Then she, too, lay on the pelts, but to the right of the men, as one would face them.
“Ho!” called Otto, and the third of the women, who was Janina, entered. She came well forward and then turned away, and then, some feet from the men, slipped the garment away.
“Turn about!” cried Hendrix.
She did so, seemingly demurely, her head down and to the side, one foot toward them, the other to the right, this turning her hip out.
“Come closer!” cried Hendrix.
“Aii!” said Gundlicht.
Janina, you see, was a trained slave.
Then she lowered herself to the pelts before them, and looked first to her left, to the blonde, this being the signal for Ellen to move upon the pelts, and as a slave.
Astubux almost cried out with pleasure.
Ellen’s movements had been to some extent rehearsed, and coached by Janina, of course, but she was in her own right a man’s dream of pleasure, and one who, now liberated by bondage, and joyfully choiceless in the matter, was excitedly and meaningfully one with her sexuality. No longer, as a slave, need she be forced to fight her sexuality, or fear it, or suspect it, or feel anxiety about it, or guilt. She could now utilize it, revel in it, express it, joyfully, to her heart’s content.
Then she lay again on the pelts, seductively, as one might have in the sawdust on a large, rounded, smoothed slave block, hearing the bids, and knowing oneself an unusually attractive object of desire.
Janina then turned her head to her right, to the brunette who lay there, and the brunette, too, casting first a glance at the chieftain, began to move on the pelts, and as a slave.
Her movements, in a sense, were directed to the chieftain, constituting in one sense a brazen, shameless exhibition of slave charms, but perhaps in another, a secret plea for his attention. The former officer of the court, now a stripped slave, performed on the pelts before her master, writhing, twisting, turning, displaying his property to him in its manifold, luscious aspects. In one instant their eyes had met, but only for a moment, and doubtless not noted by others. “I am yours,” had said her eyes. “I beg to be wanted.”
“Excellent!” said Hendrix.
“Superb!” said Gundlicht.
Then the brunette lay upon the pelts, on her stomach, her head down, it turned to the side.
She was breathing heavily.
Janina then performed before the men.
“Marvelous!” breathed Hendrix.
“Aiii!” cried Gundlicht, in disbelief, in mad pleasure.
Then Janina, too, lay before the men, she on her back, breathing heavily, her left knee raised, the soft palms of her hands upward.
“Are not such women worth ten of the normal sort?” asked Astubux.
“Do not think we will take less than fifty!” said Hendrix.
“But those three will be among the fifty!” said Gundlicht.
“Certainly,” said Hendrix to Gundlicht.
“And,” inquired the chieftain, “does not even the normal free woman undergo a remarkable transformation when she becomes a slave?”
“Yes,” said Hendrix. “They do.”
Astubux clenched his fists.
“They are women,” Otto reminded Astubux.
“We will take these three, and others, fifty others, of your most beautiful women,” said Hendrix.
“That would be fifty-three,” said Astubux.
“True,” said Hendrix.
“These three,” said Gundlicht, indicating the slaves on the pelts, “have already been branded, doubtless with our irons.”
“One, she most before you, was already branded,” said Otto. “We used your irons for the other two.”
“Our thanks,” said Hendrix. “You have saved us the trouble of marking them.”
“Would you like the blonde, for yourself?” asked Otto of Hendrix, who was the first among the two envoys.
“Yes!” said Hendrix.
“Astubux,” said Otto, “I give her to you.”
“Thank you, my chieftain!” said Astubux.
Hendrix regarded the chieftain, startled.
“Hurry to your master,” said Otto to Ellen.
Quickly she sprang up and ran to kneel beside Astubux. She looked up at him, frightened. She did not know what sort of master he would be. She did know she belonged to him, totally. She put down her head and kissed his feet.
“Is this some joke?” asked Hendrix.
“The other two, she most before you, and the other, the small brunette,” said Otto, “are both mine. They will continue to wear my disk.”
Janina looked gratefully at the chieftain. So, too, did the brunette, so small and helpless, stripped before the men, on the pelts.
“I do not understand,” said Gundlicht.
“I have shown you hospitality,” said Otto. “It is now time for you to return to your camp.”
“But the women, the tribute,” said Hendrix.
“There is no more tribute,” said Otto. “We have brought these things here, the furs and such, and outside, the produce, and such, merely to give you some understanding of the wealth of the Wolfungs, to indicate to you that we might pay an excellent tribute if we were so minded, but we are no longer so minded.”
“No tribute?” said Hendrix, incredulously.
“No tribute,” said Otto.
“It seems,” said Hendrix to Gundlicht, “that the Wolfungs have had a chieftain long enough.”
“Before you pull the trigger,” said Otto, regarding the pistol in Gundlicht’s hand, “I suggest you look to your right and left.”
Glancing about Hendrix and Gundlicht saw, to their left, a fellow with a Telnarian rifle. The Wolfungs on the other side of the hut moved well away, out of the range of fire, for a blast from the rifle would take the wall itself from the hut, in a blaze of fire. On the other side Hendrix and Gundlicht saw two men, each armed with a fire pistol.
“We can destroy your village,” said Hendrix. “Your villages.”
“But of course you would both be dead then,” said Otto.
“Where did you get such things?” asked Hendrix.
“From our source of supply,” said Otto.
“They are not with charges,” said Hendrix. “They are empties, discarded weapons. They have no ammunition.”
“Give me a pistol,” said Otto.
He put out his hand toward one man. He knew, of course, the pistol he needed.
Otto took the pistol in hand, and held it to the head of Hendrix, who began, suddenly, to sweat.
“Shall I pull the trigger?” he asked.
“Do as you wish,” said Hendrix, sweating.
The chieftain then moved the gun away from Hendrix and aimed it at the floor of the hut. He pulled the trigger, and there was a sudden torrent of fire which fell between Janina and the brunette slave, both of whom screamed and spun away. Between where they had lain there was now a deep, narrow, smoking hole. The charge had burned through the pelts there, and the rushes, and tore down, into, and through, the floor of the hut itself. Some small rocks glistened in the sides of the trench. Some others, like droplets, now cooling, lay in the bottom of the trench where, for an incandescent moment, they had been molten. There was the smell of burned hair from the pelts, strong in the hut. The charge fired, of course, had been the single remaining charge in the village, that which
