"Does El-no-or, the slave, wish to leave the box?" asked Ute.
On my knees in the box, my eyes at the opening, frightened, my fingers on the slit, I whispered, "yes, El-in-or, the slave, wished to leave the box." "Does El-in-or, the slave, beg to leave the box?" asked Ute.
"Yes, yes!" I wept. "El-in-or, the slave, begs to leave the box!"
"Release the slave," said Ute, to Inge and Rena.
Elinor Brinton heard the padlocks unlocked. She heard the flat, heavy bolts slide back. She saw the small door swing open.
On her hands and knees, painfully, inch by inch, she crawled from the box. She then collapsed to the grass.
"Wash the slave," said Ute, with disgust, to Inge and Rena.
I screamed with pain as Inge and Rena stretched out my body, and then, with brushes and water, almost vomiting, they cleaned me.
After Inge and Rena had finished their work, even to the cleaning of my hair, a guard, summoned, not much pleased, carried me, helpless and in pain, back to the shed for female work slaves. There Ute, with Inge and Rena, fed me simple broths, which I gratefully drank. The next day, as Ute commanded, I remained in the shed, food and water being brought to me by Inge and Rena. On the following day I was returned to work. My first task was to clean the slave box, to rid it of its filth. After I had done this, naked, and had washed my body and hair thoroughly, I was again given the tunic of a work slave. I found it a very precious garment. I worked at a variety of tasks that day. Late in the afternoon, I was sent outside, leashed again to Techne, to pick ram-berries. I did not steal berries from her, nor did I eat any.
I was regarded in the camp with contempt and amusement. Not only were my ears pierced, but now, in my flesh, I wore penalty brands.
Once, two weeks after my release from the slave box, Rask of Treve passed near me, in the company of Verna, the panther girl.
I fell to my knees immediately, and put my head to the ground.
I was merely a slave girl who had been punished, and would be again, if need be. They passed me.
Neither of them noticed me.
One day became another in the secret war camp of Rask of Treve.
The tarnsmen, in their flights, did not have much luck, and many were the times when they returned, their saddle packs empty, their saddles bare of helpless beauties lashed across them.
Similarly, one day was much as another for Elinor Brinton, the female work slave in the camp of Rask of Treve. She rose at dawn and, until dusk, with her work companions, performed her repetitive, servile tasks. After the night feeding, she, with her work companions, would be ordered to the slave shed, where they would be locked for the night, only to be summoned again in the morning, ordered from the shed, for another round of their labors, tasks fit for such as they, female work slaves.
I learned to iron and sew, and to cook and clean. Verna could not have done these things. She hunted, and held converse with men.
It could be perhaps mentioned that such work, cooking, cleaning and laundering, and such, is commonly regarded as being beneath even free women, particularly those of high caster. In the high cylinders, in Gorean cities, there are often public slaves who tend the central kitchens in cylinders, care for the children, but may not instruct them, and, for a tiny fee to the city, clean compartments and do laundering. Thus even families who cannot afford to own and feed a slave often have the use of several such unfortunate girls, commonly captured from hostile cities. Free women often treat such girls with great cruelty, and the mere word of a free woman, that she is displeased with the girl's work, is enough to have the girl beaten. The girls strive zealously in their work to please the free women. Such girls, also, have a low use-rent, payable to the city, should young males wish to partake of their pleasures. Here again, the mere word of the free person, that he is not completely pleased, is enough to earn the miserable girl a severe beating. Accordingly, she struggles to please him with all her might. It is not pleasant, I fear, to be a public slave. The Gorean free woman, often, does only what work she chooses. If she does not wish to prepare a meal, she and her companions may go to the public tables, or, should they wish, order a girl to bring them food from the central kitchens. But I found, perhaps surprisingly, that I did not much mind the work of the female work slave. I recognized that it was essential, that it had to be done. I recognized further that there was something farcical in the thought of the Gorean male lending his hand to such small, unimportant work. It would have been like the larl with a broom. I could well imagine the accommodating solicitous males of Earth in aprons, puttering about with vacuum cleaners and boxes of detergent, but I could not imagine it of the Gorean male. He is so different from the males of Earth, so powerful, so strong, so uncompromised, so masculine. Before him it is hard for a female not to know herself as smaller and weaker, and thus to be given the tasks he does not care to perform. Similarly the Gorean free woman does not seem appropriately suited to menial tasks. She is too free, too proud. It is difficult for a collared slave girl to even to look into the eyes of such a person. Thus, who is to do such work? The answer seems obvious, that it be done by the slaves. The small, light, unpleasant work will be done by the female slave; the large, heavy, unpleasant work by the draft animal, or the male slave. Why should free persons do such tasks? They have slaves for such work. And I well knew myself to be a slave. It was thus natural that it should be. I, and my sisters in bondage, who performed such labors. How else could it have been?
"Hurry, Slave! Hurry in your work!" cried Ute.
I did so.
I did my work quietly, and seldom spoke to the other girls, not did they much speak to me. Though I often worked with then, I was, it seemed, always alone. When they sang at their work, or enjoyed laughter and sport, I did not sing, nor did I laugh, nor join them in their pleasures. I worked well. I was, I expect, one of Ute's best workers. Sometimes, when I would finish my work, I would help the other girls with theirs.
Once, when I was helping Inge, she said to me, "I thought you were too delicate to be beaten."
"I was mistaken," I said.
She laughed.
I no longer had an interest in lying or cheating, or shirking my work. I suppose, in part, it was that I was afraid of being punished. Surely I had not, and could not, forget the iron nor the whip's hot kiss. I much feared them. I could no longer even look on a slave whip without a feeling of terror, for I understood now the pain of its meaning, and what it might do to me. If a guard even lifted one, I would cringe. I would obey, and with promptness! Do not scorn me, until you yourself have felt the iron and the lash. But, too, somehow, perhaps unaccountably, lying and stealing now seemed to me small, and trivial, too petty to perform. I no longer regarded such behavior as clever, but now, rather, as unworthy or stupid, where one was caught or not. I had thought much in the slave box. I was not much pleased with how I had found myself to be. I knew that my body was a slave body, and that it was owned, and that it stood in constant jeopardy of fierce, swift punishment by a strong master, whether it might deserve that punishment or not. But, too, I felt I had, according to Gorean justice, well earned my beating and my branding, and my tortuous confinement in the slave box. I did not wish again to earn such punishment, not simply because I feared it, but because it seemed to me unworthy that I should have done the things for which I was punished. In the slave box, alone with myself, I discovered I did not wish to be the sort of person I had been, I had not been pleased to be locked in the box alone with myself, with such a person, forced there to face her and realize that she was your own self.