"Master," whispered Arlene.
I began to kiss her about the face and throat and shoulders.
She clutched me. It was good to own her. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and hot, and mine. I suppose those who have not owned a woman cannot understand what a pleasure it is.
"Oh, Master, Master!" she whispered.
"Be quiet, Slave," I whispered, to her.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
15
Audrey
There is something nice about having a girl lying naked in your arms, who wears bondage strings on her throat.
"I have waited long for your touch, Master," whispered Thistle, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster. I caressed the side of her face. She looked up at me. She was worth having.
I had won her use in the bone gambling, her use as complete slave, until I chose to leave the tent.
The hunt had gone well. Imnak and I had brought down four tabuk. Poalu, whom Imnak, with my consent, had made first girl, and the other girls, had followed us. Poalu had showed them how to cut the meat and lay it out on stones to dry.
All now slept in the tent, save Thistle and myself. "You were once Audrey Brewster," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"For purposes of my use of you," I said, "for I have full rights over you, I shall name you, for the tenure of my ownership of you, Audrey."
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"But you wear the name now," I said, "not as a free name, but as a slave name I choose to put on you."
"Oh," she said.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I am Audrey, your slave." She clutched me. "Why have you made me wait so long?" she asked.
"It pleased me," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I had wanted her to be well ready.
Two sleeps ago I had had to whip Arlene and Audrey apart. "Stay away from him!" had cried Arlene.
"I do not know what you are talking about," had protested Audrey.
"Do you think I cannot see you putting yourself before him, smiling, brushing his arm!" cried Arlene.
"Liar!" had cried Audrey.
"Do you deny it?" exclaimed Arlene.
"Of course!" cried Audrey.
Arlene had leapt upon her and, in an instant, both girls, scratching and tearing, biting, rolled on the tundra.
"He is my master, Slave!" screamed Arlene. She knelt over Audrey.
"If Imnak gives my use to him I must serve him!" cried Audrey.
"He has not given your use to him!" said Arlene. "Stay away from him!"
"Do not strike me!" cried Audrey.
"He is my master, not yours," said Arlene, her small fist raised. "Stay away from him!"
"I am a slave girl," said Audrey. "I must be pleasing to all free men!"
Arlene struck down at her and, suddenly, they again were locked together, tearing and scratching at one another on the trodden turf.
"Do not hurt me!" suddenly cried Arlene, she now on the bottom, Audrey kneeling over her.
"I am a slave. I will be pleasing to any free man I want," said Audrey.
"Slave!" screamed Arlene up at her.
"Slave!" screamed Audrey at Arlene.
Arlene squirmed free and again, together, they fought. I thought them extremely well matched slave beauties. Arlene might have been a little stronger. Either of them could have been severely bested by blond Thimble.
At last I, with a switch, fell upon them. "Oh," they cried. I took them, one hand in the hair of each, and threw them to their knees under the pole. "Strip and stand," I told them, "hands over head, wrists crossed, beneath the pole." They did so, and I fastened them in position, side by side.
"Now you are going to have us whipped," said Audrey to Arlene.
"Be quiet, Slave Girl," snapped Arlene.
Audrey began to cry.
I handed the switch to Thimble, who once had been Barbara Benson. "Discipline them," I said to her. "Twenty strokes to each."
"Yes, Master," had said Thimble.
I had then walked away. Arlene received the first stroke, Audrey the last.
I now looked into the eyes of Audrey, naked in my arms. "I have waited long for your touch, Master," she whispered. "I wait lovingly and eagerly to serve you."
"It is well," I said.
She kissed me delicately on the arm. Arlene could not now attack her. She must serve me, and serve me to the best of her abilities, superbly and obediently. Her use was now mine.
"You have won in the bone gambling before," she said. "Why did you wait so long to select me to serve you? Am I not pleasing to a master?"
"You are acceptable, Slave Girl," I said.
"I will try to be pleasing," she said.
Before, when I had won in the bone gambling, the dropping of the tiny figures of bone and ivory, I had, of intent, selected blond Thimble, whom I would, in the tenure of her service to me, name 'Barbara', putting that name on her, though then of course as a slave name.
"I wanted to let the little pudding named Audrey simmer," I told her.
"You were cruel," she said.
Imnak, since he had acquired Poalu, had scarcely glanced at his two white-skinned slave beasts. It was not that he had meant to be cruel. It was rather that he was simply otherwise occupied. And even had he thought of it, their deprivation would not have been of concern to him, for they were only animals.
Both girls would kneel to one side, stripped, awaiting the outcome of the bone gambling. Sometimes I won, and sometimes Imnak won. When Imnak won he might have the use of Arlene, if he chose, or a tabuk steak. Not unoften, to my amusement and Arlene's outrage, Imnak would select the steak. As I explained to her this was not because there was anything intrinsically lacking in her but because Imnak had eyes only, or generally, for Poalu. He was usually anxious to get his little red slave into the furs. His little slave was forced to compensate him well, indeed, a thousandfold and more, for the frustrating years of her freedom and arrogance. Interestingly, too, she did not seem to mind.
Both Barbara and Audrey had knelt to the side, awaiting the outcome of the sport.
Since the coming of Poalu to the tent life had become hard for them. It was not that Poalu, though she was first girl, and firm, was cruel to them, but rather simply that Imnak now had little time for them and paid them scant attention.
Unfortunately, before the coming of Poalu to the tent, both girls had been brought to the second stage of slavery. The first stage is knowing they must obey, the second stage is needing the touch of a man.
Imnak now seldom touched them.
Their needs, accordingly, were much on them.
Freedom permits a woman to live without men. Slavery makes a woman need a man's touch. The sexuality of a free woman is largely inert; the sexuality of a slave girl, on the other hand, has been deliberately and seriously activated. Men, as it has pleased them, have done this to her. They have, as masters, careless of the consequences of their actions, awakened the poor girl's sexuality; it can never then, regardless of the torment and misery it may inflict upon her, return to sleep. It has been made hot and alive. She is no longer free; her freedom is gone; she is now only an ignited slave. Sexuality is a glory in a slave girl which sets her apart from free women, but it is also a force within her which she must fear, for it puts her so helplessly at the mercy of masters. The aroused sexuality of the slave girl is surely the strongest of the chains with which she is bound. Some slave girls, lovely fugitives, have been recaptured simply because they have thrown themselves whimpering at the feet of a man on a road, begging his touch, One of the most humiliating things that can occur to a slave girl is to find herself on her belly, unbidden, moaning, crawling to the feet of a hated master. She puts her lips to his feet. "I beg your touch, Master," she says.