I wore besides my bonds only a collar of marsh vine. She wore her swiftness, and her freedom, and an armlet of gold.

But most perhaps, incredible as it might seem, I feared that if I asked for a kindness, even a word or a gesture, it would be refused. Alone and slave, beaten and degraded, I found myself desperately in need of something, be in almost nothing, to indicate that I was a man, a human being, something that might, to some extent or degree, be worthy of respect or understanding. I thik that if she, this proud woman, before whom I felt myself nothing, she my mistress, if she had but cared to speak a word of simple kindness to me I might have cried out with gladness, willingly serving her in all things she asked. But if I should but beg a kindness, humbly, I feared it might be refused, that she might reject me in this as she had in other things, my manhood and my humanity. And fused with this, excruciating in the pain of it, was my desire for her, the crying out of my blood that she so, and deliberately, aroused.

In the darkness I sensed her, and her lips, but an inch from my own. She had not deigned to move.

To my horror, timidly, fearing and hesitant, I felt my lips lift then to those of my beautiful mistress, and, i the darkness, touch them.

"Slave," said she, with contempt.

I put my head back to the woven rence that formed the floor of the hut. "Yes," I said, "I am a slave."

"Whose?" she queried.

"Telima's," I said.

"I am your slave," I said.

She laughed. "Tomorrow," she said, "I will put you up at stake, to be a prize for girls."

I said nothing.

"Say I am pleased," she said.

"Please!" I said.

"Say it," she said.

"I am pleased," I said.

"Say now," said she, "I am a pretty slave."

My wrists and ankles fought the marsh vine.

She laughed. "Do not stuggle," she said. "Also," she added, "there is not point. Telima ties well."

It was true.

"Say it," said she.

"I cannot," I begged.

"Say it," said she.

"I–I am a pretty slave," I said.

I threw back my head and cried out with misery.

I heard her soft laugh. In the darkness I could see the outline of her head, could feel her hair on my shoulder. Her lips, still, were but an inch from mine. "I will now teach you the fate of a pretty slave," she said.

Suddenly, her hands in my hair, she thrust her lips savagely down on mine and, to my horror, my lips met hers, but could not withstand them and I felt her head forcing mine down and I felt her feeth cut into my lips and I tastes blood, my own, in my mouth, and then, insolently, her tongue thrust into my mouth, possessively, forcing mine, as it would, from its path, and then, after some Ehn, withdrawing her tongue, she bit me, as I cried out in pain, diagonally across the mouth and lips, that, on the morrow, when I stood at stake in festival, the marks of my mistress's teeth, evidence of her conquest of me, would be visible in my body.

I was shattered.

I had been given the kiss of the Mistress to the male slave.

"You will move as I direct," she said.

In the darkness, shattered, bound, mouth swollen, I heard her in horror. Then she mounted me, and used me for her pleasure.

"I think I shall win you," said a lithe, dark-haired girl, holding my chin and pushing up my head, that she might better see my face. She was dark-eyed, and slender, and vital. Her legs were marvelous, accentuated by the incredibly brief tunic of the rence girl.

"I shall win him," said another girl, a tall, blond girl, gray-eyed, who carried a coil of marsh vine in her right hand.

Another girl, dark-haired, carrying a folded net over her left shoulder, said, "No, he will be mine."

"No, mine!" said yet another.

"Mine!" cried yet another, and another.

They gathered about me, examining me, walking about me, regarding me as one might an animal, or slave.

"Teeth," said the first girl, the lithe, dark-haired girl.

I opened my mouth that she might examine my teeth. Others looked as well. Then she felt of my muscles, and thighs, and slapped my side two or three times. "Sturdy," said one of the girls.

"But much used," said another.

She laughed, with others. They referred to my mouth. On the right side it was black, and cut, and swollen. Diagonally it wore the marks of the teeth of Telima.

"Yes," said the first girl, laughing, "much used."

"But good for all that!" laughed another.

"Yes," said the first girl, "good for all that." She stepped back and regarded me. "Yes," she said to the others, "all things considered, this is a good slave, a quite good slave."

They laughed.

Then the lithe girl stepped close to me.

I stood with an oar pole at my back, bound to it for their inspection. The pole, thrust deep in the rence of the island, stood in a clearing near the shore of the island. My wrists were bound behind the pole with marsh vine. My ankles were also fastened to the pole. Two other coils of marsh vine bound my stomach and neck to the pole. On my head my Mistress, Telima, had placed a woven garland of rence flowers.

The lithe, dark-haired girl, standing close to me, traced a pattern on my left shoulder, idly. It was the first letter of the Gorean expression for slave. She looked up at me. "Would you like to be my slave?" she asked. "Would you like to serve me?"

I said nothing.

"I might even be kind to you," said the girl.

I looked away.

She laughed.

Then the other girls, too, came close to me, each to taunt me, with whether or not I would not rather serve them.

"Clear away there," called a man's voice. It was Ho-Hak.

"It is time for contests," called another voice, which I recognized as that of Telima, my mistress. She wore the golden armlet, and the purple fillet tying back her hair. She wore the brief tunic of the rence girl. She was exceedingly well pleased with herself today, and was stunning in her beauty. She walked, head back, as though she might own the earth. In her had she carried a throwing stick.

"Come, come away," said Ho-Hak, gesturing for the girls to go down to the shore of the rence island.

I wanted Ho-Hak to look at me, to meet my eyes. I respected him, I wanted him to look upon me, to seign to recognize that I might exist.

But he did not look upon me, nor notice me in any way, and, followed by Telima, and the other girls, made his way to the shore of the rence island. I was left alone, tied at the pole.

I had been aroused at dawn by Telima, and unbound, that I might help in the preparations for festival.

In the early morning the other rence islands, four of them, which had been tethered close by, were poled to the one on which I was kept, and now, joined by flat rence rafts, acting as bridges, they had been tied to one another, now forming, for most practical purposes, a large single island.

I had been used in the fastening of the bridges, and in the drawing up and tying of rence craft on the shore, as other rencers, from distant islands, arrived for festival. I had also been used to carry heavy kettled of rence beer from the various islands to the place of feasting, as well as strings of water gourds, poles of fish, plucked gants, slaughtered tarks, and baskets of the pith of rence.

Then, about the eighth Gorean hour, Telima had ordered me to the pole, where she bound me and placed on my head the garland of rence flowers.

I had stood at the pole the long morning, subject to the examination, the stares, and the blows and abuse of those who passed by.

Around the tenth Gorean hour, the Gorean noon, the rencers ate small rence cakes, dotted with seeds, drank water, and nibbled on scraps of fish. The great feast would be in the evening.