13 The Passageway; Intrigues

I hurried back, elatedly, through the beaded curtain, fleeing, laughing, from the dancing floor. I had scrambled on my knees for the coins flung to the floor, seizing them, thrusting them hastily, so many of them, with one hand, into the lifted, bunched portion, held by my other hand, of the dancing skirt, a lovely, swirling skirt, scarlet, open on the right, of diaphanous dancing silk. I had been permitted a scarlet halter of the same material. My midriff, like my right thigh, was bared. The skirt was low on my hips. I wore a double belt of threaded, jangling coins, one strand high, one low, as with the corded belt of metal pieces I had worn in my virgin dance, weeks ago. I also wore a triple necklace of coins, together with necklaces of slave beads, of both glass and wood. These coins, all of them, would be counted by Mirus when I disrobed. On my left ankle were bound slave bells. My right ankle wore several anklets. I was barefoot. On my wrists were bracelets. On my upper left arm was a coiled armlet. A ruby, held by a chain, was at my forehead. Wound in and about my hair were strands of pearls.

"It is a good house tonight," said Mirus, who was waiting for me.

"Yes, Master!" I said, happily. I could hear the men still calling out and pounding at their shoulders with appreciation. I looked at Mirus. Should I hurry back through the curtain?

"No," he said. "Stay here."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Here," he said, holding open the sack. I emptied the coins from the dancing silk into the sack, and smoothed the skirt.

"You dance well," he said.

"Thank you, Master!" I said, happily. On Earth I had never dreamed that I would dance as a slave before masters.

"You have done much for the tavern of Hendow," he said.

"I am pleased, if I have been found pleasing," I said. I gave the ruby on its chain, from my forehead, to Mirus. He put it in his wallet. I then began to unwind the strands of pearls from my hair.

"Receipts are up twenty percent from a month ago," he said.

"I am pleased," I said. I handed the pearls to Mirus, who put them, as he had the chain and ruby, in his wallet.

"You are finding yourself now as a dancer," he said.

"I have been in the arms of men," I laughed, "men such as you, Master, who know how to turn a girl into a woman, and a woman into a slave."

"I think," he said, "you may be one of the finest dancers in Brundisium." This startled me.

"You are really quite good," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"Hendow" s investment in you was a sound one," he said. "You are paying off well for him."

"I am pleased to hear that," I said. I was also relieved to hear it. I did not know what would have been done to me, had it been otherwise. I supposed I might have been muchly whipped.

"But you still have many things to learn," he said.

"It is my hope that master will consent to teach me some of them," I said. "Sassy she-tarsk," he said.

I laughed, but I was not altogether joking. Mirus was one of those men of a sort to whom, when my needs were enough on me, I could crawl, pleading. And he knew that, the brute. Certainly I had crawled to him enough! and, when my needs were enough upon me, of course, I was ready to crawl to any man, pleading, perhaps even to one of Earth, but they, probably, to my frustration, disappointment, and agony, would not know what to do with a slave. I was pleased to be on Gor, where men well understood the handling of imbonded females. I lifted the necklaces from my neck. I gave that of coins to Mirus, which he put on top of the coins in the sack, and I put the others in the box which was on the floor, just within the curtain.

"You are coming along well in your slavery, Doreen," he said.

"Thank you, Master," I said. I looked at him. he made me feel hot between the thighs. I was only a slave.

"You were beautiful tonight, Doreen," said Ina, hurrying by in slave bells. "Thank you," I said.

Too, Ina wore a snatch of diaphanous yellow silk. The girls in Hendow" s tavern now often went silked on the floor, not naked, as before. "We are becoming quite fashionable," had said Sita, reaching eagerly for her tiny bit of silk. Tupita, had, however, only cast me a glance of hatred. To be sure, she did not refuse her own bit of silk. In most paga taverns, of course, the girls are silked. Usually it is only in the meanest, the cheapest and lowest of taverns that the girls serve naked, much as would the females of a conquered city at the victory feast of their conquerors, now, or soon to be, their masters. Slave silk, and certainly that sort which is commonly worn in paga taverns and upon occasion in brothels, when the girls are permitted clothing there, is generally diaphanous. It leaves little doubt as to the beauty of the slave. Some girls claim they would rather be naked, claiming that such silk makes them "more naked than naked," but most girls, and I think, even those, too, who speak in such a way, are grateful for even the wisp of gossamer shielding it provides against the imperious appraisals of masters, even though it must be pulled away or discarded instantly at a man" s whim. Too, I think most girls know that they are very beautiful in such silk, and this, I suspect, is why they love it, and treasure it. Free women, on Gor, it seems, are frightened even to look upon such material, apparently finding it scandalously offensive, or somehow profoundly disturbing to them, let alone let it touch their body. Some free women, captured, when such stuff is thrown to them, profess to prefer death to putting it on, but when the choice is that which is acturally offered to them they put it on quickly enough. too, such women, it si said, make excellent slaves. But Goreans believe, of course, that any woman, properly handled, becomes an excellent slave. I think this may be true. It is true, at any rate, in my case. There are a large number of ways in which slave silk is worn. It can be worn, for example, on the shoulder or off the shoulder, with high necklines or plunging necklines, in open or closed garments, tightly or flowingly, and in various lengths. Sometimes it is put on the girl only in halters and G-strings, or mere G-strings. Sometimes it is done, too, in strips wound about her body. The tying of slave girdles, with such silk, and otherwise, to emphasize the girl" s figure and make clear her bondage, is an art in itself. Often, too, and as usually in paga taverns, it is worn in brief tunics. Most of these are partable or wraparound tunics. Such may be removed gracefully. Some tunics, however, like some regular slave tunics, have a disrobing loop, usually at the left shoulder, where it may easily be reached by both a right-handed master and a right-handed slave. A tug on the disrobing loop drops the tunic to the girl" s ankles, also gracefully.

I sat down on the tiles there within the hall, near the beaded curtain, at the feet of Mirus, easily, as a slave girl, thinking nothing of it, sits at the feet of a man, and slipped the anklets from my right ankles, putting them in the box to my left.

I decide to pretend not to notice how he was looking at me.

I felt briefly like a pet at his feet, and there I supposed that a sense that I was pet, and that all we girls were, at least in a sense, pets, slave pets. But we were a thousand times more than mere pets, we were slaves, total slaves. I put my bracelets in the box, and then the armlet from my upper left arm. I tried to undo the thong on the bells on my left ankle. the knows were tight, drawn by a man" s hand. I fought with them. My fingers were small and weal. "Let me help you," said Mirus, and crouched down, near me. He had put the bells on me. It is often men who put slave bells on their girls. Such bells are indicative of bondage. Accordingly I suppose it makes sense that they might enjoy putting them on us, like brands and collars. Some men even dress their girls, us, and, always, the girl" s choices of such things as garb, cosmetics, perfume, jewelry, and such, and, indeed, her entire ensemble, are subject to the master" s approval. Indeed, most often, whether it only a simple tunic, before she hurries forth to shop, or in luscious slave silk and exciting adornments, before she is to welcome and serve her master" s guests, displaying herself as one of his treasures, she is expected to present herself before him, for his inspection. She is owned.