Prize of Gor (39 page)

She moaned, inwardly.

Do you wish to be tied and lashed, girl?

No, she thought, I do not want to be tied and lashed!

Do you wish to be slain, girl?

No, she thought, I do not wish to be slain!

I must strive, she thought, to see that my master is entirely pleased with me.

Indeed, I would want, and desperately, for my master to be entirely pleased with me.

Then you are a slave, aren’t you, she said to herself, no more than a slave.

Yes, she said to herself, I am a slave, no more than a slave.

She looked again toward the market, but the young fellow was gone.

She felt the heavy chain on her neck.

I have been opened, she thought. I want sex. I need sex!

Will you yield all, she asked herself.

Yes, she said to herself, I will yield all! And I want to yield all! I will beg to yield all!

“See her!” said the girl. “See the little ice ball!”

“No,” said another. “She is not a little ice ball. She is still just a little sleeping she-urt.”

“A pretty one,” said one of the girls.

“A master will wake her up,” said another.

“Yes,” laughed another.

Ellen wanted to cry out with misery, but she was in position, looking out across the square.

There was still a crowd there, passing, moving hither and yon, coming and going, though it was now late afternoon. Mercifully the sun was lower now, and, although the shelf was still in full sunlight, the sun should, in a few minutes, descend behind the building across the square.

She scrutinized the crowd, hoping for a glimpse of her master. Might that not be he, near the stall of kettles, lamps and pans? No, it was not. Perhaps he had, unbeknownst to her, sent an agent, who even now was merrily reporting to him on the success of his joke, the jest he was cruelly playing on his helpless slave.

How cruel the Masters, she thought. How much we are at their mercy!

She saw men in the crowd. It frightened her, particularly as one of them might turn about, and see her, or pause to look upon her, to think that she, as a slave, might be bought or sold. My master, Mirus of Ar, could sell me, if he wished, she thought. How that thrills me! But, of course, he would not wish to do so! Certainly he would not have brought me here, and taken all this time and trouble, merely to dispose of me, merely to have me sold!

She saw, occasionally, among the crowds, a free woman, robed and veiled. How proudly, how serenely, they moved. How she envied them their freedom! They were free! They could come and go as they pleased. They were not chained naked on a cement shelf, eyes half closed against the glaring sunlight. What they are wearing, she thought, those must be the Robes of Concealment.

Whereas in the laundry she and the others had often washed garments of free women, those garments had seldom been the cumbersome Robes of Concealment. Usually they had been house garments, garden robes, veils, hose, subrobes, and such. She had washed street himations frequently enough, however, of the sort which were sometimes worn by free women, particularly those of the lower-castes. The street himation is far less bulky and protective than the usual Robes of Concealment, less stiffness, less brocade, less embroidery and such. It is, of course, almost always combined with the veil. Gorean free women, at least in the high cities, almost always wear veils in public, although some women of the lower castes are occasionally careless in this particular, permitting lax arrangements, and such, especially the maidens. Too, some omit the veil altogether. Veils can be used, if handled and arranged in certain ways, for flirting, much as were fans, once on Earth, in less androgynous times. Slave girls, of course, being slaves, are not permitted veils. This is another way in which, aside from their revealing garmenture and collars, they are to be distinguished from free women. To a girl from Earth this matter of veiling may seem at first rather inconsequential, but she soon learns that it is a very serious matter. And I must admit that, as one becomes more enculturated here, more aware of the Gorean
ethos
, and Gorean customs, values and views on such matters, and comes to understand how one is viewed here, one tends to become more and more sensitive to such things. It is hard to see the contempt in the eyes of a fully clothed, beautifully clothed free woman, flashing over her lovely veil, as she regards you, and not become simultaneously aware, as you kneel before her, of the exposed nature of one’s body, your legs, your bared arms, your throat with its collar, and perhaps most acutely and painfully, difficult though it may be to understand at first, your features, the required, imposed nudity of your own visage, that your face, because you are a slave, is prohibited veiling, that it must be, in all its vulnerability, publicly bared. It is little wonder that, after such an encounter, we hurry back gratefully, tearfully, to the feet of our masters. That Earth women are seldom veiled is taken by most Goreans, at least those familiar with the second knowledge, as evidence that we are slaves. Too, there is little doubt that the fact that women on Earth, particularly in Western cultures, do not veil themselves is welcomed by Gorean slavers, and certainly facilitates their selections amongst us. Lastly it might be mentioned that it is traumatic for a Gorean woman, when captured, to be unveiled. “Remove her veil” is a command she dreads to hear, one which strikes with fear and misery to the heart of her being. The vulgar expression for this is “face-stripping.” This makes some sense to me, as the face is so expressive. In removing the veil from a woman’s face, one takes her from herself; one denies her to herself; one makes her public, so to speak, like a slave.

Ellen thought that perhaps the Robes of Concealment were not to be entrusted to common laundries. That was why, perhaps, she had seen few, if any, in the laundry. Perhaps special slaves, with cleaning chemicals, attended to them.

Yet, despite the bulkiness and clumsiness of the Robes of Concealment, most of them were very beautiful, in an ornate way. Some were doubtless very expensive, and even set with jewels. Too, despite their protective aspects, and she would not have cared to wear such garments on a day as hot as this, they seemed, in their way, attractive, and feminine. They seemed to suggest that something of interest, something lovely, might be concealed within. Needless to say, veils are invariably, or almost invariably, a portion of the ensemble associated with the Robes of Concealment. Robes, hoods, and veils, as might be expected, are coordinated and matched.

She wondered if the free women, wearing such garments, were happy. It was clear to her, and to all, that they were women, of course, even concealed and veiled. How different they were from the men with their large, agile, leonine bodies. How different we are from them, she thought. And how different was she, she thought, from the free women, they in their robes, resplendent in the glory of their liberty, she a stripped slave, chained on a public shelf. How could she even think of comparing herself with them? But are they, such lofty, proud creatures, happy, she wondered. She wondered, too, how many of them might one day find themselves chained in a market, or grasping the bars of a slave cage, or looking up fearfully, trembling, kneeling and bound, into the eyes of a master, to read their fate. She recalled a saying she had heard in the house, that beneath the clothes of every woman there is to be found the body of a naked slave. Once there passed through the square a palanquin, borne by large, powerful, tunicked men. In the palanquin there indolently reposed a free woman. She recalled the woman seized by the tarnsman from Brundisium and wondered if she, too, had once been carried in such a palanquin. That woman now, perhaps, with Laura, heeled her master in Brundisium, some paces behind, and to his left. She wondered if he would permit them clothing in his own city. Perhaps not at the beginning. The palanquin was then through the square. It had not stopped in this market. Perhaps this market was unworthy of the consideration of such a personage. She wondered if the bearers were male slaves, or merely servants. She supposed they might be servants. They had not been collared, or guarded. Perhaps the woman, wisely, had not chosen to surround herself with male slaves. What if they should, in the rush of their blood, heat and need, turn upon her? How she might be used then, over and over, perhaps on her belly, robes torn away, on the pillows of her then-unborne palanquin! She trembled. She had heard that slaves such as she, low slaves, were sometimes cast to male slaves in the pens, much as one might cast them food. This practice was supposedly useful in reducing restlessness in the pens.

Sometimes, in the crowd, she saw a slave girl, collared and briefly tunicked. What a striking contrast such small, lovely figures, with their tiny tunics, and bared limbs, afforded to the more common denominator of the large, massive, generally male, generally robed throngs through which they threaded their way. How exquisitely, how utterly and beautifully feminine they were! How beautifully they walked and carried themselves. How proud they seemed. How could women be so wonderful? Did they rejoice in their bondage? Did they treasure their collars? How freely and meaningfully, and delightfully, they walked! Of course there is little about the tunic of a slave which might inhibit movement. Sometimes she marveled at their beauty. To be sure, the garments of a female slave, the tunic, the camisk, the ta-teera, the Turian camisk, and such, do little to conceal her beauty. What joy they must bring to their masters, she thought. And, too, perhaps, what joy their masters must bring to them!

How beautiful, too, were their faces! And suddenly, she was delighted that her own face, too, despite the contempt this might elicit from free women, would be bared, and must be bared, on this world. She, as slave, she knew, would have no choice in the matter. And this pleased her. She knew that she had a very pretty face; she was certain of that; it was exquisite, delicate, feminine, sensitive, lovely. She was sure that men would like it. But, too, she was frightened. It was the sort of face, she had learned, that called forth the master in a man. To be sure, she might be transiently sensitive to its exposure in a given context, as in the presence of a contemptuous free woman, or perhaps before magistrates, and officials, but that was only to be expected in this culture, with its particular views. And such moments were likely to be, at most, brief embarrassments.

And there was, of course, another serious thread in the Gorean culture, that which required the display and exposure of the slave. This, too, constituted a cultural imperative, despite what might be the preferences of free women. About this, too, she, as slave, was choiceless.

And how thrilled she was that she was choiceless in this matter!

“You are owned, slave girl,” the culture might say. “There are no veils for you. You are denied the veil. It is not for you. Tremble! You will be as men please. Your face will be as bared as that of a kaiila or tharlarion! But understand that you are human females, the most delicious property a man can own. Understand at once how meaningless you are, small, soft, well-curved items of merchandise, but, too, how precious, special and wonderful you are! The tharlarion will be scrubbed, the kaiila combed. See that you, too, are groomed and cleaned! Sparkle, slave, for your master —
and for all men
! As the kaiila has its swiftness, and the tharlarion its strength, so you, too, have your special properties, your service, your passion, and beauty. Your face will be exposed, so that men may gaze upon it. You will be dressed, if dressed, for their pleasure. You will enhance and reveal your beauty. It will be muchly exposed. You will serve with delicacy, deference and zeal. You will respond to the master’s least touch with eagerness and gratitude. You will live for a kind word and a caress. You will be as men want you, for you are slave, for you are owned.”

All in all, Ellen suspected, frightened at the thought, that she might grow more and more delighted with her beauty, her being and condition. Could it be that she might one day accept her loveliness, wholly, and throw back her head and shoulders, and walk beautifully, in her collar, and be shameless, even joyfully, brazenly shameless? Surely not! How frightful! And yet that was common, she knew, with such as she now was, with female slaves.

No wonder free women hate us so, she thought. Are we not, fulfilled, in our collars, a thousand times more free than they?

Kneeling, in position, chained by the left ankle to a ring, her throat enclosed in a heavy, clumsy, ringed, iron collar, on a cement sales shelf, before Targo, sensitive to her nudity, and miserable, she noted one and another slave girl in the crowd.

How lovely they were!

She wished she, too, might walk about so, so garbed, and free, though in her collar, be free to move about so boldly, so beautifully. She saw men look upon the slave girls appraisingly, admiringly. The girls, heads up, moving beautifully, seemed not to notice, but surely they knew that the eyes of masters were upon them. How could they not be? They were slaves! She wondered if, sometime, they, the natural masters, might look so upon her.

To be sure, free women stiffened, and turned angrily, and looked upon the slaves disapprovingly. But what does it matter, Ellen asked herself. And suddenly it came to her again that free women hated the slaves, and envied them. Perhaps they, thought Ellen, wish they, too, were so garbed, so delightfully and sensuously, and were so free, so vital, so delicious, so desirable, so beautiful!

Too, the slaves seemed to her radiantly happy. It showed in their expressions, and in the carriage of their bodies. She saw their collars, sometimes almost lost in a wealth of swirling, tossing hair. How well mastered they must be, thought Ellen.

When will Mirus of Ar, for that is the name by which she now thought of him, come for me, she wondered. Come for me, my Master, I beg you!

“You may break position,” said Targo, with a sigh.

Ellen then sat on the cement, shading her eyes. “Master!” she called, for Targo had turned away.

He turned back, to regard her.

“Where is my collar, Master?” she asked.