"Good," he said. "It is well for a slave to fear her master."
"Yes, Master," I said. I kept my head down. What he said was rue, of course. It was indeed well for a slave to fear her master. The master can do what he wished to her. He has absolute and total power over her.
I watched his fingers move idly on the butt of the whip and on its single, thick blade, coiled back, twice, against the butt.
I suppose I would have feared any Gorean maser, they are so strict with us. But I was sure, too, I feared this one more than I might have most. He was so large, and so beastlike, a complex man, I sensed, but one of simplicity in the sense of undividededness or singleness of purpose. To be sure, this lack of self-division, of self-conflict, tends to be characteristic of Gorean males. Their culture does not try to control them by setting them against themselves when they are too young to understand what is being done to them, in some cases, by half tearing them apart. To some extent, I suppose, it satisfies them, and keeps them content, rather as one might throw meat to lions, by throwing a certain sort of woman in their way, the slave. The man who owned me might indeed be, as I had first percieved him,in Market of Semris, he free, looking up at the slave block where I, a naked slave, displayed in high manacles, was being vended, too corpulent, too broad of girth, too gross, too scarred, too loathsome, too hideous, but now that I was his, and within reach of his whip, these initial perceptions were surely expanded or altered by other more pertinent, more trenchant ones. I was now aware not so much of these first-glimpsed things, things which might occur to a stranger looking casually upon him for the first time, from a distance, as other things, things which become much clearer with closeness, closeness such as when one might be kneeling, naked before him, so close he could reach out and touch you, a sense of intelligence, and power, and perception, such that one felt he could look through you, and see what was within you, anything, and uncompromising mastery, and perhaps mercilessness. The most obvious thing about him, of course, now, from my point of view, was that he owned me, that he was my master.
"But you are not so frightened now," he said.
"No," I said.
"Why?" he asked.
"The sale is over," I said. "I know that I am now a sold slave. That is behind me. I have been summoned into the presence of my master. In this he has honored me, for he has many girls. He has been kind enough to express his satisfaction with trivialities of his slave, that she has a beautiful face and form, and his belief that I may perhaps prove to be pleasing in more significant manners. Too, he has informed me that my tongue work upon his feet has not been entirely displeasing."
"For a slave new to her collar," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. "Of course, Maser. Thank you, Master." "I think you were not too pleased to have been purchased by me," he said. I was silent.
"Perhaps you find me gross," he said, "even hideous?"
I was silent.
"Some women do," he said.
I did not speak.
"It is amusing then to me, sometimes," he said, "to abuse them, and make them, despite their will, cry out for my touch."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It pleases me to have them crawling on me on their belly, begging piteously to be used."
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Perhaps you find me gross and loathsome," he speculated.
I trembled, head down.
"But is doesn" t matter," he said. "You are my slave."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And at so much as the snapping of my fingers, you will bring yourself running to me, obediently and warmly, desperate to please me."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"But there is time enough for such things," he said.
I was silent.
"I was not displeased that your performance on the block was as ambiguous as it was, toward the end of your sale," he said.
"Master?" I asked.
"A kajira is occasionally entitled to terror," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said, hesitantly.
"And it perhaps confused certain buyers," he said, "inhibiting them from submitting higher bids. I turned it thus to my profit."
I kept my eyes down.
"Come closer," he said.
I did so, on my knees, "Ohh," I said, touched by him. I leaned forward, tears in my eyes, pressing myself toward him, gross as he might be, my hands on the sides of the great chair in which he sat. I put my head down on his left knee. "I thought so," he said. "Look up. Look into my eyes."
I did so, frightened.
"Yes," he said, looking into my eyes. "You are a slave. That is all you are." "Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Kneel back," he said.
I knelt then, tears in my eyes.
"Keep your knees open," he said.
"Oh, please, Master!" I begged.
His eyes were stern.
Immediately I open my knees, widely, as was appropriate for the type of slave I was, a pleasure slave.
"One might think almost," he said, musingly, "that you are not a virgin. It is interesting to speculate what you will be like when you have been adequately opened and regularly utilized."
I kept my head down.
"It will probably not even be necessary to encourage you with the whip," he said.
I did not dare to speak.
"But the whip will be always there, should you require refreshening on your status, or become to any degree less then perfectly pleasing," he said. "Yes, Master," I said.
"You may have fooled others in your terror," he said, "but you did not fool me." "Master?" I asked "Beneath the terror," he said, "I saw the beauty, and the slave." I did not speak.
"I saw, too," he said, "the dancer, particularly in your transitions between the attitudes commanded of you in the slave paces. I knew then you were either a dancer, or had the makings of a dancer. Too, of course, your response to the slaver" s caress, later, was indicative. That, of course, would have been obvious even to a tharlarion."
"Yes, Master," I whispered, head down.
"But it was, of course," he said, "for you, a very poor, or limited, response, certainly one far below what might ordinarily have been expected from one with your sensitivity levels."
I looked up at him, startled. How could he have known that?
"To a discerning eye," he smiled, "it was evident, in your subsequent movements, and certain tiny, fleeting expressions, though these were subtle things, as you were inwardly relieved, pleased at how well hidden, you thought, remained the real depth and urgency of your needs."
I regarded him with horror.
"We are not going to have any secrets between us, are we?" he asked. "No, Master!" I said, frightened. Before him I realized that it might be not only my body which was naked, but my mind and heart as well. I felt utterly exposed before this man, as only a slave can feel exposed to her master. "Do not be frightened," he said.
I trembled, uncontrollably. Too, I remembered his touch.
"In a man" s arms," he said, "you are the sort of woman who is so much alive, that you will be splendidly, utterly helpless."
I sobbed, shuddering naked, in my collar before him.
"Do you think you will like Brundisium?" he asked.
"I think so, Master," I whispered. I understood that Brundisium was one of the largest and busiest ports of this world. It was a commercial metropolis of sorts. I remembered in the slave wagon that several of the girls had hoped, desperately, not to be taken from this place. They had hoped fervently, it seemed, to wear their collars here. Ironically, it had been I, purchased in Market of Semris, a barbarian, who had been brought back to Brundisium. Many of my chain sisters, surely, would have envied me my good fortune. I was pleased enough to be here, from what I knew. Too, the city had seemed colorful and exciting to me, in my glimpses from the slave wagon. To be sure, at least one district through which we had passed in the wagon was still black with the residues of a great fire, one which had reportedly taken place in Se" Kara, some months ago. If I were never permitted outside the precincts of the tavern, of course, as I had not yet been, I did not think I would much enjoy the city. I had hopes, however, that I might, as several of the girls were now, eventually be granted such a lovely liberty. In such a matter, of course, the masters take little, if any, risk. The girls are collared and branded so there is never any doubt about what they are or where they belong. Too, in Brundisium, as with most Gorean cities, kajirae are not allowed outside the city gates unless in the keeping of a free person. In these peregrinations about the city, of course, the girls were sometimes expected to wear their master" s advertising on their tunics.