Toward me a couple was moving, a bearded sailor and a red-haired paga girl. I saw by her silk she was from the Cords of Tharna, an establishment competitive with the Chatka and Curla.
I knelt boldly in their path, and looked up at the sailor, 'Yata can please you more,' I said.
'He is mine!' said the red-haired girl, holding the sailor's arm.
'I am his, should he be pleased to have me,' I said. I smiled at the sailor. 'Please, Master,' I said.
He looked from one of us to the other. I saw we both pleased him. He grinned. 'Fight,' he said.
With a scream of rage the red-haired girl leaped upon me, clawing and biting, throwing me back to the boards. She was larger and stronger than I.
She could not well get her hands in my hair for, as yet, it was too short. I tore at her hair, rolling with her on the boards, and got my fingers in it but she, with the heels of her two hands, struck back my head. I felt her scratch for my eyes. I screamed as her teeth bit me in the arm. I was then terrified, and tried to defend myself, as she struck me. She crouched beside me, striking down at me with her fists. I rolled over, covering my head. She leaped up. I turned, She kicked at me. I felt her foot strike me in the stomach. I could not breathe. I gasped wildly for air. She threw herself over me and held my head down, locking her right arm about it; she held her legs about my body, preventing me from using my arms; with her left hand she shoved up, as she could, the collar at my throat; to my horror I felt her teeth, pushing aside the bells, trying to seize my throat; then her teeth were on my throat; then her head was pulled back and away, suddenly, from me; the sailor had her by the hair, kneeling, twisted back; she fought to look at me, held. 'La Kajira, Mistress!' I wept. 'I am a slave girl, Mistress!' She had clearly won. I was her inferior. I shrank back, fighting for air.
'He is mine!' she hissed.
I put my head down, in defeat.
Then she cried out in pain, as she was flung by the hair to his feet.
'You are mine,' he said.
'I am yours,' she whispered, terrified.
Then he took her by the hair and dragged her to her feet and left, she bent over, held by the hair, running, stumbling, beside him. To me she had been formidable, but to him she was only a wench for his pleasure.
I rose to my feet, shaken. I rearranged my silk. It had not been torn.
I looked after the sailor and the red-haired girl, stumbling beside him, held by the hair. I saw he would use her well, very well. This pleased me.
A male slave, his wrists chained, separated by some eighteen inches of linked metal, pushing a wharf cart passed me. He looked upon me. I was furious! I ran to him, in rage, and slapped him. 'Do not look upon me!' I cried in rage. 'I am not for the likes of you! You are a slave! A slave!' He pulled back his head, angrily. 'Slave!' I screamed. 'Slave!' I spun about. I saw one who must be his master, a merchant. I was red with fury. I ran to the merchant and knelt before him. I pointed to the male slave. 'He looked upon me!' I cried. 'He looked upon me!' 'Have you permission to speak?' he asked. 'May a girl speak?' I asked, frightened. 'Yes,' he said. Emboldened then, I pointed again to the male slave. 'He dared to look upon me,' I said. I knew that male slaves were carefully supervised. I knew it could be quite unpleasant for one of them to be caught looking upon a slave girl. To be caught looking upon a free woman could mean death for them. 'He looked upon me,' I said, pointing to the male slave. Surely he would be, at the least, whipped for his indiscretion. The beauty of slave girls was for free men, not for the slave likes of such as he.
'You are too good for him?' asked the merchant.
'Yes,' I said. I then realized this was not the proper thing to say. But I had said it.
'You are both animals,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'But you are a female,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'And he,' he said, 'though slave is yet male.'
'Yes, Master,' I whispered.
'And is not the male animal the master of the female animal?' he asked.
'Yes, Master,' I said. I knew that male dominance was pervasive among mammals, and that it was universal among primates. It can be frustrated only by an extensive and complex conditioning program, one adequate, over a period of years, to distort the order of nature.
'Do you find this slave of interest?' asked the master of the male slave.
He shrugged. 'She is small,' he said.
I looked at him, frightened.
'But she is not without interest,' he conceded.
'Do you think you can catch her?' asked the master.
'Of course,' said the male slave.
I rose to my feet, frightened. I began to back away.
'She is yours,' said the master.
I turned to run. He caught me before a large box, and flung me, face forward, against it. When I recoiled back from the hot wood the chain on his wrists had looped about me, and I was his, held to him by the chain about his wrists.
'It is long since I have had a wench,' he said.
He dragged me along beside him, the chain looped about my body, cutting into my waist over the left hip.
'Be merciful to a slave, Master,' I begged.
Behind some boxes, on the boards of the wharf, he threw me down, under him.
'Please be kind to a slave, Master,' I begged.
He laughed.
The master did not hurry him, but, I think, attended to other matters.
The wharf cart had been empty.
When the slave left me I had yielded to him, as though he might have been a free man. I was much shamed.
I lay behind the boxes and looked up at the blue sky. I was miserable. I had been used by a slave. But, too, I was frightened. It was surely past the time when I should have returned to the Chatka and Curla. I did not want to be whipped!
Slowly, painfully, my legs stiff, I climbed to my feet. I rearranged the bit of silk I wore.
I stepped out from behind the boxes. I must hurry back to the Chatka and Curla.
I stopped, startled. Then I shrank back beside the large boxes. He was far off, but I was certain. I began to breathe rapidly. My heart began to pound.
It could not be, but it was.
I did not know what to do. At first I felt, unrestrainable, overwhelming me, an incredible flood of love and elation. I felt the incredible love and joy, the elation, possible only to a slave girl.
He was approaching from down the wharf, carrying a sea bag, in the guise of a sailor.
I wanted to run toward him, crying out, the length of the wharf, and throw myself to his feet, weeping, covering them with kisses.
Then I was frightened that I had made a mistake. It could not be true.
But I watched. I grew more and more sure, and then I was certain. He stopped to buy a cake from a vendor on the wharf. It was he!
It was my master, Clitus Vitellius of Ar!
'Oh, Master,' I wanted to cry out, 'I love you! I love you, Master!'
Then I saw him glance at a paga girl who posed, turning before him, and spoke to him.
Suddenly I hated her and him!
He dismissed the girl, but I had seen him look upon her, as a warrior, a master.
I hated them both!
It had been Clitus Vitellius of Ar who had first enslaved me. He had marked me with the hot iron, marking my very flesh, branding me a slave girl. He had made me serve him! He had made me love him, and had then; when it pleased him, his sport done, thrown me aside, giving me to peasants!
