“Oh?” I said.

“It is degrading,” she said. “Release me, immediately!” She squirmed. She was helpless, warrior-tied. “Immediately!” she said. “Immediately!”

But she was not released.

I took the whip from my sash.

“You will not truly strike me with the whip, will you?” she asked. She spoke to me, her head turned, over her left shoulder. “I am a woman of Earth,” she said.

“You cannot treat me like a mere Gorean slave girl. You know you cannot do it!”

I opened the whip, letting the broad, soft leather fall loose.

“We are alone here,” she said. “None will know whether you strike me or not. You need not strike me. You may simply say that you did. I shall, in the deception, corroborate your story. The charade that you would keep me as a slave need not now be prolonged.” She tried to turn her head, to look at me. But she could not see me. “Surely you have no intention of making we a true slave, for you are only of Earth,” she laughed. “Only of Earth!” Then she said, “Release me, now! I demand it! You are only of Earth! Only of Earth! I simply demand to be released, Tarl! Now! Now!”

I said nothing.

She did not find herself released.

“None will know if you do not whip me,” she said.

“I will know,” I told her. “And one other, too, will know.”

“Who?” she asked.

“The pretty little she-animal and slave, Vella,” I said.

Her fists clenched in the bindings.

“You may call me Elizabeth,” she said.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“Oh, Tarl,” she scolded.

I smiled. Did she not know there was no Elizabeth unless a master chose to call her by that name?

She spoke more confidently now. “I am a woman of Earth,” she said. “It is not necessary to beat a woman of Earth to teach her a lesson, should that be perhaps, amusing and preposterous though it is, what is in your mind. She, Tarl, is not an animal who must be whipped. She is a person. She is not a mere Gorean girl, a simple, vital, half-animal thing. She is a person! A true person! I have learned my lesson, Tarl. I am truly sorry. I was cruel and petty. I know! I am sorry. I have learned my lesson. It will not be necessary to beat me.” She smiled. “Untie me, Tarl,” she said. “Untie me now.”

I stepped to the bars.

“Thank you, Tarl,” she said. But I did not untie her. I held the bit of bleached slave silk, removed from my sash, over her nose and mouth. She could breathe easily through it, and speak through it. But she could not breathe or speak without feeling it, without inhaling and taking into her very body the faint, lingering traces of slave perfume, hers, which yet clung to it. Suddenly her voice, her lips moving beneath the silk, became less certain. “I am not a Gorean girl,” she said, “fit for physical discipline. I am not one of those animals who understands only the whip.”

I replaced the bit of silk in my sash. I stepped back.

“I am a woman of Earth!” she cried. Her small hands, wrists warrior-tied to the bars, clenched the bars in terror. She turned her head again, desperately, trying to look at me. She could not see me. “Tarl!” she cried. “Tarl?”

I swung back the whip.

“You will not punish me as a Gorean slave girl!” she cried.

“You have not been pleasing,” I said.

After the fourth stroke she screamed out, weeping, “I have been punished! Stop!

Stop! A girl has been punished! Stop!” After the sixth stroke she cried out, “Please stop, I beg of you, Master!”

Twenty strokes did I give the slave girl. Then I untied her from the bars. She fell to the tiles before me, reaching for my ankles, pressing her lips, hot and wet, to my boots, her tears hot on the leather. “What are you?” I asked. “A Gorean slave girl at the feet of her master,” she said.

“I have not begun to punish you,’’ I told her. She looked at me with fear, and wonder. I tied her small garment, which I picked up from the floor, about her neck, and her hands behind her back. I strode through the halls, she, stumbling, running, following me. Outside, I untied her, and then retied her, belly up, head down, over the saddle of a kaiila, and took her to the nearby kasbah, which had once been that of Tarna. There I took her down to the fourth level, the lowest level, and, throwing the tiny garment into a cell, whence it would be retrieved later, I took her to the branding chamber, threw her into the device, and locked it on her thigh. Hassan was there and the iron was already hot. It was the same iron with which he had, the night before, marked the proud Tarna.

It had been cleaned, with a solvent. One iron, properly cared for, can mark thousands of women. “No, Master,” she said, “please!” “Do you wish to mark her?” asked Hassan. “Yes,” I said. I would place the mark on her left thigh, above that of the four bosk horns. It would be the common Gorean female slave mark, fitting for a low girl, such as she, one who had not been fully pleasing.

I held up the iron, white hot, for the girl’s inspection.

“You will soon be branded, Girl.” I told her.

“Don’t brand me!” she cried. “Please don’t brand me!” She wept.

Hassan regarded her with interest.

“We are now ready,” I told her.

She looked at me, then at the glowing, white-hot marking surface of the iron.

She watched it with horror, as it approached her.

I held it poised at her thigh.

“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t!”

“You are now to be branded, Slave Girl,” I told her. “No,” she screamed. Then I branded her. For five long Ihn I held the iron, pressing it in. I watched it sink in her thigh, smoking and crackling and hissing. It was a larger brand than that of the four bosk horns; I made sure it marked her more deeply. We three, Hassan, I and the girl, smelled the marked, burned slave flesh of her. Then, swiftly, cleanly, I withdrew it. Her head was back. She was screaming and weeping. “A perfect brand,” said Hassan, looking on. “Perfect!” I was pleased.

Such a brand would be envied by other girls. It would improve the sleek little animal’s value.

I removed the locking device, and spun loose the twist handles, releasing her thigh. I freed her of the snap bracelets. I carried her, naked, branded, weeping, to the small cell where I had thrown her tiny garment, to be retrieved later. I put her down on the straw. Her throat was bare, for I had had, the preceding night, the collar of Ibn Saran removed from her throat.

“Assume the posture of female submission,” I told her. She did so, kneeling back on her heels, her arms extended, wrists crossed, her head between them, down.

She was weeping.

“Repeat after me,” I told her, “‘I, once Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, of the planet Earth-’ “ “I, once Miss Elizabeth Cardwell of the planet Earth-” she said.

“ ‘-herewith submit myself, completely and totally, in all things-’“ “-herewith submit myself, completely and totally, in all things-” she said.

“-to he who is now known here as Hakim of Tor-”‘

“-to he who is now known here as Hakim of Tor-” she said.

“ ‘-his girl, his slave, an article of his property, his to do with as he pleases-’ “ “-his girl, his slave, an article of his property, his to do with as he pleases,” she said.

Hassan handed me the collar. It was inscribed ‘I am the property of Hakim of Tor’. I showed it to the girl. She could not read Taharic script. I read it to her. I put it about her neck. I snapped it shut.

“ ‘I am yours, Master,’ “ I said to the girl.

She ‘looked up at me, tears in her eyes, her neck in my locked collar. “I am yours, Master,” she said.

“Congratulations on your slave!” said Hassan. `She is lovely meat. Now I must attend to my own slave.” He laughed, and left.

The girl sank to the straw, and looked up at me. Her eyes were soft with tears.

She whispered. “I am yours now, Tarl,” she said.

“You own me. You truly own me.”

“What is your name?” I asked.