Prize of Gor (72 page)

Ellen’s hands, before her, were braceleted about one of the upright bars, on the side of the cage which faced the general concourse, along which, on each side, the cages were lined. This was far better, thought Ellen, than the cruel, cement shelf, boiling in the sunlight, on which Targo had exhibited her, a shelf to which buyers were free to ascend and handle the merchandise, and were even encouraged to do so. To be sure, she could be commanded by observers to smile, to shake out her hair, to lift her head, to exhibit certain attitudes, and perform in various ways, at the bar. She as slave must obey. And so many times, in the afternoon, had she been forced to kiss the bar, to cling to it, to caress it, to kneel before it, head down, and such.

“What is your lot number, slut?” would call a man, and she would call back to him, “117, Master.”

There were doubtless several hundred slaves in the camp, more even than had been in her coffle on the long trek toward Brundisium. Perhaps there were more than a thousand slaves in the camp. She did not know.

Her number, she knew, was very low. She did not know if this were significant, or not. If it were significant, and the lower numbers meant the more desirable merchandise, surely she would be entitled to a high opinion of herself as goods. She found that, despite reservations lingering from her Earth conditioning, and her supposed dignity, and her supposed superiority to, and contempt for, such things, that she wanted to be attractive, desperately so; she wanted to be beautiful, and desirable; she wanted to be found pleasing by men. She wanted to be valuable, wanted to be wanted. To be sure, as she was a slave, such things were important, even from a very practical, even from an economic, point of view. Being beautiful is considerably in a slave’s best interest, in many ways, as it would be, too, of course, for many other forms of domestic animal. To be sure, the beauty of a woman has a special interest for men. I love men, she thought, and I want to serve them and please them. That is what I want to live for! I have been chained on the concourse side, she told herself, that I may be more easily seen. I have a low number, considering the many girls in the camp. I must be desirable, she thought, at least in the opinion of some. I wonder if I am
slave desirable
. Could I, once of Earth, she asked herself, be that desirable? To be sure, she thought, my number, my chaining, may mean nothing. Perhaps they are saving the best for last, or something. After all, I am only from Earth. How could I, only from Earth, compete with a Gorean woman? But then, she told herself, humans on Gor are surely of Earth origin. Thus, ultimately, we are no different. So why could I not compete with a Gorean woman, even with a Gorean slave girl? Am I not now, too, Gorean; and am I not now, too, no more than a slave girl, and a Gorean slave girl? How vain I am, she thought. But then women are vain, she thought, and I am a woman, so why should I not, too, be concerned with such things? I do not care even if I am narcissistic, or frivolous and shallow. I do not care. Such things are important to me. Why should I not care about them? Why should I not, too, be vain? Yes, I am vain! I have the vanity of a female slave, who exists only for men! I do not care! I do not object! And I love it! I love it! I love it! This settled in her mind, and kissing the bracelets on her wrists, holding her to the upright bar, she laughed, and was pleased with this understanding. Layers of guilt, falsity and hypocrisy fell from her, like a weighty, obsolescent armor, dried, useless scales shed when no longer needed.

“What is your lot number, little tasta, little vulo?” called another man.

“117, Master,” Ellen responded.

“Yes,” she admitted to herself, “I am a vain slave. And I am exquisite, I think, and I am beautiful, I think. Or perhaps so! And in any event I love being owned and I love being a slave!”

But then she remembered men and their whips and was afraid, very afraid.

“117, Master!” she called to a fellow who had stood by the bars, and tapped himself lightly on the chest, on the left.

****

Ellen, carrying the pitcher of wine, found the fellow who had called out to her earlier. He had been served in the meantime, as she had supposed he would have been, but, in any event, she had returned, to see after the matter, as was appropriate. He permitted her to add a bit of wine to his goblet, and she was grateful for this kindness, for in it he acknowledged her return, and her solicitude that he be served. She wondered if, had she not returned, he would have had her sought out, and punished.

Ellen did not wish to be punished.

But she loved being subject to punishment. If I am not pleasing, she thought, I will be punished. How appropriate for a slave! How different from a free woman, she thought. No matter what they do they are never punished. But I must be pleasing, and perfectly, or I will be punished. I am a slave. Men will have what they want of me. Men will have me as they want me!

She looked about herself.

She suddenly felt a man put his arm about her waist, clumsily.

It would not have been the first time that she had felt a touch in her serving, the grasping of an ankle, a pinch, the brief holding, and smelling, of her hair, the light grasping of a thigh.

He held her.

She stiffened, slightly. She was frightened. Then, she wanted to press suddenly against him, whimpering, but she knew she was not to be used, not until after her sale.

Until then she was to heat, and simmer, until she wanted to scream with need.

How hateful are the masters, she thought. How cruel they are to us!

She wondered if her heat had been visible in the exhibition cage, when she had touched the warm bar, kissed it, pressed herself piteously against it.

He drew his arm away from her. He staggered, a little, shifting unsteadily. He steadied himself with one hand on her shoulder. He bent forward. She smelled a breath thick with paga, not the red and yellow wines from the vats, the wines which she and the others carried.

The man looked blearily at her left breast.

“117, Master,” said Ellen.

“You are too young,” he said, blinking, stepping back, wiping his hand across his bearded face. He then turned about, almost falling, and staggered away.

I am not too young, she thought, angrily. Many men, fine men, strong men, virile men, do not think me too young at all!

There had been, she had learned, twenty-one bids on her, following her release from the upright bar and the exhibition cage. These bids set the price at which she would be initially offered to the buyers, that point at which the bidding would start. She knew she was, in effect, guaranteed a sale to the highest starting bid, even if no one in the entire camp cared to bid even a tarsk-bit more. She had not been told, of course, what the highest bid of the twenty-one bids had been.

She had, of course, after having knelt and begged permission to speak, inquired.

“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” she had been told.

“Yes, Master,” she had said.

“You will learn on the block,” she was told.

“Yes, Master,” she had said.

“Wine, girl!” called a fellow, lifting his goblet, and Ellen rushed to him.

In a few Ehn Ellen, her pitcher half full, stood back in the darkness, some yards from the closest fires.

The first of the formal dancers had been called to one circle or another, following the hailings of the torch-bearing crier. Men who might have been interested in bidding on them, having found them of interest in the exhibition cages, might then follow them to the designated circles, to continue their appraisal. Others, too, of course, the curious, the lustful, the admirers of beauty, and such, tended to gather about the circles in question.

How beautiful the dancers are, thought Ellen.

A few moments ago, she had peered between men, pausing in her serving, to watch perform some among the first of the summoned dancers.

Would that I could dance, would that I were so beautiful, thought Ellen.

She now stood alone in the darkness, looking toward the fields.

What is to become of me, she asked herself. What is to be my fate? I do not know. I am only a slave.

Who is watching, thought Ellen. Perhaps I could run. Perhaps I could escape. Then she laughed ruefully to herself. I am only an ignorant, stripped, branded slave, a poor Earth-girl slave on barbaric Gor. There is no escape for one such as I. Indeed, there is no escape for any Gorean slave girl! There is nowhere to run, nowhere to go. We continue to wear our collars at the pleasure of men. And they do not free us! They keep us as they want us, as what we are, their slaves!

She felt moisture on the side of the pitcher she carried, and she recalled, too, that a little ka-la-na had run from the lip of the pitcher to its side, and onto her hip. Too, this sort of thing, a trickle of ka-la-na on the vessel, is not that uncommon in pouring. She put one finger to the side of the vessel and found the arrested trickle of wine. Looking about, and determining to her satisfaction that no one was looking, she put the tip of her finger to the trickle, and then lifted her finger to her lips, and tongue. Her eyes widened. How startling, how wonderful, she breathed, for this common wine, dispensed so lavishly at the festival camp, was better than any she had tasted on Earth. Then suddenly she was terrified, and rubbed her finger on her thigh, trying to wipe away the evidence of her putative indiscretion. If only I had a bit of cloth, she thought, that I might wipe my lips, but then she hastily discarded that wish, for the cloth might have been stained. She thought to wipe her lips with her hair, but that, too might be stained. She wiped her lips with the back of her right forearm. What if a man takes me in his arms, holds me helplessly and chooses to rape my lips with the kiss of the master, she thought. What if he should taste the wine! To be sure, she had not been forbidden to taste the wine. But she knew enough of Gorean custom to suppose that such a liberty taken without permission, in the case of a slave, if not explicitly permitted, might be an occasion for grievous discipline.

Again, first looking about, she wiped her lips, desperately, frightened.

I must hurry back, to serve, she thought.

She paused, looking at the camp, at the men and the fires, the tents. How beautiful and exciting, how real, is this world, she thought.

I wonder what the highest bid on me was, she thought. Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, she reminded herself. But how desperately curious she was to know!

Put it from your mind, she thought. Be about your duties, girl, she thought.

And quickly she hurried back to serve.

****

It was a few Ehn later when, making her way amongst the joking, roaring, laughing, colorfully garbed men, tunicked and robed, many sitting about the fires, some afoot, moving here and there, the firelight reflecting from the side of the red-figured pitcher, the side of her lit by one of the fires, her feet in the soft earth, the music about her, dancers elsewhere, in some of the circles, she stopped suddenly, startled, shaken, and nearly dropped the vessel she carried.

Amongst the men about one of the fires she saw, sitting cross-legged, in sedate, deliberative, sober converse with men in Cosian robes, not soldiers, one whose presence here was incomprehensible. She was stunned, she could not move. He, too, was in Cosian robes. How magnificent he looked, seeing him now, once again, he in rich robes, at ease, rich, prosperous, secure, self-assured, splendid, more so than she had ever dreamed he might be. He was the sort of man at whose feet a trembling slave would cringe, the sort of man at whose feet belonged women, the sort of man at whose feet a queen might beg her collar. He was here! She gasped with terror, eagerness and desire. She was shocked, she felt weak, her heart beat wildly, she feared her legs would give way beneath her, she was vulnerable, she was stripped, she felt giddy, and feared that she might faint. Never had she expected to see him again! She fought to gain her breath. She tried to stand very steadily. She held the handles of the pitcher, hard, as though for support, as though for a renewed contact with what was solid and real. She trembled in consternation and confusion.

It was he who on this world had been her first master, he who on Earth had arranged and executed her straightforward, flawless abduction, he into whose keeping and under whose mastery she had first come, he amongst whose toils she had first found herself inextricably enmeshed, so absolutely, so simply and professionally, so easily, so casually, so helplessly and perfectly, he under whose supervision she with her station, auspices, prestige and credentials had been transformed into no more than a young, shapely, meaningless slave, he who, on this world, had taken the familiar, common name, ‘Mirus’!

Has he come for me, she thought, wildly.

But there was no indication that he even knew she was in the camp. Surely there would have been, so far as she knew, no reason for him to suppose she was here.

Doubtless he had business here, but it did not seem that it would concern a lowly slave, one he had discarded for a pittance, after teaching her pain, shame, and the meaning of her collar.

“Wine, slave girl!” called a fellow, from about the very fire where Mirus sat.

She wanted to turn and flee, and seemed rooted to the spot, nor did it seem that she dared to approach. Yet she knew she must serve. He must not see her as she was now, not shamed, not as a naked slave! What was she to do? Then she feared a command might be repeated, and she might then be thrown beside the fire and beaten before him, as a tardy slave. Timidly, trying to remain in the shadows, she approached the fire. As she approached, it seemed he was finishing his conversation, and preparing to rise.

She poured the wine, unsteadily. The fellow whose goblet she was filling looked up at her, quizzically.

“Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.

When she raised her head and straightened her body Mirus had risen to his feet, turned from his interlocutor, and was preparing to depart.

Suddenly, their eyes met!

She cast her eyes down, not daring to return his gaze. Too, it is often thought presumptuous for a slave to meet the eyes of a free man. Such can be an occasion for discipline.