There was a sharp twist on the thong.
"I'll call him," I cried. "Please! Please!"
"Which one of you chooses to work first?" asked Ute.
Lana looked at me. "Let El-in-or," she said.
"Let Lana," I said.
"El-in-or will work first, said Ute.
The guard brought fresh straw, and water in a leather bucket, and a heavily bristled brush.
My hands were unbound and, on my hands and knees, I began to gather the soiled, stinking straw.
"Be careful!" cried Lana. It had hurt me, too. Lana was left bound, and we were left thonged by the nose rings. It was clumsy work.
I cleaned one half of the cage, taking out the used straw and scrubbing the plating. Ute would not let me shirk. I had to scrub my section of the plating twice. My knees hurt. At last my half of the cage was clean and I spread fresh straw there. Then I was rebound and Lana was unbound, and set to her work, cleaning the other half of the cage. On my hands and knees, wrists tied behind my back, my nose ring linked to Lana's by the thong, I followed her about, as she had me. At last her work was done. She, too, was forced to scrub her portion of the cage twice. Her wrists were then rebound. Ute then took us to the bars at the front of the cage and, unknotting the thong, passed it around two of the bars and reknotted it, over one of the crossbars, about two and a half feet above the floor plating. She then left us there.
"Ute," I begged, "please let us go."
"Please," wheedled Lana.
We squirmed, but were secured.
On the outside of the bars, slave girls, and guards, passed by, on their way to the morning feeding. They laughed at us. It was well known in the pens that we had shirked the cleaning of our cage. I was humiliated. Even Lana, then, did not seem so lofty and clever, kneeling bound by the bars, for the inspection of all, thonged to them by a nose ring.
When the cage was unlocked, Ute and Inge went to breakfast. Lana and I remained behind.
When Ute and Inge returned Lana and I had had enough of this misery. "Lana will work," promised Lana.
"If you do not," warned Ute, "next time it will not go so easily with you." Lana nodded. She was strong, but she knew that in a slave cage, one is at the mercy of one's cage mates. Ute and Inge had demonstrated their power. "And you, El-in-or?" inquired Ute, pleasantly.
I hated Ute!
"El-in-or, too, will work," I said. "Good," said Ute. Then she kissed Lana and myself. "Let us now release these slaves," she said to Inge. Ute and Inge freed us.
"It is time to leave for the private pens, for morning training," said the guard, passing by.
Lana and I got to our feet and looked at Ute and Inge. We would not again shirk our work.
One day slipped into another in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Four days after we had had ours ears pierced the leather worker returned to the pens and removed the tiny threaded rods with the disks from our ears. Behind remained the tiny, almost invisible punctures in our ear lobes, ready for whatever jewelry a master might decide to fix in them. The nose rings would not be removed until the day before our departure from the pens. We were pierced-eared girls, among the most exciting of slaves.
Day followed day, and round followed round of feedings, exercisings and training periods. One day seemed much like another, save that our lessons increased in length and complexity. I found it necessary now to apply my full attention and intelligence to master the increasingly subtle and intricate skills of a female slave. The slave mistress would switch me, and the others, when we failed. I noted the change and the improvement in the other girls. We were learning, we were increasing our skills. Even Inge! I watched her, in the training sand, dancing to hide drums, naked, in slave bracelets and jeweled dancing collar. She did not then appear to be of the blue-robed, studious scribes. She was only a naked, dancing slave girl, exciting, writhing in the sand, her body throbbing to the beat of a man's pleasure drums. I wondered if a scribe would buy her. I supposed if one did, she would pretend to be a shy girl, once of the scribes herself. But what if he should command her to perform? Would he not be astonished to find what he had purchased, a girl suddenly forced to reveal herself as a wild slave, exquisitely trained to please the senses of a master? I now saw Inge as a rival. But I resolved to best her. I could be even a more superb slave that she! Ute, of course, was incredible, superb. She would doubtless bring a high price. But I thought that I would bring a higher. It also interested me, even astonished me, to see the fervor and skill brought to her training by the refined Lady Rena of Lydius. She knew that she had already, in effect, been purchased, but she did not know who her master might be. Since her ears had been pierced she was terrified that she might not please him. She trained with almost piteous ardor. She had been a free woman; she was now a female slave, the ease of whose life and whose fortunes would now depend entirely on her capacity to be pleasing to those who might capture or purchase her, those who would own her. Lana and I, incidentally, were, by general admission, and the indications of our instructor, the finest of the slaves of our lot. Try as I would I could never best her. I hated her. But though I was not as good as Lana, I had little reason to be ashamed of my advances in the arts of the female slave. I was almost flawlessly superb. I would bring a high price. I was proud. In acknowledgment of my skills, perhaps Lana began to take me into her confidence, and though I hated her, I became her friend. We spent more time together, and I talked less with stupid Ute and skinny Inge. Lana and I were the best, the very best!
I was much pleased.
Subconsciously now, from day to day, my body began to reveal me truly as a slave girl. I was no longer even aware of it. There are dozens of subtle movements, tiny things, almost discernible, but which one notices, almost without noticing, about the movements of a slave girl, things which, cumulatively, distinguish, and very obviously, her movements from those of a free woman.
I now no longer moved as a free woman, even a beautiful one, of Earth. I now moved, and naturally, as what I was, uninhibited and shameless, taunting, catlike, insolent, a Gorean slave girl.
Once, when I got to my feet in the cage and walked across the straw, Inge, who was kneeling nearby, said, unexpectedly, suddenly, "You are a slave, El-in-or!" I leaped at her and slapped her. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Slave! she screamed. I seized her by the hair and kicked her. Then, scratching and cursing, we began to roll and fight in the straw. Lana laughed. "Do not quarrel!" suddenly it felt like the top of my head was being yanked off and I heard Inge scream with pain.
A guard was now in the cage and had each of us, separated, bend over, held by the hair.
Inge and I then did not move so much as a muscle.
I was suddenly afraid that I would be beaten. I had been beaten only once, when first enslaved by Lana, with straps, at the side of the slave wagon. Never had a man beaten me. I was terrified of having the full five-strap Gorean slave lash, wielded with the full strength of a man, used on me. I was too sensitive to pain. The other girls, common girls, might be beaten, but not I. It would hurt me too much. They could not understand how it would feel to me, how much it would hurt!
"She started it!" I cried out.
"She slapped me!" cried Inge. Inge was frightened, too. She was only of the scribes, and, too, feared the lash. Bur she would not have felt it as cruelly as I would have, for she was more common than I, less sensitive, less delicate. "She started it!" I cried. "She slapped me first!"
Ute gasped.
"Don't beat me," I wept. "She started it! She slapped me first!"
"Liar!" screamed Inge.
"Liar!" I screamed at her.
Ute was looking at me with disappointment. Lana was laughing.
"The guard outside," said Lana. "He saw!"
Held by the hair, bend over, my heart sank. I was a slave girl who had been caught in a lie. I trembled.