Suddenly I heard the hiss of the switch behind me and, almost at the same time, felt the supple disciplinary device, to the amusement of the men, strike me swiftly and hotly below the small of the back. I fled wildly, jangling bells. I was outraged, and humiliated. My eyes were hot with tears. It stung terribly. The switch is often used on a girl when she is guilty of minor indiscretions or tiny misdemeanors. It is thought a fitting instrument for encouraging a beauty to be more careful or zealous in her service. I had delayed in the game for more than five Ihn. It was for that reason that the referee had administered his admonitory stripe. It was the second time in my life I had felt a switch. I did not care to feel one again, particularly when clothed only in slave bells and a hood. The laughter of the men made me angry, but then I cried. Anger in a slave girl was only meaningless pretense. It was not as though she were a free woman whose anger might have significance, might even issue in actions or words, free from the reprisals of discipline. Men are the masters of slave girls, the masters. Anger in a slave girl is futile, meaningless, though sometimes masters encourage it in their girls, to see them flush and assume an interesting demeanor, but it is in the end always insignificant for, in the end, as both the girl and master know, it is the master and not the girl who holds the whip. Thus it is not that slave girls do not become angry. They do. It is only that their anger, as both girl and master know, is meaningless. I cried. The physical effect of the switch on a girl is not negligible, but, I think, its psychological effect, should the blows be placed on a certain portion of her body, thus cruelly humiliating her, may be even more bitter.
Crying, I fled through the camp, stumbling. I heard men falling, stumbling, getting up, pursuing me. I could not free my wrists. Once I fell into the arms of a man and shrieked with misery. He threw me from him. There was much laughter. He had not even been a contestant. Another time the referee caught me, and then thrust me back against stone, that I might know where I was. He had kept me from striking into the cliff wall behind the camp. I fled again, into the camp. My running was erratic, terribly so. I was confused and miserable. I was terrified of being caught. I, too, did not wish to be again struck with the switch. Another man, not a contestant, caught me and prevented me from plunging into the thick wall of thorn brush, in which I might have been half torn to pieces. There was much laughter. More than once I heard a contestant, yards away, curse. Then I would hear one not a yard or more from me, and I would wheel, and run from him. Once I struck one, and tripped, and fell rolling in a wild jangle of bells. I heard him leap for me. I felt his hand, for an instant, at my right hip. I felt the hand of another touch my left calf. I rolled and crawled free, and darted away. Once I found myself, it seemed, surrounded by stone. Wherever I turned there seemed a cliff before me. I spun, disoriented, terrified. Then I fled back and found myself again somewhere in the center of the camp. Barely had I avoided being cornered against the cliffs. I then began to play more cleverly, more warily. Twice more in the game was I stung with the switch then, once on the left arm, above the elbow, and once, more cruelly, on the right calf, when I, wishing to make no sound, not thinking the referee near me, lingered too long in one position.
Then I fled again, directly, into the arms of a man. I waited for him to free me, to throw me back to the others. But his arms did not free me. 'Oh, no!' I wept. His arms tightened about me. I was thrown screaming and squirming to his shoulder, and carried about. There was laughing. I heard the man who held me from the ground being slapped on his back by the referee. I heard the word which, later, I would learn was 'Capture.' It is a helpless feeling being held on the shoulder of a man, your feet unable to touch the ground; you are unable to obtain the slightest leverage; you are simply his prisoner. I heard shouting, and the pounding of hands on my captor's back. Then he, in his pleasure, one hand on my right ankle and one closed about my left forearm, lifted me bodily above his head, bending my body, displaying me. I heard applause, the pounding of hands on the left shoulder. I heard, too, in the sounds, Eta cry out with pleasure, much delighted. Was she not my sister in bondage?
Could she not understand my misery? My captor, whoever he was, impatient then to have me, hurled me as though I were nothing to the dirt at his feet. I felt his hands at my ankles. I turned my head to one side, moaning.
I lay bound in the dirt when he had finished with me. He was then unhooded and led away in his triumph to drink the paga of victory.
I lay weeping and miserable in the dirt. When I moved I heard the rustle of the bells, which were slave bells.
In a few moments I felt the hands of the referee close on my arms. He lifted me, and threw me upright, to my feet. Again I heard the word which, later, I would learn was «Quarry»; again I felt the sudden sting of the switch, inciting me to motion; again I ran.
Four times I ran as quarry in the cruel games of that evening.
Four times was I caught and, on my back in the dirt of that barbarian camp, rudely ravished by whom I knew not.
When, later, I had been unbound and unhooded by Eta, I had wanted her to take me in her arms, to comfort me, but she had not. She had kissed me, happily, and one by one, removed the loops and ties of bells, lastly removing that which I had worn at my left hip. She then indicated that I should help her with the serving. I looked at her, aghast. How could I now serve? Did she not understand what had been done to me? I was not a Gorean girl. I was an Earth girl. Was it nothing that I had been, regardless of my will, ravished four times, put brutally against my will to the pleasure of strong men? I saw the answer in Eta's eyes, which smiled at me. Yes, it was unimportant. Did I not know I was a slave girl? Had I expected anything else? Had it not pleased me?
I looked sullenly into the dirt. I was an Earth girl, but, too, I was a slave girl.
It was unimportant, I realized then. It had been truly nothing, no more than the serving of wine or the sewing of a garment. I realized then what might, truly, be the import of being a slave girl. Why had my master permitted it? Was I not his slave? Did I mean so little to him? He had taken my virginity; he had taken much pleasure in me; he had Won me, forcing from me my total surrender as a slave girl to his power; then he had permitted his men to amuse themselves with me. Did he not love me? I remembered his eyes on me, before the hood had been thrown over my head in preparation for my service in the cruel game. I recalled his eyes. In his eyes I had seen that I was nothing, only a meaningless slave to him.
I poured wine from the flask I bore into the cup, I holding it, of one of the men.
I froze. I saw dirt upon his tunic. Our eyes met. He was, I knew, one of those who had had me. I was now serving him. He regarded me. I extended to him the cup. He did not accept it. Our eyes met. I took the cup and pressed my lips to it. Again I extended the cup to him. Still he regarded me.
I had not been permitted, following the cruel game, to slip the Ta-Teera, my slave rag, again upon my body. My master had said a curt word. I must then remain nude. It is customary, following the game, that the prize remain nude, that the value of her captured beauty remain discernible to all, to the winners for their pleasure, to the loser for his chagrin, to the onlookers for their admiration, and, too, perhaps, to incite them in another contest, at some future date, to vie for its possession.
His eyes were upon me.
Angrily, with helpless anger, the futile, meaningless anger of a slave girl, I again pressed my lips to the cup, this time fully and lingeringly.
Again I extended to him the cup.
This time he took it.
He then, without looking at me further, turned to his cup companion on his left. I hated him. He had ravished me, and now I must serve him, and as a naked slave girl!
I served others, too, commonly this night, like Eta, remaining back of the circle of the fire, behind the sitting men, with a flask of wine. We remained in the shadows. When one of the men would lift his cup, I, or Eta, whichever might be closer, would serve him. Usually we served from more closely among the men, often even kneeling among them, but not this night. They spoke together, earnestly. Matters of importance, I gathered, were being discussed. At such a time men did not wish to be distracted by the bodies of slave girls. We remained in the shadows.
I watched, angrily. My master, with a rock, drew maps in the dirt by the fire. Some of the maps I had seen before. He had drawn them the preceding night for his lieutenants, when they had spoken alone. He spoke swiftly and decisively, sometimes indicating a portion of the terrain by jabbing at it with the rock. Sometimes he pointed to the largest of the three moons above; in a few days it would be full. I stood there, naked, recently ravished, sweat and dirt on my body, and in my hair, holding the large flask of wine on my left hip, watching. I wondered at what might be the nature of the camp in which I found myself. It did not seem to be a hunting camp, though hunting was done from it. Too, I did not think it was a camp of bandits, for the men in the camp did not seem of
