Chapter 14
SHE WAITS, BEFORE BEING PRESENTED BEFORE HER MASTER
“Stand still,” said one of the instructrices.
“Oh!” said Ellen, as the comb was pulled through her hair yet again, and again. The other instructrix then began to brush the hair, yet again.
“Hold still,” said the second instructrix.
“She is fine,” said a guard.
“What do men know of such things?” asked the first instructrix.
Ellen felt her hair smoothed and arranged carefully about her shoulders. “There,” said the first instructrix. “Now hold still, little she-urt.”
“She is a pretty one,” said the second instructrix.
“I think so,” said the first.
“You were not to paint her lips, her eyelids, you were not to enhance her with cosmetics?” said the guard.
“No,” said the first instructrix.
“She is pretty,” said the guard.
Ellen was brief-tunicked.
This garment was cut at the sides, to the waist. In this way the brand can be occasionally glimpsed and, when the slave kneels, if she is a pleasure slave, a bit of cloth may fall between her spread thighs.
She had been cleaned thoroughly in the Chamber of Preparation, her body scrubbed and her hair washed.
She was sparkling.
“Do you like the perfume?” asked the first instructrix.
“It is a slave perfume,” said the guard.
“Of course,” said the first instructrix. “She is a slave.”
“Do you like it?” asked the second instructrix.
“Yes,” said the guard. “It must be a good one. It is hard for me to keep my hands from her.”
“Do not disarrange her, please,” said the first instructrix.
Ellen edged away from the guard a little.
She pulled a little, futilely, against the bracelets, which held her hands confined behind her back.
“How does it feel, little tasta, to be out of the iron belt?” asked the first instructrix.
“Good, very good, Mistress,” said Ellen.
“Such things are so weighty, so bulky, and unpleasant,” said the first instructrix. Ellen gathered that the instructrix must once have had first-hand knowledge of what it was to be locked within such a thing, to be fastened in such an apparatus.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen.
“But you now feel very vulnerable, don’t you?” asked the first instructrix.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen. She inched a little further from the guard. It was he who, in the Chamber of Preparation, had removed her long gown, and had then removed the iron belt. She wondered if it had been necessary for him to feel her waist, and her hips, and thighs, as he had, when he had done so. The apparatus had been discarded, dropped to the stones of the floor of the Chamber of Preparation, with a clatter. She had then, after a moment, after having been examined by him, as a Gorean master considers a slave girl, been drawn by the hair across the room and plunged bodily into a tub.
“Bracelets,” said the first instructrix.
Ellen turned her back to the first instructrix, and lifted her wrists a little, so that her bracelets might be checked.
She felt her wrists lifted a bit, and the steel checked. There was a tiny sound of metal links.
The steel was tight on her small wrists.
That was not necessary, but it left her in no doubt that she was helpless.
She also did not doubt but what the tightness was intentional, and responsive to some instruction.
Slave bracelets were usually snug, but seldom tight.
Sometimes they were even rather loose, suggesting to a foolish girl the possibility of slipping them. But shortly, to her frustration, she learns she is held perfectly. The master, for his amusement, has been playing with her, and, in his way, instructing her.
Such small things help the new girl, in particular, to realize she is a female slave.
A girl who has better learned her collar is never in any doubt about such things.
Bracelets, chains, and such, incidentally, induce a sense of helplessness and vulnerability in the female, which sensations, whether she wishes it or not, increase her receptivity.
To be sure, they also hold her with perfection.
Her master had apparently decided that the bracelets would be tight, that it would please him to have her brought before him extremely conscious of her utter helplessness.
How faraway was the classroom!
There were six tiny links joining the bracelets, one for each letter in the Gorean spelling of ‘kajira’.
The key to the bracelets was on a tiny string looped about her collar, not that this did Ellen any good.
“They are pretty bracelets,” said the guard.
“We think so,” said the first instructrix.
Slave bracelets, designed for women, are often light and pretty, and are sometimes matched to outfits and such. Some, for high slaves, are bejeweled. Some might be worth the ransom of a Ubar. They can be matched to collars, as well, and shackles, and such. Some bracelets are fitted with lock rings, which can be snapped into one another, if and when desired. This resembles the leather slave cuffs worn by some girls in paga taverns. Similarly, some collars, leather or otherwise, have rings to which such snap rings may be conveniently fastened. To be sure, something as simple as leather binding fiber, such as commonly belts the common camisk, well serves for the general purposes of ready tethering. Common, too, are leashes. The style, grace, attractiveness, and lightness of slave bracelets does not detract from their utility. They are more than adequate to hold a female, and with perfection. Not all slave bracelets are pretty, and such, of course. Some are quite plain, and these might be preferred by some men for their slaves, perhaps for reasons of instruction, or economy, or to avoid an appearance of ostentation, or such. Too, warriors, tarnsmen, slavers, and such, might prefer plainer custodial devices for early captures, transportation, simple holding, and so on. Sometimes no more than a string, nose-ring and thumb cuffs are used. Men, on the other hand, as one would suppose, are commonly held in heavier gear, for example, in heavy manacles.
“This tunic is certainly very short,” said the first instructrix. She tugged a bit at the cut sides of the tunic, to draw it further down the thighs. Ellen stood very still. The first instructrix had little success.
“You must be careful how you move, Ellen,” said the first instructrix.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen.
Ellen was barefoot, as female slaves are often kept.
“Is it not past the eighteenth Ahn?” asked the first instructrix, timidly.
“I do not think so,” said the guard. “I have not heard the bar sound.”
“You may kneel, Ellen.” said the first instructrix, “but do not disarrange yourself.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” said Ellen.
She then knelt on the hall side of the door to the audience chamber, near the wall, and back a little, that she might not block the entrance. Several times she had been presented to her master in that chamber. But that had been before she had been made a work-slave, before she had been sent to the laundry.
She knelt there in the shadowed half darkness, in the light of a pair of flickering wall lamps. She pulled against the bracelets that held her hands behind her back. She did not want to go back to the laundry.
Surely anything would be better than going back to the laundry.
Or that is what she thought at the time.
I have informed the work-master, she thought, that I am ready to beg. How kind was the work-master! How grateful I am that this information has been brought to the attention of my master. Am I ready to beg? Surely I must beg, no matter how shameful, how demeaning, how revealing, this may prove to be! I pretended not to be willing to beg, and I was sent to the laundry. My master is so strong! He has conquered! I am now ready to beg!