"Be silent," said the woman who held her chain. "That is no way for a free woman to speak. Put your head to the floor, pull your tunic up over your head!" Frightened, the woman did as she was told. The woman who had her in her keeping then called to another of the hostesses. "Three strokes," she told her. That woman then, with her whip, struck Lady Labiena three times.
"Replace your tunic and kneel straightly," said her keeper.
Lady Labiena, tears running down her cheeks, complied. "We have told you, Lady Labiena," said my hostess. "We are merely keeping you for a friend."
"For whom are you keeping me?" she begged.
"That is for us to know, and for you to wonder," she said.
"Tell him, if you would," she said, "that his capture is now ready to be imbonded, that she is now ready to lick his feet and beg a collar, that she is ready to be used, or sold, whatever be his will."
"That is Lady Labiena," said my hostess. "See how feminine she is? See how right she is for a man?"
"Yes," I said.
"Chain her at his mat's slave ring," said my hostess.
"No," I said.
"What?" asked my hostess.
"No," I said.
"Clearly she is fit for the collar," said my hostess.
"True," I said. "But she is not yet in a collar. She is a mere free woman. She does not yet know the collar. She does not yet feel it in every part of her. Its meaning has not yet soaked into her brain, her skin, her belly, even to the tips of her toes."
"You are not interested in free females?" she said.
"Not particularly," I reminded her. This is not that unusual in one who has tasted of slaves. As women, there is no comparison between a free woman and her imbonded sister. Perhaps that is why free women so hate slaves. To be sure, there is something to be said for free women. It is enjoyable to capture, enslave and train them. That is interesting. But then, of course, in a matter of time, one is not then dealing any longer with a free woman, but only another slave.
"Close your tunic, you brazen slut," said my hostess to the Lady Labiena, who hurriedly drew it together, obeying. Then she said to the woman who held her chain. "Take her away."
The Lady Labiena was led from the floor, through the door from which she had earlier emerged. Presumably she would be fastened by her neck chain to a wall or floor ring within, until she was brought forth again on the floor.
My hostess then lifted her head and looked to the left of the open space, where several females huddled. It was hard to tell in the light, but I thought they were naked. She cracked her whip, and they scurried swiftly to the table, where they knelt. They were naked.
"Now these are slaves," I said. I examined them. How incredibly beautiful and sensuous they were, how soft and vulnerable, how owned. It was not merely that they were nude and that their necks were locked in steel collars. It was something else, almost indefinable, but very real, about them, which marked them as slaves, something which seemed to say, "We are slaves, Masters. We are yours. Do with us as you will."
The woman cracked her whip again and the girls inadvertently cringed and shrank back. They were slaves, and knew well that sound. Two of them had even cried out in fear. The woman then went to the line. "Straighten your bodies," she said. "You are in the presence of a man." She touched more than one with the whip coils, adjusting her posture, and, with the coils, lifted up the chin of another. Then she turned to me. "These are available," she said. "Perhaps you find one or more of them pleasing?"
I surveyed the women.
"Such," she said, "are fit for men."
"Yes," I said.
"They are pleasant, meaningless creatures," she said.
I did not respond to the woman. There was a sense, of course, in which the slave girl is meaningless, the sense in which she is nothing, the sense in which she is a mere property, a rightless object, fittingly to be scorned, to be treated as one pleases, to be made to serve, to be disciplined or whipped, to be kept or cast away, as one might choose, and yet, in another sense, what meaning could a free woman even begin to have, compared to that of a slave at one's feet? "Are they not pretty?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
I regarded the slaves.
They knelt before me, in the half darkness, in a line. They had been well positioned. Their collars glinted, the steel reflecting the dim, reddish light of the tiny lamps. Their flesh, too, that of offerings of the house, so cheaply available, revealed the effects of this same dim illumination. The free woman, Ludmilla proprietress of this establishment, and of several others on the street, had some concept, it seemed, as to at least one way in which female slaves might be presented before men. One does not, of course, buy a woman in such light. Preferably one considers them in strong light with great care. Indeed, preferably one does not put out any money until one has carefully examined every inch of her fair body. Even girls who are to be auctioned are commonly available, in exposition cages or display spaces, and sometimes for handling, for inspection before a sale, that one may determine whether or not he wishes to make a bid, and, also, of course, how high he might be willing to go to acquire her.
The woman turned about, and, lifting her whip, signaled to the musicians at the right side of the room. They began to play. She then cracked the whip again and the slaves sprang to their feet and began to dance before me, as only slaves can dance before men.
"How meaningless they are," laughed the free woman.
How incredibly meaningful, how explosively and thunderingly meaningful, how devastatingly meaningful, how momentously significant they were, these females of my species, presenting themselves before me in the modalities incumbent upon them, modalities constituting civilized and delicious refinements of relationships instituted and determined eons ago by nature, modalities which will always, in one way or another, in one nomenclature or another, be required of beautiful women by strong men, modalities most simply and directly though of, and most honestly thought of, as those of slave and master. One of the glories of the Gorean culture is that it has a body of law, sanctioned by tradition and mercilessly enforced, pertaining, without evasion or subterfuge, to this relationship.
"Yartel," said the woman, motioning to one of the girls who then, obediently, moved forward, writhing before me. She was a short-legged, creamy-skinned, voluptuous blonde. One difference between Gorean sexual tastes and those of earth, I might mention, is that Gorean sexual tastes, at least in my opinion, are much broader and more tolerant than those of Earth, or at least of Western Civilization, and tend to run toward the statistical norms of the human female. For example, many women on Earth who are implicitly taught by their culture, for example, through pictures and accounts, that they do not fulfill culturally approved stereotypes of feminine desirability and beauty, might discover, presumably to their horror, that they would bring a high price in a Gorean slave market. If they should have any lingering doubts about the matter, and think perhaps to escape a discipline more appropriately applied to "true beauties," because they do not regard themselves as such, their delusions are likely to be dispelled under their master's whip. Also, although I suppose the matter is neither here nor there, Goreans also tend to prize women for such things as their intelligence, emotional depth, charm and personality. It is a pleasure to own such a female.
The most fundamental property prized by Goreans in women, I suppose, though little is said about it, is her need for love, and her capacity for love. How much does she need love? And how deep and loving is she? That is the kind of woman a man wants, ultimately, one who is helplessly and totally love's captive, in his collar.