"Your master is surely one of the ugliest men I have ever seen," said Tina. "He is not so bad," I said, lifting a tunic, dripping, from the water. "How your skin must crawl when he forces you to his intimate service," she said, dipping a tunic in the water.

"I do not think his whip would permit that," I said, wringing out the tunic. "It must be horrifying to have to serve him," she said.

"No," I said. "Not really."

"He is not bad?" she asked.

"No," I said. Surely he had been strong with me, and had made me obey him well. "I suppose there could be some pleasure in being for serve, and totally, such a twisted, despicable little brute," she said, "the domination of you, the disregard of your will and preferences, the reminding of your femaleness that it is enslaved, that it must do what it is told, that it must, no matter what be pleasing, and perfectly so, to the master."

"He is not really that bad," I said, "really." I did not see any reason to tell her that I had, yesterday, knelt behind him and licked at the back of his knees, begging his touch. Similarly I did not see any reason to tell her that it had been denied to me.

"Mat is interesting," said Tina. "It is sometimes so hard to tell about a master."

"Yes," I said.

We then continued our work.

I wore the brief gray tunic which Speusippus had let me put on, and had then ordered me to remove, the first night in the shack. My ankles were chained; some ten inches of chain separated them; the chain was fastened on them by means of two padlocks. I was the only girt in camp, as far as I knew, who was shackled. During the day, when the wagon was moving, my ankles were not shackled. Then, however, he would chain my wrists, a chain running from them then to the back of the wagon. I would walk then, generally, behind the wagon, chained to it. the road was fairly well traveled. Today, lifting my chained wrists, I had waved to the girls in an open slave wagon. Individual neck chains went to a common chain in the wagon. Interestingly enough, they, too, were sheared. Sometimes I would sneak a ride in the back of the wagon.

Then I no longer did this. he caught me once there and informed me that if I did this again I would be punished. Thereafter I rode in the back of the wagon only when I had received his permission, generally after begging for it. This permission, however, he was usually lenient in granting. It was almost as though he did not wish me to be exhausted.

It was almost as though he wanted to keep me fresh, almost as though he intended to deliver me somewhere.

I wrting out another tunic and placed it behind me, on the rocks.

It was hot and I rubbed my hand back over my head, ~j feeling there. the short, bristly stubble of hair. As be had promised, he had, on the first morning of my captivity, sheared me.

"Thactantius," said Tina, "is merciless with me. In his chains he makes me kick and scream with pleasure."

"That is nice," I said.

"Does your master force slave yieldings from you?" she asked.

"He does with me what be pleases," I said. "He is the master. I am the slave." I was -not even sure what slave yieldings were. I gathered they might be some peculiarly helpless form of orgasm.

I looked to, the side, to a small pool of water, wherein I could see my face reflected. I again touched my head, feeling the short stubble of hair there. He had sheared me very closely, to within perhaps a quarter inch of my skin. In the days since the shearing the hair had not appreciably lengthened. I wondered if he would permit my hair to grow out, perhaps to cut it again in a few months, to add more of it to his stock, or if he would, perhaps for his amusement, or to keep my identity a better secret, keep me closely sheared. The decision, of course, was his. I was to him, in effect, as his slave.

I wondered if the shortness of my hair, the result of the shearing, made me less attractive to Speusippus. I wondered ff that were why he had not snapped his fingers and commanded me to his pleasure.

"Am I ugly, Tina?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"My hair?" I asked.

"It will grow back," she said.

"Do you think any man could want me, as I am?" I asked.

"Surely you have seen the teamsters looking at your ass?" she said.

"No!" I said.

"You have a pretty ass," she said.

"Thank you," I said.

"You are very pretty as a whole," she said. "You have a curvaceous figure, though a little short, and a lovely face. Have no fear. You would make a nice armful for a man. You arc a piece of well-curved slave meat. You are a tasty' pudding."

"Thank you," I said. How scandalized I was to hear these thingsl I was not used to hearing myself spoken about in terms of the graphic simplicities often applied to slaves. To be sure, she did not know that I was not a slave. Tasty pudding, indeedl I wondered if I were a tasty pudding. Perhaps, I thought. I did know I was small and curvaceous, and could easily be picked up by men, and carried about, and, if they wished, overpowered and put to their purposes. Perhaps to them, small and helpless, and desirable, I did look like a tasty V, pudding. Thinking of myself in those terms made me feel weak, vulnerable and excited.

"Your master is not contenting you, is he?" asked Tina.

"No," I said.

"Have you displeased him?" she asked.

"I have tried not to," I said.

"Have you begged?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. Surely, in licking at him, as I had, I had begged for his touch. "But he has scorned me."

"Interesting," said Tina. "Are you so unskilled, so inert, so like a free woman that you are not even worth having?"

"I do not think so," I said.

"I do not understand it," she said. "Surely he wants you to become more of a slave and not less of a slave."

"That is perhaps it," I said, frightened. I recalled his words to me at supper yesterday evening. "Remember that you are the Tatrix of Corcyrus, and not a slave," he had said.

"What?" she asked.

"He may want to keep me more like a free woman," I said.

"Why would he want to do that?" she asked. "That would be stupid, since you are a slave."

"He has not branded me, or collared me," I pointed out.

That he had not done these things I had hitherto supposed was merely in accord with his avowed purposes of shaming and humiliating me, making me serve as a slave in spite of the fact that I was free. But now, I feared, these omissions might have a more complex motivation.

"If he does not want you," she said, "why does he not simply sell you?" "He may want me," I whispered, "at least for a time."

"He does not seem eager to part with you," she said. "He even has your ankles chained."

"Yes," I said. I was being kept, I now realized, under an unusual security. During the day my wrists were usually chained, often even to the wagon. In the evening, at campsites, as I did now, I wore ankle chains. At night, my tunic removed, he would lock me in what served as my kennel, the trunk.

"Does he rent you out?" asked Tina. "Sometimes a man can get an offer on a girl that way."

"No," I whispered.

"The whole matter seems very puzzling," said Tina.

"Yes," I said.

I was suddenly becoming terrified. Speusippus, I feared, however absurdly, sensed that I might be a slave. He seemed concerned, then, apparently, that I not be permitted to enter too deeply into my slavery.

But, why not? Most men certainly do not interfere with the natural growth, the progress and development of a woman in her bondage.

Most men, at least of Gor, permit her to achieve this self-fulfillment; some of them, within certain latitudes of discipline, even permit her to proceed largely at her own pace, gradually coming to understand, incontrovertibly, that she, loving and obedient, has always been a slave to the core.