by John Norman
I often thought of the man whom I had first seen in the store, before whom, for the first time, I had felt myself viewed as what I had secretly taken myself to be, a slave.
I could not forget him, of all the others.
I recalled him from the warehouse, when he had turned me to my back before him. Nude, and helpless, bound, lying at his feet, I had looked up at him. I had recognized him instantly. I suspect he did not remember me. I wondered if, when he had first seen me in the store, in my skirt, blouse, and sweater, he had considered what I might have looked like, as I then was, helpless, bound, slave naked, at his feet. I had had the strangest, shocking sense, when our eyes had first met, not only that I, a suitable slave, was before a master, perhaps for the first time, but that I might be before my master. My knees had been weak, my breath had become short. I feared I might fall. I had felt the strangest inclination to kneel before him, my head lowered, in suitable submission. Then I turned about, and fled away, amongst startled shoppers, and puzzled fellow clerks. After our encounter in the warehouse, in which he failed to recognize me, or it seems so, I did not see him again until the afternoon before my sale, in the exposition cage. During my training, how often I had sneaked little glances about me, at the guards, the visitors, prospective buyers, trainers, physicians, and attendants, hoping to see him! I knew myself too poor a slave to be of interest to such a man, perhaps one of skills, position, and wealth, but, still, I hoped to see him. I was sure it was he who had brought me to the iron, and the collar. At least that much I must have pleased him! But I did not see him again until the afternoon in the exposition cage. The cage serves an important purpose. It makes it possible for prospective buyers to inspect the merchandise before the sale, take notes, make comparisons, and such. The exposition cage is very different from the common slave cage. The common slave cage is designed for a single occupant. It is small. In it, commonly, the slave may not stand, or stretch her body to its full extent. Too, it is closely barred. The slave, for the closeness of the bars, cannot be well seen within it. The smallness of the cage makes it possible for several cages to be stored in a given area. Some are designed in such a way that they may be fastened together, even stacked. The exposition cage is quite different. It is quite large. In it a slave may stand, and move about with ease. The bars, too, are widely spaced, though not so widely spaced that a girl may slip between them, to enable customers, passers-by, and others, to enjoy a relatively unimpeded view of the goods to be offered later in the day. A girl may be called to the bars, for a closer inspection, and she must, if commanded, smile, pose, assume various positions, and such, that she may be the better assessed. A girl dares not demur. The lash is always at hand. Some of the girls try to attract the attention of various fellows, usually young, handsome fellows, or those in richer robes, with presumably heavier purses. Occasionally a fight breaks out in the cage, as one slave may have, perhaps inadvertently, obstructed a possible buyer’s view of another, or have thrust another aside, to present herself in her stead, or such. The slaves are to speak little in the cage, either to one another or to the men outside the bars. We may answer questions, as to our training, our origin, our fluency in Gorean, and such things. The standard phrase we are permitted is the ritual phrase, “Buy me, Master.” Each of us is marked, her lot number inscribed in grease pencil on her left breast. I was told that my number was 119. Barbarian slaves are commonly kept illiterate. There were several of us in the cage, perhaps more than was appropriate for suitable viewing, but the sale, I had gathered, was a large one, which would last several Ahn. Apparently many slaves were being purchased for transportation beyond Brundisium, by one or more mysterious buyers to whom, it seemed, price was not a matter of particular concern. Accordingly, the various houses represented in the sale were anxious to participate in so attractive a market. Many slaves, too, had been brought to Brundisium as a consequence of political events which, it seems, had taken place in the south. An unusual market situation had accordingly come about, one in which goods were relatively abundant while prices, interestingly, remained relatively stable, this apparently because of buyers rich in coin who wished to conduct their affairs with dispatch, and be on their way.
He had called me to the bars of the exposition cage.
It was he!
For a moment it was hard to breathe. I could barely move. For days, weeks, I had hoped to see him, sought to see him, and now I had been summoned to the bars! I feared I might grow weak, and fall. It was hard to breathe. It was almost like the first time I had seen him, but now I was on his world, not mine, and I, nude, a young kajira, viewed him through the bars of an exposition cage. It seemed I could not move, but then I approached the bars, not well, I feared. I wanted to throw myself to my belly, and reach through the bars, and touch him, and beg him to purchase me. Did he not know I was his slave, from the first moment I had seen him? But to my dismay I saw he did not recognize me. He did not know me! I meant nothing to him! Surely he must once have found me of interest, or I would not have been brought here, or the kef would not have been burned into my thigh, but he might have found hundreds of similar interest. What was I to him but another item in a ledger, another small, sleek beast, another piece of meat, slave meat?
I wanted to speak to him, but the words had not come.
Perhaps I should have cried out in bitterness, denounced him, and shaken the bars in helpless, futile rage, but I did not.
Was it not he who had looked upon me, and had seen fit to bring me to bondage?
Should I not have hated him for this?
Rather I wanted to kneel before him.
I wanted to be his, his belonging.
I wanted to live for him, to love him and serve him, wholly, and selflessly. But I was unworthy even to fetch his sandals in my teeth.
I do not think I even stood well before him, slender, soft, head down, submitted.
I closed my eyes, and tears pressed between the lids, and I opened my eyes, and he was gone.
He had not even remembered me.
I was to be sold. Shortly, I would belong to another.
I had fallen to my knees beside the bars, and had put my head in my hands, and wept.
***
The gate at the head of the stairs had been opened.
I looked up, the heavy collar on my neck. The chain, too, is heavy, dependent from its ring. I had little doubt that the collar and chain, as the others, was originally intended for men, perhaps criminals, perhaps prisoners of war, bound for the quarries or galleys. This basement, or dungeon, I supposed, had been rented, or commandeered, for female slaves, perhaps because of our numbers, unusual in this place, or season. I understood little or nothing of what was going on. We are not informed. We are kajirae. Curiosity, supposedly, is not becoming to us. Would herders inform verr or kaiila of their plans? I preferred the chains, the bracelets, and restraints of the slave house, where I had been trained. They are light, lovely, tasteful, attractive, and feminine. They, like the brand and collar, are intended to enhance our beauty, for a woman’s bonds, like her garmenture, if she is permitted garmenture, are intended to set her off nicely. In them she is to be framed, presented, and displayed, excitingly and attractively, purchasable goods. I suppose it only needs be added that in them, as well, as lovely and feminine as they are, we are helpless; they confine us with perfection.
It must be early in the morning.
Three fellows were descending the stairs; one held some short lengths of cord, and some strips of dark cloth, and another several loops of rope. The last, who wore blue, carried a marking board, and pencil.
Slaves shrank away from them.
If I had not lost count, this was my eleventh day in the basement, or dungeon. I had seen these fellows before, perhaps four or five times. They were the guards, or attendants, who brought girls down the steps, or escorted them upward, and beyond the gate.
Without a command, or the accompaniment of guards, we were not permitted on the stairs, those high, narrow,
rail-less stairs, a wall at one side, at the height of which, giving access to the lower holding area, was the barred gate.
We knew the purpose of the cords, the strips of cloth, the long rope.
In the house, and here, as the girls spoke, I had heard of lovely Ko-ro-ba, busy Harfax, mighty Ar, and even vast, remote, Turia.
Why could we not be purchased for such places?
But we recognized the cords, the strips of cloth, the long rope.
“Be silent,” said the fellow in blue.
We all knelt, for we were in the presence of free men.
On this world a chasm separates the slave and the free. I suspect that few on my former world could even begin to comprehend the nature of this chasm. Certainly I had not. Then I found myself a slave. The free individual is a person; the slave is not; she is an animal, and is usually marked and collared as such. As any other animal, she may be bought and sold, and dealt with as her masters might please. The free individual has caste, clan, and Home Stone. The slave has nothing, and is herself owned. The free person knows himself free, and conceives of himself as such. The slave knows herself slave, and conceives of herself as such. She exists for the master, and hopes to please him.
The men surveyed us.
We knelt in the straw, naked, waiting, viewed.
We were frightened. It would be done with us as men pleased. We were slaves.
“Recall your lot numbers,” said the fellow in blue, with the marking board and pencil.
We had no names. We had not yet been named. When we were named, if we were named, they would be slave names, put on us, and taken away, at a master’s pleasure. Do verr and tarsk have names?
“You will form a line, standing, facing me, head down, wrists crossed behind your back,” said the fellow in blue, with the marking board, and pencil.
In the times before, the line had consisted of as few as ten girls, and as many as twenty.
“Sixty-eight,” called the fellow in blue, with the marking board, and pencil.
“Master,” responded a red-head.
She rose to her feet, with a rustle of chain. She was siriked. This impediment was removed, and cast to the side of the stairs.
She then crossed her wrists behind her back, took her place, and lowered her head.
She was a tall girl, perhaps five feet nine or so. Normally the line proceeds from the tallest to the shortest girl.
“Forty-one, twenty-two, one hundred and six,” called the fellow in blue. “Master,” said each, identifying herself.
They took their places, two being first relieved of physical constraints, one a sirik and one a wall collar.
“Eighteen,” said the fellow in blue.
“No, no, no!” screamed a girl.
She leaped to her feet, darted with a scattering of straw past the fellow in blue, and, scrambling, sobbing, stumbling, falling once, leaping up again, fled toward the stairs, at the top of which, high above, was the dark, barred gate. Then she screamed with misery, several feet from the stairs, caught by the hair, and yanked back, that by the fellow who carried the loops of rope. He twisted her rudely, abruptly, about, and downward, and she was then at his feet, he crouching over her, his hand in her hair. He then straightened up, angrily, and, she crying out in pain, jerked her to her feet, and held her beside him, bent over at the waist, her head tight against his hip, her head down, facing the floor, she then in leading position. In a moment, she had been conducted to the side of the fellow in blue. Her small hands were on the wrists of the fellow who held her. She was whimpering. As she was held, she could only look down, into the straw. She held her head still, extremely still, to avoid more agony, for the guard’s hand was tight in her hair.
“I am disappointed, Eighteen,” said the fellow in blue.
“Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.
“You moved awkwardly,” he said gently, chidingly. “You were clumsy. Indeed, you fell. Free women may move awkwardly, clumsily, stiffly, however they please, but you, you must keep in mind, are no longer a free woman. You are now kajira. Surely you know that you are to move beautifully, with loveliness and grace, and, in a situation such as this, only with permission.”
“Yes, Master,” she wept.
“I trust you did not injure yourself,” he said.
“No, Master,” she said.
“You must not do so, as you are another’s property,” he said. “Your master would not be pleased if you lowered your value.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I did not think she knew her master, no more than the rest of us. We did not know by whom we had been purchased, or for what reason. We had gathered we were to be shipped north, to some point on the coast.
“Release her,” said the fellow in blue.
She went to her knees, her head down, to the feet of the fellow in blue.
“I was of the Merchants,” she wept, “the high Merchants!”
“No longer,” said the fellow in blue.
“No, Master,” she said.
“You are now yourself goods,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“It is fortunate that in your brief, foolish, and ill-advised flight you did not reach the stairs,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Otherwise you would have been punished.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you Master. Forgive me, Master.”
“Do you not think it would be appropriate to express your gratitude to he who saved you from a beating?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, and crawled to the fellow who had halted her in her precipitate flight.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered, and, head down, with her soft lips and tongue, for several moments, addressed herself to his feet.
The licking and kissing of the master’s feet is a familiar behavior on the part of a slave girl. It is a ritual, like kissing the whip, which is symbolic of submission. But these behaviors, or rituals, are often rich and complex. For example, we are taught the licking and kissing of a man’s whip in such a way that he may be driven mad with passion. Too, of course, it has its effect on the slave, as well. The kissing of the feet is also, obviously, symbolic of submission, and is rich in significance. For example, it indicates that the slave is her owner’s animal. It is often a placatory behavior. It may also express contrition, gratitude, and a slave’s love. Too, it is a way in which to place oneself before the master, and plead for attention. I had sometimes begun to sense how one’s needs might sometimes be much upon us. How frightening to be so at a man’s mercy, to be so needful, and dependent upon him! How she hopes and begs that he may be disposed to show her a mercy and kindness. She is only a slave. I resolved that I must fight such things. But I did not want to fight them; rather I wanted to so belong to my master, to be that much his. It was my hope that he would be kind to me. This sort of behavior, the kissing and licking of feet, is sometimes commanded by the free woman, in her hatred of the slave, who thereby recalls to the slave that she is a slave, and no more than a property, a negligible chattel.
“You may now, Eighteen,” said the fellow in blue, “take your place in line.”
“Thank you, Master,” she said, and rose, and stood in place, in line, her wrists crossed behind her back, her head down.
It is a beautiful posture, and one suitable for slaves. Too, in it, one may be conveniently coffled, and bound.
I thought that she had gotten off quite easily. To be sure, she had not managed to reach the stairs. I do not think that I, or the others, would have minded, or much minded, if she had received a lashing. Indeed, however deplorably, we might have enjoyed that. Eighteen was not popular, given her pride, her airs, her pretensions to superiority. Let her weep under the leather! Subject to the lash, we are all equal. Let her learn that! And, too, she had had a lower number than mine, and most of the rest of us, as well, and had been offered earlier in the sales, quite early, in fact. That, too, one supposes, did not en
dear her to us. To be sure, the best might be offered later in the marketing. And, in the house, I had gathered that the finest jewels on the “necklace” are usually distributed throughout the afternoon and evening. Supposedly this brightens and freshens the sales, whets anticipation and capitalizes on the delights of surprise, such strategies theoretically keeping the buyers alert and attentive. Why had the men not lashed her? She was quite beautiful, of course. I wondered if masters were more lenient with beautiful slaves. No, I thought, they are Gorean. Why had they not lashed her? Then I recalled she had not reached the stairs. I found myself wishing that she might have reached the stairs. I wondered if her punishment might have been measured to the number of stairs climbed. Sometimes a piquant arithmetic seems to be involved in such matters. Then I supposed not. In any event, she had not reached the stairs.
Lashings are quite unpleasant.
I had been lashed once, in my training, to inform me of the experience. I did not care to again feel the caress, however briefly, of that implement, the five-stranded Gorean slave lash, designed for the improvement of slaves without leaving a permanent marking, which might lower their value. Having felt it I feared it, and would do anything to avoid it. Yet, too, I felt an indescribable excitement and thrill, a sense of reassurance and security, and even identity, and reality, knowing myself subject to its attention, knowing it would be used upon me if I failed to be pleasing. I was thereby well reassured I was a slave.