"Thank you," I said.
I did not wish to be caged with them. I could sense their hostility. Too, they could surely detect that I did not care for them. But we were locked in the same small cage.
"Doubtless you will soon become the master's favorite," said Turnip, a dark-haired, wide-faced girl.
"Perhaps," I said, tossing my head.
"Radish is now favorite," said Sandal Thong, indicating a blondish, thick-ankled girl at her left. I recognized her. It was she whose heartbeat had given the time count in the boys' sport of girl hunt the preceding night. Last night she had served one of the warriors of Clitus Vitellius. I recalled her pressing back against him, his hand on her heart, his calling the count. I myself had been in the arms of such men many times. They were not peasant boys.
"I was the girl of a warrior," I told them.
"You are very pretty," said Radish. I decided I did not dislike Radish.
"You were poor in the furs," said Sandal Thong. "That is why he gave you away."
"No!" I cried.
"Poor in the furs!" laughed Sandal Thong.
"Why did he give you away?" asked Verr Tail.
"I do not know," I said.
"Poor in the furs!" said Sandal Thong, pointing her finger at me.
"We have few furs in this village," laughed Turnip. "We will see how you roll in the straw!"
"If you are not good," said Verr Tail, "we will soon know. Thurnus will tell everyone whether you are good or not."
"I am good," I told them.
"Why did your master give you away?" asked Turnip.
"It amused him," I said. "He is Clitus Vitellius, a captain. He can have many girls, more beautiful than I. He made me love him, hopelessly and desperately, and then, for his amusement, discarded me. He toyed with me. He used me for the object of his sport. Then, when he had won, fully and completely, he cast me aside, ridding himself of me, giving me away."
"Did you truly love him?" asked Radish.
"Yes," I said.
"What a slave you are!" laughed Sandal Thong.
"He made me love him!" I cried defensively. Yet I knew I would have loved him, even had he not made me love him. Had I had the choice as a free woman I would have chosen to love him; but the choice had not been mine, for I had been a slave; he had overwhelmed me, forcing me to love him, consulting not my will, before I could have chosen to do so; I who had desired to kneel before him of my own free will had been commanded to his sandals as a slave girl.
"You are a fool to have loved your master," said Sandal Thong.
"I love my master," said Radish.
Sandal Thong turned about and struck Radish to the side of the cage. "Slave!" she cried.
"I cannot help it that I love my master!" said Radish.
Sandal Thong spun about, facing me. "Do not break the position of the pleasure slave!" she said.
I held position. "Are you not a slave, too?" I cried.
Sandal Thong stood up. She was a tall girl. She fingered the rope collar on her throat. She stood there in the brief slave tunic, of the wool of the Hurt. It was the only garment she had, as with the rest of us. She was a large girl, heavy-boned, tall, stronger than we, powerful when compared to us, but to a man she, too, would have been slight, at their mercy. "Yes," she said, "I can be beaten, or sold or slain. I can be given as a gift among men. They can put me in chains. They can burn me with irons. They can do with me what they wish." She looked out through the bars of the cage, at ground level. "I must kneel to them. I must be obedient. I must do what I am told." She looked down at me. "Yes," she said, "I, too, am a slave."
"We are all slaves," said Radish.
"I do not want to be a woman!" cried Sandal Thong suddenly, shaking the bars of the cage. She put her face against them, weeping.
"You weep like a woman," I said.
She spun to face me.
"Once," said I, "I did not wish to be a woman. Then I met men such as I had not dreamed could exist. They made me happy to be a woman. Never again would I have wanted to be anything else. My womanhood, though it puts me at the mercy of men, is now exquisitely precious to me. Among such men I would not trade my womanhood for anything in the world. Every girl has a master. It is only, Sandal Thong, that you have not yet met yours."
She looked at me, angrily, the bars in back of her.
"There is some man, Sandal Thong," I said, "whose sandals you would beg to untie with your teeth."
"If Thurnus would so much as look at me," she said, "I would crawl ten pasangs on my belly to lick the dust from his ankles."
"Thurnus, then," I said, "is your master."
"Yes," she said, "Thurnus is my master."
"What is your name?" asked Radish.
"Do you have a name?" had asked Thurnus of me, earlier.
"My former master, Clitus Vitellius, of Ar," I had said, "called me Dina."
"He thought so little of you?" asked Thurnus.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"It is a pretty name," he had said. "it is only that it is common."
"Yes, Master," I had said.
"I name you Dina," he said, putting the name on me, naming his animal. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Dina," I had said, "Master."
"What is your name?" asked Radish.
I smiled. "Dina," I said.
"Many girls with your brand are called Dina," said Turnip.
"I have heard that," I said.
"It is a pretty name," said Verr Tail. "Thank you," I said.
"It must be nice to have a girl's name," said Turnip.
I did not respond.
"I am Radish," said Radish. "I am Turnip," said Turnip. "I am Verr Tail," said Verr Tail.
Sandal Thong looked at me. "I am Sandal Thong," she said.
"Tal," I said to them.
"Tal," they said to me.
"You are first in the cage?" I asked Sandal Thong.
"Yes," she said.
"It will not be necessary to kick or beat me," I said. "I will obey you."
"We are all women. We are all slaves," said Sandal Thong.
"We are all under the whip," said Turnip.
"I have been hand whipped," I said. "But I have never felt the slave whip."
"Have you been a slave long?" asked Radish.
"No," I said.
"You are very pretty to have been free," said Turnip.
"I lived far away," I said.
"Your accent marks you as barbarian," said Sandal Thong.
"Yes," I said.
"Where did you live?" asked Verr Tail.
"A place called Earth," I said.
"I have never heard of it," said Turnip.
"Is it in the north?" asked Radish.
"It is far away," I said. "Let us not speak of it." How could I speak of Earth to them? I did not want them to think me mad, or a liar. Could they believe a world might exist where men, shouting political slogans, vied with one another to surrender their dominance, hastening gleefully to their own castration? Could such a world be welcomed by any save Lesbians, and men who were not men? Truth and political convenience, I thought, do not always coincide.
"Barbarian places are so dull," said Turnip. "Have you never been chained in Ar?"
"No," I said.
"I was sold once in Ar," she said. "It is a marvelous city."
"I am pleased to hear it," I said. Clitus Vitellius, I knew, was of Ar.
"It is strange that you have never felt the slave whip," said Turnip.
I shrugged.
"Perhaps she was too pretty to whip," said Turnip.
"I think it is always the ugly girls who are whipped," said Verr Tail.
"That is not true," said Radish.
"I would suppose," I said, "that any girl, beautiful or not, if she needs a whipping, would be whipped by her master." It surprised me that I, an Earth girl, had said this. Yet, why should a girl who needs a whipping not be whipped, if she has a Gorean master?"