The blond-haired barbarian looked at me.

"Continue," I said.

"There were two rings before the stone, about five feet apart," she said. 'They knelt me down."

"Kneel down," I said, "precisely as in your dream."

"Yes, Master," she said. She knelt down. "My wrist leashes," she said, "were then slipped through the rings, the free ends of each in the hands of a standing man."

"It is interesting that that should be in your dream," I said. "It is a device for maintaining a differential tension in the body of a beaten girl.".

"It seemed natural," she said.

"It is natural," I said. "Now place your wrists exactly as they were at the beginning of your beating."

"Yes, Master," she said. She extended her wrists downward and to the sides.

"What then occurred?" I asked.

"I was beaten," she said.

"How many strokes?" I asked.

"Eleven," she said. "Ten for disobedience, and one, to remind me that I was a slave."

"Interesting," I said. "That, too, is sometimes done."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You will now," I said, "count the strokes, and, after each count, react as you did in your dream."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I observed her. The beating, in her dream, had apparently been quite efficient I studied her facial expressions, the movements of her body. Sometimes under the blows or in fearful anticipation of them she twisted or changed position, once sitting, sometimes crouching, once on her stomach; most of the blows were across her back, but two had been delivered frontally, and two to her left side, and one to her right side. In all this I was conscious, in her movements, of how the two men with the wrist leashes, tightening or slackening them, toyed and played with her, as one sometimes does with a slave, skillfully managing her in her beating.

"The beating was then finished?" I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Apparently you were well beaten," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I was well beaten."

"At the end of the beating you well knew that you were a slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I well knew then that I was a slave."

"What occurred then?" I asked.

"I cowered kneeling, sobbing, before my master," she said. "The men then thrust my wrist leashes back through the rings and, by means of them, dragged me to my feet. I looked up at my master, piteously, searching his face for the least sign of kindness. But there was none. I was a woman of a foreign and hated race, and a slave. 'You are a worthless slave, he said. 'Yes, Master, I wept. He gestured to his right. I was dragged to the side by the wrist leashes. Stumbling I saw before me a circular opening in the stone, like a sunken, sheer-sided pool some eight feet in diameter. The men went to either side of the pool, dragging me by the wrist leashes toward it. I heard grunting and movement, and stirred water, in the pool. In the light of lifted torches I saw its contents. I screamed. In the pool, clambering over one another, lifting their jaws upward were crocodiles, beasts like river tharlarion but differently hided and plated."

I nodded. The marsh tharlarion, and river tharlarion, of Gor are, I suspect, genetically different from the alligators, caymens and crocodiles of Earth. I suspect this to be the case because these Earth reptiles are so well adapted to their environments that they have changed very little in tens of millions of years. The marsh and river tharlarion, accordingly, if descended from such beasts, brought long ago to Gor on Voyages of Acquisition by Priest-Kings, would presumably resemble them more closely. On the other hand, of course, I may be mistaken in this matter. It remains my speculation, however, that the resemblance between these forms of beasts, which are considerable, particularly in bodily configuration and disposition, may be accounted for by convergent evolution; this process, alert to the exigencies of survival, has, I suspect, in the context of similar environments, similarly shaped these oviparous predators of two worlds. Certain other forms of Gorean beast, however, I suspect do have an Earth origin. This seems to be the case with certain birds and rodents and, possibly, even with an animal as important to the Gorean economy as the bosk.

"Struggling, trying to pull back, fighting the wrist leashes, screaming, inch by inch," she said, "I was drawn toward the pool. 'Master! Master! I screamed. Then I was drawn to the very edge of the pool. I looked back wildly over my shoulder, sobbing. 'Please, Master! I wept. 'Have mercy on me, Master! Mercy, Master, mercy! Take pity on a worthless slave! The wrist leashes then tightened, to plunge me forward into the lifted, waiting, lunging jaws. I threw my head back. I do not know from where within me came then that piteous wild cry that I then uttered. 'Let me please you! I cried. He must have given a sign, perhaps raising his hand, for the wrist leashes, tight on my small wrists, no longer pulled me forward, but neither did they let me move an inch back. 'Let your girl try to please you, Master! I cried. 'The girl begs to please her master! I could scarcely believe that I had uttered those words. I was horrified that I had said them. They were the words, surely, of a slave. Yet how naturally and spontaneously they had come from me! What could it mean? I was dragged back before the oblong stone. There my wrist leashes were removed. I ran, terrified, to the stone, and pressed myself against it. I scratched at it with my fingernails, and looked up at him. 'Do you desire to please your master? he asked. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'As a slave? he asked. 'Yes, Master, I said, 'as a slave. I looked at him. I now knew what the words I had uttered had meant, those words which had so horrified me, and which, yet, had come so naturally and spontaneously from me. They had meant that I was truly a slave, and truly desired to please my master. Then, in my own heart, my slavery was well confirmed in me. 'Do so, he said. 'Yes, Master, I said, and stepped back from the stone."

I listened to the noises of the jungle night. I threw some more twigs on the fire.

"'You understand clearly, do you not, he asked, 'that if you are not sufficiently pleasing, you will be thrown to the crocodiles? 'Yes, Master, I said."

"Continue," I told her.

"I was terrified," she said. "I looked up at the brute. I knew that, if I were to live, I must please him, and please him well, and as a slave."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I moved before him," she said, "as a slave."

"Do so now," I said, "precisely, in every detail, as you did in your dream."

"Ah!" she said. "How clever you are, Master. How cleverly you have tricked me!"

I regarded her, not speaking.

"It is again a matter of female display behaviors, is It not?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"But these behaviors," she said, "would now be extracted from my most intimate and secret dreams."

I did not speak.

"You are a bold, demanding master," she said.

I did not speak.

"Do not make a girl so expose her needs," she begged.

"The slave girl must honestly expose her needs," I said. 'The hypocrisy of the free woman, her concealment, her subterfuges, her lies, are not permitted to the female slave."

"Oh, Master," she wept, miserably.

"Are you prepared to perform?" I asked.

"Do not so violate the privacy of a girl's dreams!" she begged.

"You have no privacy," I said. "You belong to me."

"Am I not to be permitted the least vestige of my pride?" she asked.

"No," I told her.

"I am a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I shall now perform for my master," she said.

"Do so," I said, "and precisely, in each and every detail, as In your dream."

"Yes, my master," she said. She looked at me. "Remember," she said, "that I was forced to do this, that I not be hurled to the waiting jaws of crocodiles, beasts much like river tharlarion. That I not suffer so horrible a fate I knew that I must please him well, and as the slave which I had now been proven to be."