“No, no, no!” she begged. There was laughter from those remaining in the tiers.
“Please, no!” she begged.
“‘Please, no’, what?” asked the auctioneer.
“Please, no, Master!” she cried. “Please, no, Master! Master!”
He released her and she, her body a wracked, scarlet, sobbing hue, went to her knees in the sawdust, shaking her head, covering her face with her hands.
Several of those remaining in the tiers laughed at the discomfiture of the slave.
As I had conjectured, the item was excellently responsive. Such things raise a girl’s price. It was interesting to speculate what she might be like, once well in a collar.
“Thirty-five!” called a man.
“Thirty-six!” called another.
I was pleased the auctioneer had not punished her for her lapse. The slave, of course, addresses all free men as ‘Master’, all free women as ‘Mistress’.
She was on her knees on the block, sobbing.
Surely a slave must realize that a potential buyer is interested in all a slave’s properties.
Why was she upset, that she had been shown to be healthy, and vital?
I then recalled she came from a world in which frigidity and inertness were esteemed, at least publicly, in which formality, withdrawal, hesitation, reticence, fear, and an inability to feel were reckoned matters of merit. So might a kaiila be praised for lameness, a sleen for the inability to track even a wounded tabuk, a tarn for not daring to spread its wings and fly.
“Forty-five!” called a fellow from the tiers, below me and to my right.
She finally went for forty-eight, forty-eight copper tarsks. I had conjectured that she would bring, as a first sale girl, and a barbarian, a half tarsk, half a silver tarsk. She had fallen short of this by two full copper tarsks, but I was not disappointed. Markets vary. She might just as well have brought a tarsk plus two, two copper tarsks over a silver tarsk. When she had been presented, many buyers had left, and, of those remaining, the purses of several might have been earlier lightened. Professional buyers, speculators, tavern keepers, camp suppliers, and such, often buy more than one item.
She was purchased by an agent, one bidding on behalf of those strangely garbed fellows who had apparently been mistaken, by some, for Tuchuks.
I climbed the stairs, and exited the emporium.
I recalled that her lot number had been 119.
Chapter Five
How could he think I would not recognize him!
Had I never forgotten him, even from Earth, when I saw him, in the aisle, but a few feet away? I feared it was he, he of my dreams. I felt myself small and helpless, and what I was, female, radically and only female, weakly female, helplessly female, and I knew myself incomparably less than he. Who would want to relate otherwise to a man? And who could relate otherwise to such a man? Why had I never felt this way before other men? I felt him different from the men I had known, so different! I was suddenly aware, as I had not been before, of the radical centrality of sex to the human condition, the mighty division and chasm which separates the sexes. How real it was! How simple it was to see, once looked upon, once dared to be looked upon. I felt as though the lies of my acculturation were collapsing about me. Would he find me of interest? I feared so. What would he do with me? I feared I knew. He had turned. Our eyes had met. I had felt myself not merely seen, but considered, appraised. I felt myself looked upon not simply as a female, even one small, weak, and helpless, but as what I had so often thought myself to be, beyond that, a slave. Surely he could not know my secret thoughts, the nature of my most inadmissible, my most fearful, and fulfilling, dreams. Never had I known a man who had so looked upon me. Under his glance I felt seen, truly seen, for the first time. I felt stripped by that look. How different we are from men, from such men! How he was seeing me! Did he conjecture me naked, frightened, crouching at his feet, at a ring, bound for whipping, on a platform, exhibited before buyers? I fought the mad impulse to kneel before him, lowering my head. I feared to be punished. I strove to study him, but was not well able to do so. I was trembling. I knew I could not have spoken to him, without faltering, without stammering, even if I had