There was laughter from about.
I felt my head pulled back by the hair, and I was then, head back, facing upward, toward the billowing, striped awning, which I could not see.
I felt harsh masculine lips crush my lips.
I could not move, for the hand in my hair.
I could not speak, for the pressure.
Too, I had not been given permission to speak.
Then I moaned, and squirmed, and fought, and feared, and involuntarily trembled, for I sensed my body might yield to him.
How could I help myself?
I was a slave!
I feared that, in a moment, I might, to the amusement of those about, press myself piteously against him.
Had he touched me, as one might touch a slave, so confidently, so certainly, and possessively, I feared I would have leaped to his touch, even spasmed.
Then the lips were gone, and I heard more laughter from those about.
I leaped to my feet, in consternation, in misery, unable to see, helpless, jerking against the bracelets.
“Kneel down, slut,” said an unpleasant masculine voice, and I instantly knelt, frightened, before the tier, putting my head to the cement.
“She is indeed a slut,” said another voice.
Had they detected the incipience of my response?
“Worse,” commented another, “a slave.”
“How helpless they are,” said another.
“She is a hot little beast,” said another.
“Ten tarsk-bits for her,” said another.
There was more laughter.
I heard, amongst the laughter, the peels of feminine mirth. I thought, angrily, put you in a tunic, and blindfold you, and subject you to such attentions, and see if you are any different!
A bit later, I felt myself drawn up, kneeling, and hands undid the blindfold. “Master,” I cried, “what was done to me!”
I was quickly, brutally cuffed.
My face stung. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“I do not recall,” said he in whose charge I was, “that you were given permission to speak.”
I looked at him, wildly, pathetically.
“You may speak,” he said.
With him were the Lady Bina, with her program, Astrinax, and the guard, Lykos.
“What was done to me!” I exclaimed, tearfully.
“You were put to lip rape,” he said. “You were not used under the tier, were you?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“It does not matter, anyway,” he said, “as you have had, as I understand it, your slave wine.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He held up, before me, a tarsk-bit. He handed it to the Lady Bina, who placed it in her pouch.
“I did not see who did it to me,” I said.
“No matter,” he said. “The tarsk-bit was paid.”
“The tarsk-bit?” I said.
“Look there,” he said, “and there,” pointing.
I followed his direction, and, in two places, I saw a slave on a tier, one below and well to my right, and another down, four tiers, to my left. They were blindfolded. I then saw another slave, looking down the tiers toward a vendor, which slave suddenly stiffened, fighting a blindfold wrapped about her face. I saw a large fellow hold her head back, and feast, at his pleasure, on her lips. She struggled, helplessly. I wondered if it were the same fellow who had pressed himself upon me.
“It is a jollity of the Vennan races, a game,” he said, “to harvest kisses from the lips of unattended kajirae.”
“So why was I unattended?” I asked.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“I am in your charge,” I said. “Why did you leave me? Why did you not stay, and protect me?”
“The tarsk-bit was paid,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“You are not a free woman,” he said. “You are kajira. Surely, on the street, in the market, or elsewhere, you have received a sudden slap, or pinch, on the fundament, when unattended, even though you were in the tunic of a woman’s slave?”
“Yes,” I said, angrily.
“Perhaps, even,” he said, “an occasional kiss.”
“Perhaps,” I said. It did not seem to me that he, or the Lady Bina, or the beast, needed to know about such things. Occasionally a fellow had taken me in his arms, suddenly, unexpectedly, held me to him, and kissed me. Such things were done almost as one might glance at a sunset, ruffle the fur of a pet sleen, or bestow a familiar slap on the flank of a kaiila. I was, after all, goods, a property girl, a collar girl, a vendible animal, a purchasable, perhaps lovely, thigh-branded beast, a female slave, a mere kajira. Once a ruffian, lounging against a wall, as I made my way to the market, summoned me to him. As he was a free person, I had to obey, of course. He put me before him, and said, “Clasp your hands behind your back.” I did so, of course. Much may be done with an unattended slave. Is she to disobey a free person? He then put his hand under my chin, lifted it a little, and said, “Slave lips.” He was very close to me. I complied, and waited, eyes closed, and then he took my head, and pressed my lips to the wall. “Kiss it, slut,” he said, “for three Ehn; then be about your business.” I remained thusly, my lips pressed against the wall, my hands clasped behind my back, for three Ehn. I counted the Ehn, for fear he might be behind me, watching. Some passers-by laughed. Doubtless I was not the first slave they had seen, so discomfited. I then, tears in my eyes, my fists clenched, then better aware of my slavery, left. Too, I was distraught. He had been cruel, but had I been found wanting? Was I so poor a slave, so unattractive a slave? Had my lips not been formed, at his command, as a slave’s lips, readied for attention? Had I not, eyes closed, waited, until I had been ignored or rejected, and my pursed lips put to a stone wall, against which I foolishly stood, my hands clasped behind my back, while strangers, some amused, passed by? How helpless, weak, and meaningless I felt! I had been neglected, ignored, and scorned, and not scorned as any slave is scorned, for she is a slave, but scorned even for the purposes of a slave! Is a woman fastened in a collar only to be fastened in a collar? Is its placement meaningless? Is that all she is to be left with, that there is a collar on her neck which she cannot remove? Was I such as to be put aside, dismissed, collared? Was I adjudged of no interest? Could I be so lacking? Was I so poor a slave? Was I not attractive, even beautiful, at least a little? My sense of my own worth, as a woman and a slave, was shaken. Was I so lacking? The young men I had known on my former world would have sought my kiss. Had I been interested in such things they would have been eager to pay for it! If I were truly of no interest to men why would I, and my sisters of the house, beauties all, have been brought to this world, for its girl markets, to be stripped, trained, caged, exhibited, and sold? I recalled a paga girl I had seen soliciting outside her master’s tavern. I had thrilled to her profound, vital, needful sensuousness. I felt a need to reassure myself, perhaps because I was a woman’s slave, and not a man’s slave. Of what value is a slave if she, in her collar, is not of interest to masters? I waited in the street for a time, and then chose a handsome, young Tarnster. Such, I was sure, would be interested in the lips of a slave. I trusted he would not strike me from him. I hurried before him, and knelt down, blocking his way, humbly, and seized his left leg, and pressed my head, lowered, against his leg, as I had seen the paga girl do. I then lifted my head and eyes to him, and said, as she had, “A slave would be kissed, Master.” “Very well,” he said, and lifted me up, and spent a few Ihn with me. “Is Master pleased?” I asked. “Very much,” he said, “which is your tavern?” “Ela, Master,” I cried, hurrying away, “I have only the tavern of my beauty.” I was much pleased, but, too, I was uneasy, for his touch had made me restless. I had suffered little in the way of slave fires, but I was a slave, and well aware of the deeper meanings of my collar. My most memorable experience along these lines, of course, was the interlude with the Metal Worker himself, in the vicinity of Six Bridges. After he had saved me from the girls of the house of Daphne, he had dealt with me at his leisure, and as he pleased, my hands incapacitated, unable to interfere, held over my head, balancing the laundry, my fingers, as he went about his inquiries, clawing into that large, soft bundle of sparkling sheets and linen which I dared not release lest it fall and be soiled, arousing me until, I fear, I had well shown myself, to his satisfaction, as he had apparently intended, slave.