Kajirus of Gor Chapter Twenty Eight

 

“I don’t understand. That is your mistress? Really?” Amara and I had risen from where we had been hiding behind the crates, piled high in the entranceway to a narrow alley. We watched now as Lady Savanna of Argentum, or Miss Chelsea Savannah Frick of Earth, depending on your viewpoint, hurried down the street in the opposite direction that I typically took to run my daily errands. She was clad not in her modest robes and gowns, fully veiled, as would be appropriate for the public street, but rather clad only in the skimpy, revealing tunic of a slave girl. She was barefoot, her hair was loose and she wore a slave collar.

 

“Are you absolutely sure?” said Amara.

 

“You don’t think I know what my mistress looks like?” It was an amazing sight. A surprising sight. An unbelievable sight. 

 

You wouldn’t know she was a Free Woman. Truly, you wouldn’t know. 

 

“What is she doing?” asked Amara.

 

“Hurrying down the street, perhaps to some rendezvous.”

 

“Is she mad? She is dressed as a slave!”

 

This is a serious matter in any Gorean city. Free Women do not wear the brief garment of a kajira. And they certainly do not place a slave collar about their throat and lock it shut. 

 

“Did someone do this to her?” asked Amara. “Is she fleeing from an assailant?”

 

“I don’t think so. This has been going on for some weeks now. I thought she was receiving a male visitor. I hadn’t considered she was leading a double life.”

 

We followed Chelsea, and Amara made the clever suggestion that she should be the one to actually trail Chelsea, meaning I only had to then trail Amara. Chelsea had never met Amara before, so if she happened to glance back, she would only see a slave girl about her errands. I would be far back enough that I wouldn’t be noticed. 

 

Chelsea was wise enough to stick to the main streets where a slave is in little danger of being molested. These streets are busy by day, and many slaves may come and go on errands. Chelsea would draw no more attention than any other beautiful girl in a revealing tunic. The worst she might expect is to be touched by a man as she passes him. But even then, men are often busy with better things to do than to prey on passing kajirae. If they want a girl, they need only pay the price of a cup of paga.

 

I could see Amara was good at this, and we were wise to adopt this two tail strategy, for Chelsea seemed wary to begin with, often glancing behind her, as if she thought someone might have seen her slip from the building. I suspect she would feel more confident as she put some distance between the front door of her building and wherever she was going. The greatest risk would be in leaving the house, but even then, none of her neighbours would be familiar with her features. She would have probably worn a House veil when visiting them. The robes and veils are an excellent disguise. A neighbour might note an unfamiliar slave girl leaving the building, but she would not surmise that the girl was in actual fact Lady Savanna. 

 

One thing was clear – Chelsea did not seem to be acting under duress. She had looked nervous to begin with, but that was only the natural fear when she closed and locked the door to her apartment, hurried down the stairs to the ground floor, and passed through the entranceway to the street outside. 

 

The first thing I saw her do, after hurrying down the street, was to step briefly into a side alley where I saw her strain and reach up on tip toes to touch the top of a stone surround, after checking no one was close by. Even on tip toes, with her arm fully out stretched, she was only barely able to place something there on the narrow flat surface where it would not be seen by passers-by. 

 

While Amara began to trail Chelsea, I paused briefly in the alleyway, reached up easily enough with my height advantage and fumbled around with my fingers. I touched and lifted a key that I recognised to be the key to our apartment door. She was sensibly not carrying the door key with her. Slaves do not carry keys, and if a man or woman chose to inspect her for any reason, it would not do for her to be seen holding one. 

 

I should add that during the day it wasn’t necessary to carry a key to the entrance of the building itself. That door was only locked half an ahn before the sun sets. This makes it easier for relatives and friends to call upon you, without having to, say, throw stones at your window to get your attention. Goreans don’t generally use doorbells. 

 

I wondered then where the key to her collar might be. If she wasn’t carrying the door key, then she was unlikely to be carrying her collar key. The most likely hiding place would be under the floorboard where she kept her money. This too would be the likely hiding place for the collar and slave tunic when she wasn’t dressed as a slave. A slave collar typically comes with a spare key, and it was possible that Chelsea was cautious enough to carry that with her, perhaps sewn into the hem of the tunic itself. Unlike a heavy door key, the key to a slave collar is reasonably small. It could be concealed in an upturned hem. But this was just speculation on my part. 

 

Chelsea was obviously avoiding the area of the city quarter where I would routinely be spending my day on errands. She would know that the only risk of being recognised was if she bumped into me, her slave. And how embarrassing hat would be. Realistically, no one else could recognise her. The only other people in Argentum who had seen her unveiled were Lady Kelapina and Darian Athuk, the slaver. They would not only have seen her unveiled, but completely naked, before she revived from the drug administered to her during her journey to Gor. The risk however would be negligible. Lady Kelapina would be working during the day, and Darian Athuk was not a citizen of Argentum. It was unlikely he would still be in the city. 

 

So, where was Chelsea going? The streets led on to an area of Argentum known as the Dautium. The Dautium is both a wide public square surrounded on all sides by jovial buildings, from which a passer-by might hear lively music and even more lively laughter and shouting, and also a series of side streets and side alleys, where similar, but cheaper, premises offer men a pleasant diversion for a few hours. In short, the Dautium is where many of the city’s paga taverns are located in Argentum. I watched as Chelsea hurried past the fronts of some of the buildings where naked paga slaves were chained on display to entice passing men to frequent the premises. A man, stripped to the waist, wearing a hood over his head, watched Chelsea scamper past. He smiled as he observed the lovely wiggle of her hips.   

 

On Gor the paga tavern is a cross between a pub and a brothel. Men go there to drink paga, play kaissa, socialise with other men, listen to music, and watch silk clad dancing girls writhe and gyrate on what is often a very small dancing area. Paga tavern girls are cheap slaves, but experienced ones, and for the price of a cup of paga, you can have one sent to a curtained alcove where you can spend half an ahn enjoying her in private. 

 

In a society where men commonly see beautiful slave girls passing quickly by on the streets, but where they themselves may not be able to afford to own a girl of their own (only one in fifty women on Gor are enslaved. Assuming a roughly equal proportion of men to women, this suggests that less than one man in fifty can own a slave girl, bearing in mind that rich men may own more than one), the existence of paga taverns acts as a safety valve to prevent otherwise frustrated men from becoming an angry mob, storming public administration cylinders, demanding access to slaves. Anyone can afford a cup of paga. Ergo, anyone can afford half an ahn with a slave girl. 

 

You don’t need an extensive knowledge of ancient Roman history to appreciate the power of an angry mob, and why city rulers would go out of their way to ensure one didn’t form.   

 

I had never been inside a paga tavern. It is a place for free men, not silk slaves. Interestingly, Free Women are also not welcome in paga taverns. Very occasionally a veiled and robed woman might be foolish enough to try and enter, but she is quickly driven away. This is a place for Gorean men to get away from their Free Women. And who can blame them. Free Women can be very irritating.

 

I caught up with Amara as I saw her stop and step back out of sight.

 

“So?”

 

“Your mistress is meeting two slave girls,” she said. She pointed to where Chelsea was embracing another girl who wore a collar. 

 

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “What is she doing?”

 

Amara smiled and brushed my hand with the back of hers. “She is doing what we do. Spending time with friends.”

 

“Friends? She’s meeting two slaves?”

 

Amara nodded. “Free Women do not have friends. Many of them are probably very lonely. Slaves on the other hand form deep and meaningful friendships. I think your mistress has simply found a means to develop friendships that she can value.”

 

“That’s it? That’s the point of this subterfuge? Just so she can socialise with a couple of slaves?” 

 

“I think so.” Amara folded her arms and smiled. “She simply wants friendship. And she hasn’t been able to find acceptance amongst the Free Women of Gor. I suppose to them she will always be a barbarian. No doubt they are amused by her company, and then laugh behind her back. I have seen how Free Women can be.”

 

“But… that’s all this is? Not some… suppressed slave fantasy?”

 

“What she is doing would be unthinkable for a Gorean woman, but she is an American. I’m sure she feels embarrassed as she slips out from her home, but once she is with these other two girls, she probably escapes into her secret life for a few ahn, and forgets how degrading this is. I think it’s sweet.”

 

“Sweet? She’s running one hell of a risk!”

 

“Not so much of a risk. No one can possibly recognise her.”

“She’s dressed as a slave! She wears a collar! She’s barefoot! Unveilled!”

 

“And no one thinks she is anything more than a slave girl.” Amara motioned me back into the mouth of an alleyway as Chelsea and her friends turned round, laughing. I saw Chelsea hold the hand of one of the other girls and say something to her. “What happens to you when you walk the streets?”

 

“Nothing much.”

 

Amara nodded. “Nor to me. Oh, a man may touch me. Another man might call out to me, but I experienced those things on Earth, regularly. Here on Gor I am property, remember.” She touched her collar. “I belong to a man. Goreans on the whole respect such things. They do not take liberties with another man’s property. Provided I don’t stray from the main streets, nothing bad will happen to me during daylight hours. And so the same applies to your mistress. The biggest risk would be when she leaves her house and returns to it.”

 

“And all she’s doing is spending time with two slave girls that she thinks of as friends? That’s it?”

 

“Yes.” Amara smiled again. “As I said, it’s sweet. They have no idea she is free. I can't imagine she's told them. They must think she's a slave, like them,  sent out on errands. Or perhaps a slave who has finished her errands and has a few hours to herself. I'm sure they roam the streets together, visiting the public parks, holding hands, laughing, gossiping about their masters. It’s sweet.”

 

“Amara, listen to me. This is very important. You mustn’t say anything about what you’ve seen today to anyone. Understand? My mistress would be in serious trouble if word of this became common knowledge.”

 

“I understand.” She glanced back at Chelsea again and seemed amused by what she saw. 

“Swear to me, Amara. Please. You mustn’t tell a soul.”

 

“I promise, I swear. I have no reason to make your mistress suffer. I know you love her.”

 

“I don’t love her. It’s just… complicated.”

 

“Poor little silk slave. You can’t acknowledge your own heart.”

 

We both had our own errands to run, and so we headed back the way we had come, back to the area of our quarter where the market stalls and shops might be found. 

 

“At least it means your mistress isn’t seeking a free companionship,” said Amara. “You were worried you might be sold?”

 

“And now I’m worried that my mistress will be discovered leaving her house, dressed as a slave girl. This is an insane risk! Goreans view that as courting the collar. She could be publicly enslaved. And then what would happen to me?”

 

Amara nodded. “The risk is probably less than you think, but it is still a risk. She seems to be taking precautions. Are you going to speak to her?”

 

“How can I? I can’t say I’ve been spying on her. And imagine how humiliated she would feel if she discovered I knew her secret. I’d be whipped, or worse.”

 

“Yes, I suppose so.”

 

We separated for the day and I set off to buy the fresh food for our evening meal. But all the while my thoughts were of Chelsea. How could she do this? How could she be so naïve to the risks involved?

 

All it would take would be for Amara to tell others what she had seen. I felt I could trust Amara, but even so, Amara loved to gossip. The more I thought about this, the more worried I became. Had I fucked up here? I should never have taken Amara with me to spy on Chelsea. In fact, Chelsea’s secret had been safe enough until I’d gone and dragged Amara into this. Now a slave girl knew Chelsea’s secret. The more I thought about it, the worse it became in my imagination. 

 

I pictured Chelsea being dragged from her apartment by guardsmen, under the supervision of a court magistrate, carrying an arrest warrant. I pictured the men searching her rooms and finding the loose floorboard with the folded up slave tunic and the collar. I pictured Chelsea’s tearful denials, and the interrogation that would follow. 

 

And I pictured the magisterial pronouncement of a public enslavement for conduct unbecoming a Free Woman. I pictured Chelsea being stripped in a public square, other women booing her, as she was secured to a branding rack, screaming her lungs raw as she saw a metal worker preparing a hot iron with a kef tip, a kef tip that would sear itself into her left thigh.

 

This was very bad. Both for her and for me. For my fate was inexorably tied to hers. 

 

Amara had given me her word. She had no reason to want my mistress to suffer. I had to believe that. 

 

Every way I looked at this, I had fucked up. Chelsea was in danger now, because of me. And she had no idea. 

 

I paced anxiously about the market square, whiling away the hours until I could return home. What was I going to do? What could I do? I had to tell Chelsea, but I feared her rage. In her abject humiliation, she might be capable of anything. But she had to know. She had to know, so that she could stop, and discard any evidence of her behaviour. Then at least she might ride out any accusation.

 

But I couldn’t tell her. I feared what she might do to me.

 

Chelsea was in a good mood by the time I returned. 

 

“Roland.” She broke out into a smile. “How was your day?” She had poured herself a goblet of wine and had unpinned her veils. I glanced surreptitiously to where I knew the hidden space under the floorboard was. I felt sure that under it now would be a small folded tunic and a slave collar. 

 

“It was good, Mistress,” I said as I knelt before her. 

 

“Mine was very good, too. I’ve made new friends. Away from this area.” She seemed very happy. 

 

“I’m pleased for you, Mistress.”

 

Oh God. She had no idea. 

 

“What am I having for dinner?”

 

“I’ve bought a fresh vulo, Mistress. I’ll be roasting it on a spit.”

 

“Oh, how lovely.” She sipped her wine and reclined on her couch. “I think I will be putting you to use tonight, Roland. I am in that kind of mood.” She smiled.

 

“I am pleased, Mistress. I am very pleased.”

 

“You are such a slave, Roland. You long for your mistress to touch you.”

 

“Yes, Mistress.”

 

An hour ago she wore a slave collar. An hour ago she was pretending to be a slave. An hour ago she had walked through the open square where men routinely put paga girls to use in curtained alcoves. 

 

She was now ‘in the mood’ it seemed. 

 

Very much in the mood.

 

I gazed again where I knew the hiding space beneath the loose floorboard was concealed. There was always a rug in place, but I noticed that today the rug wasn’t aligned precisely how it had been aligned this morning. The rug had been moved. 

 

And then it came to me. Chelsea was saying something about music in a park later this month, but her words faded briefly as my mind focussed on her pretence at being a slave girl. For, just like that, I suddenly knew what I could do. What I had to do.  

 

And with it came the exciting realisation that if things worked out as planned, I could possibly be a free man again.