She turned white. "No, Master," she said. She then approached me, and stood quite closely before me. She had not been taught to stand this closely before me. She knew, instinctively, in the circumstances, where she would stand. This pleased me for it indicated, whether she knew it or not, that she was a natural slave. This distance, of course, was not cultural for her. She came from a culture which requires a significant distance, usually a yard or more, between male speakers and as much, or more, between speakers of the opposite sex. Yet she knew readily, or instinctively, or intuitively, or naturally, or somehow, that she should be, in these circumstances, standing as she was before me, at a distance where I might, if I wished, without inconvenience, simply take her in my arms.
She looked up at me. "Master?" she asked.
The Gorean slave girl, incidentally, will space herself from her master quite differently in different situations. For example, if she is somewhat farther away, it is easier for her to display herself in all her beauty; if she wishes to wheedle for his caress she may approach quite closely; if she is receiving instructions she may kneel a few feet away; if she is begging to serve his pleasure she may kneel at his feet, perhaps kissing them, and holding his ankles; obviously, too, a girl who fears she is to be disciplined will commonly hang back; sometimes, too, a girl will fear to approach too closely until the master, by an expression or small sign, indicates that she is not in obvious disfavor and may do so.
I took the head of the blond-haired barbarian in my hands and looked at her. She lowered her eyes. How magnificent it is to own a woman! What can compare with it?
I turned her head, from side to side. How exciting were the earrings, penetrating the soft flesh of her ear lobes. I looked at the tiny wires vanishing in the minute punctures and then emerging, looping her ears, as though in a slave bond, making them the mounting places from which, thus fastened upon her, by my will, dangled two golden rings, barbaric ornaments enhancing the beauty of a slave. I smiled to myself. On Earth I had thought little of earrings. Yet now, in the Gorean setting, how exquisite and exciting they suddenly seemed. Perhaps then, for the first time, I truly began to sense how the Gorean views such things. Surely these things are symbolic as well as beautiful. The girl's lovely ears have been literally pierced; the penetrability of her sweet flesh is thus brazenly advertised upon her very body, a proclamation of her ready vulnerability, in incitement to male rapine. And when she wears the earrings, he can see the metal disappearing in the softness of her ear, literally fixed within it. Her flesh is doubly penetrated, her softness about the intruding metal, before his very eyes. The wire loop, too, or rod, when it emerges from the ear and, by one device or another, fastens the ring upon her, may suggest her bondage. Too, if the ring itself is closed, perhaps it suggests her susceptibility to the locked shackle, say, a wrist ring or slave bracelet; would there not, in the two rings, be one, so to speak, for each wrist? It is little wonder that Gorean free women never pierce their ears; it is little wonder that, in the beginning, it was only the lowest and most exciting of pleasure slaves who had their ears pierced; now, however, it is not uncommon on Gor for almost any pleasure slave to have her ears pierced; the custom of piercing the ears of a slave has now become relatively widespread: it has been done in Turia, of course, for generations. Too, of course, the ring is an obvious ornament. The girl placed in it has thus been ornamented. Ornamentation is not inappropriate in a slave. Lastly, the ring is beautiful. Thus it makes the slave more beautiful.
I held her head still, and lifted it, that it might face me. She opened her eyes, looking up at me. "Master?" she asked.
I looked down at her.
"You are a legal slave," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"But what you do not yet know," I said, "is that you are also a true slave, a natural slave."
"I come from a world," she said, "where women are not slaves."
"Is that the world called 'Earth'?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I have heard," I said, "that on that world women are piteous slaves, only they lack masters."
"That lack," she said, "in my case, on this world, will surely be made up."
"Yes," I said.
I released her head and held her, then, by the upper arms.
"I will obey you," she said, softly. "I will do anything, and everything, that you might want."
"That is known to me," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, tossing her head, a bit irritably.
"Would you like to be made more beautiful?" I asked.
"Of course," she said, lightly, "if it is my master's wish."
I then released her, and she stood there.
I went to the side of the room and picked up my sea bag. I threw it to the center of the room. She looked down at it, puzzled. It was of heavy blue material, canvas, and tied with a white rope.
"Lie down upon it," I told her, "on your back, your head to the floor."
She did so.
"No, please," she said, "not like this." It is a common position for a disciplinary slave rape. In it the woman feels very vulnerable, very helpless.
I then took her.
"No," she wept, in English, "have you no respect for my feelings? Am I nothing to you?"
I stood up. I had, by intent, given her no time to respond, other than as a brutalized slave, no time to feel, other than as a girl unilaterally subjected to her master's pleasure. She looked up at me, miserably.
"Crawl now to the mirror," I told her, "on your hands and knees, and regard yourself."
Miserable, she did so, her hair falling before her face, trembling, her sweet breasts pendant. She lifted her head, and gasped, looking in the mirror.
"Do you see?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, and then wept, her head down.
"Lift your head again," I said, "and again look."
She did so.
"Do you see?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, weeping, "the slave is more beautiful than before." She then put down her head again, crying.
"Crawl now to the straw, by the slave ring," I told her. "Lie down there, drawing your legs up."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then went to her, with a blanket, and threw it over her, but not yet covering her head.
She looked up at me, so vulnerable and delicate, so helpless and frightened. "I am more beautiful now," she said. "But how? How could it be?"
"It is the result of an inward change in you," I said, "outwardly manifested in expression and bodily mien."
"But what?" she asked.
"Speak your feelings," I told her.
"Never before," she said, "did I feel so helplessly owned."
"That has something to do with it," I told her.
"You subjected me so casually, so forcibly, to your will," she said.
"That, too, has something to do with it," I told her.
"You are my Master, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You can do with me whatever you want, can't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"And you will, won't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I love being owned," she said, suddenly.
"Of course," I said, "you are a woman."
"If a woman loves being owned," she said, "must she not be a natural slave?"
"Answer your own question," I told her. "You are the woman."
"I dare not answer it," she whispered.
"Do so," I told her.
"Yes," she whispered, frightened, "she must be a natural slave."
"And you are a woman," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Draw your conclusion," I told her, "out loud."
"I am a natural slave, Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
She looked up at me. "Never, never did I think I would admit that in my life," she said.