"I am glad," she said. "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"What if I were not good?"
"Then I would not have put another coin in your coin box," I said.
"What if I were not good the first time, after you had put a coin in the coin box?" she asked.
"Then I would have beaten you," I said.
"Could you beat me?" she asked.
"Yes," I told her.
"Would you, truly, had you not been satisfied with me, have beaten me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I am pleased that you found me pleasing," she said.
I smiled.
"Too," she said, "you would have been entitled to a refund, though I myself could not have given it to you, for the coin box is locked. You could have obtained it, however, later from my master."
"I know," I said.
"But then, too, I would be again beaten," she said, "doubtless whipped."
"Yes," I said. The satisfaction of Coin Girls, in its way, is guaranteed, or one can receive one's money back. It is not surprising, then, that the girls, under the conditions obtaining, strive to be pleasing.
"I put a second coin, did I not, in your coin box?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Address yourself to my pleasures," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, and bent forward, over my body. I felt her sweet lips, and her small teeth and tongue, those of a slave, on my body. In a few moments I ordered her again to her back.
She lay beside me.
Then I pulled her by the neck chain closer to me. I thrust another coin into the small metal box on the chain. She kissed me. "Again, Master?" she asked. I took her by the arms and flung her beneath me. "Do you know the name of this street?" I asked.
"The Street of the Writhing Slave," she said.
"Writhe, Slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
It was an Ahn later.
She lay beside me, pressing her softness against me, kissing at my arm, my shoulder and chest, softly, piteously. "Very well," I said.
"Oh, yes, Master!" she breathed. "Yes, yes, Master!"
I then put her beneath me, and looked down into her eyes. "Yes, Master," she said. "Yes, yes, yes, Master!"
I was preparing to have her when suddenly I saw fear come into her eyes. "Oh, no, Master!" she cried. "No! No!"
"What is it?" I asked.
"The coin!" she cried, in misery, "the coin. You have not paid the coin!"
I smiled.
"I am a Coin Girl!" she cried, miserably. "I may not be had without the coin!"
"Oh," I said.
"Please," she begged. "Please pay the coin!"
"Do you beg it?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "Yes, Master!"
"Very well," I said. I put another tiny coin in the coin box.
"Thank you, Master," she breathed, lifting her lips to mine. "Now have me, have me, have me!"
"Very well," I said.
"It must be near dawn," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered, softly, frightened.
"We must think about having you returned to your master," I said.
"Oh, please, Master, not yet," she begged. "Let me stay beside you for but a little more time."
"Very well," I said, "for perhaps a moment more."
"I never want to leave your side," she said. She clutched me.
"Who owns you?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said, "doubtless some renter of Coin Girls. I was apportioned to him in the division of the spoils taken from the holding of Policrates."
"What does he look like?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said. "I have never even seen him."
"What manner of man is he?" I asked.
"He is harsh and cruel, uncompromising and merciless," she said. "He keeps me well as a slave."
"Do you fear him?" I asked.
"I fear him terribly," she said. "I am his girl."
"Perhaps he is not such a bad fellow," I said.
"He keeps me chained in a basement, in the darkness," she said. "He throws me scraps of food for which I, on my chain, must search, or starve."
"Perhaps he merely wishes you to learn that you are a slave," I said.
"He has taught it to me well," she said.
"He does not sound like such a bad fellow," I said. "If I owned you, I might treat you similarly, at least at first."
"Until I had learned well to whom I belong?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"And what if a girl is incapable of learning her lesson?" she asked.
"She may always, then," I said, "be fed to sleen."
"She will learn her lesson, and well," said the girl.
"Of course," I said.
"But he has never once summoned me to his couch, to abuse me, or caress me, or order me to serve his pleasures."
"I see," I said.
"If you owned me," she said, "you would have used me by now, would you not have?"
"Yes," I said, "if I owned you, doubtless, by now, I would have put you, and well, to my pleasure."
"Perhaps he does not find me attractive," she said. "Perhaps he has many women. Perhaps he does not even find me a curiosity to exploit."
"Perhaps," I said.
She then lay closely against me, her head at my hip, trembling.
"I am afraid to be a slave," she whispered.
"As well you might be," I said.
"I can be bought or sold, or given away," she said. "I may even be slain, on the least whim of a master."
"Yes," I said.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Masters do not respect their slaves, do they?" she asked.
"Of course not," I said.
"But might they not, sometimes, feel other emotions toward them?" she asked. Her voice was very soft, and frightened. I gathered that she feared she might be struck.
"Yes," I said.
"What emotions?" she asked, timidly, beggingly.
"Irritation," I said, "desire, lust."
"But is there no other emotion that a master might, sometimes, feel towards his slave?" she asked.
"What emotion did you have in mind?" I asked.
"Please, Master," she sobbed, "do not make me speak!"
"Very well," I said.
I felt her tears, and hair, at my hip. Doubtless it is hard, I thought, to be a slave girl. One is so helpless.
"It is light now," I said.
"I hear a bell," she whispered.
"It is not the bell of a Coin Girl," I said. "It is the bell of a vendor of bosk milk. He is making his rounds, coming up the street."
"Do not send me from your side," she said.
"Would you be seen here," I asked, "as a naked slave, leashed, lying upon the street?"
"Slaves have no pride," she said.
"On your knees," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said, getting to her knees. I stood up, and looked down upon her, kneeling on the stones, in the gray light of the Gorean dawn.
"Use me but once more," she begged, "before you send me away."
I looked down at her.
"Shorten my leash," she said. "Tie my hands before my body. Fasten me closely at the slave ring."
"The vendor of bosk milk approaches," I said.
"I care not," she said. "Take me before him."
I pulled her back by the leather collar, and leash, not gently, to the slave ring. There I untied the leash and then retied it, considerably shortening it. She knelt there, then, against the wall. The tether, from the heavy metal ring to the stout ring at the back of her collar, taut, holding her head up, was about eighteen inches in length. She held out her hands to me, wrists crossed. With the free end of the leash I bound them together, tightly, before her body.
I looked down at her. "You are now tied, or muchly so," I said, "as was the girl on the walk, outside the shop of Philebus, in Ar."
"Yes, Master," she said, happily.
"I had brought her a drink of water," I said. "I had set the price for this favor as my having of her." This had occurred long ago, when I had been a silk slave, owned by the Lady Florence of Vonda. I had, myself, later captured my mistress, and sold her into slavery. She belonged now to Miles of Vonda, who had helped us in our work with the pirates, part of the spoils, as many other slave girls, taken from the holding of Policrates. My former mistress was now naught but the obedient and joyful love slave of the proud Vondan.