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The beast frightened us. We were pleased it was so tame, so much under the
control of its master.
Slowly the beast lifted itself to its hind legs, and lifted its paws and
opened its mouth.
Several of the girls screamed. I, too, shrank back from the bars.
It was an incredibly hideous, large-eyed, furred thing. It has wide, pointed
ears. It stood perhaps eight or nine feet high. It may have weighed seven or
eight hundred pounds. It had a wide, two-nostriled, leathery snout. Its mouth
was huge, large enough to take a man's head into it, and it was rimmed with
two rows of stout fangs. There were four larger fangs, long and curved, for
grasping, in the position of the canines. The upper two fangs protruded at the
side of the jaws when its mouth was closed. It had a long, dark tongue.
Its forelegs were larger than its hind legs. I had seen it move, shambling on
its hind legs, and on the knuckles of its forelegs, but now I saw that what I
had taken for forelegs were not unlike arms and hands. Indeed, they had six
digits, several jointed, almost like tentacles, which terminated in claw-like
growths, which had been blunted and filed. It also had claws on its hind legs,
or feet, which were retractable, as the mountebank demonstrated, issuing sharp
voice commands to the beast. The hind legs, or feet, like the forelegs, or
hands, if one may so speak, were also six-digited and multiply jointed. They
were large and spreading.
The claws, as I saw when they were exposed, upon the order of the mountebank,
were better than four inches long, curved and sharp. I could not even
determine in my mind whether to think of it as a four footed animal, with
unusual prehensile forelegs, or as something man-like, with two legs and two
arms, with hands. It was tailless.
Perhaps most horrifying were the eyes. They were large and black-pupiled. For
an instant I thought they rested upon me, and saw me, but not as an animal
sees, but as something might see that is not an animal. Then, again, they were
simple and vacant, those of a mountebank's performing beast.
I dismissed the sensation of uneasiness from my mind.
With the other girls I applauded, striking my left shoulder in Gorean fashion,
as the mountebank put his beast through its paces.
Now it was sitting comically on its rump with its paws fluttering in the air.
Now it was rolling over and over. Then it was whining, begging piteously.
Frequently, from a large pocket in his robes, the mountebank would throw the
animal a tiny piece of bosk meat, when it had performed well. Sometimes he
would
scold it, and withhold the meat. Then the animal would put down its head, and
turn it to the side, like a reprimanded child. And then the mountebank would
give it its piece of meat. The guards enjoyed the performance as well as the
girls. I saw that even Targo laughed, holding his belly in his blue-and-yellow
slaver's robes. Sometimes the mountebank would give pieces of meat to the
girls to throw to the beast. Lana begged hardest and was given the most pieces
of meat. She threw me a look of triumph. I threw only one piece of meat to the
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animal and that quickly. The beast frightened me. Lana did not seem afraid at
all. The piece of meat disappeared into that vast, fanged orifice and the
large, round eyes blinked sleepily, contentedly. The girls laughed. And I saw
the eyes look at me once again. I put my hand before my mouth, terrified. But
then I saw that they were again vacant and stupid, those of a beast. Soon,
once again, telling myself how silly I had been, I was laughing again with the
other girls.
At the conclusion of the mountebank's performance he gave a great, deep bow,
bending at the waist and doffing his hat in a great, sweeping arc. We might
even have been free women! How pleased we were! We leaped up and down, we
clapped our hands with pleasure, we struck our left shoulders, we cried out,
we thrust our hands through the bars to him, and, to our delight, through we
were slave, he came to the bars and kissed and touched our hands. Then he
stood back and waved at us.
Then, to our sorrow, his performance was over.
He stepped back.
There was a silence.
The beast then rose to its hind legs, sleepily, and regarded us. Then,
suddenly, it gave a hideously terrifying roar and sprang toward the bars, its
great clawed appendages grasping towards us, its huge, fanged hole of a mouth
wild with its white traps of teeth, howling and hissing. It struck the bars,
reaching through them, its teeth grating on them, its chain striking against
the iron, its claws scraping towards us.
We stumbled back, terrified and screaming, trying to flee, but impeding one
another. I found myself thrown from my feet and helpless, tangled and pressed
in upon by the bodies of my sisters in bondage. And as I could not free myself
so could not those whom I and others pressed in upon. I screamed and screamed.
Then we became aware that the guards, and Targo, were laughing. They had been
warned.
It had been part of the performance, but scarcely one to our liking. How
comical we must have seemed in our rout, our terror. How comical to the guards
and
Targo, and the mountebank, must have seemed that undignified pile, that
squirming, panic-stricken heap, that helpless, terrified, screaming tangle of
slave girls.
The monster was now sitting quietly beside the mountebank, licking its jaws,
half-asleep, its eyes empty and vacant, blinking. The guards were still
laughing, and Targo was still smiling. Body by body, the tangle of slave
femininity unraveled itself. I think we were all humiliated and embarrassed,
so fooled we had been, so miserable and precipitate had been our flight. But,
too, we were still frightened. Some of us stood near the tiny door to the
heavy log dormitory, ready to run within. Others had fled to the opposite wall
of bars.
Most of us stood near the bars, but back some feet from them.
I angrily, but still frightened, smoothed down my camisk, as though it had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]