****
She knelt naked before him, on the rug before his chair.
She knelt before him, in her collar, in the basic position of the Gorean pleasure slave, back on her heels, her back straight, her head up, the palms of her hands on her thighs, her knees spread, widely.
A rather different sort of slave, familiar in the “high cities,” in the “cylinder cities,” one more domestically oriented, is the “tower slave.” She is permitted to kneel with her knees closed. On the other hand, when her master, perhaps one evening, orders her to spread her knees, she understands that the scope of her duties has been enlarged. Ellen was under no delusion as to the sort of slave she was. Her duties would doubtless include those of the tower slave, but would, given the sort of slave she was, a spread-knees slave, so to speak, extend well beyond them. Even before Ellen had been told that she was a pleasure slave, it had not been difficult to gather from the nature of her training the sort of slave she was intended to be. It is hard for a girl to kneel with her knees spread widely before a man and be in the least doubt as to this point. Too, she recalled the young man from class, so long ago, and how he had looked at her. She had little doubt as to the nature of the slavery he would have from her.
And now he owned her.
Now she knelt before him, in basic position.
“How did you like serving, as you did this evening,” he asked, “naked, in such a room, the men in tuxedos, the women in evening gowns.”
“May I speak with some freedom, Master?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “at least for the moment.”
“You truly own me, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Certainly.”
“I was humiliated,” she said.
“You must learn to serve naked,” he said. “You are a slave.”
“Did you enjoy having me so serve?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
“You enjoyed making me do that?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Seeing you serve naked gave me a great deal of pleasure. There are many satisfactions connected with the mastery. Such things, my dear former teacher, are amongst them.”
“You are hateful!” she exclaimed, tears welling into her eyes. She wanted to cover her eyes with her hands and weep, but was afraid to break position.
“Is my pretty little slave upset?” he asked.
“Yes!” she cried. “Your pretty little slave is upset!” She moved her head wildly, lifting it, seeing the ceiling, throwing it back and forth, but dared not lower it.
“I see you are under some stress, pretty Ellen,” he said. “Accordingly I permit you some latitude in position.”
Immediately, uncontrollably, she put her head down and buried her face in her hands, weeping.
“Knees,” he cautioned, gently.
With a cry of misery she widened her knees.
“I gather,” he said, “that you found your service humiliating, but did you find that it had other aspects, as well?”
She looked at him, through her hands, as though she would cry out some hysterical denial, but did not do so.
“I see that you found your service welcome, warming, elating, reassuring, fitting, even delicious,” he said.
“Master!” she protested.
“You enjoyed serving as a naked slave,” he said. “You enjoyed, so subtly, so deferentially, so seemingly involuntarily, so seemingly helplessly, exhibiting your beauty.”
She sobbed.
“You are very beautiful,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Perhaps,” she whispered.
“So it is very natural that you would wish to show your beauty,” he said. “It is natural that it would give you great pleasure to do so. Surely, too, you must rejoice in the happiness, and pleasure, that the sight of it brings to others.”
“But it could also bring me into great peril, could it not, Master?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “particularly on this world. It makes you an object of enormous interest, of almost uncontrollable desire. This is particularly dangerous for you, inasmuch as you are only a slave. It is not as though you were a free person, and had a Home Stone.”
“A Home Stone, Master?”
“Commonality of Home Stone extends beyond concepts with which you are familiar, such as shared citizenship, for example. It is more like brotherhood, but not so much in the attenuated, cheap, abstract sense in which those of Earth commonly speak glibly, so loosely, of brotherhood. It is more analogous to brotherhood in the sense of jealously guarded membership in a proud, ancient family, one that has endured through centuries, a family bound together by fidelity, honor, history and tradition.”
“I see,” she whispered.
“So do not concern yourself with Home Stones,” he said. “They are beyond your ken. You are only a slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Surely,” said he, “you are not only aware of your beauty, but you must be excited by it, happy with it, and proud of it, and love it.”
She thought it well not to respond to his words.
She put her head down.
“And you must, too, begin to suspect what power it might give you over men.”
“I have little power,” she said.
“More than you know,” he said. “But remember this, slave. Ultimately all power is with the master. It is he who holds the whip.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
This, incidentally, is exactly and perfectly true on this world, as I have learned, forgive me, as she has learned.
“And, too,” he said, “you are growing intrigued by, and pleased with, your sexiness.”
“My sexiness, Master?” she asked.
“Do not play your silly Earth games with me,” he said, angrily. “Do not pretend to be stupid. On this world there are two sexes. Here one need not pretend to celebrate androgyny or make it a point to flourish pompous, hypocritical puritanical platitudes. Let those who are now as you once were mouth bromides in their classes and ignore realities under their very noses. The pretense to blindness must ultimately fail in a world where sight persists. To be sure, most people will see what they are told to see. So many people blindfold themselves with words; so few look upon the world as it is, radiant and real, with its own nature. The sight of a woman like you, and thousands like you, will enflame a man. Let those of Earth denounce and castigate straw for burning when it is set afire. Goreans do not. They would find that incomprehensibly stupid. You are very well aware, slave, of your sexiness. Do not feign ignorance. You are well aware that you are beautiful and desirable, that you are, whether this pleases you or not, but I do not doubt but what it pleases you, and well pleases you, excruciatingly sexually stimulatory, that men will see you and want you, that your neck calls for the collar, your flank for the brand, your wrists for slave bracelets, your ankles for the shackles of masters!”
She cried out in terror, and misery, and, shrinking down, covered her breasts with her arms, crossed before her body.
“Palms on thighs,” he said.
Then she was again in position.
As her treatments had progressed she had become aware that she had become of considerable sexual interest to men. She did not think it made much difference, really, whether she had been stabilized at thirty-eight years of age, or twenty-eight, or eighteen. In each of these ages, she knew, she was lovely, and of considerable interest. In each of these ages, she had little doubt that men, thousands of men, would have enjoyed having her before them, rendering slave obeisance. She thought that many men might have preferred her at twenty-eight, the age when she had first met her master, he then a student in one of her courses. On the other hand, most Gorean slave girls, she had gathered, were as though in their early twenties. Most of the older women, she gathered, had been returned to that point and stabilized there. On the other hand, there was also doubtless something to be said for a virginal, dewy, youthful eighteen, not so much perhaps from the point of view of the slave herself, as she would tend to be looked down upon, and be regarded as relatively inconsequential, even by her sister slaves, but from the point of view of masters, who tend to be less exacting, less demanding, in such matters, generously not tending to hold her youthfulness against her, provided, of course, it is lovely and helplessly responsive to their touch, as should be the body of any slave. In any event, it was where her master had chosen to have her stabilized, and so that is exactly where she was stabilized. Perhaps he wished her so, as he had suggested, as a part of his vengeance upon her, that in virtue of her youth she might be rendered negligible, inconsequential, and thus demeaned. In any event, whatever may be the truth in these matters, she found herself by his will made a young slave, one who could be no more than a girl to his man.