“You have the papers?” a voice asked.
“Here,” said the guard.
I heard a movement of papers.
“Barbarian,” said the first voice.
“Yes,” said the guard.
“Is she any good,” asked the first voice.
“I do not know,” said the guard. “I have not put her to slave use.”
“I see she is red-silk,” said the first voice. That, I thought, must be on the papers. What right had they to know that?
“Recently,” said the guard.
“Good,” said the first voice. “There is no place for virgins here.”
I heard feminine laughter, from a few feet away.
On the whole, they had not been unkind to me in the Room of White-Silk. I had been handled with authority, of course, and was left in no doubt that I was within the grasp of masters, Gorean masters. I was not sure how many, as I had been hooded, had utilized me for slave pleasure, as some may have done so more than once. It was done to me in various ways. I was not freed of the ankle shackle until they were finished with me, and left, and the instructresses summoned, to unhood me and conduct me to my new domicile, a small, iron cage. I had occupied that cage, at night, until this morning, and my hooding and coffling. The cushions and furs in the Room of White-Silk had been deep. Occasionally the wrist and ankle rings were used, perhaps to accustom me to helpless slave service. I could still remember the feel of the heavy bar of the trestle against my belly. Toward the end, when I was half drunk, lost between confusion and disbelief, with the shocking and flooding of my belly, scarcely able to feel, I was thrown to the cushions and, for a time, left alone.
“Masters?” I said.
Were they done with me?
I was aware of blood on my thigh.
Some of it had been thrust to my lips, and into my mouth, that I might taste my virgin blood, which could be shed but once.
“Masters?” I whispered. Were they still in the room?
Strong hands put me on my back, over the cushions, my head back, and down. My ankles were pulled apart, widely. I left them as they had been placed. I supposed I was again to be put to use, routine, meaningless, forcible use.
I waited.
I did not know how many times it had been done to me.
Then I felt a gentle, soft, moist, caressing touch, and I cried out, startled, drew my legs together, as I could, and reached out, and felt my fingers close in a man’s hair.
“Oh,” I said, softly.
Surely such a caress would never be inflicted on a free woman. It would be disgracefully inappropriate to subject a free woman to such an indignity. It might pull them out of themselves, and make them beg for the collar. It was not for free women. It was fit only for slaves.
“Please, Master,” I whispered. “Again!”
“Oh, yes!” I whispered, my fingers in his hair.
At least, I thought, I was not chained helplessly in place. It was hard to imagine what might be the sensations which a master might inflict, even casually, upon a helpless slave, one wholly at his mercy, their subtlety, their variety, their length, and nature.
How helpless she would be, so in his power!
I feared to be so chained. I wanted to be so chained!
How many ways a man has to conquer a woman I thought, the chain, the whip, the switch, the commanding her to her knees, her lips to his feet, a gesture, admitting no questioning, the casting to her of a rag, fit only for a slave, the ordering of her to her tasks, the masterful seizure of her beauty, a kind word, a caress!
“More, more, more, Master!” I begged. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, Master!”
Well now was I aware of how I might have responded had they been concerned less to routinely open a young slave and had they been more patient, slower, less merciful. What if they had been tortuously slow, reading my body, playing upon it, as on a czehar or kalika, bringing forth what music they wished? Could I help what I was, female, and slave? A thousand modalities attend the mastership, and the slave learns a thousand yieldings, and submissions. She may be seized, and put to use in any place, at any time, in any way. She may be used abruptly, and cast aside, and rejoices to have been granted even so much. Does this not inform her, to her delight, that she is a slave? This thrills her that she is such, only slave, that she may be so used. And she may be utilized at length, should he wish, for Ahn at a time. The master may put aside days for slave sport, mastering her in a hundred ways at his leisure. She learns the blindfold, the gag, ropes, wrapped silken cords, thongs, bracelets, and chains. She learns to bring the master the whip in her teeth, crawling to him, on all fours. She cooks, and sews, launders and cleans, and he may observe her at her lowly, servile tasks, until he summons her to his arms, that she may attend to her truest task, the pleasing and pleasuring of her master. She will bathe him, and he may comb her hair. Her garmenture, if she be granted such, depends upon his will. He may dress her and undress her, considering how she may best be displayed. He is concerned with her appearance. In the promenades she must look well on her leash. Perhaps he will have her taught the kalika, or dance, dance such as is appropriate for such as she, slave dance.
“Please, more, Master!” I begged.
Had I been capable of wondering, on Earth, if I were a slave, a rightful slave, a slave by nature? How foolish now seemed such abstract, idle ruminations! It was now confirmed upon me, that I, the former Allison Ashton-Baker, was a slave, and not only by law, however absolute that legal shackle might be, but by right, by nature! Not only was I slave, but I needed to be a slave!
“Master?” I asked, within the hood, the light of a lamp dimly sensed through the closed, buckled artifact.
I lifted my belly, pathetically, piteously, shamelessly, in the darkness.
“Masters?” I said.
But they were gone.
Later the instructresses came to free me of the shackle, and conduct me from the room. They did not ask me anything. I was left alone with my thoughts.
I stood now, hands free, but hooded, on the cement flooring of what I supposed to be a holding area, or cell, of some sort.
There were some about, at least two men, and some women.
I tried to stand proudly.
I was chagrined with how I had behaved, particularly later, in the Room of White-Silk.
I resolved that I must never again behave as might have a slave.
I must never again let myself be so shamed.
I found it hard to believe that I had begged. How shameful! Happily that lapse would remain a secret of the house. I resolved that that indiscretion must never be repeated.
But even in my righteous self-castigations, which I, of Earth, deemed I should proclaim, at least to myself, and even behind the fragile curtain of that resolve which I thought to interpose between what I supposed I should be and what I suspected I was, there seemed a subtle, elusive whispering, mocking and insistent, kajira, kajira. Then I stood less proudly, and lowered my head. Already, in the scarlet swirl of memory, rising and falling like some warm fluid, I was uneasy. In my belly were clear stirrings. Had I not sensed the beginning of such things, even before my red-silking? Does not being barefoot, tunicked, and collared have its effect, in knowing that one, so degraded, is a slave? What was going on in my body? How was I changing? What had been done to me? I remembered the arms of the guards, so strong about me, I so weak in their grasp. And I remembered those last, brief sensations, casually bestowed on a slave, so unexpected, so different, so startling, so irresistible, which I had so wanted to have prolonged, which I had piteously begged might be continued. Something within me knew, or suspected, that such things might be not only riches in themselves, exquisite and transformative, but were, as well, the promise, the hint, of something beyond them, the explosions and creations of worlds.