"Do I?" asked Grunt.

"Yes," I said.

"Perhaps," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Never mind," said Grunt. "It is not important."

I rose to my feet. "It is getting late in the afternoon," I said. "It is time for me to awaken Winyela and retun her to the lodge of Canka."

"I wish you well," said Grunt.

"I wish you well, too," I said.

I then took my leave from Grunt's lodge.

Gently I put my hand on the girl's small, soft shoudler, it under the hide blanket. I shook her twice, gently.

"No," she said, "no. Surely it is not time already to go to the office."

"Awaken," I said.

She opened her eyes, registering her surroundings. She laughed softly, lying under the hide blanket. "I awaken naked, in a man's collar, on a distant world," she said. "no, it is not time for me to go to the office."

"No," I said.

She then rolled to her stomach and, under the hide blanket, stritched. Her ody moved dleiciously under the hide.

"That concealed slaverly is behind you now," I said. "Your slavery is now of a more open nature."

"Yes," she said.

I then lifted the hide blanket back, and down to her claves. Such may be done with a slave. Her curves were marelous.

I listened for a moment to the sounds of the camp outside. Somewhere I heard a girl crying out, being beaten. It was probably a white slave girl.

I looked at Winyela, on her stomach, n the dark robes.

I then, sweating, my fists clenched on the hide blanket, drew it back up, over her, to the middle of her back.

"I may be revealed," she said. "I am a slave."

I said nothing. I fought for my self-control.

She turned then, to her side, supporting herself on her elbow. This action cause the hide blanket to slip to her waist. "Thank you for letting me sleep," she said. "You were very kind."

"It was nothing," I said.

"I should like to thank you," she said. She reached her lips toward mine but I, by her upper arms, held her from me. "What is wrong?" she asked.

"The kiss of a slave can be but the prolongue to her rape," I said.

"Oh," she said, smiling. She then drew back, and then, on her side, lay down. She pulled the hide blanket up about her neck.

"You must get up soon," I said. "In a while it will be time to return you to the lodge of Canka."

"If I dally," she asked, "will you quirt me?"

"If I think you dally overmuch," I said, "of course."

"Could you do that?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," she said, "for I am only a slave."

"Of course," I said.

"Sometimes it seems strange to me," she said, "thinking of myself as subject to the whip."

"There is nothing strange in it," I said. "You are a slave."

"That is true," she said.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said. It had surprised me, for a moment, that she had called me 'Master', but then I recalled that she had been given to me, for the afternoon. Indeed, for the afternoon, or, I supposed, until, within reason, I shose to return her to the lodge of Canka, she was, for all pracitical purposes, my own slave.

"You have treated me with great tenderness and kindness," she said.

I shrugged.

"May I surmise from this," she asked, "as I know little of slavery, and am new to the condition, that there can be tenderness and kindness for a slave?"

"There can be tenderness and kindness for a slave," I said, "of course. It is not permitted, however, to compromise in the least the iron discipline under which she is kept."

"I see," she said.

I regarded her.

"I want to be kept under an iron discipline," she said.

"I know," I said.

It was hard for me to forget that she was naked under the hide blanket.

"Do masters ever love their slaves?" she asked.

"Often," I said. Indeed, a female slave is the easiest of all women to love; too, of course, she is the most natural, of all women to love; these things have to do with the equations of nature, in particular with thos of dominance and submission. To a man a female slave is a dream come true. A free woman, understandably, cannot even begin to compete with a female slave for a man's love. That is perhaps another reason why free women hate their vulnerable, imounded sisters. If a free woman would assure herself of a man's love she could not do better than, in effect, become his slave. She can beg of him, if she senses in herslef he true bondage of love, and enslavement ceremony, in which she proclaims herslef, and becomes, his slave. In their most secret and intimate relations thereafter she lives and loves as his slave. If a woman fears to do this she may, on an experimental basis, resport to limited self-contracting, in which her documents will contain stated termination dates. Thus, by her wone free will, she becomes a slave for a specific period, ranging usually from an evening to a year. The woman enters into this arrangement freely; she cannot, of course, withdraw from it in the same way. The reason for this is clear. As soon as the words are spoken, or her signature is placed on the pertinent document, or documents, she is no longer a free person. She is then only a slave, an animal, no longer with any legal powers whatsoever. She is, then, until the completion of the contractual period, unto the expiration date of the arrangement, totally subject to the will of her master.

"And still keep them as slaves?" asked the girl.

"Of course," I said.

"Then I could be loved," she said, "and still kept as a slave, totally."

"Of course," I said.

"Even to being beaten?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," she said, "for I would still be only a slave."

"Of course," I said. "How is your back?" I asked.

"Sore," she said.

"You have felt the quirt," I said. "YOu will be a better slave for it."

"How strange it is to think of myself in such terms," she mused.

"What terms?" I asked.

"That I am a slave," she said, "that I am owned, that I belong to a man."

"Perhaps it seems strange to you, sometimes, lingeringly," I said, "because you are from Earth. It is not strange on Gor, of course. Bondage for a beautiful woman, such as yourself, is a common reality on Gor."

"I gather that it is so," she said.

"It is," I said. "On Gor thousands of beautiful women, branded, and in collars, serve, and must serve, their masters with the fullness of their female perfections."

She nodded. She had seen female slaves. She herself had been sold in the town of Kailiauk, near the Inhanke.

"And you, in the Barrens," I said, "are such a woman."

"I know," she said. She had seen slaves, too, in the Barrens, of course, generally white women, the helpless, obedient, collared slaves of red savages.

"It is your reality," I said.

"I know," she said.

"I think it is time we went to the lodge of Canka," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She then sat up on the robes. She held the hide blanket about her neck.

I almost wanted to cry out, to tear it from her, to fling her beneath me.

"I love Canka," she said. "I love him, more than anything."

I nodded.

"And I want him to love me," she said, "even though I am only a slave, if just a little."

"I understand," I said. It was natural for a slave helplessly in love with her master to hope that he might see fit to cast her at least a particle or crumb of his affection. That much he might bestow even upon a pet sleen.

She looked at me. "Canka wanted me punished," she said.

I shrugged.

"But you did not do so," she said.

"No," I said.

"Punish me," she said.

"No," I said.

"Very well," she said.

She, moving slightly, but mostly sitting as sh was, let the hide blanket slip to her thighs. It seemed an accident.