I heard bells coming, from down the corridor, from within. I was still on my knees. Sita hove into sight, returning to the floor. She paused, looking down at me, kneeling there, clutching the sheet about me, frightened. She was naked, except for her collar, and some beads, colorful, cheap wooden beads, slave beads, and her bells, on her left ankle. she regarded me, at her feet, contemptuously. I looked up at her, angrily. Why should she regard me so contemptuously? I was clothed. I had a sheet about me! She wore only her collar, and a few beads, and slave bells! "You" re naked!" I said to her, angrily. Swiftly she crouched down before me, and, with two hands, angrily, there in the hall, near the curtain, tore the sheet back, away from me, thrusting it back, and down, over my calves. "So, too, are you!" she hissed. About my neck had been slung several strands of beads, large, colorful wooden beads, slave beads, of different lengths. To some extent they concealed me, but they, other than my collar, were all I wore.

Then, it startling us both, we heard the ringing of the nineteenth bar. She smiled at me.

Hastily I pulled the sheet up and put it about me as closely as I could, holding it even, in my two fists, high, about my neck.

I looked at her, frightened.

"In a bit," she said, "Tupita and I will put the leash cuffs on you." She then rose up, quickly. Perhaps she had been away from the floor too long. She hurried through the beaded curtain.

I heard a man outside strike the table with his goblet. "The nineteenth bar! The nineteenth bar!" he called. "The nineteenth bar has struck!"

"Bring forth the slave!" called another.

"Bring her forth!" called another.

Another man or two added to this din, by pounding their goblets on the tables. I knelt back, out of sight, near the curtain, frightened, clutching the sheet about me. I was not to be brought forth immediately at the Nineteenth Ahn, Mirus had told me. It seemed that it was their intention that the men should wait, at least for a time. They wanted them, apparently, to be kept in suspense, to become eager and restless, perhaps even impatient. I was certainly in no hurry to be conducted onto the floor. On the other hand, I was frightened, too, if the men were too long kept waiting. Perhaps then they would expect too much. What if there were disappointed? I was a new slave, really. How could I please them, truly? I moaned softly to myself. I did not want to feel the lash.

The men seemed not to be fairly quiet outside. Perhaps most of them did not expect me, really, to be brought out on the stroke of the nineteenth bar. Perhaps those who had smote their goblets on the tables and called for me, had, as much as anything, been voicing a natural disgruntlement at the unwritten customs, which seemed to govern such affairs, at the institution of a time to be set aside for the whetting of appetites. I supposed that there would have to be a judicious sense of timing involved in such matters, that the time must be long enough to bring the audience to a point of eager readiness, perhaps even impatience, without, on the other hand, dallying so long that they became unruly or hostile. I assumed that the house must know what it was doing in these matters. Doubtless I was not the first girl to be conducted out onto the floor, and probably not even the first Earth girl.

"How are you, Doreen?" asked small Ina, crouching down, solicitously, beside me. I looked at her, gratefully. "All right, Mistress," I whispered.

"Good," she smiled, reassuringly.

Ina did not care in the least, really, I was sure, whether I called her «mistress» or not, but we had both agreed, two weeks ago, when we had become friends, both of us in the kitchen, that it would be better for me to do so, as I was the newest girl. We were both afraid that if I called her by her name, and someone heard, I, and Ina, too, if she had not imposed discipline, would have been punished. For example, we would not have wanted to let either Tupita or Sita catch us in such a negligence.

"Have you had your slave wine?" asked Ina.

"Yes," I said. This is not really a wine, or an alcoholic beverage. It is called "slave wine," I think, for the amusement of the masters. It is extremely bitter. One draught of the substance is reputed to last until the administration of an appropriate "releaser." In spite of this belief, however, or perhaps in deference to tradition, lingering from earlier times, in which, it seems, less reliable "Slave wines" were available, doses of this foul stuff are usually administered to female slaves at regular intervals, usually once or twice a year. Some girls, rather cynical ones, I suspect, speculate that the masters give it to them more often than necessary just because they enjoy watching them down the terrible stuff. This is unlikely, however. There are cheaper and more easily available ingredients for such a mode of discipline than slave wine. "Good," said Ina. "There is then nothing to worry about."

I looked at her. It had not occurred to me, really, that I had "nothing to worry about."

"The time to worry," said Ina, "is if they decide to make you a breeding slave." I nodded.

"You must then drink the releaser," she said.

I nodded numbly.

"I have been told it is quite good," she said.

I looked at her, with horror.

"Really," she said.

Slave wine makes sense in a slave-holding culture, such as Gor. The breeding of slaves, like any sort of domestic animals, and particularly valuable ones, is carefully controlled. As a slave, of course, I could be bred, or crossed, when, and however, my master might see fit. It is the same as with other animals. I lifted my head a little.

Outside the men were becoming impatient. I could hear the striking of goblets more often now on tables. I heard some shouting.

When the girl is taken to the breeding cell or breeding stall, she is normally hooded. Her selected mate is also hooded. In this fashion personal attachments are precluded. She is not there to know in whose arms she lies, or piteously, and in misery, to fall in love, but to be impregnated. And in accord with the prescribed anonymity of the breeding, as would be expected, the slaved do not speak to one another. They may be slain if they do. Their coupling is public, of course, in the sense that the master, or usually, masters, and sometimes others, whether in an official capacity or not, are present, to make any pertinent payments or determinations.

The men outside, it now seemed to me, were becoming unruly.

"Don" t be afraid," said Ina.

"What are men like?" I asked Ina.

"They are glorious, and our masters," said Ina.

"That is not what I mean," I protested.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"What will it be like?" I asked. "Will they hurt me?"

"I suppose some of them may hurt you," she said. "And I suppose any of them would hurt you sometimes. But you must expect that. You are only a slave." "I do not mean that," I said. I knew, after all, I was a slave. I knew that I must strive to be pleasing to masters, and perfectly so. I knew that I was subject to discipline. I knew I might be, and would be likely to be, punished for the least infraction in my discipline, the least imperfection in my service and the least failure in my pleasingness. Indeed, I knew that, as a slave, my master did not even need a reason for punishing me. He could punish me for no reason at all, unless perhaps it might simply be that it pleased him to do so then, or, say, it occurred to him to do so then.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Bring out the virgin!" cried a man.

"Get the white-silker out here," called another. "Let us see her!" "I mean will they hurt me!" I moaned.

"You mean when they open you?" she asked.

"Yes!" I said.

"Probably not," she said. "But you may be sore."