I heard a shout outside, and I lay very still. I heard the boys crying out with triumph, and pleasure. In a few moments, when I dared, I looked out from the furs. They had taken another girl. Did they think she would escape? It was Slave Beads. She was being carried to the circle of the torch. She was carried on the shoulder of a brawny peasant lad. She was roped hand and foot, at the ankles, at the thighs above the knees, her wrists behind her back, and about her upper arms and body. In addition, one lad walked in front with a rope which was tied on her neck, and another walked behind with a rope tied about her left ankle. There were several boys in the group. Several, apparently, had flushed her out and, together, run her down like a startled, confused tabuk hind.
I, now, alone of all the girls, had escaped them. I was proud of my ingenuity and cunning.
For more than an Ahn I lay quiet in the furs. Sometimes the young hunters came near, but they did not molest our camp, nor much penetrate its perimeters. One did walk within two or three yards of me, carrying a torch, but I lay very still. He did not throw aside the furs of my master, nor those of the other men.
I lay warm in the furs, happy. I had escaped from them. There was a possibility, I supposed, that my master would not be pleased that I had hidden in his furs, If this were so, I supposed that I would be tied and lashed. Yet I did not think he would object to my boldness and ingenuity. I knew that my master could see through me, his slave girl, as simply as through glass, but I felt that I, too, in the past weeks, strangely, had become much more aware of him, and much more capable of reading his moods and conjecturing his reactions. Perhaps this was only a slave girl's alertness to the master, an alertness natural enough in a girl who is owned by a man, whose well-being and very life may depend on how well she pleases him; I do not know; that is an alertness which any rational girl strives to cultivate; but I wondered if it might not be more, something more in the nature of a deep, intuitive rapport with another person. I felt that I was coming to know my master. Two days ago I had sensed, watching him, that he desired wine rather than paga. I had gone and fetched wine and knelt before him. "May a girl offer you wine, Master?" I had asked him. He had seemed startled, momentarily. Then he had said, "Yes, Slave," and taken the wine. At times I sensed his eyes on me. Once, in the early morning, when I had lain chained with the other girls, I awakened, but gave no sign that I had awakened. Through half closed eyes I had seen that he stood near me. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I was not displeased.
Two days ago I had dared to follow him outside the palisade. I found him sitting alone, on a rock, surveying a grassy field. "Come here, Slave," he said to me. "Yes, Master," I said. I went and knelt near him; later I leaned my head against him, which he permitted. "The grass and sky are beautiful, are they not, Slave?" he asked. "Yes, Master," I had replied. He looked down at me. "You, too," he said, "are beautiful, Slave." "A girl is gratified if she pleases her master," I said. "Why is it," he asked, looking down, "that the women of Earth are fit to be slaves?" "Perhaps," I said, looking up at him, "because the men of Gor are fit to be masters." He then again turned his attention to the contemplation of the grass and sky. He sat still for a long time. Then he stood up, as though shaking his mood from him, as though now he was again separate from nature, alien in its midst, conscious, a man, and I was at his feet, a woman. Then it was we two alone, by the rock, in the grass, he standing, I kneeling. He looked down at me. "The woman of Earth," I said to him, "is ready to serve her Gorean master." Laughing, he leaped upon me, seizing me by the shoulders and throwing me back, forcibly, as a slave, to the grass. The Ta-Teera was torn from me. Well then, to her joy, did he use the Earth woman, his slave.
I felt the furs thrown back.
"I knew that I would find you here," he said.
"I hope that master is not displeased with his girl," I said. Yesterday night, he had touched my hair, almost tenderly. Then, as though angry with himself, he had slapped me, hard, and sent me to Eta, to be put to work. I had not been displeased, though my mouth was bloodied. This morning I had knelt before him. "I beg rape," I had said. He had looked at me, angrily. "Rape her," he had said to a passing soldier. He had then turned angrily away. In the arms of the soldier, I had smiled. I think I had disturbed my master. I think he was fighting his feelings for me, his desire for me. Then I had cried out with unwilling pleasure, and helplessly caught at the soldier with my nails, and the thought of my master had been, against my will, forced from my consciousness as the soldier brought me, twisting and crying out, to obliterating, overwhelming slave orgasm.
"Perhaps I should have you lashed," said my master.
"My master will do with me what he pleases," I said.
He had not been too pleased with the way I had yielded to the soldier. But I had not been able to help myself.
"Slave," had said my master later, standing over me.
"Yes, Master," I had said, looking up at him, shamed, "I am a slave."
He had then turned away again, angrily. He called Marla to him, to serve his pleasure. She hurried to him. Objectively she was more beautiful than I, with her large, dark eyes, her face, her lovely figure; too, she had superb slave reflexes; but she did not, I thought, succeed in making my master forget me. She did, of course, frighten me, for she was a formidable rival. I resented, and hated her. Too, she did not seem to regard me with affection and delight. She had wanted me named "Stupid Girl" or "Clumsy Girl." I did not yet have a name. But, in spite of the fact that my master, currently, seemed to be much taken with Maria, and that she was clearly the preferred bond girl in our camp, I did not feel that she had managed to negate the moments or the tacit understanding which I felt I shared with the man who owned me. I recalled his anger at my helpless yielding to the soldier; I was only a slave; I had not been able to help myself; yet he' had been angry; too, he himself had commanded the man to address himself to the work of my rape; yet he had been angry; too, his concern with Marla seemed to me rather sudden and excessive; he seemed to be too obviously unconcerned with me; I smiled to myself; I think he had been jealous; and I think he was using Marla, certainly a delightful diversion, to try and force me from his mind. She was surely more beautiful than I, but in such matters there are rightnesses which are reciprocal and subtle; it is rather like the matching together of pieces in a puzzle, the startling, unexpected fitting together of components, yielding a whole which is, in its wholeness, more precious than the individual pieces or parts could be in isolation; as beautiful and marvelous as Marla was, she was not I; it was that simple, I believe; she was not I; I, not she, I believe, was the one; I had little doubt he was my natural, perfect master; I think he had begun to fear that I might be his natural, perfect slave; surely he did not want to think of me as more than just another of his girls; yet I had little doubt that I was becoming to him, in spite of his desires, something more than just another lovely wench whose wrist was fastened on his chain.