There was now great laughter for, strolling across the stage, swinging censers, mumbling in what was doubtless supposed to resemble archaic Gorean, in the guise of Initiates, came Tarsk-Bit’s Lecchio and Chino. In a moment they had passed.
“Those were not brigands,” cried the girl, angrily, looking up. “They were Initiates!”
“I am sorry,” said Boots, apologetically. “I mistook them for brigands.”
She leaped to her feet, covering herself with her hands, as well as she could. “You may now give me the veil, sir,” she said, angrily.
“But you have not yet given me my peep,” protested Boots.
“Oh!” she cried angrily.
“Consider how you are standing,” said Boots, “half turned away from me, half crouched down, and holding your legs as you are, and with your hands and arms placed as they are, such things seem scarcely fair to me. Surely you must understand that such things constitute obstacles uncongenial, at the least, to the achievement of a peep of the quality in question.”
“Oh! Oh!” she cried.
“It is a simple matter of bargaining in good faith,” said Boots.
“Sleen!” she cried.
“Perhaps we could get a ruling on the matter from a praetor,” suggested Boots.
“Sleen! Sleen!” she cried.
“I see that I must be on my way,” said Boots.
“No!” she cried. “I must have that wondrous veil!”
“Not without my peep,” said Boots.
“Very well, sir,” she said. “How will you have your peep? What must I do?”
“Lie down upon your back,” he said, “and lift your right knee, placing your hands at your sides, six inches from your thighs, the palms of your hands facing upwards.” He regarded her. “No,” he said, “that is not quite it. Roll over, if you would. Better. Now lift your upper body from the dirt, supporting it on the palms of your hands, and look back over your shoulder. Not bad. But I am not sure that is exactly it. Kneel now, and straighten your body, putting your head back, clasping your hands behind the back of your head. Perhaps that is almost it.”
“I hope so!” she cried.
“But not quite,” he said.
“Oh!” she cried in frustration.
“Sometimes one must labor, and experiment, to find the proper peep,” he informed her.
“Apparently,” she said.
Boots, then, it seemed always just minimally short of success, continued dauntlessly to search for a suitable peep. In doing this, of course, the female was well, and lengthily, displayed for the audience.
She was incredibly beautiful. The men cried out with pleasure, some of them slapping their thighs.
“Disgusting! Disgusting!” cried the free woman.
I myself considered bidding on the Brigella. She was incredibly, marvelously beautiful.
“Disgusting!” cried the free woman.
“It is you who are disgusting,” said one of the men to the free woman.
“I?” she cried.
“Yes, you,” he said.
The free woman did not respond to him. She stiffened in her robes, her small hands clenched in her blue gloves. How antibiological, petty, and self-serving were her value judgments.
“Look,” cried Boots to the Brigella, in his guise of a merchant. “Someone is coming!”
“You will not fool me twice, you scoundrel, you cad!” she replied from her knees.
“I think it is a woman,” said Boots.
“What?” she cried, turning about, half rising, and then collapsed back in confusion, in misery, to her knees. She looked up at Boots, wildly. “It is Lady Tipa, my rival, from the village,” she said. “She cannot be allowed to see me like this. What, oh, what, shall I do? Where can I hide?”
“Quickly,” cried Boots, “here, beneath my robes!”
Swiftly, on her knees, wildly, knowing not what else to do, the girl had scrambled to Boots. In a moment she was concealed beneath his robes, on her knees, only her calves and feet thrust out from beneath their hem.
“I see, sir,” said the newcomer, who was understood to be the free woman, the Lady Tipa, but was presumably Boots’s Bina, usually the companion and confidante of the Brigella, “that you well know how to put a slave through her paces.”
“Why, thank you, noble lady,” said Boots.
“I did not get a good look at her as I approached,” said the Bina. “Is she pretty?”
“Some might think her passable,” said Boots, “but compared to yourself her beauty is doubtless no more than that of a she-urt to that of the preferred slave of a Ubar.”
The Brigella churned with rage beneath Boots’s robes. She dared not emerge, of course.
“What is wrong with your slave?” asked the Bina.
“She burns with desire,” said Boots.
“How weak slaves are,” said the Bina.
“Yes,” said Boots.
“I am looking for a girl from my village,” said the Bina. “I was told, by two fellows, peddlers, I think, whom I take to be of the merchants, that she may have come this way.”
“Could you describe her?” asked Boots.
“Her name is Phoebe,” said the Bina, “and were she not veiled it would be easier to describe her to you, as she is frightfully homely.”
The girl under Boots’s robes shook with fury.
“Still,” said the newcomer, “you might have been able, nonetheless, to recognize her. She is too short, too wide in the hips and has thick ankles.”
At this there was more churning beneath Boots’s robes.
“Surely there is something wrong with your slave,” said the Bina.
“No, no,” Boots assured her.
“What is she doing under there?” asked the Bina.
“She begged so piteously to be permitted to give me the kiss of a slave that I, in my weakness, at last yielded to her entreaties.”
There was much furious stirring then beneath the robes.
“How kind you are, sir,” said the Bina.
“Thank you,” said Boots.
There was a muffled cry, as of rage and protest, from beneath the robes.
“Did she say something?” asked the Bina.
“Only that she begs to be permitted to begin,” said Boots.
The robes shook with fury.
“Surely there is something wrong with her,” said the Bina.
“It is only that she is suffering with need,” said Boots.
“Though she is naught but a meaningless slave,” said the Bina, “she is yet, like myself, a female. Please be kind to her, sir. Let her please you.”
“How understanding you are,” marveled Boots. “You may begin,” he said to the concealed girl.
The robes shook violently, negatively.
“What is wrong?” asked the Bina.
“She is shy,” said Boots.
“The slave need not be shy on my account,” said the Bina. “Let her begin.”
“Begin,” said Boots.
His robes again shook violently.
“Begin,” he said.
Again there seemed a great commotion beneath his robes.
Boots then, with the flat of his hand, with some force, cuffed the girl concealed under his robes. Instantly she knelt quietly. “Lazy girl, naughty girl,” chided Boots. The tops of her toes, as she knelt, beat up and down in helpless frustration. “I see that I shall have to draw you forth and beat you,” he said.
“Look!” cried the Bina. “She begins!”
“Oh, she does, doesn’t she?” said Boots. “Oh, yes!”
“What a slave she is!” cried the Bina. “How exciting! How exciting!”
“To be sure,” agreed Boots. “Ah! Yes! Ohhh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Quite! Oh! Yes! Oh! Oh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Ohhhh, yes, yes, yes.” Boots then wiped his brow with his sleeve.
“Has she gone?” called out the Brigella, after a time, her voice muffled from beneath his robes.
> “Yes,” said Boots.
The Brigella, as the Lady Phoebe, extricated herself, on her knees, from the robes of Boots Tarsk-Bit. She turned about, still on her knees. “Tipa!” she cried in horror.
“I thought you had gone,” said Boots.
“Phoebe!” cried the Lady Tipa.
“Tipa,” moaned Phoebe, in misery.
“Phoebe!” cried the Lady Tipa, in delight.
“Tipa!” pleaded Phoebe.
“Phoebe on her knees, as naked as a slave, on a public road, crawling out of a man’s robes!” laughed the Bina, pointing derisively at her. “How shameful, how outrageous, how marvelous, how delicious, how glorious!”
“Please, Tipa,” pleaded Phoebe.
“You are the sort of girl who should have been whipped and collared at puberty!” said the Bina.
The free woman in the audience stiffened at these words. These words seemed to have some special meaning for her. She shook her head, no, no, no, and clenched her small fists fiercely, protestingly, defensively, in the blue gloves.
“You have always been a slave,” said the Bina.
“I am a free woman,” wailed the Brigella.
“Slave, slave, slave!” laughed the Bina. “This story will bear a rich retelling in the village,” she said, hurrying away.
“I am ruined,” wailed the Brigella, rising to her feet, wringing her hands. “I cannot bear now to return to the village and, if I did, they would put a chain on me and sell me.”
“Perhaps not,” said Boots, soothingly.
“Do you not think so, sir?” she asked.
“It might be a rope,” he said.
“Ohhhhh,” she wailed. “Where can I go? What can I do?”
“Well,” said Boots, “I must be on my way.”
“But what shall I do?” she asked.
“Try to avoid being eaten by sleen,” said Boots. “It is growing dark.”
“Where are my clothes?” she begged.
“I do not see them about,” said Boots. “They must have blown away.”
“Take me with you!” she begged.
“Perhaps you would like to kneel and beg my collar?” he asked. “I might then consider whether or not I find you pleasing enough to lock it on your neck.”
“Sir,” she cried, “I am a free woman!”
“Good luck with the sleen,” he said.
“Accept me as a traveling companion,” she urged.
“And what would you do, to pay your way on the road?” he asked.
“I could give you a kiss, on the cheek, once a day,” she said. “Surely you could not expect more from a free woman.”
“Good luck with the sleen,” said he.
“Do not go,” she begged. “I am willing, even, to enter into the free companionship with you!”
Boots staggered backwards, as though overwhelmed. “I could not dream of accepting a sacrifice of such enormity on your part!” he cried.
“I will. I will!” she cried.
“But I suspect,” said Boots suspiciously, musingly, regarding her, “that there may be that in you which is not really of the free companion.”
“Sir?” she asked.
“Perhaps you are, in actuality, more fittingly understood as something else,” he mused.
“What can you mean, sir?” she asked.
“Does it not seem strange that you would have fallen madly in love with me at just this moment?”
“Why, no, of course not,” she said.
“Perhaps you are merely trying to save yourself from sleen,” he mused.
“No, no,” she assured him.
“I fear that you are tricking me,” he said.
“No!” she said.
“In any event,” he said, “you surely cannot expect me to consider you seriously in connection with the free companionship.”
“Why not?” she asked, puzzled.
“A naked woman,” he asked, skeptically, “encountered beside a public road?”
“Oh!” she cried in misery.
“Do you have a substantial dowry?” he asked. “An extensive wardrobe, wealth, significant family connections, a high place in society?”
“No!” she said. “No! No!”
“And if you return to your village I think you will find little waiting for you there but a rope collar and a trip in a sack to the nearest market.”
“Misery!” she wept.
“Besides,” he said, “in your heart you are truly a slave.”
“No!” she cried.
“Surely you know that?” he asked.
“No!” she cried.
“I do not even think you saw the wondrous veil,” he said.
“I saw it,” she said. “I saw it!”
“What was its predominant color?” he asked, sharply.
“Yellow,” she said.
“No,” he said.
“Red!” she said.
“No!” he said.
“Blue, pink, orange, green!” she cried.
“Apparently you are a slave,” he said, grimly. “You should not have tried to masquerade as a free woman. There are heavy penalties for that sort of thing.”
She put her head in her hands, sobbing.
“I wonder if I should turn you over to magistrates,” he said.
“Please, do not!” she wept.
“I will give you another chance,” he said, reaching behind his back, to where he had supposedly hidden the veil at the first sight of the supposed brigands. “Now,” he said, thrusting forth his hands, “in which hand is it?”
“The right!” she cried.
“No!” he said.
“The left!” she wept.
“No,” he said, “it is in neither hand. I left it behind my back!”
“Oh, oh!” she wept.
“On your knees, Slave,” he said, sternly.
Swiftly she knelt, in misery.
“Do not fret, girl,” said Boots. “Surely you know that you have slave curves.”
“I do?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “In any event, you are far too beautiful to be a mere free companion.”
“I am?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Your beauty, if you must know, is good enough to be that of a slave.”
Here several of the men in the audience shouted their agreement.
“It is?” she asked, laughing.
“Yes,” said Boots, struggling to keep a straight face.
“Good!” laughed the Brigella.
There was more laughter from the audience.
“Mind your characterizations!” called the free woman in the audience.
“Forgive me, Lady,” said Boots, trying not to laugh.
“Forgive me, Mistress,” said the Brigella.
“Continue,” said the free woman.
“Are you in charge of the drama?” inquired a man.
The free woman did not deign to respond to him.
“Will you not then accept me as a free companion, noble sir?” called the Brigella to Boots, in his guise as the merchant.
“It is the collar for you, or nothing,” said Boots, grandly.
There was a cheer from the men in the audience.
“Though I may be a slave in my heart,” cried the Brigella, leaping to her feet, “I am surely not a legal slave and thus, as yet, am bond to neither you nor any man!”
“Many are the slaves who do not yet wear their collars,” said Boots, meditatively, and then, suddenly, turned about and, to the amusement of the men in the audience, to sudden bursts of laughter, stared directly at the outspoken, troublesome, arrogant free woman standing in the front row, below the stage. He could not resist turning the line in this fashion, it seemed.
“Sleen! Sleen!” she cried.
There was much laughter.
“Is it true that you are as yet merely an uncollared slave?” asked a man of the free woman.
“He is a sleen, a sleen!” cried the free woman.
�
��I must soon be on my way,” said Boots to the Brigella, chuckling, trying to return to the play. He was well pleased with himself.
“Go!” she said, grandly, with a gesture.
“If you wish,” he said, “you may kneel and beg my collar. I might consider granting it to you. I would have to think about it.”
“Never!” she said.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I shall return to the village and take my chances,” she said.
“Very well,” he said, “but watch out for those two fellows approaching. I fear they may be slavers.”
“They appear to be peddlers, merchants, to me,” she said.
“They do seem so,” admitted Boots. “But that may be merely their disguise, to take unwary girls unawares.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I know a peddler when I see one.”
“At any rate,” he said, “let us hope that they are no worse than slavers.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I heard there were two feed hunters in the vicinity,” he said.
“What is a feed hunter?” she asked.
“Why one who hunts for feed, of course,” said Boots.
“Feed?” she asked.
“Usually for their sleen,” he said. “They are pesky, careless, greedy fellows, little better than scavengers, in my opinion. They will settle for almost anything. They are particularly pleased when they can get their ropes on a juicy girl.”
“Surely there are better things to do with a girl than feed her to sleen,” she said.
“It probably depends on the girl,” said Boots.
“No!” she cried.
“You are just saying that because you are a girl,” he said.
“No!” she said.
“I am inclined to agree with you, though,” said Boots, “all things considered, but then, of course, I am not a feed hunter.”
“You are trying to frighten me,” she said.
“Have it your own way,” said Boots.
“You have fooled me already today, perhaps many times,” she said. “Do not seek to do it again!”
“Have it your own way,” said Boots.
“I wish that my clothes had not blown away,” she said.
Players of Gor Page 19
