by John Norman
"It was nothing," he said.
I lowered my head humbly before him, my master. It had not been nothing, of course. At the height, and in the wind, and the cold, we might have half frozen, had it not been for the comfort of those blankets. I had not been unhooded, and ungagged, incidentally, until I had been inside the tavern, in a slave receiving room. My manacles had not been removed until I had been taken downstairs to the basement, and was standing before the gate of a kennel. I had then been put to my hands and knees, and thrust into the kennel, which had then been locked behind me. I had, when the man had left, turned about in the kennel and looked out, through the bars. I could kneel in the kennel, but I could not stand upright in it. I held the bars, and looked out. It was a dim basement. To my left and right, though I could not see them well, there were additional kennels. Several girls might be kept in such places. As nearly as I could tell they were empty at that time. I supposed there might be other holding areas, too. There was straw in the kennel, and a part of a blanket, a pan of water, and a pail for wastes. The next morning I was fed, pellets and gruel, in a pan thrust under the kennel gate and then, later, when I had relieved myself, brought forth for the first of my lessons in dance.
"Master," I whispered.
"Yes?" he said.
"May I speak?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"I understand that you are satisfied with the price for which you purchased me," I whispered.
"Yes," he said.
"That it seemed a fine buy to you," I said. It seemed strange to me, then, that I, the former Doreen Williamson, the timid, shy reference librarian, from Earth, should now be inquiring into matters such as my price. As a free woman I had been priceless, and thus, in a sense, without value, or worthless. As a slave, on the other hand, I did have a value, a specific value, depending on what men were willing to pay for me.
"It was," he said.
"What did you pay for me?" I asked.
"Surely you recall," he said.
"It was two and fifty," I said, "but I do not know, really, what that means."
"Two silver tarsks," he said, "and fifty copper tarsks, not tarsk bits, but tarsks, whole tarsks."
I looked up at him.
"Ah," he said, "you vain little she-tarsk, you want to know if that is much money, do you not? You want to know how much you brought, really, on the block, as a stripped slave. You want to form an estimate as to your value. You want to know what you are worth. You are curious to know what you might bring in an open market."
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira," he said.
"Forgive me, Master," I said. I quickly put down my head.
"First," he said, "you must understand that women are cheap. It has to do with the wars. Because of the many dislocations, and the famine in parts of the country, many women have had to sell themselves into slavery. Too, thousands of females from Torcadino alone, over the recent months, in virtue of one coup or another, have been put into the market. Too, mercenaries and raiders abound. Slavers grow more bold, even in larger cities. Crowding, and the influx of refugees, too, in such cities as Ar, refugees who are often beautiful and defenseless, and easily taken, have contributed to the depression of the market."
"I see, Master," I said.
"But you would still be curious as to your comparative value," he speculated.
"Yes, Master," I said looking up.
"Even under normal conditions," he said, "a silver tarsk would be a very high price to pay for a semitrained girl."
"Ah," I said softly, mostly to myself. I was very pleased. I, semitrained, and a barbarian, had gone for more than twice that price!
I did have value!
"Let me put it in another way," he said, "in one that may be even more meaningful to you."
"Yes, Master?" I said.
"That was the highest price paid for a female that night," he said.
"More than was paid for Gloria or Clarissa?" I asked.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"The two girls who were sold before me, just before me," I said.
"Earth sluts, like yourself," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Each went for a silver tarsk ten," he said. "Both were superb. I was tempted to bid on them myself."
I was stunned that I had sold for more than Gloria and Clarissa. I had regarded them both as far superior to myself.
"You are a virgin, of course," he said.
"Oh," I said.
"That is of value to me," he said, "for I am a tavern owner. After you have performed the virgin dance, I will raffle off your virginity."
"Yes, Master," I said. I did not really understand what he was saying. I did realize, of course, and had realized this shortly after the beginning of my training, that my value might depend not simply on what I was, in myself, but even on the sort of woman I was, say, that I was a barbarian, and the relative abundance or scarcity of that commodity in the markets. Similar considerations apparently pertained to such matters as hair colors and body types. If these things were so, then I supposed that it was natural that my virginity, or lack of it, might also, at least in some cases, affect my price. My master, I noted, did not seem to be personally interested in my virginity, only in what it might mean to him in terms of its possible commercial value.
"But even if it were not for that," he said, "it is probable that you would have brought more than your lovely terrestrial compatriots."
I looked at him.
"Most Gorean men," he said, "would regard you, exhibited on the block, knowing only that much about you, as superior slave meat."
I shuddered.
"I think," he said, "in that market, that night, even if you had not been a virgin, you would have brought more than your friends. I would have thought you might have brought something in the neighborhood of a tarsk eighty or a tarsk seventy."
"But there was a bid of two for me," I said, "before your bid."
"That seems a high bid," he said. "Perhaps it was the bid of someone new to the markets, perhaps one who had not seen many women vended, who did not realize how beautiful any woman is when she is put through merciless slave paces."
I blushed, naked before him, in his collar.
"You bid two and fifty," I whispered.
"That is because I saw in you what others, at the time, did not," he said. "I saw in you the dancer, one I can use in the tavern. I saw in you, too, the helpless pleasure slave, who could be made the prisoner of her own passions, becoming an obedient, eager, grateful, spasmodic animal in her master's arms."
I blushed crimson.
"I think," he said, "that in time you might become a five-tarsk girl, perhaps even a ten-tarsk girl."
I looked up at him, frightened.
"You want to cover your breasts with your hands, don't you?" he asked. "You want to clench your knees tightly together."
"Yes, Master!" I begged.
"Remain kneeling exactly as you are, pleasure slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And so," he said, "although the price I paid for you might have seemed high it was, from my point of view, in virtue of what you are, and will become, a splendid bargain."
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Are you pleased," he asked, "aside from questions of the price I paid for you, or my reasons for it, to learn that you are valuable, that you might well bring a price in the neighborhood of two silver tarsks in an open market?"
I did not know, precisely, how to respond to this question. It seemed that I was, as I had hitherto suspected, of genuine interest to Gorean men, or at least to many of them. Should I find pleasure in this, or a cause for alarm? Gorean men are generally such as to know how to handle women. They know what to do with them. Yet I did not think I would really want to be in the arms of other sorts of men.
"You have been asked a question," my master reminded me.
"Forgive me, Master," I whispered. I
looked up at him, shyly. "Yes," I whispered, "I am pleased. I am extremely pleased."
"Vain she-tarsk," he said.
"Yes, Master," I smiled. I was delighted to learn that I had brought a good price, even if he thought it such a bargain. I was delighted, too, to learn that I might have, even had he not been there, brought as much as two silver tarsks. One fellow had bid that much! Too, perhaps most importantly, most significantly, no other girl had sold for so much that night as I! I had brought the highest price in the whole market that night! This astonished and delighted me. To be sure, it was doubtless an isolated market, and we were probably all only semitrained girls, or less, girls being sold that night as little more than "slave meat," as my master had put it, so frightening me. But still, even as "slave meat," it was I who had brought the highest price! I wished Teibar could have known that, that his catch from the library on Earth had brought the highest price in the market, and on her first sale, too! But I supposed that he, the monster, the beast, would have merely congratulated himself on his taste in selecting captures, turning it all to his own credit! The buyers would have known very little about me, of course. They had seen me the way most other Gorean men would see me, at first, or until they learned more about me, I supposed, as no more than another pretty girl in bondage, as, in effect, in a sense, no more than mere "slave meat." I was proud, however, to have been regarded as an attractive slave, or, if you like, as promising slave meat. How strange it then seemed to me that I, the former Doreen Williamson, of Earth, a shy librarian, should now be elated that she had some simple, independent value as a female, if only as slave meat! Then I realized how superficial was my view of this matter, even in so simple a business as vending a girl from a block. Gloria was larger than I and, in this sense, would surely have been expected to have brought more if we were really being considered as "mere slave meat." But she had not brought more. They had considered us, and, for one reason or another, properly or improperly, wisely or not, at that particular time, in that particular place, at least, had bid more for me. The men call us "slave meat," and such, and perhaps this amuses them, and helps to keep us in our place, at their feet, but only a woman who is a fool believes them. They want, and own, the whole slave. Even Gorean law makes it clear that it is the entire slave who is owned, not merely a part of her. To be sure, Gorean men do not play the games of some fools of Earth, pretending that the bodies of women are not of interest to them, but only their minds, or such, or whatever the currently prescribed cultural values recommend. They relish our bodies and see that they derive from them, exploiting us, if you will, every last ounce of pleasure that they can yield to them, but even in these merciless predations, showing us so little concern, it is the whole woman, the whole of their property, which they tease, and torment, and relish, and make yield to them.
"But there is good discipline kept in this house," he said, lifting the whip.
"Yes, Master!" I said, quickly. Here, in this house, I then understood, though I might have some value in a commercial sense, I was only a slave.
"Crawl back down the steps, facing me," he said, "and then kneel at the foot of the dais."
I obeyed. I now felt very small before him, kneeling there, a slave, he, my master, so high above me in that great chair.
From a small satchel, walletlike, attached at his belt, he drew forth a tiny object, made of cloth. He crumpled it easily in the palm of his hand. It was clearly very compressible. I did not know what it was.
He threw it to me. It struck my body and fell before me, to the rug, at the foot of the dais. I looked down at it. I looked up at him.
"Put it on," he said.
Quickly I reached down and picked up the object, its folds tucked in among themselves. I opened it, and shook it out. It was a brief slave tunic, slit deeply at the hips, with narrow shoulder straps, little more than strings. I looked up at him, gratefully. It was the first garment of my own I had been given on this world. To be sure, I had been, upon occasion, given blankets or sheets to hold about myself, usually for warmth, and I had been, in my training, put in various costumes, mostly, I suppose, for my masters to see what I looked like in them, such as the common and Turian camisk, and the scandalous garb prescribed for Tuchuk slave girls. Too, I had been taught the wearing of, and arrangement of, simple, typical slave garments, such as tunics of various sorts, and ta-teeras, or slave rags. I had even been taught the tying of slave girdles, in such a way as to emphasize, and sometimes more than subtly, my figure. And, indeed, part of my training had not been only how to wear, and move in such garments, but also how to remove them provocatively, and gracefully. Even the blankets and sheets we had been given, presumably mostly for warmth, we had to remove in certain fashions that clearly, from a man's point of view, would have counted as an extremely sensuous disrobing. Then, recollecting that I had been ordered to put it on, I pulled it over my head and put my arms through the straps. In a moment I had drawn it down about me.
"Stand," he said.
Happily I stood, pulling the garment down more, hastily, modestly, about my thighs. Then I realized, blushing, that doing this must have as its consequence the greater accentuation of my figure.
"Turn," he said. "Walk about. Then return and stand before me."
Happily I moved about in the garment.
"Do you not know how to walk?" he asked.
"Forgive me, Master," I said.
I then walked as a slave, proudly, my shoulders back, gracefully and beautifully, as a woman owned by men. As an Earth female I would never have dared to walk in such a way. Such movements are probably indexed, like physical distances between individuals, to the culture. In Gorean culture, generally, it seemed to me that people stood closer to one another than I was accustomed to on Earth. In this way it was natural for men here, for example, to stand much closer to the scantily clad slave than the average man of, say, northern Europe, on Earth, would be likely to, to a woman of his area. Indeed, he usually stands so close to her that it would be easy for him to put his hands on her, and draw her to him, taking her in his arms. The dynamic consequences of these proximities are minimized considerably, of course, by the fact that the slave often kneels in the presence of the free male. It is customary in the kneeling position to remain back a few feet from the male. The kneeling position, itself, expresses the servitude of the slave, and her submission. The distance serves three major purposes. It symbolizes in the distance, as well as in the differential in height, the social inferiority of the slave to the master. It puts the slave in a position where all of her, for the master's delight, can be seen. A kneeling woman is incredibly beautiful. It also puts enough space between the slave and the free male so that the releasing of his rapacity is then likely to require a decision, and is less likely to be simply, reflexively, triggered. This is regarded as being particularly important when the slave is in the presence of a male who is not her master. The kneeling position, thus, interestingly, can occasionally provide a measure of security, if a somewhat tenuous one, for the slave, tending to reduce to some extent the frequency with which, in a culture with such interpersonal proximities, she might otherwise be subjected to unauthorized rape. This same tiny measure of protection, of course, puts her in much greater danger from her real master, for he, observing her, seeing her kneeling beautifully before him, can also delay in his considerations as to her suitable exploitations. How shall he use her? What shall he have her do, and so on. To be sure, sometimes he simply takes her and when he wants her, and almost by reflexive whim. She is his. The main reason why a slave kneels, of course, aside from such subtle and complex considerations, is simply that she is a slave, and that that position, accordingly, is appropriate for her.