I turned away, hurrying to follow Clitus Vitellius. I remembered the look he had given me when first, moments ago, he had stopped and turned, and approached me. Never had I seen such lust, possessiveness and desire in a man's eyes. I felt weak. I wondered about the service of how many girls I would have to render to him. He had cast aside the virginal girl, arrogantly, in a warrior's gesture, leaving her for whomsoever might find and desire her. Her slave service, and mine, and more, he would now want from me. I did not know if I could be so much a slave to him.

We were but a short way from the Towers of Warriors, on the second of its approaching high bridges, when again Clitus Vitellius turned and faced me.

"I cannot wait," he said to me.

"Yes, Master," I said. We were on a high bridge, one of the highest in all Ar. The lights of the city were strewn beneath us; above us burned the stars of Gor.

He placed his shield upon the bridge, straps down, its convex surface like a bow facing the stars.

He indicated that I should take my position upon it, and I did so, my head down. With the straps, brought about the sides of the great shield he fastened my wrists apart, one on each side, about at shoulder level, at the edges of the shield. I lay over the shield, bound upon it.

"Now I have you where I want you, Dina," said he, "Earth girl."

"Yes, Master," I said.

Swiftly he took me in his arms. I yielded immediately to my master.

"I love you, Master," I said to him.

His hands were upon my shoulders. He dragged me upward to his pressing mouth, pulling me against the wrist straps which held my wrists at the shield's edges. I thought he might tear me from the shield. Then he flung me back, arched across its surface. I felt his lips at my belly and thighs. I could not protect myself from the fierce ardor to which I must submit. Then again I cried out, lost in my slave's love of him, my master.

He unbound my wrists from the shield. He thrust me from its surface. I rolled to my side, on the bridge. I lay quietly on the bridge, in his collar.

"It is getting late," he said. "I must get you to the love furs."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Get up," he said. He moved his foot against my body.

I tried to get up, but could scarcely stand. I sank to my hands and knees.

He laughed at me.

I sank to my side. I lifted my hand to him.

"Get up, Earth girl," he said.

"I will try, Master," I said.

But again I fell to my knees.

"Do not beat me, Master," I begged. "You have made me so weak."

"I can smell your weakness," he said.

"Yes, Master," I. said. I was so overcome by my love for him that I could not stand. I had never known such weakness. I felt I had the strength only to lie vulnerably before him, perhaps holding and kissing him, awaiting him. It is, I suppose, one of nature's utilities, reducing the female's effectiveness in self-defense or flight, putting her all the more at the mercy of the stronger beast.

"I cannot walk, Master," I said. "Let me crawl to your furs."

He slung his shield upon his back, and tied his spear, too, beneath the shield's edge, upon his back.

I felt myself lifted gently into his arms. He carried me, my head against his left shoulder, over the bridge and toward the second bridge, leading to the Towers of the Warriors.

I served him wine.

I was the only girl in his compartments. I well understood the meaning of this. He had chosen the perfection of one man, the complete master, and one woman, the total slave. It is called the perfect bondage, each all and perfect to the other.

It is right for some men, and not for others. Much depends on whether the man has met his perfect slave and the woman her perfect master.

Clitus Vitellius and I, though I would not have dared tell him, were so related. I think he, too, knew this.

When I had served him wine he gave me, too, to drink of the cup. This was, in its way, a great honor, and a token of his recognition as to how I stood to him. I still, of course, did not dare to drink from the same edge of the cup as he, the master.

I put the cup aside.

At his indication I spread the love furs. I did not spread them upon the couch hut at its foot. I was slave. Only a small lamp burned in the compartment.

At a gesture from Clitus Vitellius I reclined upon the furs, at the foot of the couch.

He slipped away his tunic and crouched beside me. I could see he could scarcely restrain himself from seizing me.

"I'm yours," I told him. I lifted my arms to him. "Take me, Master," I said.

"I care for you," he said.

I regarded him. "Be strong with me, Master," I whispered. "I do not want to challenge you. I do not want to fight you. I want to serve you, and I want to love you. I want to give you all, holding back nothing, ever."

He regarded me.

"Do you not understand, Master?" I asked. "If I had the choice, I would choose not to be free but to be your slave." A woman, I had learned, must choose between freedom and love. Both are estimable virtues. Let each choose which is best for her.

"But I do not give you a choice," he said.

"Of course not, Master," I said. "You are Gorean."

He looked down at the furs.

"Perhaps I will sell you," he said.

"You may do as you wish, Master," I said. I knew I was at his complete mercy, only a bond girl.

He seemed angry.

"Bring me wine, Master," I said.

He looked at me, suddenly.

"A girl is only testing her master," I smiled.

Suddenly he struck me, slapping me cruelly across the mouth. It hurt me. I tasted a bit of blood.

"Do you think," he asked, "that because I care for you I will not be strong with you?"

"No, Master," I said.

I lay in the shadow of the slave ring. A chain and heavy collar lay at the foot of the ring, the chain attached to the ring.

He took the heavy metal collar and closed it about my throat, over and about the lighter collar I wore, confining me at the ring, on the furs at the foot of his couch.

Then he touched me.

"I see you will be strong with me, Master," I said.

"What a fool I am," he said, "to care for a miserable Earth-girl slave."

"I ask only to love and serve you, Master," I said.

"Yet you are attractive," he said.

"A girl is grateful to her master, should he find her pleasing," I said.

"So you would choose to be a slave?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Slut," said he.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"It is I who will decide," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"I decide-" he said.

"Yes, Master," I begged.

"— that you are my slave."

"Yes, Master!" I cried.

Then I writhed in his arms as he took me, exploding in the deepest and most profound ecstasies a female can know, those of the slave orgasm, known only to the owned woman.

"How could I love you so much," he asked, "if I did not truly own you, if you were not fully mine?"

"I do not know, Master," I said. Clitus Vitellius had confessed his love for a slave. I hoped he would not now beat me.

He took me by the hair and thrust my head down to the furs. "A man can truly love only that woman," he said, "who is truly his, who belongs to him. Otherwise he is only a party to a contract."

"A woman," I said, "can love only that man to whom she truly belongs."

"To whom do you truly belong, Slave?" he asked.

"To you, Master," I said.

"You please me, Slave Girl," he said.

"Free me," I said, teasing him.

"Do you wish to feel the whip?" he asked.

"No, Master," I said, quickly, suddenly frightened. I was his. He might do to me what he wanted.

"Beg for your freedom," he said.

"Please free me, Master," I begged.

He laughed. "No," he said. "I do not free you. I will keep you as my slave."