Dancer of Gor

I heard myself characterized as being "semitrained." Was that all my training in the house counted for, I wondered, rising so early, retiring so late, the busy days, the long lessons, their frequency, variety and intensiveness, administered to us morning, noon and night? I then wondered if this, like the claims made with respect to my Gorean, were intended to be precautionary, or conservative, perhaps to avoid possible subsequent difficulties with disappointed buyers. But this time I did not think so. I had some inkling, by now, given my training in the house, of the sorts of things which could be involved in "training," many of which we had not even had time to touch upon. I was sure that given the possibilities of slave service I was still very naA?ve and backward, still muchly uninformed. Indeed, I suspected that there would always be more to learn about service and love, that such things were fathomless and limitless, and, thus, in a sense, the notion of being ""fully trained," or knowing all there was to know, was in actuality less of a practical goal than a lovely ideal, one which might perhaps be approached ever more closely, but would never be, and perhaps should never be, fully attained. Let the girl revel in her growth, and not fear that one day there will be more to learn, nowhere else to go. There are no summits on the heights of love. Ulrick, however, had assured me in the house, once, that I had talent. I hoped so. Such, among the imperious masters of this world, might improve my chances for survival. I did have a live body, some understanding of my womanhood, and a desire to please men. I looked down into some of the faces below me, behind the railing, across the dirt, across the tarsk run. I had better be pleasing to such men, I thought, shuddering. Then I moaned to myself. Teibar was not here. I was alone. What was I doing here? Why was I brought here, to this world? My wrists hurt, held up so high in the steel. Were the men not being cruel to me? Could they not see I was naked, and helpless?

"Category," I heard, "a€”Pleasure Slave."

When I heard this categorization, so matter-of-factly given, concluding the fellow" s recounting of attributes and features, measurements and such, I was suddenly, inordinately, startled. I had known, of course, I was not a house slave, or a tower slave, for I was not permitted to kneel in fashions appropriate to those varieties of slave. Too, I had understood, of course, that many of the things I was taught seemed to have direct application to the pleasing of masters, and even profoundly sensuously so, but I had not, until now, heard that exact simple, direct expression. We had never been told, in so many words, that that was the sort of slave we were. Perhaps the Gorean girls had understood, clearly enough, but I do not think we girls of Earth had, at least not is so direct a way, not in the way, certainly, which seemed to be summarized so clearly and succinctly by that one expression. Ulrick had not even told me the sort of slave I was. He had laughed, and informed me that I would learn from men. Now, it seemed, on the sales block, I had done so. I threw back my head, and moaned. The chain overhead tightened and I was pulled up a little more, so that only my toes were on the block.

The auctioneer lifted his whip, cracked it, and called for the first bid. My wrists hurt. He was calling for a bid on an illiterate barbarian. I realized, suddenly, that that was I.

I was an educated, civilized, refined woman on my own world. Here I was an illiterate barbarian!

I heard someone call out from the floor. I realized, suddenly, I had been bid upon. I was being sold! Too, he was not bidding on part of me, say, on my body. He was bidding in the Gorean fashion on all of me, on the whole slave. The bid had been for twenty copper tarsks. In a moment I had heard twenty-two, and twenty-seven.

On my own world I was a modern woman, of sorts, independent, and free, and with political power, particularly with fearful, cringing men. But here men were not fearful and cringing. But then I had been taken from Earth, and my power, to be brought here to be utterly powerless, to be a slave, to be a pleasure slave! How reductive, I thought, to be a pleasure slave! Then I knew that that was what, on a proper, natural world, I would be, that that, on such world, was right for me. "No, no!" I wept, in English.

I heard more bids.

The auctioneer walked about me. He touched me, here and there, with his whip. He turned me on the chain, I on my toes, exhibiting me.

Then I again faced the men. There were more bids.