Two days ago I had dared to follow him outside the palisade. I found him sitting alone, on a rock, surveying a grassy field. "Come here, Slave," he said to me. "Yes, Master," I said. I went and knelt near him; later I leaned my head against him, which he permitted. "The grass and sky are beautiful, are they not, Slave?" he asked. "Yes, Master," I had replied. He looked down at me. "You, too," he said, "are beautiful, Slave." "A girl is gratified if she pleases her master," I said. "Why is it," he asked, looking down, "that the women of Earth are fit to be slaves?" "Perhaps," I said, looking up at him, "because the men of Gor are fit to be masters." He then again turned his attention to the contemplation of the grass and sky. He sat still for a long time. Then he stood up, as though shaking his mood from him, as though now he was again separate from nature, alien in its midst, conscious, a man, and I was at his feet, a woman. Then it was we two alone, by the rock, in the grass, he standing, I kneeling. He looked down at me. "The woman of Earth," I said to him, "is ready to serve her Gorean master." Laughing, he leaped upon me, seizing me by the shoulders and throwing me back, forcibly, as a slave, to the grass. The Ta-Teera was torn from me. Well then, to her joy, did he use the Earth woman, his slave.

I felt the furs thrown back.

"I knew that I would find you here," he said.

"I hope that master is not displeased with his girl," I said. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he had slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I had not been displeased, though my mouth was bloodied. This morning I had knelt before him. "I beg rape," I had said. He had looked at me, angrily. "Rape her," he had said to a passing soldier. He had then turned angrily away. In the arms of the soldier, I had smiled. I think I had disturbed my master. I think he was fighting his feelings for me, his desire for me. Then I had cried out with unwilling pleasure, and helplessly caught at the soldier with my nails, and the thought of my master had been, against my will, forced from my consciousness as the soldier brought me, twisting and crying out, to obliterating, overwhelming slave orgasm.

"Perhaps I should have you lashed," said my master.

"My master will do with me what he pleases," I said.

He had not been too pleased with the way I had yielded to the soldier. But I had not been able to help myself.

"Slave," had said my master later, standing over me.

"Yes, Master," I had said, looking up at him, shamed, "I am a slave."

He had then turned away again, angrily. He called Marla to him, to serve his pleasure. She hurried to him. Objectively she was more beautiful than I, with her large, dark eyes, her face, her lovely figure; too, she had superb slave reflexes; but she did not, I thought, succeed in making my master forget me. She did, of course, frighten me, for she was a formidable rival. I resented, and hated her. Too, she did not seem to regard me with affection and delight. She had wanted me named "Stupid Girl" or "Clumsy Girl." I did not yet have a name. But, in spite of the fact that my master, currently, seemed to be much taken with Maria, and that she was clearly the preferred bond girl in our camp, I did not feel that she had managed to negate the moments or the tacit understanding which I felt I shared with the man who owned me. I recalled his anger at my helpless yielding to the soldier; I was only a slave; I had not been able to help myself; yet he' had been angry; too, he himself had commanded the man to address himself to the work of my rape; yet he had been angry; too, his concern with Marla seemed to me rather sudden and excessive; he seemed to be too obviously unconcerned with me; I smiled to myself; I think he had been jealous; and I think he was using Marla, certainly a delightful diversion, to try and force me from his mind. She was surely more beautiful than I, but in such matters there are rightnesses which are reciprocal and subtle; it is rather like the matching together of pieces in a puzzle, the startling, unexpected fitting together of components, yielding a whole which is, in its wholeness, more precious than the individual pieces or parts could be in isolation; as beautiful and marvelous as Marla was, she was not I; it was that simple, I believe; she was not I; I, not she, I believe, was the one; I had little doubt he was my natural, perfect master; I think he had begun to fear that I might be his natural, perfect slave; surely he did not want to think of me as more than just another of his girls; yet I had little doubt that I was becoming to him, in spite of his desires, something more than just another lovely wench whose wrist was fastened on his chain.

He stood beside the furs, and slipped aside his tunic. "Remove the Ta-Teera," he said to me. I sat up, unhooked it, and slipped it over my head, putting it to the side. He joined me in the furs, throwing them over us both.

I could hear cries, it seemed from far off, from the circle of the torch, where the peasant boys sported cruelly with their captured beauties.

Then I was in my master's arms. I moaned with pleasure.

I felt my master's eyes upon me.

"Will you turn me over to the peasant boys?" I asked, apprehensive, in the darkness.

I did not want to be roped and dragged, a captured slave, to the circle of the torch. They would be furious that I had eluded them. I did not know what they would do to me.

"No," said he, in the darkness.

"Then," said I, breathing more easily, "I have escaped them."

"But you have not escaped me," he said.

"No, Master," I said, snuggling more closely to him, "I have not escaped you."

"You ran well," he said. "And you are bold. It took boldness, indeed, to hide, unbidden, in the furs of your very master. For such boldness a slave girl might be much beaten."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"But I do not disparage boldness in a slave girl," said he. "A girl who is bold is likely to think of marvels of pleasure for her master which a more timid girl would not dare to even contemplate."

"Yes, Master," I said, frightened.

"Too," said he, "the nature of your flight, and your selection of a refuge, indicates high intelligence."

"Thank you, Master," I said.

I felt his hands on the side of my head.

"You are extremely intelligent," he said, adding, "for a woman, and a slave."

"Thank you, Master," I said. What a beast he was. And yet I sensed that my intelligence was indeed far less than his, and that of most of the Gorean men I had met. Gorean males are unusual in their strength, energy and intelligence.

Sometimes this angered me. Sometimes it pleased me.

I did not feel inferior to most Gorean women I had met, either slave or free. Their intelligence, it seemed to me, compared much more closely, statistically, to that of Earth females. Of my master's girls, I felt that only Eta was my superior.

"I like high intelligence in a slave girl," said my master.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

Then I cried out, and held to him, my lips parted, for he had touched me.

"You leap like a she-tarsk," he said.

I bit my lip.

"That is because you are intelligent," he said. "I suppose you did not know that," he said, "for you are of Earth."

I gasped, and could not speak, for the sensation which he was inducing in me.

"Intelligent bodies," he said, "are far more responsive. Your very intelligence makes you the more helplessly a slave."

I clutched him.

"It pleases me to own intelligent girls, such as you," he said. "Intelligent girls make excellent slaves," he observed.

"Please, Master," I said. "I cannot resist you!"

"Be silent," he said.

"Yes, Master," I wept.

"It is more pleasurable to control and dominate them than stupid girls," he said. "They are more stimulating to own. They are greater prizes."