He tossed the next piece of meat to the second step.

Obediently I took it. He was drawing me upward.

The next tidbit he threw to the floor of the dais, before his chair. I crawled to the floor of the dais and put down my head and picked up the bit of meat. I was grateful for it. I had not had meat since the pens.

I looked up at him. My hair fell before my shoulders. I was nude. My neck was innocent of a collar. On my thigh there was, of course, the brand.

Once or twice in the pens I had been given a candy, a hard candy, and once, a part of a pastry. I did not hope for such items here, of course, at least at this time. He now held the next piece of meat between his fingers. I was to approach him, and take it from his hand. I crawled to him, and knelt before him, and dared to put my hands upon his left knee. Dorna, the high slave, was a little before me, and to my right.

She was standing beside the arm of the thronelike chair, at his left. I put my head forward, delicately, to take the piece of meat, but he drew back his hand a little. I then drew back my head a little, and looked up at him.

"You are from the world called "Earth"?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What have you learned of our world?" he asked.

"Very little, Master," I said.

"But you have learned how to obey, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Are the women of your world obedient?" he asked.

"Doubtless some, Master," I said.

"But you were not," he said.

"No Master," I said.

"But you have now learned to obey, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"And you now obey very well, do you not?"

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Instantaneously, and unquestioningly?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then put the bit of meat into my mouth.

I took it, gratefully. I finished it. I looked up at him. I hoped that he found me of interest.

Women such as I, on this world, must please men. It is what we are for.

"Do not concern yourself with her," said Dorna. "She is totally unworthy of your attention.

She is nothing, only a s.l.u.t from Earth."

The broad-shouldered, large-handed man looked down upon me. How tiny I felt before him.

He had been referred to as an "officer" by the jailer. Those large hands, I suspected, were not unpracticed in the techniques of weaponry. Certainly they seemed rough, and strong. I feared to sense what they might feel like on my body.

At his least touch I knew I would respond to him as what I was, a kajira.

Then I put my head down, quickly, for I sensed that he understood this, as well. Indeed, he could doubtless read women such as myself with ease. He had undoubtedly subjugated many of us in his time, reducing us to helpless, spasmodic, begging slaves.

"She has no status, even as a slave," said Dorna. "Put her from your mind. She is only from Earth. She is entirely worthless."

The fellow smiled at the insistence of the slave.

"They are the coldest of the cold." said Dorna.

Two or three of the men about burst into laughter at this remark. They had experienced, and perhaps even owned, I gathered, women such as I, from Earth. Indeed, perhaps they kept one or more in their domiciles now. I doubted that we were brought to this world because we were cold. If anything, for another reason. I kept my head down. I reddened.

"Sometimes women learn heat in a collar," said a man.

"I have heard that of a slave named "Dorna,"" said another. There was laughter. Dorna looked away, angrily.

"Are you "cold," little kajira?" asked the man.

"I do not think so, Master," I said.

I wondered if some women did not, indeed, learn their heat in a collar.

"They are the hottest of the hot," said a man.

"It depends on the particular woman," said a man.

That, I supposed, was true.

I did not believe, of course, that the women of my world were cold.

Certainly, at least, they did not seem to be once they had come to this world. To be sure, there were doubtless many reasons for this. On this world we found ourselves in a true world, a biologically natural world, a world in which nature was fulfilled, and celebrated, not outlawed, denied, and denounced.

Here a natural s.e.xuality was acceptable. Indeed, it was required of us.

Here, for example, we need not pretend to subscribe to the pathologies of identicalism, neuterism and personism. Here we found ourselves in the order of nature where, biologically, we belonged. And here, too, at last, after having lived for years in a s.e.xual desert, unhappy, frustrated, deprived and starved, we find ourselves in a land of plenty. How eagerly we eat! How joyously we drink! But, too, of course, we have little choice in these matters. Heat is here required of us. Just as total pa.s.sion and complete surrender were, in effect, forbidden to us on our old world, here they are, quite precisely, required of us.

Do we have reservations, or scruples? Are there lingering vestiges of the barbaric conditioning programs to which we, even as innocent children, were subjected Such reservations, such scruples, such vestiges, may be quickly removed with the lash.

"They are all cold," insisted Dorna.

The fellow in the chair reached out and I watched his hand, with apprehension. Then he placed it on my body.

I gasped, and drew back. I trembled. I closed my eyes. whimpered.

I tried to hold myself still. He must remove his hand! He must! He must!

"She would be hot in her chains," laughed a man.

In another moment I felt I must thrust myself against him, again and again, desperately, kissing and whimpering.

Then, mercifully, he removed his hand from my body.

I looked up at him and, my eyes wide, licked and kissed his hand.

"They are all meaningless, hot-bellied s.l.u.ts!" said Dorna. "That is all they are good for, rolling about, kicking, screaming, moaning, gasping, begging, in the furs!"

"They have many uses," said a fellow.

"Yes," laughed another.

"Slave belly!" snapped Dorna.

"I thought you said they were all cold," said a man.

"No," said Dorna. "It is rather that they are all trivially, meaninglessly hot."

"They are the hottest of the hot," said another man.

"It depends on the individual woman," repeated another. Again that seemed to me true.

"They are the lowest of the low!" said Dorna.

"That is true," said a man.

"Yes," agreed another.

"Are you the lowest of the low?" asked the man.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"You are," he a.s.sured me.

"Yes, Master," I said. If I had had any doubt as to how I had stood on this world before. I had none now.

Dorna laughed.

The fellow in the chair still held, in the palm of his left hand, some tidbits of meat.

He took one of these between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and held it out to me.

I took it, and ate it.

I looked up at him. I wondered if he would again touch me.

I took the next piece of meat.

"You take your food from men," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then held another piece.

"See her being fed by hand!" said Dorna to those about.

I took the next piece of meat.

"Feed, little Earth beast!" laughed Dorna.

Suddenly the occupant of the chair turned toward Dorna and regarded her.

She turned white.

Her switch was taken from her.

Then the proud Dorna knelt beside me and, putting forth her head, angrily, in fury, was fed as I.

"You take your food from men," the occupant of the chair informed the proud woman kneeling beside me.

"Yes, Master," she said. That admission, I conjectured, had cost her much.

About us some men laughed, and some smote their left shoulders in approval.

In order that the matter be lost on no one, the occupant of the chair, of the last three pieces of meat, casting each to the floor of the dais, cast the first to the six-legged beast, which lapped it up instantly with its tongue, scarcely a sc.r.a.p to such a maw, the second to me and the third to Dorna. Dorna and I, then, on all fours, from where we had retrieved that largesse which had been granted to us, cast to the floor of the dais, looked up at he who occupied the chair.

"May I rise, Master?" she asked.

Though a high slave it seemed she thought it wise, under the circ.u.mstances, to request this permission.

"Yes," he said.

She leaped to her feet.

I remained on all fours, before the chair.

Dorna was regarding me with fury. She was not pleased to have been knelt beside me, and fed as I was, nor to have to have pursued a bit of meat thrown to the floor, just as I had, as one might expect of a low girl. And there were others about. It was not as though she were naked, and alone with him.

I saw that she was very angry with me. Surely she must blame me for her humiliation. Too, I suspected she might, for some reason, be jealous of me. Was it my fault if I might be more beautiful or desirable than she? Did she resent the interest of the men in me? Did she fear that I might turn the head of the fellow in the chair? Might that be it? Did she fear that she might cease to be his preferred slave, if, indeed, she was that? I did not think that she was likely to have been a bred slave, except insofar as every woman. being a woman, is a bred slave. Perhaps she had once been a high free woman. But now, of course, somehow, it seemed that she had come into the collar. Perhaps her life now was quite different from what it had once been.

Perhaps once she had even possessed some sort of authority, perhaps even over certain men.

But now, it seemed, she must obey men, strive to please them and hope to be fed. Perhaps she hated me because I was from Earth. It was not that uncommon for women of this world to hate us, I had gathered. Perhaps they regarded us rivals, or something? Perhaps we were resented because many men of this world seemed to prize us, though, to be sure, they kept us under strict discipline, as perfect slaves.