by John Norman
Then I released the collar.
It dropped into place.
It would not do, of course, to treat Miss Cardwell as a slave girl.
She recovered her poise in an instant.
"It seems Master fears the proximity of his slave girl," she said. "Perhaps he fears her power, that she might ensnare him, wrapping him in her silken toils, perhaps transforming him into a begging slave?"
"I think not," I said.
"Oh?" she asked.
I then reached out again and grasped the collar, again with both hands. I then pressed it down a bit. She felt the pressure of the rounded metal at the sides of her neck, on her bared shoulders.
She was uneasy, and uncomfortable.
By the Turian collar one may control a girl in a variety of ways, dragging a girl to one side or another, turning her, force her downward, to her knees or back, and so on. It takes leash snaps nicely, too.
"You are going to put me in collar control?" she asked.
"Forgive me," I said.
By the collar, of course, pressing downward I could have forced her to her knees before me, and then, pressing the collar up and back, and against her chin, might force her from her knees helplessly to her back on the rug at my feet.
I removed my hands from the collar.
She smiled.
I was angry. I had little doubt that I could bring Miss Cardwell around quickly enough, if she thought me in earnest, for example, by a stroke or two of the slave lash, and would then have her crawling to me, to fearfully kiss the whip, lest she once more feel it, crawling to me aghast, petitioning to kiss that instructional, monitory device, in startled recognition that she was at the feet of a master.
She would have behaved much differently with Kamchak, a Gorean.
Miss Cardwell was playing.
And perhaps, I thought, the woman who is merely playing might resist a male, for she does not understand what it is to be an actual property, one fully at the mercy of its master.
"Kneel," I said.
She complied.
"Lie back now, on the rug," I said.
She arranged herself, and smiled up at me.
I wondered what Miss Cardwell would look like, helpless, squirming and thrashing, gasping, kicking, tears in her eyes, hot tears running on her body, streaming about her enslaved flesh, begging for a man's touch.
It did not seem likely that I would learn.
She was of Earth.
I knelt beside her.
She looked up at me, a sly smile on her face.
I thought of the girls in the public slave wagon. They, at least, knew they were slaves, and were zealous to please as such. In their bellies slave fires had been lit, and blazed. They would do anything for the touch of masters. It was not merely that they did not wish to be slain.
I looked down at Miss Cardwell.
"Greetings," she said.
"Greetings," I said.
I took the nose ring between my thumb and forefinger and gave it a little pull.
Let her remember at least, that she wore it.
"Oh!" she cried, eyes smarting. Then she looked up. "That is no way to treat a lady," she remarked.
"You are only a slave girl," I reminded her.
"True," she said forlornly, turning her head to one side.
I was a bit irritated.
She looked up at me and laughed with amusement.
One may in an instant show a woman who is master, but I did not wish, though I was tempted, to do so.
She was of Earth.
I would try to be patient.
I began to kiss her throat and body and my hands were behind her back, lifting her and arching her, so that her head was back and down.
"I know what you're trying to do," she said.
"What is that?" I mumbled.
"You are trying to make me feel owned," she said.
"Oh," I said.
"You will not succeed," she informed me.
I myself was beginning to grow skeptical.
She wiggled about on her side, looking at me. My hands were still clasped behind the small of her back.
"It is said by Goreans," remarked the girl, very seriously, "that every woman, whether she knows it or not, longs to be a slave—the utter slave of a man—if but for an hour."
"Please be quiet," I said.
"Every woman," she said emphatically. "Every woman."
I looked at her. "You are a woman," I observed.
She laughed. "I find myself naked in the arms of a man and wearing the collar of a slave. I think there is little doubt that I am a woman!"
"And at the moment," I suggested, "little more."
She looked at me irritably for a moment. Then she smiled. "It is said by Goreans," she remarked, with very great seriousness, with mock bitterness, "that in a collar a woman can be only a woman."
"The theory you mention," I said, grumbling, "about women longing to be slaves, if only for an hour, is doubtless false."
She shrugged in her collar and put her head to one side, her hair falling to the rug. "Perhaps," she said, much as she had before, "Vella does not know."
"Perhaps Vella will find out," I said.
"Perhaps," she said, laughing.
Then, perhaps not pleasantly, my hand closed on her ankle.
"Oh!" she said.
She tried to move her leg, but could not.
I then bent her leg, that I might, as I wished, display for my pleasure, she willing or not, the marvelous curves of her calf. She tried to pull her leg away, but she could not. It would move only as I pleased.
"Please, Tarl," she said.
"You are going to be mine," I said.
"Please," she said, "let me go." My grip on her ankle was not cruel but in all her womanness she knew herself held.
"Please," she said again, "let me go."
I smiled to myself. "Be silent, Slave," said I.
Elizabeth Cardwell gasped.
I smiled.
"So you are stronger than I," she scoffed. "It means nothing!"
I then began to kiss her foot, and the inside of her ankle, beneath the bone, and she trembled momentarily.
"Let me go!" she cried.
But I only kissed her, holding her, my lips moving to the back of her leg, low where it joins the foot, where an ankle ring would be locked.
"A true man," she cried out suddenly, "would not behave so! No! A true man is gentle, kind, tender, respectful, at all times, sweet and solicitous! That is a true man!"
I smiled at her defenses, so classical, so typical of the modern, unhappy, civilized female, desperately frightened of being truly a woman in a man's arms, trying to decide and determine manhood not by the nature of man and his desire, and her nature as the object of that desire, but by her own fears, trying to make man what she could find acceptable, trying to remake him in her own image.
"You are a female," I said casually. "I do not accept your definition of man."
She made an angry noise.
"Argue," I suggested, "explain—speak names."
She moaned.
"It is strange," I said, "that when the full blood of a man is upon him, and he sees his female, and he will have her, that it should be then that he is not a true man."
She cried out in misery.
Then, as I had expected, she suddenly wept, and doubtless with great sincerity. I supposed at this time many men of Earth, properly conditioned, would have been shaken, and would have fallen promptly to this keen weapon, shamed, retreating stricken with guilt, with misgivings, as the female wished. But, smiling to myself, I knew that on this night her weeping, the little vixen, would gain her no respite.
I smiled at her.
She looked at me, horrified, frightened, tears in her eyes.
"You are a pretty little slave," I said.
She struggled furiously, but could not escape.
When her struggles had subsided I began, half biting, half kissing, to move up her calf to the deligh
ts of the sensitive areas behind her knees.
"Please!" she wept.
"Be quiet, pretty little Slave Girl," I mumbled.
Then, kissing, but letting her feel the teeth which could, if I chose, tear at her flesh, I moved to the interior of her thigh. Slowly, with my mouth, by inches, I began to claim her.
"Please," she said.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"I find I want to yield to you," she whispered.
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"No," she said. "You do not understand."
I was puzzled.
"I want to yield to you," she whispered, "—as a slave girl!"
"You will so yield to me," I told her.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
"You will yield to me," I told her, "as a slave girl to her master."
"No!" she cried. "No! No!"
I continued to kiss her, to touch her.
"Please stop," she wept.
"Why?" I asked.
"You are making me a slave," she whispered.
"I will not stop," I told her.
"Please," she wept. "Please!"
"Perhaps," I said to her, "the Goreans were right?"
"No!" she cried. "No!"
"Perhaps that is what you desire," I said, "to yield with the utterness of a female slave."
"Never!" she cried, weeping in fury. "Leave me!"
"Not until you have become a slave," I told her.
She cried out in misery. "I do not want to be a slave!"
But when I had touched the most intimate beauties of her she became uncontrollable, writhing, and in my arms I knew the feeling of a slave girl and such, for the moment, was the beautiful Elizabeth Cardwell, helpless and mine, female and slave.
Now her lips and arms and body, now those only of an enamored wench in bondage, sought mine, acknowledging utterly and unreservedly, shamelessly and hopelessly, with helpless abandon, their master.
I was astonished at her for even the touch of the whip, her involuntary response to the Slaver's Caress, had not seemed to promise so much.
She cried out suddenly as she found herself fully mine.
Then she scarcely dared to move.
"You are claimed, Slave Girl," I whispered to her.
"I am not a slave girl," she whispered intensely. "I am not a slave girl."
I could feel her nails in my arm. In her kiss I tasted blood, suddenly realizing that she had bitten me. Her head was back, her eyes closed, her lips open.
"I am not a slave girl," she said.
I whispered in her ear, "Pretty little slave girl."
"I am not a slave girl!" she cried.
"You will be soon," I told her.
"Please, Tarl," she said, "do not make me a slave."
"You sense that it can be done?" I asked.
"Please," she said, "do not make me a slave."
"Do we not have a wager?" I asked.
She tried to laugh. "Let us forget the wager," said she. "Please, Tarl, it was foolishness. Let us forget the wager?"
"Do you acknowledge yourself my slave?" I inquired.
"Never!" she hissed.
"Then," said I, "lovely wench, the wager is not yet done."
She struggled to escape me, but could not. Then, suddenly, as though startled, she would not move.
She looked at me.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"I sense it," she said, "I sense it."
She did not move but I felt the cut of her nails in my arms.
"Can there be more?" she wept.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"I'm frightened," she wept.
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"I feel owned," she whispered.
"You are," I said.
"No," she said. "No."
"Do not be frightened," I told her.
"You must let me go," she said.
"It soon begins," I told her.
"Please let me go," she whispered. "Please!"
"On Gor," I said, "it is said that a woman who wears a collar can be only a woman."
She looked at me angrily.
"And you, lovely Elizabeth," said I, "wear a collar."
She turned her head to one side, helpless, angry, tears in her eyes.
She did not move, and then suddenly I felt the cut of her nails deep in my arms, and though her lips were open, her teeth were clenched, her head was back, the eyes closed, her hair tangled under her and over her body, and then her eyes seemed surprised, startled, and her shoulders lifted a bit from the rug, and she looked at me, and I could feel the beginning in her, the breathing of it and the blood of it, hers, in my own flesh swift and like fire in her beauty, mine, and knowing it was then the time, meeting her eyes fiercely, I said to her, with sudden contempt and savagery, following the common Gorean Rites of Submission, "Slave!" and she looked at me with horror and cried out "No!" and half reared from the rug, wild, helpless, fierce as I intended, wanting to fight me, as I knew she would, wanting to slay me if it lay within her power, as I knew she would, and I permitted her to struggle and to bite and scratch and cry out and then I silenced her with the kiss of the master, and accepted the exquisite surrender which she had no choice but to give. "Slave," she wept, "slave, slave, slave—I am a slave!"
It was more than an Ahn later that she lay in my arms on the rug and looked up at me, tears in her eyes. "I know now," she said, "what it is to be the slave girl of a Master."
I said nothing.
"Though I am slave," she said, "yet for the first time in my life I am free."
"For the first time in your life," I said, "you are a woman."
"I love being a woman," she said. "I am happy I am a woman, Tarl Cabot, I am happy."
"Do not forget," I said, "you are only a slave."
She smiled and fingered her collar. "I am Tarl Cabot's girl," she said.
"My slave," I said.
"Yes," she said, "your slave."
I smiled.
"You will not beat me too often will you, Master?" she asked.
"We will see," I said.
"I will strive to please you," she said.
"I am pleased to hear it," I said.
She lay on her back, her eyes open, looking at the top of the wagon, at the hangings, the shadows thrown on the scarlet hides by the light of the fire bowl.
"I am free," she said.
I looked at her.
She rolled over on her elbows. "It is strange," she said. "I am a slave girl. But I am free. I am free."
"I must sleep," I said, rolling over.
She kissed me on the shoulder. "Thank you," she said, "Tarl Cabot, for freeing me."
I rolled over and seized her by the shoulders and pressed her back to the rug and she looked up laughing.
"Enough of this nonsense about freedom," I said. "Do not forget that you are a slave." I took her nose ring between my thumb and forefinger.
"Oh!" she said.
I lifted her head from the rug by the ring and her eyes smarted.
"This is scarcely the way to show respect for a lady," said the girl.
I tweaked the nose ring, and tears sprang into her eyes.
"But then," she said, "I am only a slave girl."
"And do not forget it," I admonished her.
"No, no, Master," she said, smiling.
"You do not sound to me sufficiently sincere," I said.
"But I am!" she laughed.
"I think in the morning," I said, "I will throw you to kaiila."
"But where then will you find another slave as delectable as I?" she laughed.
"Insolent wench!" I cried.
"Oh!" she cried, as I gave the ring a playful tug. "Please!"
With my left hand I jerked the collar against the back of her neck.
"Do not forget," I said, "that on your throat you wear a collar of steel."
"Your collar!" she said promptly.
I slapped her thigh. "And," I said, "on you
r thigh you wear the brand of the four bosk horns!"
"I'm yours," she said, "like a bosk!"
"Oh," she cried, as I dropped her back to the rug.
She looked up at me, her eyes mischievous. "I'm free," she said.
"Apparently," I said, "you have not learned the lesson of the collar."
She laughed merrily. Then she lifted her arms and put them about my neck, and lifted her lips to mine, tenderly, delicately. "This slave girl," she said, "has well learned the lesson of her collar."
I laughed.
She kissed me again. "Vella of Gor," said she, "loves master."
"And what of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell?" I inquired.
"That pretty little slave!" said Elizabeth, scornfully.
"Yes," I said, "the secretary."
"She is not a secretary," said Elizabeth, "she is only a little Gorean slave."
"Well," said I, "what of her?"
"As you may have heard," whispered the girl, "Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the nasty little wench, was forced to yield herself as a slave girl to a master."
"I had heard as much," I said.
"What a cruel beast he was," said the girl.
"What of her now?" I asked.
"The little slave girl," said the girl scornfully, "is now madly in love with the beast."
"What is his name?" I asked.
"The same who won the surrender of proud Vella of Gor," said she.
"And his name?" I asked.
"Tarl Cabot," she said.
"He is a fortunate fellow," I remarked, "to have two such women."
"They are jealous of one another," confided the girl.
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "each will try to please her master more than the other, that she will be his favorite."
I kissed her.
"I wonder who will be his favorite?" she asked.
"Let them both try to please him," I suggested, "each more than the other."
She looked at me reproachfully. "He is a cruel, cruel master," she said.
"Doubtless," I admitted.
For a long time we kissed and touched. And from time to time, during the night, each of the girls, Vella of Gor and the little barbarian, Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, begged, and were permitted, to serve the pleasure of their master. Yet he, unprecipitate and weighing matters carefully, still could not decide between them.
It was well toward morning, and he was nearly asleep, when he felt them against him, their cheek pressed against his thigh. "Girls," mumbled he, "do not forget you wear my steel."
