slave. The bid had been for twenty copper tarsks. In a moment I had heard twenty-two, and twenty-seven.
On my own world I was a modern woman, of sorts, independent, and free, and with political power, particularly with fearful, cringing men. But here men were not fearful and cringing. But then I had been taken from Earth, and my power, to be brought here to be utterly powerless, to be a slave, to be a pleasure slave! How reductive, I thought, to be a pleasure slave! Then I knew that that was what, on a proper, natural world, I would be, that that, on such world, was right for me. 'No, no!' I wept, in English.
I heard more bids.
The auctioneer walked about me. He touched me, here and there, with his whip. He turned me on the chain, I on my toes, exhibiting me.
Then I again faced the men. There were more bids.
I though how amused Teibar might have been, to have thought of me, his hated 'modern woman,' as he thought, being sold, and being sold in this place, a place fit for her, a sales barn, where tarsks, four-legged, and two-legged, like herself, were sold. I wondered if Teibar knew I would be sold in this place. He was doubtless privy to the records of the house. But he may have left their service before I was consigned to the wholesaler outside Brundisium. But it could be this was a common clearing point for their slaves. It could be, too, he had retained contacts with the house. He might very well know I was here. He may have even, for his amusement, arranged that it would be here, or in a similar outlet, that I was sold, influencing the orders in some fashion. Perhaps that I was here, naked in a sales barn, my wrists manacled over my head, being bid upon by strangers, was part of his vengeance on me. At the least he would have known that this, or something similar, would be done to me! How amused he must be, when he thought of such things, his haughty, pretentious 'modern woman.' as he thought, she whom he held in such contempt, to her dismay and terror, and miscry, now being sold naked from a slave block, into absolute bondage!
Then I became aware of someone, or one or two men, actually, calling up from the floor. It was not bids they were calling. I tried to understand them. I did not know if it were their accents, or I simply, in my confusion, my misery and distress, had suddenly lost almost all my command of Gorean. I could not really understand them.
The chain slackened above me and my arms fell, somewhat. The auctioneer put his whip on his belt, held me by the left arm in his right hand, and, with his left hand, reaching up, lifted the chain between my manacles off the lower hook of the short chain, that attached to the strand of the double chain overhead. His hand on my arm kept me from collapsing to the sawdust. My hands were down, the chain on the manacles now against my thighs. He said something to me, but I did not understand it. Then he reached in front of me and gathered the chain between my manacles into his hands and lifted my wrists up, bending my arms back. He put my wrists back, behind my head, and then released the chain on the manacles, letting it drop behind my neck. 'Clasp your hands behind the back of your head,' he said. I understood him now. 'Bend back,' he said. 'Display yourself.' I obeyed, of course. Too, the whip was now again in his hand. 'Flex your knees,' he said. 'Now, turn,' he said. 'Do not forget our friends to the right,' he said. I then displayed myself, again, identically, at the right side of the block. I did not think the other girls had been removed from the chain, or not many of them, given the speed with which the line had moved. Why should I be favored in this respect? The bidding had been interrupted at eighty-eight tarsks, whatever that meant. I did know that there was apparently something about me, perhaps unfortunately, which many Gorean men found of interest. I do not thing this was simply a matter of figure and face, though I think these appealed to a Gorean taste, but perhaps something else, something deeper, which they seemed to sense about me, some sort of possibility, or potentially, or something which I myself did not fully understand, or yet understand. Sometimes he touched me with the whip, calling attention to a curve or flank. Teibar' s 'modern woman,' I thought, is now displaying herself naked to Gorean buyers. He then had me kneel and bent me back, painfully, my hair back to the sawdust, to the center, and then the left, and then the right, before the buyers. He then had me straighten up and unclasp my hands from behind my head. He then lifted the chain forward, over my head. It then hung, between my wrists, a little below my neck. He let me lower my hands. My hands then, and the chain, were again on my thighs. My hands chained as they were, I could not both keep them on my thighs and maintain a full, open-kneel position. I looked up at him, from the sawdust.
Men were calling out, from behind the railing, and some from the tiers. To my surprise the auctioneer removed a key from his belt and removed the manacles from me. I rubbed my wrists. There were marks on them where the manacles had cut into me, when I was lifted to the block.
The auctioneer cracked his whip.
I looked up at him, from the sawdust. I was to be put through slave paces. I tried to put from me what was being done to me.
I wanted to go back to the library.
The sawdust was in my hair, and its particles clung to my sweating body. 'Yes,' I thought, 'I can find that book.'
I was on my belly, naked, in the sawdust.
'Yes,' I thought, 'there was quiet, shy Doreen in the library, going quietly about her duties, there, walking about, returning to the reference desk, over that flat carpet, from the information desk, past the xerox machines.' I rolled in the sawdust.
Yes, there she was, there, in that simple sweater, that plain blouse and dark skirt, the dark stockings, the low-heeled black shoes. Surely no man could find her of interest. Then she became aware of a man at the reference desk, looking down at her, one bright afternoon, a man whose look penetrated into her deepest heart and belly, and stripped her, and saw the slave there. And he had caught her in her dancer' s costume, that in which no man had ever seen her before, and she had then, in swirling skirt and scarlet halter, and bells, danced in the darkened library, danced before him and his men. I was vaguely aware of a cry of pleasure from the crowd. I had performed the transition between two of the moves in the slave paces with the startling, sensuous agility of a dancer. It then seemed that it was the dancer in the sawdust, on the block, she who had worn the skirt and halter, and bells. How beautiful they seemed to find her! How she moved! She heard the exclamations of praise. The auctioneer stood back, the whip lowered, startled. 'No!' I cried. Then again I was awkward and fearful, and only an Earth girl, miserable, confused and terrified, cringing in the sawdust of a slave block on an alien world.
'What is wrong?' asked the auctioneer.
'Nothing, Master,' I whispered, cringing before him on all fours.
A gesture of his whip informed me I should like upon my back. Then I was supine before him. He turned about. He stood partly over my body. He faced the crowd. He had one of his legs between mine.
'Two,' was called to him from the floor. 'Two!'
'Two!' repeated the auctioneer, holding up two fingers. 'Two!'
The auctioneer did not sound angry at this bid. I myself was startled. The bids had been in the eighties before. Now, it seemed they were reduced to only two. I was on my back, gasping, lying there.
The auctioneer stepped a little away from me, and turned to face me.
It was now as though I could hardly move. I was terrified. I hoped he would not beat me, because the bids were now down to two.
He looked down at me, puzzled.
I think I must then have seemed to him quite otherwise than I had but moments ago. I do not think he understood this. It was almost, I suppose, as though there were not one, but two women on the block, almost as though he had two different women to sell.
I rose up on my elbows but he, with the heel of his bootlike sandal, thrust me back to the sawdust. He then, with his bootlike sandal, turned me to my stomach. 'Kneel,' he said. I knelt. He then replaced the manacles on my wrists. He turned me so that I knelt facing the crowd. He pulled down the short chain from the horizontal chain. 'Stand,' he said. I obeyed. 'What is wrong with her?' called a man. The chain between my manacles was looped over the lower hook on the short chain. I could hardly stand. I was terrified. I looked out on the men. Any one of them, I realized, could own me. I was a slave! I could be owned. I could belong to them! They could do with me what they might please, anything. They would have over me total power. But I was a woman of Earth! This could not be happening to me! Then, as the higher chain, the strand of the double chain, took up its slack, my wrists were again pulled up, high, over my head. Again I could touch the block only with my toes. I had not been as Ulrick had wanted, not at the end. I had been too much afraid. I had not been fresh and supple. I had not controlled my breath well. I feared I had not been beautiful. I had been too afraid, too afraid to be truly beautiful. I had been too
