The sorority stood as one important step, among several, to a splendid future.
But how could I hope for such a future now, as I was on another world, a collared slave?
Tears sprang into my eyes.
And yet I suspected that a life lay before me, with all its unknowns and perils, which was a thousand times more real than the structured banalities and tediums to which I had been taught to aspire.
“What do you think of this room, Allison?” asked one of the instructresses, one morning, midway in my training. We had paused before an opened door on our way to our usual training room. “What is it for?” I asked. “It is called the Room of White-Silk,” said an instructress. “What is it for?” I asked. One of the instructresses laughed. There was not much in the room. A ring, or two, some chains, a trestle or two, and a number of deep, heaped, rich furs. It was certainly not as alarming as certain of the discipline rooms I had seen, with their devices and cages.
It was toward the end of my training, the few days of my training, that I was summoned by my instructresses to one of the training rooms. “Stand,” said one of them. “As a slave,” said another. “Please no,” I said. “Now,” said another. So I stood as a slave. “She still must learn to stand appropriately,” said another. “Do not fear, Allison,” said another. “It will soon be natural for you.” “Already,” said another, “perhaps unknown to yourself, you are beginning to stand, and move, and kneel, and carry yourself, with the loveliness and grace of a slave, with her subtlety, her lack of pretense, her softness, her deference, her awareness of what she is, her profound and vulnerable, and helpless, femininity.”
How terrible, I thought, to be feminine!
“Yes,” said another. “She is becoming feminine.”
“A slave,” said another.
“Yes,” said the first.
What was being done to me?
I suspected I was being released, to be myself, not an awkward, clumsy neuter, or a prescribed, facsimile male, but a natural woman in a natural world.
Surely I must resist!
But why, I asked myself. Why should I not be what I truly am?
Because it was frowned upon, or forbidden?
But here, on this world, such things were not frowned upon or forbidden. Here on this world, was I not free, though collared, to be myself?
“First obeisance position!” snapped one of the instructresses.
Swiftly I knelt, my head to the floor, the palms of my hands on the floor, at the sides of my head.
“You are changing, pretty Allison,” said an instructress.
“A transformation is being wrought in you, shapely barbarian,” said another.
“Are you aware of this, Allison?” asked another.
“No, Mistress,” I said. Then, by means of a shadow, I saw a switch lifted. “Perhaps, Mistress!” I sobbed. “Perhaps, Mistress!”
To my relief, the switch was lowered.
“She perhaps does not understand how she is changing,” said one of the instructresses.
I feared I was beginning to understand, only too well. The instructresses, of course, could be aware only of attitudes, postures, behaviors, speech, and such. On the other hand, it was becoming clear to me that these externalities, as profound as they might be, were no longer the simple result of intent and design, but were now beginning to emerge as the inevitable consequence of internal realities. My behavior, I sensed, was now becoming less the imitation of a slave’s behavior; and more the behavior of a slave.
“Do not be concerned, Allison,” said the first instructress. “There is nothing wrong with being graceful, beautiful, vulnerable, soft, passionate, and wholly, wholly female.”
“In short,” said another, “in being a slave.”
“Her transition is well underway,” said another.
“Men like women as women,” said one of the instructresses.
“And do we not like men as men?” asked another.
“True,” laughed another.
“Much of this you do not understand now,” said one of the instructresses, “but in time it will become clear.”
“Changes are being wrought in you,” said another, “that will become part of you, and improve your price on the block, how you move, smile, turn your head, and such.”
“You will not even be aware of these things,” said another.
“But one can tell a slave by such things,” said another.
“Sometimes guardsmen do so,” said another, uneasily. “Sometimes they simply command a woman to walk before them, back and forth, and thus detect the slave, even within the robes of a free woman.”
“Barbarians, such as you,” said another, “are even easier to detect, apart from the marks often placed on your upper arm, or the tiny bits of metal often found in your teeth. You do not know the drapings, the foldings, the layerings, and fastenings of the robes of concealment, the arrangement of the veils, and such.”
“There is much more to such things than the donning of a tunic or a camisk,” said one of the instructresses.
“Does Mistress know of such things?” I asked.
“Once,” she smiled. “But I would not now trade my tunic for the robes of a Ubara.”
I could not understand this.
Was not a Ubara a free woman, and one of consequence?
“There are a thousand things a native Gorean would know, of which a barbarian would be ignorant,” said an instructress.
“Too,” said another, “the Gorean taught to barbarians is often subtly different from that spoken by native Goreans, for example, in the pronunciation of certain words.”
“Have you taught me such a subtly different Gorean?” I asked.
“Curiosity,” she said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“I wish we had more time to train her,” said one of the instructresses.
“Mistress?” I said.
“Market conditions change, orders vary, what is wanted at one time is not wanted at another time, what sold yesterday may not sell today, what sells today may not sell tomorrow.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You are a virgin, are you not?” asked one of the instructresses.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“You do not look like a virgin,” said one.
“Most do not,” said an instructress.
“True,” said another.
“Unbeknownst to you,” said an instructress, “you have been observed by masters.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I had not known this, but, surely, I had suspected as much. Would they not observe me, with certain ends in view?
“You have much to gain in attractiveness,” said one of the instructresses.
“I do not understand, Mistress,” I said. “Am I not beautiful?”
“Her slave fires have not yet been lit,” said one of the instructresses.
“Being beautiful and being attractive are not the same thing,” said an instructress. “Some extremely beautiful women are not attractive, and some extremely attractive women are not beautiful.”
“But I am attractive, am I not?” I asked.
“Do you wish to be attractive?” asked an instructress.
“Do not all women?” I asked. I knew that even cold women, and women who professed to hate men, wanted to be found attractive, if only to torment men, or further their own ends.
“Of course,” said an instructress.
“Am I not attractive?” I asked.
