clothing,” I said, “and approach me, with your wrists crossed, before your body.”
“What?” she said.
“Now,” I said.
In a moment I lashed her wrists together before her body. I then drew her, stumbling, by the loose end of the strap to the edge of the forest. There I thrust her against a tree, belly against the bark, and flung the free end of the strap over a branch. “Master!” she cried. I then drew her crossed, bound hands up, high, unpleasantly so, over her head, and fastened them in place, that by means of the same strap, it now tied beneath the straps on her wrist.
“Master!” she wept.
She was stretched, on her tiptoes.
“You have not been pleasing,” I informed her.
“Forgive me, Master!” she cried.
I removed my belt.
In a moment I was through with her, but it had been enough.
“Do you think you will be freed?” I asked.
“No, Master!” she wept.
“Perhaps I will sell you,” I said. The former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym had not been pleasing.
“Please do not sell me!” she begged.
I replaced my belt, freed her and turned away.
In moments she had followed me, and was on her belly on the pebbled sand, naked, sobbing, licking and kissing my feet, in piteous supplication.
“Do you think you will be freed?” I asked.
“No, Master!” she wept. “No, Master!”
“I am Gorean,” I said.
“Yes, Master!” she said.
“Do you understand that, Earth female?” I said. “You are owned — owned by a Gorean .”
“Yes, Master!” she said.
“Do you understand the meaning of that?”
“Yes, Master!” she said. “I am a slave, only a slave, and no more!”
“The most abject, worthless, and meaningless of slaves,” I said.
“Yes, Master!” she wept.
“What a miserable lot is yours,” I said, “that of helpless, abject bondage.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Perhaps you understand better now the peril and degradation of your condition?”
“Yes, Master!”
“Do you still wish to be a slave?” I asked.
“Do not make me speak!” she begged.
“Speak,” I said.
“Yes, Master!” she sobbed. “Yes, Master!”
“Why?” I demanded.
“For then,” she said, “as a woman, I am wholly myself!”
“Do you think you will be kept as a slave for any reason of yours?” I asked. “Perhaps because you wish to be a slave?”
“Master?” she said.
“What you might wish is not only unimportant,” I said, “but meaningless, absurdly irrelevant.”
She looked up at me, from her belly, tears in her eyes.
“It is irrelevant,” I said, “whether or not you want to be a slave, or desire to be a slave, or need to be a slave.”
“Master?” she said.
“You will be kept as a slave,” I said, “because you are a slave, and should be a slave, and it pleases men that such as you should be owned.”
“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.
“Your will is nothing,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You were less than fully pleasing,” I informed her. “A slave is to be fully pleasing.”
“Yes, Master!” she wept.
“I think I will sell you,” I said.
“Please, no, Master!” she wept. “I will try to please you, Master, fully, Master, fully, fully, perfectly, in all ways! Please do not sell me, Master! Keep me, I beg you!”
“I will do as I wish,” I informed her.
“Yes, Master,” she wept.
“Perhaps you now better understand what it is to be a slave?”
“Yes, Master,” she whispered. “Yes, Master.”
She looked up at me, mine, her face run with tears.
I regarded her.
Her lips trembled with emotion.
Her face was sensitive, soft, and beautiful. It was nicely framed in glossy, dark hair, still a bit short, perhaps, but it would grow. Long hair, as is well known, is favored in such as she. Much may be done with it, aesthetically, and in the furs. Too, it might be noted, in passing, that the female was highly intelligent. That much improves a girl’s price. That would be important if I chose to sell her. Such