"She let you used it," I said.

"I did much work for her," said Telima, "that I might, one night, when I chose, use it."

"Perhaps the new girl," I said, "to please the boy Fish, will sometimes wish to use the comb."

Telima smiled. "The she, too," said Telima, "will have to work."

I smile.

"Come here," I said.

Obediently the girl rose to her feet and came and knelt before me.

I put out my hands and took her head in my hands. "My proud Telima," I said, "my former mistress." I looked on her, kneeling barefoot before me, my steel collared locked on her throat, in the scanty, miserable, stained garment of the Kettle Slave.

"My Ubar," she whispered.

"Master," I said.

"Master," she said.

I drew the golden armlet from her arm, and looked at it.

"How dare you, Slave," I asked, "wear this before me?"

She looked startled. "I wanted to please you," she whispered.

I threw the armlet to one side. "Kettle Slave," I said.

She looked down, and a tear ran down her cheek.

"You thought to win my favor," I said, "by coming here at this time." She looked up. "No," she said.

"But your trick," I told her, "has not worked."

She shook her head, no.

I put my hands on her collar, forcing her to look directly at me. "you are well worthy of a collar," I said.

Her eyes flashed, the Telima of old. "You, too," she said, "wear a collar!" I tore away from my throat the broad scarlet ribbon, with its pedant medallion, with the tarn ship and the intitials of the Council of Captains. I flung it from me.

"Arrogant Slave!" I said.

She said nothing.

"You have come to torment me in my grief," I told her.

"No," she said, "no!"

I rose to my feet and flung her to the tiles of the bed chamber.

"you want to be first girl!" I cried.

She stood up, looking down. "It was not for that reason that I came here tonight," she said.

"You want to be first girl!" I cried. "You want to be first girl!"

She looked suddenly at me, angrily. "Yes," she cried, "I want to be first girl!" I laughed, pleased that she had spoken her guilt out of her own mouth. "you are only a Kettle Slave," I laughed. "First Girl! I am going to send you back to the kitchens to be beaten, Kettle Slave!"

She looked at me, tears in her eyes. "who will be first girl?" she asked. "Doubtless Sandra," said I.

"She is very beautiful," said Telima.

"Perhaps," I asked, "you saw her dance?"

"Yes," said Telima, "she is very, very beautiful."

"Can you dance thus?" I asked her.

She smiled. "No," she said.

"Sandra," I said, "seems eager to please me."

Telima looked at me. "I, too," she whispered, "am eager to please you." I laughed at her, that she, the proud Telima, would so demean herself. "You resort well," I said, "to the wiles of the slave girl,"

She dropped her head.

"Are the kitchens that unpleasant?" I taunted her.

She looked up at me, angrily. There were tears in her eyes. "You can be hateful," she said.

I turned away.

"You may return to the kitchens," I told her.

I sensed her turn to move toward the door.

"wait!" I cried, turning, and she, too, in the doorway, turned.

And then the words that I spoke did not seem to come from me but from something within me that was deeper than the self I knew. Not since I had knelt bound before Ho-Hak on the rence island had such words come from me, so unbidden, so tortured. "I am unhappy," I said, "and I am lonely."

There were tears in her eyes. "I, too," she said, "am lonely."

We approached one another, and extended to one another our hands, and our hands touched, and I held her hands. And then, weeping, the two of us cried out, holding one another.

"I love you," I cried.

And she cried, "And I love you, my Ubar. I have loved you for so long!"

I held the sweet, loving, uncollared thing in my arms.

"My Ubar," whispered Telima.

"Master," I said, kissing her.

She drew back, reproachfully. "Would you not rather be my Ubar, than my Master?" she asked.

I looked at her. "Yes," I said, "I would."

"You aer both," she pronounced, again kissing me.

"Ubara," I whispered to her.

"Yes," she whispered, "I am your Ubara-and your slave girl."

"You wear no collar," I pointed out.

"Master removed it," said she, "that he might more easily kiss my throat." "Oh!" I said.

"Oh!" she cried.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she laughed.

I felt her back, and the five weals left there by the switch of the kitchen master.

"But a few hours ago," said she, "I displeased my master and he had me beaten." "I am sorry," I said.

She laughed. "How silly you sometimes are, my Ubar. I left your side unbidden, and so, of course, I was beaten." She looked up at me, laughing. "I have richly deserved many beatings," she confided, "but I have not always received them." Telima was Gorean to the core. I myself would always be, doubtless, at least partly, of Earth. I held her. There could never be, I told myself, any question of sending this woman to Earth. In tht overcrowded desert of hypocracies and hysterical, meaningless violences, she would surely wither and blacken, like some rare and beautiful plant of the marshes uprooted and thrust down among stones to die.

"Are you still sad, my Ubar?" she asked.

"No," I told her, kissing her. "No."

She looked at me, gently. And touched my cheek with her hand. "Do not be sad," she said.

I looked about and found the golden armlet. I slipped it once again on her arm. She leaped to her feet, standing on the furs of the couch, and threw her left arm into the air. "I am Ubara!" she cried.

"Commonly," I said, "a Ubara wears more than a golden armlet."

"On the couch of her Ubar?" asked Telima.

"Well," I admitted, "I do not know about that."

"I do not either," said Telima. She looked down at me, brightly. "I shall ask the new girl in the kitchens," she said.

"You wench!" I cried, grabbing her ankle.

She stepped back swiftly, and then stood there, regally on the furs. "How dare you address such a word to your Ubara, Slave!" demanded she. "Slave!" I cried.

"Yes," she taunted, "Slave!"

I cast about for the slave collar I had taken from her throat.

"No, no!" she cried, laughing, almost losing her footing in the furs. Then I had the collar.

"You will never collar me!" she cried.

She darted away, laughing. I, laughing, leaped from the couch, pursuing her. She ran this way and that, and dodged back and forth, laughing, but then I had her pinned in the corner of the room, her arms held down by the walls and my body, and snapped the collar again on her throat. I lifted her and carried her again to the furs and threw her down upon them.

She jerked at the collar and looked up at me, as though in fury.

I held her wrists down.

"You will never tame me!" she hissed.

I kissed her.

"Well," she said, "perhaps you will tame me."

I kissed her again.

"Ah," she said, looking up at me, "it is not unlikely that in the end I will succumb to you."

I laughed.

But then, as though infuriated by my laughter, she began to struggle viciously. "But, in the meantime," she hissed, between clenched teeth, "I shall resist you with all my might!"

I laughed again, and she laughed, and I permitted her to struggle until she had exhausted herself, and then, with lips and hands, and teeth and tongue, I touched her, until her body, caressed and loved, in all its loneliness and passion, yielded itself, moaning and crying out, to mine in our common ecstasy. And in the moments before she yielded, when I sensed her readiness, to her faint protest, then joy, I removed from her throat the slave collar that her yielding, our game ended, would be that of the free woman, glorious in the eager and willing, the joyous, bestowal of herself.