Earth, have exceeded their place, and they are then whipped. I did not think that I had exceeded my place. I think I had recognized what it was, since puberty.
Even on my former world, I had been curious as to what it might be, to be owned and serve a master. On Gor, I had learned. Yet each master is different, and our helplessness in the arms of one may not be identical with our helplessness in the arms of another. There are a thousand ecstasies, and a thousand yieldings, each in a sense the same, and yet each different. What is common in each is that one is slave, and one is master. Sometimes, if only from a chagrin at my lowliness, or perhaps in an attempt to recover something of my former free woman’s independence and pride, I had resolved to resist the attentions to which I found myself subjected, but I had soon found myself succumbing as might any other collar slut, which I now was. How helpless we are in their hands! Initially, weeks ago, I had surrendered myself, at least in part, for fear of the consequences of a master’s displeasure, or even his failure to find me fully pleasing. In my training, as brief as it was, I had been taught the lash of the switch and, once, the stroke of the whip, and would go to great lengths to avoid both. I also learned that there are infallible signs in a slave’s body, signs of authentic response, which signs are easily read by Gorean males. They easily detect, and do not accept, pretense. Accordingly, after leaving the house, and having felt the switch, and, once, the lash, I had surrendered wholly, and helplessly, as I must, holding back nothing, surrendered to feeling, emotion, and radical sentience, as a yielding, worthless object, as a slave to her master, which I was. Again and again I would steel myself to resist, somehow, even despite the perils, but then I would be touched, and I would be again a slave. Too, I feared, but longed for, the growing of my needs, now multiplying, waxing, and intensifying. In my mind, and belly, I was becoming different, or, perhaps better, was becoming more and more, in my mind and belly, what I had always been, a slave. And surely I now knew at least the glimmer of slave fires. Men were seeing to it. I had no choice. I was given no choice. It was being done to me, regardless of my will. I felt helpless, but then a slave is helpless. How far I was now from the arrogance of my former self, which, while desperately desiring bondage, had sought, in accord with the mechanistic, sterile prescriptions of my world, demanded of me, to deny these desires, and drive them from my mind! No longer were such options permitted me. I could no longer help myself. I was now a slave!
“Oh!” I said, suddenly, touched.
“Excellent,” he said.
I dug my fingernails into the mat.
***
Some weeks ago, my coffle, disembarked, marched east from the sea, had arrived at an extensive enclave termed Tarncamp. There were many buildings there, for housing, cooking, feeding, washing, sleeping, exercise, storage, and such. Amongst them we passed an impressive pavilion. It was said to be the pavilion of a Lord Nishida. He was first, I gathered, in the camp. The pavilion, palisaded, seemed to be the center of much activity. Men came and went, and slaves, as well. In passing by the open gate, with its two large panels, swung back on each side from the palisade wall, I could see the pavilion within was largely open, rather like an extensive dais. Guards were about. Did he fear attack? In passing, I heard the roar of a beast from somewhere within the palisade. I trusted that it was well secured. It reminded me of the roars, though they had been from a much greater distance, I had heard on the beach, and, twice, in my journey to this place, through the forest. I supposed they emanated from the same, or a similar, sort of beast. It soon became clear that this large enclave was a work camp of some sort, one in which, apparently, much timbering took place. We saw wagons, filled with logs, drawn by tharlarion. We also saw stables in which such beasts might be fed, watered, and sheltered. The journey here had taken some four days. We had, however, following others,