But Kamchak, generous fellow, gave me to you, did he," she asked, "that you should teach me as slave to be female?"

"I think so," I admitted.; "And in his opinion, and perhaps yours, would that not be In my best interests?"

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not really know. These are compli- cated matters."

"Well," said she, laughing, "I shall prove you both wrong"

"All right," I said, "we shall see,"

"But you must promise to try to make me truly a slave if only for a moment."

"All right," I said.

"The stakes," she p.r.o.nounced, "will be my freedom against"

"Yes?" I asked.

"Against yours?" she laughed.

"I do not understand," I said.

"For one week," she said, "in the secrecy of the wagon where no one can see you will be my slave you will wear collar and serve me and do whatever I wish."

"I do not care much for your terms," I said.

"You seem to find little fault in men owning female slaves," she said. "Why should you object to being a slave owned by a female?"

"I see," I said.

She smiled slyly. "I think it might be rather pleasant to eve a male slave." She laughed. "I will teach you the bearing of a collar, Tarl Cabot," she said.

"Do not count your slaves until you have won them," I cautioned.

"Is it a wager?" she asked.

I gazed on her. How every bit of her seemed alive with allengel Her eyes, her stance, the sound of her voice I saw e tiny nose ring, barbaric, glinting in the light of the fire bowl. I saw the place on her thigh where not many days before the fiery iron had been so cruelly pressed, leaving hind it, smoking for the instant, deep and clean, the tiny ark of the four bask horns. I saw on her lovely throat the ring of Turian steel, gleaming and locked, so contrast g with, so barbarically accentuating the incredible softness her beauty, the tormenting vulnerability of it. The collar, I knew, bore my name, proclaiming her, should I wish, my slave. And yet this beautiful, soft, proud thing stood there, trough ringed and branded, though collared, bold and brazen staringing at me, eyes bright, her challenge, the eternal chal- lenge of the unconquered female, that of the untamed woman daring the male to touch her, to try, she resisting, to reduce her to yielding prize, to force from her the uncondi tional surrender,-the total and utter submission of the woman who has no choice but to acknowledge herself his, the help less, capitulated slave of him in whose arms she finds herself prisoner.

As the Goreans have it, there is in this a war in which the woman can respect only that man who can reduce her to utter defeat.

But it seemed to me there was little in the eyes or stance of Miss Cardwell which suggested the plausibility of the Gorean interpretation. She seemed to me clearly out to win, to enjoy herself perhaps, but to win, and then exact from me something in the way of vengeance for all the months and days in which she, proud, independent wench, had been only slave. I recalled she had told me that she would teach me well the meaning of a collar. If she were successful, I had little doubt that she would carry out her threat.

"Well," she challenged, "Master?"

I gazed at her, the tormenting vixen. I had no wish to be her slave. I resolved, if one of us must be slave, it would be she, the lovely Miss Cardwell, who would wear the collar.

"Well," she again challenged, "Master?"

I smiled. "It is a wager," said I, "Slave Girl."

She laughed happily and turned, and standing on her tiptoes, lowered the tharlarion oil lamps. Then she bent to find for herself among the riches of the wagon yellow Plea sure Silks.

At last she stood before me, and was beautiful.

"Are you prepared to be a slave?" she asked.

"Until you have won," I said, "it is you who wear the collar."

She dropped her head in mock humility. "Yes, Master," she said. Then she looked up at me, her eyes mischievous.

I motioned for her to approach, and she did so.

I indicated that she should enter my arms, and she did so.

In my arms she looked up at me.

"You're sure you're quite ready to be a slave?" she asked.

"Be quiet," I said gently.

"I shall be pleased to own you," she said. "I have always wanted a handsome male slave."

"Be quiet," I whispered.

"Yes, Master," she said, obediently.

My hands parted the Pleasure Silk and cast it aside.

"Really, Master!" she said.

"Now," I said, "I will taste the kiss of my slave girl."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Now," I instructed her, "with more pa.s.sion."

"Yes, Master," she said obediently, and kissed me with feigned pa.s.sion.

I, hand in her collar, turned her about and put her on her back on the rug, her shoulders pressed against the thick pile.

She looked at me, a sly smile on her face.

I took the nose ring between my thumb and forefinger and gave it a little pull.

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

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 at I am a woman!"

"And at the moment." I suggested, "little more."

She looked at me irritably for a moment. Then she smiled.

'fit is said by Goreans," she remarked, with very great r seriousness, with mock bitterness, "that in a collar a woman can be only a woman."

"The theory you mention," I said, grumbling, "about wom- en 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 me she scoffed. "It means nothing!"

I then began to kiss her foot' and the inside of her Achilles, 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 cla.s.sical, 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 I said, "that when the full blood of a man is upon him, and he sees his female, and 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 ire her eyes.

"You are a pretty little slave," I said.