"I wish that I could hold you," she said.

"You cannot," I said. "You are bound as a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I held her, closely. She pressed herself against me, helplessly. Whether she was held or not was my decision. She could be, if I chose, spurned in a moment, thrust aside in the grass.

I kissed her, softly. She was very beautiful.

"They are changing their position," said Cuwignaka, working on the trace from the travois.

"One is falling back. The other is going for the pemmican."

"All right," I said.

The girl looked up at me, lovingly. Again I kissed her.

"Oh!" she said.

I had leapt from her side. I lunged through the grass. With one hand, before he could leap up, I had seized the young fellow by the collar of his garb and hauled him to his feet.

"Greetings," I said to him, in Gorean.

"Greetings," he stammered. He still clutched the tiny pemmican cake.

I pulled him toward the center of our camp where Cuwignaka, now on his feet, waited. There, too, risen now to her elbows, her hands still tied behind her, startled, was the slave girl, Mira, once the Lady Mira, of Venna, with whom I had been pleasuring myself. On the travois, sleeping, was Hci.

In the grass now, standing, some yards away, frightened, the grass to her waist, was a young girl, some sixteen or seventeen years of age, blond. She, like the young man, wore the garb of the Waniyanpi.

I transferred my hold on the lad's garment to my left hand and with my right, beckoned the girl to approach. "Come here," I said.

Timidly, she approached. Then she stood, too, with us.

I released my grip on the lad's garment. "Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Squash," he said.

"I am Strawberry," said the girl.

"We have been following you," said the lad.

"We know," I said.

"We took pemmican," said the lad. "Are you going to kill us for stealing?"

"It was left for you," I said.

He extended his hand to me. In it was the small cake of pemmican which he had just seized up from the grass. "I took this, just now," he said.

"You are male," I said. "It is yours."

He looked at me, puzzled. "I am not a male," he said. "And she is not a female. We are Waniyanpi."

"That is all over now," I said.

The girl was looking at Mira, fascinated. "Turnip," she asked. "is it you?"

"She was once Turnip," I said. "She is now Mira, a slave girl. She cannot respond to you. I have not given her permission to speak."

The girl looked at me, in awe.

"Turn over on your side, Slave," I said. "Show them that your hands are thonged."

Immediately Mira obeyed. The young man and woman saw that her wrists were tightly bound with thongs.

"Be now as you were before," I said, "up on your elbows."

Immediately Mira obeyed.

"What is that on her neck?" she asked, referring to the narrow, dark, braided rawhide rope, looped three times about the slave's neck and knotted before her throat, the two loose ends dangling between her breasts.

"It serves as a slave collar," I said.

"I see," said the girl, stepping back a bit. She put down her head. She drew a quick breath. She blushed.

"You may lie down," I told the slave.

She lay back in the grass, naked and bound, near our feet.

"You two are far from your compound, are you not?" I asked.

"Yes," said the young man, putting down his head.

"We were recently at a Waniyanpi compound," I said. "It was Compound Eleve, I believe."

The young man did not respond.

"That was your compound, was it not?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"We heard there of two young people who were put out of the compound, a young man and a young woman," I said. "Doubtless you are those two."

"Yes," admitted the young man, not raising his head.

"You followed us here, from its vicinity," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"We hoped you would lead us to food," he said. "We did not know what else to do."

"Your crime, as I recall, was to found touching one another."

"No," said the young man. "No!"

"Kneel down," I told the young woman, "before this young man, and strip off that foolish garb."

The young man looked at me, startled. "Do not avert your eyes from her," I told him.

The girl pulled up the long, clumsy dress, to her knees, and then knelt before the young man. She then drew the dress over her head and put it on the side. In this way she was on her knees before him, as she bared her beauty to him.

"Do not avert your eyes," I warned the young man.

"Ohhh," he said, softly. "She is so beautiful."

"Does it now seem to you so shameful, or horrifying, to touch her?" I asked.

"No," he said. "No!"

"No longer are you Waniyanpi," I said. "She may now be touhed freely, however and as often as you wish."

"I cannot believe such freedom," he said. "It is so differnt! It is glorious!"

"It is your freedom, not hers," I said.

"What?" he asked.

"Do not forget that she is a female," I said.

He regarded me, puzzled.

"She seems hungry," I said. I had noted that she was eyeing the cake of pemmican in his hand.

"Forgive me, Strawberry!" he said. "I am so thoughtless!" He quickly broke the cake of pemmican in two.

I put my hand on his arm. "You are the male," I said. "It is yours, not hers."

"I will share it with her, of course," he said.

"She has not yet begged," I said.

He looked at me, startled. Then he, in confusion, looked again upon the girl.

"I beg for something to eat," she said, smiling.

He quickly gave her half of the tiny cake of pemmican and she, on her knees, naked, swiftely, ravenously, ate it.

He then, musingly, regarding her, finished the remaining part of the cake of pemmican.

"Hold still," I told him. With a knife I cut away much of the long, gray skirt of the Waniyanpi garb he wore. I cut the sleeves away, too. Then, with a part of the material, I made a belt. I belted the garment then, tunicwise, about his waist.

"How strong your legs look," said the girl, softly, admiringly, looking up at him, "and your arms!"

"You are permitting her to speak?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Very well," I said.

The girl put down her head, smiling. Whether or not she would be permitted to speak had been discussed.

"The camp is quite close," said Cuwignaka. "Let us be on our way."

"You are welcome to accompany us," I told the young man, "and you may, if you wish, bring the female."

"I want to bring her," he said.

"Very well," I said.

Again the girl smiled. It had been explicitly discussed, whether or not she would be brought with us.

"I will conceal, as I can, the signs of our encampment," said Cuwignaka.

"I willload the travois," I said.

"Are you truly a slave-Mira," asked the girl.

Mira cast a glance at me.

"You may respond," I told her.

"Yes, I am a slave," said Mira, "totally."

"What was he doing to you, before?" asked the girl.

"You watched?" asked Mira.

"Yes," said the girl.

"he was enjoying me and using me as what I am, a slave," she said.

"Are you embarrassed?" asked the girl.

"No," said Mira. "A slave is not permitted modesty."

"You seemed ecstatic with pleasure, overcome with gratitude and joy," said the girl.

"It was my yielding," she said.

"Need you have yielding like that?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said Mira. "The slave is given no alternative other than to yield to the master fully."

"But you would want to yield like that, wouldn't you?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said Mira.

"Then the slave is forced to do what she, in her most secret heart, most deeply desires to do," said the girl.

"Yes," said Mira. "But you must understand that a slave's lot is not an easy one. We are often worked long and hard."