"That is no virgin," said another.

"She is a virgin," averred Mirus, snapping another ostrakon, not even looking about. "You will shortly have the attestation," he said.

"I will take another ostrakon," said the fellow who had touched me. "I, too," said another.

My ankles released, Tupita, aided by Sita, again put me toward the center of the floor, near the front, much where I had stood before.

I was trembling. I could not help how I had moved under his touch.

The men looked at me. I heard laughter. I blushed.

There was more laughter.

"In time, however," said Mirus, continuing his transactions, "we expect her to feel at least some minimal slave heat."

There was laughter.

I must have turned red, all of me that was not covered by the sheet, my face and neck, and my calves, ankles and feet. There was then more laughter. Suddenly I wished I was one of those women like leather who hated men but then in a moment I did not really want to be like that either. I was too soft, too lovely, and too feminine for that. I was not that sort of woman. I was a different sort. I was afraid then, very afraid. I sensed vaguely, in my virgin" s belly, the thought terrifying me, what men, such men, might do to me. These intimations, however, did not serve to prepare me even for what, as a matter of course, in even a few weeks, I could be forced to feel, or for what it would be to be made the helpless victim of "slave needs."

"Five!" called a man. "Five!"

"Two here!" said another.

I looked about, from face to face, and then I looked away, not daring to meet such eyes, those of masters.

How faraway seemed the library.

Incredibly, here, on this world. I was owned.

"She is lovely," said a man.

"Yes," said another.

There were sexual noises, and calls. I could not object to these. I was a slave. How powerful seemed these men. I think any of them could have broken me in pieces, like the lovely ostraka. And how fierce they seemed. How they would make a woman obey them! And how they looked upon me, with such eagerness and interest, seeing me as what I was, a slave!

I clenched my fists on the sheet. Beneath it, save for a steel collar and some beads, I was naked.

"Let us have the drawing," urged a fellow.

I felt inordinately helpless, so small and weak, and desired, among such men. I heard the snappings of the ostraka.

How absurd then, and artificial, and unreal, suddenly, seemed Earth, with all its preposterous political myths, its subversion of nature, its insidious conditioning programs, its pretendings to deny the simple, obvious truths of aristocracy, its contrived trammelings of right and power, its desperate attempts to destroy the natural relationships between men and women, to level and mediocratize the diversity and glory of nature, its corrupt machineries of falsification and repression. Men can do with us as they wish, I thought, and Gorean men, at least if the woman is a slave, will. I was not on Earth. I was on a different world. I stood now on a dancing floor in a tavern, in a complex, beautiful civilization, one quite different from my own, one in which strong, proud men had refused to relinquish their natural sovereignty. I did not stand before them as a primitive. I did stand before them, however, in a collar, and in the order of nature.

I felt tension in the leashes attached to the rings of the cuffs I wore. Tupita and Sita, on my right and left, respectively, stood near to me. They had muchly coiled the leashes and their two hands, each on their own leash, and turned in the leash, and gripping it tightly, were about a foot from the rings on the cuffs. I sensed Ina behind me. She took hold of the sheet, at the shoulders, from behind, that it might be lifted gracefully from me.

Earlier Hendow had brought me to the floor, helpless, like a doll, in his grip. He had then, in response to the ritualistic petition of Mirus, removed his hand from my arm, stepped back from me and left me there. The symbolic meaning of this was clear. He was not reserving me for himself. I was also for his customers. I was a new girl in his tavern. I was a public slave.

I felt tension through the cuffs, I heard the tiny noises of the joined rings, those on the cuffs and leashes. I felt the pulling of the leash rings against the rings on the cuffs. My wrists were slowly being drawn to the sides. The men leaned forward. I could not keep my hands on the sheet without opening the sheet myself. Tears in my eyes I released the sheet. Ina then, gracefully, drew the sheet away and, carrying it, withdrew from the floor.

I stood there, my wrists at my shoulders. I could not draw my hands together to cover myself. The cuffs I wore, buckled tightly on me, and the taut leashes attached to them, in the keeping of Tupita and Sita, saw to it. I stood there, then, in collar and beads, displayed, a tavern slave, a paga slave, a public slave, naked on a Gorean dancing floor.

The hands of men smote repeatedly on their left shoulders.

"Yes!" cried several. "Yes! Yes!" "Marvelous!" breathed some. "Superb!" cried others, pounding with their goblets on the tables. I gathered that Teibar, who had picked me for the collar, had known his business.

There was then slackness in the leashes. My arms went to my sides.

There was a white ribbon looped on my collar, and drawn down about it, snugly. "You are naked before me," whispered Tupita. "Obeisance!"

I quickly knelt before the men and put my head to the floor, the palms of my hands, too, on the floor. I heard several of the beads touch the wood.

I was then jerked to my feet by the leashes, and drawn about the floor, being shown to the men on all sides.

Men swarmed about Mirus, who was hard put to satisfy their demands for ostraka. I was then knelt near the center of the floor, and a little toward its front. I knelt as I had been taught, and as the sort of slave I was, the sort of slave I had first learned I was in Market of Semris, a pleasure slave. My hands, my wrists buckled in the leather cuffs, were on my thighs. Tupita and Sita stood near me, and a little behind me. The leashes were slack.

"Alas, generous sirs!" cried Mirus. "The ostraka grow few in number!" I saw men rise hurriedly to move toward him.

"I shall take ten," said a man.

"No!" cried another.

"Let us have the attestation!" cried Mirus, forcing the two fellows apart. Tamirus approached me. He wore green robes. I did not know at that time but this indicated he was of the caste of physicians. That is a high caste. If I had known he was of high caste I might have been a great deal more frightened than I was. Most Gorean take caste very seriously. It is apparently one of the socially stabilizing forces on Gor. It tends to reduce the dislocations, disappointments and tragedies inherent in more mobile structures, in which men are taught that they are failures if they do not manage to make large amounts of money or excel in one of a small number of prestigious professions. The system also helps to help men of energy and high intelligence in a wide variety of occupations, this preventing the drain of such men into a small number of often artificially desiderated occupations, this tending then to leave lesser men, or frustrated men, to practice other hundreds of arts the survival and maintenance of which are important to a superior civilization. Provisions for changing caste exist on Gor, but they are seldom utilized. Most Goreans are proud of their castes and the skills appropriate to them. Such skills, too, tend to be appreciated by other Goreans, and are not looked down on. My virginity had been checked at various times. Teibar had done it on Earth, in the library; it had been done in the house of my training, shortly after I had arrived there; it had been done outside Brundisium, by the wholesaler there, and in Market of Semris twice, once when I had arrived there, by the men of Teibar of Market of Semris, and once before I had left, by Hendow" s man. It had also been checked when I had arrived here, and again, this afternoon, before I had been bedecked in these beads I wore, slave beads.