He held my ankle. his hands were very strong. I put down my head, so that he might not see my eyes.

He then, in a moment or two, had the thong loose, and, its loops unwound, five of them, dropped it, with its strung bells, in the box.

But his hands then were on my ankles.

I looked at him."Are you naked beneath the silk?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I smiled. He knew that. Indeed, as the silk was diaphanous, he could, for most practical purposes, see that.

"Slave naked?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said. This, somehow, is a far more disturbing, or meaningful, admission than the first. Somehow the nakedness of a slave seems far more naked that the nakedness of a free woman. doubtless this has to do with her being a property, and owned. Too, "slave naked" suggests being naked naked, so to speak, being helplessly naked, as a slave is helplessly naked. It has, sometimes, too, the connotation of being vulnerably, and arousably, naked, as a slave is helplessly, vulnerably, and arousably naked.

He looked at me.

"Yes, Master," I whispered. "Beneath the silk that is the way I am naked, slave naked."

I felt slave arousal. I could not help myself. Long ago, now, weeks ago, men had lit slave fires in my belly.

I was aroused, and as a slave.

To be sure, I had no understanding, at that time, of what could become the fuller impact of these things. I was still, at that time, in effect, a new slave.

Then he removed his hands from my ankles.

"Master?" I asked.

"Stand," he said. We both stood. "Belt," he said.

I reached behind me and undo the double belt of coins, with its two loops, one high one low. The coins on the belt, as well as those on the necklace, would be counted by Mirus.

"You look well with your hands behind your back," he said.

I looked up.

"Your hands are now bound behind your back," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I must now keep my hands or wrists in contact with one another, and behind my back. I was now "bound by the master" s will." I could not separate my hands or wrists from one another now without permission. There are many ways, of course, of "binding by the master" s will." The behind-the-back position is one of the simplest and loveliest. This exposes the girl, frames the beauty of her breasts and makes her helpless. That the bond is a "will bond," too, makes clear to her the power of the master over her. Another common bond of this sort is when the girl must kneel, grasping her ankles. another is when she is forced to sit and reach forward between her legs, passing the right arm from inside the right thigh to outside and beneath the right calf, to grasp the right ankle between her legs, passing the right arm from inside the right ankle from the outside, the left arm from inside the left thigh to outside and beneath the left calf, to grasp the left ankle in the same way. In this position she is helpless and cannot rise. Too, after a time, it becomes apparent to her that she also cannot close her legs. A girl may be kept in such bonds for hours. Too, of course, she may be tied in such a position. There are also, of course, different ways of decreeing such bonds. For example, with the behind-the-back-hands-tied bond in which I had been placed I could have been informed, but had not been, that my shoulders were pulled tightly back, which, of course, forces the breasts forward for the pleasure, or attentions, of the master.

"I think I shall find it difficult to remove the belt," I smiled, "bound as I am."

He stood close to me, and put his arms about me. "I shall remove it," he said. Tupita came then through the beaded curtain. She glanced at me. She was not pleased to see me in the arms of Mirus, who was a desirable male, and first among my master" s men. She looked at me in hatred. She did not think twice about the position of my hands. She could see I had been "bound by the master" s will." It could have been done as easily to her, at a word.

She came close to Mirus. She licked at his shoulder. "Will you call for me tonight?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Return to the floor."

"Yes, Master," she said, and, with a look of fury, cast at me, slipped back through the curtain.

"You are good for Tupita," he told me. "Because of you she is becoming more attentive and more desperate to please."

"I am attentive and desperate to please," I said.

"Yes," he said, "but not because of her."

"No, Master," I said.

"Because you are a slave," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. How I loved his arms about me!

"You are a splendid natural slave," he said.

"I knew it even on Earth," I whispered to him. Indeed, I had even wondered, strangely, at times, I supposed, if I might not have been a slave in former lives, in other eras, perhaps in the Ancient World or in the Medieval Middle East, in times more in tune with the true matters of human beings, natures as they really were, in themselves, and not as they might be when denied, thwarted, twisted and perverted by ideological insanities. And, at times, recollecting, or seeming to recollect, such times and places, and their naturalness, and rightness, and their fulfillments and ecstasies. I, lonely and yearning, seemingly an exile in the sexual deserts of my own world and time, had wept. But regardless of the truth or falsity of such things, and regardless of the explanations or reasons for the things which lay so deep within me, whether they were recollective or merely the irrepressible fruits of genetic truths, so anomalous in my own time, so uncharacteristic of everything I had been taught. I had known they had lain within me. That was incontrovertible. I knew that I, who was then Doreen Williamson, had been born for the collar. I had never expected then, however, to wear it. I had never even suspected there was such a world as Gor where, as my capture master Teibar, had put it, "women such as I were bought and sold."

"Of course," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What was you master like on Earth?" he asked.

"I did not have a master on Earth," I said.

"You, a woman like you, so obviously a natural slave, did not have a master?" he asked, interested.

"No, Master," I said.

"You were not a legal slave on Earth?" he asked.

"No, Master," I smiled. "I did not become a legal slave until I was brought to Gor."

"Surely the men of Earth are somewhat imperceptive," he said. "Some of them, perhaps, Master," I smiled.

"Here," he said, "we have made good their oversight."

"That is true," I smiled.

He looked down, into my eyes. "You should have been a legal slave on Earth," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I supposed that was true. But then, too, I supposed that many women on Earth should be made slaves. Certainly I had known many women who might have profited, and considerably, in one way or another, from bondage. Certainly I had sometimes speculated what one or another of them might have looked like, as a slave. Also, of course, I had often considered what I myself might have looked like, as a slave. It was for such a reason, I suppose, at least in part, as well as for the stimulation and truth, and fittingness, of it, that I had made the tiny garment of red silk I had had on Earth.

"But doubtless," he said, "even if you somehow managed to escape the collar on your own world, to be caught and rightfully wear it here, women such as you are almost universally held in bondage on Earth."

"No, Master," I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"Certainly they should be," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, humbly. It was true.

"Here," he said, "they would wear their collars."

"Yes, Master," I said. I did not doubt that that was true. Here, on Gor, women such as I, surely, would be swiftly sorted out, taken in hand, prepared for sale, and sold.