'Get out of my way,' I said. 'Do you want us to be beaten?' I looked at her, angrily. 'Do you fear,' I asked, 'that your Thandar of Ti will find me more pleasing than you?'
'No,' she said, 'Teela, I do not. I am not a free woman. I do not fear your slave competition. I know that I am beautiful and I can compete with you as a slave girl for any man.'
I sniffed.
'But you have more in mind, Teela. I know you. You are not Gorean. You do not understand these things.'
I looked at her, in fury.
'Failing to please him more than I, failing to interest him in your purchase,' she said, 'it is your intention to tell him who I was.'
I looked at her, startled. How could she have known my plan.
'You think then he will free me, and free you, for having told him this truth.'
I did not speak to her.
She turned her head from side to side. 'My ears are pierced, Teela,' she said. 'You will only do him dishonor if you show him my present state.'
'Don't you want to slip your collar?' I asked. I seized the close-circling steel on my throat. 'Do you want to wear this?' I cried. 'Do you want to be a slave, at the complete mercy of men!'
'I will not do dishonor to Thandar of Ti,' she said. 'I will serve him, not known to him, lovingly, as only what I am, a lowly paga slave.'
'You are mad,' I said.
'I am Gorean,' she said.
'This decision,' I smiled, 'we will let Thandar of Ti make. We will let him decide.'
'No, Teela,' she said. 'I have decided it.'
'Get out of my way,' I said.
'No,' she said.
'Look,' I said. 'Even if he likes me, and buys me, I will tell him who you are, a little sooner or a little later, if only to gain our freedoms.'
'I know you would, Teela,' said Bina.
'I have your interest, too, at heart,' I said.
'I am sure you do,' she said. 'But you do not understand us. You do not understand Goreans.'
'I want to be free,' I snapped.
'Look at yourself in the long mirror, Teela,' said Bina.
I did so, and saw there a marvelous girl, soft and perfumed, branded; she wore a bit of netting, and jewelry; she wore earrings; she was collared.
'What do you see there?' asked Bina.
'A slave girl,' I said.
'Do you think a girl such as you, so soft and beautiful, with your slave reflexes, can ever be anything but a slave on this world.'
'No,' I said, bitterly.
'And your ears are pierced,' she said.
I tossed my head. 'I know,' I said. That in itself I knew would be enough to keep me a slave on Gor.
I would always be a slave on Gor.
'Abandon then your mad plan to reveal my former identity to Thandar of Ti,' said Bina.
'No,' I said.
She looked at me, angrily.
'I could win for myself, and you,' I said, 'if nothing better, an easier slavery.'
'No,' she said.
'Do you think I want to be only a paga girl?' I asked. 'Do you think being a paga girl is an easy slavery for a girl of Earth? I am not as you. I am more sensitive. Do you think I like being at the bidding and mercy of any male who can afford a cup of paga?'
'If you spoke to Thandar of Ti,' said Bina, 'you would win for us both only a whipping.'
'I shall take that chance,' I said.
'I am sorry,' said Bina. 'You shall not.'
'Out of my way,' I said.
'This is a matter between slaves,' she said, 'and I have decided it.'
'You may think to serve him like a little fool, he not knowing who you are,' I said, 'but I shall not permit that.'
'Hurry! Hurry!' called one of the other girls.
'We must hurry,' I cried, miserably.
'It is your intention then,' said Bina, 'to inform Thandar of Ti of my former identity.'
'Yes,' I said, 'I shall. I will gamble anything for an easier slavery. Now get out of my way.'
She did not move, but looked at me, angrily.
'I am stronger than you,' I said. 'Get out of my way.' Surely she remembered how easily I had robbed her of the candy earlier in the afternoon. She was no match for me.
Suddenly I cried out, as she leaped upon me, tearing and scratching. I could scarcely defend myself. She seized me by the hair and threw me headlong across one of the vanity tables before the long mirror. I slid on the table scattering combs and perfume. She was on my back, tearing down the netting, fouling my legs in it. I still wore the hook bracelets. She pulled my wrists behind my back and, swiftly, snapped together the leather cuffs; I twisted on the vanity table, and fell to the floor, my wrists confined by the linked snaps behind my back. 'I shall scream!' I cried. Swiftly Bina thrust a scarf in my mouth, wadding it tightly, and fastened it in place with another scarf, pulling the second scarf tight behind my neck, and deeply between my teeth. She then, with the netting, tied together my ankles. She then found another hunter's net, but one which had not been cut. She threw the net over me and, drawing tight its strings, confined me helplessly in it. She then pulled me by the cords to the side of the room. She sat me against the wall and, using the four cords of the net, tying them through a slave ring at the foot of the wall, fastened me, netted, to the wall.
I squirmed in the netting, but could not free myself. I looked at her in fury.
'You are the catch of the huntress,' said Bina.
'Bina!' I heard. 'Teela!'
'I am coming,' cried Bina. 'Teela is ill!' She then blew me a kiss, and hurried out of the room.
I struggled, helplessly.
It was the first hour in the morning, of the same night, when Bina returned.
She was radiant.
She removed the netting from me, and the gag from my mouth.
'Thandar of Ti?' I asked.
'He is gone now,' she said. She happily undid the netting which confined my ankles.
'You did not tell him?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'Of course not.'
'You are a fool,' I said.
'It was I,' she said, 'of the six girls whom he chose to pour his paga.'
'Six?' I asked.
'When you were taken ill,' she laughed, 'Busebius sent Helen to serve with us.'
'I see,' I said. 'Would you please unsnap the hook bracelets?'
In an instant, with infuriating ease, she had opened the snaps, freeing my wrists, one from the other. I was furious. It was so simple. She who wears the bracelets, of course, cannot reach the snaps.
'It was I, too,' said Bina, dreamily, 'whom he took to serve him in the alcove.' She closed her eyes, holding herself with her arms. 'Oh, how beautiful he is,' she said, 'and. how well I served him.' She opened her eyes. 'The pleasure he gave me!' she moaned. 'I could not believe the pleasure.' She looked at me, directly. 'How fortunate it is,' she said, 'that I did not become his companion.'
'I do not understand,' I said.
