There are, of course, a number of disrobing commands in Gorean, which are less curt and brutal than the direct, blunt, unadorned “Strip.” For example, one might hear “Remove your clothing,” “Bare yourself,” “Disrobe,” “Show me a slave,” “I would see my slave,” “Why are you clothed before me?” “Exhibit my property,” “Display yourself,” “You need not wear your tunic at the moment,” “Remove the impediments to my vision,” “You are lovelier stripped than clothed, are you not?” “What do I own?” “To the collar and brand, girl,” “How were you on the block?” And so on.
There was, as noted, a collar on her neck.
I wondered if it was locked.
I supposed so.
If locked, I wondered who held the key.
Surely not she, as she was a slave.
In her way, she was not unattractive, but that was to be expected, in one who was a slave, or expected to pass as a slave.
Personally, on the other hand, I thought most Goreans would not have bid on her, as, clearly, she was not yet slave soft, or slave ready. There are enormous differences among women in these matters.
Although, as I have suggested, she was not unattractive, it must be understood that this was in an Earth sort of way, the way in which many Earth females may be accounted attractive, attractive more in the sense of what they might become, how perhaps they might be, rather than in the sense of what they currently are. By this I mean, despite certain suitabilities of face and figure, she had something of the tightness, the apparent inhibitions, the uncertainties, and confusions, masked with the compensatory arrogance, nastiness, and insolence, of many Earth females, afflicted with the customary ambivalences toward their sex, comprehensible enough, one supposes, given their backgrounds, educations, and conditionings, their subjection to an environment seemingly engineered to produce, depending on a variety of circumstances, and the person, symptoms or tortures ranging from anxiety and neurosis to ill temper, misery, nastiness, pettiness, boredom, and depression.
“The soup is hot,” said Constantina. “Surely you can tell that, stupid slave. Hurry, wrap the tabuk strips on their skewers, and put them to the fire. Are the suls and turpah ready?”
“If my eyes do not deceive me,” said Cecily, testily, “my neck is not the only neck which is encircled with a slave band.”
Constantina drew back her hand, as though to strike Cecily, but she stopped, suddenly, angrily, as Cecily, eyes flashing, was clearly prepared to return the blow, or worse. Fights amongst slave girls can be very disagreeable, with rolling about, clawing, biting, scratching, and such. One is reminded somewhat of the altercations that sometimes take place between sleen, in territorial disputes, mate competition, the contesting of a kill, and so on. In such frays, in the tangling, snarling, twisting, and swirling about, it is sometimes difficult to tell where one beast leaves off and the other begins. It can be worth an arm to try to separate fighting sleen.
“Why not have her serve naked,” said Constantina. “Is that not commonly done with collared sluts?”
“Why not have them both serve naked?” I suggested.
Constantina turned white. Had she never served so, humbly, hoping to please, fearing the switch if she did not?
“No, no,” said Pertinax, soothingly.
Constantina’s color returned. She seemed shaken. I found this of interest. Did she not know that, as a slave, she was a domestic animal, as much as a verr or tarsk, and was not permitted modesty?
Cecily seemed pleased at this slight turn of events.
Constantina’s hair was blonde and her eyes were blue. Cecily was a dark-eyed brunette. Constantina’s hair was longer than Cecily’s hair, and Constantina was a bit taller than Cecily, and a bit thinner than Cecily. Both would look well at the end of a man’s chain. I supposed Constantina’s hair must be a natural blonde, as Goreans tend to be very strict about such things. Few slavers will try to pass off a girl as being, say, blonde or auburn-haired, if that is not the natural hair color of the slave. In some cases their stock has been confiscated by the city and their establishment burned to the ground. If a girl with dyed hair is brought to Gor her head is normally shaved in the pens, that it may grow back in its natural color. Most slaves, like Cecily, are brunette, except in the north, where blondes are more common. I wondered if Constantina had been purchased in the light of someone’s notion of what might constitute an attractive slave. If this were the case, I was surprised an auburn-haired girl had not been chosen, as auburn hair tends to be prized in most markets. I wondered if Constantina’s buyer had been aware of that. To be sure, he might have found such women appealing, blondes, personally, for some reason. There is a supposition amongst some buyers that blonde slaves tend to be more sexually inert, and less pathetically needful in the furs, than dark-haired slaves, but this supposition is mistaken. Whatever the case may be initially, once the slave fires have been lit in a woman’s belly, whatever her coloring, and such, you have a slave at your feet. The blonde can whimper, beg, and crawl as needfully as any other slave.
It is pleasant to have women so, at one’s feet.
To be sure, a woman whose slave fires have not been ignited may have little understanding of this sort of thing, little understanding of the needs, sensations, miseries, and torments to which their embonded sisters are subject.
It is little wonder then that free women commonly hold female slaves in contempt, despising them for their needs.
How weak they are, they think.
But how alive they actually are!
And how the free woman, fearing to explore the edges of her consciousness, uneasily, perhaps angrily, perhaps inconsolably, senses how much she is missing, herself, to be found only in the arms of a dominant male, a master!
I glanced about the hut. I saw no slave whip on its convenient peg. This seemed an odd omission in a Gorean dwelling, at least one in which there was a slave, or slaves. It is not that the whip is often used. Indeed, normally, it is seldom, if ever, used, for there is no call for it. The girl knows it will be used if she is in the least bit displeasing, and so there is seldom a call for it. That it is there, and it will be used, if the master sees fit, is usually all that is necessary to keep it securely on its peg.
I had the sense that his slave, Constantina, was surly. It was almost as though she were distempered, to be expected to attend to her duties. I wondered if she attended to the hut, the firewood, and such, at all. Did Pertinax himself, our supposed forester, attend to such things? Were there other slaves about?
“I suppose,” I said to Pertinax, “you obtain little news here, so far from Port Kar.”
“One hears things occasionally,” he said. “Transients, like yourself, a coastal peddler, the arrival twice yearly of an inspector and scribe, to review the trees, to inventory the reserves.”
“You suggested earlier,” I said, “that things might have changed in Ar?”
“Did I?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said.
“A surmise,” he said, “based on the appearance of many intruders.”
“Surely harvesters, loggers, and such, come occasionally to cull the forests.”
“Of course,” he said, uneasily I thought.
“When will they be due?” I asked.
“One does not know,” he said. “It is intermittent, depending on the needs of the arsenal, of the fleet.”
“The fellows who disembarked from the ship,” I said, “did not seem harvesters, loggers, or such.”
“No,” he said. “Not they.”
“Who are they?” I asked. “What is their business?”
“I do not know,” he said.
“The logs must be taken to the coast, for shipment,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
“I saw no track amidst the trees, no road,” I said.
“It is elsewhere,” he said.
“I saw no stables for draft tharlarion,” I said.
“They are elsewhere,” he said.
“I am surprised there are no crews here, sawyers and carpenters, to dress and shape the wood, to cut planks and joints, such things.”
