably the important thing. In the end it is probably all pretty much the same. There are men, and there are women."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Did you know that many times Earth women turn out to be superb pleasure slaves?" he asked.
"We are women," I whispered, shrugging. I saw no reason why we, properly controlled and disciplined, should not be as perfect for a man as a Gorean woman. Indeed, considering the social and political deserts in which we were sexually starved, it would not have surprised me in the least, if we, once it became clear to us, to our joy, that we now had no culturally prescribed alternatives to being women, that we were now no longer subjected to social pressures to be something else, our womanhood being denied, or demeaned and despised, to coming home to our sex, and nature, proved to be every bit as good, if not in some ways better, than our Gorean sisters, or at least some of them, unaware of such deprivations. But in the end, I suppose, it all depends on the individual female. In the end, we were all women.
"Look up," he said.
I rose to my knees, and lifted my head.
"You have a beautiful face," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"And you have a luscious form," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"Kiss the whip," he said.
I did so, quickly, that I might not seem to dally, or he draw it from me, but then, as he held it in place, permitting me to continue, more slowly, more lingeringly. Then he drew it back, and I knelt back, before him.
"Are you going to be any good?" he asked.
I looked up at him, startled, frightened. He had said I had a beautiful face, and a luscious form. What more could anyone want? Then I swallowed hard, understanding him. Of course, of course, I thought. Such things would be only a beginning, perhaps only a small beginning, and doubtless not even a necessary beginning, of what men would expect of me. "It is my hope that I will be pleasing," I said.
"I have high hopes for you," he said.
I was silent.
"I think," he said, "that you will be very good."
"It is my hope that I will be pleasing to my master," I said.
"And to any to whom, in your master" s service," he said, "you are explicitly, or implicitly, consigned."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And to men, in general," he said.
"Yes, Master, of course, Master," I said. I was a female slave. I existed now for the pleasure of men. It was what I was for.
"Sometimes," he said, "one encounters an Earth female who believes, at first, for a short time, that she may be resistant, in some respect, either secretly or overtly, to masters. Are you such a female?"
"No, Master," I said.
"In any way?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said.
"Such recalcitrance is detectable," he said. "It is betrayed by subtle body cues, uncontrollable, and unmistakable."
"Yes, Master," I said, looking down.
"There are drugs, too," he said, "which are pertinent to such matters." "Yes, Master," I said. I had not known that. I had known that. I had known about the other sorts of things. They had been graphically illustrated to us in the house of my training. Some had to do with skin blotching and nipple erection. One simple test had been with five of us, one of us, not known to Ulrick, to take a ring and hide it. By holding her hands and looking into her eyes it had almost immediately determined the "guilty girl." He had then, merely by holding her arm, had her guide him, involuntarily, to where she had hidden the ring. These things were done primarily by acute observation and differential muscle tensions, indexed to the girl" s knowledge and inward states. The meaning of the lessons, however, had been clear. If our slavery did not go through us, so to speak, if it was not complete, we could not conceal that from the masters. Our choice then, in effect, was to be complete slaves, whole slaves, total slaves, or die. I, and I think, my entire class, interestingly, had rejoiced in this knowledge. We knew we were slaves in our hearts, as we had learned in our training, and we wanted to be slaves. The knowledge then that we would be unable to conceal any inauthenticity is our slavery from the masters, even if we wished to do so, was a liberating insight. It imposed a welcome, healthful psychological consistency upon us. It deprived us of even the last excuse which our pride or vanity might have left to us not to be perfect in our bondage. To be sure, sometimes a master encourages open defiance or rebellion on the part of a girl, he then enjoying forcing her to serve, and perfectly, so obviously, so visibly, against her will. Too, sometimes, he is amused to indulge a girl" s «secret» recalcitrance, well aware of her games, her transparent reservations, her supposedly so carefully guarded and secret resistance, letting her think it is unknown, even unsuspected. When he tires of this sport, however, he reveals to her, to her horror, that she had been all this time as open to him as a book. She can then make the decision of the slave girl, to be a true slave, a full slave, or die.
"Look into my eyes," he said.
I did so. It was not easy.
«Yes,» he said, "you are a slave."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Even though you might regret your bondage, or rage against it, from time to time," he said, "yet, in your heart, you now you are a slave."
"Yes, Master," I said, frightened.
"You were a slave even on Earth," he said."But a secret slave," I whispered. "Here," he said, "your slavery is patent."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"What was wrong with you, at the end of your sale?" he asked. "You seemed suddenly so awkward, so clumsy, almost as though you were paralyzed." "I do not know," I said. "Perhaps I realized, suddenly, what was being done with me, that I was being sold."
"But a slave must expect to be sold," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
He looked down at me.
"I was frightened, Master," I said.
"Are you frightened now?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. This was the first time I had been in his presence, to my knowledge, since my sale in Market of Semris. I kept my eyes from meeting his. I could see the vast, hairy chest, crossed by the two belts. The large, drooping mustache suggested a casual, almost indolent power. The scar at the side of his face had been wrought, I supposed, by some primitive device or weapon, perhaps even, though it seemed hard to believe for a female of Earth, in combat. From my point of view, he seemed clearly a barbarian. He would think nothing of owning women. To be sure, from his point of view, it was I, though a refined female of Earth, who, on this world, counted as being the "barbarian." He had been coming back from some place called Torcadino, or near Torcadino, where he had gone, either there, or in its vicinity, to purchase cheap girls for his tavern. I gathered that women, for some reason, were cheap in that vicinity. He had stopped at Market of Semris on his way back to Brundisium, boarding his girls overnight at the house of Teibar. He had stopped in that evening at the sales barn. There he had purchased me. He had not, as far as I knew, made any other purchases here.