I looked down at the male slave.

"You do not look well," I said.

"I am sick, Master," he said.

He had taken a splendid drubbing, to be sure.

"Do you think that what has occurred here this morning is unaccountable?" I asked.

"Master?" he asked.

"That this is all a matter of chance, and unexpected?" I asked.

"I do not understand, Master," he said.

"It is not," I informed him. "You have been acquired as the result of a plan." He looked at me, startled.

"You have been seduced," I said, "that you would be brought into circumstances of great compromise, circumstances the outcome of which would be to bring you to your present condition, as my slave."

"Aii," he wept.

"The female slave, of course," I said, "was acting under my orders."

He looked at Lavinia.

"Have you received permission to look at her?" I asked.

Quickly he averted his eyes.

"You may look at her," I informed him.

He turned to Lavinia, stricken.

"May I speak?" he begged.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you not care for me?" he asked the slave.

"She had not received permission to speak," I informed him.

Lavinia looked at me, pleadingly, her lower lip trembling. I would permit her to speak later.

"She is pretty, isn't she? I asked.

"Yes, Master," he said, in misery.

"She is a seduction slave," I said.

Lavinia sobbed, and shook her head. A tear coursed down her cheek.

"Are you not, Lavinia?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"You should not object to this," I informed the male slave.

"You yourself, often enough, if I am not mistaken, have acted in the role of the seduction slave. Surely it is only fair that the tables have now been turned, and that it is you, so to speak, who now finds himself in the net."

He could not take his eyes from Lavinia.

"She acted under your orders?" he said.

"Of course," I said.

He moaned.

"And is there not a rich joke her," I asked, "for, as I understand it, it was you who, as a seduction slave, were responsible for first bringing her pretty little neck into the collar. It is not only fitting then that it be she, now a slave, whom I used for your acquisition?"

"Yes, Master," he said.

"Doubtless she finds her triumph rich and amusing," I said.

"Please, Master, may I speak?" begged Lavinia.

"No," I said.

She sobbed.

"You did your work well, pretty little seduction slave," I said to her.

"Please, Master!" she begged.

"No," I said.

"I had hoped you cared for me," he said.

She threw back her head in anguish.

"I had hoped you cared for me," he said. "I had never forgotten you!"

She looked wildly at him.

"You seemed so tender, so real, so helpless!" he said.

"Surely, as one who has had, as I understand it, experience on the stage," I said, "you can understand such things."

"She was responsive!" he said.

"She had better have been," I said. "Indeed, slave girls are trained to helpless responsiveness. They can juice, for example, in a matter of Ihn."

"She responded!" he said.

"She is a slave," I said. "She has strong and recurrent needs. Indeed, she is the prisoner, and victim, of such needs. Why should she not have utilized you to temporarily satisfy them?"

"Please, Master," wept Lavinia.

"No," I said.

"Well did you trick me," he said to the girl.

She regarded him with anguish.

"I do not blame you," he said. "You must do as your master commands."

I smiled to myself, despite my remarks to the male slave, had little doubt of the genuineness of Lavinia's words, her protestation, and such. The authenticity of a slave's words and responses, of course, are attested to by numerous bodily ones, many of which are unaware of, and cannot control. A master who is alert to these can then determine, particularly over a period of time, whether or not the slave's words, feelings and responses are genuine or not. The alternatives accorded to the Gorean slave girl are, in effect, to become an authentic slave, or die. Interestingly this understanding, particularly on the part of a woman who has been the victim of an antibiological conditioning program, as some Earth females, can be received as a liberating and joyful revelation, permitting them then in good conscience to yield at least, as they have long wished, to their femininity. Most women, of course, including most Earth females brought to Gor, as slaves, for that is the usual reason for which one is brought to Gor, do not need anything of this sort. Most are so joyful to find themselves on a natural world where their beauty, their dispositions and feelings are meaningful, that they can hardly wait to fulfill their depth nature, to be at last the women they are in their hearts, and bellies, and have always desired to be.

"She is not hard to take," I said.

"No, Master," he said.

"And if you had to be seduced," I said, "surely you must not object to my using her for the purpose."

"No, Master," he said.

"Indeed," I said, "perhaps you commend my perception, and generosity."

"Yes, Master," he said.

"Now," I said, "you both belong to me."

They looked wildly at one another.

"And I expect, seduction slave," I said to the girl, "that he will be good for your discipline. If you are not pleasing, perhaps I will throw you to him."

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Chain me, and throw me to him. Let me be his to do with as he pleases!"

The male slave gasped, staggered with the thought of such power over the beauty. "But then, on the other hand," I said, "I do not know if I would permit dalliance among my slaves."

He could not but drink in the beauty of Lavinia.

"Look away from her," I commanded.

With a moan he averted his eyes.

"To be sure, I might upon occasion," I said, "let you look upon one another, each chained to an opposite wall, or perhaps I might even allow you each enough chain to approach, but not touch, one another. Too, of course, I might have you chained helplessly and then have her dance naked, in her own chains, before you, thence to be dismissed to her kennel."

He hung down his head, in misery.

"No," I said to Lavinia, reading her anguished expression. She put her palms down, again, on her thighs. Tears were upon her cheeks and breasts.

"You noted when you saw her this morning, of course," I said, "that she was not in seeming state garb."

"Of course, Master," he said.

"Nor in a collar, to be sure, one she could not remove, seemingly one of the state."

"Yes, Master," he said.

"Did this excite your curiosity?" I asked.

"No, Master," he said. "As this was the morning of the putative assignation, I supposed it might be a disguise prescribed by her Mistress, that the curious, if they saw her in this neighborhood, would not be likely to link her with the Central Cylinder."

"That was an intelligent conjecture on your part," I said.

"And doubtless one on which Master counted," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"It did excite me," he said, "to see her not in the drab state garb, but in the tunic she wore, with the disrobing loop."

"Did she drop the tunic well?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," he said. "She is a superb seduction slave."

Lavinia sobbed.

The male slave looked up at me. "I am an actor," he said. "Master does not appear to be of the theater."

"No," I said. "I am not of the theater."

"I do not understand why master has brought these things about," he said, "why he has brought me into his possession. Of what possible use can I be to master?"

"Perhaps I could sell you to the quarries, or into the fields," I said. "Perhaps I could take you to the Vosk, or the coast, and sell you to a captain. You might look well, chained to the bench of a galley."