Witness of Gor

11

As soon as I crawled though the opening I felt fresh air, and my hair was blown back somewhat by the wind. I found myself on the stone flagging of a large, circular terracelike structure, perhaps some forty yards in diameter. It was apparently the roof of a bastion or tower of some sort. About its edges, facing outwards, were defensive works, some movable, some roofed. Above it, supported by beams, casting a pattern of almost intangible shadows, seeming to stir on the flagging, were numerous, swaying strands of fine wire.

The sky was very bright, and very blue. In it billowing clouds scudded like speeding fleets. The air of this world is very clear, and rich.

At the far side of the large area, away from the door, near the outer circumference of the circle, was a stone dais, reached by some three steps, on the top of which was a thronelike chair.

I crawled forward, slightly in advance of the jailer, who, the leash in his hand, was to my left.

“Stop,” he said, softly.

I stopped.

There were only a few individuals on the terrace, and these were on, or near, the dais.

Their eyes were upon me.

I put down my head.

I wondered what was wanted of me.

The jailer then, to my surprise, removed the leash from my neck.

Perhaps he had received some sign from the dais to do so. I did not know.

I stayed there, on all fours, my head down.

What did they want of me?

I wondered if I were worthy enough to have been brought here.

Was I good enough? Would I prove to be satisfactory? My experience in the pens had suggested that I might do. I had been popular there, with most, if not with all, if not with one, in particular.

I trusted that those who had made this decision, to bring me here, knew their business. I hoped they knew their business. I did not want to die!

And there would be other women here, doubtless, women of this world. How would they view me? I gathered that they might view me as negligible, as far less then they, even if their own fair throats were enclosed in collars.

There was one woman besides myself on the terrace. She wore scarlet silk. She was well bejeweled. She was not veiled. Her face, like mine, was bared. Any might look upon it, as they pleased. She was on her knees, to the left of the thronelike chair. She was chained to it by the neck. On the other side of the thronelike chair, lying there, stretched out, indolently, its large, triangular head down on its paws, was one of the sex-legged beasts, one such as that I had met on the ledges. It was chained to the right side of the thronelike chair. As the beast was at the right hand of the thronelike chair and the woman only at the left, that signified, in this world, that she was less then it.

On the thronelike chair reclined a richly robed figure. His shoulders were of great breadth. His robes were largely of scarlet, liked with purple. He was strikingly handsome, and had large hands. On his feet were golden sandals; on his forehead was a golden circlet.

He gestured that I should rise, and I did so. I then stood some fifty feet, or so, before the dais.

He then indicated that I might remove the tunic from between my teeth. Gratefully I did so. I then held it in my right hand. It was very damp.

He then said something to one of the men standing near him. Among them was the soldier who had brought us here, but it was not he to whom he spoke.

I stood very well, naked before him. How different this was, the thought crossed my mind, from my old world. How far I was from the shops, the malls. I wondered how my old companions, Jean, and Priscilla, and Sandra, and Sally, might stand before such men, masters of women.

I think he was pleased with me. I was sure that he had commented favorably concerning me to his fellow on the dais. The woman to his left, she kneeling, chained by the neck to his chair, had not seemed much pleased. That was surely a point in my favor. She would not like me. I was sure of that. She was, even now, regarding me angrily. I did not like her, either. Let her watch out for herself, and her place on a chain! I hated her!

I considered the eyes of the men.

I stood even straighter, more gracefully.

“Slut,” said the woman.

I pretended not to hear. I gathered that she must be a high slave, and that she had a general permission to speak. To be sure, such a permission may be instantly revoked, at so little as a world. If men do not wish to hear us, we must be silent.

It seemed to me now that I could feel the interest of the men, reaching toward me, almost like heat, in waves of desire.

I now felt less frightened. I was now more confident that the slavers who had taken me may have known the business after all, at least as far as externals were concerned. I was such, it seemed, as might quite plausibly appear upon a slave block. And I wondered if only I, at that time, had known the “internals,” so to speak, of these matters, that I was such as would be fittingly placed on such a block, indeed, that I was such that I, in a sense, belonged on such a block. Could they have known that, as well, from some clues I was not even fully aware of? It seemed possible. How skilled were they? Doubtless quite skilled. And certainly determinations, made with merciless thoroughness in the pens, had clarified such matters beyond all doubt. And entries pertinent to these matters, I gathered, and had gathered originally to my dismay, for I had regarded such things as my closely guarded secrets, now appeared explicitly on my papers.

They man before me, regarded me, spoke again to some of those about him.

The collars were removed from the monstrous beast on his right, which yawned, and rose to its feet, and from the woman, on his left, who remained kneeling, close to the arm of the thronelike chair.

I was not too pleased to see that the beast was loose.

The others, however, did not seem alarmed.

The man then motioned to me, that I should approach. Timidly I began to do so. Then, suddenly, I stopped. I flung my hands before my face. I screamed. I could not move! The beast, descending lightly from the dais, had bounded toward me. It was now behind me, having circled about.

I took down my hands from before my face. I opened my eyes. I was still alive!

I heard some laughter. My terror had seemed to amuse them!

“Stupid girl,” said the woman.

There is a considerable difference between the killing charge of such a beast, direct, ferocious, energetic, savage, violent, ravening, once, after exploratory sallies, it initiates it, and this approach. But I knew nothing of these things. And I think that even one who is familiar with this world would find it quite alarming to be approached, even as I had been, by such an animal.

“Do not be afraid,” said the fellow on the thronelike chair.

I cast him a grateful glance.

“He will not kill you unless I tell him to do so,” he said.

I nodded, numbly.

“She knows little, I think, of our world,” said the jailer.

I saw glances exchange amongst some of the men near the chair.

“She is stupid,” said the woman.

I wondered then if the releasing of the beast, perhaps anticipating its curiosity, and its likely inquiry, had been a test of sorts, one assessing my familiarity with this world and its ways.

I shuddered.

I sensed the breath of the beast on my calves.

“Come closer,” invited the man on the dais.

I stopped, warned by his eyes, a few feet before the dais.

“Put aside the tunic,” he said, “and turn about, fully, slowly.”

I complied.

Then I was again facing him.

“Are you trained?” he asked.

“To some extent, Master,” I said. I suspected he must know this.

“Do you know where you were trained?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“Do you know where you are now?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“It is my understanding,” said he, “that you can move in fashions which may not be entirely without interest.”

I looked at him, frightened.

“But that is not inappropriate for what you are,” he said.

“No, Master,” I said.

“Move,” said he.

And swiftly then did I comply, much as I had done in the house from which I had been sold, before the agents, or buyers.

“Ah!” said a man.

One learns to display oneself, and well, as the merchandise one is. Much of what I did I had learned in the pens, but much, too, comes from within one. Some movements I had done as long ago as my old world, in the secrecy of my bedroom, before the mirror. Sometimes in the midst of such presentations, in effect, the dance of a woman as a woman, as herself, her true self, so brazen, so forward, so honest, and yet, too, so pathetic, so vulnerable, so needful, and, above all, so totally and utterably different from a man, I had abruptly wheeled away, weeping, crying out, in shame, frightened, miserable and confused that I, only one such as I, might be so desirable, so beautiful, and, for my world, so exquisitely and forbiddenly feminine, but then, later, I had returned to them, determinedly, unabashedly, accepting at last, even angrily, what I was in truth, and should be, a woman, a total woman, in all her moving, exciting variety, in all her richness, in all her vulnerability, in all her marvelousness.

“Excellent!” said a man.

How pleased I was!

It is dangerous, of course, to appear as a woman before strong men.

But here I had no choice. I must be what I was.

My performance must be concluded with “floor movements.”

“Excellent!” said a man. “Excellent!” said another. Some of the men struck their left shoulders in commendation. I saw that the woman in scarlet silk, she kneeling at the left side of the thronelike chair, she who had been but moments before chained to it, was looking upon me with great anger.

“Excellent!” called another man.

I then lay before the dais, supine, gasping for breath, covered with sweat, even in the coolness of the elevation and wind. I turned my head to the right. I looked toward the thronelike chair.

“Excellent, excellent,” said men.

But I could not read the expression of the occupant of the thronelike chair.

I went then to my stomach and lifted myself up, on my hands, and regarded him.

Had I done well enough? Would I be acceptable?

Those about the chair looked at its occupant. He regarded me. I looked down, and to the right, unable to meet his eyes.

“Let her be fed,” he said.

I sank to my belly. I was no longer capable of sustaining my weight on my arms. I lay before the dais, trembling. I was to be fed. I would then, at least for a time, be kept. He had not then, it seemed, been totally dissatisfied. It seemed then that, at least for a time, I would be permitted to live. This decision, I had sensed, had been welcomed by those about the dais, with doubtless one exception.

The woman in scarlet silk rose somewhat angrily. She had a narrow steel collar on her neck, which had been covered by the earlier higher, heavier collar, that to which her chain had been attached. I was quite pleased to see that she was collared. She too then was only a slave! She went to the side, to a small table within one of the roofed defense works. There she shook some meal from a cloth sack into a shallow pan. She then, from an earthen pitcher, poured some water into the pan. She then shook the pan, mixing the ingredients. She held the pan in her left hand. From the table, she picked up, to my dismay, a long, supple switch. I did not care to see it in her possession. She now approached me, the pan in her left hand, the switch in her right. She put the pan down, on the stone flagging, before the dais, a bit to the right of its center, as I faced it. She pointed to the pan with the switch. I rose to all fours and crawled to the pan. I put down my head.

“What do you think of her, my dear Dorna?” asked the man in the chair.

“She is worthless,” said the woman.

“Perhaps not entirely without worth,” he said.

“She is worthy only to comb the hair of a true woman, if that,” she said.

The fellow chuckled.

“Giver her to me, as a slave’s slave,” she wheeled, “that I may do with her as I please.”

“I do not think you will be displeased with her disposition,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked, interested.

“You will see,” he said.

This exchange alarmed me somewhat.

“Continue to feed,” said the woman to me.

I continued to feed. It was slave gruel.

Whereas the food was certainly feed, and true food, though plain fare, the function of this feeding, of course, was primarily symbolic or ceremonial. I was feeding as a certain sort of thing in a certain sort of way, on a certain sort of provender. I was under no delusions as to what I was, or how I fed, or on what I fed. Another lesson implicit in this matter, which might be noted, was that I was dependent on others for my feed, not only with respect to its quality, quantity and nature, but even with respect to whether I would to be fed or not. In this, of course, all slaves, even the highest, are similarly dependent. The people of this world are rich in traditions and symbolic behaviors, which are very meaningful and important to them. There are many such behaviors, traditions, ceremonies, and such, and there is, apparently, a considerable variety in such matters from place to place.

I sensed a man moving about, behind me.

“Keep your head down,” said she who had been called Dorna.

There was some laughter.

I continued to feed.

One is, of course, vulnerable, so feeding. More than once in the pens I had been caught at such a pan.

Then the man who had been behind me had ascended the dais. He had entered recently, apparently. He conferred with the occupant of the chair. He then left. He had paid me, as far could tell, little, or no, attention. Indeed, he may have scarcely noticed me. I was not important. I was only a kajira, feeding at the foot of the dais.

“Lick the pan,” said Dorna.

I did so. I was angry with her. She held the switch. Had my performance not been of interest? Could she have done better? Were her curves likely to be of more interest to men than mine? But it was I who was feeding, and she who held the switch. But I could set myself to please the men! Take away her switch! Let us compete as equals!

“Lift your head,’ said Dorna. “How silly you look!”

There were crumbs of meal about my mouth and lips.

“Bring some meat,” said the occupant of the chair.

Dorna, with an angry swirl of her silks, spun away, to return to the small table under the roofed defense work.

I wondered that the fellow accepted, with such apparent tolerance, what appeared an obvious manifestation of annoyance on the part of the slave, if not of actual insolence. Did she not fear her silks would be removed and that she might be tied to a ring and whipped? I supposed she must have felt the whip at one time or another. She did move well, of course. That suggested that she was not totally unfamiliar with the whip. We must move well. We are not free women. If we do not move well, men, and their whips, see to it that we soon do. And whatever might have been her peripheral tokens of irritation or exasperation she did obey with alacrity. Yes, I thought, she undoubtedly knew something of the whip. Yet, too, undeniably, her behavior seemed to leave something to be desired. Perhaps she presumed too much on the status of a high slave, which status, it seemed, must be hers. Or perhaps she had been a high free woman, and her master, or masters, allowed her to act as she did, finding some amusement in the absurdity of it, she not understanding the joke, knowing they could in an instant bring her to her knees as a humbled, abject, servile, weeping slave. But, in any event, she was accustomed, it seemed, to being treated with some indulgence, perhaps even with permissiveness. How else would she have dared to exploit such latitudes of tolerance as seemed to be accorded to her? To be sure, she was a high slave. But are not such, in the final analysis, owned every bit as much as we? And is not one man’s high slave no more to another than the least of his bond maids, laboring shackled in his stables, her use a perquisite for rude grooms, and is it not the case that even for the same man she who is this evening a high slave may be tomorrow the least of his properties in the scullery?

Dorna returned with a small dish in which there were some tiny bits of meat.

She handed this to the occupant of the great chair.

He regarded me, and I looked up at him, from all fours, from the floor below the dais.

“She has pretty hair,” he said.

“Mine is better,” said the woman.

We were both dark brunettes. Indeed, our hair was almost the same color. Perhaps hers was a little darker. I suddenly realized that our complexions must, too, be similar. I then suspected, naturally enough, immediately, that perhaps we were both of the “type” in which the personage in the chair might have an interest. Some men, it seems, are interested in certain “types” of women. On this world men have little difficulty in finding the types in which they might be interested. Here there are many markets, some of them even specialty markets, catering to particular tastes. One may accordingly, at one’s convenience, browse though various markets, seeking wares to one’s liking. A fellow, sooner or later, is almost certain to find an item, fastened to one ring or another, which will conform to his particular taste. Too, as an option, “want lists” may be circulated. Some women of Earth, I suspect, owe their very presence on this world, their very brand and collar, to the fact that they happen to satisfy, unbeknownst to themselves, in virtue of some particular configuration of properties, features and such, to a greater or lesser degree, the requirements of such a list. To be sure, these are doubtless delivered to specific customers. If there is a consolation or advantage in this it is that they are almost certain to find that they are exactly, or almost exactly, what someone wants. I did think that my figure might be superior to hers, at least from the point of view of what seemed to be the common preferences of men of this world.

The occupant of the chair tossed one of the pieces of meat to the floor.

I went to it, on all fours, and put down my head, and picked it up.

The next tidbit of meat he tossed to the first step of the dais, where I retrieved it.

I looked up at him, the palms of my hands on the firs step of the dais, my knees on the flagging below the dais.

He tossed the next piece of meat on the second step.

Obediently I took it. He was drawing me upward.

The next tidbit he threw to the floor of the dais, before his chair. I crawled to the floor of the dais and put down my head and picked up the bit of meat. I was grateful for it. I had not had beat since the pens. I looked up at him. My hair fell before my shoulders. I was nude. My neck was innocent of a collar. On my thigh there was, of course, the brand. Once or twice in the pens I had been given a candy, a hard candy, and once, a part of a pastry. I did not hope for such items here, of course, at least at this time. He now held the next piece of meat between his fingers. I was to approach him, and take the it from his hand. I crawled to him, and knelt before him, and dared to put my hands upon his left knee. Dorna, the high slave, was a little before me, and to my right. She was standing beside the arm of the thronelike chair, at his left. I put my head forward, delicately, to take the piece of meat, but he drew back his hand a little. I then drew back my head a little, and looked up at him.

“You are from the world called “Earth”?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“What have you learned of our world?” he asked.

“Very little, Master,” I said.

“But you have learned how to obey, have you not?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Are the women of your world obedient?” he asked.

“Doubtless some, Master,” I said.

“But you were not,” he said.

“No, Master,” I said.

“But you have now learned to obey, have you not?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“And you now obey very well, do you not?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Instantaneously, and unquestioningly?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He then put the bit of meat into my mouth.

I took it, gratefully. I finished it. I looked up at him. I hoped that he found me of interest. Women such as I, on this world, must please men. It is what we are for.

“Do not concern yourself with her,” said Dorna. “She is totally unworthy of your attention. She is nothing, only a slut from Earth.”

The broad-shouldered, large-handed man looked down upon me. How tiny I felt before him. He had been referred to as an “officer” by the jailer. Those large hands, I suspected, were not unpracticed in the techniques of weaponry. Certainly they seemed rough, and strong. I feared to sense what they might feel like on my body.

At his least touch I knew I would respond to him as what I was, a kajira.

Then I put my head down, quickly, for I sensed that he understood this, as well. Indeed, he could doubtless read women such as myself with ease. He had undoubtedly subjugated many of us in his time, reducing us to helpless, spasmodic, begging slaves.

“She has no status, even as a slave,” said Dorna. “Put her from your mind. She is only from Earth. She is entirely worthless.”

The fellow smiled at the insistence of the slave.

“They are the coldest of the cold,” said Dorna.

Two or three of the men about burst into laughter at this remark. They had experienced, and perhaps even owned, I gathered, women such as I, from Earth. Indeed, perhaps they kept one or more in their domiciles now. I doubted that we were brought to this world because we were cold. If anything, for another reason. I kept my head down. I reddened.

“Sometimes women learn heat in a collar,” said a man.

“I have heard that of a slave named “Dorna,”” said another. There was laughter. Dorna looked away, angrily.

“Are you “cold,” little kajira?” asked the man.

“I do not think so, Master,” I said.

I wondered if some women did not, indeed, learn their heat in a collar.

“They are the hottest of the hot,” said a man.

“It depends on the particular woman,” said a man.

That, I supposed, was true.

I did not believe, of course, that the women of my world were cold. Certainly, at least, they did not seem to be once they had come to this world. To be sure, there were doubtless many reasons for this. On this world we found ourselves in a true world, a biologically natural world, a world in which nature was fulfilled, and celebrated, not outlawed, denied, and denounced. Here a natural sexuality was acceptable. Indeed, it was required of us. Here, for example, we need not pretend to subscribe to the pathologies of identicalism, neuterism and personism. Here we found ourselves in the order of nature where, biologically, we belonged. And here, too, at last, after having lived for years in a sexual desert, unhappy, frustrated, deprived and starved, we find ourselves in a land of plenty. How eagerly we eat! How joyously we drink! But, too, of course, we have little choice in these matters. Heat is here required of us. Just as total passion and complete surrender were, in effect, forbidden to us on our old world, here they are, quite precisely, required of us. Do we have reservations, or scruples? Are there lingering vestiges of the barbaric conditioning programs to which we, even as innocent children, were subjected? Such reservations, such scruples, such vestiges, may be quickly removed with the lash.

“They are all cold,” insisted Dorna.

The fellow in the chair reached out and I watched his hand, with apprehension. Then he placed it on my body.

I gasped and drew back. I trembled. I closed my eyes, whimpered.

I tried to hold myself still. He must remove his hand! He must! He must!

“She would be hot in her chains,” laughed a man.

In another moment I felt I must thrust myself against him, again and again, desperately, kissing and whimpering.

Then, mercifully, he removed his hand from my body.

I looked up at him and, my eyes wide, licked and kissed his hand.

“They are all meaningless, hot-bellied sluts!” said Dorna. “That is all they are good for, rolling about, kicking, screaming, moaning, gasping, begging, in the furs!”

“They have many uses,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” laughed another.

“Slave belly!” snapped Dorna.

“I thought you said they were all cold,” said a man.

“No,” said Dorna. “It is rather that they are all trivially, meaninglessly hot.”

“They are the hottest of the hot,” said another man.

“It depends on the individual woman,” repeated another.

Again that seemed to me true.

“They are the lowest of the low!” said Dorna.

“That is true,” said a man.

“Yes,” agreed another.

“Are you the lowest of the low?” asked the man.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“You are,” he assured me.

“Yes, Master,” I said. If I had had any doubt as to how I had stood on this world before, I had none now.

Dorna laughed.

The fellow in the chair still held, in the palm of his left hand, some tidbits of meat.

He took one of these between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and held it out to me.

I took it, and ate it.

I looked up at him. I wondered if he would again touch me.

I took the next piece of meat.

“You take your food from men,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He then held another piece.

“See her being fed by hand!” said Dorna to those about.

I took the next piece of meat.

“Feed, little Earth beast!” laughed Dorna.

Suddenly the occupant of the chair turned toward Dorna and regarded her.

She turned white.

Her switch was taken from her.

Then the proud Dorna knelt beside me and, putting forth her head, angrily, in fury, was fed as I.

“You take your food from men,” the occupant of the chair informed the proud woman kneeling beside me.

“Yes, Master,” she said. That admission, I conjectured, had cost her much.

About us some men laughed, and some smote their left shoulders in approval.

In order that the matter be lost on no one, the occupant of the chair, of the last three pieces of meat, casting each to the floor of the dais, cast the first to the six-legged beast, which lapped it up instantly with its tongue, scarcely a scrap to such a maw, the second to me and the third to Dorna. Dorna and I, then, on all fours, from where we had retrieved that largesse which had been granted to us, cast to the floor of the dais, looked up at he who occupied the chair.

“May I rise, Master?” she asked.

Though a high slave it seemed she thought it wise, under the circumstances, to request this permission.

“Yes,” he said.

She leaped to her feet.

I remained on all fours, before the chair.

Dorna was regarding me with fury. She was not pleased to have been knelt beside me, and fed as I was, nor to have to have pursued a bit of meat thrown to the floor, just as I had, as one might expect of a low girl. And there were others about. It was not as though she were naked, and alone with him.

I saw that she was very angry with me. Surely she must blame me for her humiliation. Too, I suspected she might, for some reason, be jealous of me. Was it my fault if I might be more beautiful or desirable than she? Did she resent the interest of the men in me? Did she fear that I might turn the head of the fellow in the chair? Might that be it? Did she fear that she might cease to be his preferred slave, if, indeed, she was that? I did not think that she was likely to have been a bread slave, except insofar as every woman, being a woman, is a bred slave. Perhaps she had once been a high free woman. But now, of course, somehow, it seemed that she had come into the collar. Perhaps her life now was quite different from what it had once been. Perhaps once she had even possessed some sort of authority, perhaps even over certain men. But now, it seemed, she must obey men, strive to please them and hope to be fed. Perhaps she hated me because I was from Earth. It was not that uncommon for women of this world to hate us, I had gathered. Perhaps they regarded us rivals, or something? Perhaps we were resented because many men of this world seemed to prize us, though, to be sure, they kept us under strict discipline, as perfect slaves.

They wanted us that way, and saw to it that that would be the way we would be kept.

Little on Earth prepares a woman for Gor.

“Return to the foot of the dais, and stand,” said the man in the chair.

I backed down the steps of the dais, on all fours, and then, at its foot, rose to my feet.

“Bring slave wine,” he said.

My heart leaped.

Dorna, angrily, descended the steps of the dais behind the thronelike chair and went again to the table beneath the roofed defense work.

I was pleased.

I looked down, shyly.

I had been given slave wine in the pens, of course, but it was not mine to call that to their attention. Indeed, the matter was undoubtedly noted on my papers. Perhaps these men merely wished to make sure of the matter. Or perhaps they merely wished to have me drink slave wine before them, either for their amusement, or because of he effects of this act, which were not only practical but symbolic. The effect of slave wines, at least those now in general use, seems to be indefinite, but they are commonly renewed annually, perhaps largely for symbolic purposes. One removes the effects of such wine by drinking a “releaser.” The wines themselves could be sweetened, but normally served bitter, which taste, as I understand it, is closer to that of the original root, the sip root, from which they are ultimately derived. The “releaser” or, at least the wine in which it is mixed, the “breeding wine” or “second wine,” is sweet. The breeding of slaves, like that of most domestic animals, is carefully supervised. Slave breeding usually takes place in silence, at least as far as speech is concerned. Similarly the slaves are normally hooded. They are not to know one another. This is thought useful in reducing, or precluding, certain possible emotional complications. The breeding takes place under the supervision of masters, or their agents, with endorsements being recorded on proper papers. I was pleased, of course, because, just as I took my feeding to be an indication that I was to be kept, if only for a time, so, too, I would interpret my being given slave wine as constituting something of a reassurance of my desirability something in the nature of an indication that I might have been found, these men looking upon me, not without promise as a kajira, even though I was a woman of Earth.

Dorna handed me the goblet.

I could be every bit as good as a woman of this world, I was sure!

I did not even look at Dorna.

Who needed to look upon her?

I stood naked before the dais, and looked up at he who sat in the thronelike chair.

What could a woman of my world be before such men but their slave?

And they would have it so! Choiceless we would serve, docile, obedient, fearful, overwhelmed. They were our masters. Did they care what was in our secret hearts? Did they know we wished to be taken in hand, commanded, prized? Did they know we wished to be objects of such desire, that we wanted to be sought, tenaciously and powerfully, and relished? Did they know they had appeared in a thousand secret dreams, as our masters? Did they know that we were born for them, that we would be forever incomplete without them? I asked only, choicelessly, to love and serve such men.

“Drink the wine, slut!” hissed Dorna.

I did not look at her, but at the man in the chair. I felt suddenly very strong, and very powerful, though I was so small and weak. I had aroused the interest of these men as a kajira. I was sure of that. Let Doran fear then for her place on a chain! I would happily, eagerly, compete with her for the privilege of kneeling before such men!

I lifted the wine a little upward and toward the man in the chair. I then looked at him over the rim of the goblet. My eyes spoke to him, I think eloquently, over the rim of the goblet, telling him doubtless what he knew, that before him there stood a slave.

I then drank. It was terribly bitter. I shook with the bitterness. I clutched the goblet with both hands.

“Do not spill any,” warned Dorna.

Tears came to my eyes.

“Hurry, slave,” said Dorna. “More quickly!”

I lifted the goblet again.

It seemed more bitter than that I had had in the pens.

“Hurry,” said Dorna.

I could hardly take a sip.

“Hurry,” she insisted.

I looked to her for mercy, but in her eyes there was none.

“Drink, slut,” she said.

Then I tried to ruse the fluid, that I might be finished before I could fully taste it.

It was mostly gone then and I held to the goblet, and shuddered, and coughed.

There was laughter.

In the cup there now remained only a tiny bit. I could even see the bottom of the goblet through what remained.

I looked again to Dorna, but she was merciless.

“Finish it,” said she. “Drain the cup. Drink it to the last drop.”

I finished the liquid, to the last drop. Dorna swept the goblet from my hand and took it away. I stood before the men, half bend over. I could still taste the bitterness, palpably, like tiny, foul damp grains in my mouth, on my tongue, my lips. I put my hand over my face, as much to wipe away my tears as anything. I trembled. Then I took down my hands and straightened up. I looked about a little. I sensed now that the men looked upon me somewhat differently. Now doubtless I was more what they wanted, or, perhaps, actually, merely more assuredly so. Was I not now, even more obviously than before, a plaything or a possession, something that might figure in the most casual of gratifications, something which now might be utilized even in amusement or sport, with no fear whatsoever of any inconvenient consequences?

I looked up at the man in the chair.

I now felt no more than a cringing, vulnerable slave.

“Let her be collared,” he said.

I gasped, and put my hand to my throat.

“There are various collars,” said Dorna.

“A common collar will do,” said he.

I would not have expected to have worn other than a common collar, of course, there are many sorts of collars. The most familiar are the “common collar,” which, in its varieties, tends to be flat and closely fitting, and the “Turian collar,” which, in its varieties, is more rounded, and barlike, and fits more loosely. Both lock behind the back of the neck. Dorna wore a “common collar.” Some other types of collars are decorative collars, holding collars, training collars and punishment collars.

“A used collar?” said Dorna.

“Certainly,” said he.

I now realized that I was not as special or important as I had thought I might be, or had hoped I might be.

“We have them with a variety of names,” she said.

I had expected, naturally, to be named. It is useful, after all, for a slave to have a name. It makes it easier to refer to her, to summon her, and so on. But I would have expected a master to have considered me with some care, as he might another form of animal, and to have then selected a name for me which, at least to his fancy, seemed to him fitting or suitable, a name which might then, sooner or later, be inscribed on a collar. To be sure, not all collars have the slave’s name on them. Some apparently say things as simple as “I am the slave of so-and-so,” “I belong to so-and-so,” “I am the property of so-and-so,” or “Return me to so-and-so,” such things. An advantage of having the girls name on the collar is in tracing her. After all, a rich man might own a hundred or more women. A typical collar might read, “My name is Tula. I am the slave of so-and-so.” But it seemed now that I would not be considered, and named, with a collar, a new collar, a personal collar, eventually following the naming, as one might hope, being suitably inscribed, but that my name, whatever it was to be, would be the result of what already appeared on a collar. The collar would not be a function of the name, so to speak, but the name, it seemed, would be a function of the collar, of some name already on a collar!

“What do you suggest?” he asked. He seemed amused.

“She is from Earth,” said she.

“So?” said he.

“I then suggest,” said she, “one with an Earth-slut name on it.”

“Would you do that to her?” he asked.

“Surely no harm could come of it,” she said.

A man laughed. I felt uneasy.

“Still,” said the fellow in the thronelike chair, “she seems to have learned at least a little about our world, and, for her time here, seems unusually adept at our language. Indeed she seems, subject to what she is, and her antecedents, quite intelligent. That is clear even from her papers. Perhaps then we should be kinder to her. Perhaps we should not do that to her.”

“Oh, no, Master,” said Dorna, quickly. “She is from that place and so that should be made clear in her name. Let her wear a name that makes clear her origin, so that men will know the treatment she deserves, and how to deal with her.”

“Do you so hate those from that place?” inquired the man in the chair.

“Were it not for one such,” she cried, “I would not be here in diaphanous silk with a collar on my neck!”

“One from such a place enslaved you?” asked he.

“No,” she said, “but were it not for him I might now be tatrix in my city!”

“Your schemes failed,” said a man.

“One from Earth brought your plans to naught,” said another.

“Your city is now quite different from what it once was,” said the man in the chair.

“You are quite fortunate to be here, and in a collar,” said another man.

“Rejoice that you live,” said another.

I understood nothing of this.

“But we are now considering this little kajira,” said the man in the chair, returning his attention to me.

Dorna looked down at me, in fury.

I was frightened, and, unbidden, I knelt.

“She kneels well,” said a man.

I knelt in position, of course.

I looked up at the man in the chair. I wondered if he would send for me this evening.

I trembled, even thinking of it.

Dorna, I think, was not unaware of the fact that I fell well within the regard of him in the great chair.

“You think that a collar with an Earth-girl name would be suitable?” he asked Dorna.

“Suitable, and appropriate, Master,” she said, in honeyed tones.

This made me apprehensive, particularly when I recalled her remarks to the effect that this would let men know how I was to be treated, and such.

“Shall we give her an Earth-girl name?” asked he in the chair of the men standing about.

“Do so, Captain,” said one of them, smacking his lips.

“Yes, Captain!” approved another.

Many Earth-girl names I would discover, understandably enough, I supposed, have an exotic flavor to the men of this world. They tend to find them sexually stimulating. They are also, like certain names of this world, regarded as slave names. I am not fully certain why that is. It may be because they tend to be unfamiliar names to the men of this world. It may be because they are found on women brought to this world to be slaves. It may be because we often sold under such names, we then wearing them as slave names, put on us for the convenience of masters. To be sure, it may be for another reason, a simpler reason, the simple reason that we make excellent slaves. There are some names, of course, which are common to both this world and my old world, which suggests interesting questions of etiology. Similarly there are some names on this world which are on free women but which are also, often, found on slaves. One such is ‘Dina’. It is not unusual for a name of this world, incidentally, to be put on an Earth girl brought here. This is not entirely unnatural, of course, as such names are often beautiful, and, naturally, more familiar to the masters. Too, such names sometimes help the new slave to make the transition to her new status and condition. Indeed, they sometimes help to free her of her inhibitions and increase her sexual responsiveness. In other cases, it seems clear that wearing an Earth-girl name, whether one which was once her own, now put on her as a slave name, or another Earth-girl name, now also, of course, only a slave name, can have similar effects on a girl from my world, she now recognizing herself as, and being in effect, embonded fauna in an alien environment, singled out, and marked, as such, by the name. The contrast between the familiarity of the name, like a tie to an old world, and the new reality in which she finds herself can be both astonishing and stimulating. An interesting variation on this sort of thing is the giving of Earth-girl names to women of this world. This is a way of informing the, I gather, that great heat is now expected of them and that they are now, at best, to regard themselves as the lowest of slaves. To be sure, in time, as we learn our collars and condition, I think that the names make little difference. Many names, of diverse sorts, are stimulating and beautiful. And, of course, perhaps most importantly, we are well aware that any name we wear, whatever it may be, is, when all is said and done, a slave name.

“Very well,” said he in the chair. “Choose some collar with an Earth-girl name.”

“Yes, Master!” said Dorna, eagerly. She hurried back to the roofed defense work. I gathered that there might be several collars there, some of which bore names which either were, or might be regarded as, Earth-girl names.

In a moment or two Dorna had returned to the dais with a collar. The collar was a common collar, flat, bandlike, gleaming, not unattractive, now closed. Looped about it was a string, on which there were two tiny keys. She showed the collar to the fellow in the chair. “Excellent,” he said. She then showed the collar to the others about the dais. “Quite suitable,” said one fellow. “Indeed,” added another. She then hurried down the steps, and showed it to others. One man laughed. “Good,” said another. “Quite good,” smiled another. “Superb,” said another. “Excellent,” said another. She then hurried back to the dais and the man in the chair opened the collar and slipped off the keys and string. He handed the keys to one of the fellows near the dais. I gathered that he would put them somewhere, or would turn them over to someone. I did not know where they would be kept. The collar was then returned to Dorna and she came down the steps of the dais and stood near me, where I knelt.

I looked upon the collar.

I would wear it.

I looked up at the man in the chair.

“You now have a name,” he said. “It is that which is on the collar.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I did not, of course, at that point, know my name, only that I had one.

“Read it!” said Dorna, holding the collar before me.

“I cannot,’ I said. The script was unintelligible to me.

“She is illiterate,” said the man in the chair.

“It is on her papers,” said another.

“Stupid illiterate slave!” said Dorna. The man in the chair looked at me.

“You belong to the city,” he said. “The collar is a state collar.”

That I had not counted on! I did not even understand what it might be, to belong to a polity, a city, a state. Who then owned me, the polity, it seemed, the city, the state. But who did I serve? What did I do? I would doubtless learn.

“Prepare her for her collaring,” said the man.

“Down on all fours, slut,” said Dorna to me.

I immediately obeyed.

Dorna walked about me, in front of me, and handed the collar, opened, as it was, to the jailer, he who had brought me, and to my left.

Dorna then crouched down, and, combing it a little with her fingers, brought my hair forward, before my shoulders. She then arranged it. It hung down before me. My neck was muchly bared.

Dorna then rose to her feet and stood a bit before me and to my right.

“Is she prepared for collaring?” asked the man in the chair.

“She is,” said Dorna.

“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.

“Yes,” said the jailer.

“Are you prepared to collar her?” asked the man in the chair.

“Yes, Captain,” said the jailer, whose name I now understood to be ‘Tenrik’. We, of course, do not address free men by their names but as “Master.” Similarly, we address free women as “Mistress.”

“Collar her,” said the man in the chair.

I was then collared.

I was naked on all fours, before the dais, on a barbaric world, a collared slave girl.

I heard Dorna laugh. Was she so much more than I? Did she not, too, wear a collar?

“She is pretty in a collar,” said a man.

“They all are,” said another.

Dorna turned away, angrily.

“Has she been collared?” asked the man in the chair.

“Yes, Captain,” said Tenrik.

I gathered that this must be part of the ritual of the collaring, as there could be little doubt, now, about the light, inflexible, gleaming circlet gracing my throat.

“Kneel,” said the man in the chair to me.

I knelt, in position. I knew I was beautiful in this position, collared. I had seen myself in mirrors, in the pens.

“Remove the collar,” said the man.

I looked up at him, puzzled.

I could not read his eyes.

But one does not wait for a command to be repeated. I tried to remove the collar. I could not do so, of course, as it was of inflexible steel, and securely locked.

Dorna laughed. I threw her an angry glance. Let her remove her collar, if she could!

“Can you remove the collar?” asked the man in the chair.

“No, Master,” I said.

“No not forget it,” he said.

“No, Master,” I said.

“You are pretty,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” I said.

“Take her to the ring,” he said, gesturing to his left.

I looked up at him, startled, but had scarcely time to react for I was seized by the hair, by the jailer, and, half scrambling, half dragged, was conducted to the side, to a ring. There I was knelt down and my wrists were tied together and fastened to the ring. I looked wildly over my shoulder. The jailer was there, and was shaking out the five strands of a broad-bladed slave whip. “Master?” I cried. Another man brought my hair well forward, again, as it had been for my collaring. “Please, no, Masters!” I cried.

“Do you think we are weak?” asked a man.

“No, Masters!” I said. “No, no, Masters!”

I had seen the six-legged creatures. I had seen the great birds. I had seen the warriors go forth. I had seen them return, sometimes with loot, with booty, at the saddles, silver and gold, and women.

Then the lash fell and I shook and sobbed. I had felt the whip before, twice in the pens, a stroke each time. I was not at all eager for a repetition of that experience.

Again the lash fell.

In the pens it had been a single-bladed lash.

Again I felt the leather.

I went to my belly, unable to remain on my knees. I could not believe what I felt.

I had heard of this whip before, the broad-bladed, five-stranded lash, designed for use on such as I, but never before had I felt it. It is to be clearly distinguished from many other forms of whip, in particular, from the “snake,” a terrible whip used sometimes on men, beneath the blows of which even a strong man might die. The five-stranded lash, that to whose attentions I was now, to my dismay, to my misery, being formally introduced punishes terribly, but inflicts no permanent damage. It is designed to hurt, not injure. Indeed, it does not even mark the subject, which might reduce her value.

Again the lash fell.

“Please stop!” I begged.

What had I done? I had done nothing as far as I knew!

“Please stop, Masters!” I cried. How naturally I had called out to them as “Masters”! Of course, I knew by now who were the natural masters, and, indeed, on this world, even the legal masters. On this world the fundamental biological realities of dominance and submission, thematic throughout nature, had not been falsified. Indeed, they were recognized by, and acknowledged within, and confirmed, within, the very intuitions of this world. But even had it not been for my understanding of what I was, an understanding going back even to my native world, one which I had achieved, but had scarcely admitted to myself, long before I had been brought here, and one which I now understood even in terms of actual, significant, pertinent legalities of my condition and status, I would, I believe, in that moment, have called out to them as “Masters.” I would think that any woman, even the most anesthetic, even the most stupid, even the most naive, even the most defensive, even the most resistant, even the most brainwashed, would have cried out so. In such moments shams dissipate. In such moments fundamental profound realities obtrude. I think that in such moments almost any woman would be likely to see through the illusions to which she has been subjected, though the lies that she has been taught, through the puppetry of her conditioning program. Behind the fabrications and prevarications of political facades lurks the Realpolitik, so to speak, of nature. And on this world, at least with respect to women such as I, the facades do not exist. We are put on our knees. We are collard. We are in our place. We obey. We serve.

Again the lash fell.

I writhed on my belly on the flagging. The stones felt cold, a considerable contrast with the flames that danced on my back. The feeding in the cell, and the watering there, that I had been fed and watered, and even that I had been given some bits of precious fruit were, it seemed, quite meaningless. So, too, surely had been the blanket, and even the wastes vessel! Had I understood such things as evidence of a special status, of special treatment, of special consideration, either of myself personally, or, more generally, of my soft of woman in this place? Had I interpreted such things as signs of lenience or tolerance? Had I understood them as signs of weakness or even, say, of a sort of soft kindness which I might be able, cleverly, in time, to exploit to my advantage? Let now, then, a stupid slave be disabused of such illusions!

Again the lash fell, like lightning, flashed downward. Again I wept. No longer could I cry out. I was helpless. I could do nothing for myself. I was completely dependent on others. I was in the hands of the masters.

Four times more the lash fell.

I then lay at the ring, on my belly, my crossed wrists stretched toward the ring, to which they were fastened. I tried to breathe. Tears had run down my cheeks. The flagging was wet from them. The bonds on my wrists, too, from earlier, were moistened by the tears. In one place the back of my wrist was wet where a tear had slipped between the cords.

The whip was being put away.

I lay there.

I suddenly realized that all likelihood there had been nothing whatsoever personal in the beating. I had not, for example, at least as far as I knew, been displeasing, nor had I offended anyone, unless it be the other kajira. I had not done anything, at least as far as I knew, in any normal sense, to provoke, or merit, the beating. To be sure, reasons are not required for beating a slave. If the master wishes, they may be beaten simply at his whim. They are, after all, slaves. Similarly, as far as I could tell, these men bore me no ill will. I was, from their point of view, only a domestic animal. The beating then, in all likelihood, had not been punitive or even, really, disciplinary. Similarly it did not seem to be arbitrary. Rather it had been, it seems, ritualistic or institutional, and, presumably, by intent, instructive. It had been painful, but surely brief, strictly considered. I had not been informed of its purpose. I had not had to beg for the beating. I had not had to denounce myself before or during the beating. I had not had to count the strokes aloud, and so on.

The cords binding my wrists were freed from the ring, and then the cords were removed from my wrists.

I still lay at the ring.

I did not know if I could move.

The purpose of the beating I am sure, and thereby the intent, the rationale, of its inclusion in my induction here, so to speak, was neither unprecedented nor unusual. It was to help me understand certain things very clearly from the very beginning, that I was subject to the whip, that the men in this place were fully capable of using it on me, and that, if they saw fit, or felt so disposed, would do so. As I have suggested this lesson is neither unprecedented nor unusual. It is often thought to be a valuable lesson for a girl, particularly when she is brought into a new house.

Then I cried out as the jailer pulled me up to all fours by the hair and then, his fist in my hair, hurried me back to the dais.

I was now on all fours, at the foot of the dais. I looked up, though my hair, it muchly before my face now, and my tears, at he in the great chair.

“Do you wish to be beaten again?” he asked.

“No, Master! No, Master!” I said.

“Kneel,” said he.

I obeyed.

“To whom do you belong?” he asked.

“To the state, Master,” I said. To be sure, I did not know what state.

“Are you important?” he asked.

“No, master,” I said.

“Put your head to the floor,” he said. “Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck.”

I wept, and obeyed.

“Tenrik,” said the fellow in the chair.

“Yes, Captain,” said Tenrik.

I cried out.

Dorna laughed.

“Keep your hands clasped behind the back of your neck,” warned Tenrik.

“Yes, Master,” I wept.

My eyes widened.

“Oh!” I said.

“Steady,” said Tenrik. “Clasp your hands.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You feel that?” asked Tenrik.

“Yes, Master!” I said. “Yes, Master!”

I tried to hold myself still.

“Steady,” said Tenrik.

“Yes, Master,” I whimpered.

“Permit her to squirm,” said the man in the chair.

“You may move,” said Tenrik.

I began then, gratefully, to move, almost beside myself. I began to gasp.

“She is a pretty little thing,” said the fellow in the chair.

“Yes,” said one of the men near him.

“Oh!” I said.

“See the Earth slut!” said Dorna.

I began to cry out, softly, helplessly.

“Listen to her!” laughed Dorna.

I tried to stifle my cries.

“See her move,” said a man.

“She cannot help herself,” said a man.

“No,” said another.

“A kajira,” said a man.

“Yes,” said another.

“She is pretty in her collar,” said another.

“They all are,” another reminded him.

“True,” agreed the other.

Dorna made an angry noise.

There was laughter.

But no one paid her much attention.

“Oh!” I said.

“A quite pretty kajira,” said another.

“Yes,” agreed another.

“Oh!” I cried.

“There!” laughed a man. “She is over the brink!”

“She cannot return now,” said another.

“She has gone too far. Tenrik has her now. She is lost!”

“No,” said another. “She is on the verge.”

“Please,” I begged “Please!”

“See?” said the man.

“Yes,” said the other.

“Please, Master!” I begged.

“Captain?” asked Tenrik.

“Very well,” said the man in the chair.

“Ohhh!” I cried.

“Now she is lost,” said one of the men.

“Yes,” said another.

“Ha!” cried Tenrik, a sudden cry, more that of a beast than a man.

I cried out. His hands were on me like iron. I could not have been held more helplessly in the vise of a branding rack. It seemed I was struck again and again.

Then I was left whimpering on the floor before the dais.

“Good,” said Tenrik, appreciatively, now on his feet, his voice husky.

“You find the kajira satisfactory?” asked the man in the chair.

“Even in such a way, in such a time,” said Tenrik. “It may only be conjectured to what lengths she might be brought, given different circumstances, and more time.”

“Do you think she will soon reach the point where she is totally helpless?” asked the man in the chair.

“Yes,” said Tenrik.

I lay before the dais. It was with bitterness, and chagrin, I heard myself so discussed. It was done so publicly, so candidly. Did they not know I was present? Did they not know others were present? I was being discussed as publicly, as candidly, as though I might be an animal. Then I realized again, of course, that I was an animal. I trembled. I already felt that I was, in such modalities, helpless. I was startled to learn I might become even more so. What then could I do? What then would I be? I had learned in the pens that I had an unusual potentiality for vitality, that somehow beneath the encrustations of a subtle, pervasive, insidious conditioning program, one to which I had been mercilessly subjected from childhood on, beneath, and in spite of, all the antibiological values, all the instilled inhibitions, reservations, hesitations and guilts, there lurked a primitive, powerful, natural, healthy responsiveness. This conditioning program, and its effects, now, bit by bit, fragment by shattered fragment, had been broken away from me. In its ruins I had emerged, like a beautiful thing, innocent from the sea. To be sure, I had emerged as something real, not mythical, something which found itself in a very real world, a world in which I learned I was a certain sort of thing, vulnerable, precious and beautiful, and not at all the same as certain other sorts of things which were quite as real as I, and the world, but quite different, as well.

“How worthless she is!” said Dorna.

“Not altogether,” said a man.

There was laughter.

“Look at her body,” said a man.

I knelt, covering my body as I could. I was muchly flushed. I covered my breasts. I did not want them to see the erection of my nipples. I was gentle. They were tender. I kept my head down.

“Position,” said the man in the chair.

I must obey, instantly.

I knelt now with my back straight, back on my heels. My hands, now, were down on my thighs. My knees were spread. I kept my head down.

“Head up,” said the man in the chair.

I lifted my head. There were tears in my eyes.

I knelt, collared, before masters.

“See her,” said a man, considering the condition of my body.

“Yes,” said another.

“She is a new slave?” asked a man.

“She is just out of the pens,” said a fellow.

“We had her on her first retail sale,” said another.

“Her brand is still smoking,” laughed another. It was a saying.

“She was delivered, hooded, only a few days ago,” said another.

“It is hard to believe that she is new to her collar,” said a man.

“It is so certified,” remarked another.

“I have seen her papers,” said a fellow.

I knew I had papers but, of course, I could not read them. Such papers, as I understood it, begin with a girl’s arrival in the pens. That is when her meaningful existence, her slave existence, begins. Nothing before that counts. There is no interest in our origins, save that we are of Earth, nor in our history or background. Such things have no relevance, or importance. They are all behind us. We are no longer free women. What interests them is merely that we are slaves, and our slave properties. A number of things are commonly found on papers, which may be more or less detailed, for example, our brand type, a number of measurements, the sorts of training we have received, and such. There is also, usually, a place for sales endorsements, for when a girl changes hands. There is also a “remarks section.” where miscellaneous information may be recorded.

“And already, so soon,” said another, “she cannot help herself.”

“She is hot,” said another. “Slave hot.”

“Superb,” added another.

I blushed, even more.

“Yes,” said one of the men, considering me, “a hot slave.”

He could they speak of me so?

But, of course, I was an animal!

“Consider what she will be when the slave fires have been truly lit in her belly,” said another.

“See,” said a fellow, “she is afraid!”

“But see, as well,” said another, “she is intrigued.”

“Yes,” said another. “She wants it. She wants it.”

“And helplessly, desperately!” said another.

“Yes!” laughed another.

I tried not to meet the eyes of any of the men.

Could they so read me?

And could there be more? Could I be more helplessly theirs than I was now?

And what were “slave fires”?

I dared not speculate.

“She might easily be a silver-tarsk girl,” said a fellow.

I did not understand the allusion, but gathered that a silver tarsk was a coin, and might be a good price for me.

Not only could my face and body, my beauty, if beauty it be, my dispositions, my talents, my capacities, my intelligence, my feelings, my emotions, my service, my pleasure, be sold! My heat, too, could be sold. It, too, could be put up for sale!

Men could buy it!

It could be purchased with the rest of me.

It is all of her, you see, the whole slave, that is sold.

“See her!” laughed a fellow.

My entire body, I fear, was a rage of subsiding arousal, and scarlet shame.

Could I help it if my body was so alive, and so much at their mercy? Too, had they not done much, the men of this world, to bring me to this helplessness?

They had not permitted me to hide from myself! They had forced me to be myself!

- slave.

“She is an Earth slut,” said Dorna. “That is the way Earth sluts are. They are all like that!”

“I do not object,” said a man.

“Nor I,” said another.

There was laughter.

I wondered what I was supposed to do. Should I have tired to be unresponsive and frigid, and thus, in some absurd or perverted sense, have attempted to uphold the honor of the women of Earth? And it was not merely that in the pens many of my inhibitions had been forcibly removed from me and that my natural sexuality had been freed and encouraged, permitted to grow, to thrive and blossom, but that my reflexes had actually been honed, so to speak, to greater sensitivity. I was now no stranger to arousal and responsiveness. I had even received training. Besides, I was a kajira! If I proved to be displeasing, I could be punished severely, even slain.

And so I knelt before them, naked, in a position of submission and subservience, a collared slave girl.

I had a name, but I did not know it.

“A hot, curvaceous slut,” said a man.

I knelt before them.

My body was no longer my own, but belonged now to the masters.

I must obey. I must serve.

How far away now was my old world, how far away now were the boutiques, the shops, the malls!

I wondered how my old friends Jean, and Sandra, and Priscilla and Sally, would have looked, kneeling as I was. Doubtless much the same.

“See the whipped slave!” laughed Dorna. “See the utilized slave! See the Earth-slut slave!”

I stared ahead. I did not look at her.

“How are you kajira?” inquired Dorna.

“I will obey! I will try to be pleasing!” I said.

“Do women kneel thusly, before masters, on your world?” inquired Dorna.

“Some, perhaps,” I said. “I do not know!”

“Did you?” asked Dorna.

“No,” I said.

“What is wrong with the men of your world?” she asked. “Are they not men?”

“I do not know!” I said.

“You did not kneel before men,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“But now you do,” said Dorna.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes, what?” she snapped.

“Yes, Mistress?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I must then, it seems, address her as ‘Mistress’. She was not free, of course. It was rather that I was so much less then she. I did not think she was “first girl” over me. I would have dreaded that. It seemed rather that I was a low slave, and she was a high slave. And, perhaps she wished to be addressed as ‘Mistress’ by me because I was from Earth. She seemed to hate Earth, and those from Earth. I had gathered one from Earth might once have been involved in some shift in her fortunes. Now, of course, she had one before her who was from that world, and only a helpless kajira. I trusted that the men might protect me from her. After all, it was they who were the masters of us both.

“Earth slave!” sneered Dorna.

“Yes, Mistress,” I whispered, frightened.

It was true that that was what I was, and all that I was.

Dorna turned about and hurried up the steps of the dais. I did not care for the expression I detected on her countenance the moment before she turned away. Then she was at the left side of the great chair, which it seemed was where she belonged, and there she turned about, and was now facing me, looking down at me. But she addressed herself to the man in the chair. “She is the lowest of the low, is she not! Master?” asked Dorna.

“Yes,” said the man.

Dorna smiled and leaned down, confidentially to him, and whispered something.

He smiled.

She then hurried down the stairs, and, going behind me, seized my hair and held it up over my head, knotted securely in her grip, with both hands. I winced. She turned my head to the right and held it back, exposing the left side of my head to the chair. She then retaining her grip on my hair with her right hand, with her left, with the tips of her fingers, her palm up, indicated, and lifted slightly, the lobe of my left ear. It was almost as though she might be a slaver, or a slaver’s man, calling attention to some feather which might be of interest to a buyer. I did not understand what she was doing. “Pretty?” she asked. “Yes,” said the man in the chair. Then she returned both hands to my hair and, still holding it up, over my head, twisted my head to the left, and back, thus exposing now the right side of my head to the chair. She kept her left hand in my hair, and I whimpered, at the rightness of her grip, and then displayed, in the fashion she had earlier, the right side of my head, indicating, and lifting, slightly, the lobe of my right ear. “Pretty?” she asked, again. “Yes,” said the man in the chair. She returned both hands to my hair and held my head back, forcibly, cruelly, before the dais. “Let her ears be pierced!” she cried.

I heard cries of protest, of dismay, from several of the men about.

She held my head back, painfully, as she had before.

“Let her ears be pierced!” she cried.

“Yes!” suddenly said one of the men, almost inaudibly.

“She is very pretty,” said a man.

“Why not?” suggested another.

“Can you imagine what she would look like, thusly?” said another.

“Excellent,” said another man.

“She is only from Earth,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“Let her ears be pierced!” urged another.

“Yes!” said another eagerly.

There was silence.

“Yes” smiled the man in the chair, musingly, looking down upon me, with such a look of power, of possessiveness of mastery and desire, that even held as I was I almost fainted. “Yes,” he said musingly, “let her ears be pierced.”

“Excellent!” cried Dorna, releasing my hair and stepping away from me, looking down at me with triumph.

“Excellent,” said more than one man. I heard the striking of shoulders behind me. It was done with the flat hand, the left shoulder with the right hand.

I understood very little of this. I had not had my ears pierced on Earth, but I had considered it from time to time. I had not had the courage to do so. I suppose I regarded it as too barbaric, too sensuous. After all, I was not then owned. Such an act, too, it seemed to me, would be to make too public certain secrets of one. It would have seemed to me, in effect, to acknowledge one’s inner realities, to call attention to what lay within one, to proclaim one’s inner self publicly, to offer oneself for bondage, to beg, in a way, the collar. I certainly had no objection to having my ears pierced. Did this mean that I was so obviously a slave? I assumed, of course, they had in mind some natural sort of piercing, and not some grotesque mutilation. But I did not think that was involved here.

The men of this world, with all their barbaric animal heat, with all their ardor, and power and mastery, loved and desired women, and relished them, and prized them. The last thing they would want to do would be to decrease the beauty or value of a woman. Even their strictest and most sever devices of punishment and discipline were designed with the protection of such features in mind. Indeed, if anything, these men insisted on the women making themselves, and keeping themselves, as desirable, attractive and beautiful as possible. This is the way they want us and, if necessary, even to the imposition of punishments and disciplines, that is the way they will see to it that we remain. To be sure, I was so poor a woman of Earth that I did not mind being desirable and beautiful. Indeed, I was eager to be such that I would bring a high price on a slave block. Indeed, as I am a slave, even on Earth I had wanted to be such, desirable and beautiful, and such as would bring a good price from lustful, bidding masters. But what distressed me now was the sense I gathered of the response of the men to the suggestion that my ears be pierced. I realized now, only too clearly, that this primitive, barbaric, homely little detail, seemingly so tiny in itself, the piercing of the ears, making possible the affixing of certain forms of ornaments, seemed, for some reason, quite momentous to them. I gathered that once my ears were pierced there would then be, at least from their point of view, something quite different about me.

“Come here,” said the man in the chair. I regarded him, but he was looking at Dorna.

“Master?” she said.

He pointed to the floor of the dais, before the chair.

Frightened, she hurried there, and knelt before him. He drew her more closely to him, she still kneeling, and he bent forward. He took her head in his hands and brushed back her hair. “Master?” she said, uncertainly. He turned her head to one side, and then to the other.

“Pretty,” he said.

“No!” she said. “No!”

He turned to one of the men to the side. “Let her ears be pierced,” he said.

“No!” cried Dorna. “No!” she leaped to her feet and turned about, fleeing, stumbling down the steps of the dais and then, at its foot, half bent over, turned about, facing the man in the chair. “No!” she cried. “No!”

He regarded her.

“No, please, no!” she said. She did not seem so haughty then, so arrogant, so imperious, so hard. She seemed then only what she was, a female, in the hands of men.

He did not speak, but continued to regard her.

She then drew herself up, proudly, as though she might be other than what she was. “Never!” she said. “Never!”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you would prefer to go to the ring.” She took a step backward, aghast.

“I am Dorna,” she said.

“That may be changed,” he said.

“I am a high slave!”

“That, too, may be changed,’ he said.

“No!” she said.

“Does Dorna want to go to the ring?” he asked.

“No!” she said, shuddering.

“What?” he inquired.

“Dorna does not want to go to the ring,” she whispered.

“You seemed to find it amusing when the Earth slave was at the ring,” he said.

“Be kind,” she begged.

“But then she is only an Earth slave,” said the man.

“Yes! Yes!” said Dorna.

“But you would doubtless wriggle at the ring, as well as she,” he said.

I did not want to meet the eyes of any of them. I was frightened, kneeling before the dais. Dorna and I were the only two women on the terrace. We were both slaves.

“Please, no, Master!” said Dorna. I noted she called him “Master.”

“Perhaps you would enjoy being at the ring, and then being publicly utilized, as she was,” said the man in the chair.

“No, Master!” cried Dorna.

“Your silk can be taken from you,” said the man in the chair.

“Please, no, Master!” she said.

“Perhaps it could be given to the Earth slave.”

“No, Master, please!” said Dorna. She case me a wild glance. I saw she was genuinely frightened.

“The Earth girl might be made a high slave and you a low slave,” he said.

“Please, no, Master!” she said.

“The word ‘Master’ sounds well on your tongue,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” she said. “Thank you, Master!”

“I think you do not use it frequently enough,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master!” she said. “I will try to improve my behavior, Master!”

“Does Dorna want to keep her silk?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

He regarded her.

“Dorna wants to keep her silk!” she cried. She clutched the silk about her, desperately.

“But perhaps I have a better idea,” he mused.

“Master?” she asked.

“Perhaps you should be returned to Tharna in chains,” he said.

At this Dorna turned white and flung herself to her knees at the foot of the dais.

“Oh, no, Master!” she cried.

“They might enjoy seeing you again,” he said.

She began to weep and tremble. She looked small, and piteous, and female, at the foot of the dais.

“Look up,” he said.

She did, through wild tears.

“They might enjoy having you again within their walls,” he mused.

“No,” she sobbed.

“I wonder what it might be, after the procession though the streets, you naked, in chains, on a chain neck-tether, conducted through the jeering crowds, goaded by spear points, hastened by whips, and after the public humiliations, would it be torture and the spear? Presumably not, as that is too simple. Too, that is too honorable. And you are now merely bond. Perhaps then you might be nailed to the great gate or to the public boards. It can take days to die in such a fashion. There is little bleeding. Or, more quickly, you might be cast to sleen, or fed to starving urts, or be flung to the fangs of dry, thirsting leech plants.”

“No,” she whispered. “Please, no.”

“You might be spared,” he said. “You might be enclosed in a cage, suspended in the piazza. Others might then learn from your fate a lesson. You might be put in a dozen chains and flung into the deepest dungeon in the city. Perhaps then, eventually, you would be forgotten, save perhaps by a warden and some urts. You might even be kept chained in the public tarsk pens, in the mud, for years, there to compete naked, mocked by all, for your swill.”

She put her head down, trembling.

“To be sure,” said he, “as you are only a slave, it might be amusing for them to keep you chained to a ring in the lowest brothel in the city, your use free to any and all.”

“Lift your head,” he said sharply.

She looked up. Tears streamed down her face.

“Your face is bared,” he said.

She sobbed.

“The faces of slaves should be bared,” he said, “that their tiniest expressions may be read.”

Again she wept.

“No longer,” said he, “can you hide behind a mask of silver, or gold.”

“No, Master,” she wept.

“Your face is bared,” he said, “as is fitting for the face of a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“But there is another possibility,” he mused, “an interesting one, one other than merely returning you in chains to Tharna.”

“Master?” she asked, frightened.

“You could be returned to he from whom you were stolen,” he said.

“No!” she screamed, in terror. “No! No!” she suddenly, wildly, crawled up the steps of the dais, and flung herself to her belly before the man in the chair. She pressed her lips again and again to his feet, fervently, in terror, covering them with frantic kisses. “NO,” she begged. “Please, no, Master!”

“Do you not know how to kiss a man’s feet?” he inquired.

She sobbed, and then delicately, humbly, softly, submissively, devotedly, with much care, with great attentiveness, with exquisite sensuousness, with her tongue as well as lips, addressed her ministrations to his feet and sandals.

“Better,” said he.

I was frightened at the terror exhibited by the slave. The mere thought of being returned to some former master, from whom, I gathered, she had been stolen, was apparently more dreadful to her, more fearful to her, than the assemblage of fates which had just been outlined before her, those possibly consequent upon her being returned to Tharna, some city into the power of which, it seemed, she would be ill-advised to fall.

“I would think you might enjoy being returned to your former master,” said the man in the chair, “he who first captured you, and put the collar on you.”

“No! No!” she said.

“He is rumored to be one of the finest swordsmen in the world,” said the man.

She sobbed, and continued to kiss his feet.

“Did he not slay a retinue of one hundred men before he reached the curtains of your palanquin, to tear them aside?”

She did not raise her head, but trembled.

“It was he who first removed the mask from you,” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered, shuddering.

“And did you not, even as a free woman, kneel in the dust beside the palanquin, your mask taken from you, and kiss and lick the blood from his sword?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I wonder that he was interested in you,” said the man.

“Master?” she asked, lifting her head a little.

“His sword could have won him many women, women whose attractions he would presumably have had little difficulty in detecting,” he said.

I assumed he meant women such as I — slaves, suitably clad, lightly and revealingly, women of whose charms there could be little doubt.

“Could he have known that you were as beautiful as you are?” he asked.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“It would not seem so,” he said.

“But doubtless he was pleased to see that you were beautiful,” he said.

“Perhaps, Master,” she said.

“But he must originally have had you in mind for some other purpose,” he said. “He must have had some use in mind for you.”

“Master?” she asked.

“But the first use was doubtless merely that you would follow him naked, and collared, bearing his shield.”

“That was the second use,” she said.

“Of course,” he said.

“I would think,” he said, “ that you would have enjoyed belonging to him.”

“No!” she said, in terror.

I was frightened to think of such a master, one who inspired such terror. I shuddered. What manner of man might he be? As slaves, of course, it is appropriate, and not at all unusual, for us to retain a healthy fear of our masters, particularly if we suspect we may have been in some detail remiss or may have been in some respect less than perfectly pleasing, for we are, after all, their slaves. We are totally dependent on them in all things, and they have absolute power over us. More simply put, they are master.

“For you two would seem to have much in common,” he said.

“Do not return me to him,” she wept.

“But you would seem much the same as he.”

“No, no!” she said.

“No?” he said.

“No,” she said. “I am a female.”

“You now understand that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“It seems he knows how to keep a slave,” said the man.

She shuddered.

“What did he want you for, other than the usual purposes of a slave?” he asked.

“I do not know,” she said.

“Perhaps we are too lenient with you here,” he mused.

“No, no,” she whispered.

To be sure, it did not seem likely to me that this was a place in which men might be criticized for being too lenient with their slaves.

“I wonder what we should do with you,” he said.

“Do not return me to him, I beg it!” she wept.

I saw she was terrified. I thought of the master she feared. From her reactions even I, who did not even know him, began to tremble. From her fear I was afraid. I was afraid even to think of such a man. Then I thought that perhaps I now better understood men in this place, that they might steal from such a man. To be sure, I did not know the whole story. Perhaps her former owner, he under discussion, was ignorant of the identity of her thief. Or perhaps the men here had merely purchased her, or captured her later, from another. Between the man she feared and this place she might have changed hands a dozen times, as any property.

“I wonder what I should do with you,” he said.

“Keep me!” she begged.

She did not request her freedom, of course. How insulting and absurd would have beensuch a request of men such as these. We wore our collars and would continue to wear them. They liked us in our collars, and found us precious in them. It would be as absurd and meaningless for us to be freed on this world as it would be for a dog or horse to be freed on my former world. It is said that only a fool frees a slave girl. It is true.

“Keep me, Master,” she begged. “Keep me, Master.”

she then, lowering her head again, began again, beggingly, pleadingly, submissively, with tears, desperately zealous to placate and please him, to lick and kiss his feet. She did this quite well, I thought. My fear did not prevent me from observing her carefully. I was only a collared Earth-girl kajira. One might even have said, as one had, as the saying has it, that my brand was still smoking. Surely it was fresh. I had much to learn. Knowing suitable placatory behaviors, sometimes necessary to pacify and appease these impatient men, these demanding and powerful masters, is something very much in a girl’s best interest. Indeed, being able to please and placate a male can sometimes mean the difference between life and death, between being ordered to the furs, there to be incontestably ravished and subjugated, there, gratefully, to be totally conquered — and being hurled to ravening sleen.

She lifted her head to him, timidly, after a time, doubtless anxious to examine his visage for some clue, however faint, as to his mood, seeking there some trace, however tiny, which might hint at what was to be done with her.

I myself could not determine what he might be thinking.

“Have my ears pierced, Master!” suddenly said Dorna.

“What?” he asked.

She rose to her knees, begging, before him. “I beg to have my ears pierced, Master!” she said. “I beg it!” She turned her head before him, to one side and then to the other. She displayed herself, desperately, pleadingly. She indicated her ear lobes. “Let my beauty, if beauty it be,” said she, “be enhanced with earrings!”

There was laughter behind her, but Dorna paid no attention to it.

“Are you not curious to know what I might look like in earrings, Master?” she asked.

“Do you not fear that such might enflame your belly?’ he asked.

“Let it then be enflamed!” she said.

“You do not care how much of a slave you become?” he asked.

“No, Master!” she said.

“Perhaps I could have your ears pierced, and have you put in earrings, and then have you returned to your former master,” he mused.

“Oh, please, no!” she wept.

She sank down, again, to her belly.

“It is interesting to ponder what might be done with you,” he said.

“I am a Master’s slave,” she said. “It will be done with me as Master pleases.”

Dorna then, clearly, was not a state slave. He in the chair was clearly her master. I did not even know his name. He was an officer in this city, it seemed, a captain, or perhaps even a high captain.

“Do you think you have been pleasing?” he asked.

She lifted her head, tears in her eyes. “I have not been pleasing,” she said. “Forgive me, Master. Let me begin again. I beg to be permitted to begin again. Let me prove to Master how good a slave I can be.”

“Kneel,” he said.

She rose to her knees before him.

“Speak,” said he.

“I beg to have my ears pierced,” she said.

He regarded her.

“Dorna begs to have her ears pierced,” she said. “Dorna, who is Master’s humble and abject slave, begs to have her ears pierced.’

“But it has already been decided,” said he, “that Dorna will have her ears pierced.”

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“What does Dorna wish?” asked he.

“To be kept by Master!” she said.

“I see,” he said.

“Let me prove to you that I am a new slave,” she begged. “Let me prove to you that I am not totally worthless in your collar!”

“Perhaps I shall make the decision tonight,” he said, “after your ears have been pierced.”

“Yes, Master!” she exclaimed.

“I am curious,” he said, “to see what you will look like in earrings.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“See Dorna on her knees,” said a man.

“See her beg,” said another.

“I would like to see her in earrings,” said another.

“She belongs in them,” said another.

“A bared face and earrings,” laughed one, “is a far cry from a mask of silver or gold.”

“She might make an interesting slave,” speculated another, “a common slave, I mean.”

“Yes,” said another.

“I beg to be pleasing to Master,” said Dorna.

“Hear Dorna begging to be pleasing to a man,” said a man.

“Doubtless she did not foresee this when she fled Tharna,” said a man.

“No,” laughed another.

Doubtless Dorna could not have helped, on one level or another, to have been aware of the comments of the men. But if she was aware of them, she gave little, if any, indication of it. Her primary attention was clearly on he in whose power she lay totally, as a helpless slave.

“Do you think you are capable of being pleasing?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“And you wish to be kept?”

“Yes, Master!”

“At least for a time?”

“Yes Master!” she said.

“Tonight,” said he, “I will give you an opportunity to please me.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Your performance tonight will help me decide,” he said, “as to whether or not there is any point in keeping you among by women.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Do you think you will do well?” he asked.

“I shall do my best to be pleasing in all ways,” she said.

“You will endeavor to prove acceptable?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“But I require more than mere acceptability in the performances of my women,” he said.

“That is well known amongst us, Master,” she said.

“It will be a test, will it not be?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“What level do you think you must attain to pass this test?” he inquired.

“I know that I must be superb!” she sobbed.

“And do you think you can attain such a level?” he asked.

“I will do my best, Master,” she said.

He then spoke to one of the fellows near the great chair, the same to whom he had given the keys to my collar. “Take this slave away,” he said, indicating Dorna. “Send her to me tonight, bathed and perfumed, in earrings, with but a single veil.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the man. “Slave,” said he to Dorna, indicating a location near the wall, where a flat trap had now been thrown back, revealing a stairwell. “Yes, Master,” said Dorna to the man. Then she put her head down quickly, kissed each of the feet of the man in the chair. “Thank you, Master!” she said. Then she leaped up, and hurried to the stairwell, preceding the man down. She would not dally, nor make him wait. She was a slave.

Attention was then returned to me, and, instantly, frightened, I adjusted my position, so that I knelt with perfection. Under the gaze of he in the chair I subtly, frightened, widened my knees, slightly. One feels terribly vulnerable kneeling before men in the common position. It makes it so clear that one is a slave, and, too, so clear, the sort of slave one is.

I did not know where I was. I did not know my name. I did not know why I had been purchased. I did recall that he in the chair had speculated to Dorna, before his displeasure had been incurred, that she would not be displeased with my disposition. That did not reassure me. To be sure, perhaps it meant only that I as not to be entered into his household. I was, I had learned, a property of the state in this place, whatever place it might be. Dorna was now no longer on the terrace. She would thus, not immediately, at least, learn my disposition. To be sure, sometime or another it might well come within her purview. Perhaps then, I thought, swallowing hard, she might not be displeased to learn it. I had thought of her immediately as a rival, and doubtless she had thought of me in this fashion, as well, even though I might be a new slave. Indeed, even in the pens I had looked upon the others, and doubtless they upon me, or most of them, as rivals. But I suppose this is natural enough for women, even on my world. Even those who seem most hostile to men also seem, perhaps paradoxically, to desire to be pleasing to them. Perhaps this is an implicit recognition, even in such unlikely quarters, that men are the masters. But the matter is clear on this world, at least with women such as I, and she, Dorna. Here it is obvious that we are the slaves and men the masters, and that we are to please the masters. In this fashion it is not only the case that kajriae within the same house are likely to find themselves in rivalry, but that in the culture as a whole, wherever we are, on whatever chain, fastened to whatever wall, running whatever errand, heeling whatever masters, we tend to have a sense of such things. For example, we commonly strive on the sales block to bring the highest prices. I do not think this merely because we wish to be purchased by more affluent masters, which suggests that our life may be easier, but because of the personal vanities involved. Each wishes to be the most precious, the most costly. This is perhaps not so different from my old world, except that here women do not vend themselves, and take the profit on them. How many women, I wonder, marry truly for love, and only love? Do we not consider many other matters-the finances of our potential spouse, his education, his family connections, his positions in society, the likely location of his domicile, the presumed trajectory of his career, the prestige of the match, and such? But here, as I have suggested, we do not sell ourselves, reaping our own profits. No, here we are sold by others, and it is these others who will reap the profits. It is they who make the money. It is ours, rather, to be fully pleasing, and see that we obey with perfection.

“She kneels well,” said a man, observing me.

“She is from Earth,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“That is a land,” said one.

“Where is it?” asked another.

“To the south,” said a fellow.

“No,” said another. “It is a world.”

“A world?”

“Yes, a different world.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,”

“Do not be foolish,” said another.

“No,” said another. “He is right.”

“Tarns can fly there?” asked one.

“No,” said another,” it is reached in ships.”

“Slave ships?” said one.

“Perhaps among others,” said a man.

“Tarns do not care to leave the sight of land,” said another, as though reminding his peer of something.

“Of course,” said the fellow.

“If it is another world,” said a fellow, “how can ships sail there?”

“They are special ships,” he was informed. “They float on clouds, as other ships on water.”

“Oh,” said the man.

I had occasionally heard conversations of this sort in the pens, particularly among the lower guards. The men of this world, I had gathered, differed considerably among themselves in their sophistication and information. Some seemed quiet aware of the nature of my world, its civilizations, its views as to the correct relations among the sexes, and so on, and others seemed astoundingly illinformed and naive. I suspected that the man in the chair, and certainly the higher officers and guards in the pens, were quite cognizant of most of the pertinent realities of my world of origin. This world seemed one of technological paradox. I had been brought here by a technology which currently, at least in certain dimensions, exceeded that of my own world. And yet here many men, if not most, seemed unclear as to its nature, if not completely ignorant of its very existence. How astonishingly paradoxical seemed my situation! Here on this world, where men seemed so proud, so untamed, so unbroken, so free, so mighty, so hot-blooded, on this world seemingly so primitive, so splendid and barbaric, on this world of leather, and silk and iron, not of plastics and synthetic fibers, of heat and love, not tepidity and hypocrisy, of ardor and skill, not of boredom and gadgetry, on this world where men had mastered monsters and seemed ready, at a word, to adjudicate disputes with edged weapons, I knelt before a dais, naked and collared, as a barbarian slave girl. Yet I could not have been brought here except in virtue of an obviously advance technology. It was almost as though I had been somehow magically flung into the past, into a world quite different from my own, a world whose ways I must speedily learn and in which I must learn, if I would survive, to be obedient and pleasing. But there was no magic here, no enchanted rings or sorcerer’s wands. Things here were quite real, as real as the stone flagging beneath my knees, as real as the mark in my left thigh. A sophisticated technology may have brought me here but I knelt here, literally knelt, and on my throat was a steel collar. Clearly, or, at least, so it seemed, the technology was not the property of all the men of this world but, at best, of some of the. Too, it might be furnished, I supposed, by others, say, allies or confederates, not of this world itself. That, too, I supposed, was a possibility.

“But what matters it,” asked a man, “the place from which she came, and whether it is a land, and where it might be, to the south, or elsewhere, or a world, and wherever it might be?”

“It matters naught,” said another man.

“It is enough,” said another, “that it be a suitable orchard from which slave fruit may be plucked, a suitable field from which may be harvested crops of slaves, a place of suitable herds, from which may be selected slave meat.”

“True,” said another.

“Women from Earth make good slaves,” said another.

“Excellent slaves,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

I supposed there were reasons for this. Yet, I think, ultimately, the matter has to do not with geographies but with biology, not with origins but with nature. If we made good slaves it did not have ultimately to do with the fact that we were from Earth, even given its terrible conditioning programs, but that we were women. Ultimately, there are women, and there are men.

“A pretty kajira,” said one.

“Yes,” said another.

“Yes,” agreed another.

I knelt there helplessly. I was very conscious of my nudity, my collar, my brand.

“Yes,” said another.

How helpless one is!

“Yes,” said yet another.

I was very afraid. Men on this world, you see, had not surrendered their sovereignty.

“She is quite desirable,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

This frightened me, but I was pleased, as well. What woman does not wish to hear that she is desirable?

But women here must fear. Men here, you see, had not surrendered their sovereignty!

They had power, and women, at least those such as I, did not.

They could do with us as they pleased. We were slave. They were master.

Some of the men walked about me. I did not dare to meet their eyes. A kajira knows when she is being appraised, frankly and openly, from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.

“Lovely hair,” said one.

“Not the perfection of the figure,” said another.

And thus they did assess the property and animal before them.

“Superb,” said one.

“Yes,” said another.

“It is a shame that one had to pay for her,” said another.

“True,” said another.

They preferred, it seemed, to take their women, perhaps to stalk them with stealth, as game, then to spring the nets or snares at some time of their choosing, some moment of unsuspected ripeness, or to seize them in capture strike, or to take them by theft, perhaps roping and gagging them in their own beds, there to enjoy them, and then to hood them and carry them off, bound hand and foot, to this aerie, or at sword point, in open challenge, or even to obtain them in raids and war, perhaps as incidental loot or perhaps, even, as the principal object of such endeavors, for women on this world, you see, even free women, not just women such as I, count as an accustomed and legitimate form of loot of booty, as much, or more, than gold and silver, and fine cloth, and such things. Indeed, wars have been fought to obtain us. These are often referred to as “slave wars.”

The men stepped back.

Many seemed interested in me. I wondered if I would be sent to any of them. I wondered if he in the chair might sometime, recalling me, have me sent to him, perhaps, as he had suggested with Dorna, in earrings and a single veil, if that. I would surely try to please him. But I feared the feel of such hands on my. I feared I might begin to spasm at the first sight of him.

You must understand. We are totally theirs.

I lifted my eyes, timidly, to he in the great chair. But he had now turned to others. He was conversing with them. Their business, I gathered, had nothing to do with me. A wave of irritation coursed through me. I had been much the center of attention, but now, it seemed, I was forgotten. It was strange to be kneeling so conspicuously before the dais, but neglected. One was, of course familiar with the studied inconspicuousness of the serving slave, for I had learned it in the pens. One serves humbly, self-effacingly, eyes cast downward. When not serving one kneels deferentially, silently, well back, and to the side, of the low tables. When then one is summoned to further service, by perhaps so little as a glance or snapping of fingers, one leaps up and hurries forward, perhaps then, on one’s knees, to clear, or perhaps to fetch and then serve, again kneeling, the tiny cups of strong coffees, or black wines, the shallow silver bowls of white and yellow sherbet.

And so I knelt there, in correct position, naked and collared.

My thoughts wandered back to my old world, to my life there, to my classes and classmates, to the shops, the malls, to my friends, Jean, and Priscilla, and Sandra, and Sally.

I could feel my hair blown about my shoulders by the wind sweeping across the terrace. It was now a bit before my face. I did not break position to adjust it.

My back stung from the lash.

On my neck was a steel collar. I could not remove it.

“Slave,” said the man in the chair.

“Yes, Master!” I said, eagerly.

Once again I felt eyes upon me.

“As you have doubtless surmised,” said he, “your disposition has been decided.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. He was the sort of man whom I think even a free woman might have found herself drawn to address as “Master.”

“Perhaps you have guessed what it is to be?” he said.

“No, Master,” I said.

But naturally my mind raced ahead. I had learned in the pens that I was unusually beautiful and desirable. Similarly I had trained quickly and exceedingly well. Too, though I was often terrified, I, on the whole, loved my new life. In it I had my sex had for the first time in my life become truly meaningful. No longer was the most important thing I was to be regarded as an inconsequential accident, as a mere irrelevancy. Rather its significance was recognized and, by strong men, would be uncompromisingly enjoyed and exploited. I had found my life and my meaning in bondage. I had, in this far place, for the first time in my life, come home to myself. I had once in the pens jested with a guard, confiding to him that it seemed I was “born for the collar.’ I have not forgotten his reply. He said, simply, “So, too, are all women.” But with respect to my disposition I was sure, given my beauty and desirability, and my talents, even such as they were now, that it would be a lofty one. I was thinking in terms of the high slave, one of great value, one who might even expect sandals, to say nothing of costly, if revealing, silks, and perhaps even a golden collar. Had not that female, Dorna, a high slave, clearly exhibited jealousy of me? Perhaps I would be first girl in the slave quarters. I might receive further training. I might be displayed with pride to a master’s acquaintances, or perhaps, as a state slave, to foreign diplomats or merchants. I would not need to fear the lash like a common girl. I might be often called to the couch of high men, to kneel there, belled and perfumed, and kiss the coverlets, and then, bidden, to insinuate myself sinuously into their arms.

“Beware, slave,” said the man in the chair, “of making a false step.”

“Master?” I asked.

“Hood her,” he said.

Someone behind me, whom I did not see, placed a hood over my head and drew it down, over my features. It was then buckled shut, under my chin.

In a moment then I was lifted in someone’s arms, perhaps those of the jailer, and carried about. In a moment or so I was disoriented in the hood.

Some hoods are cruel but this was a simple, common hood, one which did not even contain a gag, part of its structure. Hoods are, of course, far more effective than the common blindfold. Sometimes we must kneel in hoods for hours, forbidden to move. We do not even know at such times whether we are under surveillance or not. Can we move with impunity, for no one is watching? Or is someone watching, and, if we move, we will be punished, terribly? We do not know. We kneel in the hood, unmoving, docile and obedient. There are many purposes for hoods. Sometimes we are put in them and handed about. I had worn on almost constantly in my journey to this place. Accordingly I had no idea how I had come here or what place this was. I have indicated, too, that such devices are frequently used in the matings of slaves.

I was now set down, on my feet. I seemed to be standing on some sort of board. My hands were free, of course. But I had not received any permission to removed the hood.

“Walk forward,” said a voice.

The board seemed wide enough. It must have been twelve or fourteen inches in width. I felt its edges once or twice with one of the other of my feet.

“She walks well,” said a man.

I had, of course, been taught in the pens how to walk. I continued to walk forward. I was a little uneasy, as the board seemed to move a bit under my weight. “Masters?” I called.

“Continue,” said a man.

“Stop!” he said.

Naturally I stopped.

“Remove the hood,” said the voice.

I unbuckled the hood, and drew it from my head.

I screamed and staggered, and put out my hands, wildly.

Below me yawned an immense drop, one of hundreds of feet, with jagged rocks below.

In an instant, with rapid steps, sure-footedly, the jailer had reached me, lifted me up, turned about and returned me, trembling, wild-eyed, to the foot of the dais.

“Beware of making a false step,” said he in the chair.

“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” I cried from my belly, a terrified slave girl.

I had learned a lesson. This was not a place where, nor were these men among whom, false steps would be wise.

The jailer, with some difficulty, pried my fingers from the hood, and handed it behind me to someone.

“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.

“Captain,” said the jailer.

“Bind her, hand and foot,” he said.

My hands were pulled behind me and my wrists crossed. In a moment, with a dispatch and effectiveness that could only have been the result of long experience in such things, the knots had been jerked tight. Then my ankles were crossed, and, with a separate bit of cord, lashed together.

“Carry her to the wall,” said a man in the chair.

The jailer then lifted me up and carried me in his arms to the wall, on which he stood, I in his arms. The wind blew fiercely there. I whimpered piteously, terrified.

“Look down, slave girl,” called the man in the chair.

“Please, no, Master!” I cried.

“Must a command be repeated?” he inquired.

“No, Master!” I wept.

I turned my head and, moaning, looked down. The rocks were hundreds of feet below.

“It is enough,” he said.

I closed my eyes, and put my head back, tightly, against the chest of the jailer, trembling.

“You realize you could be easily hurled to the rocks below?” inquired the man in the chair.

“Yes, Master!” I said, not even opening my eyes.

“Sleen come there at night, looking for bodies,” said the man in the chair.

“Yes, Master,” I said, keeping my eyes shut.

I was then carried down from the wall and deposited, again, before the dais. I lay on my side. How welcome was the stone flagging of the terrace floor!

I looked up, fearfully, at the man in the chair.

“You understand something now of what it might be to be a slave in this place?” asked the man in the chair.

“Yes, Master!” I said.

“You will try to be a good slave, will you not?” he inquired.

“Yes, Master!” I cried. “Yes, Master!”

I lay there, on my side, bound. They then attended to other business. I was sure that they were through with me now, at least for all practical purposes. Why then was I not carried away, or conducted somewhere?

Somehow, now, I was no longer so certain that my disposition, apparently already determined, would be as lofty and certain as I had hitherto conjectured.

I did not even want to go near the wall again, not even to the parapet. The board I had trod earlier was wide and, objectively, it was easy to tread, even hooded as I was. Certainly the folks of this world seem to have little fear of such narrow places. They are accustomed to them. They think little more of treading them than I might have of treading a sidewalk on my old world. Much depends on what is familiar to one, what one grows used to. Many of the “high bridges” in a city such as this would be regarded as quite alarming, at least initially, by most of those of Earth, as they might range from a foot to four or five feet wide, and arch over frightful drips, sometimes to a maze of bridges below, but these people, who have grown up with them, seldom give them a thought. The point of the high bridges seems to be twofold, first, they are lovely in their traceries against the sky and between the cylinderlike buildings, and such things are important to these people, who seem to have an unusually developed aesthetic sense and, second, they have military value, inasmuch as they are easy to defend. Each of these cylinders, in its way, can constitute a stronghold, a fortress or keep. To me, of course, traversing these bridges, particularly in the beginning, constituted a nightmare of terror. I would sometimes crawl on them, scarcely able to move. I would sometimes go to great lengths to avoid them, even though I must then hasten, gasping, running, on my errands, the message tube tied about my neck, my hands braceleted behind me, that I might not have been thought to have dallied. I am still uneasy on such bridges. My fears sometimes occasion amusement among the masters. But my fears, I have been told, are not unprecedented, and, indeed, are not unusual among girls of my sort, girls from my world. Brought here as slaves. But fortunately insouciance and thoughtlessness on the high bridges, common to those of this world, are not required of us. It is other things which are required of us.

I lay there on the flagging, on my side, helpless, bound hand and foot, for some time, while business was conducted. I could see the tiny tunic to one side, where it had been dropped. I made no effort to call attention to myself. It would be done with me as others pleased. I was slave. I did, at one point, see one of the men looking down at me. I pointed my toes a little, even with my ankles bound, and sucked in my waist, that the line of my legs, and the nature of my figure might be accentuated. I do not think that this was particularly because I realized that the means at my disposal to improve my life and condition here were largely limited to my beauty, heat, and service, but, rather, simply, because, under the eyes of a man, such a man as one of these, I could not help myself but behave as a slave, and perform as a slave, and present myself as the slave I was. He laughed, and I blushed, and, shamed, looked away.

Shortly thereafter the fellow who had conducted Dorna away, she preceding him with alacrity, returned to the terrace. With him was a grimy fellow in a leather apron with a tiny kit of tools.

Seeing he who had conducted Dorna away I thought immediately of her. Tonight, I recalled, she was to serve as the slave she was. Perhaps even now she was preparing herself, or perhaps, as she was high slave, she was being prepared by lesser slaves, for her “test.”

I was certain she would strive humbly and zealously to pass that test. I gathered it would not go well with her if she failed.

Somewhere else, I gathered, at another time, she had been a free woman and, it seems, an important personage. They had even spoken of a mask of silver, or gold, or such. Here, of course, her face was naked, and she was only another slave.

The man with the fellow who had returned to the terrace was, as I would later learn to recognize at a glance by his garb, a member of the leather workers. In many of the Gorean cities there is a caste structure which is significant not only socially but politically. The leather workers are a “low caste.” The high castes are normally accounted five in number — the Warriors, the Builders, the Physicians, the Scribes, and the Initiates. The Initiates are sometimes thought of as the highest of the five high castes, and the Warriors commonly produce the administrators and ubars for a city. It is not easy in a world such as this to deprive those who are skilled with weapons their share of authority. If it is not given to them, they will take it. There are some ambiguities in the caste structure. For example, some rank the Merchants as a high caste, and some do not; and some rank the Slavers with the Merchants, and some see them as a separate caste, and so on. It is usually a very serious thing to lose caste in this society. To be sure, not everyone has caste. Priest-Kings, for example, whoever they may be, have no caste. They are said to be “above caste.” Similarly, outlaws and slaves have no caste. Outlaws are thought to have relinquished caste, and, in a sense, thus, to be “out of caste,” and slaves, of course, as animals, are “below caste,” or, perhaps better, “aside from caste” or “apart from caste.” To be sure, I think there are others who also lack caste, really. Some may not have been raised “in caste,” some may decline or flee their castes before the initiations, and so on. Similarly, there are entire groups of people, as I understand it, barbarians, savages, and such, whose social arrangements are not based on caste. Very little on this world, and, I suppose, on others, is simple.

“Dorna is now a pierced-ear girl?” asked he in the chair of the fellow who had returned to the terrace.

“Yes, Captain,” said the fellow.

The man in the chair smiled. There was laughter from the men about. Some smote their left shoulders in approval. I had gathered earlier that the piercing of the ears was regarded on this world as somehow rather significant. That surmise was now confirmed.

“Slave,” said he in the chair to me.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I looked up at him from my side, where I lay. He had not ordered me to kneel. It seemed it was his will that I should retain my low position. It is difficult, of course, to get to one’s knees, bound as I was, but it can be done. If ordered to do so one strives to do so as quickly and gracefully as possible. We are expected to obey unhesitantly and swiftly, subject, of course, to the proviso that we should do so as well, as beautifully, as possible. These people have, as I have suggested, a highly developed aesthetic sense. They require beauty in their slaves, both in appearance and movement.

“Dorna,” said he, “has been a slave longer than you so it is fitting that it would be her ears which would first be pierced.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Accordingly,” he said, “even though she is a high slave and you are a low slave, you are, at this moment, as your ears have not been pierced, a thousand times higher than she.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I was, of course, puzzled by this. One thing seemed clear, once again, the apparent cultural momentousness of ear piercing on this world.

“But,” said he, “as soon as your ears are pierced, you will be, again, a thousand times lower than she.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He turned to the fellow in the apron. “Pierce her ears,” he said.

I could not resist, of course, bound as I was.

The leather worker put his tiny kit of tools down beside me, and, undoing a string, opened it, and spread it out.

“Kneel her,” he said.

A fellow seized me my the hair and pulled me up, painfully, to a kneeling position.

“Spread your knees,” he said.

I obeyed.

“Hold her head,” said the leather worker to the fellow who had knelt me.

He crouched behind me and fastened his hands in my hair, tightly. I could not move my head in the slightest without great pain. It hurt even as he held me. “Take her arms, you, and you,” said the leather worker to two other fellows. “Hold her down, on her knees.” The two fellows addressed them, one on each side of me, seized an arm. I was then held in place, bound hand and foot, down, on my knees, one man holding my head, by the hair, another holding my left arm, and another my right. Their grips were tight. I had little doubt that marks would be left on my arms. To me, of course, these precautions seemed not only unnecessary, but excessive. I did not much fear having my ears pierced. I gathered, however, that on this world many women might. Perhaps they would shriek and struggle, however futilely. I began to sense then, even more, how momentous ear piercing was on this world. This made me uneasy. If I had truly understood the meaning of ear piercing on this world perhaps I, too, I supposed, might have regarded it with horror, and striven to resist, however meaninglessly, however stupidly, however unavailingly and ineffectually. But I doubted it. As a slave it seemed to me fitting that my ears would be pierced, and that men would do with me as they wished. It was not lost on me, of course, that I was knelt. This was to make it clear, I gathered, that ear piercing was something that was done only to slaves. Too, the fellow who had pulled me up to my knees had told me to spread my knees. Thus, I would be kneeling as a certain sort of slave, when this was done to me. I would thus, I suppose, associate these two things, my ear piercing and the sort of slave I was.

I saw the leather worker with a bright, long needle.

I felt my left ear lobe drawn downward, taut. It was then pierced. There must have been a drop of blood, as the worker rubbed the ear with his thumb. He then inserted a tiny object, like a droplet with a steel pin, though the wound and, on the other side of the ear lobe, snapped on a tiny disk. These operations were then, with suitable adjustments, repeated with respect to the right ear lobe, even to the wiping away of what must have been another drop of blood. I was then released and allowed to lie on my back. The leather worker was then wiping his needle and returning it to his kit, which he then did up, as it had been. There had been very little pain, though I had felt a prick each time, and I could now feel the tiny rods through my ear lobes. It was a strand feeling. My ear lobes felt a little sore. This soreness, I realized, would quickly pass.

“You are now a pierced-ear girl,” the fellow in the apron informed me, grinning.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I sensed, frightened, he liked me that way.

“You are not to disturb this work,” said the man in the chair.

“No, Master,” I said. I gathered that some women, doubtless would of this world, might, perhaps in hysteria, try to tear such things from their ears.

The man in the apron stood up, and caught a coin in one hand, tossed to him by the fellow who had conducted him hither. The man in the apron then bowed, and, with another look at me, lying on my back, bound, on the flagging, took his leave.

One of the men looked down at me. “Pierced-ear girl,” he sneered.

I turned my head away. I did not dare to look at him.

I suddenly sensed a new, pervasive, remarkable interest in me. I sensed powerful heat. It was almost like waves of flame. I lay there, small and helpless, a naked, bound slave at the mercy of masters. Was there now so much that was now so different about me?

“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair, sharply.

“Yes, Captain!” said the jailer.

“This is not the time for us to amuse ourselves with a slave,” said the man in the chair.

“No, Captain,” said Tenrik.

In a moment it seemed that order was restored.

Whereas the remark had been ostensively addressed to Tenrik it had obviously not been intended for him, or for him in particular, but, by means of him, so to speak, had been a remark addressed to all.

I gathered the remark, of course, that there might well be times when such as I might be given up for the amusement of men, but that this was not such a time.

Too, I gathered that there was discipline in this place, and here I do not speak of such things as the correctives and admonitives, however sure, strict and sever, to which an errant slave might find herself subjected, but of sterner stuff, the discipline of the military, that of the Warrior, that discipline necessary for the raid, the engagement, that required for decisive and coordinated action in highly dangerous circumstances, and, even, too, that other sort of discipline, the long, slow, staying sort of discipline, that which might be required for weeks and months, even years, that tenacity, that sturdiness, needed for the sometimes seemingly endless rigors and privations of campaigns, and wars.

I rose a bit, on my elbows, my wrists tied behind me.

I looked about a bit. Some of the men were still regarding me. But they would not act, not now.

I was safe now, at least for a time.

I looked away from the eyes of a man, frightened. His eyes might as well have been those of a lion.

But I was safe now.

The eyes of others, too, were as those of lions.

I shuddered.

How fearful it must be for any woman to be among such men, let along one such as I, a slave!

I felt as though I might be a delicacy, one which, had it not been for a word from he in the chair, would by now have been seized and devoured. But on this world there were doubtless many such delicacies, silked and perfumed, combed and belled, deliciously curved, trained, eager to please. Might they not be encountered in any tavern? Indeed, I had at one time thought that I might be sent to such a tavern. Girls such as I, from my world, are apparently popular purchases with tavern keepers.

I lay there before the dais, helpless, but now, apparently, quite safe.

But I felt somehow angry, somehow vaguely dissatisfied, even irritated.

What sort of girl was I?

How pleased I was that I was now safe!

They could not touch me now!

But my belly seemed aflame. My ears had been pierced! I had some sense now as to what that might mean to men such as these. I could feel the tiny rods in my ear lobes.

But I was safe now. How pleased I was!

But I was somehow angry.

I went to my back, lying on my crossed wrists, they below the small of my back. This arched my body somewhat, lifting my belly up, having my head a bit down. I breathed quickly, deeply, prominently, two or three times, and moved my shoulders a little, twisting them, and lifted my knees a bit. I did this though I knew the eyes of several were upon me. How foolish this was, for would it not call attention to the slave at their feet? But surely this was all quite innocent, and quite unintentional, or, at least, must be seemingly so. What woman would dare to stir thusly before such men, even in all innocence, in all inadvertence, almost like a restless, frustrated, yearning, begging slave, on attempting to call attention to herself, surely only one naive, or one reckless, or one oblivious to, or heedless of, what she might be doing. Did she not understand how such things might be viewed? Had she not considered the danger of provoking them, of even in some subtle way perhaps igniting their heats and needs? How foolish must such a woman be! Might not such movements, all innocent and unintentional as they might be, be misconstrued? Might they not even been understood as slave moments? I glanced to one of the men. I am not sure then precisely what happened. I think an expression of irritation, or of annoyance, may have crossed my features, perhaps fleetingly, ending perhaps in a tiny smile, perhaps in an as-if-triumphant little smile, as I turned my head away. I was safe from him. He could not have me now! This was all subtle, you understand. Even now I am not quite certain of everything that occurred in that moment, or half moment. What I think I may have done was to convey, or seem to convey, my contempt for them, subtly, challengingly, that I had not been seized and ravished and, at the same time, slyly, vaunt my immunity from their predations. I was, I suppose, in my way, taunting them. This was, of course, a mistake. It was not one I would make again.

“Slut!” cried a man.

“Oh!” I cried in pain, kicked.

“Throw her to sleen!” called another.

“No, please, Masters!” I wept. “Oh! Oh!” I cried, twice more kicked.

“Take that, slave!” cried another.

“Oh!” I wept.

“And that!” cried another.

“And that!” cried yet another.

“Oh! Oh!” I wept.

“Bring the whip!” cried a man.

“No, Masters!” I begged.

“I have it,” cried another.

“Please, no, Masters!” I begged.

Down came the lash!

“What have I done?” I cried.

“Stupid slave!” cried a man.

“Lying slave!” cried another.

Again and again the lash fell.

“Forgive me, Masters!” I cried, writhing bound under the last. “Forgive me! Forgive me, Masters!”

“It is enough,” announced the man in the chair. “She is new to her collar, and yet naive.”

“She must learn quickly,” snarled a man.

“Kneel, slave,” said the man in the chair.

I struggled to my knees and knelt before the dais. I put my head down to the floor before the first step of the dais.

“You are a pathetic spectacle, Earth girl,” said he in the great chair.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master!”

“In the future,” said he, “you will be concerned to be more pleasing, will you not?”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “Yes, Master!”

“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.

“Yes, Captain,” said huge Tenrik.

“Lift up the state slave,” said he.

Tenrik lifted me up, in his arms. My weight was as nothing to him.

“She is to be sent below, into the keeping of the pit master.”

“The Tarsk?” asked a man.

“What a waste,” said a man.

“It seems a pity,” said one of the men, oddly enough the one who had just used the whip on me.

“This one is pretty,” said a man. “And I think she will learn quickly to serve. Choose another.”

“This one has not been particularly purchased because she is pretty,” said the man in the chair, “though I do not expect the Tarsk will object to her particular configuration of visage and curves.”

“I should think not,” said a man.

“The Tarsk is a lucky beast,” said a fellow.

“She has been purchased primarily for her ignorance,” said the man in the chair.

“She is not as ignorant now as she was a few moments ago,” said a man.

“No,” laughed another.

“What are her duties?” asked a man.

“She will be one of the pit slaves,” said the man in the chair, “kenneled like the others, serving like them, as the Tarsk directs.”

“Beyond that, what are her special duties?” asked a man.

“These have been made clear to the Tarsk,” said the man in the chair.

“I see,” said the fellow.

“The Tarsk will see to it that she performs them,” said the man in the chair.

“And doubtless others as well,” said a man.

“Yes,” smiled the man in the chair.

There was laughter.

“The descent is cleared, to the depths,” said the man in the chair.

I understood very little of this. I was miserable. I lay on the stones. I was a bound, lashed slave. I knew only that I must strive to be more pleasing to the masters. I would so strive! I would so strive! Please Masters, I thought, I will, I will try to be better! Please, Masters, do not lash me further! I will obey! I will try to be more pleasing!

A hood was put over my head and buckled shut under my chin.

Why was this done?

The jailer turned about with me in his arms. He walked about for a bit, turning this way and that, at one angle or another, proceeding for one distance or another. Sometimes he reversed himself. At other times he spun about, accomplishing various numbers of rotations and partial rotations. I was totally disoriented. I no longer knew where I was with respect to the dais, even whether near it or not. I might have been somewhere near the center of the of the surface; I might have been at an edge; I did not know.

I heard a lifting of stone, almost at our feet, one or more of the tiles, or flaggings, apparently having been moved. I then heard what sounded like a wooden trap being lifted, one which had perhaps been hidden beneath the flaggings.

The jailer set me down on stone.

I felt a rope passed before me and then under my arms, the loose ends behind me. It was drawn back, tight against me.

“What of her tunic?” asked a man. I had put the tunic aside, a few feet before the dais, shortly after I had come to the surface of the tower. It had been the desire of the man in the great chair that the slave be bared. Too, he had had her turn before him, slowly. In this fashion may a woman be assessed. There are many names for this sort of performance. It is sometimes called the “dance of the displayed slave,” though it is not really a dance; sometimes it is called “block movements” or “circle movements,” from the fact that such movements are sometimes called for on the salves block or within the exhibition circle; sometimes they are called “cage movements,” from the necessity of performing them upon request in the exhibition cages, and so on. If the man “calls” the movements, the activity is sometimes spoken of as putting the girl “through her paces,” and so on. Perhaps the easiest way of thinking about them is to think of them simply as display movements or exhibition movements. Their most obvious purpose is to help make clear the beauty of a slave, by displaying it in a variety of movements, attitudes, and poses.

“It will be given to another,” said a man.

“The Tarsk will now decide whether or not she is to be permitted clothing,” said another man.

“True,” laughed another.

I was moved slightly, and my feet suddenly slipped downward. I drew my feet back up, quickly. My body was thrust forward a bit. Again my feet slipped downward. I whimpered. I pulled my feet back a little. I could feel something like wood against my lower right calf. The hood was unbuckled, but not removed from me. I felt the rope which had passed before my body and then under my arms tighten even more. As it pulled inward against me both the ends, behind me, must have been in the hands of one man. I felt a hand reach to the hood, to its top, which would doubtless draw it away. I was then suddenly, without warning, thrust forward, and, as I cried out with alarm, I descended, in which descent the hood, by my motion downward and the grip on the hood was removed from me, which descent, after a yard or so, was arrested by the rope. I looked up, wildly. I could see, putting my head back, through a trap above me, the sky, the two ends of the rope behind me, and some of the men. I did not have the least idea where the trap opened on the surface. I was within some sort of sectioned metal tube, perhaps a yard in diameter. I could see riveted seams here and there. Had I been free I might have controlled my descent in such a device but I was bound. “Masters!” I cried. I saw one of the ends of the rope released and it whipped downward under my left arm, across my body, half turning me, back under my right arm and upward. “Please, no!” I shrieked. I was descending in the tube and the rectangle of sky above me shrunk and disappeared, and, in a moment, even the dimness of light was gone, and I spun about, turning, crying out in misery, spiraling downward though the darkness. The descent had been cleared, I had heard, to the “depths.” Thus, it seemed, there might be different levels accessible from this tube. Its major purpose presumably had to do with the rapid, perhaps secret deployment of troops among levels. Too, obviously it might serve for an emergency evacuation of the surface. It was more protected and less susceptible to fire than ladders and stairwells. It gave a possibility, too, for the immediate securing of loot. Suppose a pursuit was hard-pressed. Might not treasures be safely herein committed? Perhaps a captive free woman dared entertain hopes of rescue, but she then finds herself, clad only in her slave bracelets, whirling helplessly downward, toward what fate she knows not, in the very bowels of the city. Too, most easily by means of ropes, the tube might be ascended, and, in such a way, defenders might appear unexpectedly on any given level. Even the surface might be regained.

“Masters! Masters!” I wept.

I plunged, and spun and slid downward. I was in utter darkness. The tube tended to spiral. Sometimes the descent was relatively slow, and sometimes it was more precipitous. After a little I was gasping, buffeted and weeping, seemingly struck from one side to another. I tried to catch my breath. I wept. I do not know how long the descent took. Doubtless it did not take long, but sometimes it seemed as though it would never end. There was the darkness, the movement, the terror. It is difficult to judge time in such matters. Then I felt myself plunge into a stout, yielding, reticulated surface. Closely meshed cords were now all about me. They were tight. I swung back and forth. The device had been closed, it seemed, by my weight.