Witness of Gor

13

I awakened, kicked.

“Awaken,” said a voice, “weak-stomached slut.”

“I am awake, Master!” I wept.

“Oh!” I cried, again kicked.

I lay on the walkway, on the toils of the net, on my stomach. I was still bound, as I had been.

“Kneel,” said he.

“Master!” I begged.

But he did not qualify, or rescind, his order.

I struggled to comply. Twice I fell, groaning. I feared I might be beaten. Masters are seldom patient with us.

“Master!” I begged, again.

But he was silent.

Again I struggled to comply.

Then, sore, and gasping, I was successful!

A frightened slave girl now knelt before him, naked, and bound hand and foot.

It was I.

I dared not look again on that monstrous head, with its hideous features. The female slave, standing nearby with the torch, had said I need not look upon it, unless commanded to do so.

I kept my eyes down.

He was standing before me.

I could see his sandals.

I bent forward, from the waist, and, putting my head down, pressed my lips to his sandals, licking and kissing them.

And thus did I, a slave girl on an exotic world, seek to placate he who was to me in this place as master.

“Do the women of your world seek to placate thusly the men of their world?” he asked.

“Doubtless some, Master,” I said.

“But it is done rarely?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“But it is not done rarely on this world,” he said.

“No, Master,” I said.

“And you are now of this world,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You lick and kiss well,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” I said. I loved to render such obeisance to men. It seemed, somehow, so very real, and fulfilling to me. In such a humble act I acknowledged, and honored, not only the maleness of a given individual, of a given master, but, in a sense, all maleness, and the might of the mastery, and expressed, lovingly, in joy and tenderness, my femaleness. There is something profoundly symbolic in this simple act. I find it very moving. To be sure, it can be performed under many quite different circumstances and conditions. Sometimes one performs it in timidity, or even terror. Sometimes one may perform it as a way of pleading, even, for one’s life. And this thing to which I now addressed these attentions, I knew, might not even be human. It seemed to me, in effect, a monster. But it seemed to me, still, this way of rendering obeisance, to be a way of expressing even to it, even to what was perhaps some sort of monster, that I was a slave, and desired to be pleasing. I was, after all, subject to its domination, as I would have been to an individual master, one who had, say, bought me off a block.

He bent down and lifted me up, and then sat me back, my back against the retaining wall, separating the well-like enclosure from the walkway.

“Can you untie her ankles?” he asked the female slave.

“I do not think so,” she whispered. She has struggled futilely with the knots. They were, it seemed, beyond her strength.

The shape then bent down and, with its great hands, undid the knots. He did this easily.

I was then lifted to my feet. I stood unsteadily.

“We will show her the pool,” said the creature.

I did not look at him. I kept my eyes away from his visage.

“Yes, Master,” said the slave with the torch.

The three of us stood then near the wall. I was still unsteady. The walkway went all about the well-like enclosure. I could see other passages opening from it, here and there.

“Beat her!” called the free woman from the cage.

The pit master regarded her. The slave with the torch lifted it higher.

“She told me she was a free woman!” said the free woman.

“Did you tell her that?” asked the creature.

“No!” I said, frightened. “I did not tell her that!”

“Do you think you are a free woman?” he asked.

“No, Master!” I said.

“What are you?”

“A slave, Master!” I cried.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said, “only a slave, only that!”

“Did you let her believe you to be a free woman?” asked the creature.

“Yes, Master” I moaned.

“See!” cried the free woman.

“You should have informed her instantly that you were only a slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“She told me she was of the Peasants!” said the free woman.

“No!” I cried. “I never said that!”

“You permitted her to believe it?” asked the pit master.

“Yes, Master,” I whispered.

“You should not have done that,” he said.

“I am new to your world, Master!” I said.

“You must learn our ways more quickly,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You must be punished,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“And was she never even of the Peasants?” asked the free woman.

“No,” said the pit master. “She has always been casteless.”

“She was not even once of the lowest of castes?” inquired the free woman, puzzled.

“She has always been casteless, completely,” said the pit master.

I could sense that this puzzled the free woman.

“As an animal?” asked the free woman.

“Yes,” said the pit master.

I thought of the woman of my world. Certainly the vast majority of us did not have caste. How natural then that we should be put in collars! And even if we had caste our castes would doubtless not be respected by these men. They would simply take them from us, making us their slaves. There had been two girls from India, beauties both, in my training group. Certainly they had not found themselves regarded any different, or treated any differently, from the rest of us, whether from Germany, or Japan, or the United States, or elsewhere. Their caste had been taken from them. They, too, as we, were now only slaves. They learned to lick and kiss the whip as quickly, as delicately, as the rest of us. And, indeed, the vast majority of female slaves on this world would surely be native to this world, and would, thus, presumable, have once had caste. But, in being enslaved, they were stripped of their caste. In the end, it seemed, there were no castes, only men, and women.

“She is a barbarian?” asked the woman.

“Yes,” said the pit master. He spoke to her, I supposed, because she was free.

“I knew that!” she said. “I could tell from her accent, which is terrible.”

“She speaks well,” said the pit master.

I undoubtedly did have an accent. On the other hand, I gathered that I spoke the language quite well, considering my limited time on this world. One might mention that the language, as far as I can tell, is spoken with a great variety of accents. For example, the men in the pens spoke quite differently from those I had encountered on the surface of the tower. Too, there seemed to be class differences even in given areas. I had heard my accent spoken of, incidentally, as a “slave accent,” of which there were apparently several. On the other hand, the free woman had apparently not take it as such. Perhaps if she had seen me in a slave tunic, kneeling before her, she might have done so. I supposed it would be impossible for me to ever completely eradicate the “slave accent” from my speech. I had not, for example, learned the language as a child. Too, there were certain words, and combinations of words, in this language I found it impossible to pronounce like a native speaker. Too, if I grew excited, or confused, I would surely betray myself by some slip. Too, some utterance in my native tongue might escape me in dreaming. And there were numerous other ways, too, physical and otherwise, in which my origins might be betrayed, such as a vaccination mark and two tiny fillings. The latter, for example, would surely be discovered when a possible buyer checked the condition of my teeth. Too, I would be ignorant of thousands of things which would be common knowledge to natives of this world. Too, I would never had an opportunity to learn many of these things, secret sayings and such, for it is forbidden to teach them to slaves. The important thing, of course, is not the accent, or what one knows, but what one is. Even the most informed and sophisticated women of this world, you see, once she is enslaved, becomes instantly, doubtless to her horror, no more than a property, an animal, that which must serve, that which may be done with as the master pleases.

“Fellow,” said the free woman.

“Yes?” said the pit master.

“What nonsense was it,” asked the free woman, “your talk about another “world” or such?”

“It is not nonsense,” said the pit master. “She comes from another world.”

“I have heard of such things,” said the free woman. “Are they true?”

“Yes,” said the pit master. He then put his hand in my hair and forced me forward, more in the light of the torch. I literally now felt the height of the wall against my thighs. I did not like standing so close to it. A small pressure could have forced me over the wall, tumbling to the dark waters below. To be sure, his hand was in my hair, holding me. I felt very helpless. My hands were still tied tightly behind my back. “Here is the proof,” he said. By his grasp on my hair he pressed me further forward, more tightly against the wall, and then, holding me there, he pulled my head back by the hair, to better show my collar. “A barbarian slave girl,” he said.

“Beat her!” cried the free woman. “Beat her!” she wrung her hands. “How she humiliated me,” she cried, “letting me thing her free, letting me thing she held caste! How demeaned I have been, speaking to one who was only bond!”

He pulled my head back, further.

I whimpered.

He held me there, thusly. And thus was I exhibited naked, and bound and collared, in the torchlight, in that dark place, before another woman, I only a barbarian slave.

“Insolent slave!” cried the free woman. “Insolent slave!”

The cage actually moved on its chain, so incensed she was.

“I was speaking to a barbarian slave!” cried the free woman, in misery, dismayed, furious.

I had not known what I should have done! I had been frightened, and bound, in the darkness. But of course I should have known what I should have done! Certainly I had been fearful enough in the darkness, filled with enough trepidation concerning her presumptions. Did I not know the differences between such as I and such as she? Was I not such that I would at best be privileged to serve her deferentially at table-briefly tunicked, were men present, were she a thoughtful hostess, for their pleasure-my head down, not meeting her eyes, not even daring to speak to her? Or perhaps one such as she might have me serve garbed in a long, sleeveless demurely white serving gown, my hair bound back, that I not be too distractive to the males, save perhaps for the collar on my neck. She would not wish to remove the collar, of course, but, too, she must know its effect on males, that is says that she who wears it is kajira, in effect, theirs. Most slave garments, incidentally, are sleeveless. I am not sure why that is, but it seems to be another way of drawing a distinction between slave and free. I suppose it has to do with the baring of flesh, which is regarded not only as acceptable for a slave, but, in the case of an animal, which she is, appropriate. It is also a way of helping the slave keep in mind that she is a slave. The contrast with the robes of concealment is obvious. I think, incidentally, that the robes of concealment must be terribly uncomfortable in the summer. In hot weather free women often wear sliplike garments in the privacy of their own quarters. In slavers’ raids they are not unoften surprised and discommoded in such a state of charming dishabille. Their appearance is so fetching in such garments that they are sometimes permitted to retain them until caged in the hunting camp. They might also be presented in such garments in their sale-at the beginning, I should say, of their sale. One might mention, in passing, that Gorean men find the entire female sexually stimulating, not just, say, the legs, the bosom, the derriere, and so on. They can also be excited by the throat, a wrist, and certainly the arms, and so on. Too, perhaps surprisingly, from the point of view of at least some men of Earth, they are interested in what is going on inside of her, as well, in her internal world, so to speak, in her thoughts, her feelings, her emotions, and such. These women are properties, you see, and men, as is well known, take a great interest in their properties. Why not, they belong to them, they own them. I think it is indisputable that the average Gorean master knows a great deal more about his slave or slaves, inside and out, so to speak, than the average husband does of his wife. How many husbands, for example, will kneel their wife down naked and have her talk to him for two or three hours at a time? One, of course, learns a great deal about a woman in this way, and very quickly. The whole slave is bared to the master, not just her lovely body. She cannot help this, this exposure of her so fully, for she must keep talking. She will reveal more and more of herself, regardless of her wishes. One cannot help that. The speaking, too, of course, may be directed by questions and commands, and, if necessary, with blows of the switch. A woman under this regimen, so fiercely dominated, cannot keep shut the doors of her heart. She must open them, sooner or later, whether she wishes to or not. She finds that she is helpless. She must bare more and more of herself to the master. He will have it no other way, and thus he learns her, and she, before him, on her knees, knows herself learned. Too, this practice has its effect on the slave as, by its means, she finds herself, despite what she may initially will, becoming more and more his. After as little as a few days, subject to this enforced and prolonged intimacy, she begins to find the master irresistible, and she longs to give herself to him. But he may starve her for physical contact until one day he snaps the whip and permits her to crawl to his feet, as she fervently wishes to do, and beg to serve him. She wears his collar. Will he not permit her to please him? She begs him to effectuate the mastery, as though he had not already done so, and put her to his pleasure.

“She is new to our world,” said the pit master, somewhat angrily.

“She should know better!” screamed the free woman.

“True,” said the pit master.

“She is stupid!” cried the woman. “She is stupid!”

“She is extremely intelligent,” said the pit master, “considering what she is, a slave.” He had doubtless been expecting me here, and had doubtless been apprised of the contents of my papers. I was glad to learn that I might be thought to be intelligent, if only for a slave. Such things, I had learned, considerable improve a girl’s price. The men on this world relish intelligent women. We make, it is said, the best slaves. How they make us serve and obey!

More is expected, you see, of an intelligent slave. Demands are placed on her intelligence. It is challenged, and exploited. She is in the beginning perhaps its lamenting victim, for she is treated with such impatient severity and so much is expected of her, but is soon, as she grows, blossoms and thrives in her bondage, and as her master is more pleased with her, the joyful recipient of its attendant benefactions. Intelligent, she derives more from the uncompromising completeness of her state and the deliciousness of her domination. She is expected, you see, to serve with sensitivities, delicacies, diligences and subtleties beyond the ken of simpler women. Our intelligence, interestingly, makes us more the properties of our masters, just as one will demand, and have, more from an intelligent animal than from one less intelligent, we are more easily controlled in a thousand ways by as little as a glance or gesture, because we grasp what is required; our bodies, too, tend to be more sensitive, and this puts us the more at the mercy of our masters, and any disciplines he may choose to impose upon us; if we attempt to conceal our intelligence, in order to have less expected of us, we are whipped; our service is to be perfect, and well beyond that of a less intelligent woman; too, our faults or shortcomings are dealt with more severely, for we should know better. Too, for what it is workth, intelligent women are commonly better looking than less intelligent women, a feature which is not without its appeal to masters, and one which makes them more likely candidates for the slavers’ ropes and irons; too, they also tend to be more helplessly responsive in the arms of a master. They tend, as well, to be more in touch with their inner selves and secret needs, and less the victims of negativistic conditioning programs. The intelligent women often knows what she is missing and what she wants, whereas the less intelligent woman is often little more than the troubled, unwitting victim of the prescriptions and pathologies of a negativistic culture within which she is, unbeknownst to herself, imprisoned.

“I am a helpless free women,” said the free woman, wheedlingly, “and you are a free man. I have been insulted. I must depend upon you to see that my honor is suitable satisfied.”

“The barbarian slave will be suitably punished,” he said.

“Excellent!” she said.

The pit master, in spite of the power which he doubtless held in this place, even over prisoners, as I had been informed, seemed concerned to treat the free woman with respect. This, I gathered, might be cultural, or perhaps he, somehow, oddly, despite his grotesque appearance, might be sensitive to some subtle canons of gentility. I had noted that the guards in the pens had similarly shown great deference to free women. To be sure, those free women might have been important, and they were certainly not prisoners. This deference, it might be mentioned, had not precluded, later, and the next day, the women gone, a number of rude jokes pertaining to the, nor some rather explicit speculations as to what they might look like, chained naked to a floor ring. The respect commonly shown to free women on this world is not, of course, accorded to slaves. It would never have occurred to the pit master, or to other men of this world, to treat me as other than what I was, a slave. How different we are from free women! And yet, interestingly, how artificial, and how fragile, and how culturally precarious, is the distinction between the free women and the slave. Do the free women understand that that distinction is not part of nature, like dominance and submission, but that it depends merely on the will of men? Do they not understand that their lofty status requires the permission of males, and, in a sense, depends upon the whims of males? There is a thin line, and a short distance, between the free woman and the slave, a line as thin as slave silk, a distance as short as the three links joining slave bracelets.

“What of my ransom?” called the free woman. “Has it arrived?”

“No,” said the pit master.

“Surely it is overdue!” she cried, grasping the bars of the cage.

“I do not know,” said the pit master.

“Well, inquire!” she cried.

The pit master was silent. I did not think he was pleased. He removed his hand from my hair. Instantly I knelt, head down, near him.

“Inquire!” demanded the free woman. The pit master was silent.

“Expedite the matter!” she cried, shaking the bars. He was silent.

“Please, my handsome fellow,” she wheeled.

“Lift the torch, higher,” said the pit master, slowly, as though curious, to the lovely brunette slave beside him.

As none were paying me attention I dared to look up. Should the pit master turn to regard me I would instantly look down, and away. I did not wish to appear insolent, meeting his eyes. Too, I was not eager to behold again that visage.

The ceiling flickered wildly in the illumination of the torch.

Suddenly the pit master, that shambling creature, who had apparently been curious to look more closely upon something, uttered an angry noise.

The slave with the torch gasped.

She, too, it seemed, had noted something.

The free woman in the cage stepped back a little.

The pit master pointed toward the bottom of the cage. The cage, as the net had had, had various ropes attached to it. By these robes, I surmised, once it was lowered on its chain, perhaps by some sort of windlass, it might be drawn toward the walkway.

“What is wrong?” asked the free woman.

I gathered that she might, from her words, have some conception as to what might be wrong.

“Remove the cloth,” said he, “from the latch.”

“No!” she wept. “Please!”

But she obeyed. The cage, apparently, opened and closed from the bottom, gated by a hinged plate. She had tied something, probably a strip of cloth from the bottom of her robes, which were ragged now, in such a way as to prevent the release of the floor. A cord, coiled on the walkway, ran the latch. By drawing on this cord it seemed the latch could be released. She stood in the cage, over the water. In her hand was the piece of cloth.

The pit master reached to the cord which controlled the latch.

“Please, no!” she cried.

“How,” asked the pit master, “is a female prisoner who is a free woman to address her jailer?”

“As ‘sir’!” she cried.

“You seem, hitherto, to have omitted that courtesy,” he observed.

“’Sir,’ ‘sir,’ sir’!” she wept.

“You must understand,” he said, “that in this place you are mine.”

“Yes, sir!” she wept.

“Hold to the bars,” he said.

Desperately, weeping, she clung to them. I gathered that she might have experienced something of this sort before.

He jerked the cord and it sprang the latch, and the bottom plate of the cage, she screaming with terror, I, too, crying out in terror, dropped down, on its hinge. She slipped partly through the opening, and then scrambled back within the cage, clinging to the bars, her feet trying to find some purchase there.

The cloth she had held floated down to the water.

Instantly I heard a rushing, a stirring in the water, a turmoil there, and the ripping of cloth, and an angry squealing.

I could not see what was there.

The free woman was screaming.

I almost fainted.

The pit master then went to a wheel set in the wall and, turning it, bit by bit, foot by foot, lowered the cage toward the water.

“Sir, sir!” screamed the free woman, as the cage, foot by foot, descended.

“Show the slave the pool,” said the pit master.

“Up, slave, to the wall,” said the brunette with the torch.

I rose up. I could hardly stand, so frightened I was. I did not want to approach the wall too closely. I was afraid of falling. My hands were bound behind me. What if I should lose my balance? How could I protect myself?

“Closer!” said the brunette slave.

I came closer to the wall, looked, gasped, cried out in terror, and shrank back.

The free woman was hysterical in the cage.

“Look!” commanded the brunette slave.

I came forward, again, and looked. In the water, swirling about, were several dark, sleek shapes. I had never seen anything like them. They seemed like some form of rodent, but they were far too large. They were not like the six-legged creatures. I had seen before, that on the ledge, that on the surface of the tower.

“Urts,” said the female slave with the torch.

I saw some of these things now, their fur wet, their ears back against the sides of their heads, leaping upward, trying to reach the cage.

Then the cage stopped descending.

The free woman tried to draw herself higher into the cage.

I could see in the torchlight, a moment before it broke the surface, one of the beasts, swimming rapidly upward from it, erupting from it, and I saw its full body, shedding water, its neck extended, its jaws open, its forepaws down against its body, streamlining its shape, its hind legs extended, it leaping upward, then yards above the surface of the torn, dark pool, and then it seemed to pause in the air, and then, snarling, just short of the cage, it dropped back into the pool. Water splashed up. It drenched the cage, the feet of the free woman. I felt it even on my body, where I stood. Other beasts, too, now essayed the leap. They, gathering force, swimming swiftly in ever widening, preparatory circles just under the water, would plunge down, yards from the cage, and then ascend rapidly, spearing upward, snapping, from the water. Then, in rage, in frustration, they would drop back in the water. Closer and closer they came. The brunette slave held the torch back that its flame might not be extinguished by the drenching water. One of the beasts caught a bottom circling bar of iron in its teeth. It swung for a moment from the cage. Its forepaws fought for purchase at the cage, but the claws scratched futilely on the dangling solid gate, forcing it back on its hinges. The free woman screamed. It snapped at the free woman, in this action losing its hold on the cage. Again she screamed, the thing just below her. Then, snarling and squealing, it fell back into the water. Its jaws had been no more than inches from the feet of the free woman. Another beast leaped upward, falling just short of her, its snout actually within the opened cage. Some beasts did not leap upward but remained patiently, tensely quiescent in the wide circle in the water, a circle ranging about the cage. They lay there, almost flat in the water, mostly submerged.

One could see their nostrils, their eyes, the top of their glistening heads, the ears back against the sides of the heads. Their bodies were oriented in such a way as to face the center of the circle. The free woman could climb no higher in the cage. She clung within it, sobbing and hysterical, like a small, wet, trembling, terrified bird. Up leapt another of the beasts and it caught a hem of her ragged robes in its teeth and tore a strip from them, which it bore with it back to the dark pool. Again she screamed. I could now see a flash of calf within her robes. It was not a poorly turned calf. I thought she might be acceptable as a slave. Again and again she screamed. Then the pit master, slowly, reversed the wheel and, bit by bit, raised the cage, until it was level with the wall. The free woman clung within it, her feet drawn up. The pit master left the wheel and took the cord. He snapped it up, and the cage floor, flung up, snapped into place. To be sure, so little as another tug, like the first, would once again release it.

“Release the bars,” he said to the free woman. “Stand on the floor of the cage, in its center, your hands closely at your sides.”

Trembling, she obeyed.

I saw the cord taut between the hand of the pit master and the latch.

The slightest tug on the cord would spring the latch, dropping the floor of the cage, which was its gate, plunging her helplessly to the cold, dark waters below, to the jaws of the waiting beasts.

“You are never again,” said he, “to impede, or attempt to impede, the operation of the latch.”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“The cage must be such,” said he, “that at any time, perhaps even when you sleep, the latch may be released. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sire,” she said, weakly.

How helpless she was! How vulnerable must be one in such a confinement!

“Understand, too,” said he, “that the cage is designed for naked, shackled, shaved-headed slave girls.”

The nudity of the imprisoned slave, I supposed, aside from the usual purposes of such, such as to protect clothing from being soiled, to help her keep in mind that she is a slave, and such, as to prevent the possible use of clothing to secure the latch. The shaved-headedness of the, aside from the usual purpose of such, which is punishment, would doubtless be to prevent the attempt on their part to secure the gate by means of their hair. Shaved-headedness, of course, is not always a punishment. It is sometimes done for hygienic purposes, as on slave ships, and for safety purposes, as in factories. Too, a girl’s head may be shaved simply to obtain the hair, which may then be sold. For example, our shorn hair may be sold to jobbers who deal with the manufacturers of artillery and siege equipment. Our “pelting,” as it is sometimes referred to in the trade, is apparently considerably superior to hempen strands for use as catapult cordage. Slave girls, it might be mentioned, normally have long hair, as it is very beautiful, and much may be done with it, both cosmetically, so to speak, and in the furs. Too, we may even be bound with it. The shackling in such a cage, of course, aside from its common purposes, such as showing that the female is a slave, enhancing her beauty, and such, would make it difficult or impossible for her to prevent her slipping through the opening of the cage. This would particularly be the case if her hands were shackled behind her and her angles were shackled closely together.

“I am kept in a slave cage?” she said.

“Yes,” said he.

“I am a free woman,” she said. “I protest!”

“Your protest is noted, and overruled,” he said.

“May I removed my arms from my sides?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

She continued to stand in the center of the cage, her arms at her sides. The cord was still taut between his hand and the latch.

“We have been until now indulgent with you,” he said. “But you have abused our lenience. If you should dare again to attempt to interfere with the possible function of the cage you will find yourself within it as though you might be a slave girl. You will be shackled within it, naked, and with your head shaved. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“You may remove your hands from your sides,” he said.

Swiftly, gratefully, she seized the bars, putting her arms about them. It seemed she scarcely dared to stand on the floor of the cage, that constituting, too, its gate.

“You are gloveless,” he said. “Your hands have been stripped.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And your feet have been stripped,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And your face, too, as you doubtless realize,” said he, “might be stripped, your features revealed to all and sundry.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And you realize that your body, too, might be stripped,” he said, “utterly.”

“Yes, sire,” she said.

“You understand all this?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” she moaned.

“Be good,” he said to her.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes, what?” asked he.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

He went then again to the wheel, at the wall, and, turning the crank, began to raise the cage. She moaned. As the cage rose the various ropes, and the cord extending to the latch, uncoiled from their respective places. And still there were many coils left. He now raised the cage to a point much higher than it had been at first. It hung now, swinging on its chain, but a foot or two below the lofty vaulted ceiling. The torch hardly reached so high. If the latch were sprung now she would plunge perhaps twenty yards before striking the surface of the pool.

“Sir!” called the free woman, from high above. “Sir! Please, sir!” There was a ring to her voice, from the stone of the chamber.

The pit master looked up at the cage. The brunette slave lifted the torch a little higher.

As the demonstration, or whatever it might have been, for the benefit of the free woman, and perhaps, too, for my benefit, seemed to have been concluded, I knelt. Indeed, it was hard to stand. I was shaken. I was trembling. Too, ofcourse, in the presence of a free person, or persons, this is an appropriate, and common, posture for slaves. When a free person enters a room, unless we are serving another, or something of such a sort, we commonly kneel. Even if we are naked in the furs, we will commonly kneel, perhaps then merely to be thrown back upon them.

And so, unbidden, I knelt, a slave.

“How progress negotiations pertinent to my ransom?” she called down.

“I do not even know if there are such negotiations,” he said.

“What?” she cried.

“I have no information pertaining to such,” said he.

“Surely I have not been forgotten!” she cried.

“I do not know,” said he.

“Surely negotiations proceed!” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“In this very city!” she said.

“No,” said he. “Such negotiations, if there are such, would be conducted elsewhere, perhaps even thousands of pasangs away.” That was, I gathered, a great distance.

“Is it not known that I am here?” she begged.

“No,” said he. “It is not known that you are here.”

“How long must I stay here?” called the free woman.

“I do not know,” said he. “Perhaps for years, perhaps forever.”

The free woman, far above us, cried out with dismay. I heard the bars shaken. I heard her weeping.

I put my head down, swiftly, for I was now illuminated by the torch.

“Stand,” said he.

I struggled to my feet, as quickly as I could. If one knows what is wise for one, one obeys the men of this world instantly, and as perfectly as possible.

He took the rope which had bound my ankles and looped it about my bound wrists, behind me.

“Bend over, at the waist,” said he.

I did so, and he took the double strand of the rope looped about my wrists and brought it forward, between my legs, and then looped it up again, separating the strands, passed one over my collar and then tied it to the other. In this fashion was my head held down. This is not uncommon tie. It may also function to keep a kneeling girl’s head down. It is useful in learning deference. A similar tie, but one which immobilizes the slave, utilizes a short tether running from her bound ankles to the front of her collar. In these ways any pressure which might be exerted is exerted at the back of the neck. The front of the throat is, of course, as you are doubtless well aware, easily damaged and is to be carefully protected. Similar precautions occur with several other forms of domestic animal, as well, not merely slaves. In my training, in the pens, I had occasionally been put in a choke collar. In it, I assure you that I obeyed instantly, obedient to its slightest pressure. On the other hand, such things, I think, should seldom, if ever, be sued with slaves, particularly with female slaves, who tend to be beautiful, delicate and sensitive. Their use, I think, if they are used at all, should be reserved for fierce animals, such as the six-legged beasts I had seen, or perhaps for powerful warriors, or brawny, recalcitrant male slaves in the quarries or mines, captives or animals whose control may require such fierce devices. We do not need them! We know who is master. Our leash training, I assure you, may be accomplished readily with the common leash and collar, and a whip or switch. Indeed, I believe it can be more quickly and efficiently completed, as, less terrified of our lives, except to the extent that we might be found displeasing, we are, in a normal leash and collar, freer to concentrate our attention more fully on our lessons. If you are concerned with such things, do not fear. The whip or switch, I assure you, gives you more than ample control over us.

“Oh!” I said, for he had seized the rope running from my hands, tied behind my back, to the front of my collar, and, by means of it, threw me forcefully, stumbling, toward the passageway. Within it I stopped, gasping. He and the slave were still behind me, on the walkway about the retaining wall. I could tell their position from the torchlight. I could no longer see the cage, suspended at the top of the chamber.

“May I speak, Master?” asked the slave with the torch.

“Yes,” said he.

“Do you think her ransom will be paid?” she asked.

“Let us hope so, for her sake,” said he, “for I have not found her pleasing.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

He then entered the passageway, shambling within, followed by the beautiful brunette, holding the torch. Her hair was long and loose. Not even a string had been given to her to dress it. It flowed about her shoulders, and behind her even to the small of her back. I envied her such hair. I had no doubt she would bring a high price. Was the coinage of beautiful women so plentiful here, in this city of raiders and warriors, I wondered, that even specimens such as she, such gems as she, who might be the centerpiece of a collection elsewhere, who might be brought to the block at the climax of an auction, labored here in the darkness beneath the city as though she might be the lowest of slaves, subservient in a gloomy labyrinth supervised by a monster. But she could not be the lowest of slaves for I was surely lower than she. My ears were even pierced, which was, it seemed, a matter of great moment on this world. Too, I need not pity her too much, nor with fear and loathing bemoan the uniqueness of her fate, for the monster to whom she addressed the title “Master” was none other than that to which my own service and deference were due. I began, bent over, to tremble in terror. What manner of place was this? How could it be that my hands were tied behind my back, how could it be that I could not straighten up, that my head was held down, how could it be that there was a collar on my neck! How far away were the malls! But, yet, too, how vanished here were the confusions, the anomie, the pretenses, the trivialities, the meaninglessnesses, the nonrealities of my former life! In this very real place, on this far world, I found myself, for the first time in my life, very real. I was now something quite real. No longer was there doubt about my existence or my meaning. No, that was all behind me. I was now something quite real, and unimportant as it might be. I now had an identity, as lowly as it might be. It was clear, certain, inflexible, and undeniable as the collar on my neck.

The monster, or whatever it might have been, entered the passage, the slave behind him. He paused at a panel set in the stone, unlocked it, opened it, and revealed several lavers, one of which he moved. Lines of bars emerged from the walls about the pool and, diagonally, descended, fitting into sockets in the retaining wall. This sealed off the area of the pool. He moved a second lever, and I saw bars descend, closing our passage. From the sound I thought that other passages might have been sealed, as well. I could not see from where I was. As there were several levers it seemed possible that passages might be sealed off selectively, or, perhaps, as I thought might be the case now at the same time. The panel box was perhaps a master control for the adjacent passages. If all the passages were sealed off, and the side bars engaged, as they were now, that would isolate the walkway. I could see the walkway beyond the bars in the torchlight. Another lever was depressed. I did not, at the time, understand its function, but, in a moment or two, its effect had become clear. It must have opened some access between the pool and the walkway, for I heard a scratching and sniffing and then saw, to my horror, on the other side of the bars of the passage gate, reflected in the torchlight, the blazing eyes of one of the large rodentlike creatures. There were other bodies, too, behind it. I saw snouts pressed against the bars. These things then might, if one wished, be introduced into various passages, depending on the opening and shutting of the gates. I also learned, later, that access to nesting areas was similarly provided. This was, of course, but one area in the “pits,” of the many different sorts of areas, and, I might mention, neither the best nor the worst. They constitute almost a city beneath a city. I think regiments might lie concealed within them, and I have little doubt they could, passage by passage, be tenaciously defended. I would come to know certain portions of them very well, but in many portions I would not be permitted. I was, after all, a slave.

“Precede us,” said the pit master.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Turn left here,” he would say, “and right there, and now left again,” and so on.

I was soon bewildered and lost, but, nude, head down and bound, I must precede them.

“Harta!” said he. “Faster!”

I hurried, even more, as I could.

Mostly I could see little but the floor of the passage at my feet, and the shadows, my own before me, and his, a misshapen, gliding thing, half on the floor, half on the wall, to the right of mine.

“Left here,” he would say. “Right here!”

“Yes, Master!” I would cry.

I was aware, too, as we passed them, the gates here and there, some barred, beyond which I could see the darkness of a further corridor, and some of plain iron, secured with bolts and padlocks, leading perhaps, too, to further passages. Sometimes I trod not on stone but on perforated plate of grill work. What, if anything, or of what depth, might lie beneath most such platings or grillwork I did not know. Beneath one such flooring, however, far below, I heard moving water. Beneath another I thought I heard, far off, a sort of roaring. I did not know the cause of the sound. It may have been that of wind or water, oddly magnified and distorted in the tunnels, or, perhaps, that of some beast or beasts.

“Hold!” said the monster behind me, sharply.

Instantly I stopped.

I screamed!

From either side of the passage, with a swift, loud, rattling sound, there had suddenly sprung forth a set of sharpened metal projections.

The closest of these was only inches from me.

I sank faintly to my knees, sick, unable to stand.

“On your feet,” I heard.

I struggled to my feet. I could see the torchlight reflected on the points.

“In the pits,” said he, “there are numerous such devices. Some you will learn. Others you will be kept ignorant of, even within passages with which you will be familiar. Will they be set, or not? It will be in your interests to confine your movements to prescribed routes at specified times. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“It is well that you obeyed promptly,” he said.

“Yes, Master” I said. “Thank you, Master.”

We are, of course, trained to instant obedience. The value of such training, of course, is easy to see in matters as obvious as that recent noted. What may not be as immediately obvious is its similar value in avoiding what may be even greater dangers, such as displeasing the master. We are not first here, at least women such as I. It is the men, they, who are the masters.

He went to the side of the wall, as I could see from the shadow, but I could not detect what he did. The points receded into the walls.

“Precede us,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Harta! Harta!”

“Yes, Master!” I wept.

Sometimes, too, we crossed chasmlike gaps in the passages. We did this on narrow, metal bridges. These bridges were not such as the earlier “bridge,” that which had led toward the surface of the turret, or tower, which had been little more than a flat rail. These bridges, while frightening, were considerably less harrowing. They must have ranged from twelve to eighteen inches in width. In the torchlight I picked my way carefully across the. I did not dally, for fear the monster behind me. I feared him more than the bridge. The bridges were locked in place on pegs. For one possessing the means, they could be freed and drawn away, to one side or the other, or even plunged into the opening below. I did not know how deep these openings were. Given the narrowness of the bridges a single man, armed, could have defended them against several foes, for they could approach him only singly. The monster behind me, and the lovely slave with the torch, crossed them easily. I was from Earth, however, and was uneasy on such passages, as routine or secure they might have been fro those of this world.

I could not rid my mind of the sudden appearance of the rattling projections. Such devices, I supposed, might be common in places such as these. I had heard, too, of such things as blades and pits. Naturally then I was terrified that I must hurry ahead. Yet I reminded myself that I was not a free person, but only a domestic animal and thus, presumably, as long as I was docile, and obedient, and perfect in my service, and fully pleasing, I might hope to be spared. I do not here, incidentally, discuss the nature of slave traps, as they constitute a different object of discourse. Some of these are rather benign devices, with no object more in mind than to discommode a free woman until the hunters arrive and collect her. Others, with coiled wire, with springs and steel teeth, generally designed for the capture of escaped male slaves can be quite cruel. Smaller, lighter versions of such traps exist for escaped female slaves. Within some of these devices, surrounded by the wire and blades, one cannot move without cutting oneself to pieces. I had once, in training, been carefully entered into one, and then left there, standing, for more than an hour. It helped to impress upon me, as did a thousand other considerations, physical and social, the hopelessness of escape for a female slave.

We crossed another such bridge.

“Hold,” said the pit master.

Instantly I stopped, gasping, looking wildly about me. But he merely unlocked the bridge from its pegs behind us, drew it on our side of the opening, and locked it there, so that it could not be slid back, without being unlocked, from our side.

A few yards ahead I saw what appeared to be the opening to a large, cavernlike room. It was, it seemed, illuminated by lamps. We paused at its entrance. Yes, the light within it was from lamps, two of them, set on wall brackets. The lovely brunette slave extinguished her torch, thrusting it into a vat of sand near the entrance. The room seemed primitive. The walls were of simple stone, like those of the passages. Within it, to one side, were some cupboards. Near its center was a roughly hewn table, with rude benches. There was a pitcher, and a trencher, and some clay vessels on the table. To one side there lay some boxes, and sacks. On the wall, near the boxes, there hung some ropes, some chains, and shackles. There were some switches there, too, and a whip. I could see, too, some rings here and there, on the walls, and on the floor. Two dangled from the ceiling. At one wall, chained in place, at our arrival they had been reclining or sitting, they were now kneeling in obeisance, were five women. There were some blankets by them. This it pleased me to see. To the left, in the oblique extension of the same wall, I could see several small, barred gates. These, it seemed, were kennels, carved into the rock. Behind the bars, two in chains, I could see three women. There was a brunette and two blondes. All were kneeling at the bars, head down, in an attitude of obeisance. In these three cells, or kennels, the three occupied cells, or kennels, I was certain that I detected blankets. Again I was pleased. Further to the left, at the side wall there, rather back, and out of the way, some piled on others, were several small, stout slave cages. These were empty. They were, I conjectured, being stored here.

“Kneel,” said the pit master.

I knelt and, my head down, saw my face not inches from a stout ring in the floor.

“You may lift your heads,” said the pit master to the women who were, I gathered, his charges.

I then became aware that they might be kneeling upright, surveying me, appraising me, judging me, while I knelt before the ring, my head still fastened down.

“This is a new girl,” said the pit master, in that slurring voice, almost like a natural force, water or lava, issuing from some aperture.

“May we speak, Master?” asked one of the women at the wall. She, like the others, was fastened to it by two chains, independently, one on her neck, one on her left ankle.

“Yes,” said he.

“What is her name?” asked one.

“What is your name?” inquired the pit master.

“I do not know!” I said.

“Is it on your collar?” asked he.

He had not, it seemed, read the collar. He had, however, certainly carefully ascertained the piercing of my ears, which had apparently been of considerable interest to him, and he had, as I had lain helplessly bound before him on the walkway, with his large, rude boorish hands, or paws, if that is what they might better be termed, so heavy and hairy, and rather thoroughly, determined, traced and assessed my curves, “slave curves” as they are often called. But he had not, it seemed, read the collar. I supposed that the name was not all that important, or even if I had a name. After all, who cares what might be the name of a dog or a horse? But, too, perhaps he could not read!

“Yes,” I said. “I think so!”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I do not know!” I said.

“You were not told?”

“No,” I said.

“You saw it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You cannot read?”

“No,” I said.

“She is illiterate!” said one of the slaves.

“How insulting that she should be put with us!” said another.

“Beware,” said the pit master.

“Forgive me, Master,” she said, quickly.

“What was her caste?” asked one of the women.

“She never had one,” said the pit master. “She has always been casteless.”

“Ai!” said the women, softly in disbelief.

“So utterably low?” asked another women.

“Yes,” said the pit master.

“What was her Home Stone?” asked the woman.

“She comes from a world without Home Stones,” said the pit master.

I sensed that this information was met with disbelief. It was not my fault if I came from a world without Home Stones, whatever they might be!

“She is not from our world?” asked one of the women. It was one of those who were kenneled, the brunette. She was just within the bars, kneeling there. In her kennel, as in most, one, even a woman, cannot stand upright. I could see the shadows of the bars on her face and body. Her hands were on the bars of the kennel gate. I gathered that this was permitted.

“No,” said the pit master.

“Master jests with his girls,” said one of the women, reproachfully, one at the wall, in her chains.

“No,” he said.

“I knew such a slave once,” said one of the women at the wall. “She was sold in the same auction as I. She brought a high price.”

“They often do,” said another woman, bitterly.

“Some men like them,” said another. “They look for them in the markets.”

“In some cities they are popular,” said another.

“It is only a matter of supply and demand,” said another. “There are so few of them.”

“They are rare,” said another. “But their numbers increase.”

“More must be being brought in,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“Who would want a barbarian girl?” asked one of the women.

“There is obviously a market for them,” said one of the others.

“I understand that men are quite strict with them,” said one of the women.

“Yes,” said another.

I trembled.

“What is that beneath her hair?” inquired one.

The pit master gathered together my hair gently, and lifted it, and held it, bunched, behind my head. I could feel the stress on the hundreds of tiny hairs at the sides of my head, taut, drawn back, but he did not hurt me.

“Yes!” said one of the women. “See! See!”

“Her ears are pierced?” asked another.

“Yes,” said the pit master.

“Not only a barbarian, but a pierced-ear girl!” exclaimed another.

“Yes!” said another.

“Do not keep such a slut with us!” cried one of the slaves.

“No!” cried another.

“No!” protested yet another, one from the kennels.

“I think I shall summon the leather worker,” said the pit master.

“Master?” said one of the women, frightened.

“That the ears of all of you may be pierced, that adornments may be hung from them.”

“No, Master!” cried more than one of the women.

“Forgive us, Master!” cried others.

They shrank back, those at the wall to the very rings to which they were chained, those in the kennels back in the kennels, well behind the bars.

I remained at the ring. I had been put there.

I was confident, though I may have been mistaken, of course, that the reaction to the threat of the pit master had not been one of unmitigated scandal and horror. I thought I detected something else which was involved. The feelings of the women, I gathered, were not unmixed. To be sure, I did not doubt but what on one level they feared and dreaded the very notion of the piercing of their ears but, too, on another level, a much deeper level, I think they were deeply fascinated, and deeply stirred, by the idea. I think they found it disturbing exciting, and arousing. I sensed this, seeing how some knelt back trembling, quivering, against the wall, and others lifted their fingers to their ear lobes, as though, even now, they might feel adornments fixed there. Their feelings with respect to the piercing of their ears seemed to me, in short, profoundly ambivalent. Did they sense, trembling, how exciting they might seem to men if they were so adorned, how much this might increase the desire which they might provoke in masters? And were they not, all, slaves? Did they not want to be exciting, beautiful, that desirable? Did they not understand the perils and terrors which might be consequent upon such a thing, upon being so fiercely coveted, so fiercely sought, so fiercely desired? Were they prepared, in their hearts, to be such, to have so much demanded of them? Did they dare to be such, the first to be summoned froth from captive herds, the first to be assessed, the first to be chained? Were they not such as to be the first to be thrown to the furs? Were they not such that the whips snapped more fiercely about them? How could they dare to be such? Would they not swoon in terror, understanding how men might view them? Did they truly dare to be such as to be fiercely thrust to the surface of the sales block, to hear the men screaming with need, vying to own them?

“Prepare the new girl some gruel,” said the pit master.

“Yes, Master,” said the brunette, she who had held the torch.

The monster crouched down, near me. He undid the rope which ran from my bound wrists to my collar and brought it forward, between my legs, in front of me. I whimpered as his hand touched the interior of my left thigh. I felt stirred. How needful is a slave! I kept my head down. I trembled. I muchly feared him. He then, the rope now before me, threaded it beneath the ring, again over my collar, once more under the ring, and then tied its circuit closed. It was now looped twice about the collar and ring. I could left my head a little more, but not much. My collar, the double strand of rope taut, was about a foot from the ring. I then felt him undo my bound wrists. These he brought before me and bound them there, tightly, crossed, before my body. My heart began to sink. I could hear the brunette slave, to one side, pouring some meal into a dish or bowl.

“Master?”I begged.

I feared that I needed now only that my hair be thrown forward, before my shoulders.

It was done.

I moaned.

I heard the brunette slave, behind me, at the table, pouring some water into a bowl.

“Would you prefer to be beaten tomorrow?” he asked me.

“No, Master,” I said. I wanted to get it over with.

He went behind me, doubtless to the wall. In a few moments he returned. I saw, on the flooring before me, the shadow of the whip, in his hand.

I watched the shadow, waiting for the lash to rise. When it descended I would shut my eyes. I was pleased that I could see the shadow. Sometimes we do not know when the blows will fall. It is so much harder then! Too, if we do not know the number of blows! It is most merciful when we know the number of blows and they are delivered with predictable periodicity. Sometimes we must, as we can, count the blows. Sometimes, too, we must, as we can, if we can, state the reasons for the blows, if there are reasons for them. There are many ways, of course, in which discourse can figure in such episodes. “Why are you being beaten?” “That I do not forget that I am a slave.” Sometimes, too, we must beg for our punishment. It is terrifying to crawl to a man, the whip in one’s teeth.

But I saw the whip put down on the stone beside me.

I nearly fainted. Was I not to be beaten? The free woman would never know, of course! But I recalled that the monster had assured the free woman that I would be punished. Again my heard sank. The men of this world do not give their world lightly. There would be no escape for me. I would be punished.

But what was the delay?

I felt his hands on my and he turned me to my side, and then put me to my back, my head by the ring, tied to it by the collar. He bent over me. No, he must not, I thought. Please, no! I pressed up at him a little, weakly, with my bound hands. I could not have forced him away, of course, nor would I have had the courage to try. My gesture was no more than a tiny, futile, almost inadvertent protest. I hoped I would not be beaten for it. I even drew my fingers back a little. I turned my head to the side, in order that I not look upon his features. I was at his mercy. He cold do with me as he wished. I belonged, I had learned, to the state, and in this place, I had learned, he was as the state. In this place then he was to me as master, with all privileges, rights, and powers, I helpless and nothing before them, that that entailed on this world. In this place, for all practical purposes, I was his. In this place, for all practical purposes, I belonged to him. He held my head, lifted it a little, and turned it back toward him. I kept my eyes closed. I heard a snuffling, grunting sound. It was as though a beast bent over me. I could feel its breath upon me. Why did it not begin? How merciless would it be? Let it pity me! I was only a slave! Then it made a little noise, as of satisfied curiosity.

I did not understand this.

I heard the brunette slave now stirring the water and meal.

The monster then put me back on my knees, my head down, near the ring. A strand of hair, out of place, he brushed forward.

Now again my hair was before my body.

“Her gruel is ready,” said the brunette.

I did not understand why he had, a moment ago, put me on my back.

He had been, it seemed, curious about something.

“It is best,” he said to me, “that you not eat first.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I might not, otherwise, be able to retain the provender, even as simple and bland as it might be.

I saw, in the shadow, the whip, now once again in his hand.

“This slave,” said he, to the other women in the room, “has been errant. She, in a darkness, did not reveal her condition, bond, to a free woman. She permitted the free woman, in ignorance, to speak freely to her. She permitted her not only to think that she was free, but even of a given caste.”

The women at the wall looked at one another.

I suddenly realized why I had been put on my back. He had read my collar. He, then, could read. He knew my name, that which I had been given, that on my collar, which, perhaps, had been worn by many others before me! I recalled that some of the guards in the pens did not care to administer a formal whipping to a woman, as opposed to some admonitory blows now and then, until they knew her name, assuming she had been given one. Punishment on this world is often construed in a somewhat personal fashion, as something passing from a particular master to a particular slave. This has a way of making it more meaningful to the slave. Too, of course, knowing the name, if the slave has one, makes it easier, particularly in a situation such as the pens, to keep track of things, to inform others, and such, for the punishment for later infractions may be considerably more severe if it seems the slave has failed to profit from her earlier discipline, and so on. I did not know my name. But he knew it.

“Why did she do that?” asked one of the women by the wall.

“Why did you do that?” asked the pit master.

“I was afraid!” I said. “I did not know better! I should have known better! I should have known better!”

“You did not think that you were the same as she,” said the pit master.

“No!” I assured him.

“You understand clearly that you are only a slave, an animal, and nothing more?”

“Yes, Master!” I said.

“She is a new slave,” said the pit master to the women in the room.

“Let her learn her collar!” said one of the women.

I felt the coil of the whip touch my back. I shuddered.

I was indeed a new slave. I had undoubtedly much to learn. But I did not think that I was rally a stranger to the collar. I had, I was confident, as all women, an instinctive grasp of its import. I felt that I had, thus, in a sense, understood it even before it was on me. Had I not considered it in countless thoughts? Had I not worn it in a thousand dreams? To be sure, it doubtless had many meanings, rich and complex, subtle and deep, which only gradually, bit by bit, as they were revealed to me, I might come to understand, and love.

“Perhaps, Master,” said the slave who had borne the torch, “as she is a new slave, and did not know better, one might, this time omit her punishment.”

There was a silence.

“Forgive me, Master!” she said, and knelt, her head to the stones, her beautiful hair upon them.

“You will know better next time, will you not?” asked the pit master.

“Yes, Master!” I said.

“How many blows should you receive?” he asked.

If on suggests too few, one is almost certain to receive far more than one might otherwise receive. If one suggests too man, perhaps in the hope of receiving less, one may find that one receives precisely what one has requested. The master usually has some number in mind which seems appropriate to him. You will never receive less than that number, but you may very well, particularly if you try to manage matters cleverly, receive far more.

“However many Master wishes,” I said. It was a response I had learned in the pens. One is a slave. One does not play games with the master. All depends on him. All depends on his will. One is a slave.

I saw the shadow of the whip lift, and I closed my eyes.

I received ten lashes.

I lay there by the ring for several minutes afterward. I was on my belly. My cheeks were wet with tears, even the stone by the ring. I hurt. I sobbed. Yet he had not been cruel with me. The blows had been sharp, but clean. They had been mercifully arranged on my body, even predictably so. Too, they had been timed. It is particularly frightening when, as part of the punishment, one does not know where the blow will fall, or when. Too, mercifully, though he saw to it that I was well punished, he had not used his man’s strength on me. Only on the tenth stroke, which, before its delivery, he informed me was the last, he did let me glimpse even a particle of the strength with which a stroke, if he so chose, might be delivered. I had screamed, so struck. Then I had not been able to scream. I had knelt there, wide-eyed, in disbelief. Then, an instant later, I had sunk to my belly. “Mercy, Master!” I wept. “Mercy, Master, please mercy!” but the beating, of course, was done, for the tenth blow was the last. But still, hysterical, I wept. “Please, do not strike me again, Master! Please, Master, do not strike me again!” I realized then what, even with so small a portion of his strength, might be done to me. I had been well punished by the first nine strokes, I assure you, but the tenth stroke told me more than the first nine. It said, in effect, “Beware, let this be the tiniest hint of what might be done to you.” And so now, minutes later, I lay at the ring. I choked back tears. I had now well learned my lesson. I was only a punished slave. But the lesson I had learned extended, of course, as doubtless it was intended it should, far beyond the occasion of the moment. It had to do with more than the mere triviality of my having failed, in my confusion and fear, to make my condition clear to a free woman in the darkness. It had also informed me that I was not only subjected to punishment, but, when appropriate, would be punished. This reinforced, too, my understanding of my condition, which was bond, and its obvious concomitant, that of being subject to masters, fully, in all things. Lastly, I had been taught something more of the whip. I now understood, better than I had before, what it might do to me. I now feared it, terribly. I was afraid, now even to look upon it.

“Kneel, barbarian,” said the brunette, not unkindly. I struggled to my knees, my hands bound before me, my neck still tied to the ring.

“Feed, barbarian,” she said, placing a shallow bowl of gruel before me.

I put down my head, and, not using my hands, fed.

I ate, hungrily, obediently.

But, too, from time to time, head down, pausing in my feeding, from licking at the sides of the bowl, the gruel about my mouth, I trembled. Beyond the leather, I knew, even to the tiny extent that I now understood it, there were other things, things far more frightening and effective, to which I might be subjected, if it were the will of men. I moaned, and returned to my feeding. I ate eagerly, gratefully. Tears fell into the gruel. My punishment, I realized, however informative and momentous from my point of view, had doubtless been, from the point of view of the pit master, relatively light and perfunctory. My offense, it seemed, happily, had not been regarded as particularly heinous, particularly in a new slave. Indeed, I was even being permitted to feed.

‘Oh!” I said, suddenly, startled. I stiffened. “Master?” I said.

My fingers twisted, startled, my hands bound before me.

“Master,” I asked.

“You may continue to feed, if you wish,” he said.

“Oh!” I said. But I could not fee, of course! The rope on my collar pulled against the ring.

He moved my hair about, away from my ears. “Pierced-ear girl,” he murmured.

“Oh!” I said.

His grip on me then was like iron.

“Master!” I said.

How absurd then suddenly seemed my earlier fear, when he had put me on my back! By what right might I have expected such dignity! But how absurd even was this thought, for a slave! Is it likely that we would be thrown on our backs for our dignity? No. Slaves are not permitted dignity. That is for free women. Rather, on our backs, if our masters desire, our subtlest nuances of expression, our helplessness, our fear, our joy, our yielding, our vulnerability, what we hope for, what we beg for, may be read! They may with their triumphant gaze ravish our helplessly bared features, surveying the myriad subtleties of our flushed countenances, taking account for our tremblings, our raptures and terrors, scrutinizing us in our misery, our ecstasy and helplessness, delighting in our tumult, we face-stripped, unveiled, before them, imprisoned in their arms, their slaves.

He made a low, growling, bestial noise.

Should I fight him, as I could?

What would it matter, in the end?

And might I not be beaten for the slightest show of resistance, unless, in its futility, he found it amusing.

I whimpered.

Could he read in me my signs of growing helplessness?

I was refined, I was delicate, I was sensitive! How could this be being done to me? But then I recalled that I was a slave.

I uttered a small, helpless cry, one of weakness, but one, too, in its way, of petition.

Please do not desist, Master!

But, of course, he would not desist.

I rejoiced that in his heart, as in the hearts of such men, there was no mercy.

“See the slave!” cried one of the women at the wall.

And so progressed my subjugation.

“Master!” I wept.

And thusly was I humiliated, and thusly was I disgraced, and debased and degraded.

Soon I began to lose control!

“Oh!” I said. “Oh!”

His victory was at hand.

Soon I knew I would be naught but a yielding slave.

“Master!” I cried.

“Ah,” said he. He was then like a lion in feeding, blood running from its jaws.

I then yielding to him my utter submission, my total surrender.

I could not help myself.

I was slave.

And thusly was I, a mere slave, again conquered.

I lay for a time at the ring.

He went to one of the small slave cages to the left and pulled it somewhat forward and to the right, until it was a bit to the left of the unoccupied kennels. He then went to the table and busied himself there, with some papers, perhaps mine. The brunette slave came and crouched down beside me. She carried a wet cloth and wiped the gruel from my face and, I fear, some from my hair, as well, as I had sometimes, gasping, and squirming, twisting, writhing, thrust my head too low, too near the dish. “You have a good belly.” she said. “It is a hot belly. It is an excellent belly for a slave.” “Thank you, Mistress,” I whispered. I had known, of course, that I could be easily aroused, and that I was unusually responsive, and, in moments, could become even helplessly so. To be sure, such reflexes, and such, are expected in a slave. She may be beaten if she is inadequate. They are even trained in her. We are not free women. Also, interestingly, as earlier suggested, sexual responsiveness in the slave is openly regarded as a desirable property, like intelligence and beauty. These three things all considerably improve her price. In a slave sexual vitality, uncontrollable responsiveness, then, is not regarded as a source of embarrassment, scandal, or shame. Nor are sexual inertness and frigidity regarded as virtues, or as concomitants thereof. We are not free women. Similarly, and naturally enough, our vitality is not something to be hidden, except, of course, from free women. Indeed, we must accustom ourselves to hearing it candidly discussed, particularly in situations in which our sale may be in question. Too, naturally, it is one of the properties which, if we are on the auction block, we must expect to hear proclaimed to they buyers.

As earlier suggested, it is the whole slave, all of her, every bit of her, that is for sale.

It is the whole slave, all of her, every bit of her, the whole she of her, that men want, and buy.

I lay at the ring.

He had permitted me to retain no particle of dignity. To be sure, I was not entitled to any, as I wasa slave. No choice had been mine. He had had all from me. To be sure, I must yield it at so little as the snapping of fingers. I was a slave.

Would the brunette regard me with reproach? I did not meet her eyes. She rose to her feet and went to one side. I heard from one side, the gentle sound of some links of chain.

Surely I must reproach myself, but I could not bring myself to do so. It was not merely that I was a slave, and thus will- less in such matters, and that I must obey, and with perfection, and such, but rather that I felt fulfillment, a calmness, a contentment.

I felt metal anklets, linked, being snapped about my ankles.

“The knots, Master,” said the brunette.

The pit master rose from the table and undid the ropes tying my hands before my body.

Metal wristlets, linked, were snapped about my wrists. These wristlets, by a length of chain, were attached to the anklets.

The rope tying my collar to the ring was undone.

I felt a metal collar clasped about my neck, over the kajira collar. This collar was attached to the same chain that ran from the linkage of the anklets to the linkage of the wristlets. My ankles, wrists, and neck, then, were on a common chain. I was in sirik.

I knelt as the pit master checked the locks. Then he returned to his work at the table.

I looked up at the brunette.

How I had yielded to the beast!

But I saw no reproach in her eyes.

How grateful I was!

She must understand how helpless I was! Not only that I was a legal slave, but that I was, undeniably, in my body, my mind, my needs, a rightful slave, a full and natural slave.

It is what I am, I thought. I cannot help myself! Be kind to me.

But in her eyes there was not the least reproach. I was grateful for this, for resentment, pettiness, jealousy, and competition are common among slaves. In a sense, we are not all rivals for the favor of masters?

“May I speak, Mistress?” I whispered.

“Of course,” she said.

“Do you know my name?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she said. “It is on your collar.” She might have just seen it. She might have noted it, earlier, even when the pit master, seemingly idly curious, before beating me, he not having concerned himself with the matter before, examined the collar. She could read then. I could not read. How low I was!

“It is a state collar, is it not?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do not tell me my name,” I said.

“No one then, truly, has told it to you yet?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Have no fear,” she said. “I have no wish to be thrown to sleen.”

A girl’s name, you see, if one is permitted to her, is given to her by men. It is, thus, from men that she must first hear it spoken. If there should be some inadvertence or error in these matters, she will be given a new name, one she will hear first from masters. A girl, such as the brunette, who knew my name would be careful not to be the first to speak it to me. Afterwards, of course, it does not matter. The name is then as familiar and common as that of any animal.

“Cage her,” said the pit master.

“On all fours,” said the brunette.

I went to all fours, in my chains.

The brunette went to the small cage and opened the gate. She indicated the entrance. “Enter the cage,” she said.

I crawled to the cage and entered it.

The gate was shut behind me.

I turned about, on my knees, inside. I put my head down, in the collar, when the pit master came to check the closure of the cage. Then he went back to the table. I lifted my head. I knelt there, behind the bars. The cage had a floor and ceiling of solid iron. The four sides, on the other hand, were open, save for the bars. The bars were stout and closely set. They must have been an inch in diameter and some three inches apart. I put my face against them. There was a tiny clink of chain from the linkage on my wristlets, they touching the bars. I looked up at the brunette. One cannot begin to stand upright in such a cage, nor can one extend one’s body fully within it. Within it one must kneel, or sit, or lie, one’s body curled up.

“Mistress,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why am I here?”

“For the same reason as the rest of us,” she said. “It is the will of men.”

“But what am I to do?” I asked.

“What you are told,” she said.

“Are there others here?” I asked.

“Others?”

“Men,” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I regarded her, plaintively.

“Guards,” she said.

“Am I available to them?” I asked.

“At the discretion of the pit master,” she said.

I briefly closed my eyes.

“But these are not their quarters. They do report here from time to time. Doubtless they will be pleased to learn of your addition to our number.”

“That is what I am here for,” I asked, “for the guards?”

“Your availability to them is incidental,” she said. “The pits are, in effect, in this area, a prison, and one in which, for the most part, the lowest and most dangerous prisoners are kept.”

I shuddered.

“There is little danger,” she said, “if you watch your step.”

I swallowed hard.

“I do not know what will be your precise duties,” she said, “but I would expect that you, as the rest of us, will be given some corridors, within which you will discharge assigned tasks.”

“Tasks?” I asked.

“Bringing food to the prisoners, replenishing cisterns, emptying wastes buckets, carrying fresh straw, cleaning cells, that sort of thing. One cannot expect the guards to do that.”

“No,” I said.

“In many cities,” she said, “such work is performed by free women of low caste, but here it is done by slaves. Do you know why?”

“No,” I said.

“That a token be conveyed to the prisoners of the contempt in which they are held.”

“I see,” I said. I rather doubted that this token was likely to be interpreted by the prisoners in the same fashion that the judiciary of the city, or the free women of the city, whatever city this might be, had anticipated. It was my guess that a male prisoner might more enjoy a glimpse of a slave than the lengthy scrutiny of a free woman. To be sure, it might be different if the free woman were a prisoner or criminal, sentenced to the prison for a time, to serve there, perhaps denied her veil, perhaps being forced to reveal her ankles or even calves to the prisoners. They might enjoy that. But I recalled the pleased howling and catcalls of the prisoners above, those I had passed on my journey along the ledge. They had seemed vital and strong. I had felt myself relished, even to my terror. To be sure, I was not serving the. Also, there surely seemed a paradox here, for free men, outside of the prisons, and such, apparently delighted in being served by slaves, and the strongest and most powerful, it seemed, would have it no other way. It must be the principle of the thing then, I supposed, that in the prison it was imposed upon them, presumably as some sort of insult or disparagement, while in their freedom, on the other hand, it was something they would themselves relish and require.

“Too,” she said, “you may upon occasion be used to torment and taunt them, that they may, in their misery and frustration, the better understand their helplessness.”

“I see,” I whispered.

“Their time in the pits,” she said, “is not intended to be pleasant.”

“I see,” I said.

“It is a form of torture,” she said.

“I understand,” I said.

“In all things,” she said, “remember to be pleasing to the pit master.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“For you may be given not only to the guards,” she said, “but to the prisoners.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“They might tear you to pieces,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“I trust that you will rest well,” she said.

“Thank you, Mistress,” I said.

“How is your back?” she asked.

“It hurts,” I said.

“Mistress!” I said.

“Yes?” she said.

“The free woman said that my accent was terrible. Is it terrible?”

“How vain you are!” she smiled.

“Please,” I said.

“Speak,” she said.

“I am a barbarian,” I said. “I come from a world I call “Earth.” I and several others were brought here to be slaves. I do not know the city to which I was first brought, nor where I am now. I do not even know my name. I do know that I am a slave.”

“You speak very well,” she said.

“My accent is not terrible?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But it is, at least at this point, a slave accent.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“But accents,” she said, “do not matter, you must understand, whether or not you have one, or of whatever sort it might be. What matters is what you are, that you are a slave. Most slaves, you see, such as myself, do not have accents, or at least in any ordinary sense. But we are total slaves, I assure you, just as you are, and will remain, others things being the same, even should you be able, masters permitting it, to lose your accent.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Mistress,” I said.

“Yes?” she said.

“Is the pit master truly human?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “He cannot help that he was born as he was.”

I looked down.

“He is afraid to go to the surface,” she said, “in spite of his intelligence, and his great strength, for there even children mock and ridicule him. It is better that he is here.”

“He makes me sick to look upon him,” I whispered.

“Then do not look upon him,” she said.

“He must make you sick as well,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“Why do they call him “the Tarsk”?” I asked.

“I would suppose that would be obvious,” she said.

“What is a tarsk?” I asked.

“You have never seen one?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“It is a form of beast,” she said. “To be sure, I do not think he really looks like a tarsk. I think they call him that not so much because he looks like a tarsk, really, as because, in some ways, in what they take to be his ugliness, he reminds them of a tarsk.”

“He is hideous,” I said.

“I am not sure of that,” she said.

“No, he is hideous, hideous!” I said.

“One grows used to him.”

“Never!” I said.

“What manner of man is he?” I asked.

“He is actually a gentle creature,” she said, “save when aroused. To be sure, he is strict.”

“You must loathe him,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“You must fear him,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“You seem to have some sort of special relationship to him,” I said.

It was she who had carried the torch and assisted him, she who had fed me, and such.

“He sleeps me at his feet,” she said.

I shuddered.

“You will not compete with me for his favor?” she smiled.

“No, no, no!” I said, shuddering.

“You yielded well,” she smiled.

“I could not help myself,” I said. “I am a slave. Any man can make me yield!”

“Any man?” she asked.

“Yes!”

“Even one you resent or loathe?”

“Yes!”

“Even one you dislike, or despise, or hate?”

“Yes!” I wept.

“And yield fully, even against your will, unreservedly, unstintingly, unable to help yourself?”

“Yes!” I sobbed. “I cannot help myself! I am helpless in their arms! You must understand such things!”

“Yes,” she said. “I understand them quite well.”

A tear ran against the bar, against which was pressed my right cheek.

‘You are beautifully vital,” she said.

“Are you not, too, a slave?” I asked, my eyes burning with tears.

“Men must find you a very beautiful, and very valuable, property,” she said. “You would undoubtedly bring a high price in the market.”

“Are you not, too, a slave!” I wept.

“Yes,” she said. “I, too, am a slave.”

I put my head down a little. I could feel the two bars against my forehead. My hands, chained, continued to grasp the bars.

“Do you think you are the only one whose belly has screamed in the darkness for a man’s touch?” she asked. “The only one that has desired to kneel? The only one that has desired to serve, and love, and with her whole being, holding back nothing? The only one that has cried out, and squirmed gratefully under the haughty, audacious touch of one who owns you?”

I looked up, regarding her, tears in my eyes.

“And we would not be other than as we are,” she said.

“No,” I said. “We would not be other than as we are.”

“We are slaves,” she whispered.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“It is time now for you to rest,” she said.

“I am afraid!” I whispered.

“There is much to fear when one is a slave,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

Then she had turned away.

I knelt in sirik, in the cage, grasping the bars, looking after her.

The “Tarsk,” the pit master, or, to use his more exact title, the depth warden, was still at the table. His small legs were under him on the bench. His large upper body, swollen and disproportionate, boulderlike, leaned forward, over the table. He had put aside the papers, which may have been mine, and was now, by the light of a small lamp, perusing a scroll. It was doubtless late.

I sat down in the cage, my knees drawn up. The sirik fitted me very well. My measurements might have been sent down from above, earlier. I looked about. I was well exposed to view, on four sides, given the construction of the cage. To be sure, I might have been even better revealed, had it not been for the bars, which were thick and closely set. There are a great many varieties of slave cages, with respect to the number of occupants for which they are designed, and, within such parameters, with respect to shape, size and materials. I was in a fairly standard, common-model, single-girl cage, one involving a design compromise between display and security, security not from the point of view of containing the occupant, which a lighter cage would be fully effective in doing, but security against being broken into by thieves. At one end of the spectrum one has cages which are designed primarily for display, cages within which the woman is held as helplessly as a kitten but which are not thought to afford adequate resistance to men equipped with suitable tools. Cages of this sort are usually used temporarily, as during daylight hours in enclosed courts, and such, when slavers’ men are about. At the other end of the spectrum are heavy cages in which the bars may be two inches in diameter and spaced but an inch or so apart, in which the occupant can be barely discerned. Cages of the sort in which I was currently kept are sometimes spoken of as “tantalizers,” for a great deal of women is displayed, surely enough to arouse interest, but, because of the bars, perhaps not enough to make a satisfactory determination. The slaver then, of course, agrees to draw the occupant forth for more careful examination. In this way, a girl’s charms, she now drawn forth from the cage and displayed, are assured their due consideration. It is easy to insufficiently attend to, or even neglect, or dismiss, these charms when she is merely one of a number of others, chained, say, in a sales barn or on a cement shelf in an open market. But let the buyer now, his interest aroused, his attention focused, examine the occupant. What now of her visage, and hair, of the delicacy of her throat, the slightness of her wrists, the trimness of her ankles, the smallness of her hands and feet, and her slave curves? And thus might an excellent buy, perhaps one even fit to be a love slave, be brought to his attention, a buy which, otherwise, might have passed tragically unnoticed. To be sure, he might only be buying for investment purposes, or perhaps he merely wishes to pick up a gift for a friend. There are also, of course, a large number of other incarceratory devices, such as slave chests, or boxes, and slave sacks. These, of course, are not designed to display the slave, but are intended for other purposes, in particular, punishment or transportation. The sort of cage in which I was held is also suitable, incidentally, for transportation. There was no need, of course, that I be chained in the cage. That was only, I supposed, to help me keep in mind that I was a slave. I had no blanket. The others had blankets. I hoped I might be given one later. I was a new girl. There were three women in the kennels, the brunette and two blondes, and, at the wall, there were five women, each chained there by the neck and left ankle. Two of the kenneled women were chained, the brunette and one of the blondes. I hoped that I might, in time, be adjudged not only worthy of a blanket, but even of a kennel, for there were five such, and two were empty. I did not expect to be given such luxuries now. I was a new girl. I was not certain that I wanted to be chained at the wall, for I feared the other women there. I was a barbarian, and my ears were pierced.

I lay down in the cage, curling up.

I saw the slave who had borne the torch, and who had locked me in sirik, putting out the two wall lamps. This left only the tiny lamp on the table, recently lit, where the monster read. I could see the glint of the lamplight on the bars of the kennels, and on some chains hanging on the wall. On the wall, too, I saw, briefly, for I quickly looked away, hanging on its peg, the whip. How placid it seemed, how quiet now. Yet its very sight filled me with fear. I was subject to it. The brunette removed fur from a chest and spread them near the table. From the same chest she removed a coil of chain, and put it carefully, presumably not to disturb the monster, by a ring, toward the foot of the furs. She then lay down upon the furs, toward their bottom. High status had she amongst us, certainly! She was the only one amongst us, for example-of me, and the women in the kennels, and those at the wall-who had clothing. And she was at the foot of his furs, not that I envied her that privilege! It was not as though he were one of those powerful, handsome brutes, as many I had seen here, before whom a slave might faint with weakness and desire.

He moved the scroll a little, rolling shut what he had read, unrolling, opening, a new vista of ideas.

The slave at the foot of his furs, I thought, might be asleep.

I rose to my hands and knees in the cage. He chain from my collar dangled to my wrists, and went thence to my ankles. There were so many things I wanted to know. I did not know under what city I might be, I did not even know the name of the world on which I found myself. I did not even know my own name. I wanted to call out to the brute at the table. But I did not dare to do so.

Then I lay down again.

I glanced toward the wall. One of the women there, sneeringly, with her blanket about her, formed words toward me. I could dimly make them out in the tiny light. “Pierced-ear girl!” she had said. I looked away. I knew I might have to fear her, or the others. They might not only treat me badly, as I might expect, being a barbarian, a new girl, and such. But they might trick me in such ways that I might be beaten.

I moved a little in the cage. There was a tiny clink of chain.

I saw the beast put down the scroll and push the lamp a little to one side. He did not extinguish it. He turned about on the bench, and sat there, for a time, regarding the brunette. The light, as he had placed, it, fell softly upon her. I think she was asleep. He then slid from the bench and, bent over, the great body on those tiny legs, went to the ring and chain. He attached the chain to the ring, with a click. The brunette stirred again, and uttered a tiny moan, and a little, inarticulate cry, still asleep. But then, with its clear, firm, definite click, the ankle ring was upon her, fastening her to the ring. I do not think she awakened during this. But, I suspect, too, in some way, on some level, she was aware that she was chained. Is not even a free woman aware of such a thing, on some level, when, as she sleeps, she is chained to her own bed? Does this enter into her dream? Does she dream it so, fearfully? Surely its very possibility is to be rejected from consciousness with all the force of rationality! Surely it was only a dream! How amusing! But she awakens and finds herself chained. As the woman was sleeping the chain was first set to the ring and thence to her body, that the tether will be in place as soon as the restraint snaps about her ankle. Had she been awake, the procedure would presumably have been reversed. When the woman is awake the usual procedure is to put the first bond on her body, so that she will know it on her, that she is bound or shackled, and then too attach it, she now aware that she is subject to your will in this matter, to whatever one pleases.

The brute then returned to his reading, putting the lamp where it had been before, as though nothing had happened.

But the brunette was now chained!

I lay on my back in the sirik. I could feel the chain from my collar, running over my body, to the wrists. Then it continued, over my belly, and against the interior of my right thigh, until it flowed to my ankles. I moaned and turned to my side.

I tried to come to grips with my chains, and the bars, and my reality. How could I begin to understand what had been done with me? How could I begin to understand what I had become, what I now was? How could I being to cope with this turn in my life?

I lay on the small, square iron floor of a confinement.

Here was a becaged slave. Could she be I?

Here was a slave, behind bars, in this tiny prison, naked and chained. Surely she could not be I!

She wore a slave collar, and was branded. Surely she could not be I!

But it was I!

I sobbed, afraid. I must do as I was told. I most obey. I must fear the whip.

Then, trembling, frightened, I recalled the use to which the monster had put me.

Oh, he had well had his will with me!

I recalled the feelings, uneasily. Even now they made me squirm.

My ears were pierced.

I reddened in the darkness, heated and sweating. How I had yielded to him, as such a slave!

He had made me his!

I had been conquered and enraptured, destroyed and renewed, rent in fragments and made whole, freed and enslaved, broken and created.

And in the end, overwhelmed, struggling to comprehend, I had found myself more a slave than ever. The strongest chains, you see, are not those of iron, nor the strongest bonds those of steel. How frail are such things compared to the chains of desire, the bonds of need! Even now, as fulfilled as I had been, I could sense a growing restlessness in my body. To be sure, it can be dangerous to be too importunate. One can be whipped for it. But what men can do to a woman, had surely, in me, been at least begun. How natural it is, once one understands these things, to fall to one’s knees, begging plaintively.

I knew myself, as I lay there, to be wholly a slave. It was what I should be, and was.

How fortunate I was to have been made what I was!

How few women have been made what they are!

I had been named, but did not know my name.

In time the beast, the monster, closed the scroll, tying it shut with a string.

He lowered the lamp a little, but left it on the table. There was only a little light now in the chamber. His shadow seemed wild, deformed, exaggerated, on the walls. He glanced once toward me, but I pretended to be asleep. The other slaves, I think, were asleep. I saw him crouch near the brunette and then he took her by the upper arms, and pulled her to a sitting position. She made a little cry, half in her sleep. There was a rustle of chain. I saw her arms raise as her tunic was drawn up, over her head, and then discarded. He then pulled her by the upper arms, the chain leaving its coil by the ring, toward the center of the furs. Then her arms were about him, to my horror. But she was a slave. She must obey! I heard him grunt, in satisfaction. She uttered a tiny cry. I did not know if she were fully awake or not. But then I saw her, to my dismay, press her lips to that monstrous visage. Had she been commanded to do so? I did not know. I had heard no command. Once, in training, I had had to lavish loving kisses on a discarded sandal. To be sure, it had been appropriate to do so, and, and I had been pleased to do it, for it had been a man’s sandal. Too, I would have begged to have done it, even at that stage of my training, and would have done it gratefully, had it been the sandal of he whose whip I had first kissed, but, alas, it had not been. I could see the two of them, together, in the dimness, in the flickering glow of the tiny lamp. She was held tightly in his arms. Escape would have been impossible for her, even had she not been chained. But, too, it seemed she pressed her beauty, even eagerly, against that grotesque body. Her curves were superb, even for those of a slave. I did not doubt her value in a market. She had been seized in her sleep, and drawn to him. He had wished her. Nothing more need be said. We are at the convenience of the master, fully, whatever, however, and whenever he may please.

I lay very quietly in the cage. I did not want to stir, and move the chain.

I could hear them together, some feet away, on the furs. They made tiny sounds. I sometimes heard the movement of the chain. I It was she, it seemed, who was slept at his feet, but, as the whim might seize him, I was sure he might have availed himself of any of the women in the place, state slaves, but here, in this place, as his own slaves. He might have drawn forth one of the blondes from her kennel, he might have utilized one of the women at the wall, perhaps she who had sneered at me, she as lowly, and as much at his mercy, as any other, or, indeed, he might have opened my cage and draw me forth, as well, the new girl, the barbarian, to use me as he saw fit, perhaps on a blanket, perhaps on the stone floor itself.

In time he put her from him and she found her tunic and put it on, pulling it down, over her head. She then crept to the foot of the furs and lay there.

I saw her reach up, as though to touch his foot, but then she drew her hand back.

Doubtless she had a name. But I did not know it. I did not know that of the others, either. I did not even know my name!

I lay very quietly, in my chains, in my cages.

How small it was!

I was no more than any of the women here, no more than a slave. Indeed, in a way, I was less than they, for I was a barbarian, and my ears were pierced.

But I felt strangely excited, and moved, and stirred.

Whereas I was terrified to be exactly where I was, to be here, in this specific place, in the depths below the fortress, or city, at the mercy of some misshapen beast, I was not at the discontented that I had been brought to this world, nor was I discontented, though I grasped its perils, to be a slave. Even in the little I had seen of it I had found myself falling in love with this world, with its honesty, its truth and beauty. Surely a brand and collar is a small price to pay for being permitted to come here, to tread such soils, to breathe such air. And here, too, I had learned to be alive, and to feel and experience, with a keenness, and with depths and heights, I would never have believed possible on my old world. Too, here, in this place, I had, for the first time in my life, come to understand my own most profound reality, that which had been concealed beneath the veneers of civilization, that which had called out to me in secret moments, crying out even in my dreams. I had been told I must live a lie. I had been told I must pretend to be what I was not. But here I had learned I must live the truth, and must be true to myself.

Here I was given no alternative but to be what I was.

I was grateful, and joyful.

But what mattered such reflections? What matters it whether I am pleased, or fulfilled, or satisfied? It matters not at all. I am a slave, and must serve.

I am choiceless. My will means nothing. How delicious this is to me! I am excited, and thrilled, and stimulated in all my senses, to understand the uncompromising domination to which I am subject. I am owned and must obey, and with perfection! I would not have it otherwise. But even if I wished, I could not have it otherwise. On my neck is a Gorean collar.

Even if I screamed and cried out, and struggled, and wept, and pulled futilely against my chains, and beat on the bars of my cage, nothing would be changed, save that I would be whipped to silence.

It had been done to me.

I was here.

On my neck was a Gorean collar.

The brunette slave lay quietly at the foot of the furs, the chain running from her left ankle to the ring. I think she was asleep. I am sure the others were, as well. The monster, bent over, picked up the tiny lamp, its flame long lowered, from the table, and, moving slowly, went to the kennels which one by one, lifting the lamp a little, he checked. From where I was I could not see two of the women in the kennels. They must have been toward the back of the kennel. I could see the shadows of the bars on the kennel walls, from the lamplight. I did see the figure of one of the women, the chained, kenneled brunette. The shadows of the bars fell across her body, the shadows moving with the movement of the tiny lamp. Then the monster shambled toward the wall. I saw the tiny lamp lifted and saw, at the wall, the women there, the five of them, chained. They lay in various attitudes. Three lay upon their blankets, doubled. The bodies of two of them were partly covered with a fold of blanket, the belly of one, the calves of another. One of the women, she using her blanket doubled, lifted her head a little, blinking, but then put it down again, on the blanket. Such nocturnal checks are not unusual in the pens, of course. I had awakened once or twice in the pens, early in my training, to see the light of a lamp on the walls, the shadows cast there by the bars. But then, after a time, one tends to sleep though such things. One knows, of course, that one’s presence in the kennel is likely to be verified during the night. Too, one knows, as a slave, that one is not permitted modesty, not even in one’s sleep, that one’s beauty may be looked in upon, that as one lies there, exposed, behind the bars, it may be subjected to the consideration and scrutiny of men, as they please. We are, in our way, public. Sometimes even buyers, I have heard, scrutinize us in our sleep. I think those who had purchased me from the pens, for this place, may have so regarded me, once or twice, in my sleep. It is said that sometimes slavers enter the boudoir of a free woman and scrutinize her in her sleep, in this considering what value, if any, she might hold as a slave. How does she move in her sleep, how does she twist, or turn, what tiny noises does she make? Perhaps her movements, and her tiny cries, and such suggest needs, and latencies, of interest. He regards her. Yes, she is a slave. She needs only the brand, the collar. Should he take her then, or should he merely enter her name on the list, to be picked up later, at one’s convenience? I would suppose that men might sometimes find it pleasant, to look in upon us, in our helplessness, and our sleep. Sometimes, too, we might find that we had even in our sleep, all unbeknownst to ourselves, aroused their desire. Sometimes, indeed, the guard had awakened me, by a gentle tapping on the bars. He had then brought me forth, to serve him. Sometimes, of course, I would suppose that he had planned this earlier, looking forward to the time when he might draw me forth. But, at other times, I am reasonably confident that my use was merely a matter of the interest of the moment. But sometimes, too, I had waited, anxiously, for him, to plead in whispers for his attention, not wanting to awaken the others. Sometimes my plea would be granted. At other times it would be denied. I had heard there were guards in the pits, or depths. Doubtless they had their rounds to make, of the cells or whatever incarcenatory devices might be found in this place. I did not think they would check this area. This was the place of the pit master. Her would doubtless strictly control the gratifications of the women here, as much as, or perhaps even more so than, their food and bonds. I saw the pit master turn toward me. I was very frightened. He terrified me. But I, too, one of his charges, as much as the others, would doubtless be looked in upon. I pretended to be asleep. I heard him approach the cage. I was sure, then, he was quite close to me. Though my closed eyelids I was aware of the lamp. But he did not turn away! For better than a minute he stood there. Then, frightened, I rose to my knees in the cage and, facing him, put my head down to the tiny iron floor, performing obeisance.

“Why did you pretend to be asleep?” he asked.

“forgive me, Master,” I said. He was silent.

“I was afraid,” I said. “Forgive me!”

“How is your belly?” he asked.

“My back, Master?” I asked. I thought I must have misunderstood him.

“Your belly,” he said.

“Master?” I asked. Then I said, “It is all right, Master. Thank you, Master.”

“You have a hot belly,” he said, “particularly for one so new to the collar.”

I kept my head down. I was silent.

“You may be easily controlled by it,” he said. “It puts you much at our mercy.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“In the beginning,” he said, “I think I will permit you to be touched by men only infrequently.”

“As Master wishes,” I whispered.

“We shall see how you serve.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Lift your head,” he said.

I did so, but I did not look at him.

“Lift your hair, and turn your head from side to side.”

I put my chained hands to my hair, and lifted it, and turned my head from side to side.

“Pierced-ear girl,” he murmured.

Then he said, “You may lower your hands.”

With a movement of my head, I tossed my hair down, about my shoulders. I adjusted it a little, with my hands, they close together. I kept my head up. I had not received permission to lower it. I did not, of course, look upon him.

“You are pretty,” he said.

“Am I pretty?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Am I handsome?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.”

“For speaking the truth?”

“The opinion of a slave is worthless,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I do not wish to offend Master,” I said.

“Do you think, because you have been put in a collar, you become less intelligent?”

“No,” I said.

“Slavery has many effects on a woman,” he said, “It softens her, it enhances her beauty, it gives her a profound sense of herself, it fulfills her, it increases, considerably, her sexual responsiveness, it increases a thousandfold her capacities to love, but one effect it does not have, it does not reduce her intelligence.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Why should it?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“It does not.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“There is a sense,” he said, “in which the opinion of a slave is worthless, and another sense in which it might not be worthless is the sense in which it might be true, or insightful, or helpful, such things. But in that sense the opinion of an urt or sleen, or any other form of animal, might not be worthless. It might be true, or insightful, or helpful. Such things. The sense in which the opinion of a slave, or other form of animal, is worthless is the sense in which it is just that, the opinion of a slave, or animal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” I said. My thoughts, like my feelings, did not count. They were only those of a slave.

How these men, these brutes on this world who had never relinquished their manhood, dominated us! How totally, how uncompromisingly, they dominated us! How deliciously they dominated us!

“Intelligent women,” he said, “make excellent slaves.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“They understand what has been done to them, what they then are, how they must be, and so on.”

“Yes, Master,” I whispered.

“And they are quick to grasp the impossibility of escape, and the irreversibility, by their own efforts, of what has been done to them.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. But did he not understand how much more there was to it than this? Did he not understand the need for the master, the longing for him, the yearning for him? Did he not understand the need to serve, and love, selflessly?

“You look quite well in chains.”

“Thank you, Master,”

“You belong in them.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You know that, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I whispered. I was such a woman. Even had it not been for such things as the desire to serve the love wholly, with no thought of self, only with thought for the happiness of the master, I would have belonged in chains. I knew that I had been petty, and vain, and selfish, and doubtless, to some extent, still was. I had little doubt of that if I had been permitted to retain my freedom I would have abused it, almost certainly so in my old world. How fitting then, I recognized, that men, in their arrogance, not wishing to accept such insult and folly on my part, had simply made me a slave, had simply branded me and put me in a collar. I now wore chains. I was now subject to the whip. I would obey, and be pleasing. These things had been decided by men.

“Master!” I begged.

“Yes?” he said.

“For what reason have I been brought here?”

“Here?” he asked.

“To this city, this place,” I said.

“To this particular city, and this particular place?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You will learn in time,” he said.

“Master!” I begged.

“Yes?” said he.

“I do not know my name,” I said.

“It is on the collar,” he said. He indicated that I should move closely approach the bars. I put my right cheek against them, my eyes closed. I felt his pawlike hand slide the kajira collar up, beneath the sirik collar. “There it is,” he said, lifting the lamp a bit. “It is there, your name, on the collar, which you cannot remove from your neck.”

Of course I could not remove the kajira collar! Such collars are not made to be removed by a girl. They are locked. The lock is at the back of the neck. Such collars are light, close-fitting, and attractive. They are pretty. One does not slip them.

I knew that the name was on the collar, and that, thus, in a sense, my name was on me, clearly and obdurately, for anyone to see, anyone who might be literate and care to peruse the collar. In this way a girl may be more easily recognized, and remembered, or identified or traced, or such. She is denied the refuge of a gracious and sheltering anonymity.

And of course I could not remove the sirik collar either. It was locked on me, as well.

The brute knew this. He was merely reminding me of my helplessness. It was doubtless an excellent lesson to be administered to a slave, and particularly, I supposed, to one such as I, an Earth-girl slave.

“It was shown to me,” I said, “but I cannot read. I am illiterate! It was never told to me.”

“Even if you could read,” he said, “you cold not see it now, for it is on your collar.”

“Please, Master,” I said, my eyes closed. “I would know my name.”

I must, I knew, hear my name first from the lips of a man.

“Do you beg to know the slave’s name?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said. “I beg to know the slave’s name.”

“It is a barbarian name,” he said, “short, luscious, and splendidly fitting for a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He was silent.

“I beg to know the slave’s name,” I said.

“It is ‘Janice’,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“’Janice’,” I said.

“That is the sort of name beneath which a slave squirms well,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said. I felt the chain from my wrists between my thighs. Thence it ran back to my shackled ankles.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Janice, Master,” I said.

“Go to sleep now,” he said, “Janice.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

In a bit he had returned to his furs. He blew out the tiny flame of the lamp.

We were then in utter darkness.

I lay there for a time, and then lifted the chain on my wrists a little. I pressed my lips to it, and then to the manacles on my wrists, one after the other. I was ignorant of many things, but now, at least, I was no longer ignorant of my own name. I now knew who I was. I was Janice.

I then fell asleep.