The sexuality of the aroused slave girl is incomprehensible to the free woman. It is nothing she will ever understand. It is a color she cannot see, a sound she cannot hear.
I glanced at the two girls, kneeling to the side. Their sexuality, in the weeks of their slavery, had well begun to be aroused. Sparks had been kindled within them. Already they needed the touch of men.
They did not yet, of course, as slaves still relatively fresh to bondage, suspect the torments and wonders that might lie before them. They did not yet understand how a woman screaming in a cell might break her body against the bars trying to touch a guard.
"You have won," had said Imnak, cheerfully.
"Yes," I said.
I had glanced at the two beauties. Both straightened themselves before me. Both now seemed far from the simple Earth girls they had been. I let my eyes move casually from one to the other.
"Please pick me, Master," said Audrey.
"I am more beautiful, Master," had said Barbara.
"Please, Master," begged Audrey.
I glanced at Barbara. Before, when I had won, I had always chosen her. She lifted her body before me. She was a quite lovely slave. How far from Earth she seemed.
No longer was she a blond tease, dressing to excite boys, yet fearing her sexuality.
She was now a slave girl.
I looked at Barbara. Then I pointed to Audrey. "This one," I said.
"Master!" breathed Audrey.
Barbara looked away, angrily.
Imnak got up and seized Poalu by the arm. He threw her to his furs.
I went to my furs and threw off my garments, and lay down on my furs, reclining, on one elbow.
Audrey remained kneeling, where she had been, though she watched me.
I indicated a place beside me on my furs. She crawled to the furs, head down, and lay timidly beside me.
"On your back," I told her.
She lay on her back, and I put my left arm under her, that I might lift, turn or control her as I wished, leaving my right hand free to caress her body.
I looked at the line of her body.
"You are a pretty slave," I told her.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
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 am pleased that you won my use in the gambling," she said.
"Are you any good?" I asked.
"Master will use me and tell me," she said. "I will try to be good."
I looked down at her.
"Will master use me only briefly?" she asked. Imnak was seldom patient with his white-skinned slave beasts. Not only were they slaves, but they were white.
"You are pretty," I said. "It is my intention, in these hours of my ownership of you, to use you several times."
"Several times?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. I smiled at her. "We shall sleep from time to time," I said.
"But what if we are not awake at the same time?" she asked.
"What a naive slave you are," I said.
"Oh," she said, a bit archly.
"Yes," I said, "you will awaken as you are entered or seized, or slapped awake."
"Oh," she said.
"It is very simple," I assured her.
"You may, of course, do with me whatever you wish, and when you wish," she said, a little resentfully.
"I shall," I said.
"I am certain of that," she said.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"I may not object," she said. She smiled. "I am a slave," she said.
"Are you a pert, intemperate slave?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"Will it be necessary to whip you?" I asked.
"No," she said, quickly.
"You will try to be a good slave?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Please me," I said.
"Master!" she said.
"Please me," I said.
"But I am the female," she said. I looked at her.
"I will try to please you," she said quickly. She began, clumsily, to kiss and caress me. I laughed at the ineptness of her efforts.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked, tears in her eyes.
"I was thinking," I said, "that if I had bought you in the Sardar and thrown you to my men you would have been slain by now."
"Teach me to survive as a slave girl," she begged.
"I will show you some simple things," I said. "But girls usually learn from other girls, or from their slave trainers in the pens."
"Pens?" gasped Audrey.
"Of course," I said. "Sometimes," I admitted, "trainers are brought to the compartments, with their whips, but that is more expensive."
She turned white.
"You are a slave, and you are going to continue to be a slave," I told her, "so you had better learn how to be a good one."
She looked at me.
"Do you want to live?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Then learn," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Here," I said, "hold your lips to my thigh. Put your lips thusly."
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"It is strange," she said, looking up at me. "I longed for your touch, but now it is I who must touch you."
"Do not fear, little slave beauty," I said, "you, too, will be touched in your turn."
Her eyes were moist. She pressed her lips to my belly. "Thank you, Master," she whispered.
"What is slavery like in the south?" asked Audrey.
"It is the same as here," I said. "You would be in the absolute power of a man."
"I know that, Master," she said. "But how would I be dressed? What would I have to do?"
"You would be dressed, if at all, as your master pleased," I said, "and you would have to do whatever you were told."
"Oh, I know that, Master," she said, laughing, kissing me. Then she lay with her head on my shoulder.
"Would I be branded?" she asked.
"Doubtless," I said. "It is easier to keep track of a slave that way."
"Does that hurt much?" she asked.
"At the time," I said, "not later."
"Where are we branded?" she asked.
"A girl is commonly branded on the left or right thigh," I said, "sometimes on the lower left abdomen."
"I am afraid to be branded," she said.
"It does not hurt afterwards," I said. "It is only a mark to help keep track of you."
"Really, Master?" she asked.
"Well," I said, "if the truth must be told, it does, considerably, enhance your beauty. Also it is sometimes not without its psychological effect."
"I can well imagine its psychological effect," she said. She shuddered.
"It can help to impress upon a girl that she is a slave," I admitted.
I touched her on the thigh.
"There?" she asked.
"Quite possibly," I said.
Suddenly she clutched me. "Oh, oh," she cried. "It is the thought of being branded," she whispered, intensely. "Please, Master, hold me, hold me!"
Her thighs were clenched fiercely. "I am going into orgasm," she cried out, frightened. I held her, as she gasped and wept in my arms. I had not even entered her, or touched her intimately. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Angrily I thrust apart her legs. "Forgive me, Master," she wept "It was the thought of being branded."
"So, Slave," I said, "you want the iron?"
"Yes, Master," she wept.
"If I should have you in the south," I said, "I would have you soon marked."
"Yes, Master," she wept. "Yes, Master!"
"Serve me now, Slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she cried. "Yes, Master!" she cried.
"Serve me again," I said.