"Bring on another slave!" called yet another.
The Lady Tendite, distraught, turned to the Lady Tima. "I shall close the bids," she said. She knew she had not done well. She was disappointed with her performance.
"May I continue?" asked the Lady Tima.
"Certainly," said the Lady Tendite, gratefully.
"Bring on a new slave!" called a woman.
The Lady Tima, suddenly, cracked her whip, the blades, loud, snapping in a staccato burst of leather, almost at my ear, the crowd instantly still, its attention arrested, stunned, alert.
"Stand!" ordered the Lady Tima. "Strip! Kneel! Knees wide!"
Startled, terrified, scarcely knowing what I was doing, I found myself kneeling before the buyers.
"Crawl to the Lady Tendite," ordered the Lady Tima. "Beg to be collared."
I found myself terrified, crawling to the Lady Tendite. The whip snapped again, behind me.
"Please collar me, Mistress," I begged.
"Louder!" said the Lady Tima.
"Please collar me, Mistress!" I begged the Lady Tendite.
"Stay on your hands and knees, head down!" ordered the Lady Tima.
A collar was brought, one which had been lying at hand, with other accouterments, at the rear of the platform. It was identical to that which I had worn in the room of preparation.
I felt it clasped about my neck and locked shut. I shuddered.
I saw the Lady Tima throw what garments I had just torn from my body into the shallow bowl of burning wood.
I was aware of applause, Gorean applause, from the tiers.
The Lady Tima, with her whip, indicated my shoes and stockings lying on the platform. "Take them, one by one, in your mouth," she said, "and discard them in the fire."
The whip cracked again.
I began to comply with her request, shattered, terrified, a slave.
I heard bids now from the crowd. "Two tarsks!" I heard. "Three tarsks!" I heard. "Three five!" I heard. "Three six!" "Three ten!" "Three twenty!"
The bidding was at four eighteen when I had jerked back my head from the flaming cubes, my right shoe thrown from my teeth into the fire. My knees hurt. I could feel the smooth wood of the platform beneath the palms of my hands. I was stark naked on Gor, save that I wore a steel collar. I saw the last of my clothing burst into flame. I saw fire licking about the shoes, which I had placed in the dish.
The whip snapped again. "Here, Jason!" ordered the Lady Tima, pointing with the whip to a place at her feet.
I crawled to her feet.
"Five tarsks!" I heard.
"Stand, Jason!" ordered the Lady Tima.
I stood.
"Here is the slave," said the Lady Tima. "You have seen him kneel naked to a woman and beg to be collared. Has not your lovely auctioneer, the Lady Tendite, well prepared him for his sale?"
"Six tarsks!" I heard.
There was applause for the Lady Tendite. I was bitter. I realized now only too well that the room of preparation had been for me just that. It had been where the Lady Tendite had prepared me for my sale, even to having me, unwittingly, dress myself as a man of Earth. It was there that she had laid the snares and set the traps, earning my trust, building up my hopes, which had made me so additionally vulnerable to the humiliations and miseries of my sale. She had done her work well. What a fool she had made of me. What a splendid joke for the Gorean women. I had thought to escape. I was now naked, being sold.
"Seven tarsks!" I heard. "Seven five!" I heard.
What a fool I had been not to realize that she was not a true slave girl. A true slave girl, I gathered, would not even have dared to think of behaving as she had. They knew the penalties. Besides the concern of a slave girl is not with male slaves; their concern is with free men, their masters.
"Seven seven!" I heard. "Seven eight!"
"Show yourself to them as you were in the room of preparation," said the Lady Tima to the Lady Tendite, "when you pretended to be a miserable little Earth-girl slave"
"Lady Tima?" inquired the Lady Tendite.
"I know what I am doing," said the Lady Tima to her, smiling.
"But I would be ashamed to be seen before free women so clad," she said.
"There are only women here, and this slave, and our men," said the Lady Tima. "Do so."
The Lady Tendite looked at her, uncertainly.
"Do you wish to remain in my employ?" inquired the Lady Tima.
The Lady Tendite smiled. She threw back the white gown she wore, still fastened about her neck with its silver clasp. It then hung back, over her shoulders, like a cape.
She stood there, then, in the Ta-Teera. She was exquisitely beautiful.
The Gorean women in the tiers seemed for a moment taken aback. Then, beginning one by one, they struck their left shoulders.
"How beautiful she is," breathed more than one woman.
I saw many of the women looking upon the Lady Tendite almost breathlessly. thrilled with her loveliness.
I then understood how brilliant indeed was the slaver who was my mistress. The women in the tiers, almost overcome with excitement, were identifying with the Lady Tendite.
Though it was she who stood there it was they who, in their imaginations, wore the shameful Ta-Teera and stood upon the wood of a slave platform. The Lady Tendite smiled, and lifted her hand to the crowd. Perhaps it was only then that she realized that her beauty had not been incidental to her hiring by the Lady Tima. I looked out on the women in the tiers.
"Remove the gown, and put on the collar," said the Lady Tima to the Lady Tendite.
"Yes, Lady Tima," she said. She unclapsed the gown and dropped it to one side. From an attendant she retrieved the collar which she had earlier handed him. She stood before the crowd and, smiling, held the collar.
The crowd was intent and hushed.
The Lady Tendite, smiling at the crowd, closed the collar about her neck. The click was audible.
There was an intake of breath. There was a cry of pleasure. Then there was applause for the Lady Tendite.
She stood before them, as a collared slave girl.
There was much applause.
The women in the tiers, clearly, were identifying with the Lady Tendite, and her beauty, as a collared slave girl. The Lady Tima was appealing to, and exploiting, something deep in women which she, as a slaver, well understood, the deep, thrilling desire, profound in women, to be the owned slave of a strong man, to be mastered and to find themselves under the obligation of obedience. I do not know how many of the women clearly understood what was occurring on the platform. Perhaps many knew only that, for some reason that was not clear to them, they were excited and thrilled. And they could, of course, be innocent in feeling this thrill and excitement for, first, it was not truly they but the Lady Tendite who stood on the platform, and, too, she was not truly a slave, but only pretending to be one. How frightening, of course, it would have been had the collar been truly locked upon her!
"My congratulations to the superb actress, the Lady Tendite!" called the Lady Tima.
There was more applause.
I have little doubt, too, the fact that I stood in the near background to the Lady Tendite, a male large and strong, contributed to the scene intended by the Lady Tima. She was very small, compared to me.
"Caress the slave," said the Lady Tima to the Lady Tendite.
The Lady Tendite came near to me. She looked up into my eyes. She was exquisitely beautiful. Her breasts, swelling within the pathetic restraint of the Ta-Teera, made me want to cry out with pleasure.
"Please do not touch me," I begged.
She wore a steel collar.
"Please," I begged. I cried out with misery and shame.
"Ten tarsks!" I heard "Ten five!" I heard.
"You may now remove the collar and take your whip from the attendant," said the Lady Tima. "Then, with the whip, display him as you will."
The Lady Tendite smiled, and went to the rear of the platform.