"Yes," I said. "But the girl, of course, is always to be kept in the perfection of her slavery."
"Of course," she said. "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I love Canka," she said. "But I displeased him. What if he doesn't want me any longer? What if he sells me or gives me away?"
"I do not think he will do that," I said.
"How am I to act when I return to his lodge?" she asked. "What am I to do?"
"You are a slave," I said. "Be loving, obedient and pleasing, fully."
"I shall try," she said.
I then explained to her what she might do upon her return to the lodge of Canka.
"Oh, yes," she whispered. "Yes!"
It would be important for her to convince him that she had learned something from her travials of the day.
"I smell cooking fires," she said, happily. She made as though to rise, but I thrust her, roughly, back down on the robes. "Master?" she asked.
"You are eager to return to the lodge of your master," I observed.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"But until I choose, within reason, to relinquish you," I said, "you are still to me as my slave, are you not?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Well," I said, "I do not choose, at this moment, to relinquish you."
"Please, Master," she wept.
"You are nude, and attractive," I said. "I am going to have you again now, and at my leisure."
"Please, Master!" she protested.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said, frightened.
"And how will you yield to me?" I asked.
"With perfection," she said, "as my master ordered." She looked at me, and laughed. "You brute," she said. "You know you will make me yield with perfection, whether I wished to or not!"
"Perhaps," I said.
"Modest tarsk!" she laughed. "Oh!" she cried. "Oh! Oh!"
"It seems to be true," I said.
"Yes," she said, "yes!"
"You will, further," I said, "utter low-volume sounds, indicative of arousal."
"Yes," she said. "Yes."
This device, forcing the slave to furnish an audible analogue or correlate for her sensations, has three principal utilities.
It helps to inensify the slave's responses, she responding in part to, and being in part aroused by, her own sounds of arousal. Secondly, the sounds, her helpless moans and cries, her whimpers, her sighs, her gasps, please, and can be stimulatory to, the master. Thirdly, the sounds aid him in his management and control of her. By means of them he can, in effect, map her beauty, guiding himself in his ownership of her, detecting the zones of her greatest sexual helplessness and, by varying the nature of his rhythms and touches, how they can be most effeciently and brilliantly expolited, the end in view, of course, being to produce the most yielding and orgasmically helpless slave possible.
"Ohhh," she said, softly.
"And when I am finished with you," I said, "I shall rise to my feet and snap my fingers. You will then, without further ado, rise to your feet and follow me, silently, humbly and unquestioningly, heeling me, as the mere beast you are, to the lodge of your master."
"Yes, Master," she said. "Ohhh. Ohhh!"
I smiled to myself. The little beast had tricked me. I thought my vengeance on her was suitable.
"Ohh!" she cried. "Ohh! Ohhhh!"
Yes, I thought, quite suitable.
Chapter 10
AN IMPROVED SLAVE IS RETURNED TO HER MASTER
We stood before the lodge of Canka.
He emberged from the lodge.
Immediately Winyela, a penitent slave, lowered herself to her knees, and then to her belly before him.
"You may kiss his feet," I said.
She began to kiss the moccasined feet of her master.
"I was displeased with her," said Canka to me.
"She knows," I said.
Canka reached down and pulled her up to her knees and then, by the hair, he bent her back, and then twisted her about.
"She does not appear to be much disciplined," he said.
"I think the discipline to which she was subjected will prove to be adequate," I said. "If it does not, it may, of course, be doubled, or trebled."
"That is true," said Canka. Winyela, then, released, was again at his feet. Imploringly, beseechingly, again on her belly, as she had been before, she continued to press her lips to his moccasis.
"Do you think she is improved?" asked Canka.
"I think so," I said.
I looked down at the girl. I had little doubt she had learned her lessons. The highly intelligent woman, incidentally, as would be expected, learns her slave lessons, and that she is a slave, much more quickly than the stupid woman. It takes some stupid women as much as two days before they learn that they are truly in a collar. If a slave continues to prove recalcitrant, of course, she gains nothing by this. She will merely be disposed of.
"It is my hope," said Canka, "that she will not repeat her earlier mistakes."
"I do not think she will," I said, "and, of course, if she is not pleasing in some way she may be swiftly brought into line."
"She is responsive to the quirt?" asked Canka.
"Yes," I said.
"And to the touch of the master?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, "and, as befits a slave, helpless and superbly so."
"Good," he said. He then stepped back from the contrite girl, bellying to him, kissing his feet, suing for his forgiveness and mercy.
"Have you firmly resolved to improve your qualities of pleasingness to your master?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," said the girl, on her stomach.
"With your permission," I said to Canka.
"Of course," he said.
"You may not indicate your new attitude toward your master," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said. She then rose to her hands and knees and head down, crawling, entered Canka's lodge.
He looked at me, puzzled.
In a moment she re-emerged from the lodge as she had entered it, crawling, with her head down. Grasping between her small, fine white teeth was the center of a heavy, braided, beaded-handled kaiila quirt. Canka watched, as she, unbidden, brought him the quirt. She lay it at his feet, from her teeth, and then knelt before him, her head down. Her hands were on her thighs. Her knees were widely seperated. This knee position indicated that she knew herself to be a woman held in the deepest and most intimate form of slavery.
"Thus," I said, "does she display her new understanding of her condition. Thus does she indicate her new attitued towards her master."
I saw that Canka approved of what he saw, and well.
"Behold her," I said, "a humbled, submitted slave. Her name is Winyela. She is the property of the warrior, Canka, of the Isbu Kaiila."
"Look up," said Canka to the girl.
There were tears in her eyes.
"She desires to speak," I said.
"You may speak," said Canka.
"I am yours, and I love you, my master," said the girl. Then she lowered her head.
Canka reached down and picked up the kaiila quirt. Then he indicated, with the quirt, that the girl should enter the intterior of the lodge. She crawled to the lodge, head down.
"I see," said Canka, "that you have returned me a better slave than the one I sent you."
I said nothing.
"I am very pleased." he said.
"That pleases me," I said.
"I did not wish to have to kill her," he said.
"I do not think that will be necessary," I said. "I think you will now find that she is a good slave, and that all is in order."
Canka grinned.
"She is within," I said. "She awaits her master."
"Thank you," said Canka, "-my friend."
"It was nothing," I said, "my friend."
Cnaka then entered his lodge. A moment later I heard Winyela crying out, rapturously, doubtless locked in his arms. I had suggested the business of the kaiila quirt to her before we had left Cuwignaka's lodge. I had thought it might please Canka, and give Winyela a way to demonstrate, graphically and meaningfully, unmistakably, that she was now, knew herself to be, and desired not to be other than, the total slave of her master.