I took a circuitous route to my house, with many twistings and turnings. The slave, in the darkness of the hood, bound and helpless, would have no idea of where she was being taken. This was the same house which we had earlier occupied together, when I had mistakenly permitted the slave the dignity and status of the free woman. I was fond of the house, as it was fit for my needs, and, indeed, I had made it more fit, by certain additions, for my pleasure, and for the work and holding of a slave. Too, I now owned this house, having purchased it with a few gold pieces, a small portion of my share of the spoils, taken from the holding of Policrates. Riches, too, there had been to distribute, of course, not merely females.

Indeed, as Goreans went, I was now a rich man. I could have afforded a hundred girls of the sort I now carried on my shoulder. But I wanted only this one. This one, alone, I had decided, would be ample to my needs. This slave, whom I recollected from Earth, long ago, was my selection.

The house, with its walled garden to the side, is set back, and on a small hill, into which it is partially built. I approached the house from the side, climbing the hill from the side, rather than frontally. Too, of course, I did not use the steps, which might have been counted. On the stone landing, before the heavy portal of the house, I stopped. I felt her squirm in terror on my shoulder. She knew we had arrived somewhere. But where? She knew only that we had climbed to a height.

I slid her from my shoulder into my hands and, turning her, took her by the back of the neck and the left thigh and lifted her high over my head. I held her that way for a moment. She moaned piteously, helpless and trembling. Was she to be cast from this height into a pit of sleen or perhaps into the cold waters of the Vosk? Then I lowered her again to my shoulder, her head this time forward. I could feel her shuddering in relief. Slowly I began to lower her, head first. Sensing her orientation she tried, desperately, to press her gagged mouth, beneath its binding and the leather of the hood, against my body, piteously attempting to please me.

I put her on her knees, on the stone landing, at the side of the door. She knelt with her knees widely apart, and then, piteously, opened them even more. She was in terror, desperate to appease and placate the master. I thrust the key into the door and unlocked it, and then replaced the key in my pouch. I looked down at my slave. I was pleased. I thrust the door open with my foot, and then bent down and picked up the slave. I held her in my arms. Then I crossed the threshold, carrying her. As a capture, a prize and a slave, in my arms, was she carried into the domicile of her master.

Within I put her on her knees, beneath the large beam, with the ring, chain and bracelets. The chain and bracelets had already been lowered. In moments I had untied her hands from behind her and locked her small wrists, before her belly, as she knelt, in the close-fitting steel of the bracelets. I then drew the chain back and through the ring, hauling her to her feet. She then stood with her hands high above her head. Her heels were just a quarter of an inch off the tiles.

In my house I saw fit to honor the customs of Victoria. No longer now did the girl seem frightened. Though she seemed apprehensive, now, as any slave in her position might well be, she had, as she had been pulled into position, shuddered with relief. She knew that she had been carried across a threshold as a slave, and had now been placed in a standard whipping position. This told her that her life would be spared, at least for the time, if she were sufficiently pleasing. And I had little doubt but what she would strive to be sufficiently pleasing.

I untied and loosened the slave hood, thrusting it up so that I might reach the gag. I unlaced the tight thongs, from behind the back of her neck, that held the gag binding in place. I then, carefully, little by little, extracted the curled, leather wadding of the gag from her mouth. She could now speak. I then thrust the binding and wadding, unrolled, up and under the slave hood, and readjusted the slave hood on her. I tightened it. She winced. But this time I had left her mouth uncovered. I had decided that it might please me to see her mouth, to note the trembling and movement of her lips as she spoke, and to be able to kiss those lips, or be kissed by them, if I should choose to permit this.

"I will be a good slave, Master," she said. "It will not be necessary to whip me."

I strode around her, to stand before her. She could not see me, of course, because of the slave hood, tight on her, which covered most of her face. This was, of course, by my intent.

"You may do with me as you please, of course, my Master," she said, quickly. "I am completely subject to your will." I saw her knees flex. There was a sound from the links of chain above her head as they suddenly drew against one another, for a moment suspending her full weight. She desired to kneel before me, but, of course, could not do so. The chain held her in place, perfectly. Then, again, she stood as she had before, her heels a quarter of an inch off the tiles. This is a discipline fastening, but it is not as cruel as that in which the girl is fastened on her toes.

"I meant no harm, my Master," she said. "I meant no harm!" I stood quite close to her, before her. She could doubtless feel my breath upon her body. A slave has no private space. "I meant no harm, my Master," she whispered. She lifted her chin, and extended her head towards me, pursing her lips. I gently touched them with my own. Then, delicately, we kissed. With my right hand I held her face so that she could not press her lips more fervently on mine. "I love you, my Master," she whispered. "I love you, my Gorean master."

I went from her to the side of the room, where was the wheel which controlled the chain and, nearby, on its hook, the disciplinary Gorean slave lash.

"Of course, my Master," she cried suddenly, delightedly. "I have been carried across the threshold. And now I have been put in whipping position I am being introduced into a house, in which I am to be a slave. My mysterious master must, thus, be of Victoria, or of some other city in which are practiced the customs of the capture carry and the initiatory whipping!" The point of these customs, of course, is clear.

The girl knows that she is carried into the house as a helpless slave, and then, in the initiatory whipping, learns that it is a house in which she is under discipline. These are thought to be salutary lessons for a new girl, when she is first introduced into a new house. To be sure, whether in Victoria or not, or in a city with comparable customs, new girls, in one way or another, are usually reminded, promptly and effectively, that their slavery is uncompromising and actual, and that they are fully at the disposition of their masters.

The former Miss Henderson, of course, had been in this house before. This was, however, the first time she had been brought into it as a slave. The slave girl, of course, sees a house much differently than does a free woman. Most simply she sees it as a house, and knows it, as a house in which she is a slave, whereas the free woman sees it and knows it as a house in which she is free. The houses are, accordingly, experienced quite differently.

The free woman looks into a slave kennel but she, presumably, has never occupied it, the helpless prisoner behind its bars; the free woman may see chains but she, presumably, has never worn them; she may see the whip but she, presumably, has never felt it. She sees the door, a device by means of which she gains access to her dwelling, but can it have the same meaning to her as to one who has been helplessly carried through it, as a slave? Similarly, the free woman passes through that door whenever she wishes. She does not give it a second thought. It is only a door.