She moved away from me, and turned before me. "Am I pretty in your chain?" she asked.
I wanted to scream with pleasure, the little she-sleen! How well the little beast knew what she was doing! What a slave she was.
"I see that you think I would bring a good price," she said.
I clenched my fists.
"You do find me quite attractive, you know," she said.
I said nothing.
"Masters find it so difficult to conceal their desire," she laughed.
I said nothing.
"I am helpless, you know," she said, trying to pull her wrists apart.
"I know," I said.
"May I approach Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She came and stood quite close to me, within the circle of my space, close, as a slave may stand to her master. Her nearness was almost overwhelming. I thrust her back. She regarded me, amused, observing me scrutinizing her bared beauty. She knew I owned it.
"Doubtless I am now to be unchained," she said, "that I may attend to my domestic labors, clearing the table, and such, but then, perhaps, it was not for that reason that Master chained me so helplessly. Perhaps he has other plans in mind for me. I know that he need not reveal to me his intentions with respect to me, but, naturally, I am curious."
"Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira," I said.
"Granted, Master," she said, "but, as you must understand, in certain situations, as when a woman finds herself naked and chained before a man, a certain amount of curiosity on her part regarding her fate is almost unavoidable."
"I think it is time to throw you in your kennel," I said. "There you may ponder your cleverness." I seized her angrily by the arm and pulled her, stumbling, toward her kennel. "No, Master!" she cried. "Please, no!"
In moments I had thrust her into the low, cement, steel barred kennel. She scrambled about, on her knees, on the blanket on the cement floor, her hands chained behind her, to face outward, just as the steel-barred gate clanged down, locking, in front of her. I saw the shadows of the bars on her face and body. She thrust her face, and beauty, against the bars. "Please, Master," she begged, "don't kennel me!"
"Why not?" I asked.
She regarded me, through the bars, her face pressed close against them. She was on her knees. A girl cannot stand in the kennel. Its low ceiling, about four feet in height, does not permit it. She drew back, slightly, from the bars. "The kennel is cold, and hard," she said.
I turned away.
"Master," she cried, "please don't go!"
I turned again, to face her.
"I will try to be a good slave," she said, "humble, docile, loving and obedient."
Again I turned from her.
"Master," she cried, "let me beg for what I want!"
I turned to face her.
"Let me beg on my belly for what I want!" she said, her face pressed against the bars, tears in her eyes.
I went to the gate of the kennel and unlocked it, and flung it upwards, and stepped back.
The slave then, on her belly, squirmed forth from the kennel. I stepped back five paces, that she must follow me. Then she lay before me, submitting and prone, on the tiles.
"Did you wish to speak?" I asked her.
She lifted her head. "I beg your touch, Master," she said.
I looked down upon her. The depth, extent and distribution of sexually active areas on the female body is, of course, considerable. Indeed, in sexual arousal, her entire body can become sensitized, and, so to speak, sexually vulnerable and flammable. Her sexual response can become one of the entire squirming, yielding, overwhelmed organism. When a woman yields it is all of her that yields.
Her response, of course, is far more than crudely physical. It constitutes a psychophysiological ecstasy, a rhapsody of being owned and had. Her sexual response, thus, is far more than a simplistic response to physical stimuli. It is a function of an entire situation and condition. It is thus, perhaps, that the female slave, knowing herself slave and owned, attains sexual heights and depths, orgasms and totalities of response, forever denied, in the nature of things, to her ignorant sisters, cool and inhibited, smug in their prides and freedoms.
The slave girl, in effect, is the woman in her place in nature. It is there, in her own place and world, and there only, that she can attain her biological destiny, that she can find her total female fulfillment. Free, she is enslaved, the prisoner of inhibitions, artifices and conventions; enslaved, she is free, liberated to the self-fulfillment of her deepest nature. Free, she is enslaved; enslaved, she is free. That is the paradox of the collar.
"I am the only woman in the house, Master," said the slave.
I did not speak.
"Do not lock my softness away from you tonight, in the kennel," she begged. "Let it be near to you."
"Do you have sexual needs?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do you want them satisfied?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do you confess yourself to be a lowly and passionate slave?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I am a lowly and passionate slave."
"One who is eager to please her Master?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I looked down at her, on her belly, her small hands chained behind her. The passions of the female slave are a mystery to many free women who, unaroused and sexually inert, never collared and owned, cannot even understand them; to most free women, of course, the passions of the female slave are not so much a mystery as a source of envy and fury; she senses that they, deep and precious, making the slave so helpless and vulnerable, are far beyond anything which she herself possesses. Sometimes, perhaps, twisting on her couch at night in frustration, the free woman may dimly sense what it is to be an aroused slave, a woman so much at the mercy of men, and so precious and beautiful to them; the free woman clenches her fists and moans; the slave may throw herself to the feet of men and beg to please them, as she cannot.
"Master, Master," whimpered the small slave, lying before me.
I looked down at her. Her passions had been well ignited. This had been done, doubtless, by her condition, and by masters. She was a slave.
"Do not kennel me, Master," she begged. "Sleep me at your slave ring."
I smiled. The girl whom I had known on Earth, now my nameless slave on Gor, had begged to be slept at my slave ring.
"Chain me by the neck at the foot of your couch, my Master," she begged, "as you might a slut or a she-sleen. You need not even touch me. It will be enough for me, if I am merely allowed to lie near you."
"On your feet," I told her.
Swiftly she scrambled to her feet and stood before me. I looked at her, and she, swiftly, deferentially, put down her head. "Now you are beginning to be pleasing," I told her.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
I touched the side of her face, gently. She lifted her head. "Perhaps I will deign to touch you," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she whispered.
"Strip me," I said.
"But I am chained!" she cried, trying, futilely, to pull her wrists apart.
I smiled.
"Forgive me, Master," she laughed. "I am such a stupid slave!"
Then she fell to her knees before me and, with her teeth, untied the sandals and removed them from my feet. She then stood, and, bending over, her hands helplessly chained behind her, bit and pulled at the knot in the cord that belted my tunic. When she had freed this knot she went behind me, first to my left shoulder, and then to my right shoulder, and, with her small, fine teeth, drew the tunic from my body.