Black Beauty Chapter Two Agent in Play

 

Black Beauty

by Peony D Beckside

Chapter Two: Agent In Play

 

I shall not regale you with details of my transportation, other than to say that the truck journey, while gagged, bagged and chained was itself a hellish experience.  Such typical transfers have been written of before, mine was doubtless little different..  I have apprised my Master of these writings.  He has indicated that he doesn’t want to be bored by repetition.  Similarly, much of my training was typical of other accounts of such.  I will however recount a few items that may surprise, or resonate with the readership that Master expects to read this journal.  Again, I write in the sense of ‘now’, as of such things happening as I write.

 

I awake in a cage, not dissimilar to the one that I had been placed in following my ‘interview’ with Udumi Ayeola, and subsequent whipping, before imprisonment.  I’m rather groggy.  I look around at the battery of similar cages.  Each has a woman in it.  I assume the same women as had been in the previous set of cages.  So far, I think that I’m the first to wake.

I feel a tightness at my throat.  Not enough to stop me breathing, but enough for me to be aware of it.  I reach up with my hands.  There’s a metal band circling my neck!  I try to remove it, but cannot.  I turn the band on my throat, feeling for a joining.  I feel four small nodes in the metal, staples I think; for attachments, I sense.  I find the joining, but also feel that there’s a tiny keyhole.  The band is locked on me!  At the front, I feel, incised into the metal, a group of odd squiggles.  I cannot make out what they represent.  I, however, have a horrible feeling about what it means.  Udumi had said that I would be a slave, a pleasure slave.

To the left, but within sight, two men sit cross-legged at a low table, apparently playing some kind of dice game.  They are not ordinary men.  At least, not like the men I’m used to seeing on the streets of the city.  No, they are much more like the men who’d been watching and following me prior to the interview with Udumi.

“Interesting set of tarsks this batch, don’t you think, Grobius?”

Strange!  I hear them talking in a strange language, but I understand them.  My ears hear the different gutturals and sibilants, but my mind hears it as English!  Being an American, and from the north of the country, I’ve never felt the need to learn a language other than the English I was brought up with.  Is this what it’s like for linguists?  Do they hear one language, and their brains translate it into their native language?

Tarsks?  That’s some kind of pig.  From context, I think they are talking about us, the imprisoned women.  How derogatory!  I’m rather insulted.

“Not a bad bunch, compared to some.  There’s a couple, I’d like chained to my sleeping dais.  If I asked, do you think that Lady Kelapina would give me a discount if I wanted to buy one?”

“Unlikely!  You know the Lady Kelapina.  It’s said that she has an abacus in place of her heart!”

“Yeah, you’re right.  Probably not even worth asking…”

“They say that barbarian women when tamed and trained make the most abject and exquisite slaves.  Total and utter sluts.”

“You could be right!  I had one at the Silken Chain a fortnight ago.  Hottest piece of ass, I’ve ever had!”

Now I really am annoyed!  How dare they say such things about Earth women, about us.  How can they generalize like this?

“It’s rather like they don’t get enough fucking, or good enough fucking until they get here.  When they do, they open up like a flower, becoming superb puta’s”

“Are there no men in barbarian lands?”

“The way I heard it put, is that there are males.  But they can hardly be called men.  They allow themselves to be bossed around by their women!”

“Shameful!”

“Yeah, Disgusting!”

Whilst astounded by their crudity, I wonder if they have a point.  I’m not a virgin, and those liaisons that I’ve had were pleasant and fun, there was no sense of fireworks going off, of ‘the ground moving under me’.

A tickle at the back of my throat causes me to cough.

“Hello, the cattle are waking…”

The two rise and stroll in my direction.

Cattle!?  Is that all we are to them!?

“Are you hungry, kajira?”

I speak without thinking.

“Hey Mister.  What am I doing in this cage?  Let me out!  I shouldn’t be here!  I’m not a slave.  You can’t do this to me!”

“Is it my imagination, Frankell, that all barbarians are so stupid?  They all seem to spill this bosk-shit.  It’s almost as if they don’t know how to behave.  As though there are no slaves where they come from?”

“Yes, you’re right, Grobious.  They do seem incapable of recognising their change of status, at least at first.  A bit of training and the judicious application of the lash and they learn soon enough.”

“There aren’t…  Masters.”

I’m amazed at my own temerity.  My use of the word ‘Masters’ is also almost an afterthought.  The two men look at one another in puzzlement.

“What, kajira?  Aren’t what?”

“There are no slaves on Earth, Masters.”

I gloss over the fact that working conditions in many Asian and other countries are little more than slavery.  The agricultural ‘gangmasters’ are effectively ‘owners’.  Prostitutes seem to ‘belong’ to their pimps.  In the Middle-East most women are simply baby-making factories, for the purpose of creating ‘boy’ children where possible.  Even in the so-called developed world, most companies only pay their workers the minimum they can get away with.  Those workers being nicknamed ‘wage-slaves’.

Both men laugh uproariously.

“Good joke, kajira!  Try to take us for fools again, though, and you will be caressed by the five fingers of leather.”

I take him to mean I will be whipped.  I remember my first such whipping.  I shudder in fear.  I don’t want to suffer that experience again, thank you.

“No, Masters.”

They just can’t grasp the concept at all.

“Grobious, can you imagine a land without slaves?  Who’d do all the heavy work?  Men’d rarely get any sex, if there weren’t slave-girls.  You know how cold free-women are.”

Grobious laughs again.

“Naah, not possible.  Such a community would fall apart, break up from within.  A load of sleen-shit, clearly!  At least the kajira gave us a laugh!”

I hear movement from some of the other cages.  The men wander off to examine the other women as they awake.

 

Each of us is taken from our cage in order.  Our wrists are handcuffed behind us; braceletted they call it.  Once braceletted, we are chained together in a line.  A chain running from a small staple at the back of the collar of the woman ahead of me to a similar staple at the front of my collar, and another chain similarly running from the back of my collar to that at the front of the next woman’s collar.  I am close to the end of the chain.  ‘Coffle’!  Suddenly I remember the collective noun for a group of chained people.  I’m in a coffle!

“Starting with your left foot, you will walk slowly.  Time enough for you to learn to run in coffle.”

Yes, I am right in that.  Actually, it’s in my head where I’m hearing the word ‘coffle’.  What is coming out of the mouth of the man is it’s equivalent in the language here.  In my head, both the English word and the new word are effectively one and the same.  Not interchangeable, strangely.  Whilst one could theoretically use the English word in the language being spoken, one can’t unless being asked what the English equivalent of the word ‘coffle’, and vice versa.  At least that’s the sense that I have.  I suspect that these rough men will have little patience with us using English at all, let alone some kind of ‘mix and match’ patois.

After traversing several dark and dank corridors, we arrive at a well lit room.  The room is warm, almost hot.  There is the smell of hot metal, like a forge or smithy.  Being at the back of the chain, I cannot see what’s happening at the front.  I think that the first girl is being taken from the chain.  What’s happening to her, I can’t tell.  I suddenly hear her cry out, entreating, begging even.

“No!  Please!  Don’t!  Not that!  Not to me.  I’ll do anything you want, but please no.  Pleease…”

I hear a slapping sound.  I think she’s been cuffed across the face.

“Silence!  The next word from any of you and you will all be whipped!”

The silence is absolute!  I wonder if all the rest have felt the lash, as I have.

After a period of perhaps only ten seconds, the woman screams loudly and shrilly.  I wonder with increasing horror, what can have caused this.  The shuffling of the other women shows their equal disquiet.  The woman is sobbing piteously now.  There is the sound of more chains rattling.  Is the next woman being taken from the coffle?  In only a few seconds, she too howls in apparent horror or agony.  She too is crying.

By now, I’m terrified!  What are they doing to the women?  What are they going to do to me!?  I can’t believe that I’ll be exempted from what’s happening to the others.  Despite decades of legislation, we dark skinned people are still treated as second-class citizens.  I can’t help it that I have become habituated to being treated worse than the ‘honky’s’, the white folk. If they are doing this to white women, why would I be favoured by being treated better?  I know intellectually, that this is a different place, a different world, different rules and assumptions, or so I believe, but that doesn’t stop me from fearing the worst.  Well, not the absolute worst, as the women are still alive.  But what has been done to them to engender such screams of agony?

The woman ahead of me is removed from the chain.  I can now see what’s to be done to us, to me, next.

The woman ahead is almost dragged to a a strange kind of vertical rack.  The men don’t remove the bracelets from her wrists, though I do see hanging wrist shackles pendent from the rack, should the men want to utilise such.  The woman’s left thigh is placed just so, as one of the men turns a spoked wheel.  Wooden blocks trap her leg, holding it perfectly still.

There is one man there who wears a heavy leather apron.  He, it is, that using a heavy mitt, pulls from a bed of hot coals, a metal stick with a red-hot head on it.  A branding iron!  They’re branding us!  They are going to brand me.  I almost faint in terror.  I can’t stop myself from uttering a low cry.  I want to beg, to entreat, to supplicate them, not to do this to me.  I stop myself in time.  I remember the threat to have us all whipped if anyone says a single word.  It would be a worse punishment than being branded if because of me, the others were whipped.  I can’t conceive of what they would do to me, in revenge!  Fortunately those ahead of me had managed to hold their tongues.  I, and all of us, just hope that those behind have sufficient control to do the same.

The woman attached to the rack screeches, just as the previous women had.  I see on her thigh a small, but delicate, raw-red mark.  I cannot see the detail, given the distance that I am from the branding rack.  The woman is released from the rack, in tears.  She is taken over to the already-branded women and re-coffled.  It is my turn now!  I struggle for all I’m worth as the men convey me to the rack.  Why?  I don’t know?  Where can I run to?  I’m back braceletted.  I don’t know where the room door is, let alone the layout of what’s beyond.  It just seems right that I should struggle, try to stop this horrible thing happening to me.  A thought, a reminder, forces its way into my brain.  It’s a line from one of the Gor books, to the effect that for a slave, there is no escape, nowhere to run to.

My thigh is now locked firmly in the branding rack.  The remainder of the thought comes to me.  One may change one’s collar, one’s owner, but the brand is forever.  One cannot escape it, or the implication of it.  Once branded, I will be a slave forever.  I feel the heat as the red-hot iron approaches my thigh.  There’s absolutely nothing that I can do to stop the mark being applied to my body.

I shriek at the top of my lungs.  Excruciating is a totally inadequate word to describe the pain in my thigh!  The agony insinuates itself deep into my soul.  I thought I knew what pain was, from childhood cuts and scrapes.  Even the whipping I’d received in the cellar beneath the Steel World building pales into insignificance compared to the searing hellish torment of the brand.  The pain seems to last an eternity, but suddenly it begins to ebb.  It still hurts abominably, but the burn is gone.  I look down at the mark, taking in the full significance of it.  I am branded!  Like a cow, I’m marked.  I’m effectively an animal, for only animals are branded!  That true realisation is inescapable and has a new and terrible dreadfulness.  It has burned away everything that I feel, I consider to be me, myself.  I am nothing more or less than a piece of property, an asset, livestock, a chattel!

I am released from the branding rack and dragged over to the newly formed coffle, where I am secured as before.  The only difference being that we are sat on what appears to be a bench.  I still my sobs.  I cannot really see the detail of my brand.  I shake my head to remove the tears from my eyes and look again.  The mark looks rather like a letter ‘K’; The upright firm and uncompromising, the right-facing out-thrusts curling away delicately and artistically.  Yes, I see it now.  K for kajira, or female slave.  There’s a difference between reading of such in a book and experiencing it for oneself.  I don’t want to admit it, but I am now a slave-girl, a kajira.  Whether I wish to be or not is irrelevant.  The matter is, and has been, out of my hands.  I have been made into a slave, at the will of another, specifically Udumi Ayeola!  I wonder if I will ever get even, get revenge upon her.  The chances of us meeting again are slim.  She’s on one planet and I another.  I resolve that I will not do what she wants of me.  That will be my revenge.  I wonder though if I will be able to hold to that resolve.  Remembering her threat to feed me, slowly, to a sleen.  Yes, I remember from the books, what a sleen is, though I’ve not yet seen one.

There’s another scream.  I barely hear it, so wrapped up in my thoughts am I.  It’s not long before the branding is done, the new coffle formed.

Working from both ends the men attach to the staple at the front of each of our collars, a little disk with a series of squiggles on them.  The squiggles that I see on the disks of the others should mean nothing to me, but though the form is different to what I knew on Earth, it seems again strangely that when I see these particular squiggles, I know that they are numbers and that I can read those numbers.  I cannot, of course see my own disk for the jut of my chin.  The disk is not dissimilar to those that, on Earth we would attach to the collar of a cat or a dog!

“Listen, slaves…”

I want to ignore him, but I know that I dare not.

“… you are now the property of the slave-trading house of Diamandis.  You no longer have a name.  Your past names are no-more.  They no longer belong or apply to you.  Until you are sold and your new Master gives you a name, the only name you will have, is a number, the number on the tag attached to your collar.  Do not attempt to remove the tag from your collar.  If you are found without such a tag, you will be whipped, or perhaps even killed.”

I shudder at the thought of either.

“I am aware that you cannot as yet read.  You will be told your number.  Remember it!  You will not be reminded.”

I’m not sure that he’s correct in that, at least not for me.  I can read, or at least read the numbers on the tags of the others.

The man goes down the line, talking to each girl.  Girl?  Where did that come from?  Before we were branded, I thought of the others as women.  Now they are in my mind ‘Girls’.  On Earth to describe a grown woman as a ‘girl’ is demeaning, mildly at best, and a definite insult at worst.

He comes to me.  He’s speaking naturally enough in Gorean.

“You are ‘Five Seven Two.  Repeat”

“I am Five Seven Two, Master”

He moves on.  With my wrists still fastened, I cannot see the tag, to compare the squiggles that confirm my  number as ‘572’.  Even when I can, with the tag below my chin, I’ll need to use a mirror to see the written form of my number.  In my brain, I just know that Gorean is written ‘left to right’ as English is; at least for the first line.  Thereafter it gets weird.  The writing becomes right to left, then left to right again, ad infinitum.  We have all been subliminally taught to speak and understand Gorean, but it would seem that with the exception of myself, not to read or write it.  I won’t need that whoever comes to own me will have to teach me.  I at least seem to know enough to function in an environment that’s so culturally different from what I’ve known in the past.  Why have I been given, subliminally taught, more than the other girls?

 

We are being taught to do things to and for men that are shaming, immoral, quite repugnant.  One of the women in the training group bravely asserts:

“They are training us to be whores!”

She uses the English word ‘whores’, as there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent in Gorean.  It’s surprising how many concepts can be ‘lost in translation’, but then there are many others in Gorean that just don’t translate into English or other Earth languages.

Our trainer though not a barbarian, i.e. an Earth person, has an excellent understanding of English and Earth culture.  She’s a slave too, but at a much higher level than us.  She has a switch, a stick, and the authority to use it on us!  It’s an effective incentive to work hard at learning what she is teaching.

“So, 563…”

“… My understanding of the word ‘Whore’ is that of a woman who takes money for having sex with a man?”

“Yes, Mistress”

“A free-woman?”

“Yes, Mistress.  There are no slave girls on Earth”

There probably are, if a man is rich enough and knows where to find such.

“Nevertheless, she is free?  Free to go where she wishes, do what she wants, free to accept or decline offers of money for sex?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Then how is it that you are being trained to be whores?  A whore is a thousand times more exalted than you.  You will be hot squirming sluts, having no choice about when, how, where, or who you will be used by.  You will be superb for each and every man that takes you, or you will be punished.  There is no comparison, no similarity, other than perhaps the skills that you will learn.  Any future such presumption will result in serious punishment, is that clear to you all?”

The chorus of ‘Yes, Mistress’, is clear and unequivocal.

 

I am in a large cage.  The lighting is strong.  We cannot hide any of ourselves.  We have a number marked on our breast.  A lot number, I think.  This is, I understand, the viewing area of a slave auction house.  We are, I gather to be auctioned tomorrow.  We wear no make-up.  We are naked.  We are displayed as we are, so that prospective purchasers can see us in a natural state.  So they cannot say that we are not what they thought we were.  I understand that we will be made-up and attired for the auction block, tomorrow afternoon.

There are some fifty of us spaced out along an ankle chain.  We can move forward and back a little, but not side to side much.  We can reach through the bars in supplication.  Indeed it is expected of us.  We  must do or say whatever we can to interest the visitors enough that they will attend the auction and bid for us.  We have been taught a rote phrase to say:’Buy me, Master!’  Some variation on this is permitted as long as the intent is essentially the same.  Those girls who attempt to remain silent, or who do not seek to interest the potential buyer keenly enough find that they are switched by the cage supervisor; who is one of those having trained us.

The switch is painful.  I put every effort that I can into being as sexy, as lascivious as I can for those viewing us.  I freight every utterance that I make with an innuendo of being the perfect slave for anyone viewing me.  In truth, it’s not just fear of the switch that makes me do so.  All of those men viewing us are young, strong, and fit.  It would seem that there are very few old people on Gor.  The stabilisation serums of the Physicians have seen to that.  Even we slaves have been given such.  A gift that would be beyond price back on earth!  Whilst a vastly extended life expectancy is appealing, I wonder if, many years down the road, especially as a slave, it won’t become onerous.  Suffice it to say that whilst not all of the men are handsome, there are no obvious ‘toads’.  Indeed, the majority of them are ‘interesting’ enough for my nipples to harden, my pussy to dampen.  Begging such men to buy me, then is a desire, not an obligation.  I’d gladly be owned by any of them.  What am I saying!  I don’t want to be owned at all!  In my heart though, I know that option is not available to me.  I will be owned.  I will be a slave, whether I like it or not.  If it’s inevitable, then to be owned by a handsome Master, and preferably a rich one, is surely for the best, and something to aspire to.  I put my all into interesting each and every one of those that look at me.

The man enters the enclosure where the cage is situated.  My breath catches in my throat!  I know him!  I don’t know who he is.  I’ve never seen him before, but I somehow know him!  How can that be?  He is the most gorgeous man that I have ever seen!  I want him!  I want him in me!  I want to be fucked by him!  I want to be owned by him!  My nipples are as hard as I ever remember them being.  My pussy feels like someone’s turned a faucet[1] on.  The pupils of my eyes must have dilated to their widest possible. I am his!  I will always be his, whether he buys me or not!  Love?  ‘Love at first sight’? Yes, I think so; I know so!  Is he my perfect Master, my Love-Master?  I hope so!  I believe so!

The man wears a yellow toga-like robe.  He’s a builder.  A member of the caste of Builders.  How do I know that?  Caste affiliations, rights and responsibilities, or the colourings associated with such, were not discussed in our training.  We were trained to be the perfect household and sex-toy for any man, irrespective of caste or home-stone[2].  Ah, yes.  Udumi Ayeola had mentioned that yellow is the colour of the Builders.  I reach through the bars, not waiting for him to notice me, to look at me.  I must attract his attention.

“Kind and wonderful Master, this slave begs and prays for you to own her and take her. It would be the very pinnacle of her life.  She will be better than perfect for you, in every possible way.  She would prostrate herself before you if she were able.  Buy me Master!  Please, I beg it!”

Yes, doubtless such abject fawning is utterly nauseating to you, kind reader, but that is truly what I felt at the time, before this man.

“If my beauty, my desire to serve you, my need for you, is not enough, then I can be more!  I can aid you in your work.  I have some training in the skills of the Builders, Master.  I know much about compression failures, tensile loading, Heat expansion and contraction, Master.  I want to aid you in every way!  Please buy me.”

“Impudent Slut!”

What have I done?  I’m horrified.  I’ve blown it, somehow!  I know I have!  I’ve lost my Love!  Lost my chance to be owned by this wonderful man.  But for all that there is another disquiet in my soul.  In addition to my fear that I have failed to interest this marvellous man, this perfect Master, there is a warning bell sounding at the back of my mind.  It’s so faint that I can barely hear it, but it is definitely there.  It’s strange.  This man is magic, the perfect Master in every way for me, yet part of me is trying to say that this situation is WRONG,  That my infatuation is just that.  That my feelings for this man are too good, unreal, unrealistically good.  I cannot pin-down why I should have this niggling little doubt.  How can I have any doubt whatsoever, in the face of the perfection of this man as my love-master?

Those women on either side of me shrink away as much as their chains allow.  They too can see that I’ve ‘overstepped the mark’.  The guard, hearing this man’s irritation hurries forward.

“Good sir, the slave forgets herself.  I will have her whipped at once!”

“No, I have a better idea.”

The guard smiles as he listens to the man I so desperately want as Master.

“We should make the punishment fit the crime.  She claims to know about tensile stresses.  Let us make sure that she truly does.  Until the end of the day, hang her from her wrists, and add a weight to her feet.  About five stone[3], should be about right.  We want her to feel it, but not to dislocate her shoulders.”

I should have learned from my previous gaffe to keep my mouth shut, but no! I have to add fuel to the fire

“Yes, Master!  Thank you Master!  I have truly erred, Master!  I rush to my punishment, Master”

Yes, good readers, I meant it.  I wanted to be punished in this or any other manner that the man wished.  You see how smitten, how enamoured, how enraptured, how besotted I was, by him.  His punishment, no matter how awful would be a blessing, a boon.  It was fitting, right, deserved and appropriate.

“In plain sight of the other slaves, guard.  Let her be a warning to them to be respectful to potential buyers.  Make it seven and a half stone[4].”

“Yes, sir, it shall be done.”

The builder leaves.  I am heartbroken.  The only thing stopping me from wanting to die, is that I am to be sold at auction tomorrow.  There is still hope, a tiny flickering one, that this man may attend the auction and bid on me.

The guard opens the cage, releases me from the ankle chain.  He does not need to drag me from the cell.  Even though I probably will never now be owned by the Builder, I gladly go to my punishment.  I stand still as the metal shackles are attached to my wrists.  I am raised off the ground by some kind of winch.

The tug of my body weight dragging on my wrist-bones is not problematical, but I fear that as the day wears on, it will become so.  The guard applies shackles to my ankles, and to these adds a leaden ball.  Cruelly, he drops the ball suddenly.  I shriek!  Recalling an old Earth torture device, I suspect that the streak of pain that passes through my body would be similar to what it would like to be on the Rack.

After the initial agony of the dropped weight, I soon realise the fiendishness of my punishment  I am not yet in pain as such, but the strain on the muscles and sinews of my body is constant.  I feel it most keenly in my backbone, though arms and legs too protest sufficiently for me to be unable to ignore the stretching effect.  The strain on my body is unrelenting.  It insinuates itself into my mind, making it impossible for me to ignore it.  It is not pleasant at all!

At a certain point, I can no longer stifle a groan.  I feel a slash of fire across my back.  I know full well the feel of a lash, from my first taste of them, back on Earth.

“Quiet, slut!”

I yelp, but subsequently obey.  It seems that I can stifle my cries, after all.  I’ve no wish to add to my torment with a full-scale flogging.

My head hangs forward in weariness, but strangely my body is alive.  My pussy is leaking.  How can such be, I ask myself.  I’m not a masochist.  I do not get pleasure, sexual or otherwise from suffering.  The only thing that makes sense to me, is that having been thinking of my Master;  I still think of him as such even though he isn’t legally so, what is ‘turning me on’ is that he is sufficiently strong as to be able to prescribe such a torment as I’m presently suffering.

I can find no resentment in my heart against him.  Indeed, it’s almost as if my misery is a gift to him. I exist in a world balanced between sublime unfulfilled sexual need and the dire awfulness of muscular  torment.  Pain becomes pleasure, pleasure becomes pain.  Perhaps this is masochism after all?

Time has slowed down to virtual stasis.  This paradise-nightmare just goes on and on.  It is perpetual.  It is unbearable, yet since I can do nothing to stop it, I must suffer it, bear it.  Hence, since I cannot but bear it, it isn’t unbearable.  Yes, my predicament is making my thinking woolly and incoherent.

I am being lowered!  The tension goes from my body.  I feel a similar streak of agony through my body, as when the guard had dropped the lead weight.  I can only assume that it’s my muscles contracting back to their normal position.  I am on the edge of unconsciousness.  The only thing stopping me from succumbing to that blessed oblivion is the indescribable anguish of blood circulation returning to my dead blue hands.  I cannot stop myself from crying in pain.

The guard half-carries me back into the cage, re-fastening the chain-attached shackle to my ankle.  He gives some kind of liniment to the two girls next to me, and instructs them to minister to me.  Despite the sting of the liniment. The hands of these two slave-sisters are miraculous.

 

By morning I am recovered enough to think critically.  There is no need to dwell on yesterday’s punishment.  It’s done, been and gone.  My only regret being that the man that I adored so much, to use a crudity, the most ‘pussy-wetting’ man I’ve ever seen had turned his back on me and walked away.  To use an Earth phrase, “There’s no point in crying over spilt milk”.  I must turn away.  I must try to make myself positively desirable to and desirous to serve a new Master.  To practicalities then.  I might not want to be a slave, to be legally owned, but in this place I already am.  What’s the difference between being owned by a slaving house and being owned by an individual.  Since I can do nothing about my legal status, or lack of it, then I must embrace a future ownership.  It’s an obvious concept that the more a Master has to pay for me, then the more that he wants ME, not someone else.  Also, the Slave House will be happier, the more money they make from my sale.  One thing that’s only just dawning on me is that here on this planet they do not have the same likes or dislikes over racial characteristics as on Earth.  My genetic heritage of black skin, big bottom and fat lips, so abhorrent to the white folk on Earth, does not seem to put off the men of Gor.  During training, I had seen how the men followed me with their eyes.  I am desired as much as any other in my training group.  Indeed, our trainer had mused that a beauty like me would probably fetch a good price.  At the time I’d been scandalised to be considered a thing, something that could be bought and sold.  Secretly however, I’d appreciated her compliment.

Yes, I am ready, I think.  Tomorrow, no later tonight, I will be owned by a Master,  Somebody new.  Yes, it will take a short while to find out his preferences, his likes and dislikes in all manner of things.  Yes, the onus is on me to adjust myself, my preferences, my likes and dislikes, my very sense of who and what I am to his.  He will be my MASTER, my owner.  One doesn’t expect the owner of of a bosk[5] to adjust to the needs of the bosk.  The bosk is there for the purposes of the Master, not the master there for the purposes of the bosk!  My one fear is of being bought by a woman.  A free-woman by definition, since a slave can own nothing.  Whether the guards in the Slave House want it or not, we slaves, yes, I have to accept that is what I am now, we do gossip.  The horror stories told by those who’ve in the past been owned by a woman are terrifying.  Often a free-woman will whip a slave for even so much as glancing at a man!  Forget any chance of sex, at all.  Unless of course our use is given to a male visitor as a courtesy.  Not something that’s common.

I think also, that because the men prefer to visit the sluts at a paga[6] tavern rather than make love to the free-woman.  The free-woman therefore often taking out their frustrations upon the slave.

On the whole then, I’m looking forward to my sale.   Not without some trepidation.  All new experiences, all uncertainties engender a certain amount of fear.  It’s how one handles that fear which matters.  I see in most of the others who trained alongside me, a greater fear than I seem to have.  Or is that an illusion?  What they see in me, how I appear from the outside I cannot know.  In recent weeks I have, I think come to a new understanding of myself.  A new appreciation of my own beauty, and hence what price I might be sold for.  That those men in the Slave House seem to see that beauty in me, not conditioned as the men of Earth are to see beauty only in terms of white skin.  It helps my vanity to know that I am a ‘rather gorgeous piece of slave flesh’.  Yes, as a slave, I shall be the lowest of the low.  What I have to do, I might not wish to, but I shall do whatever I can to make myself the very best slave that I can be.  I shall try to be a wonder for whoever it is that buys me.

Many men come to the display cages this morning.  I try to interest every one of them.  I try to ooze sex-appeal.  Not the shallow thing that the term evokes back on Earth, but real desire to be owned by one or other of them.  I beg abjectly to them.

“BUY me, Master!”

“Buy ME, Master!”

“Buy me, MASTER!”

Whatever inflection I put on these rote phrases, that I think will work for each of the viewers.  I now know that I must not be too importunate.  Look what it got me yesterday!  It was strange, why did I so try to throw myself at the gorgeous man who’d so effected me.  The very thought of him, though, sends shivers of desire through me.  I daydream that he will come again today to look at me again, to appraise me again, to see if I’m worth bidding upon.  I know that it’s only a daydream, but it excites me.  Perhaps that excitement, that arousal, communicates itself to the other potential buyers.  Certainly several seem to want to examine me.  I hear the Earth words, ‘slut’, ‘trollop’, ‘whore’, ‘tramp’, ‘tart’ up and down the communal chain.  I don’t care.  The ones so speaking, are clearly jealous of my burgeoning sexuality.  They are the ones who have not yet fully realised the implications of their current predicament, not accepted that they are no more than slaves.  I predict that their own stiffness of attitude and body, will work to their disadvantage on the sales ‘block’.  If the Slave House is disappointed in how much each sells for, there may be punishments for such ‘rigid’ slaves.

 It’s Midday,  The tenth Ahn, as it is called here.  The gates to the courtyard, around which, the slave cages cluster, close.  There are no more prospective buyers ogling us caressing us.

We are ushered into a series of preparation rooms.  We are bathed, perfumed, made-up, costumed and re-chained.  The process takes all afternoon for every one of us to be ready for tonight’s sale.  We cannot see what is going on in the auction hall.  We can however hear a general hubbub as people arrive and take their places.  There are calls from person to person, greetings and good natured curses.  Among us slaves there is a tension.  We have not been fed, and have been given little water.  Though we have been able, nay encouraged to use the latrine, the auctioneers clearly don’t want us disgracing ourselves from fear.

I think that I’m one of the most calm here.  I have, I believe, worked out my own terrors.  For me, a new life begins tonight.  I can embrace it wholeheartedly or I can be dragged into it cringingly.  I know which I prefer.  If it takes being a total and abject slut, then so be it.  I shall be that slut.  I will co-operate with the auctioneer, even go beyond.  Just as two opera singers will sing the same song differently, stressing different parts of the song, I shall figuratively and if necessary, thrust myself to the audience.  I remember a tip told me once by a lecturer.  Choose a point in the hall and play to that point, as if talking to just one person there.  Where necessary to move around the stage, I shall choose multiple such points.

The auction begins!  The first girl is thrust up the five steps onto the wooden block.  She’s clearly hesitant.  The auctioneer has little patience.  I hear a yelp.  The girl has doubtless been switched.  The auctioneer’s patter is fast.  He briefly instructs the slave as to how to move.  There are shouts, doubtless bids from the audience.  There is no knock as of the banging of a gavel at Gorean slave auctions.  The simple closing of the auctioneer’s hand into a fist being the sign of the closing bid being accepted.  For us then, it is only the inexorable movement towards the block that tells of the progress of the auction.  I am in the latter half of the chain, so there is a considerable wait.  All too soon though, I am removed from the chain and thrust up the steps onto the stage.  The steps are well-worn.  I wonder idly and briefly just how many slaves have been sold from this block over the years.

I am suddenly up there.  The block is very well lit.  I remember my plan, my intention.  I slink forward as if I am a dangerous panther.  I feel sawdust under my naked feet.  The yellow silk of my tunic shines brightly  I cannot see anyone in the audience.  The amphitheatre is in darkness.  I hear the auctioneer.

“What have we got here then?  The barbarian Alvita, though you can call her what you like…”

There are ribald comments from the ‘pit’.  I can’t help but laugh.  The auctioneer smiles.

“...She wears yellow.  Are there any Builders in the audience tonight? Wouldn’t you like to have such an ebony beauty sand your staff?”

There’s laughter from a section of the audience.  I wonder if the choice of my tunic colour is deliberate.  Not just does yellow flatter a black skin, but I’m being marketed to the section where the builders are congregating.  A moment of hope surges through me.  Is the gorgeous Builder in the audience tonight?  I select that part of the hall where he might just be.  I squelch any real expectation.  What am I bid?

“One copper tarsk bit!”

Everyone laughs.  It’s a joke.  I know little of Gorean monetary values, but I know that a copper tarsk bit is the smallest coin in general circulation in most cities.

“Be realistic please, citizens!”

“Fifteen copper tarsks!”

“Of special interest to the Builders, this one!. In barbarian lands, Alvita was trained in much of the skills and knowledge of construction.  She can be useful in practical matters as well as a joy in your furs!”

“Forty copper tarsks!”

“Nadu, Alvita.”

I flow as gracefully as I can into this sexually alluring, but by Earth moralities, obscene kneeling position.

The auctioneer reels off a series of instructions.  I glide from one position to the next effortlessly. Where is this grace coming from?  Even in training I’ve never moved so fluidly.  I hear hisses of appreciation.  I begin to feel arousal.  Yes, right there on the block, I feel so sexy, so needful.

“Five silver tarsks”

“Disrobe.”

I do so a gracefully as I am able.

“Seven”

“Nine!”

There’s a lull in the bidding.  I’m standing now, legs apart.  I’m not expecting it, but the auctioneer flicks his whip up between my legs.  The thongs impact gently between my lower lips.  I spasm with a cry.  I should be so ashamed at such a blatant demonstration of my need, but I can’t be.

“One gold piece!”

There is a gasp from the audience.  I know nothing of the value of gold on Gor, but clearly this is an extraordinary bid.  The auctioneer seems as stunned as the audience.  His voice has an edge of awe

“I have a bid of one gold piece.  Are there any more bids?”

It’s clear he doesn’t expect a higher bid.  He raises his hand and closes it into a fist.  I am sold!  I have a new Master!  One of the auctioneer’s assistants conducts me off the stage and down a second set of steps, attaching me to another chain.  For some reason, on this side of the block, we can’t hear what’s happening on the block or from the audience.  The girl next me asks.

“How much did you go for?”

“A gold piece!”

She tuts.

“I don’t believe you.  Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.  You aren’t the daughter of an Ubar[7].  Whilst you aren’t bad looking, you don’t qualify as a stunner.  You are not a gold-piece girl!”

I consider remonstrating.  It’s not worth the hassle.  I simply shrug.

 

The auction is over.  The hubbub dies down.  Some of those free men and women who’ve bought slaves come to the payment kiosk and subsequently into an enclosure where we, their property, kneel.  Our heads are lowered in obeisance.  We are forbidden to raise our heads.  Those Masters not collecting their auction winnings this evening, have we understand, two days to do so.  I do not know where I will sleep tonight.  I may very well not get any sleep at all, if my new Master wishes to use me for his pleasure this night.  There are feet in front of my face.  A man’s feet, sandalled as seems the common footwear in this city..  Is this my new Master?  The guard speaks.

“You may look up, slave.  Gaze on your owner, your Master.”

I do so!  A cry escapes my lips unbidden.  A shriek of joy!  It is HE.  The builder who’d had me punished in the display cages.  I bury my head in the leather of his sandals.  I don’t know why I have this overwhelming urge to do so.  My lips joyfully kiss his feet.  My tears of happiness wet his feet.  I grasp my hair and use it to dry the feet of my Master.

“Kneel up.”

I comply readily.  My eyes are still damp with emotion, that it should be this man that has bought me.

“Your name is ‘Vita’.

“Yes, Master!  Thank you for the boon of a name.”

“Worthless grovelling slut!”

“Yes, Master!  Worthless!  Lower than the dust beneath your sandals, Master!”

I say this, abasing myself gladly before him.  Inside I beam.  I’m not truly worthless.  On one level I am, but on a more practical level, I am not.  That’s one thing about being a ‘sold’ girl.  To my Master, monetarily I am worth what he was prepared to pay for me.  Whether my Master would be able to sell me for what he paid for me, is moot.  He wanted me, one gold-piece worth.  I am therefore worth that sum, and now must make sure that I am worth Master’s expectations.  I must be absolutely marvellous to him, in the furs and in every other way.

Even though I adore the very ground that this man walks on, I am again assailed by the strange sensation that this is not how things should be.  It is not a conscious thing, for if it were, it would be that I was judging him.  I cannot judge him, legally as a slave I cannot, morally I cannot, emotionally I do not wish to and hence cannot.  It’s almost as if my conscience is acting as a warning sign, but I don’t know why.

“My name is Castartius.  Remember the name of your Master.”

Somehow, I knew that it would be so.  Before being told, I could not have said what his name is, but having been told, suddenly it seems as if I already knew.  But how could I?  I’d never seen him before yesterday morning, and even then his name was not mentioned.  This is definitely ‘Twiglet zone’[8] territory.

The guard hands my Master a piece of cloth with something solid wrapped in it.

“For our most valued clients, this auction house gives this small gift upon the purchase of your slave.”

“Thank you good sir.  Please pass my thanks on to the management of the house.”

“I will.”

The man examines the gift, throwing the piece of cloth to me.

“Put it on.”

It is a brief tunic of the finest slave-silk.  It barely covers my breasts, my pubis, my bottom.  I’m almost more naked than naked in this travesty of a dress.  I thank my Master profusely.

Master examines the other object.

“You’ve engraved it already?”

“As soon as it was known who had purchased this item.”

He points at me.  Yes, of course.  That’s all I am now to the auction house, an item, a sold item.  My master opens up the side pieces of the collar in his hand and presents it to my neck, closing the device with a deep meaningful click.  It’s said that a girl never forgets the sound of her collar being locked on her throat.  I shall never forget it.

From a small ring at the front centre of the collar hangs a short chain leash.  Master takes hold of this, as the guard goes behind me.  I feel the removal of the collar of the house of Diamandis, that I have worn ever since awaking on this planet.  He also unfastens my ankle from the coffle chain to which holds all us sold slaves.

“She is fully yours now.  The auction house will file slave papers with the authorities and send you copies as soon as possible.  I personally will return this collar to the house of Diamandis.”

“Very much appreciated, good sir.”

My master hands a small coin to the guard.

“Have a drink on me, while you are doing so!”

“Ta very much!”

Master tugs gently upward on my leash.  I rise gracefully and follow as impelled.  The very thought of being on a leash like an animal, particularly one held by a man, would have been horrific, appalling, anathema, not so long ago.  Now I almost skip along ecstatically, glad to belong to this man.  I just wish I knew why I occasionally have moments of disquiet.

---

[1]     UK: tap

[2]     A stone kept by a city or community representing that community. A thing of great pride, roughly analogous to a national flag on Earth.

[3]     About twenty Earth Pounds or nine Kilogrammes

[4]     About thirty Earth Pounds or about thirteen and a half  Kilogrammes

[5]     Large shaggy ruminant, perhaps related to the Bison

[6]     A fiery alcoholic beverage made from sa-tarna grains.  Can be served either hot or cold.

[7]     Supreme leader of a city state.  Effectively a monarch.

[8]     British paraphrase of the American television series of the early 1960’s, The Twilight Zone.  This series featured dozens of weird, bizarre, even impossible to our understanding, scenarios.