Two of the raiders then strode toward us, who were aligned, kneeling. We quickly straightened our bodies, and lowered our heads. Our hands, palm down, were on our thighs. It is a lovely position, and, of course, a common submission posture. We kept our knees tightly closed. We dared not be taken as pleasure slaves. How much we would then be at men’s mercy! To be sure, a portion of my training, and doubtless of that of Tula and Mila, as well, had been that of the pleasure slave. It is assumed that any woman sold off the block is, or may be expected to make, a suitable pleasure slave. Even laundresses, mill girls, water bearers in the fields, and such, are not likely to be unfamiliar with what is expected of a pleasure slave. Certainly in the slave house I had served as such a slave. Some of the men, in assessing my promise, had even had me kneel before them in the position of the pleasure slave, my knees spread invitingly before them. How I had sensed then, even before being so commanded, sometimes to my embarrassment, my receptivity. Soon, sometimes to my shame, I had wanted their arms about me. Many times they made me beg. Men are cruel. I was changed, I knew, after my time in the slave house. How much I was then a slave! Not every slave, I knew, is sent to the slave house.
“Look up,” said the large, bearded fellow, whom I took to be the leader of the intruders.
“What do you think, Aeson?” he asked.
“My original conjecture is confirmed,” he said. “Acceptable, all of them.”
“And as kajirae?” asked the bearded fellow.
“Yes,” said Aeson.
He did not know, of course, that I was a barbarian. Yet, what difference should that make? Certainly many barbarians were taken for the markets, and thus deemed suitable for kajirae. I recalled a given master, perhaps the first who had ever looked upon me, though I could not be sure of that. What woman knows if the man who looks upon her, perhaps casually, perhaps appraisingly, is a master? How I hated the brute who had first discerned me in the aisle of the large emporium, he who had brought me to the degradation of the collar, for which I had yearned, he at whose feet I longed to lie, a submitted, nude, and collared slave.
“You may lower your heads,” said the bearded fellow, the leader.
We lowered our heads.
I felt a boot-like sandal, with its high, wide thongs, thrust between my knees, and then they were forced apart. I kept my head down. I did not dare meet the eyes of a master.
I did not know what man had forced my knees apart. I thought it likely that it had been the leader, but it may have been the other, perhaps prompted by a cursory glance or gesture.
The two men then turned away.
I knew in what position I now knelt. Only I had had my position so adjusted. I wondered if I were attractive. I had not thought myself particularly so on Earth. I had not regarded myself much different from other women. Could it be, I wondered, that I possessed attractions of which I was unaware? Perhaps I was not as plain as I had thought. But I had been, I realized, chosen for the collar. Certainly not all women were. What had slavers seen in me, which I had not been aware of in myself? Perhaps I was more attractive than I thought, with all the attendant dangers that that might mean on Gor, a world on which men were masters and some women were their slaves. Had it been thought, long ago, that I might, at least eventually, do well off the block? In any event, I had apparently been favorably assessed. Certainly I had been brought to Gor. I had been put in the collar. I was both thrilled, and terrified. I had been found acceptable for a Gorean slave girl. I had been administered the stabilization serums which on Gor, of course, are administered even to slaves. It is desired by the masters that we retain our energy and vitality, our needs and passion, our attractiveness and desirability, our helplessness and responsiveness, our youth and beauty, doubtless not for our sake, as we are only slaves, but for their sake, that we may be more pleasing to them. On my world I supposed this might count as a gift beyond price,