18

The Slave Sack

I moved carefully, the tray over my head, between the tables.

The Chatka and Curla is a large paga tavern. It is built on four levels, a large, open court, wooden floored, an encircling dais, some twenty feet deep, and, over the dais, two encircling balconies, each some ten feet deep.

We were crowded tonight.

The tavern is dimly lit, by wagon lanterns, paneled with red glass, which hang on chains from the ceilings and balconies.

The crowd was boisterous.

I made my way toward the second balcony. I brushed against other girls, and customers, coming and going on the wooden ramps; I managed the tray with care; it is not well to drop a tray; many girls worked at the Chatka and Curla, more than one hundred; I climbed carefully; the ramps have raised, slatted ridges; these are spaced some twenty inches apart, for better footage.

I heard a girl scream in one of the alcoves.

The red cord, or Curla, was knotted about my waist, tightly, the knot, a slip knot which might be loosened with a single tug, over my left hip. Over the Curla in front, slipping under the body and between the legs, and passing over the Curla in the back, was the Chatka, or narrow strip of black leather, some six inches in width, some five feet or so in length; it was drawn tight; when a girl wears the Curla and Chatka, the brand, whether on left or right thigh, is fully visible, for the inspection of masters. I also wore a brief, open, sleeveless vest of black leather, the Kalmak; a patron parted it, holding it open, as I tried to move past him on the ramp; I stood, quietly, stopped helplessly, the tray held over my head; he kissed me twice; "Little beauty," he said; "A girl would rejoice if she were permitted to please you in an alcove," I said; it was a line taught us, and expected of us, but I uttered it not without some genuine sincerity; he had had me before, several days ago, when first I had been sent out upon the floor of the Chatka and Curla; he well knew how to get much from the helpless beauty of a slave girl; "Later," he said, «Slave»; "Yes, Master," I whispered; I continued on my way; in addition to the Curla, the Chatka and Kalmak, I was belled and collared, in a black, enameled ankle ring, with five, black, enameled bells, on tiny golden chains, and a black, enameled Turian collar, it, too, with five bells, black and enameled, on five tiny golden chains. My hair had begun to grow out, from having been shaved away for the voyage on the slave ship, but it was still quite short; I wore a broad Koora, which, kerchieflike, covered most of my head. When I had come to the Chatka and Curla I, and Narla, too, had been dipped and scrubbed, to clear us of ship lice and the residues of filth accumulated from the voyage and our consequent captivity; the dip was of water saturated with chemicals toxic to ship lice; we did not open our eyes or mouth when held under by the girls cleaning us; they controlled us by a clamp placed on the right ear lobe; later we were permitted to bathe ourselves; few baths in my life had I appreciated more than that one.

"Paga!" cried a man.

"I shall tell a girl, Master," I said, passing him on the first balcony, making my way to the second, which was the fourth level of the tavern.

On the ramp to the high balcony I passed Naria, returning from that level.

"The man at Table Six on the first balcony wants paga," I said, "Slave."

"Fetch it yourself," she said, "Slave."

"I am occupied," I said, "Slave."

"Too bad," she said, "Slave."

"He has a whip," I said, "Slave."

Her face went white. Some patrons bring whips or quirts to the tavern. If they are not pleased, the girls are informed; a slave ring, with thongs, is fixed in the edge of every table; we strive to wait the tables well. I smiled to myself, seeing Narla hurry down the ramp to fetch his paga; on the slave ship she, in her deck cage, had once insulted me, demeaning my beauty and referring to me as a Below-Deck Girl. It was not my fault that my hair had been shaved off, nor that I was not blond or auburn-haired, like herself. Those hair colors tend to bring higher girl-prices. I thought that I, when my hair was again dark and glossy, would surely be her equal or superior in beauty; and I had little doubt that I could bring a master more pleasure.

I knelt before the table on the second balcony, placing the tray on the floor and quickly, deferentially, placing its contents on the table, the assorted meats and cheese, the sauces and fruits, and wines and nuts.

"Do Masters desire more from Yata, their slave?" I asked.

"Leave, Slave Girl," said the woman's voice, that of a free woman, kneeling in her robes and veil at the table with her escorts, who sat behind it, cross-legged. Free women came sometimes, escorted, to the Chatka and Curla. Her voice had not been pleasant. "Yes, Mistress," I whispered, picking up the tray and, head down, withdrawing. The men I thought, had she not been with them, might indeed have wanted more from Yata, their slave. Often, to the irritation of other patrons, they had kept me at their table, binding my wrists at the slave ring, keeping me for later.

I went to the balcony railing and looked down. I was some twenty-five feet or more above the wooden flooring. Dancers in the Chatka and Curla, and there are several, move between and among the tables; sometimes a dancer, if she is indeed superb, is displayed solo in the center of the scarlet wooden flooring, within the painted, yellow ring of the slave circle.

Men came and went. I stood there, on the high balcony, with the tray beneath my arm.

I had not been contacted. I did not know why this was. For all I knew I was merely another lowly paga girl. I served as the others did, fully, no differently.

I looked about at the decor of the tavern. It suggested the plains of Turia, or the lands of the Wagon Peoples. There were scenes of hunting, of caravan raiding, of girl taming; scenes were fixed there of the great bosk herds and the strings of the wagons of the fierce plains nomads; in one place there was fixed a painting of the walls and towers of Turia, and riders of the Wagon Peoples on hills, looking toward the city. The dress and costume of the paga girls, too, was intended to suggest the common garb worn by the enslaved beauties who well served the mounted, lance-bearing riders of the lofty, silken kailla. In such a garb a girl was given no place to conceal a weapon and was well displayed, in her captive curves, to the eye of her master.

Below on the first level two men began to shout and fight, squabbling over first master rights to their waitress, Lyrazina, an exquisite little collared blond from Teletus. She crouched, shrinking back, terrified, almost at their feet. Strabo, the floor master, at a sign from Aurelion, the proprietor and master of the Chatka and Curla, hurried to the combative couple, thrusting them apart. They seized at him, and I heard clothing tear. Another man from the tavern, a fellow who did odd jobs about, as Bran Loort did in Ar at the Belled Collar, leaped to the fray. Two more customers joined in.

"Fight!" cried patrons. A girl screamed.

Sometimes I had thought, in the midst of such a diversion, one might flee the tavern. But this was not possible. Whereas most taverns are open and a girl might simply slip out the door and run, there is little prospect of her flight's being successful. She wears only a collar and a brand, and a bit of silk, and she flees into a society that will promptly return her to her owner, unless it chooses to keep her for itself. Escape is not, on the whole, a realistic possibility for slave girls on Gor. Indeed, girls are often sent, unattended, in a brief rep-cloth tunic on errands for their masters. They return to their masters, for there is nowhere else to go; also a girl who is well mastered will often undergo great privations and hardships to return to the brute whom she cannot help loving with every slave inch of her. Slave girls are often hopelessly in love with their masters. But the Chatka and Curla did not resemble most paga taverns in their openness. It was not possible there for a girl to even step outside for a breath of air as it is in most taverns. There are double iron gates, and only the free may come and go as they please. Another deterrent to the escape of slave girls, of course, is the severity of the penalties connected with escape attempts. Whereas the first penalty is commonly only a severe beating, the second one often involves hamstringing, or the cutting of the tendons behind the knees; this cripples the girl and makes her generally useless save as a pathetic example to her sisters in bondage of the foolishness of attempted escape.