Slowly, painfully, with the assistance of the dealer, he steadying me, I rose to my feet. I was not sure I could stand, without falling.
In the meantime, several men had gathered around, some of them stevedores. Men are often attracted to the sales of women. It is not unusual for them to find such sales of interest. To be sure, in most markets spectators will outnumber bidders.
I stood, unsteadily.
“Examination position,” said the dealer.
I had been taught two or three of the most common examination positions in the training house, one of which I assumed, a bit unsteadily, feet widely spread, hands clasped behind the back of the head, head up, and back, looking upward. A woman may be examined in any position, of course, and it is not unknown for a potential buyer to instruct her to assume a variety of positions. Obviously a given item of merchandise may be displayed in any number of ways.
It is difficult to move when one’s feet are widely spread. One remains in place, and feels helpless. With the hands clasped together, behind the head, the hands are immobilized, and there is nothing to interfere with the customer’s vision, or the assessments of his touch. The breasts are also lifted, as is the behind-the-neck tie or the behind-the-neck braceleting. The head being back, and lifted, it is difficult for the slave to be aware of the eyes and expressions of the examiner, and thus of his interests or intentions. It is also difficult, of course, to anticipate and prepare for any evaluative testing or handling.
Wild thoughts went through my head. Could this be I?
In the office, and in my former life, generally, in all of its quotidian commonplaces, in all of its prosaic routines, banalities, repetitions, and boredoms, it had never occurred to me that I might one day be standing naked on a wharf, on another world, a slave, goods, being sold. What would my friends, my luncheon friends, have thought, could they see this? Would they be horrified? I doubted it. I thought, rather, they would be amused, even delighted, thinking it a well-deserved fate for their doubtless resented, smartly dressed, pretentious, vain, snobbish, shallow luncheon fellow. Or would they too long to stand in a yellow circle, so displayed, knowing that they then must be women, and will be women, as men want them. I wondered how my employers might have reacted. I had seen them look at me. I suspected they might have been bid on me.
“She is too short,” said the man.
“Not at all,” said the dealer. “Why should you say so? I do not understand. She is not short, nor is she tall. She is a pleasant average height, much the same height as most slaves. Her legs are spread widely. As you well know, that makes them seem a bit shorter.”
“That is true,” said a stevedore.
The man looked about, annoyed.
“Can you not conjecture,” said the dealer, “what she would be in your arms, what she would look like on your chain, or roped hand and foot at the foot of your couch, in your furs, or kneeling before you, licking your ankles?”
“What is this mark, on her shoulder?” asked the man. “A slave mark?”
“Scarcely,” said the dealer. “She wears the Kef.”
“A blemish,” he said.
“Scarcely noticeable,” said the dealer.
It was my vaccination mark. This time the reference was clear. I remained silent. Indeed, I had not been given permission to speak.
“Open your mouth,” said the man.
I opened my mouth, widely.
“I forgot to mention,” said the dealer, hastily, “she is a barbarian.”
“I see,” said the man. “It slipped your mind.”
“I fear so,” said the dealer.
“You may close your mouth,” said the man.
I did so.
“How is her Gorean?” asked the man.
“Flawless,” said the dealer.
“Adequate?” asked the man.
“Yes, adequate,” said the dealer, “for her time with the tongue.”
My instructresses, as I recalled, had been pleased with my Gorean, at least to that point. I had profited from the skill and diligence of their instruction, and, doubtless, from the attentions of their switches. One is less likely to commit grammatical mistakes when one is punished for them.
“Buy her,” suggested one of the stevedores.
“Please be quiet,” said the man.
The fellow touched me, slapping me lightly, here and there, with the coiled whip.
“I trust she is satisfactory, and Master is pleased,” said the dealer.
“A poor slave,” said the man.
“But a bargain,” said the dealer.
“She is not Gorean,” said the man.
“Thus you need have no reservations with respect to her treatment,” said the dealer.
“One need have no reservations where any slave is concerned,” said the man.
“So true,” said the dealer.
“She is a barbarian,” said the man.
“Ela,” said the dealer. “It is true.”
“Gorean women are beautiful,” said the man.
“How true,” said the dealer. “Yet, say, one in a thousand is less beautiful.”
“Possibly,” said the man.
“And barbarians,” he said, “are selected carefully, with an eye to intelligence, beauty, and passion. In many markets they sell quite as well as Gorean women.”
“I have heard so,” said the man.
“Too,” said the dealer, “they are cheap. One need not risk one’s life for them, raid caravans, fight wars, sack and burn cities, and so on. Indeed, one does not even pay for them. As I understand it, one simply picks them up, as one might please, much as one would pick flowers in the wild or pluck fruit from unguarded orchards.”
“Then you should let them go very cheaply,” said the man.
“Yet one must buy feed for them, keep chains on hand, buy cages, and such,” said the dealer.
“Four tarsk-bits,” said the man.
“A silver tarsk,” said the dealer.
The man turned abruptly away.
“I misspoke,” called the dealer. “Forgive me. I meant fifty copper tarsks, say, of the weight of the copper tarsk of Brundisium.”
This meant little to me at the time, but I would learn that coinages might differ considerably from city to city. In some cities, there are eight copper-tarsks to a silver tarsk, and, in others, as in Brundisium, where many land and sea routes converge, and business tends to be brisk, one hundred copper tarsks to a silver tarsk. This facilitates small transactions. Too, coinages, certainly gold and silver, are often weighed when the coinage is of one city and the transaction takes place in another. This is sometimes done even when the coinage has been minted in the same city in which the transaction takes place, apparently because of the possibility of a private debasement of coins, the shaving of coins, and such. In the northern hemisphere of Gor it is common to standardize weights against the silver and gold coinages of Ar, the silver tarsk of Ar and the golden tarsk and tarn of Ar. In the southern hemisphere, the coinage of mighty Turia serves a similar purpose.
“Five copper tarsks,” said the man.
“But consider her lineaments,” said the dealer, “her flanks, her wrists, her shoulders, her throat.”
“I am not looking for a pleasure slave,” he said. “I am buying work slaves, to sell south of the Vosk.”
“Even a work slave may be attractive,” said the dealer. “Forty copper tarsks.”
“Perhaps ten,” he said.
“You carry a whip,” said the dealer. “May I inquire your caste?”
“The blue-and-yellow caste,” he said.
“I suspected as much,” said the dealer. “You are then a shrewd judge of collar meat, a skilled appraiser of girl stock. Surely then you must recognize that forty copper tarsks is a splendid buy for this lovely beast.”
“What of thirty?” inquired the dealer.
“I do not need to buy, not here,” said the man. “Ten.”
“Thirty does not seem unreasonable,” said the dealer.
“Ten,” said the man. “I would hope to sell her for thirty.”
“Would you consider twenty?” asked the dealer.
I sensed the man had moved behind me. I thought little of it. A customer, or client, often views an article from more than one perspective. A slave expects to be so considered. Indeed, many slaves, after a sale or two, not only expect to be well displayed, but, in their vanity, enjoy it, and look forward to it. Who does not wish to be beautiful, and excite desire? On a block, of course, the girl is likely to be turned for the buyers.
“Aii!” I cried, suddenly, reacting, involuntarily, spasmodically, wildly, reflexively, helplessly.
What had been done to me!
I could not believe what had been done to me, how, by another, without my permission, I had been forced to reveal myself, to betray my needs and sex.
I was horrified, outraged, and shamed, to the core of my being, and then I recalled I was a slave. I was a beast, an object. Anything might be done to me.
Men laughed.
My body, I feared, was a raging storm of scarlet tissue.
I struggled to return to the examination position.
I was shaking. I was trembling.
Mirth was about.
An aspect of my being, as much as my hair or eye color, had been blatantly exhibited, apparently to see if it might be of interest to masters.
“But what is wrong,” I later asked myself, “with being vital, and alive?” The deceits and pretenses of the free woman are not for the slave, who is owned. They are not permitted to her. She is slave.
It had been done gently, but firmly, with the coiled whip. I had been administered the Slaver’s Caress!
The men about were muchly pleased. Two slapped their thigh.
“Twenty copper tarsks,” said the fellow with the whip, now, again, somewhere before me.
“Done!” said the dealer, pleased. “I will call for the scales.”
“Shameless slut,” said a feminine voice. There had apparently been a free woman in the throng about, of whose presence, I, in examination position, had been unaware. “I would never react so,” she said, apparently to someone with her.
“Nor I,” said another feminine voice, indignantly.
“What a disgusting, leaping, meaningless slut she is,” said the first woman.
“A slave,” sneered the other.
“Yes,” said the first.
“They are all the same, in their collars,” said the second.
“Yes,” said the first.
I think they then took their leave.
“You may break position,” said the dealer to me. “Remove yourself from the circle. Go there, to the side, there, and wait. Lie down, in bara.”
I then lay on the warm boards, in bara.
“May I be touched, Master?” I asked.
“Be silent,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I recalled the voices of the free women. How contemptuous had been their words, their tones!
“You think you are so lofty, so unmoved, so superior, so immune to everything concealed within your robes,” I thought. “But you, exalted creatures, are women, too. Let you be subjected to such a touch. Let men discover whether or not you are alive. I do not think you would leap and cry out other than I.”
I lay quietly, waiting.
“You, lofty free women,” I thought, “let them take away your robes and veils, burn a mark in your thigh, and fasten a collar on your neck, and see if you are any different from me! Kneel, and tremble, and lick and kiss a whip, thrust to your pretty lips, and see if you are any different from me!”
About me, men, and some women, passed. Some men to the side, who had perhaps lingered after my sale, were engaged in conversation, and it was impossible that I should not hear, though, I fear, I understood little of what was said.
“You have heard, doubtless,” said a man’s voice, “of what occurred in the tavern of Tasdron?”
“No,” said another. “What?”
“The tavern was entered by one of the dark caste,” said the voice.
“When?” asked a man.
“Six days ago, in the vicinity of the eighteenth Ahn,” said the first man.
“One of the dark caste, here in Victoria?” asked another man.
“Hunting,” said the first man.
“I had not heard,” said the second man.
“What occurred?” asked a man.
“Four men were slain,” said the first man.
“I had not heard,” said another.
“Tasdron does not wish the matter noised about,” said the first man.
“Nor would I,” said a man. “It is not pleasant to learn that a tavern has been visited by one of the dark caste.”
“How four men slain?” asked a man.
“He of the dark caste was displeased, muchly so,” said the first man.
“His quarry eluded him?” said a fellow.
“Apparently,” said the first man.
“Why four slain?” asked a fellow, apprehensively.
“He of the dark caste made inquiries,” said the first man. “They proved fruitless. None knew the whereabouts of the quarry.”
“And so four were slain?” said a man.
“He of the dark caste was displeased,” said the first man.
“So four men were slain,” said one of the men.
“Each with a thrust to the heart,” said the first man.
“Where is he of the dark caste?” asked a fellow, his voice shaking.
“He is gone,” said the first man. “We do not know where.”
“He of the dark caste simply withdrew?” said a man.
“Yes,” said the first man.
“Undetained?” said a man.
“One does not interfere with one of the dark caste, when he is hunting,” said the first man.
“Guardsmen?” inquired one of the men.
“Nor they,” said the first man.
“Whom did he seek? Whom did he hunt?” asked a man.
“Let us not speak further of this, not here, not on the wharf,” said the first man. “Others approach.”
I then heard steps near me.
I tensed, and a new collar, as I lay, was snapped about my throat. The dealer’s collar was then removed. Merchant Law recommends that female slaves be kept in their collars.
“You are the property, for the moment,” said a voice, “of Raymond of Ti. Who is your master?”
“Raymond of Ti, Master,” I said.
I felt slave bracelets snapped about my wrists, my wrists behind my back, as I lay.
“You are not of Victoria, noble Raymond of Ti,” said the dealer, who was standing to the side.
“No,” he said.
“I gather you are not to be long in Victoria,” said the dealer.
“No,” said he. “But Victoria is a rich trading place for slaves.”
“That is well known,” said the dealer.
I had not been given permission to rise.
“For cheap slaves,” he said.
“Some, in our markets,” said the dealer, “bring prices as splendid as those of other municipalities, Besnit, Ko-ro-ba, Port Kar, Brundisium, even Ar.”
“But not so in open wharf markets,” said the man.
“Perhaps not,” said the dealer.
“Position,” said Raymond of Ti.
I then rose, as well as I could, back-braceleted, to a kneeling position. The simple command, “Position,” unqualified,
is commonly understood to have this import. How one kneels is determined by how one is understood, what sort of slave one is. I knelt with my knees closely together. I was not a pleasure slave. But, of course, any slave, in a sense, is a pleasure slave. She is a slave. I was back on my heels, my back straight, my head up, my hands braceleted behind me.
“You have others?” said the dealer.
“Several,” said Raymond of Ti, “housed in the city.”
“I gather you will soon be leaving Victoria,” said the dealer.
“In the morning,” he said. “We will take a ferry across the Vosk, and then, in waiting wagons, hie south and west.”
My master then held his coiled whip to my lips, and I bent forward and kissed it, and licked it.
“May I ask your destination?” said the dealer.
“Torcadino,” he said.
“Of course,” said the dealer.
“Rise,” he said to me, “and stand, head down.”
A slave, so standing, back-braceleted, is quite attractive. The posture bespeaks submission and helplessness.
“I wish you well,” said the dealer.
“I wish you well,” said Raymond of Ti, my master, and took his leave.
I hurried after him.
I wore no leash.
But none was necessary.
Indeed, a leash is seldom necessary.
Its primary value is its effect on the slave. There are few things that more profoundly impress her slavery upon a woman than being on a leash. Does this not make it clear to her, and to all who look upon her, a scrutiny of which she is likely to be well aware, that she is a slave?
It is no wonder that former free women, recently enslaved, are often leashed.
So I wore no leash.
But no leash was necessary. I was naked, collared, marked, and back-braceleted. There was nothing to do, and nowhere to run, even had I been tempted, in foolishness or madness, to dart away. Escape was impossible, the culture saw to that, but, too, I realized, a thought that would once have startled me, and the truth of which I would have felt obliged to protest fiercely, I did not want to escape. I had now come to accept myself as what I was, and should be, a slave. I had discovered my identity. I had learned I could find my fulfillment only in being owned, only in being the property of a master.
Plunder of Gor Page 16