“You find the kajira satisfactory?” asked the man in the chair.
“Even in such a way, in such a time,” said Tenrik. “It may only be conjectured to what lengths she might be brought, given different circumstances, and more time.”
“Do you think she will soon reach the point where she is totally helpless?” asked the man in the chair.
“Yes,” said Tenrik.
I lay before the dais. It was with bitterness, and chagrin, I heard myself so discussed. It was done so publicly, so candidly. Did they not know I was present? Did they not know others were present? I was being discussed as publicly, as candidly, as though I might be an animal. Then I realized again, of course, that I was an animal. I trembled. I already felt that I was, in such modalities, helpless. I was startled to learn I might become even more so. What then could I do? What then would I be? I had learned in the pens that I had an unusual potentiality for vitality, that somehow beneath the encrustations of a subtle, pervasive, insidious conditioning program, one to which I had been mercilessly subjected from childhood on, beneath, and in spite of, all the antibiological values, all the instilled inhibitions, reservations, hesitations and guilts, there lurked a primitive, powerful, natural, healthy responsiveness. This conditioning program, and its effects, now, bit by bit, fragment by shattered fragment, had been broken away from me. In its ruins I had emerged, like a beautiful thing, innocent from the sea. To be sure, I had emerged as something real, not mythical, something which found itself in a very real world, a world in which I learned I was a certain sort of thing, vulnerable, precious and beautiful, and not at all the same as certain other sorts of things which were quite as real as I, and the world, but quite different, as well.
“How worthless she is!” said Dorna.
“Not altogether,” said a man.
There was laughter.
“Look at her body,” said a man.
I knelt, covering my body as I could. I was muchly flushed. I covered my breasts. I did not want them to see the erection of my nipples. I was gentle. They were tender. I kept my head down.
“Position,” said the man in the chair.
I must obey, instantly.
I knelt now with my back straight, back on my heels. My hands, now, were down on my thighs. My knees were spread. I kept my head down.
“Head up,” said the man in the chair.
I lifted my head. There were tears in my eyes.
I knelt, collared, before masters.
“See her,” said a man, considering the condition of my body.
“Yes,” said another.
“She is a new slave?” asked a man.
“She is just out of the pens,” said a fellow.
“We had her on her first retail sale,” said another.
“Her brand is still smoking,” laughed another. It was a saying.
“She was delivered, hooded, only a few days ago,” said another.
“It is hard to believe that she is new to her collar,” said a man.
“It is so certified,” remarked another.
“I have seen her papers,” said a fellow.
I knew I had papers but, of course, I could not read them. Such papers, as I understood it, begin with a girl’s arrival in the pens. That is when her meaningful existence, her slave existence, begins. Nothing before that counts. There is no interest in our origins, save that we are of Earth, nor in our history or background. Such things have no relevance, or importance. They are all behind us. We are no longer free women. What interests them is merely that we are slaves, and our slave properties. A number of things are commonly found on papers, which may be more or less detailed, for example, our brand type, a number of measurements, the sorts of training we have received, and such. There is also, usually, a place for sales endorsements, for when a girl changes hands. There is also a “remarks section.” where miscellaneous information may be recorded.
“And already, so soon,” said another, “she cannot help herself.”
“She is hot,” said another. “Slave hot.”
“Superb,” added another.
I blushed, even more.
“Yes,” said one of the men, considering me, “a hot slave.”
He could they speak of me so?
But, of course, I was an animal!
“Consider what she will be when the slave fires have been truly lit in her belly,” said another.
“See,” said a fellow, “she is afraid!”
“But see, as well,” said another, “she is intrigued.”
“Yes,” said another. “She wants it. She wants it.”
“And helplessly, desperately!” said another.
“Yes!” laughed another.
I tried not to meet the eyes of any of the men.
Could they so read me?
And could there be more? Could I be more helplessly theirs than I was now?
And what were “slave fires”?
I dared not speculate.
“She might easily be a silver-tarsk girl,” said a fellow.
I did not understand the allusion, but gathered that a silver tarsk was a coin, and might be a good price for me.
Not only could my face and body, my beauty, if beauty it be, my dispositions, my talents, my capacities, my intelligence, my feelings, my emotions, my service, my pleasure, be sold! My heat, too, could be sold. It, too, could be put up for sale!
Men could buy it!
It could be purchased with the rest of me.
It is all of her, you see, the whole slave, that is sold.
“See her!” laughed a fellow.
My entire body, I fear, was a rage of subsiding arousal, and scarlet shame.
Could I help it if my body was so alive, and so much at their mercy? Too, had they not done much, the men of this world, to bring me to this helplessness?
They had not permitted me to hide from myself! They had forced me to be myself!
- slave.
“She is an Earth slut,” said Dorna. “That is the way Earth sluts are. They are all like that!”
“I do not object,” said a man.
“Nor I,” said another.
There was laughter.
I wondered what I was supposed to do. Should I have tired to be unresponsive and frigid, and thus, in some absurd or perverted sense, have attempted to uphold the honor of the women of Earth? And it was not merely that in the pens many of my inhibitions had been forcibly removed from me and that my natural sexuality had been freed and encouraged, permitted to grow, to thrive and blossom, but that my reflexes had actually been honed, so to speak, to greater sensitivity. I was now no stranger to arousal and responsiveness. I had even received training. Besides, I was a kajira! If I proved to be displeasing, I could be punished severely, even slain.
And so I knelt before them, naked, in a position of submission and subservience, a collared slave girl.
I had a name, but I did not know it.
“A hot, curvaceous slut,” said a man.
I knelt before them.
My body was no longer my own, but belonged now to the masters.
I must obey. I must serve.
How far away now was my old world, how far away now were the boutiques, the shops, the malls!
I wondered how my old friends Jean, and Sandra, and Priscilla and Sally, would have looked, kneeling as I was. Doubtless much the same.
“See the whipped slave!” laughed Dorna. “See the utilized slave! See the Earth-slut slave!”
I stared ahead. I did not look at her.
“How are you kajira?” inquired Dorna.
“I will obey! I will try to be pleasing!” I said.
“Do women kneel thusly, before masters, on your world?” inquired Dorna.
“Some, perhaps,” I said. “I do not know!”
“Did you?” asked Dorna.
“No,” I said.
“What is wrong with the men of your world?” she asked. “Are they not men?”
“I do not know!” I said.
“You did not kneel before men,” she said.
“No,” I said.
“But now you do,” said Dorna.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, what?” she snapped.
“Yes, Mistress?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said.