She then removed her hands from her hair. Behind her, her hair came, falling, to the sweetness of her shoulder blades. This was a bit short for the hair of a Gorean slave girl. Their hair, as is required by most masters, is usually somewhat long. There is more that can be done with long hair, both with respect to adding variety to the girl's appearance and in the furs, than with short hair. Sometimes the girl is even tied in her own hair. Most importantly, perhaps, long hair is beautiful on a girl, or surely, at least, on many girls. Too, many masters enjoy unbinding it, before ordering a girl to the furs. Unbinding a girl's hair, on Gor, incidentally, is culturally understood as being the act of one who owns her. A free woman, captured, whose hair her captor unbinds, usually the first time by the stroke of a knife, a precaution against poison pins and other devices, knows full well by this act that she will soon be made his slave. Many Gorean masters, incidentally, shape and trim the hair of their own girls. This is less expensive than having it done in a pen. Too, it is pleasant to cut the hair of a girl one owns. She generally kneels, a wrap of rep-cloth about her shoulders, while this is done. Beneath the wrap of rep-cloth, of course, she is naked and in the position of the pleasure slave. When one is through with the cutting it is then convenient to have her.
She looked at herself, kneeling, in the mirror.
"The earrings are beautiful," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She brushed her hair back with her two hands and, turning her head from side to side, her finger tips at her ears, again regarded herself.
She had the vanity of a lovely slave.
"What do you see in the mirror?" I asked.
"A slave girl," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"A girl to be bought and sold, and abused for a master's pleasure.
"Of course," I said.
"I may not be beautiful," she said, "but I am delicate and lovely, am I not?"
"Yes," I said, "you are."
"Could you truly bring yourself to put me beneath your heavy and uncompromising will?" she asked.
"Certainly," I said.
"You could, and you will, won't you?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Could you whip me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"It is a strange feeling, being a slave," she said.
"You will grow used to it, Slave Girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I went to her, behind her, standing there, before the mirror.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"A slave girl," she said, "at the feet of her master."
I put my hand in her hair, and turned her head, from side to side. Then I stopped.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"A slave girl, at the feet of her master," she said, "his hand in her hair, commanding her, making her do what he wishes."
I then, with my hand in her hair, turned her to the side and bent back her body, exposing, as she knelt there, helpless, the lovely slave bow of her beauty.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"A displayed slave," she said. I did not release her. Suddenly she said, "No! Oh, no!"
I waited for a full moment, holding her helplessly there, letting her see well whatever it might be that she saw. And then I released her. She knelt there, terrified, shuddering, before the mirror.
"What did you see?" I asked.
"It is hard to explain," she said, shuddering. "Suddenly, for a fearful moment, I saw myself as incredibly beautiful, as beautiful as I might someday be, but the beauty was not the cool and formal beauty of a free woman, something I can understand, but the hot, sensuous, helpless beauty of an owned slave, and I was the slave! And, too, for a moment I thought I understood how such a woman might look to a man. It was so frightening! How we must fear that they might simply seize us and tear us to pieces in their lust! Then suddenly I understood the brand and collar, the whip, the chain! Of course they would brand us, marking us as their own. Of course they would put us in steel collars, which we could not remove! Of course they could chain us to their walls and slave rings! Of course they would use the whip unhesitantly upon us if we were in the least displeasing!"
She knelt before the mirror, shuddering. "Perhaps now," I said, "you understand, in some small particular, what it is for a woman to be attractive to a man."
"They want us," she whispered, frightened, "literally."
"Yes," I said.
"They want to own us," she said, "own us!"
"Of course," I said.
"I did not know such desire, such lust, could exist," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"And I could be owned by such a man," she said. Then she looked up at me, and then, suddenly, put down her head. "And I am owned by such a man," she said, trembling.
"And what do you feel of this?" I asked.
"Nothing on my own world has prepared me for this, Master," she said.
"There is a stain of blood on your thigh," I said.
"My Master took my virginity," she said.
"You are now a red-silk girl," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I am now a red-silk girl."
"Whose red-silk girl?" I asked.
"Your red-silk girl, Master," she said.
I walked back to the center of the room and turned, facing her. She knelt before the mirror.
"Stand up," I told her. She did so.
"Turn and approach me," I said. "But I am naked," she said.
"Do you wish for me to repeat a command?" I asked.
She turned white. "No, Master," she said. She then approached me, and stood quite closely before me. She had not been taught to stand this closely before me. She knew, instinctively, in the circumstances, where she would stand. This pleased me for it indicated, whether she knew it or not, that she was a natural slave. This distance, of course, was not cultural for her. She came from a culture which requires a significant distance, usually a yard or more, between male speakers and as much, or more, between speakers of the opposite sex. Yet she knew readily, or instinctively, or intuitively, or naturally, or somehow, that she should be, in these circumstances, standing as she was before me, at a distance where I might, if I wished, without inconvenience, simply take her in my arms.
She looked up at me. "Master?" she asked.
The Gorean slave girl, incidentally, will space herself from her master quite differently in different situations. For example, if she is somewhat farther away, it is easier for her to display herself in all her beauty; if she wishes to wheedle for his caress she may approach quite closely; if she is receiving instructions she may kneel a few feet away; if she is begging to serve his pleasure she may kneel at his feet, perhaps kissing them, and holding his ankles; obviously, too, a girl who fears she is to be disciplined will commonly hang back; sometimes, too, a girl will fear to approach too closely until the master, by an expression or small sign, indicates that she is not in obvious disfavor and may do so.
I took the head of the blond-haired barbarian in my hands and looked at her. She lowered her eyes. How magnificent it is to own a woman! What can compare with it?
I turned her head, from side to side. How exciting were the earrings, penetrating the soft flesh of her ear lobes. I looked at the tiny wires vanishing in the minute punctures and then emerging, looping her ears, as though in a slave bond, making them the mounting places from which, thus fastened upon her, by my will, dangled two golden rings, barbaric ornaments enhancing the beauty of a slave. I smiled to myself. On Earth I had thought little of earrings. Yet now, in the Gorean setting, how exquisite and exciting they suddenly seemed. Perhaps then, for the first time, I truly began to sense how the Gorean views such things. Surely these things are symbolic as well as beautiful. The girl's lovely ears have been literally pierced; the penetrability of her sweet flesh is thus brazenly advertised upon her very body, a proclamation of her ready vulnerability, in incitement to male rapine. And when she wears the earrings, he can see the metal disappearing in the softness of her ear, literally fixed within it. Her flesh is doubly penetrated, her softness about the intruding metal, before his very eyes. The wire loop, too, or rod, when it emerges from the ear and, by one device or another, fastens the ring upon her, may suggest her bondage. Too, if the ring itself is closed, perhaps it suggests her susceptibility to the locked shackle, say, a wrist ring or slave bracelet; would there not, in the two rings, be one, so to speak, for each wrist? It is little wonder that Gorean free women never pierce their ears; it is little wonder that, in the beginning, it was only the lowest and most exciting of pleasure slaves who had their ears pierced; now, however, it is not uncommon on Gor for almost any pleasure slave to have her ears pierced; the custom of piercing the ears of a slave has now become relatively widespread: it has been done in Turia, of course, for generations. Too, of course, the ring is an obvious ornament. The girl placed in it has thus been ornamented. Ornamentation is not inappropriate in a slave. Lastly, the ring is beautiful. Thus it makes the slave more beautiful.