"Keep your head down," I told Ina, absently. They were nothing to me, I told myself.

"Oh, oh," said Ina, softly. I did not admonish her for the softness of her moans. Her small hands, her wrists tied together by the binding fiber, twisted behind her back, her fingers moving.

It would be difficult enough for one man to escape the delta, or a man willing to accept, say, the handicap of a helpless, beautiful captive, without worrying about more, perhaps even a squad or more.

"Oh!" she gasped, suddenly.

The odds of being detected, by rencers, by a patrol, by a tarn scout, by a guard at the edge of the delta, by someone, increased considerably with each addition to the party.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she wept, eagerly, helplessly, gratefully.

"Ah!" I said.

"Ohhh," she said, softly, unbelievingly.

I then lay beside her, she now on her stomach. She had been very useful. I had now reached my decision. Slaves are often used for similar purposes.

"You may speak," I informed her.

But it seemed she still did not dare speak.

I moved up, beside her, on my elbow. She looked at me, timidly.

Still she did not dare to speak.

"The sand is warm," 1 said.

She made a small noise, and lifted herself a little in the sand.

"You are bound," I said.

She whimpered, pleadingly, and lifted herself yet a bit more in the sand.

She looked at me. "May I truly speak?" she whispered.

"Yes," I said, "that permission was granted to you. To be sure, it may be instantly revoked, at my will."

"Touch me again," she begged. "Yes!" she said.

"You may be interested in what transpired on the other side of the shrubbery," I said.

"Yes!" she said. "Yes!"

"You needn't jump so," I said, "but you may do so, if you wish."

"Oh!" she said. "Your touch!"

I observed her fingers moving. Then, suddenly, they straightened, tensely.

1 then withheld my touch for a moment. She was now mine.

"It was not an animal, as you thought," I said, "but, as it turned out, a man, as I thought."

She looked at me, frightened, but, too, teetering on the brink of an uncontrollable response.

"It was a fellow of Ar," I said.

"Oh, no!" she whispered.

"— whom I managed to save," I said.

She closed her eyes, tightly.

"Perhaps you are interested to know what became of him?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"He returned to his fellows," I said. "Apparently their camp is not far from here."

She looked at me with terror.

Then, as it pleased me, I touched her again, once, briefly.

"Oh!" she said.

"He does not know, of course," 1 said, "that you are with me."

"Good," she said.

I again touched her, once. "Good! Good!" she said. "What is wrong?" I asked.

"Every particle of me begs to respond to you!" she wept.

"It is just as well they do not know you are with me," I informed her, "for, as you feared, by now the treachery of Saphronicus, and that of those closely associated with him, such as the Lady Ina, is well understood."

She moaned.

"I see you feared as much," I said.

"Yes," she said.

I was letting her subside a little. I could bring her back to the brink of her response, as I chose. This she knew.

"He brought up your name," I said, "not me." She groaned in the thought of it.

I turned her to her back, in this way, in the circumstances, I made her even more vulnerable to me. Too, I could better see her face. It was very beautiful, the lips parted, the hair about it.

She tried to lift herself toward my hand, but I withdrew it. She lay back, moaned, remained tense, turned her head to the side.

"He spoke of a court-martial for you, here in the delta," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

"To be followed, of course," I said, "by the impaling spear."

She shuddered.

"He thinks, however," I told her, "that you were done away with by rencers."

"Good!" she said.

"Interestingly," said I, "he does not seriously entertain the speculation that they might have enslaved you, not regarding you as woman enough to be a slave, or indeed, even woman enough to begin to understand what it might be, to be a slave."

She looked up at me, angrily.

So I touched her twice more, delicately.

She looked at me, wildly, helplessly.

I moistened my finger, and again touched her, again delicately.

She squirmed, helplessly.

She looked up at me.

She knew I could do what I wanted with her.

I could let her sink down, or hold her where she was, or, with a few gentle, even delicate, touches, have her explode into helpless, moaning, writhing submission.

"I would think," she said, "that any woman who has been in your binding fiber would have some inkling as to what it might be to be a slave!"

"No," I said. "To know what it is to be a slave one must be in the collar, one must be a slave."

I touched her, softly.

"Oh!" she said.

It is pleasant to have a woman so in your power.

She looked up at me, wildly. "I begin to sense," she whispered, "what it might be like, to be a slave yielding to her master."

"You sense perhaps the incipience of a mild submission orgasm," I said, "quite suitable for a captive, but do not delude yourself that you can even begin to sense the significance and totality of the slave orgasm, for that has a special informing ambiance, and takes place within a unique conditioning context, physical, psychological and institutional. You cannot sense it for a very simple reason, you are not owned, you are not a slave."

She moaned.

"But," I said, "you can perhaps, even now, sense how a female slave can beg for sex."

"Yes," she said. "Yes!" I touched her again.

"Oh, yes!" she said.

"Do you like that?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" she said. "Please, more."

"I do not mean, once significantly ignited by the master's touch," I said. "I mean, for example, when the master returns from his day's labors, such things."

"I understand," she said. "Please, more!"

"Do you think you could understand how a girl, in the middle of the night, fearing being beaten, could beg for sex?"

"Yes," she said. "I can!"

There are many ways in which a female slave can beg for sex, for example, the bondage knot, offering the master wine, holding up to him fruit, next to her body, kneeling, licking, kissing, and so on. Many times, too, she must beg explicitly. Then she may be told she must wait, or can have only a brief use. After the slave fires have been ignited in a girl's body, which usually occurs in the first days of her slavery, the denial of sex to her amounts to a torture. Sometimes, cruelly, slavers will deny a girl sex for days before she ascends the auction block. Needless to say she is then likely to perform well, becoming, in effect, a piteous dream of needfulness on the sawdust, pleading to be purchased, begging to serve, fully, totally, as what she is, only a slave.

Again I touched her.

"Oh, yes!" she whispered.

Some think of the female's sexual response as a matter of simple physiology. This is incorrect. Her response is wholistic, and significantly conditioned by large numbers of factors, often complex and subtle. For example, being put on her belly over a table, her wrists tied to the opposite legs of it, is a very different experience for her than being fastened down on the wave-washed deck of a Torvaldsland serpent, subject to the attentions of its crew. Yet both may be exciting and precious to her. Too, her sexuality is not a matter merely of episodes but of a mode of being. In the case of the female slave, for example, her entire life is one of sexuality, vulnerability and love.

"Will you not complete your work?" she asked. "Will you not give me relief?"

"I am thinking," I said, "of giving you a slave strip, perhaps two."