|
 Love Master, Slave and Servant QuotesHere are relevant references from the Books where Love is mentioned in relation to various topics. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban Click a heading to jump down to that listing. Main Headings Adored Adoring Affection Affectionately Ardor Art of Love Bred for Love Chains of Love City of Love Compassion Countries of Love Crowd Love Cuddly Love Animal Enemy of Love Eyes of Love Faint with Love Fattened Up for Love Feasts of Love Flames of Love Human Beings Infatuation Jokingly Kiss of Lovers Lamp of Love Lands of Love Love Animal Love Asking Permission to Speak Love Beast Love Belonging to Masters Love Blossoms Love Bow Love Bundle Love Calling Men Master Love Captive Love Chains Love Conquest Love Cradle Love Curves Love Dance Love Feast Love Flesh Love Flute Love Furs Love It When You Are Strong With Me Love Kneeling Love Master Love Meat Love Moans Love Movements Love Noises Love Objects Love Oils Love Potion Love Prey Love Prize Love Scenes Love Servant Love Silks Love Slave Love Songs of Slaves Love Starved Love the Grandeur of War Love Them Enough To Let Them Go Love Trained Love War Love What Men Can Do Love Whimpers Love Working Beside Master Loved Ones Loveless Lover Lovesick Loving Lovingly Make Love Movements of Love Pangs of Love Priest-Kings Prisoners of Love Protests of Love Song of Love Spider People Spite Symbol of Love Talenders Trained to Love Unloved Whip Love Wines of Love Youthful Love
Though any Gorean male might make me, in spite of myself, a panting, orgasmic slave in his arms, I knew it had been only he, Clitus Vitellius, whom I had truly loved, and yet loved. In his arms I had always been the most helpless. He was my love master. 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. It is a beautiful moment when the woman realizes that the man who owns her is her love master, and the man realizes that the girl he bought, looking up at him, tears in her eyes, is his love slave. I pushed up her chin with my thumb. She was crying. "Hope that you will one day fall into the power of your love master," I said. "For there is in you, I sense, a superb love slave." "Thank you, Master," she said. She pressed her lips to the back of my mittened hand. "There is in you, and in these other girls," I said, surveying the coffle, "a superb love slave. If you pass through many hands, and many slaveries, your chance of being acquired by one who will be to you your true love master is much increased." "Is not any slave piteously helpless in the arms of her master?" I asked. "Yes," said Samos. "But she seemed somehow different, incredibly so, vulnerably so." "Perhaps she knew herself, in your touch, as her love master," I said. For what it is worth, the most intimate and deepest loves I have known have been between masters and their slaves, that between the love master and their love slave. Sometimes a man simply sees a naked woman in her chains upon the block and knows suddenly that she is the perfect one, she who is destined to be the perfect love slave for whom he has always sought. Sometimes a girl, kneeling before a new master, is seized by a sudden wild emotion. Perhaps it is something in the way his steel is locked upon her body; perhaps it is something in the audacity and assurance with which he handles her. She lifts her head, meeting his eyes. Quickly she puts her head down, trembling. She knows then she has met one who may well be her love master, one to whom she can be but the most helpless of love slaves. I looked down at the girl, lying at my feet. Perhaps someday, I mused, she would find her perfect love master, he to whom she would be the perfect love slave. Until then let her be bought and sold, and passed from hand to hand, subject to exchanges, and vendings and barterings; let her know the joys and miseries of diverse bondages; it did not matter, for she was only a slave. "But, do not fear," I said, "such modalities are not learned in vain. They will be required of you even by a love master, and, indeed, he will doubtless require them from you with a harshness, an amplitude and exactness far beyond that of a more casual owner." "But, why, Master?" she asked. "Because you are," I said, "in the final analysis, as he will wish you to remember, only his slave. Too, do you think he would require less from you, a love slave, than from some more common girl chained at his feet?" "No, Master," she said. "Are you silent?" I asked. "It seems strange to think of serving a love master with the same proficiencies with which I must serve any other man, as a mere slave," she said. "Your skills and talents are surely as much, or more, at his disposal, as they are at the disposal of any other male," I said. "True," she said. "Do you object?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. "I would want to serve my love master, to the best of my ability, with whatever skills or talents I might have." "I think he is my love master," she breathed. "It is more likely that you are his love slave," laughed the other. In another I saw a slave and her lover-master of the moment in one another's arms, half off the large, soft cushion on which the slave, customarily, kneeling, in obeisance, greets the booth's entrant. "Let me hold you," she begged. "Not now," I said. "Keep your arms at your sides." "In your arms -" she said, "in your arms -!" "It is not I," I said. "It could have been any man. It is rather that you were ready." "I am prepared to be a love slave!" she said. "Keep your hands at your sides," I said. Her small hands and arms writhed at her sides. "I want to touch you. I want to hold you!" she said. "Keep them at your sides," I said. "Be my love master!" she begged. "You are a free woman," I reminded her. "Please, please be my love master," she begged. "Doubtless he somewhere exists," I said. "But I am not he." She moaned. "Do not be so overwhelmed," I said. "This is only a simple initiation into the world of the senses." "Simple?" she asked. "Initiation?" "Yes," I said. "I did not know there was anything in all of life like this," she said. "And you are not yet even a slave," I said. "I want my love master," she moaned. "Search for him," I whispered. "Perhaps you will find him - after a thousand collars." "Yes," she said. "He is my love master." "Does he know that?" I asked. "No," she said. "When the guard is not looking," I said, "you must tell him. Throw yourself on your belly before him, where we belong before such men. Lick and kiss his feet, with tears in your eyes, Confess that you have acknowledged him in your heart as your love master. He can do little more than kick you from his feet." Tears sprang to her eyes. "Do so," I urged. "No," she whispered. "He is now in chains. He cannot now own me. He is not now free. It is not as though he could take me in his arms, if he were so inclined, and claim me by his rape. He is a prisoner of the black chain. He might even think it a trick of the guards. Perhaps in rage he would break my neck with his foot. Perhaps he would understand the whole matter as no more than some deliberate insult or mockery." "I would do so, if I were you," I said. "You are not Gorean," she said. "I would risk all, for a love master," I said. "You are crying," she said. "No," I said. "No." "You have a love master!" she said. I looked at her, sharply, and she put down her head. I suspected then that her belly had found its love master. To be sure, we slaves must leap to the touch of any man. I did not see any need to tell her of the "gentlewoman," to whose female training Aulus had been asked to contribute. First, I knew that women who are kept as low slaves, and even strictly so, are often among those most loved. Many love masters keep their love slaves, for example, as low slaves. I had little doubt that Mirus would keep Tupita as such. She was even braceleted when she left the camp. I knew, too, that even high slaves are occasionally subjected to such imperious uses, which in their way are delicious, just as they might, to their shame, frustration and pleasure, find themselves occasionally clad in rags and put to disagreeable tasks. Such things remind them that they are slaves, and must obey their masters. Such enforcements, too, tend to be reassuring, and arousing, to a woman. Even if I were not loved, I now had no doubt that I was keenly desired, and that I need not fear that I might not be put to my master's pleasure and as a slave. The ruthlessness of his use only doubled my desire, that of a slave, to serve and love him. "Yes, Master," she said. "It is what I am, and want to be. I hope only that someday I may have a private master, a love master, to whom I may be his devoted and obedient love slave." "You long," I asked, "for a master who is strong, and love?" "Yes, Master," she said. I had no doubt they fitted together, in the order of nature, in the most intimate, beautiful and fulfilling relationship possible between a man and a woman, that of love master and love slave. It seemed clear to me that she did not really believe, whatever might be her protestations, that the Merchants was a high caste. She would be only too eager, it seemed, to "raise caste." What had love to do with such things, I wondered. Why should she wish to raise caste? Surely that was not truly important. Caste considerations seemed to me artificial, and rather meaningless, except as they tended to reflect sets of related occupation. Suppose there was something to caste. Why should she feel herself entitled to raise caste? What was special about her? Why should a Merchant's daughter aspire to a higher caste? With what justification? Why should she be permitted to raise caste? Why should she not look for love in her own caste, or in a lower caste? Why should she not look for love wherever she found it, regardless of caste? But then, I was not Gorean. She was a free woman, of course, she could bargain, plan and plot to improve her position in society. How different from a slave. The slave's position in society is fixed, as fixed as the collar on her neck. She cannot sell herself, but is sold. She must serve the humblest master with the same heat, devotion and perfection as the administrator of a city. In fact, I have sometimes wondered if the existence of kajirae on this world does not contribute to its stability. The man who has everything from a woman is not likely to be dissatisfied, cruel and viciously ambitious. He tends to be happy, and happy men are not likely, on the whole, and absent serious provocations, to disrupt society. And the slave, of course, hopes to find her love master, whom she desires in the fullness of her femininity to serve submissively, diligently, gratefully, and joyously, he who will care for her, and love her, and treasure her as a slave of slaves. It is to his whip she wishes to be subject. In all their tenderness he will never let her forget whose collar she wears, and she loves him for it, his strength, and his gift to her, fully and uncompromisingly mastering her. I did, of course, hope to have a kind master, or, at least, one as kindly as was compatible with the clear, strict relationship in which we stood to one another. I wanted to win the love of my master, whoever he might be. This is the surely one of the deepest and most profound relationships in which a woman can stand to a man, that of slave to master, and, ideally, that of love slave to love master. Often the love master is most demanding and severe with the love slave, in sensing the weakness which she might produce in him. This brings joy to the heart of the love slave as she hastens to obey and please, and with suitable perfection, indeed, as she must, as though she might be no more than a new girl, frightened and intimidated, in the house. He, of course, remains the master, and she, of course, remains the slave. That is the relationship of the love master and the love slave, the fulfillment of the nature of each. What slave does not seek her love master? What man does not seek his love slave? The rightfulness and naturalness of the relationship, so sanctioned by nature, and a thousand generations of selection, often leads to love. It is not unknown, accordingly, for a master and slave to discover, one day, and often sooner than later, that they are in love, that they are now love master and love slave. And it is not such a fearful thing, he later learns, really, to have at his feet one for whom he would die, a love slave, and one who knew him, from his first touch, as her long longed-for love master. And so in the mysterious ways of nature the match is made. One must, of course, be particularly strict with a love slave, severe in her discipline, and such, not hesitating to put her to the whip for her least laxity or failure to fully please, but she would have it no other way, for he is her master. "We want our love master!" she wept. "Do not masters search for their love slave?" "Speak of love," I said, "and you may be lashed." "Yes, Master," she said. "Forgive me, Master." "From the first moment I saw you," he said, "I wanted to own you." "And from the first moment I saw you," she said, "I wanted to belong to you." "You do," he said. "Yes, Master," she said. "Love slave," he whispered. "Love master," she said. And what, too, of the love slave and the love master? In such cases, who can understand the mysterious chemistries involved? Let us suppose that a fellow is examining women on a slave shelf. They are kneeling, cringing, shackled, head down. Who can explain how it is that he, pulling up the head of one after another, by the hair, that her features may be examined, suddenly pauses, startled. What is different about this particular cringing, shackled slave? How is she different from another? She looks up, her eyes widened. He sees before him, his hand in her hair, his love slave, and she, looking up tears in her eyes, for the first time, sees her love master. How is she more than merely another helpless, cringing, shackled slave, and how is he more than merely another male, another possible buyer, in his robes, so free, and strong, looking down on her? But he has found his love slave, and she, to her joy, has been found by her love master. Who can explain such things? Perhaps he has been keeping a collar for just such a one? Certainly a girl can attempt to interest a buyer; consider the differential zeal of the "Buy me, Masters," as one fellow or another peruses a sales line; but, in the end, despite our efforts and hopes, we are not the buyers, but the bought. It is they who will choose, not we. We long for our love master; might he not then, in some sense, long for his love slave? We all yearn for a private master, and the boldest of us for a "love master."
"I will let you kiss me," she said. "I will even let you make love to me!" I looked down upon her. I was furious. She had been an insolent slave. "Let me be your employee," she said. "I am willing, even, to be your love employee! You do not need to pay me much. You do not need to pay me anything at all! I will work for nothing for you! Let me be your love servant! Sometimes I will even serve you as might a slave girl!"
Sometimes slave girls, having been subdued, but fearing to speak, will fix talenders in their hair, that their master may know that they have at last surrendered themselves to him as helpless love slaves. "Let her, however," I said, "meet the eyes of her trainer, and of other males. I do not wish her to become the love slave of the first man into whose eyes she is permitted to gaze." The quality of a slave girl's life is commonly a direct function of her pleasingness to her master. Whether she is a treasured love slave or an ignored pot-and-floor wench depends much upon her. Gorean men, unlike the men of Earth, do not bother much with girls that are not pleasing to them. "Do not think you are my love slave," said he. "You are only a lying slave, my prisoner, a captured traitress I will have my way with." I wanted to be his love slave. Instead I was his prisoner, 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. It is common to let the girl who is to spend the night at your feet tend your chamber the preceding day. She scrubs and cleans it, and tidies it. It is not a full day's work and she has hours in it in which she has little to do but wait for the master. She readies herself. She plans. She anticipates. When the master arrives, and she kneels before him, she is eager and anxious, vulnerable and stimulated, well ready both physically and psychologically for the mastery to which she will have no choice but to be joyfully subjected. Even the performance of small servile tasks, such as the polishing of his tarn boots, which she must perform, plays its role in her preparation for the night. The performance of such small tasks teaches her, incontrovertibly, in the depths of her beauty, that she truly belongs to him, and that he is truly her master. She is then well ready when he gestures her to the furs to perform for him exquisitely the most delicious and intimate of her assigned tasks, her most important tasks, those of the helpless love slave. "I will make you a superb love slave," called another girl to me. I did not respond to her. It is a beautiful moment when the woman realizes that the man who owns her is her love master, and the man realizes that the girl he bought, looking up at him, tears in her eyes, is his love slave. Then the only danger is that he will weaken. One must be strong with a love slave. If one truly loves her, he will be that strong. The slavery in which a love slave is kept is an unusually deep slavery. She must serve him with a perfection which would stun and startle other girls; if she should fail in any way, even in so small a way that the lapse would be overlooked in the case of another wench, or bring perhaps a mild word of reprimand, she is likely to be tied at the slave ring and whipped; there is a good reason for this; she is, you see, a love slave; no woman can be more in a man's power; and with no woman must he be stronger. "In your heart," I said, "You know you are a woman. Thus, when you find you simply will be given no alternative other than being a true woman, in the full sense of the word, designed by nature as a love slave for males strong enough to master you, you cannot help but be thrilled. You are forced to be yourself, your true self. There is a joy in this, and a liberating honesty, and openness; it is natural that this be felt as exciting, as genuine, as authentic, as real, as significant, as true, indeed, as profoundly and thrillingly true. Gone are the politically and economically motivated lies; gone is the cant and hypocrisy. Present then is the sweet thrilling truth, at last freed, no longer suppressed and hidden, and love." "Please kiss me, Master," she said. I kissed her. "Are you going to keep me, Master?" she asked. "I do not know," I said. "But do not fear, lovely slave. On this world there are hundreds of thousands of men fully capable of mastering you. You will someday, doubtless, given the sellings and exchanges, and your growth in skills and beauty, find love." "A woman desires love," she whispered. "Love is found more often among slave girls than free women," I said. "If you would learn love, learn slavery." I pushed up her chin with my thumb. She was crying. "Hope that you will one day fall into the power of your love master," I said. "For there is in you, I sense, a superb love slave." "Thank you, Master," she said. She pressed her lips to the back of my mittened hand. "There is in you, and in these other girls," I said, surveying the coffle, "a superb love slave. If you pass through many hands, and many slaveries, your chance of being acquired by one who will be to you your true love master is much increased." "Perhaps Samos has found a love slave," I said. "An Earth girl?" laughed Samos. "Perhaps," I said. "Preposterous," said Samos. "She is only a slave, only a thing to serve, and to beat and abuse, if it should please me." "But is not any slave," I asked, "even a love slave?" Eventually, of course a woman learns that to please a man on his own terms is the only thing that can, ultimately, fulfill her own deepest needs, those of the owned, submitting love slave. Yes, she would be made to be a woman, and in the fullest sense of the word, that of a love slave to strong men. I saw then, as I think that Kisu did not, that the proud Tende, who had been so haughty and cold, was now naught but a surrendered love slave. "A master would not be likely to secure a conquered love slave, would he?" she asked. "He might," I said, "if only to remind her that she is a slave." For what it is worth, the most intimate and deepest loves I have known have been between masters and their slaves, that between the love master and their love slave. Sometimes a man simply sees a naked woman in her chains upon the block and knows suddenly that she is the perfect one, she who is destined to be the perfect love slave for whom he has always sought. Sometimes a girl, kneeling before a new master, is seized by a sudden wild emotion. Perhaps it is something in the way his steel is locked upon her body; perhaps it is something in the audacity and assurance with which he handles her. She lifts her head, meeting his eyes. Quickly she puts her head down, trembling. She knows then she has met one who may well be her love master, one to whom she can be but the most helpless of love slaves. I looked down at the girl, lying at my feet. Perhaps someday, I mused, she would find her perfect love master, he to whom she would be the perfect love slave. Until then let her be bought and sold, and passed from hand to hand, subject to exchanges, and vendings and barterings; let her know the joys and miseries of diverse bondages; it did not matter, for she was only a slave. In the weeks since her conversation with Janice she had become to him a superb love slave. This is hard for a woman to conceal. The chief's eyes glistened as he looked upon her. Kisu shook his head, negatively. In spite of the fact that Tende had now become to Kisu a superb love slave, he still kept her under the strictest security. Often she cried about this, but he was unrelenting. "I love you, Master," she would weep. "I love you!" "I love you, Master," she said. "You are the daughter of my hated enemy, Aibu," he said. "No, Master," she said. "I am now only your conquered love slave." "Master," she said, "I love you." "Be silent, Slave Girl," I said, not looking at her. "Yes, Master," she said, sobbing. She was an excellent slave, and would doubtless know many loves, until she, a superb love slave, might at last find herself fallen helplessly and totally into the absolute power of such a man as she had never dreamed might exist, he who to her, in the personal and intricate chemistry of couples, would be her ideal master, one powerful, and uncompromising and strict, one capable of seeing that she served well, one capable of whipping her, if need be, but yet one loving and tender, one who would be to her the perfect love master. It did not seem likely that she would be again sold. "Am I to understand," she asked, "that the men of your world do not take their women in hand, and throw them to their feet?" "Of course not!" I said. "Our women are treated with total honor, and dignity and respect," I said. "They are treated as our equals." "Poor men, poor women," she said. "I do not understand," I said. "You would make a love slave your equal?" she asked. "Of course," I said. "You cheat her then of her opportunity to be overwhelmed, and to be forced to serve and love. You preclude her then from the fulfillment of her deepest nature." I said nothing. "If you will not be a man," she asked, "how can she be a woman?" I wondered if she would make a good love slave. I supposed not, for she was of Earth. It was difficult to imagine her kneeling before a man, helplessly aroused, weeping, begging to be raped. I reminded myself, interestingly, that Earth women were imported to Gor doubtless precisely to be love slaves. I wondered if Gorean men knew something interesting about the women of Earth that the men of Earth did not know. There are even, it might be mentioned, hate dances and rebellion dances, but most dances, as might be expected, are display dances, or need dances, or love and submission dances; even the hate and rebellion dances, of course, conclude, inevitably, with the ultimate surrender of the girl to her master as a love slave. "On Gor," she said, "I have experienced feelings and sensations I never knew could exist. Inhibitions have been shattered, some of them commanded from me by strong men and the blows of the whip. I have learned to live and to feel. My emotions have been freed. My deepest sexuality and nature have on this world at last been fully liberated. I have found myself. I love and I serve. I now know at last what and who I am, a love slave for uncompromising masters." "Ah," said Peggy, drawing back, "I fear she is your love slave." "She is too fine to be a slave," I said, "let alone the most complete of slaves, the total and abject love slave." A not uncommon task for an Earth female on Gor is to attempt to secure the affections of a Gorean master who regards her as nothing and despises her. For months, through assiduous application, through attentiveness and study, through a selfless love and service, such a woman may labor to convince the brute who owns her that she is worthy to wear his collar. Then perhaps one day he looks down upon her kneeling before him. His hand touches the side of her head. Was it a gentle gesture? She takes his hand and presses her lips, sobbing, fervently to it. He takes her by the arms and presses her back, gently, to the tiles, a love slave. When he is finished with her he takes his whip and orders her to her knees. Perhaps he strikes her, perhaps he puts the whip to her mouth, and she kisses it. Well then does she know she is still a slave. He turns away. She, kneeling, her head down, smiles shyly, happily. In her heart the imbonded Earth girl was the secret love slave of Callimachus, a warrior once of Port Cos. He now realized that one of his girls, Peggy, was, in effect, the helpless love slave of Callimachus. Properly handled he could have had them in moments at one another's throats, as competitive love slaves. Even in my hatred, of course, I could never forget that in a corner of my heart, kneeling, there languished a love slave. My former mistress was now naught but the obedient and joyful love slave of the proud Vondan. "But, do not fear," I said, "such modalities are not learned in vain. They will be required of you even by a love master, and, indeed, he will doubtless require them from you with a harshness, an amplitude and exactness far beyond that of a more casual owner." "But, why, Master?" she asked. "Because you are," I said, "in the final analysis, as he will wish you to remember, only his slave. Too, do you think he would require less from you, a love slave, than from some more common girl chained at his feet?" "No, Master," she said. "Are you silent?" I asked. "It seems strange to think of serving a love master with the same proficiencies with which I must serve any other man, as a mere slave," she said. "Your skills and talents are surely as much, or more, at his disposal, as they are at the disposal of any other male," I said. "True," she said. "Do you object?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. "I would want to serve my love master, to the best of my ability, with whatever skills or talents I might have." "In the Prition," I said, "Clearchus, of course, is primarily concerned with only one form of bondage, that of the love slave." "I think he is my love master," she breathed. "It is more likely that you are his love slave," laughed the other. "I think that I am his love slave," she whispered. "It is too early for you to know something like that," I said. I did not know, of course, whether it was or not. Sometimes these things can be told at a glance. "I want him to whip me," she said. "Why?" I asked. "Because I love him," she said. I saw that Miles of Argentum did not wish to have Susan subjected to judicial torture, perhaps tormented and torn on the rack, even though it might validate her testimony and strengthen his case. But she was only a slave! Could it be he cared for her? I suspected it was true. I suspected that the little beauty from Cincinnati, Ohio, in his collar, had become special to him, that she was now to him perhaps even a love slave. Henrius Sevarius, freed, now a young man, had his own ship and holding in Port Kar. He owned a luscious young slave, Vina, whom he well mastered. She, now a love slave, had once been the ward of Chenbar, Ubar of Tyros, and once had been intended to be the free companion of gross Lurius of Jad, the Ubar of Cos, thence to be proclaimed Ubara of Cos, which union would have even further strengthened the ties between those two great island Ubarates. "Do you not think a love slave crawls fearfully beneath the whip of her master?" she asked. "The love slave is still a slave, you see," I said, "and perhaps more a slave than any other." "Yes," whispered the woman. "She is held in her bondage by the strongest of all bonds," I said, "that of love." "Yes," she said. "It is stronger than the chain on your neck," I said. "I know," she said. "It must then be very strong," laughed the woman who held her chain. She gave it a tug, jerking it against the side of the woman's neck. "It is," I said. To be sure, it is also pleasurable, particularly in the beginning, to bend a woman, and to teach her her place. Few pleasures can compare, for example, with that of taking an unwilling female, preferably one who hates you, and, against her will, forcing her to yield to you the total and exquisite perfections of slave service. One may then, after she has learned herself a slave, after she has been brought to this self-understanding, do what one wishes with her, say, keeping her or selling her, doubtless now making a profit on her, and putting her into the markets, where, eventually, if she is fortunate, she might eventually come into the hands of an excellent master for her, one whose devoted love slave she will beg to be. I motioned that she might return to the line, and, sobbing, dancing, she did so. The collar looked well on her neck. Clearly it belonged there. In time she would come to understand that and would then, fearfully, live in love, rejoicing. One day he considers himself, looking down at the slave at his feet; it is he whom she struggles so hard to please, as a slave must; it is he in whose complete power she finds herself; it is he whom she must serve so humbly, and who is so strict with her; it is he who is her master; he looks down into her eyes; he sees that she, looking up at him, unable to help herself, has become his love slave. He smiles. "Let me hold you," she begged. "Not now," I said. "Keep your arms at your sides." "In your arms -" she said, "in your arms -!" "It is not I," I said. "It could have been any man. It is rather that you were ready." "I am prepared to be a love slave!" she said. "Keep your hands at your sides," I said. Her small hands and arms writhed at her sides. "I want to touch you. I want to hold you!" she said. "Keep them at your sides," I said. "Be my love master!" she begged. "You are a free woman," I reminded her. "Please, please be my love master," she begged. "Doubtless he somewhere exists," I said. "But I am not he." She moaned. "Do not be so overwhelmed," I said. "This is only a simple initiation into the world of the senses." "Simple?" she asked. "Initiation?" "Yes," I said. "I did not know there was anything in all of life like this," she said. "And you are not yet even a slave," I said. "I want my love master," she moaned. "Search for him," I whispered. "Perhaps you will find him - after a thousand collars." "I am sure he never thought of me as a possible love slave," I said. "Do you not understand, Master?" she sobbed. "Though you scarcely know I exist, though you may despise or hate me, though you might scorn me or laugh at me, I am your love slave!" He seemed startled. "Yes," she cried. "I am your love slave! I have known this from the first time you put me to your feet! If you weighted and wrapped me with a thousand chains and a thousand locks they could not hold me more helplessly than the love I bear you! Alas, I have confessed! Kill me now, if you will!" She put down her head, sobbing. "Please, no," she wept. "And what is he to you?" he inquired. "I am his love slave!" she wept. "You have the look of a love slave," he said. "Perhaps, Master," she said, putting down her head in confusion. First, I knew that women who are kept as low slaves, and even strictly so, are often among those most loved. Many love masters keep their love slaves, for example, as low slaves. I had little doubt that Mirus would keep Tupita as such. She was even braceleted when she left the camp. I knew, too, that even high slaves are occasionally subjected to such imperious uses, which in their way are delicious, just as they might, to their shame, frustration and pleasure, find themselves occasionally clad in rags and put to disagreeable tasks. Such things remind them that they are slaves, and must obey their masters. Such enforcements, too, tend to be reassuring, and arousing, to a woman. Even if I were not loved, I now had no doubt that I was keenly desired, and that I need not fear that I might not be put to my master's pleasure and as a slave. The ruthlessness of his use only doubled my desire, that of a slave, to serve and love him. "Tela would seek out Aulus, overseer of the work camp of Ionicus, near Venna. She is his love slave. Do you think she found him?" "She is curvaceous," said Calliodorus. "Perhaps she will be sold to a paga tavern." That was a possibility. I hoped that eventually, however, she might come into the keeping of a single master, to whom she would be a love slave. I thought that there was something in the slave now called "Claudia" a precious, vulnerable, yearning love slave. "Yes, Master," she said. "It is what I am, and want to be. I hope only that someday I may have a private master, a love master, to whom I may be his devoted and obedient love slave." "You long," I asked, "for a master who is strong, and love?" "Yes, Master," she said. Better to be a perfumed love slave, licking and kissing, than a girl sweating and stinking in the dusty fields, under a lash, pulling against plow straps. I had no doubt they fitted together, in the order of nature, in the most intimate, beautiful and fulfilling relationship possible between a man and a woman, that of love master and love slave. To be sure, such a girl, particularly a love slave, occasionally desires to feel the stroke of the lash, wanting to feel pain at the hands of a beloved master, wanting to be whipped by him because she loves him, in this way symbolizing to herself her relationship to him, that of slave to master, her acceptance of that relationship, and her rejoicing in it. To be sure, she is soon likely to be merely, again, a whipped slave, begging her master for mercy. "I think you would make an excellent house slave," I said, "indeed, an excellent pleasure slave." "Oh, yes, Master!" she said. "And perhaps in time," I said, "even a love slave." "It is thusly that I want to live!" she said. "It is only that she loves you so much," she said. "I do not understand," said Marcus. Phoebe sobbed, looking away. "She is telling you that Phoebe is jealous of her," I said. Marcus crouched down beside Phoebe. "Is that true?" he asked. "Yes, Master," sobbed Phoebe, her eyes closed. "But you are my love slave," he said to her. And thus might an excellent buy, perhaps one even fit to be a love slave, be brought to his attention, a buy which, otherwise, might have passed tragically unnoticed. "What injury you have done to me!" he cried. "It is because of you that I have lost the most exquisite, beautiful, and desirable slave in all the world, the woman I love! Yes, here in the retreat of tarns, I found my love slave. But I must conduct my business! I must ransom the slut, Constanzia of Besnit! I must sign the letters of credit to the state of Treve to redeem her, rather than use them to negotiate for she who is to me beyond compare, who is to me above all others. Curse honor! Were it not for honor I would forget you. I would let you be dragged to any kennel, on any man's chain. Were it not for honor I would remain secretly, at the risk of my very life, in this city, to seek her, to somehow come into possession of her! Were it not for honor I would find my love, and fly with her! Kneel, head down!" "They need not know I am your love slave," she said. "I am your love slave, am I not?" "Yes," he said. This is the surely one of the deepest and most profound relationships in which a woman can stand to a man, that of slave to master, and, ideally, that of love slave to love master. "I do not ask that you like me, even a little," I said. "I only beg, unilaterally, with no hope of the last reciprocity, that you will permit me to be your helpless love slave!" A man sees a girl he wants and his objective judgment as to the market worth of the given property can be clouded, perhaps by simple desire, a simple desire to buy and own, totally, a particularly delightful, curvaceous property, but perhaps by something else, too, mixed with desire, and powerful lust, a subtle something that tells him that this, for him, may be a special slave, something he seriously wants in his collar, something not merely, for him, another slave, not merely something on which to slake his lust, to dominate and master, but something, too, which might, in time, prove to have the makings of something more, perhaps, say, a love slave. And, of course, if it doesn't work out, he can give her away or sell her. Often the love master is most demanding and severe with the love slave, in sensing the weakness which she might produce in him. This brings joy to the heart of the love slave as she hastens to obey and please, and with suitable perfection, indeed, as she must, as though she might be no more than a new girl, frightened and intimidated, in the house. He, of course, remains the master, and she, of course, remains the slave. That is the relationship of the love master and the love slave, the fulfillment of the nature of each. She stood there, looking at Selius Arconious, she within the basket, he standing on the floor beside it, the small, folded tunic between her teeth. Tears burst into her eyes. She wanted to cry out that she loved him and she wanted to be his slave, but she could not speak. Surely she would never see him again, he for whose collar she longed to beg, he at whose feet she craved to kneel, he before whom she desired to fling herself, kissing his feet, he whose whip she longed to lick lovingly, obediently, he whose sandals she wished to bring to him in her teeth, on all fours, he to whom she desired to be the most abject and devoted of love slaves. What slave does not seek her love master? What man does not seek his love slave? The rightfulness and naturalness of the relationship, so sanctioned by nature, and a thousand generations of selection, often leads to love. It is not unknown, accordingly, for a master and slave to discover, one day, and often sooner than later, that they are in love, that they are now love master and love slave. And it is not such a fearful thing, he later learns, really, to have at his feet one for whom he would die, a love slave, and one who knew him, from his first touch, as her long longed-for love master. And so in the mysterious ways of nature the match is made. One must, of course, be particularly strict with a love slave, severe in her discipline, and such, not hesitating to put her to the whip for her least laxity or failure to fully please, but she would have it no other way, for he is her master. "We want our love master!" she wept. "Do not masters search for their love slave?" "Speak of love," I said, "and you may be lashed." "Yes, Master," she said. "Forgive me, Master." "From the first moment I saw you," he said, "I wanted to own you." "And from the first moment I saw you," she said, "I wanted to belong to you." "You do," he said. "Yes, Master," she said. "Love slave," he whispered. "Love master," she said. And what, too, of the love slave and the love master? In such cases, who can understand the mysterious chemistries involved? Let us suppose that a fellow is examining women on a slave shelf. They are kneeling, cringing, shackled, head down. Who can explain how it is that he, pulling up the head of one after another, by the hair, that her features may be examined, suddenly pauses, startled. What is different about this particular cringing, shackled slave? How is she different from another? She looks up, her eyes widened. He sees before him, his hand in her hair, his love slave, and she, looking up tears in her eyes, for the first time, sees her love master. How is she more than merely another helpless, cringing, shackled slave, and how is he more than merely another male, another possible buyer, in his robes, so free, and strong, looking down on her? But he has found his love slave, and she, to her joy, has been found by her love master. Who can explain such things? Perhaps he has been keeping a collar for just such a one? Certainly a girl can attempt to interest a buyer; consider the differential zeal of the "Buy me, Masters," as one fellow or another peruses a sales line; but, in the end, despite our efforts and hopes, we are not the buyers, but the bought. It is they who will choose, not we. We long for our love master; might he not then, in some sense, long for his love slave? I suspected she would make him an excellent slave, perhaps even a love slave. I wondered how long he had secretly owned her. "A man's strong hands," I said, "will reach out to seize his love slave." |       
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