“Is this all there is to it,” I asked, “that I was taken in hand, blindfolded, and kissed, and that is all?”
“The tarsk-bit was paid,” said he in whose charge I was.
“All?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“I,” I said, “would favor red.”
“Why?” asked Desmond.
“Because it is not blue,” I said.
“I see,” he said.
“What are you doing, Master?” I said.
I was turned about, and the blindfold, retrieved from his belt, where he had placed it, keeping it at hand, was again wrapped about my head, twice, and knotted, behind my head, and I was, as before, securely and perfectly blindfolded. I jerked at the bracelets which held my hands behind me, in frustration.
“I will be unable to see the races,” I said.
“Possibly,” he said.
“It matters not to me, Master,” I said.
“And what does that matter?” he asked.
“Master!” I said.
“Your permission to speak has been rescinded,” he said.
I felt tears spring to my eyes, dampening the cloth of their prison.
I was not permitted speech!
On the tier, I writhed in helplessness, and fury, back-braceleted and on the short ring chain, and then the race began, and I could not see it. I heard movements about me! I sensed the agitation, the diverse partisanships abounding about, the excitement of the crowd, heard the cries, the cheering, the stamping, the screams and shouts, and I could see nothing!
It does not matter I said to myself, reassuring myself of my lack of interest in such things.
I sometimes heard cries of protest, even of rage, for some reason, which I did not understand, and, twice, I heard gasps of dismay, or of fear, perhaps as a beast fell, or was forced from the track.
It was nothing to me, of course.
I had never seen the bipedalian tharlarion compete. Also, actually, as a matter of fact, I had never seen the smaller, quicker quadrupedalian tharlarion compete either. There are classes of such beasts. I had seen, earlier, some races of the heavier-class quadrupedalian tharlarion, the larger, more ponderous beasts, the maneuvering, the shifting about for position, the lurching, thrusting, and buffeting, the grunting, the crowding. Below, near the rail, one could sense the ground shaking beneath their tread. These were similar to war tharlarion whose charge can shatter phalanxes, breastworks, palisades, and field walls.
You must understand that I did not care that I was blindfolded.
Who was interested in such things anyway?
I sensed people rising up, screaming, about me.
How helpless and frustrated I was! How I loathed the brute in whose keeping I was. I would be treated not as I might wish or please, but precisely as he would wish or please.
I was collared!
How excited was the crowd!
How often might a kajira have the opportunity to see such things? Did I prefer the shackles looped about a central bar, and the tied-shut canvas of a wooden slave wagon?
Too, this was all new and different, and thrilling, to me. I was not natively Gorean. I was only a slave girl, brought from a different world. I so wanted to see, to realize what was going on, to be a part, if only as a slave, of what was going on about me.
I tried to put my head back, and peep beneath the blindfold, if only to perceive an undecipherable line of meaningless light, but I could see nothing. The device, twice wrapped and then knotted, had been put about my head broadly, in the Gorean fashion.
I moaned to myself, helplessly.
I decided I must not yield, I must give him no satisfaction.
But I realized, almost simultaneously, that my concerns, so important to me, would be absolutely immaterial to him.
I might remain in darkness, or petition him for relief, as a slave her master.
I endured my privation for two races
Then, wildly, desperately, in misery, I threw myself to my knees at the feet of he in whose keeping I was, pressed my sodden cheek to his leg, and then began to kiss his leg, repeatedly, beggingly.
I felt his hand in my hair, not tightly, but holding my head in place.
“I beg to speak, Master,” I said.
“Speak,” he said.
“I would see,” I said.
“Do you beg it?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Oh, yes, Master!”
He then undid the blindfold.
“A new race will soon begin,” said Astrinax, turning to Desmond. “May I place a bet for you?”
“On blue,” said he at whose knee I knelt. A coin passed from him to Astrinax.
The Metal Worker put his hand near me, and I put down my head, and kissed it. “Thank you, Master,” I said.
“You are a pretty little thing, Allison,” he said.
“A slave is pleased if Master is pleased,” I said.
“Master,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I am pinioned,” I said, “helplessly so. Perhaps Master might adjust my tunic at the left shoulder.”
I had been concerned with this for some time.
“No,” he said.
“‘No’?” I said.
“No,” he said. “I like it the way it is.”
“I see,” I said.
“Perhaps it might improve your price, a tarsk-bit or two.”
“As Master pleases,” I said.
He was a beast, of course, but then what girl would object to her price being improved a bit?
“I am sure,” he said, “the fellow who pressed himself upon an unattended kajira did not object.”
“Doubtless not,” I said. “Perhaps it was to that tiny inadvertence of habiliments that I owed the attention bestowed upon me.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Even in a serving slave’s tunic you would be an attractive little prey animal.”
“‘Prey animal’?”
“Yes,” he said. “An interesting little quarry beast.”
“I see,” I said.
“Surely you are aware of how men see women,” he said.
I was silent. I was afraid. But, too, I was thrilled. We are sought, hunted, captured, and owned, possessed by masters, who will deal with us as they please. They make us theirs, in reality, and law.
“The day is warm,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Who would you favor in the next race?” he asked.
“Blue,” I said. “Blue, Master.”
That seemed to me appropriate, as it was in his keeping that I was.
“An excellent choice,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Allison,” he said.
