thereafter I heard men cry out and, turning, I saw her and Alcinoe rolling about on the deck, tearing at one another’s hair, screaming, kicking, biting, and scratching. “Behold,” laughed a man, “young, unmated she-sleen!” “Yes,” said another, “in the late spring!”
I guessed it was not easy to reach into that turning, twisting, rolling, screaming, sobbing, hysterical, biting, scratching frenzy but one fellow managed to get one hand in Iole’s hair and one in that of Alcinoe, and dragged them apart, and, as they shrieked with pain, held them apart, while they tried, sobbing, their bodies wracked with pain and frustration, to kick the other. Suddenly one fellow said, sharply, “Position!” Instantly, reflexively, Iole and Alcinoe, frightened, knelt, back on their heels, knees spread, back straight, head up, looking ahead, neither to the left or right, the palms of their hands down, firmly, on their thighs. Both slaves, in the presence of the other, tried to spread their knees as little as possible, while still maintaining position, as though each might thereby seem superior to the other, as being closer to the position of a free woman. Both were breathing heavily, gasping, and the cheeks of each ran with tears, of anger, pain, and frustration. Both were bloodied, and the brief tunic of each was half torn from her fair form. I had little doubt that both would be well attended to later. “Oh!” cried Iole. “Oh!” cried Alcinoe. The fellow who had put them in position with a single word had, first Iole, and then Alcinoe, kicked their knees apart, far apart. And thus each was reminded of, or informed of, the sort of slave they were. I saw a sudden look of surprise, and then understanding, manifest itself in the features of Alcinoe. Though she might be white-silk, she was a pleasure slave. Had she truly thought that she, and her some two hundred collar sisters, on their chains, so beautiful, so vital, so carefully selected, had been brought across the breadth of mighty Thassa, all the way from continental, known Gor, merely to be tower slaves? I did not think it likely she would soon forget the two booted blows which had publicly spread her thighs, and their import.
“Are you in need of discipline?” I had asked.
“I trust not,” she had said.
“What was the business between you and Iole?” I asked.
Their fight had occurred two days ago.
Both were now cleaned and tended, both brushed and combed, and both now in a fresh, pressed tunic.
“It is only a matter between slaves,” said Alcinoe.
“What matter?” I asked.
“If I may,” she said, “I would prefer not to speak.”
“Very well,” I said.
I saw no reason to press her in this matter.
“Are you not ashamed,” I said, “to have behaved as you did, to have made such a spectacle of yourself?”
“The Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said, “would have been ashamed.”
“But not you?”
“No,” she said.
“What would the Lady Flavia of Ar have done?” I asked.
“The Lady Flavia of Ar had power,” she said. “Were the woman a slave, I would have purchased her, had her beaten, put in earrings, and sold out of the city.”
“I see,” I said.
I thought the former Lady Flavia of Ar might look well in earrings herself. They are inflicted, of course, only on the lowest and most despicable of slaves. The common slave fears earrings more than the slave lash or shearing. To be sure, they are attractive on a slave, and, eventually, a slave is likely to become quite proud of them, even defiantly arrogant, for what they say about her, about what she means to men and what may be expected of her in a man’s hands. She is special on a chain. Much may be expected of her. Pierced ears, too, tend to improve a girl’s price. For that reason, even in the absence of discipline, slavers sometimes pierce a girl’s ears, to her misery and horror, before putting her on the block, a pierced-ear girl.
“And if,” said Alcinoe, “the woman was free, and even of high caste, I would have arranged for her to be in a collar by nightfall, and, chained, hurried from the city, to some mean and distant market, from which, after piercing her ears, she would be sold for a pittance.”
Yes, I thought to myself, the former lady Flavia of Ar herself would look quite well in earrings.
Is it not the ultimate degradation of a female slave?
“But,” I said, “you are not the Lady Flavia of Ar.”
“No,” she said.
“You behaved as a slave,” I said.
“I am a slave,” she said.
“I trust that you and Iole,” I said, “were well punished for your altercation.”
Normally masters do not much mix in the squabbles of slaves but, in this case, damage had been done, slaves bloodied, and tunics torn. Too, the slaves, in response to the command, “Position,” had not knelt properly.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “We were tied, side by side, and well lashed.”
“Who wept first?” I asked. “Who cried out first for mercy?”
“I,” she said. “I wept first. I was weakest. I first cried out for mercy.”
I was not surprised at this.
“After what stroke?” I asked.
“The second,” she said.
“So soon,” I said.
“Iole cried out after the fourth!” she said.
“Still,” I said, “the second?”
“Master may recall,” she said, “that long ago I was lashed.”
“Yes,” I said, “for lying. You claimed I had raped you.”
“I remembered the blows,” she said. “I was terrified to feel another! I knew what it would be like! One stroke and I knew! I cried for mercy after the second stroke. Iole laughed, even in her pain, but she, too, soon, cried out for mercy.”
I was not surprised. They were both lovely female slaves.
“You fear the whip,” I said.
“We all do,” she said.
“Some free women,” I said, “think that slaves are weak, that they fear the whip.”
“I did not fear it when I was free,” she said, “for I had never felt it.”
“Many free women,” I said, “scorn slaves for their fear of the whip.”
“Let them be stripped and tied, and put under it,” she said, “and see how long they scorn it, and how quickly they beg for the surcease of its attentions.”
“It is a useful device in improving a slave,” I said.
“Doubtless,” she said.
“Perhaps you would do much to avoid it,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, her head down.
“You are quite sensitive to pain,” I said.
“So, too, is Iole!” she said. “So, too, are we all!”
I saw little of Iole now. She must now respond to the snapping of fingers of Aeacus, who seemed somewhat taken with her, after she had been half stripped by Alcinoe.
The five-stranded slave lash, of course, is designed to punish, and keenly. It is also designed not to mark, for one would not wish to lower the value of a slave.
There are differences, of course, amongst slaves.
“You are not a strong slave,” I said.
“No,” she said, “Alcinoe is a small slave, a weak slave, a helpless, vulnerable slave. She cries easily, she has little control over her emotions, her skin is much alive. It is thin, soft, and sensitive!”
I was pleased to hear this, for the body of such a woman can become a burning tissue of awareness. It is, far beyond that of duller women, alive and helpless, aware of the tiniest differences of temperature and air, and acutely so if naked or in a tunic; it is aware of the smallest differences in textures and fabrics, in the feel of fur, in the weaving of a mat under bare feet, the coolness of a scarlet tile, the whisper of silk on a thigh, the coarseness of a
