Then I rose, unsteadily, to my feet. I backed away from him.
“There is no escape fro you,” he said.
I felt the wall behind me.
“It was for this purpose,” I asked, “ that you had me at your feet, begging use?”
“I have wanted you there, begging use,” he said, “ for a long time.”
“I had thought,” I said, “that when you had come here, looking for me, that you might care for me.”
“I hate you,” he said.
“Or,” I said, “that even if you hated me, that you wanted me, that you desired me, that you would have me at your feet, helplessly subject in all things to your imperious will.”
“You may scream, if you wish,” he said, “but it will not be heard. You may run about, if you wish, but it will do you no good.”
I regarded him, in misery.
‘Kneel here,” he said, pointing to a place at his feet.
Obediently, helplessly, I approached him, and cold and numb, knelt before him.
“Put your head back,” he said.
I did so.
“Farther,” he said.
I complied.
I felt his head in my hair, holding my head back, painfully. I saw the movement of his arm. Then I saw the blade, removed from his sheath, held before my face. I recalled how easily it had parted the cords on my ankles.
“Do you wish to say anything?” he asked.
“You are my master,” I said. “I love you.”
“You lie to the end,” he said.
“I do not like to my master,” I said.
I felt his hand tighten in my hair. My head was pulled back, farther. I heard the blade touch the collar, beneath it. Then I felt its edge, like a fine, hard line, at my throat. I closed my eyes.
He suddenly cried out in rage and drew the knife away.
He leaped to his feet and, in fury, fled to the other side of the room. He threw down the knife. He struck the wall with his fists.
I collapsed to the stones, scarcely believing myself alive.
“How absurd,” he cried, in anger, “to love a slave!”
“Master?” I said.
He spun about. “Yes!” he cried. “I love you, you worthless slut, you meaningless thing! I have loved you, madly, insanely, uncontrollably, recklessly, violently, from the first moment I saw you!”
“Master,” I breathed, unable to believe my ears.
“Yes!” cried he. “Call me ‘Master’! It is fitting, for you are a slave, and will never be other than that!”
“Yes, Master!” I said.
“You are no more than a branded slut, no more than meaningless, worthless collar meat!” he cried.
“Yes, Master!” I cried.
“You are unworthy to be a free woman!”
“I hope so, Master,” I said.
“What?” he cried.
“-I hope so, Master,” I whispered.
“Slave!” he sneered.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “It is true. That is what I am.”
“Disgusting!” he said.
“No!” I cried. “No!”
“Do you dare speak back to me?” he cried.
“With master’s permission!” I cried.
“You will never be a free woman!” he said.
“Nor do I wish to be a free woman!” I said. “I have been free! I know what it is like! I am content to be a slave, and wish to be a slave! I am fulfilled in bondage, in ways that you, a man, or some men, may never understand! Oh, yes, you enslave us for your gratifications and pleasures, you monsters, you beasts! But what you do not know is that we love our bonds, and our belonging, and our being owned, and being helplessly subject to the magnificence, the glories, even to the whip, of your total, uncompromised mastery of us! Do you not know we want men to be strong, and our masters? Let the twisted and hormonally deficient conceal their seekings of power under the pratings of rhetorics. Let others of us who long to love and serve, and obey, and be desired, dream of masters! — yes, masters! — our masters!”
He looked down upon me, and I realized that these things to him, a man of Gor, were not that strange.
He was not a stranger to the nature of females.
“I am a slave,” I whispered.
“It is well known to me that you are a slave-legally,” he said. “I can see your collar, the brand.”
“It is more than that,” I wept. “I am a slave inwardly, in my need, and in my love, and in my nature! It is what I am! Despise me for it, if you wish! I am a natural slave, a rightful slave, and here, on this world, in my collar, I have found myself at last! Hate me! Hold me in contempt! But I am a slave, and I love being a slave! I love it! I love it! Do not try to force me to be what you want me to be! Rather accept me for what I want to be, and am! — one who knows she belongs at the feet of men! — and desires to be at the feet of men! — their slave! — their loving slave!”
“I do not understand myself,” he said.
“Master?”
“How could I care for you?”
“It is my hope that you do, at least a little my master.”
“You are no more than an Earth slut, a barbarian!”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master!”
“The lowest of the low,” said he.
“Yes, Master,” I said, “Forgive me, Master!”
“You are not even of Gor!” he cried.
“I have been brought to Gor,” I said. “I have been collared here, and made a salve here! Surely now I am of Gor! How could I be more of Gor, than as a Gorean slave girl, hoping like other Gorean slave girls to be found pleasing by her master?”
“You have a beautiful face,” he said, “perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen, and you have a quick wit, and a luscious feminine mind, and superb slave curves, a body that drives me man with desire, and your responses would shame those of a she-sleen in heat.”
“It seems the slavers knew their business, Master,” I smiled.
“We do,” he said, “slave.”
“Do not treat me as might a man of Earth a woman of Earth,” I begged. “Treat me rather as a man of Gor a woman whom he owns-one whom he will well master.”
He glared down at me.
“Please take me not as you would have me, but as I am.”
“You are a slave,” he said.
“And I rejoice that I am, Master.”
“Slut,” he said.
“forgive me my slavery,” I said. “I am a woman!”
“How I have fought my weakness, my loving you!” he exclaimed. “I put you from me. I avoided you. I held you in contempt. I abused you. I kept you at a distance. I treated you with coldness and cruelty! But each instant I was fighting myself, wanting to seize you, to sweep you into my arms, to crush you to me!”
The room seemed to rush about me. It grew dark for a moment. I gasped for breath. I feared I might lose consciousness.
“Yes,” he cried. “I love you!”
I fought to remain conscious. Then, again, I was fully conscious. I regarded him, he in such misery, such torment, across the room.
“I must not love you!” he cried. “I must not permit myself to do so!”
I struggled to my knees.
I was in the presence of a free man, indeed, of my master.
He looked at me, wildly.
“But I cannot help myself,” he said. “I love you!”
“You gave no sign of this, Master,” I said.
“I do not know whether I hate myself or you,” he said, “or both, I for my weakness, you for having done this to me, and for being the most exciting and desirable female in all the world!”
“Master finds me of interest?” I asked.
“To see you is to want you!” he said, in fury.
He turned about, again, and again struck the wall. “I must not love you,” he cried.
“Surely some men, Master,” I said, “love their slaves!”
“You are a mere collared barbarian!” he said.
“Yes Master,” I said.
He spun about, in fury. “And in hating you, and loving you,” he said, “I sensed the role you had to play, and the dangers which might attend upon it. I knew that those in the house, of those of Cos, might be among the very few who could recognize you again. I therefore guarded my feelings, confessing to no one the torment in my heart, occasioned by a mere branded slip of a slave. Thus it was that in recruiting one to seek you out and cut your throat it was I who came first, and naturally, to the attention of my superiors, they aware of my hatred for you, my loathing for you, but not of my lust for you, my unquenchable desire for you. Indeed, other guards declined the office, unwilling to hunt you down and cut your throat, which says much for your popularity, you rampant, exquisite, arrant little charmer.”