Display SlaveThese are quotes from the Books I have found to be of interest on the topic of Display Slaves. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban "You are owned by so high a personage?" I said. "So are many," she said. "He may not even know he owns me." "I do not understand," I said. A tear clouded her eye. "I am a display slave," she said, "one kept largely for show." I could not help that I was beautiful, of course. And, to be sure, I did not object to being so. I felt sorry for Paula, plain, simple Paula. "You have a lovely collar," I said. "I wager it was expensive." My collar was indistinguishable from thousands of others, a quite common collar. "I do not know," she said. "All the display slaves have similar collars." "Your master must be rich," I said. "I fear so," she said. "I have heard his chamber slaves and dancers are sometimes put in jeweled collars." Why, I asked myself, had Paula been shipped so promptly to Ar? Indeed, perhaps she had been sold but once. Was that not unusual? Why had she been vended in the Curulean, and from the Central Block, and why was she a display slave? "Not at all," he said. "You mentioned that she was a display slave of Decius Albus." "Did you not think it strange that a display slave should be loose in the streets of Ar, not on a chain following a borne palanquin, not reclining on flower petals or luxurious furs, on the steps before a curule chair, not shut within a pleasure garden?" "No," I said. "I thought you a display slave." "I have served so," she said. "I am surprised that a display slave could so easily slip her chains," I said. "A girl does not slip her chains," she said. "You are well aware of that. Have you not worn them, felt their weight, felt them clasp your limbs, your throat, so obdurately? Do you think you could slip them? What is wrong with you this morning?" "I am not a display slave," I said. "I am not a prize slave. I did not sell for a golden tarsk, or tarn!" "But I am still a display slave," she said. "My new service, that of a house slave, is yet on probation, to see if I might prove satisfactory as a house slave." "I congratulate you on escaping the collar of a display slave," I said. "I have not yet escaped it," she said. "I may be returned to the chain. Why are you angry?" "Moderately so," said Kurik. "I have sold more than one display slave to the Lady Portia," said Kurik. "I do not recall this girl," he said. "Perhaps I have not seen her before. She is lovely enough to be a display slave." I did not care for the notion of a display slave. What slave does not wish to be the single slave of one master? "She has been a display slave," said Drusus Andronicus. "She is now in the common bondage of a house slave." "She knows little, or nothing, of Victoria, or the house of Portia. The house of Portia does not use display slaves to exhibit their merchandise. They regard that as demeaning to the merchandise, and to free women. You will behold, momentarily, an unusually lovely kajira, a former display slave, a nicely curved item that cost the house a full golden tarsk." "Would you like to walk beside me?" he asked. "No, Master," I said. "It is the place of a slave to heel her master, or, if he wishes to display her, as on a promenade, to precede him, leashed." "Would you like to be so displayed?" he asked. "I am not a display slave," I said. I thought of Paula, of course. She had been purchased in the Curulean, to be a display slave. Only on Gor had I come to realize how beautiful Paula was, with her high intelligence, her passion, her profound slave needs. "I am better behind you," I said, "in heeling position." Following the palanquin, back-braceleted and chained by the neck, barefoot and in brief livery, were two lines of display slaves, ten in each line. Display slaves are chosen for their grace and beauty. It is not unusual for a rich Gorean's palanquin to be so followed. It is a display of wealth, for the female slave, as an owned object, is a form of wealth. "I should be a display slave in the retinue of a Mintar or an Appanius of Ar," she said. "I should be the gem in a Ubar's Pleasure Garden! I should be put on the stage at the great theater of Publius!" |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||