"As a free woman," she said, "I have had little opportunity to see a slave girl used."

She looked at me, curious.

"Tellius," she called. "Barus!"

The two men who had caught me entered the room.

The Lady Elicia indicated me to them. "Amuse yourselves with her," he said.

"Have mercy on your slave!" I cried.

By the arms, I was thrown back on the tiles.

I wept, the tunic torn away from me, my body red and helpless, writhing on the tiles.

"Can there be more?" asked the Lady Elicia, amazed.

"She has not yet even experienced the first slave orgasm," said Tellius, crouching beside me, looking up.

I turned my head from side to side, in misery. I looked up at him. I tried to lie still. But my body leaped to his touch. I cried out in misery.

"Is it soon?" she asked.

"Yes," said Tellius, "note her breathing, the mottling of her skin, how she moves, her eyes."

"Oh, please, Mistress, have mercy on me!" I wept. "Do not let them touch me further! Please, please, Mistress!"

Then I threw back my head and screamed. I clutched at Tellius. "You are my master!" I whispered, hoarsely. "You are my master!"

"Do not move," he said.

"Oh, please, Master!" I wept.

"You may now move," he said.

I screamed and clutched at him, eyes closed, clawing at him, trying to bring our bodies closer. Then I threw back my head eyes wild, lips parted, and screamed, delivering my body to my master.

"It is the first of the slave orgasms," said Tellius.

"I love you, Master!" I wept, clutching him. Gone now was the thought of the Lady Elicia. I, a slave girl, was in the arms of a Gorean male. I covered him with kisses and caresses, weeping. "Please touch your slave more, Master," I begged.

"Little whore!" sneered the Lady Elicia.

"Touch me more, Master!" I begged.

"I knew you would be like this, even at the college," she said. "Lovely Judy! A little whore!"

I licked at the hair on the upper arm of Tellius. "Please, Master," I begged him.

"You are lower than a whore," said the Lady Elicia. She looked down at me, in fury. "You are a slave girl!"

"I love you, Master," I whispered to Tellius.

"Finish with her," said the Lady Elicia, rising, angrily, from the curule chair. "And when you are done with her see that she is cleaned and groomed, and presented to me in a fresh tunic."

"Yes, Lady," said Tellius.

The Lady Elicia left the room.

I looked at Tellius with terror. "Please do not finish swiftly with your slave, Master," I begged.

"Do not fear, little slut," he said.

And they did not finish swiftly, but exacted from me the full, ecstatic penalties of my bondage.

When Barns rose from my side, spurning me with his foot, I had been well used.

"Kneel," said the Lady Elicia.

I knelt before her, in fresh tunic, in her bedroom. "You were long," she said.

"Forgive a girl," I said.

"Do you have any doubt," asked the Lady Elicia, "that you are a slave?"

"No, Mistress," I said. I put down my head. I remembered Tellius and Barns.

"Prepare my bath," she said.

I went to draw water from the cistern. Too, I lit the tiny oil fire beneath the tempering vessel, on its iron tripod. One regulates the temperature by mixing warmer and cooler waters. A serving slave must know the exact temperature at which her mistress wishes the water of her bath. The Lady Elicia would tell me once, I knew. After that, if it were not correct, I would be punished. I knew she would have little patience with me. I must serve her perfectly. When the water was ready, I prepared the oils, the towels, and foams of the bath.

"Your bath is ready, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said, kneeling before her.

"Untie my sandals," she said, sitting on her bed, "and disrobe me."

I obeyed.

"Remove your tunic," she said.

I did so.

"Look now," she said, "in the great mirror. Who is more beautiful?"

I knelt, looking in the mirror. I choked back a tear. I had always thought that perhaps it was I who was the most beautiful but I saw, now that we were naked, that she, my mistress, was more beautiful than I. Elicia Nevins, who had been my beauty rival, I saw, was truly my superior in beauty. I had not known this until now.

"Who is more beautiful?" she asked.

"You, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said.

"Truly?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes," I said, head down, "Lady Elicia, my mistress."

She walked to the side of the tub.

"Bring me the whip," she said.

I fetched the whip, and handed it to her.

"Judy," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"You are now a woman's slave," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"You will comport yourself with dignity," she said. "You will not be an embarrassment to me."

"Mistress?" I asked.

Suddenly she struck me with the whip, and I turned, spinning, away, and was struck again, and I fled to the wall, and was struck again, and I knelt at the wall, my face to it, my hands to the wall, and was struck again.

"If you so much as look at a man," she said, "I will whip the flesh from your bones!"

"Yes, Mistress!" I wept.

"Slave girl!" cried the Lady Elicia.

I crouched by the wall, having been whipped. "Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said.

"Attend me now," she said. "I would bathe."

She entered the water gracefully, her hair bound in a towel, luxuriating in the multicolored foams of beauty. She lifted her limbs, washing herself indolently, beautifully.

I knelt beside the sunken bath, to wait upon her, her slave, should she desire aught.

"What are you thinking, Judy?" she asked.

"If I told Mistress," I said, "she would whip me."

"No," said the Lady Elicia. "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking," I said, "that a man would love to have his collar on you."

She laughed merrily. "Perhaps," she said. "I am very beautiful."

"Yes, Mistress," I said, "you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen."

"Do you think I would bring a high price?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. She laughed.

"Free me, Mistress," I begged, "free me!"

"Do you truly think," she asked, "that you were brought to Gor to be freed and returned to Earth?"

"I do not know why I was brought to Gor," I said.

"I do," she said.

"Merely to be your slave?" I asked.

"It could have been that," she said. "We have our pick."

"But there is more?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "We needed a girl, one to bear a message. She would be placed in a given location, secured. When it seemed safe, she would be picked up, and transmitted to the proper contact. There she would deliver the message." She looked at me. "Unfortunately," she said, "Tellius and Barus lost you."

"They were going to kill me!" I cried.

"They sought the message in clear form," she said. "They did not, at that time, understand how you carried the message. I do. It is fortunate for us, as well as you, that you were not slain, they thinking you had disposed of the message, cheating us of its contents."

"They wanted slave beads," I said. "I had none."

"Yes," she said.

"I carry no message," I said.

"You do," she said. "But you do not know you carry it."

I did not believe this. But it is not wise to argue with the mistress.

"Could not a man have carried the message?" I asked.

"Slave girls," she said; "attract little attention, save by their flesh and person. They may be bought and sold, and may easily change hands. They are often transported great distances, even hooded. If they are ignorant, they are ideal couriers. They themselves do not even know they carry the message. They cannot even suspect themselves. Why should others, then, seeing only another branded, chained girl, suspect them?"