The sky was very bright, and very blue. In it billowing clouds scudded like speeding fleets. The air of this world is very clear, and rich.
At the far side of the large area, away from the door, near the outer circumference of the circle, was a stone dais, reached by some three steps, on the top of which was a thronelike chair.
I crawled forward, slightly in advance of the jailer, who, the leash in his hand, was to my left.
“Stop,” he said, softly.
I stopped.
There were only a few individuals on the terrace, and these were on, or near, the dais.
Their eyes were upon me.
I put down my head.
I wondered what was wanted of me.
The jailer then, to my surprise, removed the leash from my neck.
Perhaps he had received some sign from the dais to do so. I did not know.
I stayed there, on all fours, my head down.
What did they want of me?
I wondered if I were worthy enough to have been brought here.
Was I good enough? Would I prove to be satisfactory? My experience in the pens had suggested that I might do. I had been popular there, with most, if not with all, if not with one, in particular.
I trusted that those who had made this decision, to bring me here, knew their business. I hoped they knew their business. I did not want to die!
And there would be other women here, doubtless, women of this world. How would they view me? I gathered that they might view me as negligible, as far less then they, even if their own fair throats were enclosed in collars.
There was one woman besides myself on the terrace. She wore scarlet silk. She was well bejeweled. She was not veiled. Her face, like mine, was bared. Any might look upon it, as they pleased. She was on her knees, to the left of the thronelike chair. She was chained to it by the neck. On the other side of the thronelike chair, lying there, stretched out, indolently, its large, triangular head down on its paws, was one of the sex-legged beasts, one such as that I had met on the ledges. It was chained to the right side of the thronelike chair. As the beast was at the right hand of the thronelike chair and the woman only at the left, that signified, in this world, that she was less then it.
On the thronelike chair reclined a richly robed figure. His shoulders were of great breadth. His robes were largely of scarlet, liked with purple. He was strikingly handsome, and had large hands. On his feet were golden sandals; on his forehead was a golden circlet.
He gestured that I should rise, and I did so. I then stood some fifty feet, or so, before the dais.
He then indicated that I might remove the tunic from between my teeth. Gratefully I did so. I then held it in my right hand. It was very damp.
He then said something to one of the men standing near him. Among them was the soldier who had brought us here, but it was not he to whom he spoke.
I stood very well, naked before him. How different this was, the thought crossed my mind, from my old world. How far I was from the shops, the malls. I wondered how my old companions, Jean, and Priscilla, and Sandra, and Sally, might stand before such men, masters of women.
I think he was pleased with me. I was sure that he had commented favorably concerning me to his fellow on the dais. The woman to his left, she kneeling, chained by the neck to his chair, had not seemed much pleased. That was surely a point in my favor. She would not like me. I was sure of that. She was, even now, regarding me angrily. I did not like her, either. Let her watch out for herself, and her place on a chain! I hated her!
I considered the eyes of the men.
I stood even straighter, more gracefully.
“Slut,” said the woman.
I pretended not to hear. I gathered that she must be a high slave, and that she had a general permission to speak. To be sure, such a permission may be instantly revoked, at so little as a world. If men do not wish to hear us, we must be silent.
It seemed to me now that I could feel the interest of the men, reaching toward me, almost like heat, in waves of desire.
I now felt less frightened. I was now more confident that the slavers who had taken me may have known the business after all, at least as far as externals were concerned. I was such, it seemed, as might quite plausibly appear upon a slave block. And I wondered if only I, at that time, had known the “internals,” so to speak, of these matters, that I was such as would be fittingly placed on such a block, indeed, that I was such that I, in a sense, belonged on such a block. Could they have known that, as well, from some clues I was not even fully aware of? It seemed possible. How skilled were they? Doubtless quite skilled. And certainly determinations, made with merciless thoroughness in the pens, had clarified such matters beyond all doubt. And entries pertinent to these matters, I gathered, and had gathered originally to my dismay, for I had regarded such things as my closely guarded secrets, now appeared explicitly on my papers.
They man before me, regarded me, spoke again to some of those about him.
The collars were removed from the monstrous beast on his right, which yawned, and rose to its feet, and from the woman, on his left, who remained kneeling, close to the arm of the thronelike chair.
I was not too pleased to see that the beast was loose.
The others, however, did not seem alarmed.
The man then motioned to me, that I should approach. Timidly I began to do so. Then, suddenly, I stopped. I flung my hands before my face. I screamed. I could not move! The beast, descending lightly from the dais, had bounded toward me. It was now behind me, having circled about.
I took down my hands from before my face. I opened my eyes. I was still alive!
I heard some laughter. My terror had seemed to amuse them!
“Stupid girl,” said the woman.
There is a considerable difference between the killing charge of such a beast, direct, ferocious, energetic, savage, violent, ravening, once, after exploratory sallies, it initiates it, and this approach. But I knew nothing of these things. And I think that even one who is familiar with this world would find it quite alarming to be approached, even as I had been, by such an animal.
“Do not be afraid,” said the fellow on the thronelike chair.
I cast him a grateful glance.
“He will not kill you unless I tell him to do so,” he said.
I nodded, numbly.
“She knows little, I think, of our world,” said the jailer.
I saw glances exchange amongst some of the men near the chair.
“She is stupid,” said the woman.
I wondered then if the releasing of the beast, perhaps anticipating its curiosity, and its likely inquiry, had been a test of sorts, one assessing my familiarity with this world and its ways.
I shuddered.
I sensed the breath of the beast on my calves.
“Come closer,” invited the man on the dais.
I stopped, warned by his eyes, a few feet before the dais.
“Put aside the tunic,” he said, “and turn about, fully, slowly.”
I complied.
Then I was again facing him.
“Are you trained?” he asked.
“To some extent, Master,” I said. I suspected he must know this.
“Do you know where you were trained?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“Do you know where you are now?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“It is my understanding,” said he, “that you can move in fashions which may not be entirely without interest.”
I looked at him, frightened.
“But that is not inappropriate for what you are,” he said.
“No, Master,” I said.
“Move,” said he.
And swiftly then did I comply, much as I had done in the house from which I had been sold, before the agents, or buyers.
“Ah!” said a man.
One learns to display oneself, and well, as the merchandise one is. Much of what I did I had learned in the pens, but much, too, comes from within one. Some movements I had done as long ago as my old world, in the secrecy of my bedroom, before the mirror. Sometimes in the midst of such presentations, in effect, the dance of a woman as a woman, as herself, her true self, so brazen, so forward, so honest, and yet, too, so pathetic, so vulnerable, so needful, and, above all, so totally and utterably different from a man, I had abruptly wheeled away, weeping, crying out, in shame, frightened, miserable and confused that I, only one such as I, might be so desirable, so beautiful, and, for my world, so exquisitely and forbiddenly feminine, but then, later, I had returned to them, determinedly, unabashedly, accepting at last, even angrily, what I was in truth, and should be, a woman, a total woman, in all her moving, exciting variety, in all her richness, in all her vulnerability, in all her marvelousness.