"Shall we begin?" inquired the auctioneer of the crowd. "Shall we see if she isany good?"

"Yes! Yes!" more than one man. I smiled to myself the auctioneer knew hisbusiness.

"But first," said the auctioneer, "behold the absurdity of these garments. Theyseem to be a cross between the garments of a free woman and those of a slave."

Most obviously, from what I could see, the woman wore an attractive officedress, of a sort, which is often implicitly prescribed, particularly by femaleexecutives, for subordinate female employees regarded as too feminine to beconsidered for the executive class. "That is very pretty, Jane. I like to seeyou wear things like that." "Yes, Miss Tabor." This is also a useful way, ofcourse, for the female executive to make it a clear to their male colleaguesthat such women, unlike themselves, are only females.

It was a long, brown, white-flecked shirred shirtdress, of some soft, smoothsynthetic material, of mid-calf length. It had small, red, round buttonssecuring the long, exciting frontal closure and appearing, too, at the cuffs. Italso had a brown, white-flecked, matching tie belt. About her throat was asingle string of pearls, doubtless simulated, or they would have been removedfrom her by her first captors. She wore stockings or pantyhose. On her feet wereblack, shiny, high-heeled dress sandals, each secured, apparently, by a single,narrow black ankle strap. The fact that she was dressed as she was led me tobelieve that the woman worked in business and that she had been taken by theslavers on her way home from work. I think she could forget about the office. Inthe future she would have other duties.

"Are these the garments of a free woman or of a slave?" asked the auctioneer.

"Of a slave," shouted men. "Remove them!"

The Goreans probably regarded them as the garments of a slave because of theirsmoothness and prettiness. Too, the shirred quality of the dress would permit itto move, and swirl, excitingly about her body, if she chose to move in certainways. Too, the lower portions of her calves and her pretty ankles were revealedby the dress. That she wore slave garments was probably also suggested to themby the transparency and sheerness of the coverings on her legs and, of course,from the Gorean view, her footwear, so slight and pretty, with the black anklestraps, was such that it would be likely to be affected only by a woman beggingfor the collar.

"She came to us this way," said the auctioneer. "I myself have not yet seenher."

"Let us see her," called a man.

"I wonder if she is any good," said the auctioneer. "Begin!" "Begin!" shoutedmen.

"Of course!" laughed the auctioneer. He then went to the suspended girl and,thrusting up the ropes on her ankles, unbuckled the narrow, ankle-encirclingblack straps of her high-heeled dress sandals. He drew them from her feet andheld them up, together, in his right hand. "Note the straps" he said. "We arefamiliar with such straps, are we not?"

Several of the men laughed. They resembled the small black straps, buckled, withwhich one occasionally binds the wrists and ankles of slaves, before, or while,one amuses oneself with them.

He then drew the large, triangular-bladed knife from the beaded sheath on hisbelt and slashed the straps and uppers of the sandals, discarding them then inthe flaming copper bowl at the side.

"She has pretty feet," he said. He then resheathed his dagger and, extending hishand, locked his fingers about the string of pearls on the girl's throat. Shecried out as he jerked them from her neck. "She has a pretty neck, too," he saidbending her head back by the hair.

"Yes," said a man.

He then released her hair and, stepping forward, again addressed himself to thecrowd. "Doubtless some Master will won find something more suitable with whichto enclose that lovely neck than a string of pearls, he speculated.

There was laughter.

«Further,» said the auctioneer, lifting the pearls, "these pearls have beenexamined. They are false. She wore false pearls.

There was an ugly response in the crowd. Goreans have a rather primitive senseof honesty.

"What should be her punishment?" asked the auctioneer.

"Slavery!" said several.

"She is already a slave," said the auctioneer, "though perhaps she does not yetknow it."

"Let the man who buys her then pay her back," said a man, "punishing her well,and lengthily, for her fraud."

"Is that agreeable?" asked the auctioneer.

"Yes, said several.

"I am better than she is," said a feminine voice beside me. I felt my arm beinggently taken. I looked down. I recalled her. I had encountered her outside thecompound of Ram Seibar, before the sale. She was a barbarian slave, and a taverngirl. Her name was Ginger. "I thought you were occupied," I said. She nibbled atmy sleeve. "He kept me for Ahn," she said, murmuringly, poutingly. "He made meserve him well."

"Excellent," I said.

"I am not now occupied, Master," she said.

"Do not listen to her, Master," purred a voice from my other side. "Come withme, rather, to Russell's tavern. I will make your night a delight." I looked tomy left. A dark-haired girl was there. She, too, obviously, was a tavern girl,but she was garbed quite differently from Ginger. The taste or business sense oftheir masters, I gathered, differed. Slaves, of course, are garbed precisely astheir masters please. "I, too, am a barbarian," she said. "I am Evelyn."

She wore a black, tight, off-the-shoulder bodice and a short, black, silk skirt,decorated with red thread and ruffles, and stiffened with crinoline. A blackribbon choker was placed behind the steel collar on her throat. A red ribbon,matching the decorations on her skirt, was in her hair. She had not beenpermitted stockings or footwear. Such things are normally denied the Goreanslave girl. Her costume, like that of Ginger, the short, fringed, beadedshirtdress of tanned skin, with the beaded anklet, intended to resemble the garbin which red masters sometimes saw fit to clothe their white female slaves, ifpermitting them clothing, suggested its heritage of other times and otherplaces. Most Gorean garments, of course, of the sorts worn by humans, trace backto terrestrial antecedents. I looked at the white bosom of Evelyn, lifted,shaped and confined in the tightness of the bodice, for the interest of masters.

What man, I wondered, would not wish to unlace or tear away that bodice, tosubject its treasures, like the woman herself, to the ravishments of his mouthand hands.

"Pay her no attention, Master," said Ginger. "Come with me to the tavern ofRandolph."

"No, with me, to the tavern of Russell," said Evelyn.

"Surely you two have sneaked in here," I said. I did not think Ram Seibar wouldwish girls soliciting in his hall, particularly during the course of a sale.

"The worst that would happen is that we would be whipped from the room," saidEvelyn.

"But across the calves," said Ginger. "That hurts."

"Yes," said Evelyn, shuddering. I gathered they had, more than once, been thuslyspeeded from the hall by wrathful attendants.

"Release me!" cried the suspended girl, hanging by her wrists, before the crowd.

"No," she said, "no!" The tie belt on her dress had then been jerked loose, itsends dangling, supported by their loops, beside her hips.

"No," she said, "no, no!" But one by one, slowly, the auctioneer's knife wascutting the buttons from the long, frontal closure of her dress. "What do youwant?" she cried. "What you doing?" Then the last button had been cut away.

"What do you think I am? What are you doing to me?" she said. The sides of thedress were then brushed back.

"I do not think she is pretty," said Ginger.

"No, I do not either," said Evelyn. "You may even be prettier than she."

"I am beautiful," said Ginger. "It is you who might even, be prettier than she,my man-hungry little slave."