Kajira of Gor (40 page)

Ar, incidentally, that all female slaves must wear some visible token of

bondage. This is commonly a collar.

Sometimes, too, however, it is a bracelet or anklet. This was the first time I

had ever ridden in a common slave wagon.

My ankles were shackled about the central bar. The girls were shackled on the

bar in the order of the drivers’ delivery schedule, the first girls to be

delivered being shackled closest to the wagon gate, and so on. Our wagon was

checked at the great gate of Ar. A guardsman climbed into the back of the wagon,

crouching down, doing this work. I, naked, in the colored-coded collar, my

ankles chained, sheared, attracted no undue attention. I did cry out, however,

for the guardsman, in leaving, touched me aggressively, and intimately. I

recoiled, wildly, frightened, trying to cover myself. But he was then gone. I

looked after him, shuddering. I was horrified. He had been so bold! But then, of

course, I was only a slave. I saw Luta looking at me, with hatred. I dared Dot

meet her eyes, and looked down. In a moment the wagon was passing through the

great gate at Ar.

“Next,” said the man at the table.

I then stood before the table, naked.

“Thigh,” he said.

I turned sideways, so that he might see my left thigh.

“Common Kajira mark,” he said, and made an entry on a sheet. “Face me, Girl,” he

said.

I did.

“Arrived sheared,” he said, and made another entry. “what is your name?” he

asked.

‘Whatever Master wishes,” I said.

“what have you been called?” be asked. “Quick!”

“I have been called Tiffany,” I said.

“You are now ‘Tiffany,’” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said. He wrote something down, presumably the name. He seemed

to have beard it before, unlike the drivers. Some other “Tiffany” had perhaps,

at some earlier time, stood where I stood. I also realized that I had now been

named. I had lost the name “Tiffany Collins” a few Ahn ago, when I had been

marked, when I had become slave. That name was gone, as soon as the iron,

hissing, curling smoke, had been lifted from my flesh. A free person had been

locked in the branding rack. A mere animal was released from it.

The name “Tiffany” had now been put on me as a mere slave name, a name which

might be removed or changed at the whim of masters. I wore the name “Tiffany”

now as Susan had worn the name “Susan,” now merely as a named animal, merely by

the will and decision of masters.

“Have you had experience in a mill, Tiffany?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“Come around to the side of the table and kneel here,” he said. I did so. He

then bent over and, cupping his left hand under my left breast, held it steady

and, with a grease pencil, across it, above the nipple, inscribed four

characters. “That is your mill number, Tiffany,” he said, “four thousand and

seventy-three.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Now, go there,” he said, indicating another table, several yards away, near the

wall.

“Yes, Master,” I said. Tenrak and Durbar, at the office of the man of Mintar,

outside the gate, had received ten copper tarsks for me. This did not seem to me

much but it was, of course, enough to give them each five nights of pleasure in

a paga tavern. I recalled that Drusus Rencius had thought I might go for

something between fifteen and twenty tarsks. I had gone for only ten. On the

other hand it had not been all open sale. Too, of course, I was shorn and being

considered in terms of utilization in the mills. Some girls, Tenrak had assured

me, go for as little as five copper tarsks. Ten copper tarsks, he assured me,

was a good price for a mill girl.

I now stood before a man near the wall Behind him was a table, on which there

were, aligned, several collars, all seemingly identical in appearance and

design. He had an aide with him.

The man looked at my left breast, reading the characters written there.

“Four-zero-seven-three,” he said. He was then handed a collar, the next in a

series of diminishing rows.

“Name?” he asked.

“Tiffany, if it pleases Master,” I said.

“Can you read?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

He then showed me the collar, indicating the engraving on it. “This is a company

collar,” he said. “It says, ‘I belong to Mintar of Ar. I work in Mill 7. My

number is four-zero-seven-three.’”

“Yes, Master,” I said. The collars would die then, only in the Girl Numbers.

“Lift your chin, Tiffany,” he said.

I did so, and the collar was placed about my neck and snapped shut. The first

collar I had worn had been a color-coded transfer collar, put on me at the

holding area outside the gate, probably primarily to comply with the ordinance

that female slaves in Ar must wear a visible token of their bondage; otherwise

we might simply have had our destinations written on our bodies. This was my

first owner collar.

The laws of Ar, incidentally, do not require a similar visible token of bondage

on the bodies of male slaves, or even any distinctive type of garments. The

historical explanation of this is that it was originally intended to make it

difficult for male slaves to make contact with one another and to keep them from

understanding how numerous they might be. On the other hand, male slaves are not

numerous, at least within the cities, as opposed to the great farms or the

quarries, and they are, in fact, usually collared. Some, however, depending on

the whim of the master or mistress, may wear a distinctive anklet or bracelet. A

consequence of this ordinance from the point of view of a female slave is that

she cannot now even permit herself to be taken for a free woman by accident; her

bondage is always manifest; it is helpful from the man’s point of view, too; he

always knows the status of the woman to whom he is relating; one relates to free

women and slaves quite differently, or course; one treats a free woman with

honor and respect; one treats a slave, commonly, with condescension and

authority.

“Kneel and kiss the whip of Mintar,” he said. He took a Whip from the table and

held it before me. “Again and again,” he said, “tenderly, lingeringly.”

I did so. I trembled, thrilled, forced to kiss a man’s whip, and in the intimate

manner of a slave. I supposed that I would never see the man whose whip I was

kissing.

“what is your name?” he asked. “Tiffany,” I said.

“In what mill do you work?”

“Mill 7.”

“What is your girl number?”

“4073,” I said.

“Whose collar do you wear?”

“The collar of Mintar of Ar.”

“Who owns you?”

“Mintar of Ar.”

“Who do you love?”

“Mintar of Ar.”

“Welcome to Mill 7, Tiffany,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” I said.

He then replaced the whip on the table and handed me, from a basket, two tunics.

They were folded, and washed, and brown. “Thank you, Master,” I said. I held

them close to me. I would later discover that they were rather common slave

tunics, brief, with no nether closure. Too, they were sleeveless, slit at the

sides, and with a plunging neckline. Oil the front of the left shoulder there

was a design, in white and yellow, bearing what I would later learn was an

inscribed “Mu.” This was a design, I would later learn, which was common to many

of the different enterprises of Mintar. “Mu” is the first letter of the name

Mintar. White and yellow, or white and gold, are the colors of the merchants.

The tunic had nothing specific to the mills, of Mill 7. Such a tunic might have

been worn by girls laboring or serving in almost any of his holdings. It was

thus, in a broad sense, a company tunic. I wondered how many girls Mintar owned,

or were owned by the enterprises of Mintar.

“Go now, over there,” he said, pointing, “and get in that line, where you see

that small yellow flag. You wrn be in the chain of Borkon. He will be your whip

master.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. Borkon, I realized, whoever he was, was he whom I must

now strive to please. “Is that all, Master?”

“Yes,” he said. “Did you expect to be intricately measured, to be toe-printed,

and such? You are not a high slave. You are a low slave, a mill girl.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.” I then leapt up and ran to stand in

the indicated line. In a few Ehn I was joined there by Emily and Luta. The other

girls were being sent to other lines.

In a few Ehn more we were approached by a short, muscular man in a half tunic.

He came walking towards us, across the yard. He had emerged from one of the mill

buildings. His arms were extremely thick. There was a whip at his belt.

When he stopped near us, we knelt, a common behavior for slave girls in the

presence of a free man.

“Stand,” he said.

We stood. We straightened our bodies. He walked about slowly.

“So,” he said, “it is the usual collection of she-urts and she-tarsks. Strn, I

see at least two of some interest. What is your name?”

“Tiffany, Master” I said, frightened.

“We are going to get on well, aren’t we, Tiffany?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said, shuddering. He felt me.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Emily,” said the girl behind me.

“We are going to get on well, aren’t we, Emily?” he asked.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

He then stepped back from us. “You are slaves,” he said.

“I am Borkon, your whip master. Within these walls you will be to me as my own

slaves, in all ways. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Master,” murmured several of the girls.

“Louder,” he said, “all of youl”

“Yes, Master!” we shouted. -

“You will work, eat’ drink, juice, sleep, dream and excrete upon my command,” he

said.

“Yes, Master!” we said.

“if any of you retain any pride or courage,” he said, “I will remove it from

you. It will get in the way of your being a good slave. Do any of you retain any

pride or courage?”

“No, Master!” we cried.

“I do,” said Luta.

“Step forth, and kneel,” he said.

Luta obeyed. Although she was a large, strong woman and could have beaten any of

us, smaller, weaker women, she looked small, and suddenly timid, kneeling before

Borkon.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Luta, Master,” she said.

“How long have you been a slave, Luta?” he asked, removing the whip from his

belt.

“A week, Master,” she said.

“It is amazing that a woman such as you has survived this long,” he said. “I

would have thought you would have been slain by now.”

“Master?” she faltered.

“On all fours,” he said.

She obeyed.

He then lashed her, and she, in a moment, sobbing and gasping, disbelief in her

eyes, was on her belly in the yard, a whipped slave.

“Are you not supposed to be on all fours?” he asked.

She struggled, sobbing, to this position.

“I am authorized, if I wish,” he said, “to kill you, or have you killed.”

She shuddered.

“I do not find you particularly pleasing,” he said. “I am considering whether or

not to have you fed to sleen this evening.”

“Master?” she asked.

“You are a slave,” he said. “You will serve and yield, or die. I will let you

make the decision.”

“Master?” she asked, frightened.

“The decision is yours,” he said. “Choose as you will. It makes no difference to

me, one way or the other.”

“Please, Master!” she cried.

“Do you choose to serve and yield, or die?” he asked. “I give you ten Ilin in

which to make your decision. One! Two! Three!”

“I will serve and yield!” she cried.

“Speak more clearly,” he said.

“I choose to serve and yield!” she wept.

“And without reservation?” he asked.

“And without reservation!” she said.

“Do you desire to serve and yield, and with no reservations whatsoever he asked.

“Yes” she said “I desire to serve and yield and without reservations

Whatsoever!”

“And do you beg to serve and yield and with no reservations whatsoever” he

asked.

“Yes’ yes,” she echoed. “I beg to serve and yield and with no reservations

whatsoever!”

“You may now kiss my feet,” he said.

Luta, desperately, humbly, fearfully, kissed his feet

“More,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Do you now have any pride?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Do you now have any courage?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said.

“Kiss the whip,” he said, “and as a slave.”

Luta did so, fearfully.

“Return now to your place,” he said

Yes Master,” she said and, rising up, hurried to her place

“We are all going to be pleasing, and meet our work quota aren’t we?” inquired

Borkon.

“Yes’ Master!” we said, including Luta.

He then lifted his whip to the lips of the first girl in the he. “I kiss the

whip of Borkon,” she said

“Who do you love?” he asked.

“Borkon,” she said.

In a moment or two I felt the whip pressed, too, against my lips. I kissed it “I

have kissed the whip of Borkon,” I said

“Who do you lover” he asked.

“Borkon,” I said

In another moment or two, after Emily, he stood before Luta. She, too, kissed