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 endear 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.
“One Hundred and Nineteen,” said the fellow in blue.
“Master!” I responded, suddenly, frightened.
How naturally that word came to me!
On my former world, in my employments, on the streets, it had never occurred to me that I would be so reduced and degraded, that I would be made a slave, this so fulfilling me. I had never expected to kneel before men, owned, and utter to them, in full significance and reality, that telling word, “Master.”
But it was so on this world.
How naturally that word had come to me!
A key was thrust into the collar lock, and the bolt moved. The weight was then removed from my neck, and I was free of the wall.
I took my place in the line, head down, wrists crossed behind my back.
The girl before me had been, I had earlier gathered, of the Merchant caste, even of the high Merchants, whatever that might be. Surely she had boasted amongst us that she was of the high Merchants. Her vaunted declaration, however, had brought her only derision and mockery from her chain sisters. “Where are your robes and veils?” she was asked. “Did I not see you well-siriked of late?” asked another. “I thought, two days ago,” said another, “I saw you chained by the neck, naked, to the wall.” “If she has caste,” said another, “her thigh will be bare.” “See her thigh!” exclaimed another. “It is marked!” said another. “Ah, my dear,” said another. “Then you are only a lying slave.” “Slave girls may not lie,” said another. “I fear you must be punished,” said another. “Please, no!” the girl had cried, but the others had then seized her, thrown her to the straw, and beaten her. Thereafter she spoke no more as though she might still be free. I had gathered that many might resent the Merchants, envying their wealth. It was said they raised nothing, and made nothing, but were brigands without lairs, bandits who looted without risk, men who drew blood with knives of gold. Membership in the Merchants, of course, might range from itinerant peddlers to the masters of great houses, dealing with a dozen cities. The Merchants regard themselves, with justification I would think, as a high caste, but few Goreans number them amongst the high castes, which, traditionally, are taken to be five in number, the Initiates, Builders, Physicians, Scribes, and Warriors. None, I suppose, would dispute with the Warriors that they are a high caste. If the Merchants are not a high caste, it is clear they are an important caste. It is said they own councils and sway law, that their gold hides and whispers behind thrones, that cities heed their words, that Ubars are often in their debt. Doubtless amongst the Merchants, as amongst other men, one will find the astute and honorable, the honest and diligent, the noble and loyal, as well as the corrupt and greedy, the cruel and callous, the venal and heartless. The girl before me might once, I supposed, if of the high Merchants, or such, as she claimed, have been wealthy. But now she was a portion, a negligible portion I would suppose, of the wealth of another. How lost she was amongst us, so isolated and alone, reduced from her former status, and despised by her sister slaves. No wonder, I thought, that she might have broken in the strain, and irrationally, so foolishly, tried to run toward the stairs. Did she expect to ascend them, and thrust her hands through the bars of the gate, and elicit pity; did she think the gate would be opened, and she would be released?