Kenneth regarded her. Taphris was a luscious wench. 'You are no longer a house slave,' he said. 'There are strong men in the stables. Stand straight, and beautifully.'
'Master has, I trust,' she said, acidly, 'read the note which has accompanied me.'
Kenneth removed the note from his tunic, where he had placed it, and read it again, to himself, with apparent care.
She tossed her head.
'I see nothing in here to the effect that you are not a stable slut,' he said.
'Master!' she protested.
'Are you not now a mere stable slut?' he asked.
Taphris quickly looked at me. 'Yes, Master,' she said. 'I have fallen from the favor of the Mistress. I am now only a mere stable slut.'
'It is true,' said Kenneth, grimly. He put the note again in his tunic.
'Master?' she asked.
'Bring heavy shears,' said Kenneth to Bares.
'Master?' asked Taphris.
Bares returned in a moment with a heavy pair of largehandled iron shears, procured from the nearby equipment shed. They were of the sort which could be used for shearing the wool of the bounding hurt. The Lady Florence did not raise hurt, though some were raised on nearby ranches. Miles of Vonda, for example, raised hurt as well as tharlarion. They were used in the stables for a variety of cutting tasks, ranging from opening feed sacks to shearing the hair of Kajirae, which is unexcelled for the braiding of catapult ropes. Slaves, incidentally, were not allowed in the equipment shed. A careful accounting is kept in the stables of bladed equipment.
Kenneth, shears in hand, stepped back and regarded Taphris. 'Your tunic has sleeves,' he said. 'Let us bare your arms, that you may work more efficiently.'
'Work?' she said.
Kenneth, with the shears, cut away the sleeves of her tunic, so that her arms were bared.
Her hands tensed in the slave bracelets, confining them behind her back.
'Let us free, too, your legs,' he said, musingly.
He then, with the shears, considerahlv heightened the hemline on the skirt of her tunic. This did not displease me. He handed the shears to Bares.
'Wait until the Mistress hears of this!' she cried.
'And this,' said Kenneth, angrily, 'I do for the pleasure of my men.'
She shrank back. Angrily he tore away two additional ports from the tunic's freshly sheared hem. She cried out with misery, so exposed. 'And this, tool' he said angrily. 'Please, no, Master!' she wept. But his hands then tore open the tunic, that the beauty of her breasts be but ill concealed. Lastly he tore open, to the hip, on the left side, the now ragged, scandalously brief skirt of her tunic. I saw that she wore the common Kajira mark of Gor. It is that mark, lovely, small, a Kef in cursive script, the first letter of 'Kajira', which is worn by most Gorean slave girls.
He then kicked her legs out from under her, and she knelt sobbing in the dirt at his feet.
'Give me the shears,' he said to Bares.
'The note, the note, Master,' said the girl, looking upward, pathetically.
'Is it not time,' Kenneth asked Bares, 'that the hair of this Kajira was harvested?'
'I think so,' said Bares.
Taphris had long, dark hair.
'The note, the note, Master,' begged the girl.
'Have no fear, Slave,' said Kenneth. 'You will be treated in accordance with the exact letter of the note. But beyond that you are only and fully a stable slut'
He then, holding her hair, sheared it away at the base of her neck.
'Put a string on this and put it in the sack,' he said to Bares.
The girl was sobbing.
Kenneth normally did not shear the hair of his stable sluts, even in the fall. He did occasionally use shearing, however, as a disciplinary device. Goreans tend, culturally, to be fond of long hair on a woman. The shorn girl, thus, in her collar, tends to be an object of scorn and ridicule. Girls will go to great lengths to please a man, that they not be shorn. The girls who are regularly shorn are usually slaves who work on the great farms or on the large, commercial hurt ranches, or low girls who are used in large numbers in such places as the mills, or the public laundries and kitchens. Any girl, of course, may be shorn, even a high pleasure slave, if she displeases the master. The girls know that there is always a market for their hair.
I watched Bares going toward the equipment shed. He carried the shorn hair and the shears. The sack in which the shorn,hair of Kajirae was kept until it was marketed was in the equipment shed, where the shears were kept.
'Stand, shorn slave,' said Kenneth to the girl.
She quickly stood.
'Remember,' said be, 'you are now no longer a lady's house slave. You are now a stable slut.'
She then, fearfully, stood straight and beautifully. To see her in the brief rag of a stable slut, she standing so beautifully, the narrow collar on her throat, was to desire to rape her.
'Not bad,' commented Kenneth.
The girl trembled. Her small hands were still locked behind her back, in slave bracelets.
'Not bad at all,' said Kenneth.
Bares was now returning to the vicinity, having bound and discarded the hair in the hair sack. Too, he had replaced the shears in the shed.
'Ah,' said Batas. 'She is not unattractive for a shorn slave.'
'Yes,' said Kenneth.
'She will be a pleasant addition to the Kajirae in the stables,' said Batas.
'I think so,' said Kenneth.
'I must be on my way soon,' said Borto, who was the driver of the tharlarion wagon.
Barns went to the discarded, enameled collar, now open, which lay in the wagon bed. He removed the second key from it, that which opened the slave's bracelets. He went behind the girl and freed her hands. He threw the opened bracelets, leaving the key in one of the bracelet locks, to the wagon bed. Borto lifted up the rear gate of the wagon and, with two hooks, fastened it in place.
'I wish you well,' said Borto to the two free men.
'I wish you well,' said Kenneth to him.
'I wish you well,' said Barns to him.
In a few moments Borto had climbed to the wagon box and, with a crack of his whip, had urged the two tharlarion whose reins he controlled into motion.
Borto began to sing.
I watched the wagon departing, its wheels leaving tracks in the soft dust of the stable yard. In the wagon, hooded, head down, tied on her knees, bound hand and foot, her shoulders shaking, was Telitsia, an animal bound for the market.
I turned again to regard Taphris.
'Turn your hip out,' said Kenneth. 'Place your feet like that,' he said, kicking her right foot. 'Suck in your gut. Put your palms on your thighs. Lift your head'
Taphris was learning quickly that she was no longer in the house, but in the stables, a province in which she was a woman and in which men were supreme.
'Bend over at the waist,' said Kenneth. 'More!'
Her knees were flexed. Her head was then at his hip.
Kenneth stepped back from her. I could see that he was not displeased to have the lovely Tahpris at his mercy.
She did not dare raise her head.
'Bares,' said Kenneth, 'will show you your kennel, and your duties.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
Bares placed his hand in her hair, grasping it firmly. She winced.
