I looked down at her. I knew then that I had always wanted Beverly Henderson as my slave. From the first instant I had seen her I had wanted her as my slave.

"Master," she whimpered, "Master!"

Then I stood before her with my fists clenched and threw back my head and wanted to howl with misery. Surely she must be a free woman! She must be free! She was from Earth! But could everything that my blood and my instincts and impulses told me be wrong? But it must be, else a civilization structured upon and predicated upon, pathologies must disintegrate and perish. But could there be a civilization congenial to the truths of the blood, to the nature of human beings.

Is man so foolish, so naive and habit-bound, so fundamentaly irrational, so ready to believe anything that he might be taught, no matter how absurb, that he cannot understand that torture cannot be truth. The test for truth, surely must not be pain, misery and frustration, but happiness and joy.

"Master," she whimpered. But surely she must be free! But what if she were a true slave, as she had indicated? But she could not be a true slave. She was from Earth!

But what if, even though she were from Earth, she were a true slave, as in accord with her own avowals? could such a thing, she from Earth, be possible, even thinkable? I scarcely dared even consider this possibility, for then she, a slave, could be mine!

I determined, cruelly, to make a test of the matter. I untied her hands. I waited then for her to shrink back in terror, to, feeling her way, try to retreat to the far wall, perhaps cowering there, at my mercy. But her head was at my feet. I felt her lips kissing my feet. Beverly Henderson was at my feet! "Forgive me Master," she said, "if I have displeased you." She was then holding my legs, putting her cheek against them and kissing them. "Forgive you slave," she said, "and let your slave please you."

I then seized her by the arms and jerked her to her feet. She was startled. Savagely I jerked her small hands behind her back and, with the yellow cord, tied them there, tightly. "Master?" she asked, frightened. I snapped my fingers. She knelt. I snapped my fingers again. She stood. I then threw her, bodily, onto the deep furs on the surface of the couch. She lay there on her side. I picked up the whip and shook out its coils. She heard the sound and moaned. I approached her. She was tense and frightened. She in the darkness of the blindfold could see nothing. She shuddered in fear as I touched the whip lightly to her body, moving it upon her right calf. She gasped. Then I moved the whip about on her body, slowly curiously, observing her responses. She was tense, and frightened. "Please do not whip me Master," she said. I put the flat leather coils of the whip to her mouth. She lying on her side, fervently, frightened, kissed them again and again. "Please do not whip me Master."

I put the whip on the couch to one side, where I might have it at hand, to lash her if she were not totally pleasing. I then had her, and as the bound slave she was.

She cried out, startled, taken with such force. I looked down at her, gripped in my arms. I dragged her from the couch and threw her then on the chains and furs at its foot. In my desire, my eagerness, and in my fury an joy, I had had the wench on the surface of the great couch itself. But she now lay bound at the foot of the couch, in the shadow of the slave ring, trembling, in a more fit place for a slave such as she. I then again took her. She was gasping and shuddering. It is sometimes months before a girl is permitted, commanded to ascend her Master's couch. Even then she commonly enters it not as a free person, directly, but as a slave, from the lower left, or bottom, after first kneeling and kissing its furs.

She cried out, shuddering in my arms, suddenly had again. "Oh, Master," she sobbed, "Master!" My hands were again hard on her arms. I, kneeling then, pulled her to her knees. Then I shook her and threw her to her side on the furs and chains against the bottom of the couch. She was sobbing and gasping. She pulled against the cord loops on her wrists. There were marks from my hands on her arms. "Please, Master," she sobbed. She rose, terrified to her knees and then to her feet trying to escape. She stumbled in the blindfold against the edge of the couch, crying out, bruising herself. She then stumbled from the couch, frightened, lost her footing and crying out, turning, fell into the tub. She tried to scramble, weeping, to her feet, but I was on her in an instant. I forced her to her knees in the water and then, holding her by the hair, not permitting her to leave her knees, I forced her head back until her dark hair, beneath where I had it knooted in my hand, was loose, floating in the water, and the bow of her exquisite slave beauty was well exposed to me. I regarded her for at ime, so hdle. "Please, Master," she wept, "be gentle with me." Angrily then, my hand still in her hair, I jerked her head forward and sill keeping her on her knees, crouching over her, I thrust her face beneath the water. I held it there for a time, and then pulled it up. Sputtering, half blinded by the water, gasping, she wept. "Please, Master, forgive me! I did not mean to displease you."

I then flung her on her back inthe water and she strubbling, gasping, trying to keep her head above water, again had her.

Then I thrust her up, half sitting, half lying, againt the edge of the tub. She turned her head toward me, gasping. The blindfold was sopped, but secure. Her hari and body were soaked and wt. The cord loops, soaked, were still tight on her small wrists. Her body, wet, was interesting to touch. Then I again had her."Master," she sobbed.

I rose to my feet and stepped from the tub. I walked slowly, shuddering, about the room. Then I was calm. I looked back at her. She was half lying, half kneeling, against the side of the but. I went to her and took her by the collar and pulled her to her feet and from the tub, and to the foot of the couch, where I put her to her knees. Crouching near her I toweled dry the steel loop on her throat. It, like her, belonged to Policrates. I then, gently, dried her hair, and wrapped a towel about it.Also, because I intended to put her in the ankle ring, I dried her left ankle. I did not dry her beyond those things, however, what was necessary to protect the collar and steel of Policrates. I then locked her left ankle in the ankle ring, thus fastening her, by a length of chain, to the foot of my couch. Had she been my own girl I probably would have dried her completely. It is pleasant, as one my well imagine, to towel one's slave.

"Master," she wept, "Master."I made her lie down there at the foot on the great couch. I then, satisfied, and fulfilled as I would not have believed possible, entered upon the great couch and lay wearily upon its furs. "Master," she sobbed. I was soon asleep.

I dreamed that Beverly Henderson was chained naked at my slave ring. I awakened. I left the couch and walked about it, to its foot.Beverly Henderson was chained there, maked, at my slave ring. I kicked her softly, with the side of my foot. She was not asleep.She rose to her knees and put her head down, humbly.

It was near dawn. Gray light entered the room Her wrists were still tied behind her. I had not released them.

"It must be near morning, Master," she said. She could not be certain. She wore the blindfold.

I took her by the upper arms and lifted her to her feet. The towel, in the night had come loose from her hair. I touched her hair. It was still damp. I lifted her in my arms, gently, and placed her on the furs of the couch."Thank you Master," she said, "for permitting me the honor of your couch." I said nothing.

"I gather it must be now be morning," she said, "though I cannot know that. I gather too, that Master is now refreshed. I have been lifted and placed upon his couch. Doubtless I am not to please him, his slave." I said nothing.