Then I knelt before him and pressed my lips to his feet, trembling. "Keep me, Master," I begged. "Keep me!" I looked up at him, clutching his knees, tears in my eyes. "Please, Master," I wept, "let me stay."
I remained kneeling, shuddering, as he turned from me and reclosed, with the spear and rope, the corridor in the thorn brush.
Then again he stood before me, looking down at me. He motioned me to my feet that I should follow him. Humbly, his girl, I followed him through the camp. The other man, too, he holding the torch followed.
We stopped before the rolled furs of one of the warriors. He blinked in the torchlight, and rose to one elbow, looking at us. My master spoke to him, briefly, no more than four or five words. I looked at the man. I knew him well from the camp. I had usually shrunk away from him. He was the least attractive man in the camp.
Why had my master brought me here?
My master said something to me, briefly, and indicated the recumbent warrior. I could not understand the precise meaning of the words addressed to me, but their import, as my heart sank, was clear. I was to please this man, and as a slave girl.
Yesterday night my master had taken my virginity, much pleasured himself with me, and forced my total surrender to him, the surrender of a completely vanquished bond girl. But should I then have inferred that I was a favored girl? That there was something special about me? No. It had been only first rights with me, naturally taken by him, the leader. It had meant nothing. I was only a girl. What had meant so much to me, what had been so momentous to me, had been meaningless to him. It had been only first rights. Doubtless he had taken first rights with countless girls, many of them more beautiful than I. I was truly for the use of all, as much1 or more, than the lovely Eta. There was nothing special about Judy Thornton. She was only a slave girl in the camp. I had not understood that. I had been confused, scandalized, outraged, miserable, when I had been put up as quarry and prize in the cruel game of the evening. I had, at last, afterwards, even cried out my rebellion, my foolish protest. I had been vain and proud. I had thought myself better than what I was. I, an Earth girl, had presumed to scold Gorean men. Then I had been hooded and thrown naked to them for their pleasure. In the course of the savage discipline inflicted upon me, late in its measures, I had, it both thrilling and horrifying me, sensed the ancient primate complementarity of male and female, that in the ancient biological sovereignties of nature, on this world reasserted, I, a female, was simply subordinate to the male. This truth, much fought and feared, long denied, accepted, burst upon me with a blaze of freedom. With hurricane force it blasted away the brittle webs and bars of falsehood. I, though helpless, hooded, in the arms of the beasts who ravished me, had experienced, exhilarated, an incredible sense of freedom, of liberation. It was not the freedom of convention I then felt but the freedom of nature, not the freedom to be what I was not, which had been prescribed to me, but the freedom rather to be what I was, which, for complex social and historical reasons, had been long denied to me; it was not the freedom of political prescription, but the freedom of nature, the freedom of a rock to fall, of a plant to grow, of a flower to bloom, the ecstatic freedom to be what one was. And I had cried out and seized the man. I, hooded, knew nothing of him but his maleness. I cried out and yielded to him. "Kajira," had said someone. How shamed I had been that I had done this. How sullenly I had lain in the camp afterwards. I had resolved to attempt escape.
In the camp, as I had lain there, I had known I was nothing special, that I was only a slave girl, that I must obey the men, and that they would do with me what they wished.
I attempted to escape. But, in a moment, foolishly, painfully, I was enmeshed in the thorn brush, helpless and caught in its cruel compass.
My master had then extricated me from my cruel prison and, with spear and rope, opened a path in the brush through which I might, did I choose, take flight.
I had wavered, and then, terrified and crushed, had knelt to him. "Keep me, Master," I had begged.
I now stood beside him, the man with the torch standing to one side. I looked down at the man in the furs, looking up at us. To me he was the least attractive man in the camp.
My master had said something to me. Its import was clear. I looked at him. His eyes were hard. I choked back sobs. I knelt beside the man in the furs, who threw back the furs.
My master stood behind me. The other man held the torch. I then, with hands and mouth, fell to kissing and touching the warrior. I pleased him as well as I could, being an ignorant girl, following his directions. At last he took me and threw me to the furs beneath him. I looked up at my master's face. I could see the side of it in the torchlight. The torchlight illuminated me. Then, suddenly, I turned my head to one side, closing my eyes, crying out. I could no longer resist the man. I then, shamed, under the very eyes of my master, yielded to the man.
When he had done with me to his satisfaction, he thrust me from him. My master then ordered me to my feet and he conducted me to where my blanket had been discarded. There, bending over me, he crossed my wrists and, with a narrow strap, tied them together behind my back; he then similarly fastened my ankles. I lay on my side. He threw the thin blanket over me and left me.
Eta crept to my side. I looked at her, dry-eyed. She did not attempt to untie me. The master had decreed bonds for me this night. I would remain bound. I turned away from Eta, lying on my side. She remained near me. Tonight I had run, belled, both quarry and prize, in a cruel game of barbarian men; insolent, I had been thrown to masters, who had impressed their dominance upon me; no longer had I doubt of their dominance, or of my complete subordination to their will; my master had, later, permitted me to run if I chose, to take flight; rather, I had knelt before him naked and begged to be kept; I would be kept, as he made clear to me, only upon his terms, those of my absolute subjection, my abject slavery; the slave girl had been permitted to run, if she chose; not so choosing, she remained in the camp as clearly what she was, total slave.
I wondered why my master had opened the corridor in the thorn brush; did I really mean nothing to him; was it nothing to him whether I remained in the camp, or lied into the darkness, to starve, or be devoured by beasts, or to fall into the hands of others? I suspected that, truly, it did mean little to him. Yet, as I lay there, naked, bound, under the blanket, I reddened. It had been for my benefit, not his, that he had opened the corridor in the brush. He had understood the slave girl better than she had understood herself; he had doubtless had experience with many girls; perhaps he had even owned Earth girls before; it did not seem likely to me that I would have been the only wench of Earth brought to the chains of this world; there had perhaps been many; as I lay there I realized that he had cognized me well, as a master a girl; the corridor had been opened for my benefit, not his; he, with his skill and experience in such matters, had simply and easily read my emotions, my feelings, my nature; they had lain as open to him as my flesh; I had been unable to conceal aught from his discerning eye; he was a master of female psychology; nothing in me had been secret from him; I had been, with ease, "sized up" and understood; I shuddered, thinking how easy this would make me to control, how simple to manipulate and defeat; I was both gratified and frightened that this man understood me; I was gratified because I wanted, deeply, to be understood, and I was frightened, too, because I sensed the power this understanding would give him over me; I had little doubt, too, that he was the sort of man who would exploit this power; he would use it as naturally, as innocently, as savagely, as effectively, as a boar its tusks or a lion its claws; he understood me and owned me; how could I have been more helplessly his?