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.”
“Lord Nishida!” she cried. “Let this cruel jest proceed no further. I am naked, and men may look upon me!”
“Of course,” said Lord Nishida, “you are a slave.”
“You freed me of a collar!” she insisted.
“Only that it may be replaced with another,” he said. “Mine.”
“I am willing to pretend to be a slave!” she cried. “Let me reassume my disguise. I am exposed! I will willingly wear again even that shameful tunic, though it be but a humiliating badge of degradation!”
“You are a slave, stupid slut,” said Thrasilicus.
“No, no!” she cried. She struggled vainly in the grip of the two guards.
Tajima had retrieved the sheet and had now refolded it, and held it over his arm.
“See how fair-skinned is my new slave,” said Lord Nishida, over his shoulder, to the two contract women.
Both giggled.
The contract woman on the left, as one looked toward the dais, said, “Does she not smell, Lord Nishida?”
“She will have to be scrubbed,” said Lord Nishida.
“Please, please,” begged she who had once been Miss Wentworth, “give me the tunic!”
“Do you beg it?” asked Lord Nishida.
“Yes, yes!” she said.
“That shameful tunic, which is but a humiliating badge of degradation?” he asked.
“Yes,” she cried, “yes, please!”
“One must strive to become worthy of a tunic,” said Lord Nishida. Then he said to the two fellows who had the blond, distraught slave in custody. “See that she is cleaned, thoroughly, and then see to her branding and collaring. Let the brand be the Kef.”
That was the most common slave brand on Gor. Most female slaves bore it. It is commonly sited on the left thigh, just under the hip, perhaps because most masters are right-handed. Similarly the disrobing loop of certain tunics is at the left shoulder, presumably for the same reason.
“White! Gregory! Gregory!” cried she who had once been Margaret Wentworth.
“I am now ‘Gregory’?” he said.
“Yes, Gregory, Gregory! Please, Gregory, explain to them that a terrible mistake is taking place.”
“I was never Gregory before,” he said.
“Help me, Gregory!” she wept.
“Why?” he asked.
“I will let you hold me in your arms!” she said. “I will let you kiss me! I know you always wanted to do that! Help me! Help me!”
“You think to bargain with a free man, slave?” inquired Lord Nishida. “Get on your knees, and lick and kiss his feet, begging forgiveness.”
The guards released the slave, and she knelt, terrified, before Pertinax, and put down her head and began to lick and kiss his feet. “I am sorry,” she said. “Forgive me, Gregory.”
“I am Pertinax,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “You are Pertinax. Please, Pertinax, forgive me.”
“A slave,” I said, “does not use the name of the master to the master. All free men are to be addressed as ‘Master’, all free women as ‘Mistress’.”
The slave looked up at me, in misery, her eyes bright with tears, and put her head down, again, to the feet of Pertinax. “Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“More,” said Pertinax, sternly.
And the former Miss Wentworth again, softly, frightened, addressed her fair lips and small, soft tongue tenderly, for several moments, to the feet of a free man.
I thought I saw a small movement of sudden comprehension, of profound understanding, pass through the slave’s body.
Undoubtedly this was the first time she had ever knelt thusly before a man, let alone addressed herself in such a manner to his placation.
Outside the guard had apparently put her to her knees before him, as a matter of convenience or discipline, but this, obviously, was quite different.
She looked well at his feet, as a slave, but, then, do not women look well at the feet of men, as slaves?
“Please, forgive me, Master,” she whispered.
“I do,” said Pertinax, kindly.
