"Yes, Master," I said, running lightly to him.
"Place your hands in your hair," he said, "and do not remove them until you are given permission."
"Master?" I asked.
I placed my hands in my hair. He took me by the back of the neck with his left hand and turned me to the crowd.
"Behold, Noble Sirs and Ladies," he said.
Suddenly I screamed fighting the looped, heavy coil of the whip.
"Stop! Please stop, Master!" I cried in misery. I dared not remove my hands from my hair. I feared I would, in my helplessness, tear out my own hair. "Please, stop, Master!" I cried out, twisting and squirming, held in place by his hand on my neck. I tried to fight the sensation of the whip.
"Writhe, little Dina," he said, "writhe."
I cried out, begging him to stop.
"Did you truly think," he hissed, "we would take a profit of only a copper tarsk on you? Do you think us fools to buy a girl for twenty and sell her for twenty-one? Do you not think we know our trade, little slut?"
I screamed for mercy.
Then, his demonstration finished, he released my neck. I fell to my knees before him on the block. My head was down. My hands were still in my hair. "You may remove your hands from your hair," he said. I took my hands from my hair and put them over my face, weeping. I shut my knees tightly, trembling, sobbing.
"Forty copper tarsks," I heard call from the floor, "from the Tavern of Two Chains."
"The Pleasure Silk bids fifty tarsks," I heard.
I had been tricked. The auctioneer had caught me by surprise. Without warning I had been forced to reveal myself as a true slave girl, openly, inadvertently, spontaneously, incontrovertibly, helplessly.
"The Jeweled Ankle Ring bids seventy," I heard.
He had handled his work well. He had exacted from the crowd the highest possible price in the given market before he revealed, unexpectedly and to her dismay, the delicious richness and vulnerability of the girl's exploitable latencies, they as much a part of her as her block measurements, and as much for sale. My responsiveness, like my intelligence, my service and my skills, such as they were, came with my price. The Gorean is satisfied only with the whole girl; it is the whole girl that he buys.
"The Perfumed Rope bids eighty copper tarsks," I heard.
I could not believe the bids.
"She is Paga hot," laughed a man.
"True," said another. "I wish I had her in my collar."
On the block I sobbed, kneeling. I could not help that I had responded as I had to the touch of the whip. I could not help it! "The Silver Cage bids eighty-five," I heard. I wept, shuddering. I had been exhibited naked. I was being sold to the highest bidder. And I knew that I was not being sold merely as a beautiful girl, for such a girl might have gone for twenty-one tarsks, but as something more, as a beautiful slave girl.
"I have heard from the agent of the Silver Cage," called the auctioneer, "a bid of eighty-five copper tarsks. Is there another bid?"
"The Belled Collar," I heard, "bids one silver tarsk."
There was silence in the hall.
"There is a bid of one silver tarsk," said the auctioneer. I could tell he was pleased.
I looked down, shuddering, my knees closely together. The recent bids had been by the agents of paga taverns. I had some notion of what it would be to be a paga slave. The belled, silked girls of the taverns were well known in the cities of Gor. Their purpose was to please the customers of their master. They came with the price of a cup of paga.
"The Belled Collar has given us a bid of one silver tarsk," called the auctioneer. "Is there a higher bid?"
I looked up, and, startled, saw the eyes of the various women, over their veils, upon me. The holding of their bodies, and what I could see of their faces, frightened me. I was regarded by them now with unmistakable hostility. It is hard to be naked, as a slave, before a woman. They make you feel doubly naked. I would rather there had been only men in the market. Were the women comparing their beauty with mine, perhaps unfavorably? Were they wondering, perhaps, if they might give a man more pleasure than I? I wondered why now, for the first time, they looked upon me with such resentment, such anger. Before they had only looked upon me as merely another girl slave, to be sold from the block in her turn for a handful of copper tarsks. But now they looked upon me differently. Now they looked upon me with the fury of the free woman for the hot, desirable female slave. Were they jealous? Did they resent the interest of men? Did they wish that it was they upon the block? I did not know. Free women are often cruel to beautiful female slaves. They put us under terrifying discipline. Perhaps they sense in us something of greater interest to men than themselves, something which constitutes to them a threat, something which is subtly competitive, and successfully so, to them. I do not know. Perhaps they fear us, or the slave in themselves. I do not know. Mostly I suspect the women were furious with me because I had been responsive to the touch of the auctioneer's whip. Free women, desiring to yield, pride themselves on their capacity not to yield, to maintain their quality and integrity; slave girls, on the other hand, are not permitted such luxuries; they, whether they desire to yield or not, must yield, and totally; perhaps free women wish they did not have to be free, and could relate in biological naturalness, like the slave girl, to the dominant organism. Perhaps they wish they were slaves. I do not know. One thing is certain, and that is that there is a deep, psychological hostility on the part of the free woman for her sister in bondage, particularly if she be beautiful. Slave girls, accordingly, fear free women; slave girls want to be locked in the collars of men, not women. To make matters worse the women in the tiers, because of the bidding, now saw me, and understood me, as a girl destined for the taverns, hot, spiced meat, delicious to men, a delectable accompaniment, like the music, to the tawny fire of paga. Some of them looked at their companions, or escorts. Did they wonder if some of them might now frequent a new paga tavern? I shuddered. I feared the hostility of the women, for I was a slave.
"Stand, little Dina," said the auctioneer.
I stood.
I brushed back my hair. I choked back my sobs.
I looked out to the crowd, to the men, and the women.
"I have from the tavern of the Belled Collar," said the auctioneer, "a bid of one silver tarsk. Is there a higher bid?"
Strangely, at that time, I thought of Elicia Nevins, who had been my rival at the college. How amused she would be, I thought, to see me being sold naked from a block.
"Sold to the Belled Collar for a silver tarsk!" said the auctioneer.
I had been sold.
He then thrust me toward the stairs and I, stumbling, descended the stairs, on the side opposite from that from which I had ascended the block.
"Girl 129!" I heard him call.
At the foot of the block a man from the house took me by the wrist and pulled me to a chain. Slave bracelets were fixed on the chain. He thrust me behind the last girl on the chain; she was kneeling, braceleted to the chain, facing away from me; her head was down. "Kneel," he said; I knelt; he fastened my wrists in the dangling slave bracelets, attached to the chain; I then knelt at the chain, secured; in time another girl who, too, had been sold, was placed on the chain behind me; and then another, and another. I knelt, locked in the bracelets, secured to the chain. I had been sold.
14
Two Men
"Paga, Master?" I inquired.
He waved me away.
I turned from him with a rustle of bells, looking about me. The girl in the sand was quite good. It was still early in the evening, the sixteenth hour. She scarcely moved, swaying, ankles close, arms over her head, wrists back to back, palms turned out. Yet she subtly danced, controlled by the music of a single flute. Some men watched her. We had five dancers at the Belled Collar. I thought all were fine. The best would perform later in the evening. Four performed a day, and one would rest. I could not dance. There was only one musician at the side of the sand. Others would join him later. Their leader was Andronicus, who played the czethar.