"Yes, Mistress," I said, bitterly.
"Do I detect bitterness?" she asked, not turning about.
"No, Mistress," I said.
"Good," she said. "You are a true man of Earth, fit to be the slave of a woman."
"Yes, Mistress," I said. I found some wine, and poured a bit for her. Then, as I had seen Lola do for me, I pressed the goblet into my lower abdomen and then lifted it to my lips, where, turning my head, I kissed it. Then, head down, kneeling back on my heels, arms extended, I proffered it to the Mistress.
"Excellent, Jason," she said.
"Thank you, Mistress," I said.
She sipped the wine, and regarded me contemptuously. Then she said, "Go back to your place."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
I went back, beside the couch, and again knelt. She turned about and placed the cup of wine on the low desk and in a moment, was again deeply engaged in her work. I think she forgot that I was in the room. I knelt silently in the background. Occasionally, however, as the Ehn passed, she drank from the cup.
I was ignored and neglected. I would be summoned, if needed.
I glanced at the large, fur-strewn couch. I saw that there were chains, on rings, attached to it.
She at last, wearily, thrust back the papers and put down the marking pencil. She rose to her feet and stretched, and turned to look at me.
"Get on the couch," she said, "on your back."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
She went to the right side of the couch and, in a routine and unconcerned fashion, lifted a shackle, on a chain, which she snapped shut on my right ankle. She then walked about the couch and, on the left, similarly secured my left ankle, She then, as I felt the movement through the left shackle, my leg pulled slightly to the left, adjusted that chain at the ring. She then walked about the bottom of the couch and, taking my right wrist, locked it on a manacle, at my right side. She then went about the head of the couch and, taking my left wrist, enclosed it, too, in a manacle, at my left side, which she then snapped shut. My left wrist was pulled further then to the left, as she adjusted the chain on the left manacle, fixing the length of its play by a snap ring thrust through a link and about the couch ring. My feet, then, had been well chained, and my hands, too, had been well chained, and a few inches from my sides. She had done these things with the same habitual routine, the same lack of attention and concern, with which she might have hung up a piece of wearing apparel or replaced a comb and brush on a vanity.
"Do you remember me. Jason?" she asked.
"I think so, Mistress," I said. "You were the slaver, were you not, who subjected me to such thorough assessment in the House of Andronicus?"
"You have a good eye for women, Jason," she said. "I was veiled."
"Thank you, Mistress," I said. "Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Did I frighten you, Jason?" she asked.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"How I despise weakness in men," she said.
I did not speak.
"You are of Earth, are you not?" she asked.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"The Lady Gina told me this," she said, "in the House of Andronicus. Too, it is on your papers."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
She looked down at me, I a man of Earth, chained helplessly before her on her couch.
"Do the women of your world not despise weakness in men?" she asked.
"No, Mistress," I said. "They desire it."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"It is what we have been taught," I said.
"Interesting," she said. "Are they, then, so different from all other women?"
"Perhaps, Mistress," I said. "I do not know."
"I wonder, then," she said, "if that is true, why the females brought here from Earth become such dreams of pleasure and submission for Gorean males."
"I do not know," I said.
"Surely you know that they, stripped and collared, thrown to the feet of strong men, make fantastic, yielding slave sluts?"
"I did not know, Mistress," I said. I knew nothing of Earth-girl slaves. I had heard, however, to be honest, that they were prized in certain markets, and often brought good prices. I supposed there must be some explanation for their economic value. I thought of poor Beverly Henderson. I hoped, somehow, she had managed to escape the cruel fate of female slavery. How piteous it would be if her beauty, so lovely and delicate, were simply to be rudely auctioned to the highest bidder. What an affront to her intelligence and personhood! Too, I thrust from my mind, frightened, the thought of what a joy it would be to own her.
"I find you interesting, Jason," said the Lady Tima. She went to a cabinet, and opened it, removing from it a slave whip.
I tensed.
"When I first saw you," she said, "I felt, for a moment, looking into your eyes, that they might be the eyes of a man. I thought this even though I had been informed you were of the planet Earth."
I did not speak.
"I thought, for a moment," she said, "looking into your eyes that they were the sort of eyes before which a woman fears that the lineaments of her features, even though veiled, may be clear to him under whose observation she finds herself. Indeed, she fears, as his eyes imperiously, casually, rove over her, that her beauty and needs, in spite of the intervening robes, the intervening layers of cloth, may be exposed as helplessly to him as those of a slave girl."
I did not speak. She moved the whip and its coils gently upon my body, half caressing it, half instructing it in its bondage.
"Please do not whip me," I said.
"But then," she said, "I discovered that you were not a man, but only a slave, and one who was despicably weak."
"Please, Mistress," I begged, "do not whip me."
She put the whip aside, on the couch beside me. "Do not fear, Jason," she said. She looked down at me. "You are not worth whipping," she said.
She put her hands to the high, ornate collar of her robes, undoing the silver clasp. She slipped the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. She was strikingly beautiful.
"I will not play long with you, Jason," she said. "I will soon send you back to your chains."
"What are you going to do with me?" I asked.
She laughed. She went then to the wine and poured the goblet half full. Then she came and sat near me, at the top of the couch. I struggled to my elbows, as I could. I put my head back. She supported my head, and put the goblet to my lips. "Drink, pretty Jason," she said. "It will make you less tense." She then tilted the goblet and poured the wine, bit by bit, into my mouth. I drank, frightened. Then she left the couch and returned the goblet to a small table. In a moment she had returned to the side of the couch, where she stood, looking down at me.
I could already begin to feel the wine. I was still half on my elbows. "What are you going to do to me?" I asked.
"Treat you as what you are," she said, "a man of Earth, a weakling, at the mercy of a Gorean free woman."
I regarded her, frightened.
"Lie back, pretty Jason," she said. I lay back. The furs were deep about me. I felt the inflexible clasp of the steel on my ankles and wrists.
Then suddenly, lightly, like a cat, she slipped onto the couch beside me.
"I do not understand," I said. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Own you," she whispered. "Use you for my pleasure."
I looked at her with horror.
She smiled and then thrust the whip, crosswise, in my mouth, between my teeth.
She then aroused, and raped me.
11 THE ROOM OF PREPARATION
"Poor slave," said the girl. "How the Mistress has abused you"
I lifted my head, slightly, from the flat stones. I lay on my side. The room was quite dark. My feet and ankles were chained together, the chain joining them apparently run through a ring in the stone. I was naked. I wore my collar.