One of the girls, Lola, asked a question of the Lady Gina, to which she promptly replied. She continued then with her instructions, whatever they might be.

I clenched my fists in the manacles that confined my hands behind my back. I wanted to scream with pleasure that I had been brought to a world on which such women could exist. They were deeply sensuous, profoundly feminine, excruciatingly luscious, and slaves.

The Lady Gina turned her right hand, back down, to the floor, and lifted it slightly. Both girls, obedient to the gesture; rose together to their feet.

They turned to regard me. Both girls were dark-haired and dark-eyed. Lola's hair was darker than that of Tela. Goreans, male and female, like most of those of Earth stock, from which they are doubtless derived, or derived for the most part, are brunet types. Statistical deviations in large numbers from this type occur only in Torvaldsland and in certain other areas in the northern latitudes. Lola, I conjecture, was in the neighborhood of five feet four inches tall and would have weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds; Tela, who was a bit smaller, I would conjecture would have been about five feet three inches tall and would have weighed a pound or two less, perhaps about one hundred and eighteen pounds.

"Do you like the girls, Jason?" asked the Lady Gina.

I looked upon the two girls. They were sweetly slung, with truly feminine bodies, luscious and curvacious. Their breasts were bared. Each, about her hips, wore a gray rag, knotted high on the left hip, to expose the left hip and thigh. Each, on her throat, wore a light, locked steel collar. The collars had writing on them, incised in the steel, which I could not read. The rag at their hips and the steel on their neck were all they wore. Both were barefoot.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"They will be your principal tutors in Gorean," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "Thank you, Mistress."

"Beware of them," she said.

"Mistress?" I asked.

I saw quirts thrust in their hands.

"Kneel, Jason," said the Lady Gina.

In consternation I knelt.

The quirts were thrust to my face.

"Kiss the quirts," she said.

I did so, commanded by the woman whom I feared, who was my mistress.

"In the time of your lessons," she said, "they will be to you as I, your mistresses. You will obey them, perfectly. You will learn swiftly and well"

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Look upon these slave girls," said the Lady Gina.

I looked upon them. What fantastically attractive women they were, their lovely faces framed in cascades of dark hair, their throats, closely encircled by steel collars, their shoulders, their breasts, bared, their narrow waists and sweetly flared hips, the bit of rag they wore, their thighs, calves, ankles and small, high-arched feet.

"Do you find them beautiful?" asked the Lady Gina.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Do you desire them?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

The Lady Gina nodded to the two girls and they, suddenly, viciously, began to lash at me with the leather quirts.

I put my head down, miserably. I was startled. When I looked up, confused, frightened, my body stung in a dozen places.

The Lady Gina spoke to the slave, Lola. Immediately the girl placed her hands behind her head and threw her head back, arching her back and body, legs flexed, before me. I supposed that it was sometimes in such a fashion that slave girls were ordered to display themselves for the pleasure or inspection of masters. I almost sobbed with the pleasure of seeing her.

"Your hands are manacled, Jason," said the Lady Gina. "Too bad. You would like to touch her, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said, miserably.

The Lady Gina nodded to the girl Tela who then, crying out angrily, struck me twice with her, quirt. Lola meanwhile broke her pose and looked at me, impassively.

I looked up at the Lady Gina. There were tears in my eyes, from the stinging of the blows of the quirt.

"Poor Jason," she said, soothingly. Then, again, she spoke to Lola. Lola, the beautiful slave girl, then tore away the rag from her hips and lowered herself to the tiles. She lay then on her back before me. She threw her ankles apart and put her wrists to her sides, their backs to the tiles. It seemed she struggled, as though she might be chained in place, and then resigned herself to her helplessness, and turned her face to me. I looked down at her. It was as though she lay chained before me. Again, suddenly, it seemed she tried to free herself, but could not do so. Then her struggles, it seemed, grew weaker, and she lay before me, as though awaiting whatever fate a master might choose to bestow upon her. Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to hold herself still. She bit her lip, to control herself. She, a slave girl, lay before a man.

The Lady Gina, suddenly, viciously, kicked her, and spoke sharply to her. The girl closed her eyes and lay perfectly still. Again the Lady Gina spoke to her. She opened her eyes and looked up at me. She lifted her body to me. Then she lay back on the tiles, watching me, her sweet breasts rising and falling with her breathing.

I could scarcely believe how beautiful, how desirable, was the female slave lying before me. I, a man of Earth, wanted to cry out with wonder that a woman could be so beautiful. I, a man of Earth, wanted to scream with joy that a woman could even begin to be so desirable. And what I did not understand at the time was that the girls, Lola and Tela, though surely astoundingly lovely, were only a little above the average for Gorean slave girls.

"Would you like to take her in your arms?" asked the Lady. Gina.

I began to squirm. "Please, don't hit me," I begged.

"Speak, Slave!" commanded the Lady Gina.

"No, Mistress. No, Mistress," I said. "I would not want to take her in my arms."

She suddenly cuffed me, angrily, and kicked me. "You can be slain for a lie, Slave," she said.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I begged.

"Did you lie?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "I lied! I lied! Forgive me, Mistress. Please, forgive me!''

"You would, then," she asked, "like to take her in your arms?"

I looked at the supine girl before me, holding her body as though chained. What a desirable female she was, exciting far beyond anything I could have believed existed.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

The Lady Gina then spoke to the two girls. Lola rose to her feet. She tied the brief rag again about her hips. Both took their quirts well in hand. They were long quirts, some two feet in length. They held them now, each of them, with two hands.

"You will now be beaten twice," said the Lady Gina, "once for having, as a frightened, ignorant slave, dared to lie to your mistress, and once for having desired to take a beautiful girl in your arms."

I was then twice beaten, each time with twenty strokes. The Lady Gina, then, placed the chain leash which was snapped on my collar in the hand of Lola. As I lifted my head, miserable, cringing, my back and legs lacerated and bloody, I saw, truly noticing it for the first time, a deep mark, a lovely mark, about an inch and a half high and a half of an inch wide, incised in Lola's left thigh. I was startled. It was a brand. Lola had been branded. The mark was exquisite in her flesh. The design was rather floral. It consisted of what seemed to be a straight line, rather severe, with what appeared to be, adjacent to it, to its right, two fronds, curled and graceful. I would later learn that this was, in cursive script, the initial letter of the Gorean expression 'Kajira', which is the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. The design also, according to some, is supposed to have symbolic significance. The straight line is supposed to represent the staff of discipline and the two fronds the beauty of a woman. The significance of the whole, then, would be beauty subject to the staff of discipline. Interestingly, the design also bears a remote resemblance, if one thinks about it, to the English letter `K'. Since the first sound in the expression 'Kajira' would be represented in English by the letter `K' it is quite possible that this resemblance is more than a coincidence. Certain letters of the Gorean alphabet, not all of them, bear a very clear resemblance to certain letters in certain of the alphabets of Earth. This, I suppose, was to have been expected, given the doubtless Earth origin of all, or most, of the human Goreans. The Gorean name for the letter in question, if it is of interest, is 'Kef'.