"What is the common purpose of a collar?"
"The collar has four common purposes, Master," she said. "First, it visibly designates me as a slave, as a brand might not, if it should be covered by clothing. Second, it impresses my slavery upon me. Thirdly, it identifies my master. Fourthly-fourthly-"
"Fourthly?" he asked.
"Fourthly," she said, "it makes it easier to leash me."
He kicked her in the side. She winced. Her response had been slow.
"Do you like being a slave girl?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. She sobbed. She was again kicked.
"Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" she cried.
"What does a slave girl want more than anything?" he asked.
"To please men," she said.
"What are you?" he asked.
"A slave girl," she said.
"What do you want more than anything?" he asked.
"To please men!" she cried.
"Nadu!" he cried, loosening the whip coils on her throat.
She swiftly knelt, back on her heels, back straight, head high, hands on her thighs, knees wide.
He then left her again, and she remained kneeling. She moved no muscle.
"Is she more pretty than I, Master?" asked Sasi.
"Your beauties are quite different," I said. "I think you are both quite pretty. I think you will both make superb little slaves."
"Oh," said Sasi.
An additional utility of the collar, though it did not count as one of its four common purposes, was that it made it easier to put the girl in various ties. For example, one can use it to tie her hands before her throat, or at the sides or back of her neck. One can use it with, say, rope or chain, to fasten girls together. One can tie her feet to her collar, and so on. If the feet are tied to the collar the knot is always in the front, so that the pressure will be against the back of the girl's neck and not the front. The purpose of such a tie is to hold the slave, not choke her. Gorean men are not clumsy in their binding of women.
I looked at the kneeling, blond-haired girl. How miserable, superficially, she seemed in her slavery. I supposed that if she were asked, outside the context of training, where certain answers are prescribed, if she liked being a slave girl, she would have denied it vehemently, perhaps with tears. Doubtless she would have begged piteously for her freedom. Yet I recalled that when her trainer, Shoka of Schendi, had flung her to his feet by the whip coils on her neck she had fallen in a certain way, and had lain at his feet in a certain fashion. I recalled the position of her wrists and palms, and the look in her eyes, as she had looked up at him. Her hip had been turned. Both legs had been drawn back, but one more than the other. Her toes had been pointed, accentuating the turn of her calf. She had not fallen clumsily. She had not lain clumsily at his feet. She had lain at his feet, and looked at him, as a slave. She had not been trained to do that. I did not even think she was aware of this sort of thing.
"Do you like me, Master?" asked Sasi.
"Yes," I said, "particularly since you have had a bath."
"Oh, Master," she said.
I had scrubbed her the first day out from Port Kar, she kneeling in a tub, with sea water and a deck brush.
"What was the last time you had a bath?" I asked her.
"A girl pushed me in the South canal a year ago," she said.
"I see," I said.
"Is Master fastidious?" she asked.
"Not particularly," I said, "but I will expect you to keep yourself reasonably clean from now on. You are no longer a free woman."
"No, Master," she said.
"You are now a slave girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She knew that slave girls must be attentive to matters of appearance, health, cleanliness and hygiene. They are no longer free women.
Yesterday the blond-haired girl had been permitted to walk about the deck. I had stopped near her and she had, immediately, knelt, for she was in the presence of a free man. I had walked slowly about her. She was very nice. I had then stood before her, and she had, suddenly, dropped her eyes. I saw a tiny movement in her hands, on her thighs, as though she would turn them, exposing the palms to me, but then she pressed them down her thighs, hard. I crouched beside her. Then I smiled. I smelled slave heat. Then I got up and went about my business. I saw her later leaning against the main mast. Later I looked at it, and saw that she had made marks in it with her nails.
"I myself prefer the training of the furs," said Sasi, biting again into the larma fruit.
The blond-haired girl still knelt in the position of the pleasure slave. For the time her trainer had forgotten about her.
"You just do not like being struck with the whip," I told her.
"Perhaps that is it," she laughed. "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"If I am good, you will not whip me, will you?" she asked.
"I might," I said.
"Oh," she said.
Sometimes I had had Sasi train with the blond-haired girl, but generally I did not. Ulafi had no objection to her sharing the barbarian's training. Indeed, he had even suggested the arrangement. Graciously he had made no charge for this. On the other hand I had not charged him for the instruction which Sasi was giving the blond barbarian in Gorean. Our arrangement, thus, though tacit, was a tidy one.
Sasi, Gorean, even in the collar a few days, was already far beyond the blond-haired barbarian. It was for this reason that I had had her seldom train with the barbarian. There had simply not been much point to it. The barbarian still needed the simplest and most elementary lessons of slave training.
Shoka, recollecting her, had now returned to the vicinity of the blond-haired barbarian. She did not know he was behind her. "Bara!" he called. "Sula! Nadu! Lesha! Sula! Bara! Nadu!" Instantaneously she performed. Then she was again kneeling, as before.
"Not bad," said Sasi, chewing on the larma.
"Yes," I said. Though Sasi was well advanced beyond the blond barbarian, I suspected that the blond barbarian, moving slowly at first, might in time catch up with her, and perhaps even surpass her. The blond barbarian, I suspected, had unusual slave potential.
Shoka then, without warning, struck her with his whip. She did not break position, but she gasped. Her face was startled, her eyes were wild. She did not know why she had been struck. In a sense there had been no reason. One does not need a reason to strike a slave. But in another sense, in the training situation, there had been a reason, that she was subject to discipline, and that it could be meted out by the master purely at his whim or caprice. She tensed. She did not know, Shoka behind her, if she would be struck again.
But Shoka took her by the hair and, she, pulled to her feet, bent over, was conducted to her cage. There he released her and she fell to her hands and knees, to crawl into the cage, to be locked within.
"May I speak, Master?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Why was I struck?" she asked.
"Kiss my feet," he said.
She did so.
Then she looked up at him.
"It pleased me," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Into the cage, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
In a moment she had been locked within. I saw her looking after him. Then she looked at me, too, and then she looked down. I saw her lie on her side in the cage, her legs drawn up. The cage is very tiny.
I looked out, over the rail. There were white clouds in the sky, and the sky was very blue. We would make Schendi, if the winds held, in four days.
"Master," said Sasi.
"Yes," I said. I turned to look at her.
She looked up at me. She smiled. "If I get to be good," she said, "may I have a garment?"
"Perhaps," I said.
"I think I would like a garment," she said, chewing on the larma fruit.
"It would give me something to tear off you," I admitted.
She looked up at me, smiling.
"The collar looks well on you, Sasi," I said. "You could have been born in a collar."