“Of my sort?” she said. “One of me?”
“Yes,” he said.
Then Lord Nishida addressed Tajima. “Please draw down the sheet to her shoulders.”
Miss Wentworth struggled, but was held in place by the two guards. Tajima held the sheet in place.
“You wear a slave collar,” said Lord Nishida, concernedly.
“It was part of my disguise!” she cried. “I am a free woman!”
“It is very attractive,” said Lord Nishida. “Remove it.”
“I cannot!” she cried, angrily.
“You cannot?” asked Lord Nishida.
“No,” she cried. “I had the key, I could have removed it, but that brute, that monster, Tarl Cabot, he whom we brought here, for you, as agreed, took the key from me, and cast it into the sea!”
“I see,” said Lord Nishida.
Slave collars, of course, are not made to be removed by the slave.
“Get the hateful thing off my neck!” she cried.
Cecily looked up at her, startled. Cecily loved her collar. Had she been capable of owning property, it would have been her proudest possession. Actually, of course, it, like herself, belonged to the master. She had a security, and an identity, in the collar. In its way it defined her, and governed her behavior, how she should act, how and when she might speak, what she might do, and not do, and so on. She wanted to be owned, and loved being owned. She loved belonging to a man, as his helpless, vulnerable, utter property. How free she was then, kneeling at his feet, and how right, and perfect! Too, it betokened that she was a woman of value, that she had worth, that she could be bought and sold. Too, not every woman was collared. The collar attested to her desirability as a female. It said, in its way, “Here is a female who has been found of interest to men.” And, from the woman’s point of view, it said, in a sense, “See me. Look upon me. I have been found worth collaring.” It was, in its way, thus, a badge of excellence, a certification of quality.
Lord Nishida looked to one of his subordinates, near the entrance to the pavilion. “Bring suitable tools,” he said.
“Good!” said Miss Wentworth.
The fellow was gone, in a moment.
Miss Wentworth cast me a look of triumph.
She then regarded Thrasilicus. “There has been a misunderstanding here, Mr. Stevens,” she said. “That is obvious. Now, in the light of the sympathetic understanding and thoughtful consideration of our mutual friend, the noble Lord Nishida, to whom I take it you are subordinate, we may shortly renegotiate our concerns. There remain matters such as my compensation, which should now, incidentally, be considerably increased, given my inconvenience and embarrassment, my return to Earth, and such.”
“Actually, Miss Wentworth,” said Thrasilicus, “Lord Nishida and I are, in a way, allies, and neither of us is subordinate to the other.”
“I take it, however,” she said, “that Lord Nishida’s wishes would weigh heavily with you.”
“Certainly,” he said.
She then turned to Lord Nishida. “I will need a wardrobe,” she said. “It need not be clothing of Earth, expensive, well-tailored, tasteful, elegant, fashionable, chic, and such, such as I was accustomed to on Earth, for I well understand that such might be difficult to obtain here, but, you understand, it should be concealing, ample, and decorous, perhaps robes of concealment, such as might be favored by free women of Gor. Veiling, too, given certain aspects of the relevant culture, would not be inappropriate.”
Lord Nishida smiled.
At this point the fellow who had left the pavilion a bit ago returned and, with him, was a burly fellow, not of the “strange men,” carrying tools, who was, if not of the caste of metal workers, one at least, it seemed, who was familiar with certain aspects of their craft.
In a few moments Miss Wentworth’s slender, aristocratic, fair throat was freed of the light, attractive collar.
She straightened her body, and shook her head, and her hair swirled about her shoulders. She did it well, and it was fetching. It was doubtless intended to have its effect on Lord Nishida. I could understand how certain men might rush to please such a woman. “Thank you,” she said to Lord Nishida.
“Now,” said Lord Nishida to Tajima, “let us see her.”
Miss Wentworth regarded Lord Nishida, startled, disbelievingly.
Tajima lifted a finger, and each guard, of those flanking Miss Wentworth, and who had held her, generally, respectively, by the upper arms, now each took a wrist, and, a moment later, an upper arm.
“What are you doing!” cried Miss Wentworth. “No, no!”
She fought to cling to the sheet, to hold it together, before her, but her strength was nothing to that of the two men, and her fingers were pried from the sheet, and her arms were separated, and drawn to the sides. She had her head down, and was bent over, and was struggling wildly, frantically, as she could.
“Please, please,” protested Tajima. “This is to be done gracefully.”
“Stop! Stop!” cried Miss Wentworth, squirming in the grasp of the guards.
It was certainly not done gracefully. When a female gift, or prize, is to be revealed to a master, a merchant, a captain, a Ubar, or such, the gift, or prize, as shy as she might be, is commonly revealed formally, gracefully, even ceremoniously.
Then the guards held apart her arms, each with a grasp with one hand on her wrist, and a grasp with the other on her arm, above the elbow. They held her in such a way that her arms were slightly behind her, and this pressed her forward, accentuating her figure, toward Lord Nishida.
Her eyes were startled.
A look of utter dismay bespoke itself on her troubled features.
The Earth woman was well displayed, and Lord Nishida scrutinized her closely, and, seemingly, though he gave little overt expression of this, approvingly.
It was my surmise that his senses were pleased, well pleased.
“What are you doing!” she cried, aghast.
“I am appraising my new slave,” said Lord Nishida.
“I am not a slave!” she cried. “I am a free woman!”
“Not at all,” said Thrasilicus. “You have been unwittingly a slave for months, even for some weeks when you were still engaging in your petty, deceitful games on behalf of your firm, plying your wiles and charms, seemingly so innocently, to wheedle and coax wealth from clients, pathetically dazzled males as you saw it, men whom, given your own words, recently spoken, you obviously held in contempt. You were a slave from the time your name was first entered on the acquisition lists.”
“No,” she cried, “no!”
“I entered it myself,” said Thrasilicus, “and, as noted, on the very afternoon of the aforementioned business luncheon, following which, you may recall, you attempted to entice me to join your list of clients, that line of naive fellows begging for your attention, those eager to please you, to render homage to your charm and beauty, ready to exchange capital, often not their own, for one of your smiles. My interest in you, and I trust you find this flattering, was immediate. Indeed, as soon as you approached my table, so innocently, so charmingly, like a sleek, predatory little animal, I considered that you would look less well sitting at my table in your carefully chosen chic business ensemble than you would kneeling beside it, on the carpet, head down, naked, in a collar. And after a few moments of conversation I decided I would enter you on an acquisition list, for subsequent harvesting at our convenience. I did so, and, as noted, in the moment your name appeared on that list you were no longer a free woman, but a slave.”
“No!” she cried.
“Lament not,” he said. “Given your nature, character, dispositions, actions, and such, it is appropriate that you be enslaved. Bondage is right for one such as you. One such as you should be a slave. One such as you deserves bondage. For one such as you, bondage is not only a suitable fate, but one superbly fitting and apt.”