which was attached a chain, fixed to a stout ring, anchored at the side of my mat. Beneath that collar was a light, close-fitting metal collar. It was there, visible, locked, even when I might be up and about the camp, being summoned, fetching and carrying, cleaning, laundering, ironing, digging roots, picking berries, tidying, being about whatever duties might be given me. And there would be the tunic, so exciting to men, in which I felt so exposed, and so vulnerable! Well was I displayed for their perusal! I scratched at the mat, tears in my eyes. And how exciting were such things to me, as well, the mark, the collar, the tunic! How right they seemed to me! How female I felt, marked, collared, and tunicked, how much then a distinctive, lovely part of nature, so different from men!
How could I have felt more woman?
And how thrilled I was, so set forth. Never on my world had I felt so female, so woman! Here I was what I was, at last, gladly, rightfully, woman, owned, helpless, slave!
No, I thought, no! I must escape. I must escape!
“Oh, oh!” I said.
“Easy, little vulo,” he said.
“Ai!” I said.
“We are going to fly, are we not, little vulo?” he asked.
“You have done enough to me,” I said. “Let me subside!”
“I am curious to see what you are,” he said.
I felt myself lifted, turned about, and thrust down, on my back, for his convenience, as the meaningless object, and animal, I was.
“I will show you what I am!” I cried, angrily, rearing up.
I was thrust back, rudely.
I was given three strokes of the switch. I recoiled beneath them, turned to my side, and tried to make myself small.
“Forgive me, Master!” I begged.
He laid aside the switch, but it was at hand.
“Let us see what may be done with you,” he said.
He was patient, and his hands were strong. His touch was sure. Gorean, he was well practiced in the handling of slaves. He had perhaps had hundreds of helpless slaves at his mercy, as I was now. How could we help ourselves, even if it were permitted?
I whimpered a little, and then, suddenly, gasped.
“Yes,” he said, “someday you will be a hot little urt.”
A whimper escaped me.
“One day,” he said, “you will crawl to men, begging, the bondage knot in your hair.”
Surely not, surely not, I thought.
“You are not a fine, noble, proud, free Gorean woman,” he said. “You are only a barbarian.”
Did he think Gorean women any different, I wondered. Did he not know we were all women? Did he not understand that in this very slave house almost all the slaves, perhaps all but I, writhing, bucking, begging, crying out, pleading, had been such “fine, noble, proud, free Gorean women”? Doubtless he meant free women, women not yet collared. There, I supposed, was a dramatic difference. I had had no encounters with Gorean free women, but I had been much apprised by my instructresses, and many fellow slaves, of their alleged nature. These putative informants had entertained what I supposed to be not only a dim, but a radically distorted, and, I hoped, a certainly extreme view, of Gorean free women, regarding them to be haughty, short-tempered, impatient, supercilious, rigid, demanding, unbending, arrogant, boastful, pretentious, hostile, suspicious, cruel, severe, unhappy, unfulfilled, egotistical, and self-centered. Perhaps this evaluation, insofar as it might pertain to anyone, pertained only to certain free women of the high cities, and, perhaps then, of the higher castes. I did not know. I did think it likely that Gorean free women, given the culture, were probably far more conscious of their position and status, of their freedom, their exalted station, and such, than those of my former world. Consequently their reduction to slavery, a condition alleged to be universally despised, would seem to constitute, culturally, a cataclysmic reversal in fortune, one likely to be particularly traumatic and devastating. On the other hand, many, it is said, “court the collar,” and it seems to be the case that “free captures,” in their hundreds or thousands, as in the wars, the raids of slavers, the seizures of caravans, the depredations of pirates, the fall of cities, and such, once collared, once owned, find fulfillments until then no more than suspected. In any event, Gorean or barbarian, we were all women, and once collared, once owned, it seemed there was little to choose between us. Certainly we went for similar prices.