"Rise, Jason," said my mistress.
I rose to my feet. I reached to my tunic, to discard it. "Shall I take my place on your couch, Mistress?" I asked. I glanced at the broad, furred couch, and the cunning chains upon it, which had so often confined me for her pleasure.
"No," she said. I could not read her expression. Standing, of course, I towered over her. I dropped my hands, leaving the tunic alone.
"Jason," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
She turned away from me, and went out onto the balcony. The three moons were now high. We could hear insects in the hedged gardens beneath and beyond the balcony. We could see the lights of Venna, too. The baths were still open. The house of the Mistress was in the Telluria section, which is in the northwest part of the city, on a hill. It is the preferred residential section of Venna. The house, situated as it was, provided us with a lovely panorama of the small city.
"Jason," she said, not looking back, "come with me out upon the balcony."
I joined her on the balcony, near the balustrade.
"I am very rich, Jason," she said, "but, too, I am very lonely. Too, I am restless. I do not know why."
I did not speak. Mistresses, I knew, often spoke intimately to their silk slaves.
"I am certain that there are needs in me, longings," she said, "which are not satisfied."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"But I do not know, truly, what they are," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"I know only that I am desperately unhappy," she said.
"I am sorry, Mistress," I said.
"I saw the coupling of sleen today," she said. "The female fought. Then the male seized her by the throat with his fangs. She became immediately docile. Soon she writhed in heat. I have seen the male urt drive his female into a corner, whence soon she squeals with pleasure. The female larl, her flanks bleeding, yields to the male, after which she bears his young and hunts for him. The verr and bosk select out the females that please them and herd them to the place of their choice." She looked out, bitterly, over the gardens. "In all these relationships," she said, "it is the male, always the male, who is master. And the females, disgustingly, do not seem discontent. What is the meaning of it?"
"I do not know, Mistress," I said.
"Today," she said, "I saw slave girls, meaningless sluts in collars, with scarcely a rag to cover their nakedness. They seemed joyful and happy! What is the meaning of it?"
"I do not know, Mistress," I said.
"Nor I," she said, bitterly. She looked out over the gardens. "They are slave, and are happy," she said. "I am free, and am unhappy. I do not understand it."
I said nothing.
"No one is concerned to make them happy," she said. "It is they who must make others happy. It is they who must yield, and obey, and serve, and love and be pleasing."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"So why, then," she asked, "should they be happy, and I not?"
"I do not know, Mistress," I said.
"I am advised, Jason," she said, "by certain of my friends to accept a companion."
"I did not know that," I said.
"Many men, young and rich, have desired to become my companion. Such matches, in many cases, would profitably increase our common holdings. Yet I have until now, at least, turned them all away. I have remained independent."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"I have seen many companionships," she said. "Yet more often than not I have seen the male companion keep sluts of slave girls on the side, and, I think, it is only those sluts he cares for." Her voice was bitter. "Why," she asked, "should a man forsake a noble companion, serene and beautiful, independent and regal, for a slut in a steel collar who will crawl to his feet and beg to lick them with her tongue?"
I did not speak.
"Beast!" she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"How I hate men!" she cried.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Yet," she said, "they stir me. Oh, I do not mean you, Jason, a silk slave, but true men."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
She continued to look out over the gardens. "They disturb me," she said. "They make me uneasy"
I said nothing.
"I am curious about them," she said. "I wonder, sometimes, what it would be like to be naked in their arms."
I did not speak.
"I have never been in the arms of a man, Jason," she said. This did not, truly, surprise me. She had used me many times, of course, but she had never permitted me to hold her in my arms. I had, of course, under her direction, kissed, licked and caressed her. I had given her much pleasure but she, a woman of lofty position, of high social station, rich and free, had never let me hold her. It had been one of the enraging frustrations of my slavery that I had never been permitted, truly, to hold a woman and subject her to my will. The only girl I had truly had on Gor was a slave who had been leashed to a ring outside the shop of Philebus in Ar. It had been a joy to have her. I did not even know her name, or master, nor had she known my name or the name of my Mistress. We had been only two slaves, one leashed and tied, coupling in the shadow of a slave ring on a hot day in Ar.
She turned about, suddenly, and faced me. "Take me in your arms, Jason," she said.
I took her, suddenly, in my arms, and began to press kisses about her throat. "No," she whispered. "Oh," she cried. The gown lay about her ankles. "Jason," she said. I lifted her, naked, from her feet and carried her toward the couch. Her, weight was nothing for me. Her hands were behind my neck. She kissed me under the neck, then she turned her head away, horrified that she had put her lips to the body of a slave. I stopped before I reached the couch. She looked up at me. She kissed me on the chest. "No, no," she said, weeping. But I carried her then again toward the couch. "No," she said. I placed her on the couch. I sat beside her. I then pulled her by the arms into a sitting position, and held her. "No," she said. "No!" My arms tightened on her. She struggled, but could not begin to free herself. "Is this what it is to be in the arms of a man?" she asked, weeping. "This is only the beginning of what it is to be in the arms of a man," I told her. "You're holding me too tightly," she said. "You are hurting me!" "Oh!" she cried, as my grip tightened yet more upon her. I then pressed her to her back on the deep furs of the couch. She looked up at me, wildly. I lowered my head toward her small, fair mouth. "Stop, Slave!" she cried. "Stop!"
I released her, and stood up. She knelt on the couch, trembling wildly, crying. She pointed at me. "Get out!" she cried. "Get out!"
I left her chamber.
"I will have you beaten!" she cried after me. "I will have you beaten!"
15 I AM BEATEN; THE MISTRESS SPEAKS WITH ME
I stood below the whipping ring, my wrists crossed and tied over my head.
I jerked under the second blow of the snake. I did not cry out. Present were only two keepers, one of whom wielded the whip, and the Lady Florence.