"I am, then, of interest?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"A girl is pleased," she said.

"I found you of interest when you were free," I said, "and I find you of much greater interest now."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Part of this," I said, "is doubtless that I now can, and will, do with you exactly as I please."

"Oh, Master?" she asked.

"There is a sense, of course," I said, "in which you are supposedly of less interest than a free woman."

"What is that," she asked, "Master."

"Suppose," I said, "that I was, in my compartments, entertaining a free woman. In such a situation you would be expected to efface yourself, and humbly serve. You would not speak unless you were spoken to, and then presumably only to respond deferentially to commands. You would remain in the background, a mere imtrument to serve us. In no way would you in the slightest be permitted to detract from the impression or effect the free woman desires to create or compete with her in any way. You would be nothing in the room but an almost invisible convenience."

"I see," she said.

"And yet this is all on the surface," I said, "and largely a matter of theory."

"Oh, Master?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "for in the depth of the situation your presence is felt profoundly by the free woman. Indeed, she will hate you with a ferocity which is difficult for you to understand. For you are a reproach, in the depths of your womanhood, to her superficiality. There is more excitement she knows in your slightest movement, the turning of your head, the tiny movement of a wrist or finger, that of a girl in bondage, than in her entire, tight, proud, righteous body. She can never touch you in the profundity of your existence and reality unless sometime she, too, should loam what it is to be only a collared slave. She knows that you have found your womanhood and she has not Thus she hates you. She knows the free man is anxious for her to leave that he may hurry you, his slave, to the furs. Thus she hates you. It is you whom he has put in his collar, not her. It is you he rapes in his arms, not her. It is thus that she despises and hates you. She must rise and leave. You wili remain, and serve. She hates you, and, with a depth and intensity which is diffictilt for you to understand, envies you."

"But why?" she asked.

"Because you are a slave," I said.

"I see," she said.

"Thus," I said, "that is a situation in which a free woman is theoretically of more interest than a slave, but, upon closer analysis, the center of interest, even in such a situation, because of her latency, her womanhood, her helplessness, what can be done with her, is the slave."

"I see," she said.

"Beware of free women," I smiled.

"Yes," she said, "I think I would be very afraid of them."

"And you should be," I said. 'They can often be terribly cruel to slave girls."

"I do fear them," she said.

"Speaking of who is of interest and who is not," I said, "what of you, lovely slave, and men?"

"I do not understand," she said.

"Do you find men now that you are a slave more or less interesting than when you were free?" I asked.

She looked at me, startled. "I find them now a thousand times more interesting," she said, surpilsed.

"Of course," I said.

"I look at them," she said, "and I wonder what it would be like to be owned by them, or touched by them. I never looked at men so deeply or closely, or fearfully, before. I am now so sensitive to my slavery, and my vulnerability to men. Now, for the first time in my life, they seem to me of profound importance and interest. You see, they can own me, and I might have to serve them."

"Does your slavery make men more sexually interesting to you?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, "a million times more so than when I was free. I know I might have to serve their pleasure. Too, now, with many men, I find myself wanting to serve their pleasure. When I was free I could never kneel to a man and beg him for his touch. Now that I am a slave I could do so. I would need fear only whether or not you would permit it, for you are my master."

I looked down at her. She was very beautiful.

"My sexuality has been liberated by my slavery," she said. "It is now a force within me." She looked at me, chidingly, reproachfully. "You freed it," she said. "What am I now to do? It is a joy and a torment" She clutched my arms. "It makes me helpless," she said. She looked up at me, angrily. "You have made me so I now need the touch of men," she said. "I hate you!" Then, her nails digging into my arms, she said, "Touch me!"

I looked down at her.

"You did this to me," she said. "You made me a slave girl. You made me a slave girl!"

"Of course," I said.

"Touch me, Master," she whimpered.

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, "Arlene, your girl, Arlene, your slave, begs your touch!"

"Oh," she sobbed. "Thank you, Master."

"It is probably time for you to get up and serve me boiled meat," I said.

"No, no, no, no," she whimpered.

"But it can wait, I suppose," I said.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," she said.

"Yes, what?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are a hot slave," I said.

"Please do not so speak of me," she begged. Then she said, "Oh, no, please do not stop touching me. Please do not stop touching me." Then she said, "Yes, yes, Master."

"Are you a hot slave?" I asked.

She opened her eyes, writhing under my touch. She looked at me, angrily, defiantly. "Yes," she gasped, "I am a hot slave!"

"I thought so," I said.

"How you shame me!" she wept.

"A slave should be proud of her heat," I said. "You are not a free woman, permitted to be smug in the icy conceit of her frigidity."

She looked up at me.

"Writhe freely, Slave," I said. "Yield to the sensations, or be whipped."

"Would you truly whip me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I do not want to be whipped," she said.

"Yield then to the sensations, as a slave girl," I said.

"I dare not," she cried.

"Yield, or die," I said to her.

"Oh, oh!" she cried.

"Yield, as a slave girl, or die," I said to her.

"Aiii," she cried, throwing her head back in the dirt, her finger nails tearing at my arm. "Aiii!" she screamed wildly to the poles and the leather and the grass and dirt of the roof of that feasting house in the polar basin of Gor's far north.

She began to sob uncontrollably. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with tears.

"You are a monster, a beast," she said. I said nothing to her.

"You made me yield," she said, "-as a slave girl."

"Yes," I said, "you have yielded as a slave girl."

"Make me yield again as a slave girl, Master," she begged.

"There are yieldings beyond those which you have as yet experienced," I said.

"Can there be more?" she asked.

"You have not yet begun to learn your slavery," I said.

She looked up at me. "Your girl awaits your pleasure, Master," she said.

"Do you desire to serve me?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, "very much."

I lay beside her and she bent over me, her lips and mouth to my body. I felt her small, warm tongue.

She stopped, and looked up at me. "Surely I am now a complete slave," she said.

"You have not yet begun to learn your slavery," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, bending her head down again. I felt her tongue, and that lovely auburn hair, on my body.

"Arlene," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Is it a slave girl's first duty to be interesting? I asked.

"No," she said. "That is a concern of free women."

"What is the first duty of a slave girl?" I asked.

"To be pleasing to the master," she said.

"Let that be your concern," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.