A man lifted his cup, and I hastened to him, to serve him. I then returned to the shadows. I noted that Eta served wine to the tall, handsome, blond-haired fellow. I did not mind. I liked Eta, though she was first girl, and over me. I had worked well under her and she had not switched me. I watched my master. With the rock he jabbed down at the map. Men asked questions. He replied. They hung upon his words. I looked about the circle of the fire. What fantastic males these were, so strong, so handsome, so mighty. I felt small and slight, and helpless, before them. And how proud I felt of my master, first among them, he the mightiest and finest of all. Eta remained in the vicinity of the blond, shaggy-haired warrior. I moved more closely to my master. I wished to pour him wine and kiss his cup, should he give his girl the opportunity to do so. I did not understand their conversation, or the nature of the project which they were apparently planning. It was, I gathered, military in nature. Moreover, waiting was involved in it. More than once had a man gazed at the largest moon in the sky. In some days it would be full.
My master flung the rock down at a certain place in the map. It lay there, solid, half buried in the dirt. It was there that something, I gathered, would take place. The men grunted in agreement. There was a stream there, or a confluence of two streams, and, apparently, a woods. The men nodded. My master looked about himself. None asked a further question. They seemed satisfied. Their eyes shone as they looked upon him. How proud I was of my master. How thrilled I was, secretly, in my heart, to be owned by him.
The men rose from the side of the fire and, some talking among themselves, went to their furs and tenting.
My master looked at me. He lifted his cup. I hastened to him, took the cup, and filled it. I pressed my lips long to its side, then humbly proffered it to the magnificent beast whose girl I was. I knelt before him, and in my eyes, doubtless, he could read my need. But he turned away.
Before he had turned away, again I had read in his eyes, as I had before, earlier in the evening, that I was only a meaningless slave to him.
Was I such poor slave stuff, naked, in need, at his feet, that I was to be despised, and rejected?
Then, kneeling in the dirt, all the fury, the humiliation and frustration, of a scorned Earth girl, scorned by a barbarian, welled up within me. I began to choke with rage. I rose to my feet. I thrust-the flask of wine I carried into the hands of Eta, who came to comfort me. "Go away!" I cried. Eta took the flask. I would not permit her to kiss me. She said something, softly. "Go away!" I screamed at her. Some of the men turned to look at me. Eta took the flask of wine and, frightened, hurried away. I stood near the fire, which, now, had muchly subsided. My fists were clenched. Tears ran down my cheeks. "I hate you all!" I cried. I ran stumbling to the thin blanket which I had been given the night before. I tore it from the ground and covered myself with it, holding it about my shoulders. I shuddered, head down, clutching the blanket about me, shaking with sobs, near where the blanket had lain. I had been taken, against my will, from Earth. I had been brought to a strange world. I had been branded. I was being kept as a slave. I lifted my head, wildly, looking about the camp, up at the moons, at the cliffs and thorn brush. I looked at the men, some watching me. "I am better than you all," I cried, "though you abuse me! I am of Earth! You are barbarians! I am civilized! You are not! It is you who should bend to me, not I to you! It is I who should command, not you!" Eta ran to me, to urge me to silence. None in the camp save I myself understood my words, but, clearly, they were uttered in wildness, in hysteria, in rage; they were words, clearly, of protest, perhaps even of hysterical rebellion. Eta was clearly frightened. Had I known more of Gor, I, too, might then have been terrified. I knew little then of the world on which I found myself, or of the meaning of the brand on my thigh. My shield then, as before, was simply my ignorance, the ignorance of a foolish girl. I shouted and cried out at them, raging, weeping. Then I saw, before me, my master. He loomed in the darkness. I looked up at him, in rage. My fists clutched the blanket about me. It was he who had won me in the grim contest with steel in the fields; it was he who had brought me naked to his camp; he who had branded me; he by whom my virginity had been ripped from me; he who had, in his tenting, again and again, at length, reduced me to a panting, surrendered object of his pleasure, a vanquished, loving slave girl. "I hate you!" I cried to him, in rage. I clutched the blanket about me. How hard it is for a girl, stripped, to stand before, and conduct herself with dignity before, as an equal, a man who is fully clothed. I clutched the blanket with my fists. I held it tightly about me. It gave me courage. He had made me love him! I loved him! And yet he cared nothing for me! "Don't you understand," I cried, "I love you! I love you! And yet you treat me as nothing! I hate you!" I shook with rage. "I hate you! I hate you!" I cried. After making me love him, he had permitted his men to amuse themselves with me! He had given me to them for their sport! "You gave me to others!" I wept. "I hate you!" I looked at him, wildly. "You do not know who I am," I said. "I am Judy Thornton! I am of Earth! I am not one of your barbarian girls, a slut for your pleasure! I am a refined, civilized young woman! I am better than you are! I am better than you all!"
I saw, in the moonlight, the hand. It was extended toward me, open.
"You cannot treat me badly," I said. "You must treat me well." I looked at him, boldly. "I have rights," I said. "I am a free woman."
His hand extended still toward me, open. I did not know the extent of his patience.
I handed him the blanket. I stood then small and naked before him. The moonlight streamed down on the branded slave girl before her master.
He held the blanket, looking down at it. Then he looked at me. I trembled. I knew a girl was to be punished.
He lifted the blanket. In that instant I felt suffused with joy for I felt then that he would, in his kindness, cover me, protecting me from the eyes of his men; perhaps, too, he had been moved by my plight; perhaps he was now sorry for how cruelly he had treated me; perhaps now he would try to make amends; perhaps now I had stirred pity and compassion in his harsh breast; perhaps, too, he was moved now by my love for him and, overwhelmed with gratitude, and tenderness, at the value and immensity of this gift, might be moved to regard me, too, with affection, with love, in turn.
I looked at him with loving eyes. Then he placed the blanket over my head, and, with a length of cord, looping it several times about my throat, tied it tightly under my chin, so that again, as in the cruel game, I was hooded. Then he threw me to his men.