Prize of Gor (53 page)

On the second day of her service in the establishment, before she had been permitted clothing, Ellen had screamed and fled from one of the birds, when it had turned its head, sharply, to view her. She had run madly away, in panic, blindly, but struck into Portus, before whom, in terror, she had knelt. “Do not have me with tarns, Master!” she begged. “I fear them so!” Saying nothing he had dragged her to her feet, she half bent over, his hand in her hair, twisted there, painfully, cruelly, and she then, bent over, thus controlled, this being a common slave leading position, was hurried stumbling out onto the platform, to its very edge, where she, to her horror, teetering on that perilous brink, steadied only by the cruel hand in her hair, could look down, down, and see the street, some four hundred feet below, the pavement.

“Do you think you can fly, little vulo?” he inquired.

“No, Master!” she screamed.

“Shall I hurl you to the street?” he asked.

“Please, no, Master!” she screamed. “Do not kill me, Master! Forgive me, Master! Please forgive me! Please, Master, show me mercy!”

He drew her back a yard from the edge and released her. Unable to stand she sank to her knees in terror and grasped his leg, as much to reassure herself, by clinging to this support, as to a stanchion, of some modicum of safety, as in supplication.

“Whom do you fear more,” he asked, “tarns, or men?”

“Men, Master!” she wept. “I am a slave! I fear men more!”

“Your duties, little vulo,” said he, “do not, and will not, involve you in great danger, or at least not from tarns. That is not my intention. I would not risk a woman, even a slave, with such beasts. They would seem too tempting, too delicious, a morsel. Still, in empty cages, or in sparsely occupied cages, while a man stands watch, with a goad, you will have ample opportunity, during long hours, to prove your value as a work slave, removing masses of soiled straw, shoveling excrement, scraping and scrubbing floors, supplying and spreading bundles of fresh, dry straw, carrying water for the reservoirs, replenishing salt stones, climbing the wall railings to hang meat on the feeding hooks, and such.”

Ellen looked up at him, fearfully.

“Of course,” said he, “you will have other duties, as well, cooking, cleaning, mending, sewing, laundering, and such.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. She was grateful to have been shown the rudiments of such matters in her training. She had been switched more than once for her lack of skill in such matters. She had known little of these homely domestic tasks while a female on Earth. Indeed, she had taken a certain pride in her ineptness in such matters, an ineptness which had seemed appropriate to her for one of her education, interests and station. Such tasks were surely below a female intellectual, which she had then been. Then, in training, under the switch, crying out in pain, weeping under the frequent smartness of the strokes, she had struggled to master them. Needless to say, these are skills routinely expected of a slave, any slave, even one whose price is largely indexed to her passion and beauty.

“Oh, too,” he had said, “there are other duties, as well.”

“Master?” she asked.

He glanced at her knees, as she knelt before him, and quickly, blushing, she spread them, and then, as he continued to look, she spread them more widely, and then as widely as she could.

In this place, she then understood, she would never be allowed to forget that she was first and foremost what Mirus had decided she would be, a pleasure slave.

He then turned away.

“Master,” she called plaintively after him, “may I speak?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I still fear tarns!” she said.

“We all fear tarns,” he said, and he then left the platform, re-entering the lofty barnlike area.

She closed her knees and went to all fours and crawled after him, not daring to trust her legs, not daring to try to stand.

On the fourth day of her slavery in this place she was knelt down and collared. Portus read the collar to her, before putting it on her, as she was illiterate. That had been established even before she had been purchased from the shelf of Targo. It said, as we recall, “I am Ellen, the slave of Portus Canio.” It pleased her, somehow, to be naked and collared. The nakedness suggested her vulnerability and, very much, her femaleness. The collar gave her a sense of belonging, a sense of security; too, it was, in its way, a proclamation of her value; it testified that men wanted her, that she had been found fair enough to collar, that she was desired as a female, that she had been found worth enslaving; too, it made it clear, to her and others, that certain issues of her life had been settled for her, that she was already “spoken for,” so to speak, that others need not think of her, that she was already owned. In its way, the collar has some of the symbolic aspects of the marriage ring, except, of course, that that ring is a symbol worn by a free woman who is the putative equal of a man, whereas the collar is worn by a slave, and, aside from such things as its identificatory purposes, important in Merchant Law, is a symbol of the natural woman, the woman who is categorically owned by a man, her master.

To be sure, it is one thing to be naked before the master, wearing only his collar, which you both know identifies you as his, and another thing to be naked in the streets. Ellen was expected to run errands below, to shop, to do the laundry at the public laundering pools, and such. In the first weeks she was not permitted clothing, only her collar. In descending to the street she never used the outside ladder which Portus, who disliked the confinements of the long spiral staircases within the cylinders, had used to bring her originally to the tarn cot. One did not often meet individuals on those staircases, and, when one did, one needed only kneel down, head down, as befitted a slave. Most inhabitants of the tower, free and slave, would leave the tower at various levels, utilizing the bridges amongst them, those stretching from tower to tower, or using them to descend to the street. The city was divided, in this area, in effect, into levels or terraces, and some individuals seldom set foot on the ground, but utilized high markets and such. Ellen avoided these bridges as they were often frighteningly narrow, at least from her point of view, and lacked railings. Goreans, of course, as used to them as those of Earth to their sidewalks, utilized them almost invariably. Even though they might be several feet wide in places, Ellen tended to avoid them. They frightened her.

It required great courage, and resolve, though of course she really had no choice, for Ellen to go into the streets naked, save for her collar. The first time, she stood alone within the lower portal, back in the shadows, cringing, miserable, terrified, for more than fifteen Ehn. How could she, with her background, her antecedents, her education, her former status and station, her delicacy, her beauty, her shyness, her inhibitions, even think of leaving the cylinder, of going forth as she was? Then, after that time, sobbing, fearing she might be whipped for dallying, she stepped boldly out into the sunlight, a stripped slave in the streets. She avoided contact, of course, with the free persons, taking care not to brush against them, not to inconvenience them, not to impede their passage in any way. She was especially careful where free women were concerned. If her eyes might inadvertently meet those of a free person, she immediately lowered her head, and hurried on. Sometimes she knelt, hurriedly, in first-obeisance position. Once, in such a contretemps, she had found herself under the eyes of a free woman, the woman’s eyes cold with contempt. “Be on your way, slave girl,” had said the free woman, coldly, after a time. “Yes, Mistress. Thank you, Mistress,” had said Ellen. But when Ellen hurried on she thought to herself, “Take away your clothes, free woman. Put you in a collar. Then I do not think we would be so different!” Ellen decided she hated free women. But then that was appropriate enough, she supposed, for, clearly, free women hated slaves, and perhaps, oddly enough, feared them, as well. Perhaps they saw themselves in the slave. Ellen did see briefly tunicked female slaves in the street. “How beautiful they are,” she thought to herself. “How natural, how radiant, how free, how happy, they seem!” Many of the female slaves had long hair, as masters tend to favor such hair in slaves. Much can be done with such hair, not merely with respect to enhancing the beauty of the slave, as it may be arranged variously, but also with respect to its uses in the furs. Some of the girls smiled at Ellen, but then they probably did not know she was a barbarian. But, too, Ellen wondered if any of the slaves she passed might be, like herself, from Earth. That was surely possible. But how could one tell them from Gorean beauties? Did they not all seem lovely in their collars? Ellen knew that some Goreans referred to Earth as a “slave planet.” She did not know if this was because those of Earth, both men and women, tended to live unwittingly in eccentric, unnatural cultural prisons, products of monstrous, lingering historicalities, denying themselves and their natures, submitting mindlessly, uncritically, to pathological, stunting, life-shortening conventions, fearing to live, or if it merely referred to Earth as a welcome, vulnerable resource for the predations of slavers, a world where lovely animals, perhaps rather such as she herself now was, might be netted with impunity, and chained, or crated, and brought to distant markets for their sale. “Stand straight, slave girl,” whispered a yellow-tunicked, long-legged slave, as she passed. “Yes, Mistress,” whispered Ellen. Ellen did see, from time to time, it reassuring her, other naked slaves in the street. To be sure, she supposed them low slaves, or perhaps slaves under discipline, perhaps denied clothing for several days as a consequence of some imperfection, or possible imperfection, in their service. Then she saw a proud slave girl preceding her master, her shoulders back, her head high, her long hair blowing about her back. She was stark naked. She was on a leash. “She is leashed!” thought Ellen. Her thighs, to her embarrassment, heated. She found herself muchly aroused by the sight of the leashed beauty. Yes, yes, she thought. That is what I want. I want to be leashed, too. It would be so exciting. To be leashed! Their eyes met, and the leashed slave looked away. The leashed beauty was being marched naked through the streets, insolently, brazenly. She is being walked, walked like a dog, thought Ellen. Just like a dog! And she is a slave, an animal, too, like a dog! Her master is doubtless proud of her, and doubtless it pleases his male vanity, the beast, to display his lovely property, his beautiful slave, his good fortune, his exquisite taste, to the world. Ellen leaned back against a wall, weak. “I want to be beaten, I want to be leashed,” she thought. Then she thrust such thoughts away. She wanted to hurry back to Portus, or Selius, or one of the others, and beg use. But she must do her errand. It was a simple errand, the first time, merely to obtain an answer from a shopkeeper as to when an order of buckles would be ready. She then hurried back to the tower. But she was not used, merely put to cooking for the men. After the dishes were washed, she was returned to her stall, and there chained. Later, though Ellen continued to envy the slaves who were permitted at least a rag to cover themselves in the streets, she grew more free, and more brazen, in her demeanor. After all, she was not the only slave so sent among the crowds. She was occasionally, of course, and understandably, for many seemed to find her beautiful, accosted, commented upon with cheerful vulgarity, pinched, sometimes cruelly, brushed, touched, caressed, and such, but, invariably, as she could, she hurried on. She also attended to the laundry at the public pools, soaking, beating and rinsing garments, with other slaves. If a Cosian guardsman were in the vicinity they must work in silence. Otherwise the girls would chat merrily. Ellen did not participate in this socialization, as she feared her accent would reveal her as a barbarian, with perhaps serious consequences to her person, or worse, to her laundry. Then, after a time, Ellen would go to the pools, balancing the basket on her head with one hand, easily, proudly. Let Mirus see me now, she thought. Let him see me as I now am, as a naked slave, carrying laundry through the streets of Ar! Would he be amused? Or would he want to put a chain on me? Let him see a lovely, proud slave! Let him see what he has lost! Then she laughed to herself. What would my ideological sisters say if they could see me here, in Ar, a naked slave! I am pleased to be such! Let them cry out in anger, in scorn, in contempt! I would not give the peel of a larma for all that they might think! But see if you, dear, righteous sisters, would behave any differently, if you were stripped, and owned, and collared! Yes, dear sisters, I would like to see you stripped, and owned, and collared! I would like to see what you would do, if you met a real man, a genuinely real man, and felt his chains on your limbs! Do not denounce slaves, until you yourselves have been owned, and mastered! Do not denounce slaves, until you yourselves have learned what it is to be a true woman, pressing your lips timidly, placatingly, to the feet of a man, your master!

One day, on her way to the local laundry pools, as she commonly went, the pools less than a pasang from the Tower of Corridon, within which Portus Canio, her master, conducted his business, she, gracefully balancing her basket on her head as was her wont, steadying it with one hand, passed a familiar wall, only that day, to her surprise, she saw a large, irregular, thick, black triangle scrawled on the wall, some several feet in its dimensions. Apparently it had been placed there in haste; one could even see where paint had run in several places, in descending rivulets, from the bottom of the triangle. Those in the crowd seemed not to notice it, in their passing. Indeed, they seemed deliberately oblivious of its presence. Indeed, they seemed even to hurry, to increase their pace, until they were no longer in its vicinity. She stopped to look at the triangle. It surprised her, and made her a little angry. On her old world, in what had been her city of residence, unauthorized scrawlings, blatant obscenities, defiling letterings, ignorant vandalisms and such were common, these things exhibiting hatred, incivility, a disrespect for property, a petty, ugly desire to defile, to destroy and such, but they were, as far as she knew, rare in Gorean cities. In Gorean cities, you see, there are Home Stones. As a slave, of course, she could not have a Home Stone, no more than any other animal. Her master, however, Portus Canio, she knew, had a Home Stone. His Home Stone was the Home Stone of Ar. “Do not linger here, slave girl,” whispered a man, passing her. “Yes, Master,” she said, and hurried on. The next time she passed the wall, the scrawled triangle had been removed.