I put down the bowl of gruel.

A switch was put in the hands of Eta. She stood over me. I put down my head. She did not strike me. I looked up at her. I realized then that she was first girl in the camp, and that I must obey her, that she had been empowered to set me tasks and duties. Suddenly I feared her. Before I had looked down upon her. Now I trembled. It was she who held the switch over me. Before I had generally obeyed her only when men were present. I had preferred to leave her the work. Now I realized I must, without question, take slave instructions from her and discharge swiftly and well whatever menial duties she might place upon me. I met her eyes. Though I was a delicate girl of Earth, beautiful and sensitive, even one who wrote poetry, I had little doubt she would use the switch, and richly, upon me, did I not work well. I put down my head. I determined to work well. In this camp I, though of Earth, was inferior to her. She could command me. She held the switch. I would obey. She was first girl.

Eta took me to one side and, together, we cleaned the copper bowls in the stream, wiping them dry. We tidied the camp.

Men called. Eta hurried to bring them wine and paga. I helped her carry the beverages, and goblets, back to the fire. She began to serve them. I stood back. How beautiful she seemed, those lovely legs in the brief rag, the beauty of her, the firelight on her face, and hair, serving the men; how perfect it seemed to me then, so perfect and natural, that she, so beautiful, served as she did. How grotesque it would have been, had the men served her, or had they all, she, too, served themselves. It was the order of nature, unperverted, which I observed, as she moved about, among those mighty men.

"Kajira!" called a man. I trembled with horror., He had summoned me. I fled to him and knelt before him. Roughly he turned me about and, with a slender strap, tied my hands together behind my back. He then pointed to the meat, and gave me a shove. I fell on my belly, then turned on my side, wildly, to look at him. He pointed to the meat, laughing. How could I, bound, serve him? My captor beckoned to me. I regained my feet with difficulty, with an awkwardness that made the men laugh, and went to my captor, kneeling before him. He cut a small piece of meat and put it between my teeth. It was roast tabuk. He gestured back to the other man with the knife. I went to the other man and knelt before him, the bit of meat clenched between my teeth. The man, sitting cross-legged by the fire, indicated I should approach him, and put the meat in his mouth. Reddening with shame, I did so. I extended my head to him delicately and he, with his mouth, took the meat from between my teeth. The men struck their left shoulders with pleasure. Man after man I so served. I had carried meat before in my mouth, not permitted to touch it, but then I had not been bound, then I had not knelt, then they had not taken it from me in their mouths. I was now serving them, and it was their intention, to their amusement, as only a slave girl would serve men. I was being taught, as they laughed and spoke of me, what I was. The only man I did not so serve was he who cut the meat for me to carry, my captor. He did not cut me a piece of meat to convey in that humble manner to his own mouth. He, of all, I most wished to so serve. I wanted to dare to touch my lips, my mouth, to his, when he took his meat. But he did not have me serve him in this fashion. I wanted to throw my small, naked, bound body into his arms. He frowned. I shrank back. He indicated I should lie upon my belly before him. I did so. He cut small pieces of meat and threw them to me. Lying on my belly, hands tied behind me, I fed. Tears fell into the grass, as I caught at the meat. I had little doubt I was a slave. The men began to talk. One of the men, at a word from my captor, untied me, and I crept to Eta, outside the circle of firelight, and hid in her arms. Later the men began to tell stories, and then to sing. They called for more wine and paga and Eta, and I, too, now, hastened to serve them. We, two, moved among them. I, too, now served them in the firelight. I would pour the paga, which I carried, into a goblet, kiss it, as was expected, and give it to the man. "Paga!" called my captor. I almost fainted. I went to him and, shaking, poured paga into his goblet; I was terrified that I might spill it; it was not only that I feared, should I spill the beverage, that I might be beaten for my clumsiness; it was even more than I wished to appear graceful and beautiful before him; but I shook, and was awkward; the paga sloshed in the goblet but, as my heart almost stood still, it did not spill; he looked at me; I was a clumsy girl, and a poor slave; I felt so small and unworthy before him; I was not only a girl, small and weak before these mighty men; I was not even a good slave. Trembling, I extended the goblet to him. He did not take it. I shrank back, confused. I did not know what to do. I realized then that I had, in my confusion and distress, forgotten to place my lips upon the goblet in subservience. I quickly pressed my lips to the goblet, kissing it. Then, suddenly, as I was to hand it to him, I boldly, again, lifted the goblet's side to my lips. Holding it in both hands, I kissed it again, lovingly, delicately, fully, lingeringly, my eyes closed. I had never kissed a boy on Earth with the helplessness and passion that I bestowed upon the mere goblet of my Gorean captor. I belonged to him. I was his. I loved him! I felt the metal of the cup beneath my full, pressing lips. I opened my eyes. I proffered, tears in my eyes, the cup of paga to my captor. It was as though, with the cup, I was giving myself to him. Yet I knew I needed not give myself to him, for I was his, and a slave girl; he could take me whenever he wished me. He took the cup from my hands, and dismissed me.

Late that night the men went to their furs and tentings. Eta and I put away the extra food; we cleaned the goblets and cleared the side of the fire of litter and debris. She gave me a thin blanket of coarse cloth; it was rep-cloth; I might huddle in it at night. "Eta!" called a man. She went to him. She slipped within his bit of tenting, onto his furs. I saw her pull away the rag she wore and I saw him, in the moonlight, enclose her in his arms. I was suddenly frightened. The bit of blanket about my shoulders I went to the cliff wall and looked upward at the sheer cliff above me. It shone in the moonlight. I scratched it with my fingernails. I went to the wall of thorn brush, a small, forlorn, white figure in the night, clutching the bit of rep-cloth blanket about me. The thorn-brush wall was some eight feet high, some ten feet thick. I extended my hand. Miserably I drew it back, bloody. I went back to where Eta had given me the rep-cloth blanket, and lay down on the hard ground. I shuddered, knowing that, as she had been summoned to the tenting of one of the men, so I, too, might be as helplessly summoned. The major duty of a slave girl, I suspected, was not to cook, or sew, or launder, but to give men lengthy, profound and exquisite pleasures, such as only a beautiful female could give a man, to be to him whatever he might wish, and to give to him all that he might command, and, to the extent of her beauty, ingenuity and imagination, a thousand times more.

I began to sweat. I was frightened of the totality and completeness of being a slave girl. I am a girl of Earth, I cried to myself. I am not a slave! I do not want to be a slave! I am a girl of Earth!

"Kajira," I heard.

Terrified, clutching the bit of rep-cloth blanket about my shoulders, I rose to my knees, then to a crouch. My captor stood before his tenting. I could see the furs within. Too, within, a small lamp burned.

I did not wish him to have to speak twice, for fear I might be beaten.

Holding the blanket about me, I went to him. He proffered me a cup and I, with one hand, holding the blanket about me with the other, drank its contents. It was a foul brew, but I downed it. I did not know at the time, but it was slave wine. Men seldom breed upon their slave girls. Female slaves, when bred, are commonly hooded and crossed with a male slave, similarly hooded, the breeding conducted under the supervision of their respective owners; a girl is seldom bred with a slave from her own house; personal relationships between male and female slaves are usually frowned upon; sometimes, however, as a discipline even a high female slave is sometimes thrown to a chain of work slaves for their pleasure. The effect of the slave wine endures several cycles, or moons; it may be counteracted by another drink, a smooth, sweet beverage, which frees the girl's body for the act of the male slave, or, in unusual cases, should she be freed, to the act of the lover; slave girls, incidentally, are almost never freed on Gor; they are too delicious and desirable to free; only a fool, it is commonly said, would free one.