Dancer of Gor

"Perhaps if you had been less beautiful, and desirable," she said, "you would not have been brought to this world."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you wish then," she said, "that you had been less beautiful, or desirable?" "No," I said.

"It is getting late," she said. "Let us return to the tank, and then to the pens."

"Yes," I said.

"Perhaps you should close your tunic," she said.

"No," I said. "Let the men see."

"You are a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Are all the women of your world slaves?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

She parted her own tunic.

"I see that you, too, are a slave," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"But you are Gorean," I said.

"I am a woman," she said.

"We are both women," I said.

"And slaves," said Tupita.

"Yes," I said, "we are both women, and slaves."

25 In the Tent of the Overseer

It was near sunset now, some five days later after I had served in the trough, between the sandy hills. That very night my chains had been removed, and I had been scrubbed clean. My hair had been washed twice, and combed with care. I had been perfumed. I had then been wrapped in a red sheet and carried to the tent of the overseer.

I heard guards calling the watch.

All was well, it seemed, in the camp of the black chain of Ionicus. Ionicus himself had left the area of the camp the same afternoon in which I had served in the trough, returning, it was said, to Cos.

It was very beautiful this time of the evening. I stood in the entrance to the overseer" s tent, alone, looking out, to the southwest. I wore only my collar, that of Ionicus, and, about my waist, a knotted thong, in which was thrust a narrow rectangle of red silk. I, like Tela, it seemed, who had once been the beautiful, spoiled, rich woman, Liera Didiramache of Lydius, in the north, on the Laurius, who had been first in the coffle, when I was fifth, had been found pleasing by Aulus, overseer of the black chain of Ionicus.

The sun" s light, like a soft, diaphanous, golden mantle, spread over the hills and countryside. I could not see the pens from where I stood, neither those of the women, nor those of the men. Had I gone about the tent I could have seen the walls of Venna. I looked out to the southwest, over the camp area. I could see from this rise, on which was located the overseer" s tent, the low hills among which I had served chained masters. I still bore the marks of their bruisings. I did not thing they had wanted to hurt me, but they had not had a woman in a long time. in their haste, and their strength, and considering I had been a lure girl, they had not chosen to be gentle. It did not displease me to be forced to recognize, and incontrovertibly, and with my whole body, that I was in a man" s arms, those of a true man, and was a slave. Sometimes, I confess, I even wanted the whip, not for its pain, which I feared, but for its proof of my domination, that I was owned, and wholly, and was going to be mastered. But, sometimes, too, I wanted gentleness, and, in a slave" s helplessness, begged for it. But even when Gorean men use you with gentleness, and great gentleness, I am pleased to report that they do so with authority. There is never any doubt, even then, as to the fact that you are in their arms, and who is in command. I could see, too, though it was harder now, the posts in the distance, between which the wire was strung. The wire was slave wire, with its closely interwoven latticework of sharp, swaying strands, and, numerous and closely set, at intervals of less than a hort, its barbs and knifelike prongs. I shuddered. A slave could be cut to pieces on such wire.