by John Norman
A stroke or two of the whip and they are silent, and obedient. Another stroke or two and they are on their bellies, extending their hands to the buyers, begging to be purchased.
The difference, rather, in most cases, is various, wonder, uncertainty, hesitation, timidity, inertness, woodenness, a lack of grace, a lack of presentation, of readiness, of eagerness.
Some are clearly in misery, frightened. Some cannot hold their water. Some retch. The bowels of some are involuntarily, uncontrollably evacuated. It is not for no reason that they are ankle deep in sawdust.
How damp and foul may be the sawdust for subsequent items!
To be sure, such things are rare, probably because the sales have been rehearsed. In that way the items are aware of what will be expected of them. They are not fully informed, of course. There is always room for surprise, and spontaneity. One does not inform a new item of everything which may be done with them on the block.
I would suppose the items are not likely to forget their first sale. For most, I would suppose, as well, the first sale is the most difficult. This is not always the case, of course, for much can depend on the house, the auctioneer, the market, the mood of the buyers, and such. If it is learned that a given item was once a free woman of an enemy city, even a third or fourth sale may be terrifying.
Many, of course, are frightened, even overcome, shamed and humiliated, at their exposure, and that, interestingly, despite their training. What would they expect? Who would buy a clothed slave? Perhaps they did not expect the thing to be done so blatantly; perhaps they did not expect to be handled, and presented, in the way they are. Perhaps, too, it has to do with the whole of the thing, its reality, its newness, the sensations, the torchlight, the auctioneer, the cries of the men, the bidding.
Some of the items seem numb, almost in shock.
That makes it difficult for the auctioneer.
Are they even aware of the deft touches of his whip, that a chin be lifted, an arm raised, a body turned, a leg extended?
I am not sure that all of the items, at first, even understand, at least fully, what is being done to them. This is strange, given the training, the rehearsals. Perhaps they do not care to believe it. It cannot be being done to them. Surely it is a dream. But it is not a dream. It is real. Then they understand. They are being sold.
They move as directed.
They are merchandise, being displayed.
The item is well illuminated, while the auditorium is not. Many of the cries come from unseen bidders, obscure in the crowd, unseen in the darkness. Often the item is not even aware to whom it has been sold, only that it has been sold.
Perhaps they are still unfamiliar with the weight of chains, with their shackling.
Yet, how beautiful they are, even so!
Things are much different, of course, with the slave who knows her collar, who has knelt and kissed a dozen whips. After a time her belly burns. Men have seen to it. She is no longer hers; she is then men’s. It is common, time permitting, the market conditions appropriate, to isolate such items, in their boxes or cages, for some days before their sale. Their needs are made clear by their scratching at the walls of kennels, their pressings against the bars of cages, their sobbings and entreaties before the guards, who will ignore them. They are well ready then, when brought to the block.
How piteously they strive to elicit interest.
It is natural, of course, for an item to wish to sell well. A well-presented item, other things being equal, is likely to bring a better price, and a richer master, with the likelihood of an easier life, less work, and greater prestige. Too, vanity courses brightly, rushing unobstructed, amongst such goods, familiar with such things, and each desires to win a fine price, and, particularly, one better than that garnered by rivals, or others of the house. Who does not wish to be the most beautiful, the most desirable? How proud is a top-price item! It is little wonder then that experienced items will compete on the block to excite buyers and outdo one another. How well they display the house’s merchandise, sometimes subtly, so cleverly, sometimes brazenly, so boldly, invitingly, seductively! Many men who lack the coin to make a realistic bid frequent the emporia, the selling wagons, the shelves, the cages, the platforms, the camps, and barns, to gather the foods on which dreams will live. Yet many items are cheap, and not just pot girls or kettle-and-mat girls, and might be afforded even within the means of a light purse.
Sometimes a rich man adjudges the performance of an arrogant, vain, marvelously beautiful item to be intrinsically meretricious, to be hollow, and hypocritical, even fraudulent. It may call forth moans of anguish from some men in the crowd but the connoisseur recognizes its duplicity. Yet the slave is quite beautiful. Perhaps something might be made of her, if she is taught her collar, and suitably humbled. How smug she is, to be taken from the block by so generous a bid! But at his villa she is cast a rag and put to the tending of verr or tarsk. Perhaps months later, now understanding that she is a slave, and no more, she is permitted to crawl, begging, to the foot of his couch.
Though it was late I lingered at the sales, though why I am not sure.
Toward the end of the evening, I noted that a short, widely-hipped, nicely bodied brunette was conducted to the block. I scrutinized her, from the middle tiers. I recalled her. She was one of those I had first scouted on the slave world, several weeks ago. She was not particularly beautiful, as such things go, but there was clearly a subtle attractiveness about her. I had not been fully sure of her, but my colleagues had confirmed my initial impression. She was suitable collar meat. One can see certain women, and see that they belong in a collar. She was such a woman.
I recalled her bound, well tethered, and turning her over with my foot, in the warehouse, putting her to her back. I do not think she remembered me, from the large store. Prior to my turning her she had remained in the bara position, and, as some others, had held that position when placed in it, even prior to her fastening. Such things are indicative of intelligence, and even more so, perhaps, of understanding.
Some women obey because they must, and others because they must, and wish to do so, and hope to do so, and long to do so.
The selection criteria are stringent.
And they exceed those beauties which might be captured by a mechanical painter. There are the beauties of movement and expression, subtle, evanescent, and lovely, like the movement of a brook between its banks, of grass bending in the wind, of rustling leaves. Each particle is alive and precious. And there are the beauties of the vitality of consciousness, of thought, of emotion, of need, of readiness, of hope, of desire, of latent passion.
Few are deemed worthy of a Gorean collar.
It is important that they should be suitable, of course, as one intends to sell them.
And so she came to the block.
I stayed to watch.
She was thrust forward, into the torchlight.
She seemed to me then more beautiful than I had remembered her.
Of course, it had been easy to remember that she was attractive, not at all bad looking.
But now, somehow, she seemed more so.
Had she lost some small register of weight; was her waist narrower, her figure trimmer?
Before a sale, a house tries to bring its goods to ideal block measurements, customized to the item, differing from item to item.
Beyond this, was she softer now, more lithe, more alive? Had she come now more to a sense of herself?
I decided she was beautiful. I wondered if she knew that.
I had the sense, beyond that, that she would be responsive, and, in time, needfully, helplessly, beggingly responsive.
Doubtless she did not now understand what could be done with her.
It is amusing, to do this to them.
In a tunic, barefoot, on the streets, I did not doubt but what men would turn, to look after her.
Something seemed special about her. I was not sure what it might be. Surely she was only another lovely beast, an
other bead on the slaver’s chain, another vendible item, one of more than a hundred already presented before us, but there seemed something special about her. Perhaps only to me. I noticed no special interest, or particular ripple of anticipation about me. We were used to excellent merchandise, of course. Plenty of it had already been before us. Much of it had sold well. Bids were now less forthcoming. Was it, I wondered, simply that she was so unusually feminine, so clearly feminine, and this so early in her bondage, despite the culture from which she was derived? Or was it, rather, simply, that she was, and was so obviously, a slave? Much that is subtle goes into these things, much which it would be difficult to articulate.
The first time I looked upon her, of course, I saw her as fittingly collared.
Such as she belonged on the block.
Clearly she had never been sold before. It is not hard to tell a new girl.
She obeyed well, but they all do, almost all. The lash is not pleasant. Clearly she feared to excite buyers. In the house she had learned something of what it is to be a woman, and on Gor. Gor has its laws, its customs, its principles, its conventions, its proprieties, and its sensitivity, sometimes acute, to points of honor; but, to a woman brought from the slave world, it is likely to appear, at first, little more than a lawless savagery, a chaos of will and mastery, an unpredictable jungle, a threatening ferocity, a country of dangers and barbarities. To me that seems strange, given the heartless, barbaric complexities of her world with its scramblings for wealth and power, the competitions to control the weaponry of states, that one may apply such ugly resources, under the pretense of legality, to the ends of one’s own aggrandizement, a world of deceit, glitter, propaganda, hypocrisy, falsity, greed, and cruelty, a world not loved, but threatened, by a thousand ignorances, neglects, lies, and poisons. What strange beast would defecate in its own lair, or foul its own nest, ruin the soil from which it hopes to harvest, defile the seas in which it would cast its nets, contaminate the very air which it must breathe? Barbarians, they do not know that they are barbarians.
What are its women worth, save to be slaves?
Collar them, master them.
Little, I fear, has prepared the unguarded slave fruit, so carefully and easily plucked from the orchards of Earth, for the world of Gor. Perhaps the major difference between these worlds is that in one nature is feared and rejected, with the result that civilization is essentially a denial of nature, almost its antithesis, a war conducted against a suspect nature, as though nature was an enemy, to be suppressed at all costs, rather than the foundation of one’s very being. On Gor, civilization is not a flight from nature, but its acceptance, refinement, and enhancement. Gorean culture is built on nature, and within it, not against it, and apart from it. Unhappiness and misery is a high cost to pay for the denial of nature; it is well, I suppose, at least, that the victims are encouraged to think well of themselves, taking their unease, grief, and wretchedness as badges of rectitude. You may teach a bird that flight is evil, and break its wings, but its heart will always remember the sky.
The auctioneer had begun taking bids on the barbarian.
I would not bid.
The taverns would be open until shortly before dawn.
Some of the fellows had brought their slaves with them, these kneeling, head down, at the left knee of their seated masters, their wrists braceleted behind them. They were briefly tunicked, as is common with the slaves of men. Most were leashed, the strap of the leash lying across the master’s lap, or wound, loosely, about his left wrist. Some of these slaves might have been close enough to the raised sales platform, and its torches, to be visible to the items being vended. Perhaps the items being vended might wonder if, sometime, they, too, might be brought so to an auction. The usual reason a slave is brought to an auction is merely that their masters enjoy having them at hand, relish them, and do not wish to leave them at home, caged, kenneled, chained to a couch ring, or such; on the other hand, many masters enjoy being seen with slaves whom others might envy, the ownership of a beautiful slave accruing them attention and prestige, rather as might the exhibition of a splendid kaiila or fine sleen; and others, I fear, bring them either to alarm the slave, reminding her that she, too, could easily be sold, or even, occasionally, to offer them, in a private sale.
It was late, and several had left the tiers.
Clearly the barbarian feared to excite the men.
That was comprehensible, at least now.
On Gor nature, as suggested, is respected. For example, men are not divided against themselves, shamed, diminished, reduced, ridiculed, castigated, and taught to suspect their most natural feelings and impulses. Guilt is more cruel than the sword, for one turns the knife in one’s own stomach. What animal other than a human being is so stupid as to torture itself? Who sells the knife, and who collects its rent? It is a strange physician whose livelihood depends on placing poultices on wounds which, were it not for him, would not have existed. Many are the ways in which a living may be made. Some are difficult to understand, if one seeks reasons, and not causes.
Many crimes have no names.
And what of women on such a world?
Not knowing men, how can they know themselves? How should we understand day without night, summer without winter, here without there, this without that? How shall we understand women without men? There can be bodies without men, but can there be women?
Clearly she feared to excite the buyers.
Doubtless she knew how small, how weak, how defenseless, how helpless, she was. Too, by now, she had some sense of the nature of Gorean men. Little on her world had prepared her for this, for such men, their health and hardiness, their naturalness, their openness, innocence, and honesty, their unity, power, strength, possessiveness, and aggression, how they would look upon her and, without a second thought or reservation, see her as a female, and treat her as a female.
How different from her world!
Was she not as a vulnerable tabuk doe amongst larls?
“Excellent,” said a fellow beside me.
The item had been placed in the slave bow, bent backwards, the auctioneer’s hand in her hair.
I agreed with the fellow beside me. Her line was excellent.
I thought the auctioneer was doing a good job, particularly with a new girl. Some auctioneers work in different markets, even in different cities. Most, on the other hand, will contract to a particular house, or market. A skilled auctioneer is expensive. Some receive a percentage of the sale.
The bids were desultory. It was late. Many buyers had left. I feared the strings of many purses were now knotted tight. The goods had been exhibited in exposition cages this afternoon, prior to the sale. Her lot was 119. I had seen her in one of the cages, with several others. Some were kneeling, some sitting, some standing, some moving about. There were pans of food, slave gruel, and water in the cage, and a wastes bucket. It was easy to see the slaves who had been sold before, perhaps more than once. They wanted masters. They needed masters. There was no mistaking their glances, the positioning of their bodies. Their needs were obvious, from their faces, glimpsed behind the bars. Their eyes would plead. Some clutched the bars, pressing their face between them, as they could. Others pretended indifference, even insolence. That sometimes provokes a fellow to bid, if only to have the pleasure of having such a bold, pretentious animal cowering at his feet, lifting her lips to his whip. When a girl is called to the bars she must approach her summoner, posing and displaying herself as he might suggest. Her lot number is prominent, drawn on her left breast in grease pencil. I had called one to me, a brunette, who seemed lost, and timid, naked, locked in the cage, but did not ask her to perform. I merely wished to ascertain the lot number. Amidst all the others, near the cages and in the vicinity, I do not think she recognized me. I was not in the barbarous garments with which I had disguised myself on her crowded, polluted, misguided, hapless world, nor in the work tunic I had worn in the warehouse. I was in robes suitable for my caste, dark, with th
e small blue and yellow chevrons low on the left sleeve. Within them was concealed the gladius. I dismissed her with a gesture, as a slave is dismissed. She hurried back into the cage, to conceal herself, amongst the others.
There are many strategies for organizing a sale. In this market, the Jewels of Brundisium, not to be confused with the paga tavern of the same name near the wharves, one usually, as tonight, divides the evening into five segments; the first and second segments, save for a special item or two, to encourage early attendance, are intended to set the stage for the third and fourth segments. By then late comers are seated and the crowd is warmed, has found its mood, and is ready for, and eager for, the more competitive bidding. Normally that merchandise adjudged the most likely to bring high prices will then be offered. We were now in the early portion of the fifth phase. Interestingly, some unusual buyers, of a garb and sort with which I was unfamiliar, had made a number of purchases in the first and second phases of the sale. Their purses seemed deep. Certainly they had silver, and, in the third and fourth segment, even gold to spare. I do not think that one item, to this point, had gone unsold, fortunately for the item, for otherwise it might be whipped, though several, in the first and second segments, had gone cheaply, for copper, from twenty to eighty tarsks, copper tarsks. In Brundisium 100 copper tarsks is commonly valued at a silver tarsk. None had sold for less than twenty-forty copper, namely twenty copper tarsks, forty tarsk-bits. In Brundisium there are 100 tarsk-bits to the copper tarsk. In many cities, Ar, Besnit, Thentis, Ko-ro-ba, and such, the tarsk-bit is more valuable, there being most often eight or ten to a copper tarsk. I do not know the rates in Turia, nor in the islands. In Brundisium a day’s wages, for a docksman, is usually twenty to forty tarsk-bits. A free oarsman will usually command more. Some alleged the unusual buyers were Tuchuks, but others denied this. The shading of their skin and the cast of their eyes suggested Tuchuk blood, but they were not armed as Tuchuks, and seemed, too, in so far as such things might be ascertained, unfamiliar with bosk, kaiila, and the terrains of the south. Some said, too, they were taller than Tuchuks, and were more spare, more sedate, more studied, more formal, more withdrawn, more graceful, and perhaps more latently intense. Some, crossed in the streets, had proved more than capable of defending themselves, with their unusual softly curved blades, one long, one short. They had attracted attention, for their apparent wealth, for buying slaves and hiring ships, and taking men into fee, many of them refugees, armed mercenaries, escaped from Ar, given the sudden, devastating, bloody restoration of Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, sometimes spoken of as the Ubar of Ubars. These ships, it was said, would coast north. Their purpose was obscure. Some ships, returned, had disembarked supplies, soldiers, and slaves on the stony beaches bordering the northern forests.
