"Perhaps, Mistress," she smiled.

"What is wrong with me?" I asked.

"Your symptoms are clear, Mistress," she said.

"Oh?" I said.

"I have seen them in many women," she said.

"And just what is wrong with me?" I asked, irritably.

"I would prefer not to speak," she said.

"Speak!" I had said.

"Must IT' she asked.

"Yesl" I said.

"Mistress needs a master," she said.

"Get outl" I bad screamed, leaping to my feet, kicking aside the small table, sobbing. "Get outl Get outt"

The girl had fled from the room, terrified.

I bad sobbed then in the room, and thrown things about and run to the wall, and struck it with my fists, weeping.

"No!" I bad cried. "That is stupid, stupidl She is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!"

Only later had I been able to wash and compose myself, and prepare to accompany Drusus Rencius to the height of the walls, to enjoy the view, as we had planned. I had recalled that he had not, initially, wished to take me to the walls, and then, rather suddenly, it had seemed, had agreed to do so.

"I am a larger woman than Susan," I informed Drusus Rencius, on the wall, acidly. "I am taller, and my breasts are larger, and my hips are wider." "These things being equal, such things might somewhat improve your price," he admitted "I scorn slaves," I said. "I despise them."

"Quite properly," said he.

I looked out, over the wall.

How pleased I was that I was freel How frightful, how terrible, it would be, to be a slave!

"Is Lady Sheila crying?" he asked.

"No!" I said.

I fought the wild needs within me, seeming to well up from my very depths, needs which seemed to be to surrender, to submit and love, totally. irreservedly, giving all, asking nothing. How superficial, suddenly, seemed then the dispositions to selfishness and egotism in me. From whence could these other emotions, so overwhelming within me, have derived, I asked myself. Surely they, frightening me in their way, seemed directly at odds with the Earth conditionings which I had been subjected. I feared they could have their source only in the very depths of my nature and being.

I dabbed at my eyes with the corner of my veil. "I am not crying," I said, "It is the wind." I then turned about, to look back from the wall over the city of Corcyrus. "Here," I said. "That is better."

The tarns on their perches were now on my left.

I looked over the roofs of Corcyrus. I could see, among trees, the various theaters, and the stadium. I could see the palace from where we stood. I could see, too, some of the gardens, and the-roof of the library, on the avenue of lphicrates.

"The city is beautiful," I said.

"Yes," he said, joining me in surveying it.

I was in love with the Gorean world,-though I found it in some ways rather fearful, primarily, I suppose, because it permitted female slavery.

I wondered if Susan were right, if J needed a master. Then I put such thoughts from my mind, as absurd.

I was not a cringing, groveling slave, a girl locked in a collar, who must hope that some brute might see fit to throw her a crust of bread. I was quite different. I was a woman of Earth. I was proud and free. Indeed, on this world I even enjoyed a particularly exalted status, one a thousand times beyond that of my imboDded sisters in the city below. I was a Tatrixl I looked down from the wall, over the many roofs of Corcyrus.

Why was Susan happy, and I miserable? She was only a collared slave. I was free. I surveyed Corcyrus. In the Gorean world, and I sometimes still had difficulty coping with this comprehension, female slavery was permitted. How horrifying! Yet something deeply within me, undeniably, was profoundly stirred and excited by this comprehension. This stirring within me troubled me. It did not seem to be a response which I had been taught.

"There is the palace," said Drusus Rencius, pointing.

"I see," I said.

Given the sovereignty of males in nature, general among the mammals and universal among the primates, it was natural enough, I supposed, that in a civilization congenial to nature, rather than in one opposed to it, that an institution such as female slavery might exist. This might be regarded as the civilized expression of the biological relationship, a recognition of that relationship, and perhaps an enhancement, riefinement and celebration of it, and, within the context of custom and law, of course, a clarification and consolidation of it. But why, I asked myself, irritatedly, should a civilization be congenial to nature? Is it not far better, I asked my self, for a civilization to contradict and frustrate nature; is it not far better for it to deny and subvert nature; is it not far better for it to blur natural distinctions and CODfUse identities; is it not far better for it, ignoring human happiness and fulfillment, to produce anxiety, guilt, frustration, misery and pain?

"There is the theater of Kleitos," said Drusus Rencius, "the library, the stadium."

"Yes," I said.

But whatever might be the truth about such matters, or the optimum ways of viewing them, female slavery, on Gor, was a fact. There were, as I had long ago learned, slaves here. I looked out, over the city. In the city, within these very walls, there were women, perhaps not much different from myself, in collars, who were literally held in categorical, uncompromised bondage. I had seen several of them, in their distinctive garb, in their collars. I had even seen one who, naked and in her collar, had been locked in an iron belt. Such women were owned, literally owned, with all that that might mean.

"There, where you see the trees," said Drusus Rencius, "is the garden of Antisthenes."

"How many slave girls do you suppose there are in Corcyrus?" I asked, as though idly. do not know," he said. "Probably several hundred. We do not count them." "Do such women seem happy?" I asked.

"As they are only slaves," said Drusus Rencius, "their feelings and happiness are unimportant."

Of course," I said. Men arie such brutest How helpless are the slavesl "There, where you see the trees," said Drusus Rencius, again, "is the garden of Antisthenes."

"Yes," I said. We had visited it twice. It was there, on our second visit, that I had first tried to entice Drusus Rencius to kiss me. The second time had been after we had witnessed the fencing matches. I had been rejected both times. I wondered if I would have been rejected had I been a collared slave. To be sure, he might have made "me whimper and beg for his kiss.

I rejected an impulse to kneel before Drusus Rencius. How I hated himl

6 The Sirik

"There are places you have not taken me in Corcyrus," I reminded him. "Perhaps," he granted me.

"There was a place two days ago," I said, "which we passed in the afternoon." "Surely you heard the music which was coming from within?" he asked. "Yes," I said. It would not be easy to forget that music, so melodious, so exciting and sensual.

"A girl was dancing within," he said. "It was a paga tavern."

"You did not let me enter," I said.

"Such girls often dance in little more than jewels, or chains," he said. "It is better, I think, too, that free women not see how they look at men and bow they move before them."

"I see," I said. "And bow do men find such women?"

"It is in the best interests of the woman," said be, "that the men find her pleasing, very pleasing." see," I said, shuddering. I wondered if I could be pleasing to a man in that way, dancing before him, and then, later, if he had paid my owner my price, in an alcove. Most girls in such a place, I had heard from Susan, but generally not the dancers, came merely with the price of the drink itself. I supposed that if one were a dancer, and was then serving in an alcove, an additional price having been paid for one's use, one would have to strive to be particularly good. Gorean men, I was sure, would see to it that they got their money's worth. "Sometimes I feel sorry for slaves, mere slaves," I said.