"Let us have the drawing," urged a fellow.
I felt inordinately helpless, so small and weak, and desired, among such men. I heard the snappings of the ostraka.
How absurd then, and artificial, and unreal, suddenly, seemed Earth, with all its preposterous political myths, its subversion of nature, its insidious conditioning programs, its pretendings to deny the simple, obvious truths of aristocracy, its contrived trammelings of right and power, its desperate attempts to destroy the natural relationships between men and women, to level and mediocratize the diversity and glory of nature, its corrupt machineries of falsification and repression. Men can do with us as they wish, I thought, and Gorean men, at least if the woman is a slave, will. I was not on Earth. I was on a different world. I stood now on a dancing floor in a tavern, in a complex, beautiful civilization, one quite different from my own, one in which strong, proud men had refused to relinquish their natural sovereignty. I did not stand before them as a primitive. I did stand before them, however, in a collar, and in the order of nature.
I felt tension in the leashes attached to the rings of the cuffs I wore. Tupita and Sita, on my right and left, respectively, stood near to me. They had muchly coiled the leashes and their two hands, each on their own leash, and turned in the leash, and gripping it tightly, were about a foot from the rings on the cuffs. I sensed Ina behind me. She took hold of the sheet, at the shoulders, from behind, that it might be lifted gracefully from me.
Earlier Hendow had brought me to the floor, helpless, like a doll, in his grip. He had then, in response to the ritualistic petition of Mirus, removed his hand from my arm, stepped back from me and left me there. The symbolic meaning of this was clear. He was not reserving me for himself. I was also for his customers. I was a new girl in his tavern. I was a public slave.
I felt tension through the cuffs, I heard the tiny noises of the joined rings, those on the cuffs and leashes. I felt the pulling of the leash rings against the rings on the cuffs. My wrists were slowly being drawn to the sides. The men leaned forward. I could not keep my hands on the sheet without opening the sheet myself. Tears in my eyes I released the sheet. Ina then, gracefully, drew the sheet away and, carrying it, withdrew from the floor.
I stood there, my wrists at my shoulders. I could not draw my hands together to cover myself. The cuffs I wore, buckled tightly on me, and the taut leashes attached to them, in the keeping of Tupita and Sita, saw to it. I stood there, then, in collar and beads, displayed, a tavern slave, a paga slave, a public slave, naked on a Gorean dancing floor.
The hands of men smote repeatedly on their left shoulders.
"Yes!" cried several. "Yes! Yes!" "Marvelous!" breathed some. "Superb!" cried others, pounding with their goblets on the tables. I gathered that Teibar, who had picked me for the collar, had known his business.
There was then slackness in the leashes. My arms went to my sides.
There was a white ribbon looped on my collar, and drawn down about it, snugly. "You are naked before me," whispered Tupita. "Obeisance!"
I quickly knelt before the men and put my head to the floor, the palms of my hands, too, on the floor. I heard several of the beads touch the wood.
I was then jerked to my feet by the leashes, and drawn about the floor, being shown to the men on all sides.
Men swarmed about Mirus, who was hard put to satisfy their demands for ostraka. I was then knelt near the center of the floor, and a little toward its front. I knelt as I had been taught, and as the sort of slave I was, the sort of slave I had first learned I was in Market of Semris, a pleasure slave. My hands, my wrists buckled in the leather cuffs, were on my thighs. Tupita and Sita stood near me, and a little behind me. The leashes were slack.
"Alas, generous sirs!" cried Mirus. "The ostraka grow few in number!" I saw men rise hurriedly to move toward him.
"I shall take ten," said a man.
"No!" cried another.
"Let us have the attestation!" cried Mirus, forcing the two fellows apart. Tamirus approached me. He wore green robes. I did not know at that time but this indicated he was of the caste of physicians. That is a high caste. If I had known he was of high caste I might have been a great deal more frightened than I was. Most Gorean take caste very seriously. It is apparently one of the socially stabilizing forces on Gor. It tends to reduce the dislocations, disappointments and tragedies inherent in more mobile structures, in which men are taught that they are failures if they do not manage to make large amounts of money or excel in one of a small number of prestigious professions. The system also helps to help men of energy and high intelligence in a wide variety of occupations, this preventing the drain of such men into a small number of often artificially desiderated occupations, this tending then to leave lesser men, or frustrated men, to practice other hundreds of arts the survival and maintenance of which are important to a superior civilization. Provisions for changing caste exist on Gor, but they are seldom utilized. Most Goreans are proud of their castes and the skills appropriate to them. Such skills, too, tend to be appreciated by other Goreans, and are not looked down on. My virginity had been checked at various times. Teibar had done it on Earth, in the library; it had been done in the house of my training, shortly after I had arrived there; it had been done outside Brundisium, by the wholesaler there, and in Market of Semris twice, once when I had arrived there, by the men of Teibar of Market of Semris, and once before I had left, by Hendow" s man. It had also been checked when I had arrived here, and again, this afternoon, before I had been bedecked in these beads I wore, slave beads.
"How are you, my dear?" asked Tamirus.
"Very good, Master," I said. "Thank you, Master."
"On you back, idiot," said Tupita.
I looked at her, angrily.
By the leashes, pulling up and twisting, to my surprise, handling me quite easily, with surprising expertness, she and Sita pulled me up, half on my feet, and then brought me back, gasping, off balance, and lowered me to my back. I had not realized their skill, nor how easily I could be controlled by the two leashes. There are many tricks, of course, with leashes, in the management of slaves. Tupita held down my right wrist, and Sita my left wrist. "Throw your legs apart or we will do this differently," said Tupita. I obeyed, on my back, on the dancing floor. There are various attitudes in which the virginity of a girl may be checked. The least embarrassing to her is probably this one. Tamirus was careful with me, and gentle. He checked twice, delicately.
"Thank you, Master," I said to him, gratefully.
He stood up. "It is certified by the house of Hendow," he said, "The slave is a virgin."
"Not for long!" called a fellow.
"Thank you for your public confirmation in this matter," called Mirus. Tamirus lifted his hand good-humoredly, graciously, to Mirus, and then, too, to the others in the tavern, and returned to his table. There, waiting for him, was a goblet of paga, doubtless a gratuity for the loan of his expertise. Too, he would doubtless have his choice of Hendow" s women this night, with the probably exception of myself, for we went with the paga. Indeed, I thought he might easily already have made his choice. Near his table, but back a bit from it, discretely, at slave" s distance, knelt luscious Inger, blond and voluptuous, from the north, from Skjern, who had come to Brundisium in the heavy shackles of Torvaldslanders. It was she who had brought his paga. It would doubtless be she who would serve him this night, with the fullness of the Gorean slave. With pen dipped into an inkhorn at his belt Tamirus was signing a paper. He replaced the pen in the inkhorn, which closed the horn, shook the paper a bit and held it up. a fellow near him handed it obligingly to Mirus. I saw Inge inch a little closer to Tamirus, on her knees. Doubtless she had served him before. Perhaps she wished him to purchase her.
"Here is the signed attestation," said Mirus, handing it to one of the fellows near the floor. They began to pass it about.
"Only seven ostraka are left," called Mirus. "Who would like them? Only one, regretfully, I fear, may be now allowed to a customer."
I watched the attestation being handed about the tables.
Men crowded about Mirus.
I no longer had the sheet of white silk about me. It had been taken from me. "Alas," then cried Mirus. "The ostraka are gone!"
There were cries of anger.
"Do not be dismayed, noble patrons of the tavern of Hendow," he called, "for the number of ostraka was determined in advance. If too many were sold, the chances of any particular one winning would be too few. Surely those of you who have already purchased one or more ostraka can appreciate the weight of this consideration."