"Get on your left hip," I said, "your right leg extended, the palms of your hands on the robe."

"You can't kill me," she said. "I do not belong to you!"

"That is an interesting question," I said. "As I hold the beaded quirt I think I do, in this context, have such rights over you. At any rate, even if I do not, a complaint to the boys, relayed by them to your master, would surely be in order. He may then decide whether or not your least difficulty or disobedience is to be punished by death. And since you are a herd girl, I doubt that he will think twice about the matter. That is better." She had assumed the position which I had prescribed.

"Do not complain to the boys," she said. "They are cruel!"

"They are not cruel," I said. "They are only good herders."

"If I do not please you," she said, "just quirt me."

"Have no fear," I said. "If I am not pleased you will be well quirted. Then I will decide whether or not to complain to the boys."

She moaned.

"You ahve good slave curves," I said, regarding her. "You may thank me."

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"One wonders why, then, you are so valueless. You went for a hide, and then two knives, and then only a mirror. Now you are in a herd. Why are you worth so little?"

"I do not know, Master," she said.

"The boys tell me that you are a block of ice," I said.

"I cannot help it if I am unresponsive," she said. "It is my nature."

"I also gather," I said, "that you are arrogant and surly. You are thus, in various respects, a poor slave."

She tossed her head, irritably.

I struck her once, on the right thigh, with the quirt. She cried out with pain, and looked down at the welt.

"I would think twice, if I were you," I said, "before I made angry little noises or impatient gestures."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you find men attractive?" I asked.

"Since I may be raped at their pleasure," she said, "what difference does it make?"

"Do you find them attractive?" I asked.

"Sometimes," she said, "they make me feel uneasy."

"What were you relations with men, prior to your enslavement?" I asked.

"Cannot you simply take me and be done with it?" she asked.

"Speak," I said.

"At one time," she said, "in spite of being a proud free woman of Ar, I felt the desire for the companionship of men."

"I understand," I said.

"I decided that I would permit them, certain ones of my careful choosing, of proper means and stations, to become acquainted with me, and that I might then, from among these, favor certain ones with the dignity and honor of my friendship. Then, perhaps, in time, if I felt so inclined, I might, if he were thoroughly pleasing and wholly suitable, consider acceding to the please of one to enter into companionship with me."

"And how did matters proceed?" I asked.

"I called together a number of young men," she said. "I informed them of my willingness to form acquaintances, and specified to them the strict conditions to which these relationships, absolute equality, and such, would be subject."

"And what happened?" I asked.

"All withdrew politely," she said, "and I never saw them again, with one exception, a little urt of a man who told me he shared my views, fully."

"You entered into companionship with him?" I asked.

"I discovered he was interested only in my wealth," she said. "I dismissed him."

"You were then angry and hurt," I said, 'and began to devote yourself wholly to the pursuits of business."

"Yes," she said.

"Too," I said, "I gather, from other aspects of your story, that you became mercenary and greedy."

"Perhaps," she said.

"And then you were captured, and brought into the Barrens, and made a slave," I said.

"Yes," she said. "May I break this position?"

"No," I said.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked.

"You had better hope that I like what I see," I said.

She swallowed, hard.

"Yes," I said. "I like what I see."

"I suppose I should be grateful," she said.

"I think that I would be grateful if I were you," I said, "since you are a female slave."

"Of course," she said. "I do not wish to be quirted, or slain."

"Yes," I said.

"Do you enjoy posing naked women for your pleasure?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh," she said.

"I think you feared your womanhood," I said. "That seems clear, even from your behavior in Ar. This is not unusual, incidentally, in a free woman, because deep womanhood, they sense, involves love, and love, for a woman, seems always to involve a bondage, if not of ropes and chains, of one sort or another."

She looked at me, tears in her eyes.

"Then, when you were, in effect, rejected as a woman, you were hurt and angry. You determined never to endure another such humiliating rejection. Too, understandably, you became hostile towards men. You would hate them. You would outdo them. You would have your vengeance on them. You came to fear certain sorts of feelings. You drew back even further from your womanhood."

"No, no, no," she wept. "I am a poor slave only because I an unresponsive! That is my nature! I cannot help it!"

"That is not your nature," I told her. "And you are going to help it."

"Master?" she asked.

"Crawl to the grass, there," I said. "Hurry!"

She crawled to the point, trembling, where I had indicated.

"Kneel to the whip," I ordered her.

She knelt there, trembling, her head down to the grass, her wrists crossed beneath her, as though bound.

I strick her thrice.

"Are you a whipped slave?" I asked.

"Yes," she wept, "I am a whipped slave."

"You belong to men," I told her. I gave her another stroke.

"I will try to be pleasing!" she wept.

"I am sure you will, my dear," I said. "But the interesting question is whether or not you will succeed." I then gave her two more strokes.

"Oh," she wept. "Ohh."

"Do you beg now," I asked, "to return to the robe?"

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Return, then, to the robe, Slave," I said.

Swiftly she crawled back to the robe. She lay on her stomach on its surface, grateful to be again within the perimeters of its relative safety. She was half choking and crying.

"On your back, Slave," I said, "hands at your sides, palms up, right knee lifted."

Wincing, she complied.

"What is the place of women!" I demanded.

"At the feet of men!" she wept.

"And where are you?" I asked.

"At your feet!" she wept.

"What are you?" I asked.

"A slave, a slave!" she said.

"Men have been patient long enough with you, Salve," I said. "That patience is now at an end."

"Yes, Master!" she wept.

"No longer are you a free woman," I said. "That is all behind you now. You are now only an imbounded female, only a slave, at the mercy of men."

"Yes, Master," she gasped, frightened.

"Accordingly," I said, "you are no longer to think of yourself as, or permit yourself to act like, a free woman. You are now, henceforth, to think and act like a slave. You are to feel as a slave, and live and love as a slave!"

"Yes, Master," she wept.

"Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"No impediment exists now," I said, "between you and your womanhood."

"No, Master," she said, frightened.

I dropped the quirt down near the robe. I then crouched down beside her. "When I touch you," I said, "you will feel, deeply and fully, richly and beauitfully, gratefully, joyfully and submissively, and later, when you yield, you will yield totally and completely, irreservedly, helplessly, holding nothing back."

"But then I should be naught but a slave," she said, "helpless in the arms of her master."

"Yes," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

I knelt beside her. "Sit up," I said. "Put your arms about my neck."