Barbarian of Gor Chapter Twenty Seven

 

The two ‘free women’ who took to the stage were of course luscious kajirae dressed in the type of theatrical garb that was common place to represent robed and veiled women. While they wore robes of concealment to a point, said robes were of cheap but brightly coloured rep cloth fabric and were cut high on the calves of the women, showing off rather more of the lower legs than an actual free woman would ever be comfortable with.

 

“I’ve bought some nuts roasted in honey,” said Felix as he returned from the nearby market stalls to flaunt a sweet smelling paper bag under our noses. Nearby men were walking around the theatre field beginning to light torches and lanterns that hung from poles hammered into the soft ground.

 

“What about our paga?” asked Adam.

 

“That’s coming. I paid an extra copper tarsk bit it so I wouldn’t have to carry the paga from the tent. I didn’t want to spill any of it. It’s a boisterous crowd and it’ll only get more rowdy once the actresses start to strip.”

 

Which of course they would. This was a Boots Tarsk Bit play, and that generally followed a predictable format. 

 

“Honey nuts?” said Felix as he offered the bag to me.

 

“Don’t mind if I do.”

 

It was late afternoon, or early evening, depending on how you view such things, at Torcadino’s Fair of Se’Kara which takes place in the early Autumn of each Gorean year. Originally it was a single fair held in the foothills of the Sardar mountains, but with the cross pollination of culture that gradually occurs in a stable civilisation other cities began to mimic the success of the Sardar with their own festivals. I suppose it resembles the harvest fairs of pagan European times, when harvests were gathered in and people celebrated that their larders would be full ahead of the coming of Winter. Se’Kara is a time of joy and relief that the hard work has been done for another year. Goreans love their fairs and come up with as many excuses as they can to promote them throughout the calendar. Who can forget the joyous events that are Kajuralia and the Love Feast, in particular? The Romans had a term for it - Bread and Circuses. Keep your population fed and entertained and you should be secure on your throne. 

 

The size of the festival is breath-taking, bearing in mind the smaller population density on Gor. It put me in mind of weekend music festivals on Earth, such as Glastonbury, except the music was better. I’m a Jazz man and the one time I visited Glastonbury as a student – simply on the wishes of my girlfriend, I hasten to add - I had to put up with a succession of shitty bands who seemed to drone the same song over and over again. Jennifer, on the other hand, had a great time, whooping and cheering to each and every band of untalented layabouts who could barely string a sentence together between songs. Give me Charlie Parker any day. Except of course he’s dead. 

 

In addition to the brevity of the hem line that the slaves wore, the sleeves showed off the forearms of the actresses – in particular their desirable wrists - and the body of the gowns was suggestively cut to reveal a tantalising glimpse of their cleavage. While they both wore veils, said veils were completely transparent, making a mockery of the function of a veil. Neither girl wore a hood, and so their lovely glossy hair was fully displayed. 

 

“There are several free women in the audience again,” said Adam. “I hope they’re not going to start complaining.”

 

“They always do,” I said. “It’s almost part of the theatrical experience these days. It gives the actors and actresses a chance to ad lib.”

 

“Why do they keep coming?” asked Felix as he popped some honey nuts in his mouth. “If they don’t like the plays, I mean?”

 

“Well, that’s a study in psychology in itself, just waiting to happen,” I replied. I dimly recalled Kelsee’s reaction to a Boots Tark Bit play back in Argentum when I had been her silk slave. 

 

Our slaves were with us – Nia, Dana, and Kayra. There was no possibility that we were going to kennel them upon arrival. Rows and rows of kennel cages greeted us at the gates of the Fair, and for a couple of copper tarsks we could have housed each slave in a private crawl space with a lockable barred door, but Adam was having none of it. “We haven’t come this far just to return to the kennel cages and find them empty,” and I suppose he was right. This meant our slaves got to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Se’Kara Fair alongside us. 

 

Kayra in particular was excited by it all. The three girls wore their matching slave tunics, which were excitingly brief and very snug. With their collars, and with their hair cut in the same slave flame designs, they seemed like a deliberately identical set of slaves, especially now that the sun was setting in the sky. We kept the girls in the Harl ring arrangement for security and insisted they grasp and lift the loose chains threading their ankles with their left hands. We were walking through crowds and the loose chain would otherwise be a trip hazard. Dana seemed relaxed and happy in her slave tunic and collar, for she sensed I would be foolish enough to free her very soon. This might perhaps be her last day and night as a slave, and so she was free to enjoy the experience, walking with apparent freedom through the fairground, reacting to the spectacle in a way that a Free Woman, bundled up in fussy robes and veils might not. Nia was not nearly so relaxed. There was a tension about her body, for she knew her branding might take place tomorrow, or even sooner if I came across a metal worker and decided not to wait until we reached the city walls. Each ihn that ticked by brought her that much closer to her final bondage. 

 

“We must talk,” Nia said to me as I gave each girl a hot, savoury pastry to eat before the play began. They would have to eat it with a single hand, for I did not permit them to let go of their coffle chain. Discipline must be maintained at all times with slaves. 

 

“Eat your pastry, Nia,” I simply replied.

 

The stage set consisted of a shop counter, set up so the audience had a full view of the inside of the counter, a rack of feminine garments, a hinged door set on a frame with a bell suspended from its top, and a modesty screen of the type that might belong to a clothing store, where a woman might go behind to try on garments. The screen was positioned such that the audience could clearly see anyone standing on either side of it. This was important because the audience would want to see the slave actress undressing herself.  

 

The first actress walked to the edge of the stage and addressed the audience.

 

“And so another day dawns in the glorious city of Torcadino – sparkling jewel of civilized Gor! But woe is me, for my life is not what it should be. I, the beautiful, respectable, irreproachable Lady Julia Sabina Arpellio Montosa am not completely happy…” she made a piteous, pouting expression meant to convey the demeanour of a spoiled and brattish free woman whose every whim is catered for. There was mocking laughter amongst the audience, for many men knew such free women.

 

“Why is it I cannot have everything I want, whenever I want it?” she said as she stamped her foot petulantly. “It’s just not fair. Why, sometimes I yearn for things that I do not even know that I want, but I am vaguely aware I do not have them. And sometimes I yearn for things that do not even exist yet. In all of this I am constantly frustrated!”

 

More laughter ensued.

 

“We can see your ankles!” cried a man in the audience. It would be the first of many audience participations tonight. 

 

“I assure you I am most modestly dressed, Master, and if you think you can see my ankles you’ve probably drunk too much badly brewed paga, which means you haven’t been buying the superior paga available from our kind sponsor today, Rubin Clegane, whose lovely, convenient, striped paga tent is just behind you. Have I mentioned Rubin Clegane owns the finest paga slaves in Torcadino, and they are serving here tonight! Each one is hot and eager for the touch of a man!” said the slave actress with a wink before continuing. 

 

“These product sponsorship messages are killing serious theatre,” mused Felix as he offered us his bag of honey roasted nuts again. “Though the girls at Clegane’s tent are lovely.”

 

“What troubles me most,” said the slave actress, as she continued with her memorised lines, “is that I suspect my handsome Free Companion, Ridondo - What he lacks in brains he more than makes up for with his rugged features - lies when he says he is ‘just going to the market for an hour or so’. More than once he has come back ‘from the market’ reeking of slut perfume that can only have rubbed off onto his tunic from standing suspiciously close to a paga slave. How painful this is to me. What can he possibly see in such sluts? Why does he want to rub up against them in such an obvious manner?”

 

“He’s not just rubbing himself against them in an obvious manner!” shouted another man in the audience. 

 

I watched as the slave actress pretended to wipe a tear from her eye and then winked at the man.

 

“Am I not lovely? Do I not wear the loveliest of gowns? Is my hair not arranged so beautifully? Do I not smile at him from time to time? Do I not let him sometimes kiss the tips of my fingers – when I’m wearing gloves, of course! How beastly it might be otherwise. Why I’d have to wash my fingers and scent them again with lavender soap. But none of this seems enough for my darling Ridondo. What am I to do?”

 

A pretty slave garbed in a brief black tunic walked across the stage holding high a sign that read “Lady Cornelia’s Dress Emporium. Dresses to turn the heads of even your most obstinate admirers! Make the man of your dreams your desperate slave! Waste no time! Shop today!’ The black clad slave bearing a sign is a stage convention meant to  bring the audience’s attention to a sign or prop, and we are supposed to pretend that the slave holding the sign isn’t actually there. 

 

“Why, in my musings I have somehow ended up in a quarter of the city I rarely frequent as it is home to dowdy free women less lovely than I. But lo, that sign – could this be the answer to my problem? Perhaps here I can purchase a gown so pretty that my companion will banish any thought of rubbing himself against a paga slave ever again!” 

 

The bell situated over the door prop rang sharply as the slave actress walked round the stage and through the door. 

 

Now the second slave actress garbed as a free woman took her place from the periphery of the stage, standing behind the counter at an angle so we could all see both her and the interior of the counter. 

 

“Why, if it isn’t that wretched and spoilt Lady Julia Sabina Arpellio Montosa,” said the second actress in a conspiratorial stage whisper to the audience as she placed the side of her hand to her mouth, which was the stage convention that meant the other actress couldn’t hear her. “She is the most unpopular woman in all of Torcadino, and I rue the day she stole the handsome Ridondo from me. What he lacks in brains he more than makes up for with rugged features. No doubt she doesn’t even recognise me.”

 

Turning now with a fake smile, she addressed the Lady Julia. “Tal and welcome. The hour is growing late, but how may I help you?”

 

“My companion – the handsome, yet sadly gullible, Ridondo – what he lacks for brains he more than makes up for with rugged features - forsakes me most afternoons between three and five, and he often returns to our stylish town house reeking of the kind of perfume that can only come from the most sluttish of slaves. I need a gown that can lure him away from such deviant thoughts and make him understand that only by sitting beside me each afternoon, and listening to my many complaints, can he ever truly be happy.”

 

“She is such a spoilt woman. How can the gullible yet incredibly handsome Ridondo have ever fallen for her?” asked Lady Cornelia in another stage whisper to the audience.

 

“He’s fallen in love with her ankles!” cried a member of the audience.

 

“Such beautiful ankles!” cried another man in admiration as he thumped his shoulder with his right hand. “I’ve fallen in love with them too!”

 

“Five copper tarsk bits for Julia!” cried another man. This bid had formally opened up the bidding for the actresses for after the show. As the play progressed interested men could bid for any of the actresses who performed today. The men who had the highest bids in place by the end of the play would get to put the girls to use for half an hour or so. The highest bidder would use her first, the second highest next, and so on.  

 

The slave playing Julia beamed a warm smile at the audience and flashed her ankles in a sluttish manner. 

 

“Six!” cried another man. The bidding was definitely on. 

 

“I myself may bid for the Lady Cornelia once she has removed some of her garments,” mused Felix. “I have been told she was once a paga slave.”

 

Adam grinned at his friend. “You can have a real paga slave for a lot less than that. The girls at Clegane’s paga tent are just a copper tarsk for half an ahn.”

 

“I remember when their use was bundled in with the price of the paga,” complained Felix. “Everything is getting more expensive these days.”

 

“Talking of paga,” I said, “aren’t we supposed to be having some?”

 

“A slave will bring it. There’s a backlog of orders. We’re number seventy five.”

 

“We could be drinking it now if you’d bothered to carry it back from the tent.”

 

“I didn’t want to miss the start of the play,” said Felix.  

 

I turned my attention back to the play and realised I’d missed a few minutes of dialogue.

 

“… no, no, no, these are all dreary garments. How can you even suggest I wear such miserable stitching! Shame on you! How dowdy your shop seems now that I gaze critically at its inadequate wares. I need a garment that will make me the most desirable woman in Torcadino in the eyes of my dear Ridondo. He must long for me in a way he has never longed for me before.”

 

“What a spoilt brat,” said Lady Cornelia as she once again placed the edge of her hand to her mouth so she could confide in us all through another stage whisper. “Clearly she must be taught a lesson, and perhaps I sense a way I might shape this visit to my advantage, and perhaps even win back the handsome, yet so gullible, Ridondo. Oh, how I swoon at the mere memory of his handsome, yet gullible features.”

 

“Dearest Lady Julia,” the actress slave said, turning back to her customer. “There is perhaps one garment in my shop that is guaranteed to turn the gaze of your companion and make him see you clearly as he has never seen you before! If I may be so bold…”

 

“I am intrigued,” said Lady Julia as she gazed at the audience. “Whatever can she have in mind?”

 

“Only yesterday, dear Lady, I took receipt of a wondrous enchanted gown from faraway Anango!”

 

“Anango?” Lady Julia expressed complete surprise. “The enchanted isle of magicians?”

 

I should perhaps mention that Anango is a real island far to the south of the Gorean continent and it is thought by many to harbour a race of powerful magicians. Curiously, this belief isn’t held by anyone who actually lives on Anango, and they view the superstitions with bemusement at best. 

 

“The very same,” confirmed Cornelia as she placed her hands under the counter where we could see she had two garments stored. One seemed to be the robes of a free woman, while the other was smaller, perhaps the folded size and shape of a scandalous slave tunic. As we watched, she produced the robes of a Free Woman and shook the folds loose. “Behold, a magic gown of Anango! Gaze at its sophistication!”

 

There was some laughter in the crowd as it was clearly a cheap peasant dress of no particular allure.

 

“Is this some sort of joke?” suggested Julia. “The garment is plain and cheap looking. Why would I wear something like that?”

 

“Ah, but you see, it is a magic gown. With it comes a magic potion. When the potion is drunk, the dress appears to the drinker, and the drinker alone, as an excitingly brief tunic, much like a slave might wear. Snug in all the right paces and daringly brief in its exposure. One glance at you dressed in such a fashion will make Ridondo helpless in your hands! He will be on his knees kissing your feet, declaring your loveliness and promising to be faithful forever more!”

 

“I cannot wear a slave tunic!” cried Julia, aghast.

 

“Ah, but that is the clever part – you will not be wearing a slave tunic, you will be wearing a modest magic gown of Anango. It will only appear to be a slave tunic, and only then to a man or woman who drinks the magic potion! All others will see the robes of concealment – the true nature of the garment. Your beloved companion will see the garment appear to change, but he will know you are still dressed modestly from tippy toes to pretty nose! The best of both worlds!”

 

“I am interested, but also sceptical,” remarked Lady Julia as she paced about the stage. 

 

“Of course! For you are a cautious and intelligent woman,” declared Cornelia with a wink at the audience. “There is no fooling the shrewd and elegant Lady Julia.”

 

There was some laughter from the audience now.

 

“Three copper tarsk bits for Cornelia,” cried a man. The bidding for the second actress had begun. 

 

With a deft flourish, Cornelia returned the now folded garment back under her counter where we could see it stored beside the, presumably, folded slave tunic. With another flourish she produced a small bottle of the kind that often held the bitter tasting drink known as Slave Wine. “A demonstration then! Here is the magic potion. If you would take a sip you will see that the modest gown will appear to you, and you alone, as a brief slave tunic.”

 

“Is it really so simple?” asked Julia of the audience in a stage whisper. “Might I stride through the streets of fair Torcadino in modest gowns, only seeing them myself as the most scandalous of tunics What a lark that might be? And then later tonight, I give my dear Ridondo a taste of the magic potion and he can then marvel at what he sees. I confess I grow unexpectedly excited at the thought of it all!”

 

Beside me Felix was laughing and cheering encouragement to the actress.

 

“Drink the magic potion!” several of the men chanted.

 

 And with a dramatic series of flourishes, the Lady Julia uncorked the slim bottle and drew back her transparent veil, which elicited cheers from many of the men.

 

“Those lips!” cried one man.

 

“I am hard already, just gazing at her!” cried another.

 

“Eight copper tarsk bits for the slut!” cried a third.

 

“Which slut?” winked Julia. “There are so many wanton sluts in the Boots Tarsk Bit company of Players and we are all hot and needy for the touch of true men.  Bid for us, kind masters!”

 

The audience erupted into cheers hearing that. There was more frantic bidding now for both girls. 

 

The play had to pause for a moment as the cheering, shouting, and bidding would have drowned out the slave actresses speaking their rehearsed lines. 

 

“Eugh!” cried Lady Julia, making a comical face as she sipped from the bottle. “This is vile!’

 

“But of course,” Cornelia swiftly agreed. “Magic is rarely palatable.”

 

“It tastes very much like slave wine,” declared Lady Julia, and this prompted more laughter from the audience.

 

“You’re supposed to be a free woman! You wouldn’t know what slave wine tastes like!” declared a modestly dressed and heavily veiled Free Woman in the audience to my left. “This is a serious lapse in writing!”

 

“Be quiet,” said a man who stood close to her. “We are all enjoying the play.”

 

“Enlighten us, gentle lady, what does slave wine taste like?” asked another man, also by her side.

 

“Why, it is bitter and acerbic; really quite unpleasant with a lingering aftertaste that is as foul as a mouthful of fish oil.”

 

“So you’ve drunk slave wine?” said the man with a laugh. “You must have been a slave. Or still are…”

 

“No! That’s not what I meant! Of course I haven’t drunk slave wine!” Too late the free woman understood the verbal trap she had fallen into.

 

“She was clearly once a slave. What fool freed you?” asked a second man. There was growing laughter in the crowd. “Should we demand to see your papers of freedom?”

 

“I do not have papers of freedom!” There was more laughter as the woman said that. “I mean… what I meant was I don’t have papers of freedom because I have always been free!” She stamped her foot, angry with herself for falling into the second verbal trap. 

 

“Never mind her papers of freedom, I want to see her brand!” cried another man in the crowd.

 

“Perhaps she wears a collar under those veils?” suggested a man dressed in the colours of the Builders. 

 

“Leave me alone, you beasts! You are all horrid and I shall complain to a magistrate!”

 

Beside me,  Nia was finishing her pastry, licking the fingers of her right hand clean as she held the links of the coffle chain with her left hand. “Are you enjoying the play, Nia?” I asked the girl.

 

“No. How can I concentrate on anything when I know you will brand me in the morning.”

 

“It might be sooner than that, Nia, if we find a metal worker here at the Fair.”

 

Her face paled at the thought of losing her precious few remaining hours free of the brand. “Please, Roland. Let us talk about this. There has to be a way you can safely ransom me.”

 

“You have very pretty legs, Nia. Think how much lovelier they will be with a kef branded high on your left thigh. In time you will begin to understand what it is to be a true woman on Gor. You will be able to rejoice in your femininity, instead of fighting it. Once you are branded no man will ever think of you as anything but a slave. You will have to respond to them at all times as a slave, and nothing more. ”

 

She looked genuinely frightened. Beside her, Dana was laughing at the banter between the men and the free woman they were teasing, oblivious to the distress felt by the former Livinnia Assante. Dana cheered when the free woman threaded her way back through the crowd, away from the stage. 

 

I smiled at Dana, sharing in her amusement at the verbal exchange that had left the Free Woman scurrying away with flushed cheeks beneath her heavy veils. Dana looked so beautiful in the slave tunic with a collar around her throat. The thought suddenly crossed my mind that I didn’t have to free her. I really didn’t. I was supposed to be a slaver, after all. She, too, finished the last of her pastry. She seemed to be enjoying herself this afternoon. Of course she did – she knew she would be freed tomorrow. What did she have to fear? Clearly I was a fool, and fools could be manipulated into freeing slaves.

 

“Do you know what slave wine tastes like, Dana?” I asked the girl.

 

“Of course not. I am sure it is unpleasant, because slaves hardly need pampering.”

 

“A good answer,” I suggested. Dana laughed and stood up on her tiptoes to try and peer past a tall man who stood in her way. She didn’t want to miss the rest of the play. 

 

“Eyes front, lovely Dana. It’s going to get interesting now.”

 

“And so, behold the modest magic gown of Anango once more!” declared Cornelia as she now produced a slave tunic from under the counter, rather than the original robes that Julia had seen before.

 

“It looks like a slave tunic!” gasped Julia in well accented surprise.

 

“Does it?” Cornelia pretended to frown as she seemed to regard the tunic with bemusement. “It looks like the same modest gown to me.”

 

“Yes! Yes!” said Julia excitedly. “I can see the transformation. Can you not see how it now looks?”

 

“I have not drunk the magic potion,” said Cornelia, pointedly. “To me nothing has changed.”

 

“Of course! How marvellous!” laughed the exuberant slave actress. “Only I can see the magical transformation! How naughty I will feel seeing the modest gowns looking like this against my body, when all around me will still see the garment in its true form!”

 

“Yes, men and women will definitely see this garment in its true form,” said Cornelia with another stage wink to the audience that prompted more laughter.

 

“That was a good line,” remarked Felix. 

 

“Where is our paga?” I asked him.

 

“Coming. It is coming. We were ticket number Seventy Five. There is a backlog of orders.”

 

I grumbled quietly. I was in the mood for some paga. I felt the lovely soft figure of Dana push against me as she jostled to get a better view. “She’s going to put the slave tunic on, isn’t she?” asked the girl. I don’t think she had ever seen a Boots Tarsk Bit play before.

 

“That’s how this tends to work,” I said as I put my hands about her slim waist. It was hard to recall her now as a fierce huntress of men.  

 

“Such a fool she is!” laughed Dana, delighting in the supposed Lady’s coming misfortune, and, apparently, the way I grasped her. 

 

“Step behind the screen, Lady Julia,” suggested Cornelia with a delighted smile, “and try your modest gowns on now.”

 

“I will!”

 

There was cheering from the men in the audience, and from a number of slave girls in attendance as ‘Lady Julia’ stepped behind the screen, which of course was positioned at an angle so we could all clearly see her disrobing. She disrobed in a teasing, sensuous and salacious performance, one garment at a time as the men whooped and hollered. More bids were made for her. I felt a little sorry for the slave actress playing Cornelia as she had so far not had any opportunity to display herself, and so consequently bidding on her was far lighter. Possibly there might be plot twists that might see her naked eventually, in which case I felt sure that men would be clamouring to have her in the furs. She was a good actress, even if she was playing as second girl to the first. Julia was obviously the star of the show, and Boots’s principle player. She had a distinct advantage when it came to men lusting after her. 

 

When Julia finally wriggled into the slave tunic there was so much noise that the performance had to pause again. Both stage slaves laughed in pleasure seeing how well their performance was being received so far. This was a good crowd, and they were showing their appreciation throughout.

 

“It is strange,” said Julia, eventually, when the audience applause died down sufficiently for her to be heard “but the gown feels very much like a brief slave tunic.”

 

“That is part of the magic,” remarked Cornelia with an expression that suggested she was trying to suppress any sign of laughter. “I am sure that if I wore the gown – which by the way covers you modestly from head to toe - I would but feel but the loose billowing layers of a Free Woman’s robing.”

 

Julia paraded about the stage, seeming to admire the freedom in her smooth limbs. “It really does feel like I’m wearing a rep cloth slave tunic!”

 

“The magic of Anango is truly astonishing,” said Cornelia. “You seem so modest to me.”

 

“And this will excite my companion?” said Julia. “Once I give him a sip from the bottle?”

 

“How can he not be a slave to your charms when he sees the private transformation for his eyes only. What raptures he will feel!”

 

Julia looked smugly satisfied. “The power I shall have over him! ‘Put on the magic gown’, he will say to me each afternoon.”

 

“I am sure he will. Wait! I have just recalled another magic item from Anango!”

 

“Another” Julia beamed with happiness. “Quickly, show me it!”

 

“But of course!” Now Cornelia produced a cheap scarf from underneath the counter. I could see that it had been on a concealed shelf next to what looked like a slave collar.

 

“Oh, it is just a scarf,” said Julia in disappointment.

 

“A magic scarf from Anango! When arranged artfully about your neck, it can appear to resemble, superficially at least, a steel collar, not dissimilar to the ones locked about slave throats. Once again there is a magic potion to make a man or woman perceive it so.”

 

“Another magic potion? Hopefully not as foul tasting as the first?”

 

“I wouldn’t know,” said Cornelia, producing the same bottle of slave wine for a second time.

 

“That bottle looks much like the first,” suggested Julia.

 

“I suppose it does,” replied Cornelia as she returned the scarf to beneath the counter. “Drink up and see how the scarf looks.”

 

Julia made another excruciating face as she gagged down more of the slave wine. “Eugh! It is as bitter and repugnant as the previous potion.”

 

“Then it must be equally as effective! How exciting!” Now Cornelia produced the slave collar from beneath the counter. “How does the scarf now appear to you?”

 

“Why, it resembles, outwardly at least, a slave collar!”

 

“How strange, for I still see a scarf. Then place it about your lovely throat and close what appears to be a lock. Let the scarf add to your exquisite deception. Remember, I can only see a scarf.”

 

There was loud cheering as Julia appeared to collar herself. It should be mentioned that both actresses were already collared. Boots would not do anything as foolish as actually remove a slave’s collar just because she was playing the role of a Free Woman. The convention on stage is to wrap a flesh coloured piece of silk in and around the collar and then, when the free woman is supposed to be collared, she simply pulls the silk away with a flourish.

 

“This too feels so real,” exclaimed Julia as she touched the collar with the tips of her fingers. “It feels like steel!”

 

“And yet looks like a scarf to me,” remarked Cornelia. “The effect is exquisite. Your Free Companion will hardly be able to contain himself.”

 

“But to you I am modestly dressed in robes and scarf?” asked Julia. She didn’t seem quite as certain as before. 

 

“You appear dressed precisely as any man  or woman would expect you to be,” said Cornelia, very carefully. 

 

“How fascinating! Why, the wizards of Anango are so very clever.”

 

“Paga, Masters,” cried a serving slave from somewhere to Felix’s right. “Paga for ticket number seventy five.”

 

“About time,” I grumbled. 

 

The serving girl of the paga tents of Rubin Clegane of Torcadino appeared carrying a tray of drinks. I turned, reaching for one of the cups, and looked straight into the eyes of the lovely Kelly Milford, now collared, branded, her ears pierced, and dressed in translucent pleasure silk.