I looked at her.
'I did not dare to break the seal,' she said. 'I did not know until moments ago whether you would be willing to attempt escape or not.'
'What is this seal?' I asked, indicating the wax plate with its stamp.
'That is the seal of the House of Andronicus,' she said.
'When did this come to this house?' I asked, frightened.
'The day before you arrived,' she said. 'Do you think perhaps it is not clothing?'
I broke the seal, breaking it away from the knot. I undid the knot. I tore open the bag, thrusting back the loop of the drawstring.
My heart sank.
'Is it not clothing?' she asked, her voice trembling.
'It is clothing,' I said.
'What is wrong?' she asked. 'Even if they are slave garments they might serve to get you into the streets.'
'Look,' I said.
'Oh,' she wept, miserably. 'I had no way of knowing.'
I lifted clothing from the bag, dismally. This was, of all things, my old clothing, the clothing I had worn on Earth the night on which Miss Beverly Henderson, a lovely quarry of Gorean slavers, had been abducted and I, unwittingly, had become implicated in her fate.
I held my old jacket clutched in my hand, angrily. I had not known what had happened to my clothing. I had awakened naked, chained, in a dungeon cell in the House of Andronicus. My clothing, unknown to me, even my jacket, and, as I saw, my coat, too, had apparently been transmitted to Gor with me, though for what purpose I could not imagine.
'How cruel they are,' she said.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'This was sent here, doubtless,' she said, 'that it might, for the instruction and amusement of buyers, be used in your sale.'
'That is doubtless it,' I said. I looked at her, miserably.
'The seal is broken on the bag,' she said. 'What can we do now?'
'We have no choice but to continue,' I said.
'It is too dangerous,' she said.
'We have no choice,' I said. 'Before, when I awakened, when I asked you what time it was, you told me, that it was early in the evening.'
'Yes,' she said.
'That was some time ago,' I said. 'Do you think that it might be dark by now?'
'Yes,' she said, trembling.
'Perhaps, in the darkness,' I said, 'I might be briefly unnoticed, at least long enough to obtain more suitable, less conspicuous garments.'
'It is all my fault,' she said, miserably.
'Do not be afraid,' I said to her, reassuring her. I took her by the shoulders and looked down into her uplifted eyes.
'I shall try to be brave, Jason,' she said.
I lowered my head, gently, to kiss her, but she turned her head away, looking down. 'Please, don't, Jason,' she said. 'Though I wear a collar do not forget that I am a woman of Earth'
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'Do not fear. I will not take advantage of you.' I chastised myself. How forward I had been. I scarcely knew her. Too, I was naked, and she wore only the scandalous Ta-Teera, and her collar.
'Thank you, Jason,' she whispered.
'Men have been cruel to you, haven't they?' I asked, gently.
'I am a slave girl,' she shrugged.
I could well imagine the torments and ecstasies with which the Earth beauty would have been afflicted by the brutes of Gor.
'It was my intention,' I said, 'to kiss you only with the gentleness, and tenderness, of a man of Earth.' It had not been my intention to subject her mouth, her throat and breasts, her belly, the interior of her thighs, to the cruel, commanding, raping kisses of the Gorean master.
'How wonderful you are, Jason,' she said. 'If only the men of Gor were more like you.'
'Please let me kiss you,' I said. She was so lovely.
She turned her head away. 'No,' she said. 'I wear a collar.'
'I do not understand,' I said.
'I am a woman of Earth,' she said. 'I would be ashamed to be kissed while my throat is locked in the collar of bondage.
'Of course,' I said. 'I am sorry.'
'Dress now, Jason,' she said. 'There is little time.'
'I do not understand,' I said.
'The guards may make their rounds soon,' she said.
'I see,' I said. I removed my clothing from the bag. I began to draw on my undergarments.
'There is another reason, too, why I did not let you kiss me,' she said.
'What is that?' I asked.
'I scarcely dare to speak of it,' she said.
'Tell me,' I said.
'You do not know what a collar does to a woman,' she said. 'When a woman wears a collar she does not dare to let a man kiss her.'
'Why?' I asked.
'She fears she might turn into a slave girl in his arms,' she said, softly.
'I see,' I said.
'I want you to respect me,' she said.
I nodded. One might exult in a spasmodic slave, subjecting her to the conquest of the helpless bond girl, but, it was true, how could one, in such a situation, respect her? One would surely be enjoying her too much to respect her.
'Where are you from?' I asked. ' 'I do not understand,' she said.
'You are from Earth,' I said. 'I would be curious to know from what land.' There is no Gorean expression for `country' in the precise sense of a nation. Men of Earth think of cities as being within countries. Men of Gor tend to think of cities and the lands controlled by them. The crucial political entity for Goreans tends to be the city or village, the place where people and power are. There can be, of course, leagues among cities and tangential territories. Men of Earth tend to think of territory in a manner that might be considered circumferential, whereas Goreans tend to think of it as a more radial sort of thing. Consider a circle with a point at its center. The man of Earth might conceive of the territory as bounded by the circumference; the man of Gor would be more likely to think of the territory as a function of the sweep of the radius which emanates from the central point. Geometrically, of course, these two conceptions are equivalent. Psychologically, however, they are not. The man of Earth looks to the periphery; the man of Gor looks to the center. The man of Earth thinks of territory as static, regardless of the waxing and wanings of the power that maintains it; the Gorean tends to think of territory as more dynamic, a realistic consequence of the geopolitical realities of power centers. Perhaps it would be better to say that the Gorean tends to think more in teens of sphere of influence than he does in terms of imaginary lines on maps which may not reflect current historical realities. Certain consequences of these attitudes may be beneficial. For example, the average Goran is not likely to feel that his honor, which he values highly, is somehow necessarily connected with the integrity of a specific, exactly drawn border. Such borders generally do not exist on Gor, though, to be sure, certain things are commonly understood, for example, that the influence of, say, the city of Ar, has not traditionally extended north of the Vosk River. Another consequence of the Gorean's tendency to think of territory in terms more analogous to an area warmed or an area illuminated than an area laid out by surveyors once and for all time is that his territoriality tends to increase with nearness to his city or village. One result of this
