"Does it take long to clean compartments?" she asked.

"Only a few moments," I admitted. "Goreans live simply, and do not much approve of cumbersome furniture."

"It does not sound to me like the slave girl is overburdened with domestic labors," she said.

"I suppose, objectively, she is not," I said. "Still, there are things for her to do."

"Is she as occupied as the wife of Earth?" asked the girl.

"Of course not," I said. "That would be foolish. The wife of Earth is, from the Gorean point of view, much overworked. When the husband returns home she is often, actually, engaged in labors. How can she greet him properly? At night, so numerous and excessive have been her labors, she is often exhausted. That would be preposterous from the Gorean point of view. The Gorean master does not buy a girl with the primary objective of obtaining a domestic servant but with the intention of acquiring a marvelous slave. He wants the girl to be a wonder to him. He is quite cheerful about the sacrifice of domestic servitude in order to obtain what is far more important to him. When he returns to his compartments he does not want to find a worn chore woman there but a lovely slave, fresh, vital, eager and fully alive, kneeling before him, waiting to be commanded."

"What does the girl do in her free time?" asked Audrey.

"Much what she pleases," I said. "She will have friends among other slaves. She walks, she visits. She exercises, she reads. Within limits she does what she wants to do."

"Can she work outside the compartments?" asked Audrey.

"If it is permitted by the master," I said, "and it does not in any way compromise her slavery." I smiled. "Some women," I said, "wear to their work the garments of a free woman but, when they return to their compartments, don as they must the silk of a slave, which is their true condition."

"Is such a thing often permitted by a master?" asked Audrey.

"Commonly not," I said. "Such a thing is often thought to compromise a girl's slavery. It is usually not permitted to her. Usually she is kept as full and absolute slave, not so much as permitted to touch the garment of a free woman."

"I would like my master to be like that," said Audrey.

"Most masters are," I said.

"If I am a slave, I would want to be a full slave," she said.

"I think you have little to fear, pretty Audrey," I said. "Any master who so much as looks at you would know that you should be kept only as a full slave."

"Yes," she said, kissing me, "that is right for me."

"Sometimes, Masters, as a discipline, rent their girls out to employers to perform repetitious, trivial tasks."

"How horrid," she said.

"See that you please your master well," I said.

"I will certainly try," she said.

"There are, of course, many slaveries in the south," I said. "I have described only the most common to you."

"Tell me of others," she begged. "For I might be sold into them."

"There are paga slaves," I said, "who must please their master's customers in his tavern. There are the girls who staff the public kitchens and laundries. There are rent slaves, who may be rented to anyone for any purpose, short of their injury or mutilation, unless compensation be rendered to the master. There are state slaves who maintain public compartments, and work in offices and warehouses. There are girls in peasant villages, and girls on great farms, who cook and carry water to the slave gangs. There are beauties who are purchased for a man's pleasure gardens. There are other girls who work in the mills, chained to their looms."

She looked at me, frightened.

"Any of these slaveries, or any of many others," I said, "could be yours. It depends entirely, pretty Audrey, on who buys you, and what he wants."

"How helpless I feel," she whispered.

"You are helpless, absolutely helpless," I told her.

"Surely," she whispered, "I can attempt to influence the nature of my slavery."

"Of course," I said. "But the decision is never yours. In that sense you are absolutely helpless."

"Yes, Master," she said, trembling.

"The mills and the public kitchens, and such, are not pleasant." I said.

"I do not want to go to such slaveries as the mills or public kitchens," she said. "I will try to be a pleasing slave."

"Excellent, Audrey, Slave Girl," I said.

"Do masters much talk with their girls, or take them with them?" she asked.

"Certainly," I said. "It is extremely pleasurable to talk with a girl one owns. Also, one takes her many places, she heeling him, to concerts, contests, song dramas and so on, both to show her off and because he finds her a joy to be with."

"I think I could well serve such a master," she said.

"You would," I said, "or you, being a slave, would be promptly and efficiently disciplined, most likely whipped."

"Whipped?" she asked. "Could such a man whip a girl?"

"Of course," I said. "Do not think that the pleasure he finds in you will be permitted in the least to compromise his mastery of you."

"I would thrill to be owned by such a man," she said.

I smiled to myself. Girls sometimes fought one another viciously, merely to be the first to display themselves naked before a Gorean master.

I lay there on my back.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"The others, soon, will be awake," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

"Please, Master," she said. "Once more, before they awaken, have your slave."

"Have you?" I asked.

"Yes, have me," she whispered.

"Does Audrey beg?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"How shall I have you?" I asked. "Gently, tenderly, politely, courteously, respectfully, accomodatingly, solicitously, as would a man of Earth?"

"No, no," she begged. "Take me as what I am, a slave!"

I touched her, gently, timidly.

"Oh!" she cried, miserably. "No, that is like a man of Earth! How cruel you are! Do not insult the helpless womanhood of a poor slave. Do not play with my needs as a man of Earth, oh, Master; fulfill them as a man of Gor! I beg it of you, Master."

I laughed.

"You teased a slave," she said, reproachfully. "How helpless I am as a slave."

"Spread your legs, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "My Gorean master has spoken," she said.

"Wider," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She watched my hand. Her teeth were clenched. Her eyes were wide.

"Aiii!" she started to cry, but my left hand closed her mouth. She squirmed helplessly. Her thighs were clenched on my hand. She looked at me, over my hand on her mouth.

"You are a pretty slave," I told her.

With my knee I thrust apart her legs.

Then her body clasped me. Her eyes were closed. I removed my hand from her mouth. She opened her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered, "for covering my mouth, that I not be heard to scream."

"You did not wish to awaken the others," I said.

"I could not bear to have them know how I yielded to you," she whispered. "It would be humiliating."

"It is nearly time for them to awaken," I said.

"Master?" she asked. "Master, no!" she cried. "What are you doing?"

"I am going to induce in you," I said, "the first of your slave orgasms."

"No," she wept. "Please, no! There are others in the tent! I do not want the other girls to know what a slave I am! Please, no, Master!"

But I did not choose to show her mercy.

"Cover my mouth!" she begged. "Oh, oh!"

I held her arms pinned to her sides. Then she half reared up under me, squirming and struggling, and then threw back her head, screaming, and I pressed her down on the furs. Imnak lifted his head quickly, and then, understanding the nature of the noise, shook his head and reached over and seized Poalu. She was drawn to him, tightly, and began to kiss him. "I submit," screamed Audrey. "I submit to you, oh, my Master!" Arlene and Thimble, sullenly, angrily, regarded her.

"Slave!" said Arlene.

"Yes, slave, slave!" sobbed Audrey, then covered my face with tears and kisses. I later held her quiet in my arms while she, with her small, soft tongue, licked clean the stubble of my beard.

16.

Imnak Carves

Imnak sat in the corner of the tent, aimlessly whittling at a piece of tabuk horn.

Once in a while he would stop and turn the ivory, and look at it. Sometimes he would whisper, "Who hides in there? Who are you?" Then he would begin to carve again. Then, suddenly, he said, "Ah, sleen!"

I watched him flake and trim ivory from the horn. Slowly, as I watched, I saw the shape of a sleen emerging, almost as though it had been hidden in the ivory, the snout and legs, and the long, sinuous shape. Its ears were flat back against its head.

Often the red hunter does not set out to carve something, but rather to carve, patiently waiting to see if there is something there, waiting to be released. It is a little like hunting. He is open to what may be found. Sometimes there is a shape in the ivory or bone, or stone. Sometimes there is not. He removes the excess ivory and there, where it had lain hidden before, now revealed, is the shape.

Imnak's knife had a wooden handle, some fourteen inches long. Its point was some three inches in length. He braced it on his leg in carving, his fingers near the blade end where they might delicately control the movement of the metal. Bracing the knife permits force from the leg to be applied, whereas balance and control are not sacrificed, because the point is subtly guided by the movement of the fingers.

Imnak held up the sleen.

In the language of the Innuit there is no word for art or artist.

"It is a handsome animal," I said.

They need no such words. Why should there be special words for men who find beauty in the world. Is this not a concern of all men?

"It is your sleen," said Imnak, giving it to me.

"I am grateful," I said. I looked at it. It was a snow sleen, easily identified by the thickness of the coat, the narrowness of the ears, the breadth of the paws.

"I am very grateful," I said.

"It is nothing," he said.

17.

I First Hear Of Karjuk; I Must Meet Him