I looked down at her. She was very beautiful.
"My sexuality has been liberated by my slavery," she said. "It is now a force within me." She looked at me, chidingly, reproachfully. "You freed it," she said. "What am I now to do? It is a joy and a torment" She clutched my arms. "It makes me helpless," she said. She looked up at me, angrily. "You have made me so I now need the touch of men," she said. "I hate you!" Then, her nails digging into my arms, she said, "Touch me!"
I looked down at her.
"You did this to me," she said. "You made me a slave girl. You made me a slave girl!"
"Of course," I said.
"Touch me, Master," she whimpered.
"Do you beg it?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "Arlene, your girl, Arlene, your slave, begs your touch!"
"Oh," she sobbed. "Thank you, Master."
"It is probably time for you to get up and serve me boiled meat," I said.
"No, no, no, no," she whimpered.
"But it can wait, I suppose," I said.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," she said.
"Yes, what?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You are a hot slave," I said.
"Please do not so speak of me," she begged. Then she said, "Oh, no, please do not stop touching me. Please do not stop touching me." Then she said, "Yes, yes, Master."
"Are you a hot slave?" I asked.
She opened her eyes, writhing under my touch. She looked at me, angrily, defiantly. "Yes," she gasped, "I am a hot slave!"
"I thought so," I said.
"How you shame me!" she wept.
"A slave should be proud of her heat," I said. "You are not a free woman, permitted to be smug in the icy conceit of her frigidity."
She looked up at me.
"Writhe freely, Slave," I said. "Yield to the sensations, or be whipped."
"Would you truly whip me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I do not want to be whipped," she said.
"Yield then to the sensations, as a slave girl," I said.
"I dare not," she cried.
"Yield, or die," I said to her.
"Oh, oh!" she cried.
"Yield, as a slave girl, or die," I said to her.
"Aiii," she cried, throwing her head back in the dirt, her finger nails tearing at my arm. "Aiii!" she screamed wildly to the poles and the leather and the grass and dirt of the roof of that feasting house in the polar basin of Gor's far north.
She began to sob uncontrollably. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with tears.
"You are a monster, a beast," she said. I said nothing to her.
"You made me yield," she said, "-as a slave girl."
"Yes," I said, "you have yielded as a slave girl."
"Make me yield again as a slave girl, Master," she begged.
"There are yieldings beyond those which you have as yet experienced," I said.
"Can there be more?" she asked.
"You have not yet begun to learn your slavery," I said.
She looked up at me. "Your girl awaits your pleasure, Master," she said.
"Do you desire to serve me?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "very much."
I lay beside her and she bent over me, her lips and mouth to my body. I felt her small, warm tongue.
She stopped, and looked up at me. "Surely I am now a complete slave," she said.
"You have not yet begun to learn your slavery," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, bending her head down again. I felt her tongue, and that lovely auburn hair, on my body.
"Arlene," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Is it a slave girl's first duty to be interesting? I asked.
"No," she said. "That is a concern of free women."
"What is the first duty of a slave girl?" I asked.
"To be pleasing to the master," she said.
"Let that be your concern," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
Then the lovely slave bent again to her sweet task.
22
Imnak And I Hunt Sleen; We Consider The Nature Of The World
"Over there," said Imnak, indicating the place in the water.
"Yes," I said.
I laid the two-headed paddle on the leather of the kayak behind me. I pulled off the mitten on my right hand and held it in my teeth. I picked up the beaded throwing board and the light harpoon, and fitted the harpoon shaft into the notch on the throwing board. The harpoon had a foreshaft of bone, with a bone.liead and point. A light rawhide line, of twisted tabuk sinew, ran to the head. In a flat. rounded tray directly before me, on the leather, there were coiled several feet of this line. At my right, alongside the outer edge of the circular wooden frame, bound with sinew, within which I sat, lay the long lance.
"There," whispered Imnak, in his own kayak, a few feet from that which I was using, which belonged to Akko.
The head of a sleen, glistening, smooth, emerged from the water. It was a medium-sized, adult sea sleen, some eight feet in length, some three to four hundred pounds in weight.
I had missed four sleen in a row and I was not too pleased with my performance.
I looped some of the line loosely over the palm of the mitten on my left hand.
I tried to keep the stem of the kayak pointing roughly toward the beast in the water. One does this, when not using the paddle, by moving one's legs and body inside the frame.
The head of the sleen disappeared beneath the water. I put down the harpoon and throwing board; I took the mitten which I had held between my teeth and pulled it back on. It had two thumbs, like the one on my left hand. They were paddle mittens. When they are worn on one side they may be turned to the other.
"You are too slow, Tarl, who hunts with me," said Imnak.
"Last time," I said, "I was too hasty."
"Yes," Imnak agreed, "last time you were too hasty."
"The kayak moved," I said.
"You should keep it steady," said Imnak.
"Thank you, Imnak," I said. "That would not have occurred to me."
"What are friends for?" asked Imnak.
"Imnak!" I cried. His kayak had suddenly flipped over and was bottom side up in the chilled water. In an instant, however, it was right side up again. Water was running from the kayak and Imnak's gutskin jacket. "It is too dark to see under the water," he said.
"You did that on purpose," I said.
"Yes, someone is a big show-off," he said, grinning. He was in a good mood. He had taken two sleen which now lay near us in the water. With a tube he had blown air under the skin of the sleen and, with wooden plugs, closed their wounds. This served to keep the animals afloat. When he returned to shore he would tow them behind his kayak.
"It is difficult to throw from a sitting position;" I said, "and I am not used to the throwing board."
"It is lucky for the sleen that you are here," said Imnak. "Otherwise it might be dangerous for them."
"With encouragement such as you afford," I said, "doubtless I shall soon become a great hunter of sea sleen."
"Perhaps you are not friendly enough to the sea sleen," said Imnak. "Perhaps they think you do not like them."
It had not hitherto occurred to me that one might like sea sleen.
"Perhaps that is the trouble," I admitted.
"Talk to them, be friendly," said. Imnak. "Coax them. They like to be coaxed."
"They would cheerfully permit themselves to be harpooned by someone who is friendly to them?" I asked.
"Would you like to be harpooned by someone who was an enemy?" asked Imnak.
"No," I said, "but I would not like to be harpooned by someone who was a friend either."
"But you are not a sea sleen," said Imnak.
"That is true," I admitted.
"Come now," said Imnak, "would you not prefer to be harpooned by a friend rather than an enemy?"
"I suppose so," I said, "if I had my choice."
"There you are!" said Imnak triumphantly.