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Comments
and Information: In many Gorean towns, the baths are important social
centers. Free persons of different sexes do not bathe together publicly.
This reservation does not preclude the presence of bath girls in the men's
bath or silk slaves in those for women. The bath girls are trained in the
pleasant art of bathing. They serve at public or private baths, where they
aid men in the taking of their baths and, if required, they may also provide
sexual services.
Synopsis
By The Books: Bath girls are slaves at the public and private baths.
They wear a chain and plate collar, the plate gives their name and cost.
They wear towels with nothing beneath them. While swimming, many wrap a long
broad strap of glazed leather about their heads like a turban. The bath
girls are there for the pleasure of Men. This is done on purpose as most
girls can easily avoid the men if they wished. They become excellent
swimmers. {Excerpts and Information from Assassins of Gor}
General Information:
"On the other hand," said
Harold, "I might like to stop by the baths." "They are closed at this hour,
are they not?" I asked. "No," said he, "not until
the twentieth hour." That was midnight of the Gorean day."
{Nomads of Gor}
Segregated Bathing: "Gorean
baths are almost always segregated, incidentally, if only be the time of day.
This does not mean that bath girls may not be available to tend to a strong
male’s various wants in the men’s baths, or that handsome silk slaves, if
they are summoned, may not appear in attendance in the baths of free women."
{Renegades of Gor}
"It is
thought to be very bad form, incidentally, to carry
weapons in the baths, and, in large
public baths, they must often be checked upon entry." {Renegades
of Gor}
Bathing Accessories:
"She carried,
folded, several large, colored, soft towels, with
two sponges, and oils, for the bath. On the towels, too, were
certain other articles. Among them was, opened, the
rounded steel loop she had worn about her neck (strigil),
earlier. It, with its key, lay on the top towel. It had been removed from
her for she was to assist me in the bath." {Rogue of Gor}
"Hurry, Slave," said the
tall, dark-haired girl, bare-armed, in an ankle-length, flowing white
garment. "The mistress will be ready for you soon." She held
four large, heavy snowy towels, each of a different
absorbency. To one side another girl, clad similarly, was
replacing bath oils in a rack, with
which I had been rubbed prior to entering the
second sunken bath. I had now rinsed them from my body, but I was
not eager to leave the water. I reveled in it." {Tribesman of Gor}
"I do not see how it could
have happened," Nela was saying, bending over me as I lay sleepily on my
stomach on the heavy striped piece of toweling,
about the size of a blanket, her strong, dutiful hands rubbing
the oils of the bath into my body." {Assassin of Gor}
"In a secluded place, among
the planted grasses and ferns, sheltered from view, I had lifted Nela from
the pool and placed her on a large piece of orange
toweling on the grass, near which I had left my clothes and
pouch." {Assassin of Gor}
Bathing Girl Attire
(including collar description):
"Nela was a sturdy girl, a
bit short. She had wrapped about her a piece of
toweling. Her eyes were blue. She was a magnificent swimmer,
strong and vital. Her blond hair was cut very short to protect it from the
water; even though, in swimming, such girls often
wrapped a long broad strap of glazed leather about their head, in a turban
of sorts. Beneath the toweling Nela wore
nothing; about her neck, rather than the
common slave collar, she, like the other bath gifts, wore a chain and plate.
On her plate was the legend: I am Nela of the Capacian Baths. Pool of Blue
Flowers. I cost one tarsk." {Assassin of Gor}
Bath Attendants:
"She looked over to the
side of the pool where a small man in a tunic of
toweling was standing about, a metal box with a slot strapped over his
shoulder." {Assassin of Gor}
"Attendant!" cried the burly fellow, from one of the second tubs, that
immediately behind one of the first tubs, that most convenient to the
entrance to the baths. "Stir up the fire!" It was early, but most
of the fellows who had been sleeping on the floor of the baths during the
night had now taken their leave. The fellow then
attending on the baths, rather large for such a fellow, it might seem,
hooded, too, perhaps to disguise scarring of such a nature as might turn the
stomachs of bathers, enveloped in a cloak, hobbling, perhaps the result of a
fall from tarnback, hurried, seemingly alarmed, to the bricked platform
beneath his tub and stirred the fire with the fire rake."
{Renegades of Gor}
"Stir up the fire," said the newcomer. Hastily the ejected fellow seized a
fire rake and poked about within the platform. "Bring more wood,"
said the newcomer. "Then tend the fire. Do not leave until it is suitable."
From one of the large barrels to the side, open
near the bottom, the ejected fellow scooped out, and returned with, a bucket
of wood chips, which he flung into the bricked platform. He then arranged
these with the fire rake. He then returned the bucket to its place by the
barrel and, from one of the wood bins, to the right, near the barrels,
fetched an armload of kindling, then some narrow hardwood logs. In a few
moments the chips were burning well. He then added kindling, and then, a bit
later, thrust the narrow logs into the platform. He then, the
reddish glow of the flames from within the platform reflected on his
countenance, looked up, questioningly, frightened, at the newcomer."
{Renegades of Gor}
Cost of Bathing Girls:
"I am Nela of the Capacian
Baths. Pool of Blue Flowers. I cost one tarsk.
Nela was an expensive girl, though there were pools where the
girls cost as much as a silver tarn disk.
The tarsk is a silver coin, worth forty copper tarn disks. All the girls in
the Pool of Blue Flowers cost the same, except novices in training who would
go for ten or fifteen copper tarn disks.
There were dozens of pools in the vast, spreading Capacian Baths. In some of
the larger pools the girls went as cheaply as one
copper tarn disk. For the fee one was entitled to use the girl as
he wished for as long as he wished, his use, of course, limited by the hours
of the pool's closing." {Assassin of Gor}
"If one has a bath girl, of
course, she does most of these things for sure. Sometimes the
services of a bath girl, including massage and
love, in whatever modalities the customer may elect, come in the price of
the bath, and, at other times, as here,
at the Crooked Tarn, I gathered, at least normally, they are extra."
{Renegades of Gor}
Proper Way to Disrobe a
Free Man for Bathing:
"May I bathe Master now?"
she asked. I jerked loose the disrobing loop at her left shoulder. Beverly
Henderson was stripped before me. I walked around, behind her. She lifted up
her chin. She trembled, slightly. She was extremely aware of my presence. I
bent forward, slightly. She had been subtly perfumed. She shuddered. She had
felt my breath at the left side of her neck, and on her left shoulder. I
then walked about her and stood before her. "Yes, Master," she said.
She reached out and, gently, first touching my
chest, her hands lingering there for a moment, found the knot in the belt of
soft cloth with which I had closed the casual tunic I had donned. She undid
the knot and parted the tunic, kissing me at the belly. She then went behind
me and, gently, removed the tunic, kissing me beneath the left shoulder
blade. She then stood again before me. She folded the tunic and belt,
kissing them, and then knelt down, placing them to one side. She then stood
again, before me, her head down. I smiled. The girl had been
taught how to disrobe a master for his bath. I then placed the articles for
the bath in her hands, and conducted her to the side of the tub. She placed
the articles where she might find them. She then took a vial of oil and one
of the sponges in her hands. I then helped her step within the tub. I looked
at her. She stood in the water, blindfolded, waiting for me. Miss Beverly
Henderson, once a proud girl of Earth, now only a Gorean slave girl, waited
to bathe a free male, one whom she must address as master and serve as he
pleased. I stepped down within the tub. Then,
kneeling or standing, as was fit, humbly, Miss Beverly Henderson, with the
oils and sponges, and rinsing waters, bathed me. Then,
after a few Ehn, she toweled my body dry and then
knelt before me, head down." {Rogue of Gor}
First, Second, and Third
Rubbing:
"...first rubbing, with coarse oils, loosening dirt and perspiration, and
scraped me with the thin, flexible bronze strigil;
then she
gave me the second rubbing, vigorous and stimulating, with heavy toweling;
then she gave me the third rubbing, that with fine, scented oils, massaged
at length into the skin." {Assassin of Gor}
Common Steps to Bathing:
"There are many types of
baths, and ways to take them, for example,
depending on the temperatures of the tubs, or pools, and the order in which
one uses them.
A
common fashion is to use the first tub for a time, soaking, and, if one
wishes, sponging, and then, emerging, to
apply the oil, or oils. These are rubbed well into the skin and then removed
with the strigil.
There are
various forms of strigil, and some of them are
ornately decorated. They are usually of metal and almost always of a narrow,
spatula form. With the strigil one scrapes away the residue of oil, and,
with it, dirt and sweat, cleaning the pores.
One then generally takes
the "second tub," which consists of clean water,
sponges away any remaining grime, residues of oil and dirt, and such, and
then, luxuriating, soaks again.
If one has a bath girl, of course, she does most of these things for one.
Sometimes the services of a bath girl, including
massage and love, in whatever modalities the customer may elect, come in the
price of the bath, and, at other times, as here, at the Crooked
Tarn, I gathered, at least normally, they are extra. {Renegades of Gor}
"She began again to
massage my back. The oil was fragrant. It felt warm
from her hands." {Assassin of Gor}
Colored Foams of Beauty
for Free Women:
"She reclined in the tub,
easing her lovely body gently lower in the water, closing her eyes. The
water, the multicolored foams of beauty,
were about her chin. Then she sat a bit more upright in the tub, the water
and foam about her shoulders. She opened her eyes and looked up at the
ceiling." {Slave Girl of Gor}
Proper Water Temperature
(Private Baths):
"I went to
draw water from the cistern. Too,
I lit the tiny oil fire beneath the tempering
vessel, on its iron tripod. One regulates the temperature by mixing warmer
and cooler waters. A serving slave must know the exact
temperature at which her mistress wishes the water of her bath. The Lady
Elicia would tell me once, I knew. After that, if it were not correct, I
would be punished. I knew she would have little patience with me. I must
serve her perfectly. When the water was ready, I prepared the oils, the
towels, and foams of the bath." {Slave Girl of Gor}
"Thank you, Lady Elicia, my Mistress," I said. I had well judged the
temperature of the water, mixing the water from the
cistern with other water, heated in the tempering vessel on its iron tripod.
The temperature was acceptable. I would not be whipped." {Slave
Girl of Gor}
The Pools of the
Capacian Baths of Ar:
"After that we lay side by
side for a long time, looking up at the bluish
translucent dome of the Pool of Blue Flowers. There are, as I
mentioned, many pools in the Capacian Baths, and they differ in their shapes
and sizes, and in their decor, and in the temperatures and scents of their
waters. The temperature of the Pool of Blue Flowers
was cool and pleasing. The atmosphere of the pool was further charged with
the fragrance of Veminium, a kind of bluish wild flower commonly found on
the lower slopes of the Thentis range; the walls, the columns, even the
bottom of the pool, were decorated with representations of Veminium, and
many of the plants themselves were found in the chamber. Though
the pool was marble and the walkways about it, much of the area was planted
with grass and ferns and various other flora were in abundance. There were
many small nooks and glades, here and there, some more than forty yards from
the pool, where a man might rest." {Assassin of Gor}
"I had heard the
Pool of the Tropics was an excellent
pool in the Capacian; and also the Pool of Ar's
Glories, and the Pool of the Northern
Forests; there was even, of recent date, a
Pool of the Splendor of the Hinrabians..." {Assassin of Gor}
Various Types and Styles
of Baths/Tubs:
"The water will have been
readied," she said. Near the couch was a large,
round, sunken tub, with some six inches of water in it. Too, to
one side, there were rinsing jars." {Rogue of Gor}
"I closed my eyes in
one of the second tubs, the cleansing tubs. There
were five first tubs, and five second tubs. These were all large, shallow,
round tubs, of clay, covered with porcelain, mounted on open-bricked
platforms, each platform about a yard high. In this particular
bath, adequate enough, I suppose, for the area, the fires beneath the
bricked platforms were stirred, tended and cleaned with long-handled fire
rakes. To be sure, it was late, and I suspected that the fires had not been
tended since perhaps the eighteenth Ann. The water, however, happily, was
still comfortably warm. They would probably be built up again around the
fifth Ann. I had hung my wet garments on racks about the brick platform,
behind the tub. They would probably be dry by now. Each tub was some seven
feet in width and some eighteen inches deep. On a hook, behind me, kept for
towels, and such, I had slung my scabbard." {Renegades of Gor}
"There are, as I mentioned,
many pools in the Capacian Baths, and they differ
in their shapes and sizes, and in their decor, and in the temperatures and
scents of their waters." {Assassins of Gor}
"Though the
pool was marble and the walkways about it,
much of the area was planted with grass and ferns
and various other flora were in abundance. There were many
small nooks and glades, here and there, some more
than forty yards from the pool, where a man might rest."
(Assassins of Gor}
Pool Size: "Look," I
said, pointing to the far end of the curving pool,
some hundred and fifty yards away, "if I do not catch you before
you reach the edge you will have your freedom for the day." {Assassin of
Gor}
The Lesser Baths:
More than one fellow, and
even a Ubar or two, as history has it, had been attacked in the bath. The
baths here, of course, were very simple, and primitive. For example, they
were heated in the same room, and not in virtue of subterranean furnaces,
heat from which would normally be conveyed upward through vents and pipes.
Here, too, there were no scented pools, no
massaging rooms, no steaming rooms. Too, of course, here there were no
exercising yards, where one might try a fall or two in wrestling or, say,
have a game of catch, either with the large or the small ball. Similarly,
there were no recreational gardens, no art galleries, no strolling lanes, no
arcades of merchants, no physicians' courts, no reading rooms, no music
rooms, or such." {Renegades of Gor}
A Kajira Taught to
Bathe:
"Gently, Tiffany," said the
whip master. "You are not rubbing down a tharlarion." "Yes, Master," I said.
"Use the sponge well," he said. "Remember that it must not only clean but
caress, and do not forget, in this service, to fondle and kiss the master,
humbly and lovingly." I kissed the wet shoulder of the man in the bath, and
then kissed his cheek, through the wet canvas hood drawn over his face. He
moaned. He was a male slave. "Similarly," said the whip master, "do not
forget to press your body sometimes against that of the master, sometimes
seemingly inadvertently. Along these lines, for example, it is easy,
seemingly accidentally, to brush his lips with a pendant breast. If his lips
should part you might then press it more closely against him, begging. You
might then be cuffed back in the water, but later you will doubtless be well
used." {Kajira of Gor}
A Kajiru Taught to Bathe
and Duties:
"When I had fed to his
satisfaction he made me precede him to a warm, humid chamber. In that place
there were sunken baths, cisterns of water, and vessels of heating water.
Too, there were strigils, towels and oils. He removed my collar and ordered
me into the bath. It was uncomfortably hot but I dared not object. Gorean
masters tend not to be tolerant of the feelings of slaves. An enslaved male
of Earth, fool that I was, I did not even know how to take a bath. Laughing,
he explained to me the use of the strigils, the rinsings and oils.
Frightened though I was, I was pleased, in the lengthy process of the bath,
which tends for Goreans to be a pleasant experience, and is often a social
one, at the public baths, to rid myself of the stink of the pens. I had then
been scented, with the colognes and perfumes thought suitable for certain
types of male slaves." {Fighting Slave of Gor}
Selling a Kajira to the
Capacian Baths:
"Nela had been a slave
since the age of fourteen. To my surprise she was a native of Ar. She had
lived alone with her father, who had gambled heavily on the races. He had
died and to satisfy his debts, no others coming forth to resolve them, the
daughter, as Gorean law commonly prescribes, became state property; she was
then, following the law, put up for sale at public auction; the proceeds of
her sale were used, again following the mandate of the law, to liquidate as
equitably as possible the unsatisfied claims of creditors. She had first
been sold for eight silver tarsks to a keeper of one of the public kitchens
in a cylinder, a former creditor of her father, who had in mind making a
profit on her; she worked in the kitchen for a year as a pot girl, sleeping
on straw and chained at night, and then, as her body more adequately
developed the contours of womanhood, her master
braceleted her and took her to the Capacian Baths where; after some
haggling, he received a price of four gold pieces and a silver tarsk;
she had begun in one of the vast cement pools as a copper-tarn-disk girl and
had, four years later, become a silver-tarsk girl in the Pool of Blue
Flowers." (Assassin of Gor}
Baths, A Source of
Information:
"Claudia Tentia Hinrabia is
made a slave." I lifted my head and got up on my elbows, looking at her.
"Are you serious?" I asked. "Yes," said Nela, bitterly, "let her be branded
and collared. Let her be forced to please men." "Why do you hate her so?" I
asked. "She is free," said Nela, "and of high birth and rich. Let such
women, I say, feel the iron. Let it be they who dance to the whip." "You
should feel sorry for her," I recommended. Nela threw back her head and
laughed. "She is probably an innocent girl," I said. "She once had the nose
and ears of one of her girls cut off for having dropped a mirror,"
said Nela. "How do you know that?" I asked. The
girl laughed. "Everything that goes on in Ar," she said, "is heard in the
Capacian." Then she looked at me bitterly. "I hope she is made a
slave," she said. "I hope she is sold in Port Kar." I gathered that Nela
must hate the Hinrabian girl much indeed. "Are the Hinrabians popular in
Ar?' I asked. Nela stopped massaging my back. "Do not answer if you do not
wish," I said. "No," she said, and I could sense her looking about. "They
are not popular." "What of Kazrak?" I asked. "He was a good Administrator,"
she said. "He is gone now." {Assassin of Gor}
"The
baths, in many Gorean cities and towns, are convenient and popular
gathering places. One can pick up the latest news and gossip there,
for example." {Renegades of Gor}
"Men
caught up on news from each other, and from the bath girls, "I do
not see how it could have happened," Nela was saying, bending over me as I
lay sleepily on my stomach on the heavy striped piece of toweling, about the
size of a blanket, her strong, dutiful hands rubbing the oils of the bath
into my body. "The daughter of Minus Tentia Hinrabia, if none other," said
she, should be safe." I grunted, not too concerned. Nela,
like most of the others at the baths, could talk of
little but the startling disappearance, and presumed abduction,
of Claudia Tentia Hinrabia, the proud, spoiled daughter of the Administrator
of the City." {Assassins of Gor}
Baths Regarded as Social
and Cultural Gatherings:
"Most Goreans, in the
baths, at least in their own towns or cities, do share tubs, of course. That
is one reason the tubs are so large. To be sure, even in one’s own area,
one usually shares a tub only with friends or
acquaintances. If the baths are crowded, of course, it would be only polite
to share with one’s fellow citizens." {Renegades of Gor}
Punishment for Free
Women:
"Needless to say, bath
girls are almost always female slaves. Sometimes,
in certain cities, free women, found guilty of crimes, are sentenced to the
baths, to serve there as bath girls, subject to the disciplines of such.
After a given time there, after it is thought they have learned their
lessons, and those of the baths, they are, commonly, routinely enslaved and
sold out of the city. It is probably just as well. By that time they will
have been, in effect, "spoiled for freedom." {Renegades of Gor}
Punishment for Bath
Girls:
"The pools were beautiful,
and yet I knew that somewhere, chained in darkness,
were gangs of male slaves who cleaned them each night; and there
were of course the Bath Girls of Ar, of which Nela was one, said to be the
most beautiful of Gor. Harold, as a boy, had once been a slave in the baths,
those of the city of Turia, before he had escaped. He had told me that
sometimes a Bath Girl, to discipline her, is thrown
to the slaves in the darkness. I held Nela a bit more closely to
me, and she looked at me, puzzled." {Assassin of Gor} |
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Games of Bathing Girls in
the Capacian Baths:
"I asked her how much she
went for. "For a tarsk," she laughed, and turned about, looking at me, "but
you will have to catch me first." I knew this game of bath girls,
as though they, mere slaves, would dare to truly flee from one who pursued
them, and I laughed, and she, too, sensing my understanding, laughed.
The girl commonly pretends to swim away but is
outdistanced and captured. I knew that few men could, if a bath girl did not
wish it, come close to them in the water. They spend much of the day in the
water and, it is said, are more at ease in that element than the Cosian song
fish." {Assassin of Gor}
"Look," I said, pointing to
the far end of the curving pool, some hundred and
fifty yards away, "if I do not catch you before you reach the edge you will
have your freedom for the day." She looked at me, puzzled, her feet and
hands moving. "I will pay the tarsk," I said, "and I will not use you, nor
make you serve me in any way." She looked over to the side of the pool where
a small man in a tunic of toweling was standing about, a metal box with a
slot strapped over his shoulder. Is Master serious?" she asked. "Yes," I
said. "You cannot catch me if I do not wish it," she said, warning me.
"Then," I said, "you will have your freedom for a day." "Agreed," she said.
"Go!" I said. She looked at me and laughed, and then, on her back, began to
move gracefully toward the opposite end of the pool. Once she stopped,
seeing that I was not yet following. She, I noted, had not been hurrying. I
knew that she could, if she wished, swim like a water lizard making a
strike. Yet it was enough for her to play with me, to tease me, if I should
follow her, keeping just out of my reach. She was puzzled that I was not yet
thrashing after her. She was about half of the way to the far edge of the
pool when she straightened herself in the water, and looked back at me. At
that moment I began to swim. I gather, from the sound of a fellow watching
us, that she began to swim again when I began to follow her. Apparently,
from what I later learned, she began to swim slowly on her back until it
became clear to her that I was gaining with some swiftness. Then she rolled
onto her stomach and began to stroke easily toward the far edge, looking
back now and then. In a matter of about ten Ihn, however, seeing me approach
ever more closely, she began to move with a deliberate, swift ease. But
still I gained." {Assassin of Gor}
Catching the Bath Girl:
"I swam as I never had
before, knifing through the water. The thought went through me, bubbling to
the roar of water passing my ears, that tomorrow I would scarcely be able to
move; each breath was a cruel explosion in my lungs. At that point, looking
back once more, and noting that I was still moving quickly toward her, and
not willing to lose a possible rare day's freedom, she began, with the
marvelous, strong trained stroke of her legs and arms, to slice swiftly
through the water. Still I gained. Now she was moving as rapidly as she
could, determinedly, a fury of beauty in the water. Yet I pressed on, ever
gaining, each of my muscles suddenly charged with the excitement of the
pursuit of her. I now sensed her but feet from me, swimming desperately, the
pool's edge long yards away. Faster yet I swam. I knew now I would overtake
her. Suddenly she, sensing this too, became like a maddened, terrified water
animal. She cried out in frustration. She lost her stroke. She threw all her
energies now into her panic-stricken flight; but the beauty of the rhythm,
that powerful, even rhythm, was gone; her stroke was uneven; she lifted too
much water; she missed a breath; she thrashed; but still she fled wildly for
safety, kicking madly, trying to escape. And then my hands closed on her
waist and she cried out in rage, struggling, trying to break free.
I turned her about on her back and put my hand in
the chain about her throat, staying behind her. She tried to put her hands
back but could not remove my hand from the chain. Then, slowly, in triumph,
my hand in the chain, I towed her on her back, she helpless, to the other
end of the pool." {Assassin of Gor}
"It seems you have lost
your freedom for the day," I said. I liked the feel of her wet body. There
were tears in her eyes. "It will be a silver tarsk for that one," said a
thin voice behind me. I motioned that the man should get the coin from my
pouch and he did so. I heard the coin drop into the metal box, and heard him
leave. "What is your name?" I asked. "Nela," said she, "if it pleases
Master." "It pleases me," I said. I took the girl into my arms, and pressed
my lips to hers, as she lifted her arms and placed them about my neck. After
we had kissed we swam together, and then again kissed and swam." {Assassin
of Gor} |
