Lord Nishida nodded.
His offer, in honor, had to be genuine, but I am confident he did not expect it to be accepted.
“Your name is Pertinax?” said Lord Nishida to Pertinax.
“Yes,” said Pertinax.
“Would you like this slave?” he asked.
“No,” said Pertinax.
The slave regarded him, with incredulity. “You always wanted me!” she exclaimed.
“I did not know you then,” he said. “Here I have learned, for the first time, your true nature and character, who you are, and what you have done.”
“Accept me! Take me! Own me!” she begged.
“No,” said Pertinax.
“Please!” she said. “Own me!”
“You would be owned,” he said, “but you would not think yourself owned. But sometime, I am sure, you will understand, in your heart and belly, that you are owned, truly owned.”
“Save me from this fate!” she wept.
“Your lips and tongue felt well on my feet,” he said.
“Keep me,” she said. “Own me!”
“No,” he said.
“I do not understand,” she wept.
“You are worthless,” he said. “You are petty, radically petty, to the core.”
She stood there, in the grip of the guard, naked, forlorn, shaken, stunned.
Again, I thought the offer of Lord Nishida was genuine, but, again, I was confident he did not expect it to be accepted. He was, I gathered, a shrewd judge of men. I did not find this surprising, from my estimation of his position, and apparent acuity. Indeed, I suspected that these formal overtures on his part were largely intended to express his contempt for the slave. Some men, of course, find it pleasant to embond a woman they hold in contempt, and then treat her accordingly. And, when the slave fires have been ignited in her belly, and she is the helpless prisoner of her needs, it amuses them to have her at their feet, prostrate, piteous, begging for their least touch.
“I trust, Lord Nishida,” said Thrasilicus, “the slave pleases your senses.”
“She pleases my senses,” said Lord Nishida, “but I am not sure she pleases my heart.”
“In bondage,” I said, “a woman is often muchly transformed.”
This was true. Bondage, in which the woman learns her womanhood, effects in a woman not only a sexual but a moral and personal redemption. In the collar, and in submission, she learns service, fulfillment, wholeness, and love. In the collar, and in her complete and categorical submission to the master, sexually, emotionally, and personally, she becomes herself, and happy.
“If Lord Nishida is not pleased,” said Thrasilicus, “we may search out another.”
“And this one,” said Tajima, who had had, from the beginning, as I understood it, reservations pertaining to the former Miss Wentworth, “as she would be unworthy meat for larls or sleen, may be bound and cast into the garbage pit for the delectation of swarming urts.”
There seemed a general assent to this, amongst those present.
They took her to be poor slave stuff.
I myself, however, did not think she would look poorly on a block, if well exhibited.
“We shall see,” said Lord Nishida. Then he addressed the two guards who had had the former Miss Wentworth in custody. “After her branding and collaring,” he said, “shave her head, and send her to the stables, and see that she learns she is a slave.”
“Yes, great lord,” they said, and exited the pavilion, the former Miss Wentworth, whimpering, but afraid to speak, held by the upper left arm, in the grip of one of them.
“Regrettable,” said Lord Nishida.
“Another may be procured,” said Thrasilicus, concerned. “You may return her to me. I would not mind having her under my whip.”
“Your choice,” said Lord Nishida, “was excellent.”
Thrasilicus seemed surprised.
“If she learns her collar well,” said Lord Nishida, “another may find her pleasing.”
“I had thought you wanted her for yourself,” said Thrasilicus.
“No,” said Lord Nishida. “Her yellow hair, blue eyes, and fair skin will be rare at home. She may figure amongst a variety of gifts, for another.”
“For whom?” asked Thrasilicus.
“For the shogun, of course,” said Lord Nishida.
Lord Nishida then looked at me. “Now,” he said, “we may address ourselves to matters of importance.”
Chapter Eleven
CECILY AND I LOOK IN ON THE FORMER MISS WENTWORTH
A few days after her interview with Lord Nishida in his pavilion, curious, I decided to look in on the former Miss Wentworth, and so, after an inquiry or two, I made my way, heeled by Cecily, to one of the large stables in which draft tharlarion were housed, those which aided in the logging, and drew the wagons down the narrow path between the trees, to some destination, to the southeast. The stable was a long, large building, with a towering roof, to contain the longer-necked tharlarion. It would house several beasts, but I supposed, at this time of day, most, if not all, of the tharlarion would be about the camp, or active on the road to the southeast, hauling logs, or returning. By nightfall, as these things go, before the beasts returned, the stable should be cleaned, fresh straw strewn about, deeply, and the feed and water troughs filled. I chose the late afternoon for my visit, supposing the time one opportune to encounter the former Miss Wentworth alone. Late in the afternoon many of the “strange men” enjoy a pleasant soak in a warm tub. I trusted that the stable grooms might be enjoying this homely indulgence. Several collar-girls, such as those who had been former free women of Ar, were humbly, attentively, silently, here and there, bathing the men. I did not think that the former Miss Wentworth would be engaged in this activity, as it is regarded as a great privilege for a collar-girl to be permitted to bathe a master. Indeed, it is one of the lovely services in which a contract woman, naked beside her client in the pool, was expected to excel.
I found the former Miss Wentworth toward the back of the stable, on the right, as one would face the large double gate which gave access to the structure. She was facing the back of the stable. I watched her for a time. She was on her knees, moving about, leaning forward, a small, pathetic figure. She would reach down and, again and again, with her small, lovely hands, quite bare, her bare arms stained to the elbows, scrape together tharlarion dung. When a suitable heap had been formed, she would lift it, again with her bare hands, and place it on a low flat cart, which she drew beside her.
She was naked, not yet permitted a tunic, and was filthy, and doubtless stank.
She had not yet been permitted even a slave strip.
The common slave strip is a single, narrow, dangling piece of cloth anchored in binding fiber, double-looped about the waist of the slave. It is usually tied snugly, to accentuate the figure of the slave. It is fastened with a slip knot that it may easily, with a tug, be undone. The binding fiber, of course, is long enough to bind the slave, hand and foot, or, if one desires, to serve as a leash, the slave strip then usually folded and placed between the slave’s teeth, which she dare not drop. Sometimes the binding fiber, in its double loop, is looser, that it may ride low on the hips. The point of this is to exhibit the navel of the slave, which, in Gorean, is known as “the slave belly.” The Gorean free woman, as I understand it, who often mates while gowned, commonly refuses to reveal her “slave belly” to her companion, because of the shame of it. What if he should become excited, tear off her gown, and put her to use with the same audacity, aggression, exhilaration, and exultation with which he might use a vulnerable, meaningless animal, say, a chain-slut or paga girl?
I watched the former Miss Wentworth for a time, she unaware of my presence.