accompany her, head down, in the streets, and such. I did not care for the slavery, as I was a female slave, and had no master. It is one thing to perform such tasks for a master, knowing that even in small things I was serving him, each task then being subtly imbued with submission and sexuality, for a woman’s sexuality is subtle, warm, profound, and pervasive, and another to perform them for a woman. To the slave, shining the master’s boots can be a sexual experience, serving him, and being so close to something he has touched. How privileged is a slave to be permitted to kneel before such a man, put down her head, and lick and kiss his feet! How she hopes to please him! She will fondle the chain that fastens her to the foot of his couch. She is his. May he never sell her! But I had no master.
Lady Bina, I gathered, was proceeding splendidly in her literacy. She could now print, in the odd Gorean fashion, “as the bosk plows,” where the first line proceeds from left to right, the second from right to left, and so on. I did not know if the beast could read or not. Certainly it was not taking lessons from the companion of Epicrates. Few instructors, I supposed, would welcome so terrifying a pupil. I could not read, of course, not even my own collar. It said, I was told, “I belong to the Lady Bina, of Emerald Street, of the house of Epicrates.” Slaves are seldom taught to read. On the other hand, many are literate, as free women, particularly of the higher castes, are commonly literate. Free women of the upper castes, taken in war, and such, exposed on the block, often bring nice prices. Gorean men enjoy having former free women, particularly those who were formerly rich, or of the higher castes, in their collars. It is probably difficult for one of my former world to understand the awesome dignity and importance, the social and cultural status, of the Gorean free woman, for she possesses a Home Stone, a status incomparably far above that of the usual free woman of my former world. Accordingly, it would be difficult for one of my former world to understand the cataclysmic reversal of fortune involved should such a creature, formerly so powerful, exalted, and revered, suddenly find herself stripped and collared, a caught beast, helpless at a stranger’s feet. No longer is she a man’s equal, or superior, the haughty, protected possessor of a Home Stone, but a master’s property. But in time, they, too, lick and kiss the whip lovingly, for they, too, are women.
There is a common Gorean saying that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira. Certainly few things help us to keep our condition as clearly in mind as our being kept in ignorance. Why should we be informed? We are slaves. Would you speak to your kaiila or sleen about prospects, plans, projects, and such? I think the masters enjoy our frustration. We want so much to know, and feel so keenly our deprivation! How we wheedle, how we lie about the ankles of our masters and beg to be informed! But often our entreaties are greeted with laughter, and a foot may spurn us to the side. Is it not another way to remind us that we are in our collars? So, obviously, keeping a slave illiterate helps to keep her in ignorance. I am, incidentally, highly literate in my own first language, but here, I am only another ignorant slave girl, as it pleases masters I should be. One advantage to having a slave who cannot read is that one may use the girl to carry messages amongst friends or associates, messages which she cannot read. She does not even know if the message pertains to herself or not. More than one girl has been so delivered to a new master. A message might read, “Here is Lana, whom I sold to you yesterday evening. Put her at your ring, that she may know she is now yours.” A literate slave may deliver messages placed in a small leather tube, tied by a string about her collar. Her hands are thonged, or braceleted, behind her back. In this way she will be as ignorant of the message’s content as an illiterate slave. Messages of great importance, such as might be transmitted between armies, or cities, are carried by free persons, and are sealed with wax, bearing the imprint of a signet ring. In this way one is assured of the sender, and, if the seal is unbroken, of the security of the message.
As the sheets were now folded, and readied for delivery, I put the kerchief about my head.
It had been some weeks now since my purchase from the Tarsk Market. I was still terribly sensitive as to my appearance, following the work of the razor of Petranos. The hair that had been shorn from me had been discarded. That was from the soiling in the tarsk cage, lying on the straw, sleeping there, and such. The most common reason slaves are shorn is for punishment or cleanliness, or both. For example, slaves who work in the tharlarion stables are often shorn, and the girls in the mills, too. Too, when girls are put on slave ships, chained in their wire cages on tiered shelves in a hold, they are commonly shorn, and depilated, completely, to reduce the infestations of ship lice. The shorn hair is often utilized for catapult cordage, as it is much more resilient, and dampness resistant, than common cordage. Too, there are rumors that some shorn hair, taken from slaves, is used for wigs and falls, for free women. Naturally the hair is certified as having been that of other free women.
I did not think I was all that unattractive, as long as the kerchief was on me.
Interestingly, the Lady Bina was, in many ways, rather different from the typical Gorean free woman. She had observed other free women, with serving slaves, and so she had me heel her, at the proper distance, on the left, appropriately, head down, but she was not at all strict about my looking about, and I frequently did so. Might I not be of interest to a master, and might not one or another of the fellows about inquire of the Lady Bina, sooner or later, what she might be willing to take for her kerchiefed girl? My tunic was certainly not that of a pleasure slave, a paga girl, or such, or even a tower slave, but, too, it was not as calculatedly concealing as the common tunic of a serving slave. On the other hand, I had seen more than one serving slave, in such a tunic, unseen by her mistress, move in such a way that a passing fellow would be in no doubt that within that tunic there was a slave.
Once, before we were to exit the domicile, Lady Bina instructed me to hitch up the tunic a bit.
“Are you beautiful, Allison?” she asked.
“A little, perhaps,” I said.
“Let us see more of your legs,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“They are a little thin, are they not?” she asked.
“I do not think so,” I said.
“Show more of them,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “I may have use for your beauty.”
“Mistress?” I said, uneasily.
“For men,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Come along,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
As it was daylight the beast did not accompany us. It seldom went out until darkness.
One reason I had been purchased, I gathered, was to have a companion for the Lady Bina when she left the house.
We were in the Sul Market one afternoon.
“Allison,” said the Lady Bina, “are you attractive to men?”
“I think so, Mistress,” I said, “a little, sometimes, perhaps.”
To be sure, I thought myself quite attractive. Had I not been one of the most beautiful girls in the sorority, a sorority in which membership, clearly, was not unrelated to beauty? And now, of course, I was enslaved, and slavery much enhances the beauty of a woman. Collared and slave-clad what woman would not be beautiful? And there is the meaning and nature of the condition which in itself enhances the beauty of a woman a thousandfold, for she is then slave.
To be sure, not every woman is attractive, or particularly attractive, to every man. Too, of course, not every woman who yearns to be at the feet of a man yearns to be at the feet of every man. A woman who might plead for the collar of one man might tremble at being placed in the collar of another.
“Do you like being attractive to men?” she asked.
“Must I answer, Mistress?” I said.
“Certainly,” she said, “and remember that you are a slave.”
Slaves may not lie.
“Yes, Mistress,” I whispered.
Every woman likes to be attractive to men. Even women who hate men like to be attractive to them, if only to humiliate and torture them. In the college I had taken great pleasure in my attractiveness to boys and men, even those I held in contempt. Now, I realized, such might own me.
An important aspect of a slave’s life is closely associated with her attractiveness to men. The quality of her life is muchly affected by her desirability. How will she be fed, clothed, treated? Who will buy her? Must she compete with other slaves for the attention of the master? It is no wonder the slave strives to make herself exciting, attractive, and desirable, and as a slave. It is no wonder she strives to be pleasing to her master.
