Dancer of Gor

"Yes, Master," I smiled. I was delighted to learn that I had brought a good price, even if he thought it such a bargain. I was delighted, too, to learn that I might have, even had he not been there, brought as much as two silver tarsks. One fellow had bid that much! Too, perhaps most importantly, most significantly, no other girl had sold for so much that night as I! I had brought the highest price in the whole market that night! This astonished and delighted me. To be sure, it was doubtless an isolated market, and we were probably all only semitrained girls, or less, girls being sold that night as little more than "slave meat," it was I who had brought the highest price! I wished Teibar could have known that, that his catch from the library on Earth had brought the highest price in the market, and on her first sale, too! But I supposed that he, the monster, the beast, would have merely congratulated himself on his taste in selecting captures, turning it all to his own credit! The buyers would have known very little about me, of course. They had seen me the way most other Gorean men would see me, at first, or until they learned more about me, I supposed, as no more than another pretty girl in bondage, as, in effect, in a sense, no more than another pretty girl in bondage, as, in effect, in a sense, no more than mere "slave meat." I was proud, however, to have been regarded as an attractive slave, or, if you like, as promising slave meat. How strange it then seemed to me that I, the former Doreen Williamson, of Earth, a shy librarian, should now be elated that she had some simple, independent value as a female, if only as slave meat! Then I realized how superficial was my view of this matter, even in so simple a business as vending a girl from a block. Gloria was larger than I and, in his sense, would surely have been expected to have brought more if we were really being considered as "mere slave meat." But she had not brought more. They had considered us, and, for one reason or another, properly or improperly, wisely or not, at that particular time, at least, had bid more for me. The men call us "slave meat," and such, and perhaps this amuses them, and helps to keep us in our place, at their feet, but only a woman who is a fool believes them. They want, and own, the whole slave. Even Gorean law makes it clear that it is the entire slave whi is owned, not merely a part of her. To be sure, Gorean men do not play the games of some fools of Earth, pretending that the bodies of women are not of interest to them, but only their minds, or such, or whatever the currently prescribed cultural values recommend. They relish our bodies and see that they derive from them, exploiting us, if you will, every last ounce of pleasure that they can yield to them, but even in these merciless predations, showing us so little concern, it is the whole woman, the whole of their property, which they tease, and torment, and relish, and make yield to them.

"But there is good discipline kept in this house," he said, lifting the whip. "Yes, Master!" I said, quickly. Here, in this house, I then understood, though I might have some value in a commercial sense, I was only a slave.

"Crawl back down the steps, facing me," he said, "and then kneel at the foot of the dais."

I obeyed. I now felt very small before him, kneeling there, a slave, he, my master, so high above me in that great chair.

From a small sack at his side, walletlike, attached at his belt, he drew forth a tiny object, made of cloth. He crumpled it easily in the palm of his hand. It was clearly very compressible. I did not know what it was.

He threw it to me. It struck my body and fell before me, to the rug, at the foot of the dais. I looked down at it. I looked up at him.

"Put it on," he said.