"I am frightened," she whispered.

"Build up the fire," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"That I may better see my female perform."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I watched her gather twigs, how she walked, how she held them, how she returned to the fire and, kneeling, sometimes glancing at me, placed them on the fire. As I had thought she was even then engaging in female display behavior. I had thought she would. I wondered if she were fully conscious of what she did. I suspect she was only partly aware of it. And yet, clearly, I saw that she was excited. How subtly and marvelously she manifested her beauty. In so small a thing as the way in which a woman places a plate on the table before a man, or a twig upon a small fire, she may invite him to her rape. I do not think she was fully conscious of how provocative she was. Yet, doubtless, she was intensely aware of my eyes upon her. I wondered if women knew how beautiful they were. I supposed not. Otherwise why would any of them be puzzled when they were enslaved. I observed her movements. She had begun to recognize her bondage, to understand, in her heart, that she was truly a slave girl.

"You move as a slave girl before her master," I said.

"I am a slave girl before my master," she said.

The slave girl moves, and carries herself, differently from a free woman. This is evident in such small things as fetching a cup for her master or in pouring his wine. These movements, and bodily attitudes and postures, subtle and beautiful, difficult to fully disguise, have betrayed more than one slave beauty who, disguised as a free woman, has sought to flee a city. The spears of guards, lowered, to her dismay, suddenly block her way. "Where are you going, Slave?" they ask. She is then knelt and stripped, her collar and brand revealed. Returned to her master, she may be confident that her punishment will not be light.

I looked at the slave.

An Earth woman who exhibits sensuous movement is commonly ostracized or in some other way socially punished. The contempt in which the exotic dancer on Earth is held, despite the richness of her music and beauty, is a symptom of this pathology. The freedoms of the Earth woman do not extend to the point where she is permitted to move as a woman. That she is not supposed to be free to do. The freedoms of the Earth woman, in. effect, are freedoms to conform, within reasonably narrow limits, to certain socially approved stereotypes. Females of Earth, not permitted to move as women, are expected to perform what are, in effect, male-imitation movements. It is little wonder that they occasionally, crying out with frustration, dance naked before a mirror. It is little wonder that in their dreams they are roped and thrown to warriors. On Gor, of course, the woman, if she be slave, is no longer prohibited, because of cultural requirements, from expressing the kinesthetic realities of her womanhood. The slave girl learns to think of herself as deeply and radically feminine, as uncompromisingly feminine. She thus, soon unconsciously, thinks and moves as what she is, a female. Moreover there is a special modality to the movements of the slave girl. She knows not only that she is a female, but a female in the most radical and profound sense, an owned female, one at the bidding of masters. This excites her, and cannot help hut be reflected in her movements. She is the most natural, biological and profound of women, the woman at the mercy of men, who must obey and serve them, the slave girl.

The blond-haired barbarian put a bit more wood on the fire. I smiled. The men of Earth think often of sex as a simple matter of explicit congress. This is, however, much too limited. The perimeters of sex are not limited to those of physiological union. Any woman, I suppose, knows this; it is unfortunate that It is not recognized by more men. The blond-haired barbarian and I, she beneath my will, were now surely intensely engaged in sex; yet she was feet from me, and I was not touching her.

"The fire is high enough," I said. "Now kneel before me, Slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Stretch like the sleek little animal you are," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Now rise gracefully," I said, "and walk back and forth before me."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I watched her. "You are a pretty slave," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Now stand before me, and lower your head."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Lift your head again, and lower it again," I said, "this time more deferentially."

"I obey, Master," she said. She again lifted her head and, this time, slowly, gracefully, deferentially, inclined it to me.

"Excellent," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"You now stand before your master," I said, "your neck bent in submission."

"Yes, my Master," she said.

"Lift your head now," I said, "and look at me."

"Yes, Master," she said. She did so.

"You are an Earth woman," I said. "On Earth, as I understand it," I said, "your delicious and vulnerable animality, your feminine animality, the most basic and deepest female of you, helpless and needful, was, as a matter of cultural policy, consistently suppressed and frustrated."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Did you daydream?" I asked.

"I fought them," she said.

"Foolish," I said.

"But they kept recurring," she said.

"Of course," I said.

She looked at me.

"Was there a common theme? I asked.

"Yes," she said, "myself in a position of submission before men."

"hat is natural," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And at night," I said, "occasionally erupting from the depths of your mind, indicative of your cruelly frustrated needs and desires, were certain sorts of dreams.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Describe to me now one of them."

"There was one of them which more than once I dreamed," she said, "which returned to me, again and again."

"Describe it to me," I said.

"But such things are so private to a girl," she said.

"Speak, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "It seems I was in the jungles of South America, a continent on my native world, Earth, or perhaps it was some other world. I do not know. I was a traveler, or tourist. There was some group involved. The details are unclear. We were examining the ruins of an ancient civilization, great blocks of stone, huge, frightening carvings."

"Yes?" I said.

"I wore boots, and a skirt and short-sleeved blouse," she said, "and a helmet, of lightweight material, to protect me from the sun. Too, I wore sunglasses, pieces of colored glass sometimes worn by those of Earth before their eyes, sometimes to guard their expressions and features, but usually to reduce the glare of a bright sun."

"I understand," I said.

"'What is that carving? I asked our native guide. He was a tall, red man, handsome and strong. He wore an open-throated blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. It is like a half-tunic for the torso, with sleeves. Too, he wore blue trousers. Such a garment covers the lower body, and fits about the legs."

"I am familiar with such garments for the upper and lower body," I said. "They are worn in Torvaldsland and in other areas, generally in the northern latitudes."

"'Is it not obvious? he asked. 'It is the carving of a naked slave girl kneeling before her master. I was so embarrassed. 'Perhaps she is only a captive, I said, angrily. 'Look, he said, pointing. 'She wears a neck belt. 'Oh, I said. 'See its knot and disk, he asked, 'the distinctive slave knot, and the disk, that identifying the master? 'Yes, I said. 'It is the neck belt of a slave, he said. 'I see, I said. 'She is a slave, he said. 'Then, I said, 'she would have to do what her master tells her. He then, with two hands, removed my sunglasses. He looked directly into my eyes. 'Yes, he said. I trembled, for, in that instant, he had looked upon me as a woman, one perhaps containing within herself a slave. He then turned me so that I must look again upon the carving of the subservient girl, the kneeling slave at the feet of her master. I then saw it in the bright and direct light of the sun. It was clear that she was lovely, even in the rudeness of the carving. On her throat was the neck belt of bondage, doubtless tied shut with a slave knot, and, fastened to it, identifying her, the disk of the master. How horrifying it is to look upon such a reality so directly. How much better it is to deny it, or to see it only, as through colored glass, through the softened, tinted lies of civilization. He then handed me back the sunglasses. 'Do not put them back on, he said. How angry I was! Immediately, angrily, I put them back on."