"I will never tire of you," he said.

I kissed at his ankles.

I whimpered.

"You are insatiable," he said.

"I beg that my hands might be freed, that I might caress you," I said.

"Ah," he said, absently, "I did forget to free your hands, did I not?"

"Yes, my master," I smiled.

"Since when does a slave require her hands to be freed, that she may caress her master?" he asked.

"True, Master," I laughed.

I rose to my knees beside him, and put my head down, to his body.

"You learned the lessons of the pens well," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

Slaves must be superb lovers. If they are not, they may be whipped.

There are a thousand ways to please a man, even when one is bound.

In scarcely moments, however, he had again seized me. I looked up into his eyes, those of my master.

I was then put again to his purposes.

I later lay at his side, at his thigh, docile and grateful. "I love you, I love you, my master," I murmured.

"We shall see," he said.

"Master?" I asked.

He rolled over, and reached to one side, drawing to him his belt, with the sheathed knife upon it.

He then extracted the knife from the sheath.

I regarded this action with apprehension. Had he now recalled, in some fearful sense, I wondered, the putative object of his venture to this city? Had he tired of me so soon? Surely it was not necessary to kill me. Surely he could simply give me away or sell me!

Had he dealt with me as he had, merely for his amus.e.m.e.nt, only as one might toy with a meaningless slave? Did he hate me so? Had he now determined to comply with the wishes of his superiors, those who had dispatched him to this city, now that he had made me squirm, and cry myself his? Had such compliance been within his intent from the beginning? "Kneel," he said. I faced him, frightened.

"Turn about," he said. Apprehensively I did so.

Then I cried out with relief, as I felt the knife part the cords on my wrists. My hands came forward, weak, freed, and I was on all fours, beside him, shaken.

"What is wrong," asked he, "slave?"

"Nothing, Master," I sobbed, in relief.

"Ah!" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Turn about," he said.

I was then, again, kneeling, facing him. I rubbed my wrists.

Suddenly I was startled, for, on the stones, the knife lay before me.

He was lying on his back, looking up, at the ceiling. His hands were behind his head, pillowing it, his elbows to the side.

I looked down at the knife.

"You see the knife?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Consider it," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, puzzled.

"Do you think you could seize it, lift it, and, before I could resist, or defend myself, plunge it into my heart?"

"I have no wish to injure my master," I said.

"Do you think you could do what I said?"

"I do not think so, Master," I said. Surely at my first movement he could turn and seize me.

"Pick it up," he said.

"Surely I may not touch it, Master," I said. "It is a weapon." In many cities, it is a capital offense for a slave to touch a weapon.

"Must a command be repeated?" he asked.

"No Master," I said. I lifted the knife, timidly.

"Approach," said he. "Hold it with both hands."

I knelt over him then, the hilt of the knife gripped in two hands. That was well, otherwise I think my hand would have shaken miserably, helplessly.

"Put it to my heart," he said.

"Please, no, Master!" I begged.

He turned his head to regard me, and I, quickly, frightened, put the knife over his heart.

"Could you now thrust downward before I could resist, or defend myself?" he asked.

I considered the position of his hands, behind his head, the quickness with which the knife might thrust down, the nature of the blade, its sharpness.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"None know you are here," he said. "You could find your way out. You could frequent dangerous areas, where you might well be seized as a strayed slave, not to be returned to a master, but to be sold illicitly, in a black market. You might be out of the city in a week."

"I do not even have clothing, Master," I said.

"Surely you have seen naked slaves in the street," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I had seen them, at least, in Treve. I myself, on the other hand, had never been put naked into the streets. It is normally done as a punishment. Normally, too, the slave is locked in the iron belt.

"You would have to be careful not to be picked up by a guardsman," he said.

"I do not understand what master is saying," I said.

"Surely you have lied to me," he said, "suggesting that you might care for me."

"No!" I said.

"The knife is in your grasp," he said. "You need pretend no longer."

"I love you, truly," I said.

"You are a barbarian," he said. "I am a Gorean."

"You are a man," I said. "I am a woman."

"Barbarian," he said.

"Do not hold my origins against me," I said. "I am now only a Gorean slave girl, and am as eager, or more eager, to serve you as any girl of your own world!"

"You could not care for me," he said, "for I would be a stern master."

"Be so," I said.

"I am not the sort of male which I have heard you women of Earth prefer," he said.

"Do not believe all you have heard, Master," I said.

"Oh?" he said.

"Do you think we truly prefer manipulable weaklings who have surrendered their dominance?" I asked.

"Do you think such can exact from us the depths of our womanhood? I cannot speak for all women of Earth, but I can speak for one, for myself. I want a man of strength, of power, one who will relish me, and desire me, with might and pa.s.sion, one who will put me in my place, and keep me there, as a woman, and will see to it, to his joy and fulfillment, and mine, that I am well mastered. I want a man so strong, so intelligent, so energetic, so powerful, so overwhelming, so uncompromising, so mighty, that I can, before him, be no more than his abject slave."

"You are truly a slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Do the women of Earth desire true men?" he asked.

"Master?" I asked.

"In the biological sense," he said, "as opposed to some political sense or another, whatever is current."

"Yes, Master," I whispered. "We cry for them, in the darkness, Master."

"My life," he said, absently, gazing at the ceiling, "is now worth very little."

"Master?" I said.

"I have not complied with the orders set to me," he said. "I have betrayed my superiors. They are not such, I a.s.sure you, as to look lightly upon such omissions. I can no longer return to Telnus. There is little, if anything, left for me now. Presumably I will be hunted down, and slain. If you were with me, you, too, would die."

"Then I, too, would die," I said.

"Lie no longer," he said. "You may now kill me."

"I do not lie," I said. "And I would rather plunge the dagger into my own heart."

"You may kill me," he said.

"Never," I said.

He closed his eyes.

"Strike," he said.

The point of the dagger was over his heart. In an instant I might have leaned forward and, with all my weight, slight as it was, moved that thin blade deeply into his body, to the hilt, even through the heart.

"No," I said.

He opened his eyes.

"No," I said. "Forgive me, Master."

"Must a command be repeated?" he asked.

"Repeat it a thousand times," I said. "I will not do it."

"You disobey?" he asked, puzzled.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. "Yes, Master."

"Why?" he asked.