"But you would still be curious as to your comparative value," he speculated. "Yes, Master," I said looking up.
"Even under normal conditions," he said, "a silver tarsk would be a very high price to pay for a semitrained girl."
"Ah," I said softly, mostly to myself. I was very pleased. I, semitrained, and a barbarian, had gone for more than twice that price!
I did have value!
"Let me put it in another way," he said, "in one that may be even more meaningful to you."
"Yes, Master?" I said.
"That was the highest price paid for a female that night," he said. "More than was paid for Gloria or Clarissa?" I asked.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"The two girls who were sold before me, just before me," I said. "Earth sluts, like yourself," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Each went for a silver tarsk ten," he said. "Both were superb. I was tempted to bid on them myself."
I was stunned that I had sold for more than Gloria and Clarissa. I had regarded them both as far superior to myself.
"You are a virgin, of course," he said.
"Oh," I said.
"That is of value to me," he said, "for I am a tavern owner. After you had performed the virgin dance, I will raffle off your virginity."
"Yes, Master," I said. I did not really understand what he was saying. I did realize, of course, and had realized this shortly after the beginning of my training, that my value might depend not simply on what I was, in myself, but even on the sort of woman I was, say, that I was a barbarian, and the relative abundance or scarcity of that commodity in the markets. Similar considerations apparently pertained to such matters as hair colors and body types. If these things were so, then I supposed that it was natural that my virginity, or lack of it, might also, at least in some cases, affect my price. My master, I noted, did not seem to be personally interested in my virginity, only in what it might mean to him in terms of its possible commercial value.
"But even if it were not for that," he said, "it is probably that you would have brought more that your lovely terrestrial compatriots."
I looked at him.
"Most Gorean men," he said, "would regard you, exhibited on the block, knowing only that much about you, as superior slave meat."
I shuddered.
"I think," he said, "in that market, that night, even if you had not been a virgin, you would have brought more than your friends. I would have thought you might have brought something in the neighborhood of a tarsk eighty or a tarsk seventy."
"But there was a bid of two for me," I said, "before your bid." "That seems a high bid," he said. "Perhaps it was the bid of someone new to the markets, perhaps one who had not seen many women vended, who did not realize how beautiful any woman is when she is put through merciless slave paces." I blushed, naked before him, in his collar.
"You bid two and fifty," I whispered.
"That is because I saw in you what others, at the time, did not," he said. "I saw in you the dancer, one I can use in the tavern. I saw in you, too, the helpless pleasure slave, who could be made the prisoner of her own passions, becoming an obedient, eager, grateful, spasmodic animal in her master" s arms." I blushed crimson.
"I think, he said, "that in time you might become a five-tarsk girl, perhaps even a ten-tarsk girl."
I looked up at him, frightened.
"You want to cover your breasts with your hands, don" t you?" he asked. "You want to clench your knees tightly together."
"Yes, Master!" I begged.
"Remain kneeling exactly as you are, pleasure slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And so," he said, "although the price I paid for you might have seemed high it was, from my point of view, in virtue of what you are, and will become, a splendid bargain."
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Are you pleased," he asked, "aside from questions of the price I paid for you, or my reasons for it, to learn that you are valuable, that you might well bring a price in the neighborhood of two silver tarsks in an open market?"
I did not know, precisely, how to respond to this question. It seemed that I was, as I had hitherto suspected, of genuine interest to Gorean men, or at least so many of them. Should I find pleasure in this, or a cause for alarm? Gorean men are generally such as to know how to handle women. They know what to do with them. Yet I did not think I would really want to be in the arms of other sorts of men.
"You have been asked a question," my master reminded me.
"Forgive me, Master," I whispered. I looked up at him, shyly. "Yes," I whispered, "I am pleased. I am extremely pleased."
"Vain she-tarsk," he said.
"Yes, Master," I smiled. I was delighted to learn that I had brought a good price, even if he thought it such a bargain. I was delighted, too, to learn that I might have, even had he not been there, brought as much as two silver tarsks. One fellow had bid that much! Too, perhaps most importantly, most significantly, no other girl had sold for so much that night as I! I had brought the highest price in the whole market that night! This astonished and delighted me. To be sure, it was doubtless an isolated market, and we were probably all only semitrained girls, or less, girls being sold that night as little more than "slave meat," it was I who had brought the highest price! I wished Teibar could have known that, that his catch from the library on Earth had brought the highest price in the market, and on her first sale, too! But I supposed that he, the monster, the beast, would have merely congratulated himself on his taste in selecting captures, turning it all to his own credit! The buyers would have known very little about me, of course. They had seen me the way most other Gorean men would see me, at first, or until they learned more about me, I supposed, as no more than another pretty girl in bondage, as, in effect, in a sense, no more than another pretty girl in bondage, as, in effect, in a sense, no more than mere "slave meat." I was proud, however, to have been regarded as an attractive slave, or, if you like, as promising slave meat. How strange it then seemed to me that I, the former Doreen Williamson, of Earth, a shy librarian, should now be elated that she had some simple, independent value as a female, if only as slave meat! Then I realized how superficial was my view of this matter, even in so simple a business as vending a girl from a block. Gloria was larger than I and, in his sense, would surely have been expected to have brought more if we were really being considered as "mere slave meat." But she had not brought more. They had considered us, and, for one reason or another, properly or improperly, wisely or not, at that particular time, at least, had bid more for me. The men call us "slave meat," and such, and perhaps this amuses them, and helps to keep us in our place, at their feet, but only a woman who is a fool believes them. They want, and own, the whole slave. Even Gorean law makes it clear that it is the entire slave whi is owned, not merely a part of her. To be sure, Gorean men do not play the games of some fools of Earth, pretending that the bodies of women are not of interest to them, but only their minds, or such, or whatever the currently prescribed cultural values recommend. They relish our bodies and see that they derive from them, exploiting us, if you will, every last ounce of pleasure that they can yield to them, but even in these merciless predations, showing us so little concern, it is the whole woman, the whole of their property, which they tease, and torment, and relish, and make yield to them.
"But there is good discipline kept in this house," he said, lifting the whip. "Yes, Master!" I said, quickly. Here, in this house, I then understood, though I might have some value in a commercial sense, I was only a slave.
"Crawl back down the steps, facing me," he said, "and then kneel at the foot of the dais."
I obeyed. I now felt very small before him, kneeling there, a slave, he, my master, so high above me in that great chair.
From a small sack at his side, walletlike, attached at his belt, he drew forth a tiny object, made of cloth. He crumpled it easily in the palm of his hand. It was clearly very compressible. I did not know what it was.