"Yes, Master," she said. She kissed me.

"Please me," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The lamp went out softly in the darkness. This frightened her. "Must you go out on the ice? she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you going to take me with you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I am afraid," she said.

"Do not be afraid," I said to her.

"I cannot help it," she said.

"Please me in the darkness, in the furs, Slave," I said.

"Yes, my master," she said.

In a few minutes I took her in my arms and threw her to her back. She gasped. "I thought I was to please you," she said.

"You are pleasing me," I said.

"You are making me yield," she said, intensely.

"That pleases me," I said.

Then she began to buck and writhe and was soon lost in the throes of the slave orgasm, helplessly yielded to her master. She came silently, intensely, clutching me, this not known to the others asleep in the hut. That a slave girl had been conquered in the darkness need not be known to them.

Afterwards I held her, naked, closely, warmly.

After a time she whispered, "I want to be touched again."

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your will means nothing," I said.

"I know," she said.

"But I will touch you," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said. Soon again she squirmed in silence, taken, in the furs in the hut of Imnak.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered, afterwards. "You give a girl much pleasure."

"Sleep now, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I do not know how long we slept, but it was perhaps no more than two or three Ahn. I awakened, conscious of her holding me. Her head lay on my belly. She was not asleep. "Master," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

She knelt beside me. "Please. Master," she said.

"Is your need to serve a man hot upon you?" I asked. I could tell that it was from her breathing.

"Yes Master," she said.

"You are a slave," I said.

"Yes, I am a slave, Master." she said.

"Very well. Slave." I said. "You may serve me."

"Thank you. Master." she said.

Soon I marveled at her skill Tt was all I could do to keep from crying out with pleasure and delight, and my pride in the skill of the slave I owned. How proud I was of her! She was for most practical purposes untrained apd new to the collar and yet many girls whom I had had, even in paga taverns, I suspect, could not have equaled her performance.

"What is going on with you?" I asked.

"I do not understand," she said.

"What has happened?" I asked. "What has gone on in your head, pretty slave?"

"I do not understand," she said.

"I went to sleep with a pot wench," I said, "and I awaken with a pleasure slave."

She laughed. Then she said, soberly, "I love being a slave, Master."

"That is well," I said, "for on this world you are a slave, and you are going to continue to be a slave."

"Yes. Master." she said, trembling. Then she said, "I am content, Master."

"Continue your work, Slave Girl," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then let her pleasure me, fully, not so much as touching her, that she might learn to please completely, without being so much as granted the least kiss or caress of the male beast. Slave girls are forced thus, sometimes, to serve, totally, unilaterally: it helps to impress their slavery on them.

She then lay beside me.

"Do you still love being a slave girl?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But I did not so much as touch you," I said.

"Oh, sex is terribly important," she said. "and you may use it as you do, you beasts, to conquer and discipline us, and make us your sex slaves, but, too, there are other things in slavery which are perhaps harder for you to understand, for you are not the woman."

"What can there be," I asked, "other than chains and the whip, the kiss and the collar?"

"You men are so simple, so naive," she laughed. "You do not even understand the fullness of the power you hold over us. Slavery is not a mere condition; it is a kind of life. The woman is not simply a slave when you seize her and throw her to your feet. She is a slave, too, before this, and after this, subject to your will, and knowing it. There is a wholeness, a fullness, a beauty in a woman's being a slave, of which I fear you may be unaware."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you think women would make you such marvelous slaves if there was not something in them which wanted to be enslaved?"

"Perhaps not," I said.

"A slave girl is not a slave only, you see, when she is commanded or taken in the arms of the master. She is a slave wholly, fully, all the time. It is what she is. I think it is this wholeness, this fullness, this beauty, this totality of bondage which you men do not understand. It is hard to speak of it. When a girl is a slave all of her is a slave. It is what she is. Oh, I could speak to you of a woman's need for emotional fulfillment, security, excitement, romance, discipline; her need to relate, to be happy, to a strong male figure, one before whom she knows herself, truly, in the intimacy of herself to be a female, and his; the bankruptcy of egoism, ambition and greed for many women; their need to love, their desire to please and be of service; their intrinsic yearning to submit to an uncompromising, dominant organism; their deep-seated desire to be found so beautiful and attractive that men will want them, and want them so much that they will own them and make them give them everything, but are not all these things only futile words peripheral to the speechless emotional reality felt by the girl when she kneels before the master, and he then touches her as his own?"

I did not speak.

"There is something about being owned, and belonging to another, which is very meaningful to a woman," she said. "It is also, in a way that is hard to make clear to a man, profoundly satisfying."

"It has to do with nature," I suggested.

"I suppose, in some way," she said.

It seemed likely to me that there would be a genetic base for feelings so deep, and widely spread.

"Are you going to free me?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"That pleases me," she said.

She lay beside me. I did not touch her.

"It is hard to make clear toaman," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"The ecstasy of being a slave girl," she said. "You see, Master," she said, "the joy of being a slave girl is a very deep and continuous thing. Its emotional fulfillments extend far beyond the masterly depredations and disciplines you inflict, as you please, upon me."

"Surely they are not unimportant," I said.

"No," she said, "they are important. Indeed, it was your touch which first made me a slave."

I sensed her turn toward me in the darkness. "But, you see," she said, "I must serve you whether I am touched or not. And that, too, in a way you may have difficulty understanding, I find very meaningful, very thrilling."

"You respond then, not only to my touch but also to the very condition of slavery itself?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but I would prefer to think of it as responding not so much to the condition of being a slave as to the clear and incontrovertible fact that I am a slave. I think that is it, that that is my reality, that I am a slave."

"That you find thrilling in itself?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "to be will-lessly at the mercy of another, his helpless slave."

"I see," I said.

"Too, sometimes," she said, "being a slave I feel very free and happy."

"Perhaps that has something to do with the repudiation and abandonment of egoism, the enemy of love," I speculated.

"Perhaps," she said, "I do not know. I suspect it involves many things and is very deep."

"Only fools have simple explanations for complex phenomena," I said. "Nothing human is simple."