I knelt before the whip master, anxiously lifting the tray to him. He picked up one of the biscuits. He turned it over.

"This biscuit is burned on the bottom," he said. "If this happens again, you will be whipped."

"Yes, Master," I said. "Forgive me, Master."

"Good, Ruby," said the whip master. "That is how to remove a man's tunic. Make it a sensuous experience for him, in which you show him your slavery and your eagerness to serve. You may replace your tunic, Abdar."

"Yes, Master," said the hooded slave.

"You next, Tiffany," said the whip master.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"These biscuits are acceptable," he said. "In fact, they are good." "Thank you, Master!" I said.

"Good, Tiffany," said the whip master. "That is how you belly to a man. Put your head down, now. Let me feel your lips and tongue." "Yes, Master," I whimpered. "Good," he said.

"Later, too, when your hair reaches a suitable length, make certain that it falls about the master's sandals." "Yes, Master," I said.

I sensed that our training was coming to an end. We were returning to various basics, almost as elementary as scales to the musician, such things as basic kisses, caresses, position, attitudes and movement.

"Good," he said.

I had once been Miss Tiffany Collins, of Earth. I now lay on my belly on the tiles, naked and in a collar, licking and kissing at the feet of a Gorean male. It was my hope that he would find me pleasing, totally.

"Attention, Class," said the whip master.

We all straightened up, sitting, facing him, our backs against the wall of the training room. The palms of our hands, were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.' "The results of your tests, your examinations, are now in. It is my pleasure to inform you that you have all passed."

We dared not break position, so well trained we were, but we cried out with pleasure. We had worked hard. We did not wish to be fed to sleen, or, perhaps, if our internal slavery was adequate, but our external performances insufficient, being sent to a laundry or returned to a mill, where we might have to remain perhaps indefinitely.

"It is an excellent class, one of the best I have had," he said.

"Thank you, Master," said several of the girls.

"Too," he said, "there is not one of you, as the tests have shown, who is not an authentic slave; there is not one of you who, from the bottom of her pretty belly, does not belong in a collar."

I knew this was true of me. I did not know, of course, if it were true of the other girl or not. And the last doubts on the rightness of the collar on my neck had been dispelled in my training. I now knew it belonged there. I was pleased to have been brought to Gor where I, whether I wished it or not, with absolutely no compromise, would be put in it.

"I am proud of all of you," said the whip master. "You are all luscious and exciting sluts. Indeed, I think there is not one of you would not bring a silver tarsk on the open market."

We cried out, elated, to hear this. We looked at one another, joy in our faces. I almost lifted the palms of my hands from the floor and uncrossed my ankles, but, of course I did not do so. How pleased we were. What high praise this was. We had not understood how valuable we might have become as women.

"But, remember," said the whip master, "you have, really, learned only a little. You have been familiarized with only a small selection of basic skills, apprised of only a handful of fundamentals. Your education, when you leave here, is not complete, but only begun. You may learn more in your first few days out of school, in the practical contexts of bondage, under the control and whips of masters, than you have here in five weeks. But even then, remember that you, in your collars, are still amateurs at slavery. You could not begin to compete with an experienced girl. Continue to apply yourself, to learn, to work, to love and serve. Some years from now you may begin to grasp an inkling of what can be the skills, the sensitivities and talents, the emotions, the depths of feeling, of the slave The other side of the coin of freedom is bondage. One cannot exist without the other. The master is free and you are slave."

We looked at one another. There was much in what he said. We must strive desperately to please. We were, for most practical purposes, new girls, untutored in our collars. Most of us, even, were from the mills. We would be zealous to please. Most masters are sensitive to this. They are likely to be kinder to an unskilled girl zealous to please than a skilled one who permits her performances to lapse from standards of perfection. She may, of course, at the master's whim, by various correctional devices, be swiftly restored to zealousness.

Sometimes, too, of course, she is merely sold into a lower slavery, that she may earnestly endeavor, perhaps through years of effort, to work her way up again to, say, a single-master-single-slave relationship. The "mistake of even minutely relaxing or reducing the quality of her service is not one a girl is likely to make twice.

"All that remains now," said the whip master, "is to give you some experience in the types of situations in which you are likely, at least in your initial bondage applications, to find yourself."

28 School; I Have Graduated

29 Hassan, The Slave Hunter

30 Sheila, The Tatrix of Corcyrus

31 Argentum

"Remove your silk," he said.

I did so.

"Kneel," he said.

I did so.

Straighten your body," he said.

I did so. I knelt naked before Miles of Argentum, before his thronelike chair, on the tiles in his quarters, in Argentum.

"Your knees," he said.

I spread my knees even more widely before him.

"You are now known as Tiffany, I believe," he said, "of Feast Slaves, of the Enterprises of Aemilianus."

"I am Tiffany," I said, "of Feast Slaves, of the Enterprises of Aemilianus." I never forget a face," he said. I was silent.

My entire group had been brought from Ar to Argentum, I thought to entertain. This had been done at the expense of Miles of Argentum.

Furthermore, much to the surprise and displeasure of the girls, who were perhaps by now somewhat spoiled, we had been brought under heavy security. We had never, from the time we had left the agency in Ar to the time we entered the grounds of the palace in Argentum, been out of chains of one sort or another. I supposed that it was only I, of all the girls, and perhaps of all those on the staff of the agency itself, who suspected the reasons for this trip to Argentum and the rationale of the security. I did not think Miles of Argentum was particularly interested in feast slaves, per se. Surely such might be rented in Argentum itself. I think rather he was interested particularly in one feast slave. Tonight I had been brought to him, leashed and braceleted. My keeper, a fellow from the agency, had then, in his quarters, freed me of these bonds and turned me over to him. He had rented me for the night.

"Thrust out Your breasts, Tiffany," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I lifted and straightened my back even more, sucking in my gut and putting back my shoulders, this lifting the softness of my bosom brazenly to him, that of a slave girl, for his consideration or attentions. "You are pretty, Tiffany," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"I enjoy commanding you," he said. "Yes, Master," I said.

"Are you a good lay, Tiffany?" he asked.

"Sonic men have found me acceptable, Master," I said.

"We are going to play a little game, Tiffany," he said.