I heard a swirl from a flute, the simple flute, not the double flute, and the quick pounding of a small tabor, these instruments now in the hands of Philebus' assistants. The slaves about the enclosure looked wildly at one another, frightened, yet terribly excited. Then, as startling as a gunshot, there was the sudden crack of a whip in the hand of Philebus. The girls cried out in fear, in their collars and scanty silks. Even Temione, near me, recoiled. It was a sound not unfamiliar to female slaves.
"Dora!" called Philebus.
Immediately one, of the girls, a sensuous, widely hipped, sweetly breasted slave, half walking, half dancing, to the music, swirled among the guests and then presented herself particularly before the burly fellow, moving before him, back and forth, facing him, turning about.
"Lana!" called Philebus, and Dora swirled away, twirling, from the center of the presentation area, to complete her circuit of the area, doing her best to evade the caresses and clutches of men, and then knelt, in the background.
The girl whom the burly fellow had consigned to the pleasure of his friend leaped to her feet and began her own circuit of the area, in much the same manner as her predecessor, Dora. She was an exciting, leggy wench, and the lightness of her silk, its brevity, and the partedness of her bodice, thanks to Philebus, left few of her charms to the imagination. She was the sort of woman who might initially be tempted to give a master a bit of difficulty, but I did not think that this difficulty would be such that it could not be easily remedied, and prevented from reoccurring, with a few blows of the whip. She looked well in her collar, and I had little doubt that, under proper discipline, she would be grateful, loving and hot in it.
"Aiii!" cried a fellow, saluting the beauty of the parading slave.
She postured seductively before him.
"How beautiful she is," said Temione.
"Aiii!" cried out another fellow.
But the burly fellow, with a laugh, and a movement of his goblet, dismissed her.
This time she hurried away, immediately, moving beautifully, among the men, in the circuit of slave display. She had not dallied an instant. She had been dismissed.
"Tula!" called Philebus, and another wench sprang to her feet.
Lana, her circuit completed, returned to the side of the fellow to whom the burly fellow had consigned her earlier. She was still his, by the will of another, until she would be released.
"Lina!" called Philebus. She was short-legged and plump, juicy, as it is said, with a marvelous love cradle. Such often make superb slaves. They commonly bring high prices in the markets.
"I am afraid," said Temione.
Lina blushed at the raucous commendations showered upon her. Then she, too, dismissed, swirled about, away from the center, and went to kneel in the back.
"Sucha!" called Philebus. She, too, was short, but very darkly complexioned. I suspected she might be a Tahari girl, or one from that region.
"Ina!" called Philebus. She was taller, and blond, perhaps from a village near Laura. Although she was blond, it was clear that slave fires had been ignited in her belly. I smiled. I did not doubt but what she, even though blond, would be as helpless now in the arms of a man as the most common of slaves.
"Susan!" called Philebus. Susan was a redhead.
The girl who had been across the burly fellow's knees had now been thrust to his right and she lay there in the dirt, watching the parade of slaves. She was breathless. Her eyes shone. The other girl, on the fellow's left, had risen to her hands and knees. She gasped. She seemed awestricken and excited. «Down» said the fellow to her. She then, and the other, curled close to him, one on each side, excitedly watching the self-presentations of the slaves. Each, from time to time, kissed at the burly fellow, as though to remind him that they, too, were about, and women, and ready.
"Jane!" called Philebus. Jane was a very shapely and curvaceous brunet. The names 'Susan' and 'Jane' are Earth-girl names, but this did not mean that these girls had to be Earth girls. Earth-girl names are commonly used on Gor as slave names. They may have been once from Earth, of course. However, even if that were the case, they were now naught but Gorean slave girls, properties, salable, tradable, and such, now only lascivious, uninhibited owned women, slaves. I mention that they may once have been from Earth because that is a real possibility, having to do with the slave trade. Ships of Kurii, as the evidence makes clear, regularly ply slave routes between Earth and Gor. That is why I mention that possibility.
"Jasmine, Feize!" called Philebus.
"I cannot present myself," wept Temione to me.
"Do you prefer the lash?" I asked.
"He scorns me, he holds me in contempt," she said. "He would laugh at me. He would ridicule and mock me! He threw me from him in disgust! He thinks of me as ugly, as fat, as stupid, as a she-sleen, as one who is not worth sleen feed, as one so ugly and disgusting that he would have me taken from his sight!"
"But now," I said, "you are a slave."
She looked at me, wildly.
"Temione!" called Philebus.
Instantly Temione, in a sensuous flash of beauty, was on her feet.
I gasped.
"Ah!" cried several of the men.
She was a slave, and totally!
She moved about, away and among the men, in her moment in the parade of slaves, on that dirt circuit among masters, Goreans, larls among men, uncrippled, unsoftened, untamed beasts, categorical, uncompromising owners of women, and she a woman, inutterably desirable and vulnerable, soft and beautiful, owned, such as they might have at their feet, among them!
"Aiii!" said a fellow.
But she had drawn back from him, as though fearfully, but yet in such a way that he was under no delusion that her wholeness, in his grasp, or in that of another, would yield untold pleasure.
I forced myself to look about.
The burly fellow had lowered his goblet.
Philebus himself seemed startled. I think he had not realized what he had owned, until then.
The kneeling girls in the back, too, watched, some rising up from their heels. They looked at Temione, and at one another. Some gasped. Some seemed startled, others stunned. It was as though they could not believe their eyes. They had not, until then, I gathered, no more than Philebus, nor I, suspected the depth and extent of the female, and slave, in Temione. Some of them tore open their silk, and squirmed on their knees, in the dirt, in need. Seeing how beautiful a woman could be, and how desirable, they, too, wanted so to writhe and move, and, in doing so, to bring themselves, too, to the attention of masters, that they might beg some assuagement for their needs of submission and love.
There was the sound of the flute and drum. There was the firelight, the men about, the enclosure, the Vosk in the background, the firelight and the slave.
"So beautiful," whispered a man.
"Gold pieces," said another man, appraising the luscious property slut.
"Yes, yes!" agreed another, excitedly.
She paused before me, in her circuit, her hands moving on her thighs, her shoulders and breasts moving.
I sipped paga. Then I dismissed her, with a small movement of my head.
She spun away.
Now she was approaching the burly fellow.
It was pleasant to observe her, the owned, collared, silked, barefoot beauty.
Then the slave stood before the burly fellow, her shoulders back, her head up, proud in her slavery, unabashedly exultant in it, her body seeming hardly to move, but yet revealing, and obedient to, as must be the body of a slave in the parade, the music.