“Slave girls are not permitted weapons,” I laughed.

Tina tossed the tiny knife back to Rim.

We all much applauded her.

I pointed to the sand. She dropped to her knees in the sand, and put her head down.

“Lift your head,” I told her.

She did so.

“You are skillful,” said I, adding, “-Slave.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

I was much pleased. “Thurnock,” said I, “ give her wine.”

The men applauded.

“Very well,” grinned Thurnock. But he approached her warily.

“Turn you back to me,” he said, “and place your wrists, crossed, behind the back of your neck.” She did so, and Thurnock, with a length of binding fiber, looped twice about her throat, and then four times about her wrists, fastened her wrists behind the back of her neck.

“I will see where her hands are,” he grumbled. There was laughter. Then he said to her, “Kneel.” She did so, and, he holding her head back, by the hair, poured wine down her throat.

I turned to the handsome young seaman, he with the wristlet studded with amethysts.

I indicated Tina.

“Take her to the wall,” I said, “ to where she is chained for the night in the sand.” “Yes, Captain,” said he.

He lifted her easily in his arms. She struggled a bit, bound, but I could see that she was excited to be in his arms.

She had picked him out from all the others.

“Tonight,” I told the young man, “she is yours to chain in the sand.” “Captain?” he asked.

“Tonight,” I told him, “the chains she wears are yours.”

“My gratitude, Captain!” he cried.

She, a slave, bound, turned her lips to his, carried from the fire to her chains, in the darkness of the wall, on the other side of the Tesephone. Rim rose and yawned. He put his arm about Cara, and together they left the fire. The men began to drink and talk.

Sheera made so bold as to touch my forearm. My eyes warned her from me. She put down her head.

I talked long with Thurnock, discussing the plans for the enterprise in the forest, and my wishes for appointments and regulations at the camp. The fire had burned low, and the guard had been changed, before we were finished.

It was a hot night. The stars were very bright in the black Gorean sky. The three moons were beautiful. The men lay on their blankets in the sand, under the awnings stretched from the Tesephone.

The sound of the river was slow and sweet, moving between its banks, flowing downward to greet Thassa, the sea, more than two hundred pasangs from this small, silent camp.

I heard night birds cry in the forest. The shrill scream of a sleen, perhaps a pasang distant, carried to the camp. I heard the sounds of insects. I looked at the lines of the Tesephone in the darkness. She was a good ship. Before my shelter, on the sand, at the stern of the ship, there stood a figure. She wore the brief, sleeveless garment of white wool. My collar lay at her throat.

“Greetings, Sheera,” I said.

“In the forests,” she said, “you made me carry trade goods on my back. you braceleted me, and sent me into the woods, when sleen and panthers were hunting. By the women of Verna I was much abused. I was much switched.” I shrugged. “You are slave,” I said.

“I hate you,” she cried.

I regarded her.

“You are making me learn to cook,” she said, “you are making me learn to sew, to wash garments, to iron them!” “You are slave,” I told her.

“Tonight,” she said, “you forced me to serve you at the feast.” She looked at me, with fury. “You forced me to serve you as a slave girl!” “Whose collar do you wear?” I asked.

She turned away.

“Are you not a slave?” I asked, amused.

She turned to face me, her fists clenched. I heard the river behind her. “Why did you buy me?” she asked.

“To serve my purposed, to implement my plans,” I told her.

“And I have done so,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“They you may now sell me,” she whispered.

“Or slay you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “or slay me-should it please you!”

“But I am a merchant,” I said, “I would not wish to take the loss. I paid three pieces of gold and five tarsks for you.” “I am not property!” she cried.

“Of course you are property,” I told her. “You are animal. You are slave.” “Yes,” she wept, “I am slave, slave!” She turned away.

I made no attempt to comfort her. One does not comfort a slave.

“When in the slave market at Lydius,” she challenged, “when you saw me chained at the bar, did you think them only of your plans, your purposes?” “No,” I admitted.

She turned to face me.

“And your kiss,” I said,” when I tasted your lips, at the bar in Lydius, I did not find you without interest.” “And in the hold,” she asked, “after my branding, when at night, on the planks, you deigned to use me?” “I found you not without interest,” I told her.

“Does what transpired between us there mean nothing to you?” she asked. “It means nothing,” I said.

“I am, then, fully and unqualifiedly, a slave,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. I looked upon her. She was quite beautiful, in the shadows, in the brief, sleeveless garment of white wool, the fillet of white wool tying back her hair, barefoot, my collar at her throat.

As her seller had said, she was a beauty. And she was mine.

“Tonight,” she said, “I touched your arm.” She put down her head. “It cost me much to do so. I struggled with myself for several Ahn, fighting myself. But I reached out, to touch you. I could not help myself. I reached out, to touch you. And your eyes were hard.” I did not speak.

“I am no longer a panther girl,” she said. Then she looked up at me, and then she said, to my surprise, “Not do I wish to be.” I did not speak.

“In the hold,” she said,you taught me what it is to be a woman.”

She put down her head. “You gave me no option to my submission. You took from me everything. You took from me my total surrender.” “A woman in a collar is not permitted inhibitions,” I said.

She looked up at me, angrily.

“Is it not time you were chained for the night?” I asked.

Yes,” she said, angrily. “It is!” she regarded me. “It is time for me to be chained.” I saw the chains lying dark, half covered in the sand, not far from her feet. “I shall call one of the men,” I said, turning toward my shelter.

“I reached out to touch you tonight,” she said. “But your eyes were hard.” She looked down to the chains, half covered with hand. “Your eyes were hard,” she said.

“I shall call some to chain you,” I said.

“Master!” she cried.

I was startled. It was the first time Sheera had addressed me by this title. The word must have come hard from her.

She was still, for practical purposes, fresh to her collar. She had, however, standing there, half concealed in the darkness, begun to sense its meaning. I supposed that I, in the hold of the Tesephone, had perhaps taught her something of the import of the obdurate steel on her fair throat. She had obviously now, as it is said, deep in her body, begun to feel her collar.

How hard it must be, to be a woman, I thought. She, noble creature, so marvelous in her temptations and beauties, with the excellences of her mind and the determined prides of her heart, how strange that she, so much prizing her freedom, is made whole only as it is ruthlessly swept from her, that the true totality of her response, the fullness of her ecstasy is the yielding and the surrender, and the more delicious and incontrovertible the more complete. The Goreans claim that in each woman there is a free companion, proud and beautiful, worthy and noble, and in each, too, a slave girl. The companion seeks for her companion; the slave girl for her master. It is further said, that on the couch, the Gorean girl, whether slave or free, who has had the experience, who has tried all loves, begs for a master. She wishes to belong completely to a man, withholding nothing, permitted to withhold nothing. And, of course, of all women, only a slave girl may truly belong to a man, only a slave girl can be truly his, in all ways, utterly, totally, completely, his, selflessly, at his mercy, his ecstatic slave, helpless and joyous in the total submission which she is given no choice but to yield.