“Unhappy with themselves, without masters,” he said, “they became careless, and soon found themselves kneeling naked before men, with the collars for which they had hoped fastened on their necks.”
“And what of you, Master?” I asked.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“You may have labored in the tasks of the Slavers for the pleasantries of the merchandise, but I think there was more involved, for you seem now to be thinking of dealing with other goods. Indeed, I suspect I know why you followed the Slavers’ trade, a dangerous trade surely, with its alarming hazards, and even to another world.”
“Oh?” he said.
“You were looking for a particular slave, your slave,” I said.
“And you think I have now found her?” he said.
“It is my hope that you have done so,” I said.
“I have owned several women,” he said. “What of Asperiche?”
“She is a beauty,” I said.
“Far more so than you,” he snapped.
“Doubtless,” I said. “Why then did you let her go, and keep Laura?”
“She-tarsk,” he snarled.
“Asperiche is lovely,” I said. “But I think you would rather have Laura, not Asperiche, for whatever reason, if the choice were to be made, crawling naked through the leaves, begging for your touch.”
“You should be lashed,” he said, angrily.
“Master may do with me as he pleases,” I said. “I am his slave.”
“You are a worthless she-tarsk,” he said. “You are of no interest. You are nothing!”
“I have some finite value,” I said, “even in silver. And I find it hard to believe that I am of no interest to Master, who pursued me even from Brundisium, and risked much to follow me in the forest, even on the brink of the great ship’s departure.”
“You are nothing!” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said, “as I am a slave.”
“You are a homely she-tarsk!” he said.
“I am a beautiful slave, Master,” I said. “I know that now. And I know I have become more beautiful in the collar, as I have found myself as a woman, and slave. I have seen the eyes of men on me. Do you think a slave does not know when men ache to have her in their arms? I am nothing for you to be ashamed of. I know I am beautiful.”
“Yes, you slut,” he cried, leaping to his feet, “you are beautiful!”
“A slave is pleased,” I said, “if her master finds her pleasing.”
“You are the most exciting and beautiful woman I have ever seen!” he cried, enraged. “From the first moment I saw you I wanted you as you are now, naked, on my chain, possessed, mine, my property, my slave!”
“I waited years for you!” I wept.
“And I years for you!” he said, angrily.
“Do not be angry with your slave,” I said. “She is wholly at your mercy. She is yours.”
“I must hate you!” he cried.
“No!” I cried. “Love me!”
“Love?” he said. “For a slave!”
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
He seemed beside himself with fury. He strode to his pack, tore it open, and drew forth the whip, shaking its blades free.
“I love you, Master!” I said. “Please do not beat me!”
He held the whip, two hands on the staff.
“May not even a she-sleen love her master?” I said.
He lowered the whip, and turned abruptly away. He replaced the whip in his pack, seized up his blankets and drew them to the side. He then drew them angrily about himself, and lay down. I tried to crawl to him, but the impediment on my ankle prevented this. I reached out, agonizingly, across the leaves, toward him, but could not reach him.
“Please forgive Laura, Master,” I wept. “Let his slave please him.”
“I will sell you in Victoria,” he said.
In the damp, cold morning, north of the Laurius, the turning leaves overhead, I awakened, and found myself warm, covered with his blanket.
“Master,” I said.
He was leaning over me. I reached up, and put my arms about him.
“I have decided not to sell you in Victoria,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“It would be a bother to have to buy you back,” he said.
“A slave begs use,” I whispered.
And to my petition he acceded.
***
The chain and shackle were in his pack.
Over my tunic, I wore his jacket.
“Prepare to trek,” he said.
“Whence, Master?” I inquired.
“Victoria,” he said.
“If I am not to be sold,” I said, “why are we going to Victoria?”
“It is the town of my Home Stone,” he said.
“You have a Home Stone?” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
“I do not have one,” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said. “You are a slave, a purchasable beast. Beasts do not have Home Stones.”
“I see,” I said.
“Victoria is one of the greatest of the river ports,” he said. “A hundred galleys come and go each day.”
“It is very busy,” I said.
“In it there are many slaves,” he said.
“I wear a camp collar,” I said.
“It will not be recognized,” he said. “It will be removed.”
“And I will then have a new collar?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought,” I said, “Master might free me.”
“Free you?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “and then petition for my Companionship, which offer I might then accept or refuse, as I might please.”
“Are you mad?” he said.
“Surely,” I said, “just as Companions may become slaves, so slaves might become Companions.”
“Only a fool,” said he, “frees a slave girl.”
“That is a saying, is it not?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
I had known that, of course.
“Do you think I am a fool?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
I regarded him.
“I am then to be collared anew?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said, “you are a slave.”
“You will not free me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “You are not a free woman. You are a slave. The collar belongs on your neck.”
“I see,” I said.
“One collar or another,” he said.
“But not necessarily yours,” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said. “You are the sort of woman who should be in a collar, one who belongs in the collar. Any man’s collar would do for you.”
“But you will keep me in your collar?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“That is the way you want me?”
“Yes,” he said, “that is the way I want you, and that is the way I will have you.”
“Collared?” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“A vendible, meaningless slave?”
“Certainly,” he said.
“You will keep me then?”
“Until I tire of you, and sell you,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“I trust it is not hard to grasp,” he said.
“I have nothing to say about this?” I said.
“No more than a verr, a tarsk, or kaiila,” he said.
“I will try to be pleasing to my master,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “You are a slave.”
“I thought I might be special to you,” I said.
“How could a slave be special?” he said.
“I do not want to be sold,” I said.
“You have nothing to say about it,” he said.
“I will try to be such that you would not wish to sell me.”
“Perhaps I will not wish to sell you,” he said.
“I hope that you will not do so,” I said.
“You are, of course, I grant it, the sort of slut who looks well at a man’s feet,” he said.
“It is my hope that I will be pleasing to you,” I said.
“You will be so or you will be punished,” he said.
“Could you whip me,” I asked, “if I was not pleasing?”
“Certainly,” he said, “and promptly, and well.”
“And what will my collar read?” I asked.
“What pleases me,” he said.
“I cannot read,” I said.
“And you will not be taught,” he said. “It pleases me that you should be illiterate. It will give me more power over you.”
“I will not even be able to read my own collar?” I said.
“No,” he said. “But I will tell you what it says.”
“And what will it say?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” said he, “that you are a worthless she-tarsk.”
“And whose worthless she-tarsk?” I inquired.
“Mine,” he said.
“Surely the name of my master is to be put on my collar,” I said.
“It will,” he said. “It will clearly identify you as my property.”
“What will it read, Master?” I asked.
He then told me what the collar would read, and I, for the first time, was apprised of the name of my master, which name, for obvious reasons, must not appear here.
“It is a beautiful name,” I said.
“It is not a beautiful name,” he said. “It is a strong name.”
“In any event,” I said, “it is the name of my master.”
“Do not forget it,” he said.
“I am unlikely to do so,” I said, “as it will be locked on my neck.”
“You may now lick and kiss my feet,” he said, “and thank me for the privilege of wearing my collar.”
“A slave,” I said, kneeling, and pressing my lips to his feet, licking and kissing, again and again, “thanks her master for her collar.”
“Continue,” he said. “It is pleasant.”
“I am yours, submitted and owned,” I said. “I would have it no other way.”
“It will be no other way,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. How fulfilled I felt at his feet. What a joy it was to acknowledge myself a slave, at the feet of her master. What free woman can understand this, I wondered. What free woman can understand what it is to surrender themselves wholly, to abandon themselves unqualifiedly to love and service, asking nothing but hoping to give all? But perhaps, I thought, many free women can understand this, some surely, for what is a free woman but a slave, lacking her collar?
“More,” he said, “exquisite, shapely kajira.”
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
I do not know then what mad impulse seized me. I looked up, brightly, pertly.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I would have this no other way,” I said. “But what of Master?”
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Perhaps Master would prefer to free me, as I earlier suggested, and then petition for my Companionship, which I might then, should it amuse me, or should the whim possess me, refuse.”
“Do not sport with me,” he said.
“Then, I gather,” I said, “it is your intention to keep me as a slave.”
“Do you truly think,” he asked, “I would let a slave off her chain, any slave, and, in particular, a slave such as you?”
“I do not know,” I said, and then, thinking it wise, added the word, “— Master.”
“You are too slave to free,” he said. “You are too beautiful and exciting to free.”
“Oh?” I said.
“And every corpuscle in your body is a slave corpuscle,” he said.
“Yes, my master,” I said.
“You are a slave,” he said.
“Yes, my master,” I said.
“And you have not been pleasing,” he said.
“It is my hope that I have not been displeasing,” I said.
To my consternation he pulled me to my feet, removed his jacket from me, and yanked loose the disrobing loop on my tunic. It fell about my ankles. He then took a long thong and bound my wrists together. He then threw me to my knees, again, and, with the free end of the thong, tied it about the base of a tree, a yard or so away.
“Master?” I said.
“What are you?” he asked.
“A slave, Master,” I said.
“Are you sure of it?” he asked.
“I do not know!” I said.
“You will soon be sure of it,” he said.
“What is Master doing?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. I saw him yank the whip from his pack.
“Please do not whip me!” I begged.
And then he whipped his slave.
After that he put me to my back and drew me, by the ankles, from the base of the tree, so that my bound wrists were high above my head, following which I was used for slave pleasure.
He then cuffed me, twice.
My head snapped back and forth. He was not easy with me.
After that he untied my wrists, and tossed my tunic to me, which I donned. He then gave me the jacket, as he had before.
I would then be warmer.
“Do you now think you will be freed, curvaceous slave?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
I was then in no doubt as to my bondage. I now knew myself a slave, only that. I had been displeasing, and had been punished, “promptly, and well.” If I had had any doubts as to my bondage they were dispelled. The matter was transparent, and simple. I was a slave, only that. I had been displeasing, and had been put to the leather. There is no answer to the whip; leather is irrefutable.
Interestingly, though I much fear the whip, and would do much to avoid it, I was not displeased to have felt it then.
It was then good for me. I should have been punished, and had been punished.
I was reassured that I was a slave, and his slave.
I was pleased to belong to such a man.
I was grateful, and proud, to be the slave of such a man.
I considered him.
I wondered if any of the men of my world, so many of them weakened, reduced, crippled, confused, conflicted, taught to doubt themselves and deny their own blood, could even begin understand such a man. Let them tremble and hide, and fear even to think of such; let them denounce such men, if it pleases them, and in denouncing them denounce themselves, if there yet remains any such self within them to denounce.
But Goreans were clearly human.
Are they not our brothers, and twins?
Are they so different? I did not think so. Is it only that they have failed to sully soil and water, refused to create poisoned atmospheres, refused to reduce and shame themselves, had no interest in ascending prescribed treadmills, placed in the midst of nothing, leading nowhere?
Can the steps of a false journey not be retraced?
It is possible to live against nature, and accept the inevitable consequences; it is also possible to live with nature, and enjoy her bounties. Flowers and stars are not evil.
“Prepare to trek,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He handed his pack, now closed, to me. “Follow me,” he said, “two paces behind, on the left.”