I smiled to myself. Of course, she would do anything. She was an owned woman. Such must do anything, and superbly, and unhesitantly, upon the least wish of the Master. They are slaves. And yet it pleased me to hear the former Miss Henderson, of her own free will, beg to please me. This was a gratification which few men of Earth had obtained, I speculated, from the women of Earth. But then few men of Earth had had the illuminating experience of seeing their precious women, their sexuality liberated by Gorean males, returned to the primitive natural state of biological women, crawling, collared, to the feet of masters. Woman in her place in nature is perfect and delicious. Out of her place in nature she is a deviant and a freak.

"Master has not commanded me," said the girl, keeping her cheek down upon my right thigh.

I hung the whip, by its handle loop, over the arm of the curule chair.

"It is my hope that I am not displeasing to him," she whispered. "Perhaps he will command me later. It is my hope that he is saving me for his own pleasure, and not for the pleasure of another." She looked up at me, frightened. "I know well the power of your desire, and the strength of your arms, from the holding of Policrates. And yet in these days that you have owned me, you have used me not once. I trust that I have not lost my charm for you. I hope that it is for yourself that you are keeping me, and that you are not keeping me for another. I know that my will means nothing but it is to you that I wish to belong, and not to another. Keep me, I beg of you. I will struggle to be worthy of your decision."

I reached to the side of the curule chair and took from a bronze dish on the carpet a small leather sack. It contained some tiny scraps of meat, remnants which I had saved from my supper.

Bit by bit I fed these to the slave.

"The Master feeds his slave," said the girl. "It is thus my hope that he is not wholly dissatisfied with me."

When I had finished feeding her I gently dabbed her mouth with her hair, being careful not to disarrange the slave's lipstick with which her sweet, full lips had been adorned. It was crimson. It was, by design, kissably sensuous, designed to arouse men and provoke the lust of masters; some girls are terrified to wear such lipstick; they know how it enhances their loveliness and proclaims them well as slaves; they understand well its intention and are seldom left long in doubt as to its effectiveness; had they originally entertained doubts as to its efficacy these doubts are often dispelled rapidly, as they squirm, naked and collared, perfumed, in the arms of a strong man, as it is being ruthlessly kissed from their lips. Yet, of course, it is not simply the lipstick, but the entire appearance and ensemble of the slave, and perhaps mostly simply that she is a slave, which so enhances her desirability, which so drives men wild with the desire to have her.

I extended my fingers to her and she, gently, licked the grease from them. I then dried my hands on her hair, and she knelt back, kneeling on the broad carpeted dais before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.

"Thank you, my Master, for feeding me," she said. I nodded. Many slave girls, of course, cannot even take their food for granted. And, strictly, of course, every slave girl depends, ultimately, on the master's decision, as to whether or not she is to be fed.

"I am happy that it is you who owns me," she said. "I cannot tell you how happy it makes me, I, a slave, to belong to one such as you. In my deepest heart of hearts I desire to obey, to serve and love. I know, too, full well, that you, and ones like you, will require, and, nay, even enforce, uncompromisingly, these lovely exactions upon me. I shall then, in my womanhood, be fulfilled. How I pity the unfulfilled, frustrated women of my old world whose sex and dispositions, meaningless and largely useless in the bleak labyrinths of an artificial world, must be thwarted, suppressed and denied, in the interests of economic and mechanistic exigencies. How far are the barren, dismal corridors of such a world from our native countries. How long my people have been lost. How far we have drifted from our own hearts. How far we have wandered from home. What can any journey profit us, if it is ourselves whom we have left behind?

"But I speak foolishly, my Master," she said, "for what can such nonsense mean to one such as you, one skilled in the mastery, Gorean in blood and power? How little has your own world prepared you to comprehend such lamentations. How meaningless they must seem to you. But suffice it to say that I, who was brought to Gor, and put in a collar, and am an abject slave, am here a thousand times more free than ever I was upon my native world. The thousand trammels of my captivity on Earth I have here shed. As a slave I am more free here than ever I was there. In coming here I have found myself, for the first time, in a world such as that for which I, thousands of years ago, was bred. Here I am a woman. Here I am happy."

I looked down upon her. I did not speak.

"I kneel before you, your slave, yours to do with as you wish. Command me, and I shall obey. I am yours." She looked up at me, smiling. "Whip me, or terrify me," she said. "I must accept. I must endure. I am a slave. But I wish to please you. That is what I really wish to do. You can probably never know how much I wish to please you."

I regarded her. I did not speak.

"I am before you, and you have not dismissed me. I gather then that I may remain as I am, for the time, kneeling before you." She smiled. "I gather that it pleases you, for some reason, to have me kneeling before you, naked, and as your slave. I suppose that if I were a man it would please me, too, to have a woman so situated before me. And I shall tell you a secret, my Master, for we slaves may not keep secrets from our masters. It pleases us women, too, to kneel thusly before men, especially if we are slaves, for their perusal and inspection. And it is our hope, too, that we will be found attractive by our masters. It is they who own us, and we wish them to find us pleasing. How scandalous we slaves are!" she laughed. "Oh, Master," she said, "if my girlish prattle should displease you in the slightest, please indicate this by some gesture or expression. I will then remain silent until I sense that it may, again, be acceptable for me to speak. I know well who is master here."

But I displayed to her no disapprobatory sign.

"Do you like my bells?" she asked, happily. "They have been put upon me for your pleasure. It excites me to be belled." She lifted her left arm, and turned it. There was a shimmer of sound from the glinting rows of tiny bells locked on her wrist. "Are they not pretty?" she asked. "They mark my movements well, and as those of a slave," she smiled. Then she lowered her arm, and knelt back again, on her heels, in the position of the pleasure slave. "How happy I am yours," she said. "Thank you for bringing me to your house, my Master."

I looked down upon her, so exquisite and desirable, kneeling before me, perfumed, naked and belled. Her knees and the bells on her ankles were almost lost in the soft, deeply piled carpet before the curule chair.

"My Master licks his lips," she said. "Perhaps he sees before him a morsel which he would like to devour?"

I did not speak. _'Go hungry to the feast,_ I thought, _'so say the Goreans. _ And what a slave feast knelt before me!

"I gather that I may continue to speak," she said. "It seems to please my Master to hear me speak." This is not unusual, incidentally, among Gorean masters. High intelligence is highly valued in a female slave. One of the great pleasures in owning a girl is listening to her. It is a great pleasure to become intimately acquainted with her expressions and thoughts, from the most casual and trivial to the most delicate and profound. She must always, of course, be kept strictly in her place.