Slave Girl of Gor (13 page)

Eta then, to my surprise, with the point of her scissors, ripped the tiny garment a bit under my right breast, that a bit of skin might show, and again at my left hip, a larger rip. These were done in such a way as to make them appear natural, inadvertent rents in the garment. She then, with the point of the scissors, at two points, ripped the hem she had earlier sewn out a bit, that in these two places it might appear the threads had broken; the hem then, in these two places, was irregular on my legs. She then, at another place, cut into the hem, ripping it, and unraveled and tore it a bit, as though it had naturally frayed; some stray threads hung upon my thigh. These were the touches which, to my horror and delight, made the garment of the slave rag exquisitely perfect. I looked at the lovely slave in the mirror. I wondered if the men knew, or suspected, the female cunning that went into the making of a slave rag. She was arming me with beauty. With what else might a slave girl be armed? Eta kissed me, and I kissed her. The ingenuity and care lavished upon the slave rag, seemingly such a pathetic accident of a garment, is a careful secret well kept among slave girls. If the master does not know why the smallest movement of his girl, clad in what he thought was a mere discipline rag, almost drives him out of his wits with pleasure, that is all right. The masters, as we girls sometimes tell one another, do not have to know everything.

I looked at the girl in the mirror. I approached more closely. I lifted the hem of the garment at the left thigh. I almost fainted with the delicate perfection of the brand. It was still red, rough, raw, deep, unhealed, but the form was clearly imprinted, unmistakably, deeply, and beautifully imprinted. On my thigh I wore one of the most beautiful brands, the dina, the slave flower. I tore the garment there, at the left hip, that as I moved, the brand might be glimpsed. Then I knelt before the mirror. Boldly I assumed slave position. I threw my knees apart. I rested my hands on my thighs. I regarded myself in the mirror. I saw a kneeling slave girl there. There was no doubt about it. She was a slave girl. How incredibly beautiful was that poor, lovely slave. She wore a brand. She wore a slave rag. She lacked only a steel collar. That lack, I supposed, could be simply supplied. It is nothing to put a collar on a girl's neck. I lifted my hair up; I lifted my chin, watching in the mirror. I conjectured what a steel collar would look like, fastened on my neck. I did not think I would mind one. It might be rather attractive. Eta's was, terribly so. I hoped, of course, that I might be able to choose whose collar I would wear. But, shuddering, I realized that a girl does not choose whose collar she will wear; rather it is the man who chooses; it is he, and he alone, who places the collar. Suddenly I sensed the misery of being a slave. I might belong to any man! I might belong to any man who might carry me off, or pay my price. I might be abducted or bought, or bestowed or lost in gambling! I was only an article of property, helpless and beautiful, without control over, no more than a dog or pig, into whose hands I might come. Tears sprang to my eyes. Surely my master would not sell me! Every bit of me would constantly try to please him. I did not want to be sold! What a miserable, beautiful girl I saw in the mirror, the poor slave! How sorry I felt for that beauty. But what man would be so foolish as to sell such a beauty? Or, even to share her with another? Surely such a man would keep such a beauty for himself alone, .not sharing her with others. I wiped the tears from my eyes. I studied the girl in the mirror. How beautiful in her bondage she was. I brushed my hair back and, lifting my chin, turned my head. I had seen earrings in the jewelry in the cave, exotic loops, twists of wire and golden pendants; I imagined them upon me, hanging at my cheeks, adornments suitable for me, a barbarian slave girl. My ears had not been pierced but I had little doubt that this operation, if my master wished, would be promptly accomplished upon me. I considered cosmetics and perfumes, such as I had encountered in the cave. And behold, in my imagination, the girl in the mirror was so bedecked. I had seen bracelets, anklets, chains and necklaces, intricately wrought and beautiful, in the cave. I extended my arms and wrists, and one of my legs, considering how they might appear, ponderous with such barbaric glory. But the girl in the mirror wore only a slave rag. I then considered how I might appear, so made up, so perfumed, so adorned, but now in a snatch of brief silk, yellow or scarlet, clinging, diaphanous, fit for a man's pleasure girl.

Eta called to me.

Once again I saw only the plain girl in the mirror, the beauty in a slave rag. No adornments were hers; only some threads of cloth tight on her beauty. She was not an ornamented high slave. She wore only a slave rag. She was a low slave.

I sprang to my feet and hurried to Eta.

She was kneeling down and I knelt across from her. "La Kajira," said Eta, pointing to herself. "Tu Kajira," she said, pointing to me. "La Kajira," I said, pointing to myself. "Tu Kajira," I said, pointing to Eta. I am a slave girl. You are a slave girl.

Eta smiled. She pointed to her brand. "Kan-lara," she said. She pointed to my brand. "Kan-lara Dina," she said. I repeated these words.

"Ko-lar," she said, indicating her collar. "It is the same word in English," I cried. She did not understand my outburst. Gorean, as I would learn, is rich in words borrowed from Earth languages; how rich it is I am not a skilled enough philologist to conjecture. It may well be that almost all Gorean expressions may be traced to one or another Earth language. Yet, the language is fluid, rich and expressive. Borrowed expressions, as in linguistic borrowing generally, take on the coloration of the borrowing language; in time the borrowings become naturalized, so to speak, being fully incorporated into the borrowing language; at this point they are, for all practical purposes, words within the borrowing language. How many, in English, for example, think of expressions such as 'automobile,' 'corral,' and 'lariat' as being foreign words?

"Collar!" I said. Eta frowned. "Ko-lar," she repeated, again indicating the neck band of steel fashioned on her throat. "Ko-lar," I said, carefully following her pronunciation. Eta accepted this.

Eta pulled at the bit of rag she wore. "Ta-Teera," she said.

I looked down at the scrap of rag, outrageously brief, so scandalous, so shameful, fit only for a slave girl, which I wore. I smiled. I had been placed in a Ta-Teera. "Ta-Teera,"

I said. I wore the Ta-Teera.

"Var Ko-lar!" asked Eta. I pointed to the collar on her throat. "Var Ta-Teera?" asked Eta, smiling. I pointed to the brief rag which I wore. Eta seemed pleased. She had laid out a number of articles. My lessons in Gorean had begun.

Suddenly, stammering, I said, "Eta-var-var Bina?"

Eta looked at me, surprised.

I recalled the two men who had come to the chain and rock. "Var Bina? Var Bina, Kajira!" they had demanded. I had not been able to understand, or satisfy them. They had beaten me. Still I had been unable to satisfy them. I could not even understand them. Then they had prepared to cut my throat. The man in the scarlet tunic, from over the fields, had arrived. "Kajira canjellne," he had said. He had fought for me, and won me. He had brought me to his camp, where he had branded me. I was now his slave.

"Var Bina, Eta?" I asked.

Eta lightly lifted herself to her feet and went to the cave. In a few moments, she emerged. She carried, in her hands, several strings of beads, simple necklaces, with small, wooden, colored beads. They were not valuable.

She held the necklaces up for me to see. Then, with her finger, moving them on their string, she indicated the tiny, colored wooden beads. "Da Bina," she said, smiling. Then she lifted a necklace, looking at it. "Bina," she said. I then understood that 'Bina' was the expression for beads, or for a necklace of beads. The necklaces and beads which Eta produced for me were delights of color and appeal; yet they were simple and surely of little value.

I went to the cave, Eta following. I lifted one of the chest's covers. I took from the chest a string of pearls, then one of pieces of gold, then one of rubies. "Bina?" I asked, each time. Eta laughed. "Bana," she said, "Ki Bina. Bana." Then, from another box, Eta produced another necklace, one with cheap glass beads, and another with simple, small wooden beads. She indicated the latter two necklaces. "Bina," she said, pointing to them. Bina, I then understood, were lesser beads, cheap beads, beads of little value, save for their aesthetic charm. Indeed, I would later learn that bina were sometimes spoken of, derisively, as Kajira bana. The most exact translation of 'bina' would probably be "slave beads." They were valueless, save for being a cheap adornment sometimes permitted imbonded wenches.

Eta and I returned to the outside, to continue our lessons.

I still could not understand what had happened at the chain and rock. "Var Bina! Var Bina, Kajira!" they had demanded. The Bina, or Slave Beads, had meant more to them than my life. It was not I who had been important to them there but the beads. When they had clearly understood that I was unable to help them in their quest, they, viewing me then as useless, had prepared to be done with me. I shuddered, remembering the knife at my throat. I had been narrowly saved by the swordsman whose slave I now was. I had thought, before I was clearly apprised of the nature of Bina, cheap slave beads, that perhaps the men had supposed that I was to be chained at the rock, adorned with some rare and valuable necklace, worth perhaps a fortune. Perhaps it had been that which they had wanted. Perhaps then, either I had not been placed so adorned at the rock, contrary to their expectation, or, if I had been, that someone had, in my helpless unconsciousness, arrived earlier and simply removed the necklace, stealing it from my chained body. I might have been left at the rock either because I was chained, and could not be easily removed, or, perhaps, was not wanted. But it seemed unlikely that, if I should have worn such a necklace, it had not been placed on me; and unlikely, too, that someone, in such a wilderness, would come upon me while I there lay chained and remove the necklace. I was thrown into the greatest consternation by my new comprehension of the valuelessness of slave beads. It now made no sense to me whatsoever that the two men, so angrily and fiercely, should have sought for so trivial an object. Of what importance could be a string of slave beads? Why might they have been put on me in the first place? And where, if they had been put on me, had they gone? Who would want them? And why should men come through a wilderness to obtain them? What could be their importance? What could be their secret? I understood nothing.

Eta lifted up a stout whip, with long handle, which might be wielded with two hands, and five dangling, soft, wide lashing surfaces, each about a yard long. "Kurt," she said. I shrank back. "Kurt," I repeated. She lifted up some loops of chain; there were linked ankle rings and linked wrist rings, and a lock collar, all connected by a length of gleaming chain running from the collar. It was rather lovely. It was too small for a man. I knew, however, it would fit me, perfectly, "Sirik," said Eta. "Sirik," I repeated.

Upon command I had slipped from the Ta-Teera.

I stood among the men.

The warrior indicated that I should suck in my gut. I did so, holding my stomach in, tightly. I felt the strap, black, narrow, loop my belly. It was pulled tight, very tight, and cinched. I wore the bell at my left hip. I looked at my master, reproachfully, in anguish. The bells, rows, strung about my neck, and, loosely, too, depending about my breasts, jangled. The sound was horrifying, sensuous. With anger, with misery, I regarded him. The warrior took my hands behind my back and there, with a bit of black leather, fastened them together. The rows of bells on my wrists jangled as my hands were pulled behind my back and fastened there, wrist to wrist, lashed. How could he permit this? Did it mean nothing to him that he had, the preceding night, taken my virginity from me? Did it mean nothing to him that he had, for long hours, pleasured himself with my body? Did it mean nothing to him that he had won me, that I had yielded to him, that I had surrendered myself, totally, to him? That vulnerably I had been fully his? I tried to take a step toward him. The bells on my body, and those tied about my ankles, jangled. I could not move toward him, for the warrior's hand on my arm held me. I looked at my master with anguish. He was sitting cross-legged, some feet away, with others. He had a goblet of paga, which Eta had served to him. Did my master not love me, as I loved him? He, narrow-lidded, looked at me over the rim of the goblet of paga. "Do not do this to me!" I cried to him, helplessly, in English. "I love you!" Surely, though he spoke no English, he could not have mistaken the anguish, the feelings, the deep intent of the helpless girl so shamefully belled and bound before him. "I love you!" I cried. I saw in his eyes that he, as a Gorean master, had no concern for my anguish, my intent and feelings. I shuddered. I was a bond girl. He gave a sign. One of the men nearby readied a large opaque cloth, soft, black, folding it in four pieces, so that, folded, it would be about a yard square. He looked back at me. "I love you," I said. The cloth was thrown over my head and, with some loops of leather cord, four times encircling my neck, tied under my chin. I could not see. I was hooded. I threw back my head in anguish within the hood. "But I love you!" I cried. I stood there, belled and bound, forlorn and hooded. I loved him. But I had seen in his eyes, in the instant that the cloth had been thrown over my head, that to him, my master, I was nothing, only a meaningless slave.

I stood there, head down, miserable, frightened. I heard the men laughing. Five would do contest.

I hated the bells, so many, so tiny, hung about my body, which I could not remove, which would draw them to me. The sound was tiny, rich, and sensuous. They were slave bells. They would draw men to my body. I moved slightly. I felt them stir on my body and on the loops that held them. So slight a movement made them sound! I, miserable, was caught in their lewd, delicious rustle. I suppose the sound of the bells, objectively considered, is rather lovely. Yet theirs was a music of bondage, one which, in its tiny, delicious sounds, rustling, whispered, "Kajira. Kajira." They said, "You are nothing, Girl. You are a belled Kajira. You are nothing, Girl. You exist for the pleasure of men. Please them well, lovely Kajira." I shook my body, trying to throw the bells from me. I could not do so. In their jangling sound, helpless, I was held, betrayed. I could scarcely breathe without stirring the bells. I began to sweat, and fear. It was suddenly like finding oneself caught, imprisoned, hooded, in a net. No move I made was not betrayed by the bells. Most I hated the larger bell, of different note, fastened tightly at my left hip. It was a guide bell. I tried to free my hands. They had been tied by a warrior. I was helpless. I shuddered. And even so slight a movement was betrayed by the bells, indicating the exact position of she who wore them, the slave girl on whose body they were fastened.