The Colors of Submission

originally posted March 2, 2006

It is yellow. It does not have the stately hue of a Builder's tunic, nor is it the arrogant color of yellow, that with red, makes up the checks of a Player's robes. It is simply yellow. Not the pastel yellow often recalled when one thinks of the Towers of the Morning, the cylinders of Ko-ro-ba. Just yellow. It is much wrinkled. It rides high about the thighs. There are no sleeves and the neck is rounded. It is a simple, yellow, silken sheath; a slip of wrinkled fabric that reveals far more than it conceals. I have given the Lady Jenny, who, collared, is now called She, something to wear.
She had been locked away in the rented room of the Ferry Side Inn for two days. Last evening, with others; Joy, Portia and Samantha, I took her to the tavern where the Dancer, Emily, was earning for me. She is four girl on the coffle, between Nirah, who is three girl and Samantha, who is five girl, last on the coffle at the moment. She walked well on the wet cobblestones, given the opportunity to enjoy the fresh air and the eyes of men on her. She is not comfortable in yellow, I can see that, but women often have no clue what is best for them. With her mouth, painted wetly and red, her hair cut to an exciting shortness and dyed black, the garment is very fitting.
The tavern, which overlooks that magnificent Vosk, has wide windows and decking that runs the entire south face of the establishment. Men are often inclined to sit out there and be served out there, enjoying the vantage which overlooks the rush of those dangerous rapids. One can see, from time to time, the dorsal fin of the predatory Nine-Gilled River Shark. It moves sinuously through the rushing water, able to cut through it in a knife-like fashion with its narrow, eel-like body. The teeth, I have heard, are sharp enough to be used as arrow points and are sometimes fastened to the end of crude spears. One can sometimes obtain them at market, even in Ar, pendant on black leather cording. Young boys enjoy wearing them though they know little of such things, land-locked and behind the great walls of civilized, glorious Ar. Tonight, however, at this tavern, none faced south or sat outdoors on the decking. All eyes were riveted on the girl in the sand. They, like I and the girls with me, had come to see Emily dance. Every square hort of the tavern that was not occupied by dancing sands or players of the czehar, aulus, tabor or kaska, was taken by the crowd. I have allowed word to spread that Emily, more famously known as Vine, a dancer once owned by the Merchant Celenius of Cos, dances again. Not only in the Teiban District of Ar at The Braided Whip Tavern, but in Torcadino and now in Jort's Ferry. Where might Emily next dance with cheap bells thonged about her ankles or copper coins belted about her waist? I ask a silver eighty piece for each night she performs and it is, I think, more than reasonable. The tavern she labored at, moving to the demands of the music and the excitement of the crowd, was filled several times past capacity.
"She is Vine! I saw her dance in Ar!" one fellow shouted.
Another rebutted, yelling across several tables to do so, "No, no! She is called Emily. Two hands prior, I saw her dance in Torcadino!"
"They are one in the same!" a third yelled out.
It is interesting, I think, and beneficial to let other slave girls watch such a beautiful spectacle. Joy, held close, auburn-maned, does not hide her admiration for Emily's skill. Emily, who is also two girl on the whore coffle, is second on my personal chain. Joy alternated her gaze between the way the other easily held men enrapt and the way, too, I watched. I do not hide that I am proud to own such a girl. She is worth gold. She knows it. I allow her to know it. The friction it causes from time to time between herself and others on my chain is worth it. Let her be arrogant to a certain degree. She is a Dancer. When her arrogance gets too far out of line, I simply beat her.
Portia, the black girl, the undisputed earner of the whore coffle, too, watched with open admiration. It is remarkable how different she is, how far she has come. She soaks up everything she is taught with a smile. More often than not, she is able to learn what it is men want from women and is successful in adding it to her own skillset. She is not Emily's equal in the dancing sands and she may never be. Few women are. However, I have seen Portia dance. Few men would care to be called away or otherwise distracted when her lean, dark body is moving to music.
Samantha, barbarian, can be prone to trepidation in situations such as this. Situations were men are unapologetically men; where the animal that is just beneath the civilized skin does not care to tame itself. I have seen the blonde girl freeze up, unable to move. I have seen the tears well up in her eyes as she turned off the mental blocks and did what she must. Tonight, though slapped about the ass and pawed at, though rubbed up against as men watched her chain sister in the sands, throwing their coins in admiration, Samantha smiled. She watched. She, too, I think, learned. I saw the look in her eyes. It said, "I cost four copper per ahn."
What of She? Given the opportunity to be out of doors for the first time in two days, given the freedom to kneel as a slave in the garment of such, She drank up the atmosphere. She knows what this world is about, having been a resident of Gor far longer than blonde Samantha. I do precisely what I please with the women I own, including her. She fought with me at first, hatched petty plots to subvert my will. "Watch Emily dance, She," I thought to myself. This woman was marked for acquisition once. Followed. Tracked. Somewhere, in the manifests of Slavers, there is a log, a diary detailing her attitude, her mien, her routine. It would have been precise, meticulously updated for years before they moved on her. Somewhere, too, She, your log, your diary exists. Slavers do not make mistakes. Day by day, ahn by ahn, She struggles less with me. The petty plots to subvert my will have become few and far between. She has potential. Perhaps She realizes, finally, that she was acquired and the men that acquired her do not make mistakes.