Prize of Gor (76 page)

“Speak,” he said.

“It is that you find me of personal interest.”

“Absurd,” he said.

“I think that what is most maddening of all for you, Master, is that you want me, that you want this slave!”

Mirus threw back his head and laughed.

“Yes!” insisted Ellen.

“I wonder how you can be punished, you insolent little slut,” said Mirus, laughing.

“Master?” said Ellen, warily, suddenly sinking back on her knees before him.

“When a slave is displeasing in any way, let alone presuming beyond her station, it is customary for her to be punished.”

“I belong to Cos, Master,” said Ellen quickly.

“Can you dance?” asked Mirus.

“No,” said Ellen, frightened.

“But,” said he, “if you were called to a circle, you would have to perform.”

“I am not a dancer,” she said. “I will not be called to a circle.”

“But if perchance you were,” said he, “you would have to perform.”

“I suppose so, Master,” she said.

“Interesting,” said he.

“Do not have me called to a circle, Master!” Ellen begged, terrified.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I cannot dance,” she wept. “I would be clumsy! They would be angry! I would be beaten!”

“If a girl does not report to a circle,” said Mirus, “it is my understanding that that constitutes not only disobedience, but a presumption of flight.”

Ellen groaned.

“You are familiar with the penalties for a fugitive slave,” he remarked.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, shuddering.

“You would not look well without your feet,” he said.

Ellen put down her head, in her hands, weeping.

“Your lot number is 117, as I recall,” said Mirus.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.

“You were serving at the station of Callimachus, as I recall,” said Mirus.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, frightened.

When she looked up, he had turned away, presumably returning to the tent.

Only a little later, as she knelt before the tent, trembling, she saw a lantern approaching, and heard the trundling of a cart. It was a small, two-wheeled, high-wheeled cart, with two handles, by means of which it might be drawn. The lantern was fixed on a short pole, at the front, left side of the cart, as one would look forward from the cart. She welcomed the light. The cart was being drawn by a naked woman, struggling between the handles. On the cart, tied there, was a large, damp, cool barrel.

“Is that you, Ellen?” inquired the woman, from between the handles.

“Yes!” said Ellen.

It was Louise, one of her fellow serving slaves, who had earlier attended the vat of Callimachus with her, serving the men in its vicinity. Ellen recalled that Louise had been sent before her to the sutlers. Given the impatience of the vat master, Ellen had been, somewhat afterward, dispatched on the same errand.

“Get between the handles. Help me!” said Louise.

“Who are you?” asked a strapping, short-haired lad, following the wagon, bearing a switch.

“Ellen,” said Ellen.

“Do you know her?” the lad asked Louise.

“Yes,” said Louise.

“Are you with the vat of Callimachus?” asked the lad.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.

“Stand,” he said.

Ellen did so.

“What are your doing here?” he asked.

“I was on my way to the sutlers, Master,” said Ellen.

“Yes, on your knees,” he said, “outside a master’s tent.”

He then gave her a stinging stripe across the back of the thighs. “Get between the handles, pull,” he said.

Ellen, as Louise had gripped the handles rather near the front, bent down and then rose up between them, grasping them behind Louise. There were several welts on Louise’s back.

Then Ellen herself cried out, as she herself felt the switch, twice, of their youthful driver.

“Move,” he said. “Hurry!
Harta
!”

She then, with Louise, put her small weight against the resistance of the wagon.

“Will it be necessary to beat you further?” asked the lad.

“No, Master!” said Louise.

“No, Master!” said Ellen.

He then gave them each more stripes.

“Hurry,” he said. “
Harta
!”

“Yes, Master!” cried the straining, hurrying, switched slaves.

The high wheels of the wagon creaked. The ground was uneven. The small feet of the slaves dug into the dirt. They leaned forward, grasping the handles. One could hear the ka-la-na moving about in the barrel, like a surf within the wood, the barrel rocking in the small wagon bed, rolling within the restraining ropes. The lad directed them through the darkness.

Ellen was confident that Mirus would not have her called to a circle. To be sure, he had frightened her for a moment. How cruel of him to tease her so! But he would not do that to her, not to her. They were both from Earth.

She was uneasy, however, for she knew that she was a slave.

Chapter 24

DANCED

Ellen looked about herself, anxiously.

Surely the men were quieter now, less unruly.

She with Louise, and the lad, had a few Ehn earlier, directed by the lad, arrived at the wine station of the exasperated Callimachus.

There were cries about from angry men, and clashing goblets. Some were on their feet. Some were in the vicinity of the vat itself. Some had left to seek their beverage elsewhere in the camp.

“There was haggling, and new wine had to be brought out from the city,” the lad explained to Callimachus.

“Hurry!” said Callimachus. “The wine! The wine! Slaves, here! To me, slaves!”

The bung was drawn from the barrel and the precious ka-la-na, the barrel still on the cart, was released over the vat. Yet little of it reached the vat at first for, at the order of Callimachus, the serving slaves filled their empty pitchers from the cascading stream itself, and then rushed to serve.

Four times Ellen had rushed back and forth to fetch more wine. She saw Renata. Louise, too, was now serving. Now she stood amongst the fires and men, a half-filled pitcher grasped in her hands.

Things now, it seemed, were much the same as earlier.

She knew the sales were to begin soon at the great block. They would last, presumably, for two or three days, as there were many slaves to be vended, probably well over a thousand.

She touched her throat lightly. There was no collar there now. But perhaps as early as tomorrow morning she would once more wear locked upon her neck the identificatory circlet of a master, her master.

Early in her bondage, although she had understood that she had been enslaved, she had, perhaps oddly, not really thought of herself as being
owned
; perhaps she had thought of herself as being more a prisoner or captive of sorts; then, a bit later in her bondage, but initially while still in the house of Mirus, she had come to understand that she was not a prisoner or a captive, nothing so dignified, nothing so honorable or important, or deserving of respect, but something quite different, simply a property; she then understood that she was
owned
; and for a time it had been fearful to think of herself as being
owned
. But later she had come to understand this as a given modality of her actuality, as an aspect of her being, as a quotidian reality. She then understood herself, and accepted herself, quite naturally and honestly, and without fear, as being what she was, as being something which was
owned
. And this, of course, was particularly in the legal sense. For years before her branding and collaring she had sensed that she was a natural slave and had surreptitiously dreamed, while trying to deny such dreams, of meeting a master who would enslave her and whom she might thereafter lovingly serve. To be sure the slave would like to choose her master. But Ellen now, apart from her natural dispositions and deepest reality, fitting her for love and the collar, had come to understand herself on all levels, factually and honestly, as something which was owned, as something which could pass from master to master, as might any piece of property. Had kaiila or verr the rationality to comprehend such matters they, too, would have such an understanding of themselves. And Ellen, whom I think we may accept as intelligent, perhaps even quite intelligent, forgive me, Masters, given the selection criteria of Gorean slavers, of which we may take Mirus to be one, had this understanding of herself. She understood herself to be a property, in this case a domestic animal, in the same sense in which a rational kaiila or verr would understand themselves as such. In short, she now understood herself, and thought of herself, quite naturally and accurately, as what in fact she was, as something which was
owned
.

She thought of the tent of the men, and beasts, and of Mirus. For a time she had been frightened there, exaggerating in her own mind the significance of her curiosity and inadvertence. But Mirus had made it clear to her that the matter was unimportant. How foolish she had been, to have been so frightened. Doubtless the men had intended to frighten her, but had intended her no harm. Surely they had let her go, without even a whipping. Mirus himself had conducted her outside the tent. If animal trainers wished to keep the docility of their beasts, and their level of training, secret, in order to make a better performance at a later time, that was surely their prerogative. She did not blame them for their not wanting her to betray their secret, and perhaps spoil their performance. But it had surprised her that Mirus, whom she knew was well fixed on Gor, should have been a member of their party. Perhaps he was investing in the performance, and had wished to ascertain for himself the promise of a substantial return on his venture.

She had no doubt that such, or something much like it, was the explanation for the episode. Too, in retrospect, her momentary fear that the beasts might actually be intelligent creatures, and in communication with their masters, was dismissed, as an illusion of the contretemps, and her fear. Beasts did not speak, save perhaps such as she.

Why had she followed Mirus?

Well, she had not seen him in a long time, and she was curious. Too, it had been in his house that she had been branded and collared. A woman is not likely to forget such things.

Too, had it not been his whip that she had first felt as a slave? Certainly no slave is likely to forget her first whipping.

But certainly her “thighs did not steam for him,” and the mere sight of him did not “lubricate her for the mastery,” nor had she followed him “like a she-sleen in heat”! No! Never! That was absurd!

“Lying little slave girl,” she said to herself. “Your thighs steam for any man, and the sight of any virile male lubricates you for the mastery. And if you are not like a sinuous she-sleen in heat, it is rather because you are more like a sleek, curvaceous little she-urt in heat! You are a meaningless little slut in whose belly have been kindled slave fires!”

“I hate you, Mirus,” she said to herself. “You have called me plain and stupid, and I am neither. I am so sorry that you tired of me! What a disappointment for you, that you made so little money on me! I was not interesting enough for you to have at your feet! You let me go! You rejected me!” But then she said to herself, “But we are both of Earth. You extricated me from amongst the men and beasts at the tent, who might otherwise, in their impatience, have subjected me to the whip or bastinado. And you have not had me summoned to a dancing circle, knowing what that might mean for me. Perhaps you have some sympathy, if not affection, or desire, or lust, for a fellow Earthling, one now in categorical bondage, one who is now no more than I am, a legal animal, a property, on another world. You then, somehow, have at least that much consideration for me. For that I thank you, you who are known here as Mirus of Ar.”

“Turn, face me,” said a man.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. “Wine, Master?”

He was looking at her left beast.

“Follow me,” he said.

“But I am to serve,” said Ellen.

“No,” said he. “You will follow me.”

He turned about and Ellen followed him. He led their way past the wine vat of Callimachus, and indicated that she should discharge the residue of her pitcher’s wine into the vat, which she did. She then, at a gesture, put the pitcher on the bench, beside two others.

“Master?” asked Ellen. But already he was threading his way through the crowd, and the fires. Swiftly she fell into place behind him, heeling him, behind his left shoulder, but, given the press of the crowd, much more closely than would normally be the case. A slave girl’s heeling distance is a function of a particular situation, of local circumstances, so to speak. In an open area a girl will normally heel three to five paces behind, normally on the left. Whereas following on the left, which is usual, may be a simple matter of gratuitous custom, it might also be noted that this arrangement may have a darker origin. If objects are to be handed to a man, say, a warrior, such as a buckler, or barbed war net, this transfer of articles from the left is not likely to discommode or encumber the most common weapon hand which is, of course, the right. On the other hand, it is thought that following on the left is generally a position of less dignity, and thus appropriate for animals, including slaves. A consideration favoring this possibility is that left-handed Goreans will also, commonly, have their sleen, their slaves, and such, follow on the left. A free woman walks proudly beside a free man or, if the press does not permit this, is often accorded the privilege of preceding him. One of the most humiliating things for a Gorean free woman, after she has been enslaved, other than the loss of her name, is that she must now follow, and neither walk beside nor lead. To be sure, the tunic, the brand and collar are also instructive.

“May I speak, Master?” asked Ellen, struggling to follow him, he moving so swiftly through the crowd.

“If you wish,” he said.

“Whither bound are we?” she asked.

He turned about, looked at her, how small she felt before him, and put his hand in her hair, and then put her head, held by the hair, at his hip, in leading position.