“I do not think that master would approve,” whispered Ellen, frightened.
She would have loved to have pleased her master in this intimate fashion, and had dreamed of begging to do so, but Gart, or another, would surely be a different matter.
Giving the master such pleasures, and many others, is fitting for a slave.
“So you think I wriggle well?” said Nelsa.
“It seemed so to me, Mistress,” said Ellen.
“And how do you wriggle, little belted pudding?”
“I have never wriggled, Mistress,” said Ellen.
“Men can teach you to wriggle,” said Nelsa.
Ellen put down her head.
“So you think I am a slave?” asked Nelsa.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen, shyly.
“Do you think I can help how I now am?” asked Nelsa.
“I am sure I do not know, Mistress,” said Ellen.
“Do you not understand, you stupid little virgin, how men can enflame a woman, can make her helpless, can make her crave their least touch?”
“Perhaps if she is a slave,” said Ellen.
Nelsa’s hands tightened on the handle of the ewer.
“Do not hurt her,” said the redhead.
“She was off her mat,” said Nelsa. “I will tell!”
“You, too, have been off your mat when Gart was not in the room,” said the redhead. “And if you tell, we, too, can tell!”
There was assent to this from several of the slaves at the tubs.
One was an auburn-haired beauty who claimed to have once served the pleasure of Chenbar of Kasra, Chenbar the Sea-Sleen, Ubar of Tyros. More likely, some said, she had served in a prison on Tyros, and had been periodically cast to the prisoners, and handed about, amongst them, to reduce their unruliness. Ellen supposed both stories might be true. Perhaps the woman, who was very beautiful, had once served in the pleasure gardens of Chenbar, but had then in some small way displeased him, or perhaps he had merely tired of her. Later, as others might replace her in her prison duties, she might be sold on the mainland, and thence south. Another was a lovely slave of mixed blood, whose eyes bore the epicanthic fold. Another was a black woman with a chain collar and disk. It was said she had already been spoken for by a black merchant. Two others were sisters from a city called Venna, taken when returning from a pilgrimage to the Sardar Mountains. They would presumably be separated in the markets.
“You, too, will learn to beg and scratch, little tasta,” said Nelsa to Ellen.
Ellen did not know what a tasta was. Later she learned that it was a confection, a small, soft candy mounted on a stick.
Ellen pulled back, suddenly, softly crying out, shielding her face as Nelsa, in a sudden, plunging stream, too close to her, water splashing and hissing, emptied the ewer into the tub.
“Get to work, slave,” sneered Nelsa.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen. Then she cried out with pain. “It is too hot, Mistress,” she said. “I can not put my hands in the water!”
Nelsa had turned away.
Another slave, an exotic, bred for stripes, put more laundry beside her.
Ellen looked up in misery. There was so much!
She shrank down beside her tub, on her mat. She wished it was night so that she might be alone in her bin, with her blanket.
She supposed that women of low caste must do their own laundry.
Why had her master put her here, in this terrible place, she wondered. Perhaps she was being punished, but for what? Had she been put here for instructional purposes, that she might better understand her bondage? Why did he hate her so? Or did he hate her? Or could there be another reason? I must be special to him, somehow, she thought, that he has done this to me. Then she thought, fearfully, but perhaps I am not special to him, at all. Perhaps he does not even think of me. Perhaps I am here because I am not special at all. Perhaps I am to him only another meaningless slave. No, she said, I am here because it amuses him to put me here, his former teacher, one he perhaps found, to his irritation, troublesomely, even disturbingly attractive, to put me here in this terrible place, here in the laundry, miserable, sweating, no more than a naked work-slave, set to the meanest and lowest of duties. But he brought me to this world, she thought. He remembered me. I think he wants me! Yes she thought, wants, as a man wants a woman, or rather, she thought, thrilled, as a master wants a slave. Oh, I hope so, I hope so! I love him so! He is my master! She lay on her side, on the mat, beside the tub. She felt the heavy device locked on her body. She lightly traced with her finger the narrow curved plate between her legs, with its curved, long, slender, saw-toothed opening. The saw-toothed edges were sharp. Twice, in cleaning herself, she had cut herself. Then she had learned to go above and behind the edges, pulling the belt down and away a little. This can be managed by pulling it down an inch or so at the waist, but then, of course, it can go only so far, being stopped by the width of the hips, which she had, more than once, abraded. He put the belt on me, she thought, happily. Oh, I hate it, for its weight, its clumsiness, its bulkiness, its embarrassment, its inconvenience, but does it not show that I am special to him? Is he not keeping my virginity for himself? Or, to use the vulgar Gorean expression, at least as applied to slaves, does he not wish to be the first to open me?
At this point she pauses briefly in the narrative.
The saying is given more fully, commonly, as “open for the uses of men.” She adds this, it occurring to her that some who read this might feel that she was overly delicate, or insufficiently explicit or informative, at this point. She fears she might be chided for a lack of candor, and perhaps with the leather.
She was glad Gart was not in the room.
There was much laundry beside her tub, but he would have no way of knowing, upon his return, that it had not been just placed there.
Surely Kiri, the exotic, would not volunteer this information. If explicitly questioned, of course, she must, kneeling, head to the floor, tell the truth.
She wished that it was night and that she was in her cement bin. It was so much cooler there. The blanket gave her some protection from the cement. The bins had no gates or ceilings. Their walls were about four feet high, but one could not see over them once one had been chained by the neck to the ring at the back. The chain was about two feet in length. One could do little more than rise to one’s knees, perform obeisance, and such things. The girls were forbidden to speak to one another when in their bins. This rule tended to be scrupulously kept, for it was difficult to tell, chained low as one was, when a guard might be in the vicinity, behind the bins. One would dread, looking up and back, seeing the sight of his upper body and angry frown suddenly appearing, looming, over the back wall of one’s bin. Soon he would appear in front of the bins, with his whip, and the errant slaves, to their dismay, their pleas for mercy unheeded, would be appropriately admonished. In the laundry Gart was more tolerant, though he did not encourage frivolous discourse. When he was absent, of course, the frenzy of work slowed and the buds of conversation, warily, timidly, began to open.