Quarry of Gor, page 50
“The dancer?” said Florian.
“Yes,” said Ho-Tosk, “the property of noble Bosk, of the Council of Captains.”
“I conjecture,” said Florian, “she is in the holding, perhaps being put to slave use.”
“You did not bring her with you?” said Ho-Tosk.
“No, should we have?” asked Florian.
“We know nothing of that,” said Addison Steele.
“I sent for her,” said Ho-Tosk.
“Then she is doubtless on her way,” said Florian. “What did you want her for?”
“Paga is short,” said Ho-Tosk. “I fear looming disruption, unmanageable unruliness. We want to entertain, pacify, and distract the clientele.”
“Make the alcoves available, gratis,” said Florian. “Who would not prefer a slave in one’s arms to a goblet in one’s hand?”
“See how crowded we are,” said Ho-Tosk. “Not one alcove is free.”
Florian looked across the wide, low-ceilinged, lamp-lit room.
“They are all belted shut,” said Addison Steele.
“Every one,” said Ho-Tosk, disconsolately.
“You have sent for additional paga?” said Florian.
“Certainly,” said Ho-Tosk, somewhat shortly.
“Paga, paga!” said a fellow at one of the tables, striking his empty goblet on the table. This call was picked up at other tables, as well. And there were more impatient crackings of goblets on the small, square tables, about which men sat cross-legged.
“Where is Sandra?” asked Ho-Tosk.
“Doubtless someone is bringing her, even now,” said Florian.
“Paga!” called another man. “Yes, paga, paga!” called another.
“You have slaves, unemployed, unused, unbusied, loitering shamefully about the paga vat,” said Addison Steele.
“They are not dancers,” said Ho-Tosk.
“No matter,” said Addison Steele. “Put them on the floor. See which one is commended and applauded. See which one is disparaged and hooted. Let the whip master use his own judgment or be responsive to the mood of the crowd, or both. Let men take bets on whether this one or that one will be whipped, or how long before this one or that one is whipped. Wagering commands attention. Gambling reigns. When stakes are placed and the fate of coins is uncertain, who thinks of paga? Courage, noble Ho-Tosk. Dismiss unease and perplexity. Sought distraction, so coveted, is at hand. Safety, so fearfully sought, is before you. Rejoice, your floors, furniture, and walls are safe.”
“Noble patrons,” called out Ho-Tosk. “Paga will soon be here, but, in the interim, let us appeal to those of you with sporting blood, who do not fear to try your luck, who relish risk and hazard, who would not fear to bet a tarsk-bit, to win a copper tarsk.”
Curiosity sprang up amongst the tables.
“Who amongst you,” said Ho-Tosk, “is not a superb judge of the lineaments of slaves, the trimness of ankles, the curves of calves and thighs, the latitudes of bellies, the sweetness of bosoms, the softness of shoulders, the beauties of features, eyes, and hair, the excitingness of a lovely throat closely encircled with an owner’s collar? I thought so! Yes, experts and authorities abound. We will put girls upon the floor, to writhe, pose, and dance for you. First, let them stand before you, one by one, being considered, while you make your bets; then, the bets made, they will perform. All are beautiful, of course, else they would not be at the Golden Chain, but none are skillful, trained dancers. Each, in her way, is inexperienced and ignorant. Pity the poor things, to be so challenged. Doubtless the whip will crack frequently. Will she be adequately pleasing to the crowd or not? Will the crowd be patient with her nor not? Will she be soon whipped from the floor, or later whipped from the floor, or will she finish her performance acceptably, or even to acclaim, her back, legs and arms untouched by the lash?”
“Begin, begin!” called more than one man.
“Put that one before us, first,” said Florian, pointing.
“Please, no, Master!” cried Euphrosyne to Ho-Tosk. “He knows I cannot dance.”
“Nonsense,” said Florian. “Despite her numerous lacks, failings, shortcomings, flaws, and faults, she is a female. Of that, obviously, there is no doubt. Thus, slave dance resides within her hereditary coils. It lies within the pelvis, hips, heart, blood, and belly of every woman.”
“He does not care for me,” wailed Euphrosyne. “He wants me punished!”
“Why?” asked Ho-Tosk.
“I did not care to please him,” said Euphrosyne.
“What?” cried Ho-Tosk.
“He found me insufficiently pleasing,” said Euphrosyne, wisely modifying her remark.
“It is your business to be far more than merely pleasing,” said Ho-Tosk. “It is your business to be a perfection of pleasingness, a begging, yielding dream of pleasure.”
“I am tunicked,” wept Euphrosyne. “I have no silks, no bangles, no bracelets, no bells, no necklaces, no veils!”
“To the floor,” said Ho-Tosk.
Euphrosyne then stood on the dancing floor, before the men.
She regarded Florian, reproachfully, accusingly. “It is you who have done this to me,” she said.
I saw coins exchanging hands, and bets being brokered.
The musicians looked at one another.
“Play,” said Ho-Tosk.
“Dance, slave,” said Florian.
“He cannot command me!” cried Euphrosyne.
“You are mistaken,” said Ho-Tosk. “He is your master. I have sold you to him.”
Euphrosyne regarded Florian wildly, disbelievingly.
“You, taverner’s man,” said Florian, “uncoil your whip, stand near, and have it ready.”
Euphrosyne trembled.
There was a swirl of music from the musicians.
“Girl,” said Ho-Tosk, “must a command be repeated?”
Euphrosyne then began to dance, before the men, and her master. The taverner’s man with the whip lifted it twice, looking to Florian, but each time Florian indicated that he refrain from employing that supple tool. Euphrosyne, at the beginning, was desperate to please. But soon, suspecting that she might be immune from the attentions of the leather, perhaps due to the weakness or indulgence of Florian, she began, subtly, to test him. This alarmed me, for I suspected that I, from my time in the holding of Bosk of Port Kar, knew the nature of Florian better than she. It began with a suggestion of impudence, and a hint of disrespect. Then it seemed she danced an insolent arrogance, even a contemptuous, challenging defiance.
Men looked from one to another.
Then Euphrosyne, obedient to the music, ended her dance and sank, weary and sweating, smug and triumphant, to the surface of the dancing floor.
“Lash her, ten strokes,” said Florian.
“No!” she wept.
Then she recoiled from the first blow.
“Please, no, Master!” she cried. “Forgive me, Master!”
“Nine more,” said Florian. “Then strip her, and bind her, hand and foot and put her on the floor of the waiting canal boat, that bearing the design of the holding of Bosk. Tonight I will muchly pleasure myself with her.”
Two or three men profited considerably, given the changing of odds during the dance. Few had anticipated that, as the dance went on, that Florian would make his disapproval explicit. Euphrosyne had tested her new master, and had not found him wanting. I knew she had wanted strength in her master, and now she had been reassured. She had found it. Florian was gentle in mien, and softly spoken. It was his way. But he was not weak. He was Gorean. Euphrosyne would now know herself owned, now understand that she had a master. As she was being bound by a taverner’s man, I sensed that she, even in her discomfort, could not have been more pleased. I suspected she would make him an excellent slave, perhaps even a love slave. I wondered how long he had secretly owned her.
“Next!” called Ho-Tosk. “Daphne!”
“These girls are not dancers,” said the Vat Master. “And even so, we shall soon run out of them.”
“The paga must arrive shortly,” whispered Ho-Tosk, uneasily, to the Vat Master. “A surcease of demand can be but temporary.”
Daphne began to dance.
I shuddered, hearing the whip cracking.
Few girls were available for the dancing floor. Samos had not delivered a dancer, as yet, and, as noted, Ianthe and Aglaia, two plausible dancers, were unavailable. Several paga girls were alcoved, and, even had they not been, none were dancers. There was, as yet, no sign of the dancer, Sandra, from Bosk’s holding.
“May I speak?” I inquired of Ho-Tosk.
“Yes,” he said.
“I am not a dancer,” I said.
“That is known to me,” he said.
“I am a mere, worthless barbarian,” I said.
“That is known to me,” he said.
“I would not wish to reflect badly on the quality of the Golden Chain,” I said.
“You just do not wish to be whipped,” he said.
“That, too,” I said.
“Do not concern yourself, conniving she-sleen,” he said. “I had already decided to put you at the end of the line. Not only are you not a dancer, but, worse, you are an ignorant barbarian. I would not like to see the tavern shamed, nor a comely property, one perhaps too clever, lashed beyond its deserts.”
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
Following Euphrosyne and Daphne, and discounting myself, there were but seven paga girls available, and, hopefully, paga would arrive before most of them were put on the floor; these were Sucha, Lais, Tamira, Fina, Relia, Renata, and Phyrne.
I heard Daphne cry out in misery and she collapsed to the floor after the second stroke of the whip.
“Off with her! Away with her!” cried men.
I was muchly disturbed, and frightened. I had thought Daphne was doing quite well. Surely she was beautiful. Does that not count for a great deal? To be sure, she was not a dancer, no more than the rest of us. Too, might not Gorean males be overly discriminating in such matters, and, familiar with the performances of skilled dancers, fail to be accepting of less skilled performances?
The whip fell again on Daphne, as she crawled hurriedly from the floor.
Money was exchanging hands, and there was an undercurrent of disgruntlement. The audience, I feared, was displeased.
“Where is the paga?” called a voice, from somewhere amongst the tables.
“Next,” called a man. “Next!”
“I am sorry, noble patrons,” said Ho-Tosk. “Daphne, though beautiful, is not a dancer. Blame the house. We have not paid to have her so trained. But her alcove skills, as doubtless some of you know, are considerable.”
“Next!” cried several men.
I trusted the paga would arrive, surely before the next dancer, or victim, or two, might be presented before the audience.
“Behold,” called Ho-Tosk, “the lovely Lais, graceful and lithe, eyes as blue as the skies of En’Kara, lips as red as the scarlet dina, hair as yellow as ripe sa’tarna. How she will please you!”
Lais, I noted, did not look as confident of this as Ho-Tosk. I had little doubt but what she would prefer to be below in the kitchen or back in her cage.
“Later!” called a loud voice, with the authority of a distinguished, preferred customer, one whose right to be heard could not be lightly gainsaid.
All attention was on the figure who had risen from a nearby table.
“We hear with pleasure,” said Ho-Tosk, “the voice of the noble Addison Steele.”
“All due respect,” said Addison Steele, “to the lovely Lais, whose performance we eagerly await, but let our appetites be whetted by some brief delay.”
I heard grumbling from amongst the tables.
“You would first see another?” inquired Ho-Tosk.
“Yes,” said Addison Steele. “That one!”
I tried to move away, unnoticed, to slip through the beaded curtain, but the Vat Master’s sudden grip on my upper left arm held me in place.
“Surely Master will reconsider,” said Ho-Tosk. “Already the tables are displeased.”
“Lais, Lais,” I heard, a murmuring amongst the tables.
“No, dear friend,” said Addison Steele. “That one.”
“She is a barbarian,” said Ho-Tosk. “She is ignorant and stupid. She cannot read. She knows nothing. She could not name the four Wagon Peoples. She would think nothing of picking up a squirming ost. She could not tell Turia from Kassau. Let us get around to her later, if there is time.”
I did not think Ho-Tosk’s assertions were quite fair to me, although I could not, indeed, name the four Wagon Peoples.
“She!” said Addison Steele.
I would have sunk to my knees, unable to stand, were it not for the grasp of the Vat Master.
“Here,” said Addison Steele, “is a coin.”
Ho-Tosk caught the coin, expertly. Then he looked at it. “A copper tarsk-bit,” he said, grinning, “a most copious remuneration.”
There was laughter amongst the tables.
“Do you accept it, dear friend?” inquired Addison Steele.
“Yes,” said Ho-Tosk. Then he turned to me. “To the floor,” he said.
“Please, no, Master,” I begged.
“Now,” he said.
Lais gratefully fled from the floor, but dared not leave the room.
I made my way to the floor, and knelt, head down. I did not know if I could rise. I hoped for mercy, to feel only a few strokes of the whip, as I struggled, shamed and back afire, to crawl from the floor. I remembered Talena’s words to me, on the Skerry of Lars. “Were you to dance, you would be whipped from the floor.”
“Ready?” asked Ho-Tosk to the musicians.
“This will not take long,” said the czehar player.
I lifted my head, and saw, some feet away, Addison Steele, in repose, sitting cross-legged at his table. Florian was with him. Euphrosyne was doubtless on the floor of a canal boat, moored nearby, supine or prone, stripped, and bound hand and foot. Florian would let her wait, as the slave she was.
My eyes briefly met those of Addison Steele, and then I, aware of a possibly imputable impudence or boldness, lowered my head.
How he had smiled!
How far we are, I thought, from the cocktail parties, the restaurants, the shores of Earth. I was now on Gor, a property, tunicked, marked, and collared.
How he had smiled!
He had always held me in contempt, even on Earth. He had known me better than I had known myself. He had seen how small, vain, pretentious, shallow, superficial, petty, and worthless I was. How he had despised me for my little plots and exploitations. How he had scorned me for the mercenary use of my body, implicitly bartering its promises for favors and acquisitions, hinting at much, reaping gains, and bestowing nothing, a body which was now no longer my own, but the possession of another. No longer could women such as I, brought to Gor, sell our bodies for personal gain; rather, now, it is we who are sold, for the gain of others, our masters. How stupid were the men of Earth, how easily deluded and outwitted. How clever and successful I had been. Then I had found myself in a collar, on Gor, at the feet of men such as I had not known could exist.
How he had smiled!
Did he truly hate me so? Was it not enough for him that I was now rightless and helpless, a branded, collared slave? Was this not vengeance enough for him? Did he not know that I helplessly and hopelessly loved him, that I longed for his chains? Did he not know that it was he before whom I wished to kneel, placing my lips upon his feet? Did he not know that it was his whip I longed to lick and kiss, that it was he to whose feet I wished to crawl, bringing him his switch, held between my teeth?
I did not think I could forget that smile.
Did it not bespeak his triumph and victory? Did it not remind me, by contrast, of my fathomless reduction and absolute subjugation, of my total meaninglessness, that I was now less than the dust beneath a free man’s sandals, that I was now a slave?
How he had smiled!
He knew I could not dance. Indeed, he must have known that many kajirae, far more beautiful and talented than I, even lesser dancers, must have been whipped from the floor, from time to time, given the moods and demands of masters. He was so clever! He had deftly, mercilessly, exploited a situation, to see me ridiculed, shamed, and beaten. He would bring me to the floor early, before the paga was delivered, that I must perform. He had even delayed the dancing of Lais, to disappoint and anger the tables. How they would be impatient with me, and resent me. How clever he was! I tried to hate him, I wanted to hate him, but could not do so.
“You are ready?” said Ho-Tosk to the musicians.
“Yes,” said the czehar player.
“Play,” said Ho-Tosk.
I rose to my feet, lifting my hands over my head, the backs of my hands facing one another.
In even a brief slave training, of the sort to which I was subjected in the House of Anesidemus, one is taught the rudiments of slave dance. Interestingly, at least in so brief an introduction, more emphasis was placed on emotions, and inward attitudes, on knowing one is a slave, on being a slave, and such, than on the various delicious subtleties of motion. One is told to understand, fully, that slave dance is the dance of slaves, and understand that in all that it means. From my Earth conditioning, in my training, I was afraid at first to move as the slave I inwardly knew myself to be. “She, the slave, is there,” I was told. “Release her.” “I do not understand,” I said, though I feared I understood only too well. “Free the slave!” said the instructress. “I cannot!” I wept. Then, I was whipped. “But men are present!” I cried. Then I screamed in pain, again lashed. “Please do not strike me again!” I begged. I saw the whip lifted once more. My belly then, suddenly, understood that it was the belly of a slave. If I was a slave, why should I not be as a slave? Why should the essence of my being be denied, or disguised? Is honesty so fearful? Is truth so terrible? No longer was I ashamed, for I wanted my slavery and loved my slavery. “Excellent, excellent,” said the instructress. “Kajira, kajira!” called men, striking their left shoulders with their right hands. “Next,” had said the instructress.
