She looked down, tears in her eyes. I had used her. She was quite good. But it had taken longer to arouse her than is com mon in a slave girl. The Forkbeard, I, and the crew, would improve her. The trip south would be long. Whereas it com monly takes a third of an Ahn to arouse a free woman female slave is often responsive from almost the first touch of the master. Whythis should be I do not know. I suspec it is due, primarily, to two factors: the first is psychological The collar itself, and the state of bondage, for no reason clear in my mind, commonly transforms even the tepid free woman into an orgasmic marvel of a slave. Perhaps thefear to be whipped if they are not pleasing? Perhaps, be haviorally, given no choice but to act as a passionate female slave, they find, suddenly, through simple psychological relationshlps, they, to their horror, have become only a passionate female slave. Perhaps it is the knowing that they arerightless, owned, dominated, which so deeply, so incredibly trlggers the profound web of yielding, piteously receptive helplessly submitting reflexes; perhaps in the depth of theirbodies lies the secret need to be sexually subjugated, totally without which they cannot attain their full sexuality. I do not know. The second reason is presumably simple. It is merely that the female slave, abandoned, responsive, owned constantly at her master’s beck and call, ready constantlyfor his least pleasure, is frequently used. Female slaves are sometimes used, when the master’s time permits, three and four, or more, times a day. It is not unusual to give an entire day to sport with a female slave, something unthinkable with a free woman. The slave girl, of course, has no rights. She may be used for hours. What counts is not her will, bu her master’s. Frequent use of the female slave, I suspect keeps her body honed to submissive perfection. Whatever be the reasons, a common female slave, and one of no unusual heat for a slave, will be carried through a series of multiple yieldings, dozens, before the average free woman can be warmed. Then, when the master wishes, scorning perhaps her helplessness in his arms, despising perhaps, to her misery, her vulnerability to him, he takes ruthlessly, perhaps contemptuously, his delight with her. As a note, it might be added, that the slave female, in her master’s arms, must, if he so commands, under the threat of the whip or death, vocalize her sensations, then ventilating and reinforcing, multiplying, deepening,and increasing and intensifying them. Thus, cruelly, she is forced to help arouse herself and contribute to her own pleasures, and consequently, of course, those of the master. This command, sometimes, implicit, sometimes a matter of the master’s policy with his girl or girls, under which she is placed, to vocalize her pleasures, and abundantly, as well as, in her abandon, nudity, and beauty, manifest them physically, guides, accurately and surely, the master in the detailed exploitation of her weaknesses, in his depredations practiced on her body. She must betray herself. Do not blame her. No choice is given her. She is an instrument of passion on which he plays, delighting himself with the music of her expressions, her movements, her cries, even the wild, unrestrainable odors of her collared slave body. She is forced to contribute to her own sexual subjugation. Do not blame her. No choice is given her.

Following the rast of the girls, carrying the last of my gear, came Leah, who stood, small, beside me. Ottar then, and Gorm, and the other men of the Forkbeard boarded the craft. Thyri, who had boarded earlier, stood near the bench of Wulfstan, where, already, he gripped an oar. Near the mast, chained to it by the neck, eyes down, knelt Telima.

Moorings were cast off. Poles thrust the Hilda from the wharf. Gorm held the tiller, mounted at the stern on the starboard side. The seamen brought their shields inboard, stowed their gear beneath their benches, grasped their oars. Slowly the tarnhead prow of the Forkbeard’s sleek craft turned toward the sweep of Thassa. Then oars dipped slowly. The great red and white striped sail fell, opening, snapping, from the spar of needlewood. I turned back to the wharf.

The Forkbeard and I raised our hands, in salute, to the men there. We saw Svein Blue Tooth, the tooth of the Hunjer whale, stained blue, on its chain about his neck. He lifted his hand. Near him, kneeling beside her master, behindthe line of his heels, was Bera, one of his girls. I saw, toc BJarni, of Thorstein Camp, who lifted his spear to me, an beside him, too, the young man, his friend, he, too, lifting his hand, whom I had, it now seemed long ago, champione at the dueling field. There were many men there, armed, and wenches, too.

One of the seamen lifted the “golden girl,” her crossed ankles in the fetter, that she might see. Then he threw her back to the deck, where, on her stomach, and elbows, head down, hair falling to the deck, she lay.

I saw Telima, standing by the mast, to which she wa chained by the neck. I looked at her, harshly. Immediately she knelt, eyes down.

In my pouch there was a sapphire from distant Schendi There, too, heavy and spiraled, was a ring of gold, which I had taken from the arm of the Kur I had slain. In the dis tance, as the ship moved to sea, the wind in its sail, oar dipping, l saw the bleak, white heights of the Torvaldsberg.

Hrolf, from the East, had agreed to return the war arrow to the Torvaldsberg.

We had given it to him. When he had left the ruins of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth I had run after him, and, a pasang from the camp, had stopped him. “What is your true name?” I had inquired.

He had looked at me, and smiled. It was strange what he said. “My name,” he said, “is Torvald.” Then he had turned away, I watched him return to the mountain. I thought of the stabilization serums, “My name is Torvald,” he had said. Then he had turned away.

“Ho!” cried Ivar Forkbeard, striking me on the back, clasping me about the shoulders. “It is a good wind!” Then he turned away, to his duties on the ship.

I walked between the benches, to the prow, and, standing on the high decking, at the stem, put one arm about the prow and looked out to sea. Leah heeled me there. I turned to face her. I could see the lovely curves of the interior cleavage of her breasts, revealed in the parting of the rough slave tunic. I looked at the collar, her eyes. I pulled the tunic down from her shoulders, to her waist. “It is your girl’s hope that she pleases you,” she said. “Slip from the tunic,” I told her. She untied the binding fiber, belting the tunic, and thrust it over her hips, to her ankles, and then stepped from it. “To my feet,” I told her. “Yes, Master,” she whispered. She lay on her side, her head on her arm. She did not look up at me.

I turned again to look out to sea.

I thought of many things, of Ar, of Marlenus, of Talena, with whom I was not pleased. When I had been crippled she had derided me; she had expressed contempt, pride; she had then held herself too good for me. I had had her returned to Ar. I wondered if, somehow, somewhere, we might once again encounter one another. Did we do so I thought now she might find me different.

I pondered trying chain luck in Ar. I wondered how she might feel, the gag hood drawn over her head from behind, locked shut behind her neck, stripped, thrown on her back over the saddle of a tarn, bound, swept away, with a beating of wings, into total bondage. Publius, my kitchen master, I speculated, might find use for such a wench in his kitchens; after she had much pleased me, I would see that she was assigned to Publius. I had little doubt that the daughter, or she who had once been the daughter, of Marlenus of Ar, properly instructed by the switch, would make an excellent addition to the slaves of the kitchen. Perhaps, before I chose my wench for the night, one of her duties might be to scrub the tiles of my chamber. I recalled how, in the forests, long ago, I had sought her. It had been my intention to repledge the companionship, and to become great on Gor, to raise high the chair of Bosk, climbing in riches and power to the heights of the planet, to become even, perhaps, in time, aworld’s Ubar.