by John Norman
“When you are more experienced, you will not need the harness,” said the whip master. “Too, we will let you try sometimes with your hands tied behind you.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Address yourself now to the post, Tiffany,” he said. “Make it sweat. Make it cry out with pleasure.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
***
“Next,” said the whip master.
I approached him and knelt before him. “I wear your chains, Master,” I said, lifting them. “Do with me as you will.”
“Again,” said the man.
I rose to my feet and, facing him, head down, backed away a few paces. Then I lifted my head again.
“Remember, Tiffany,” he said, “he will.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I again approached him and knelt before him. “I wear your chains, Master,” I said, lifting them. “Do with me as you will.”
“Better,” he said. “Next.”
***
“See how Tiffany uses the cushion,” said the whip master. “That is good.”
A girl must know how to use the cushions, just as the chains and furs. These cushions are usually large and soft. These are the sorts of cushions which are sometimes found at the foot of, or in the vicinity of thrones and curule chairs, generally intended for the use of slaves. They may also, of course, be found in private dwellings. Sometimes a slave must remain on her cushion. Sometimes she is sent to it for punishment. She is taught to kneel upon it, to curl seductively on or about it, to lie across it, on her stomach or back, to hold it in certain ways, and so on.
“Good, Tiffany. Good,” said the whip master.
***
“You are all slaves,” said the whip master.
We all sat facing him, our backs against the wail of the training room. The palms of our hands were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.
“If you doubt that you are slaves, examine your thighs and consider your collared necks.”
We looked at one another. We were not in doubt that we were slaves.
“The only question now is whether you will be adequate or inadequate slaves,” he said. “This question, now that you are slaves, is basically a question of whether you will choose to live or choose to die. That is your basic question. I suggest you face it. Each of you must make your own choice. I caution you against one mistake, one common to stupid or uninformed girls. That is the mistake of thinking that you can escape the full implications of your position by merely adopting what you think is slave behavior. That is not true. Authentic slave behavior is motivated from within, and is the natural manifestation of the yielded slave herself. The will and consciousness within is that of a slave. This, then, issues in authentic slave behavior. There are many ways, responses to physical and psychological tests, and subtle behavioral cues, to tell if slave behavior is authentic or not. The choice, thus, is, in effect, one of whether you choose to become a total slave, surrendered and obedient, in your mind as well as your behavior, or die.”
***
“And this cut,” said the woman, herself a slave, though permitted a brief tunic, “is called the slave flame. See how it comes down the back, swirling.” She illustrated this with a kneeling girl whose hair had been cut, trimmed and shaped in this fashion.
“This,” she said, moving to the next girl, “is an upswept fashion. It appears sophisticated. It is a hair-do favored by some free women, but it is not outlawed for slaves. Its pretentiousness, suggesting superciliousness and arrogance, contrasts nicely with the actual reality of the slave. The girl who wears this must watch her step, lest the master grow impatient with her. If you are permitted to wear this hair-do, make certain that you, after an initial resistance, if he permits it, yield to him as a particularly low and helpless girl.”
“This hair-do here, on Crystal, with the bun in the back, is favored by many free women of the scribes. It, too, however, like the upswept hair-do has not been outlawed for slaves. Its apparent severity contrasts nicely with sexiness required of the slave. She may be freed of its severity, and brought into the natural modality of her yielding and submissive femininity, with as little as a single tug, thusly. In contrast, regard Tiffany, who has the shorn look. Some men like this in a woman. To be sure, her hair is now growing out a bit. This is to be contrasted again, of course, with the shaven head, commonly inflicted only on a girl as a punishment or to protect her from lice in close confinements, such as on a slave ship. Again, in the matter of hair-dos as in all my instructions to you, whether having to do with perfumes, silks, cosmetics, ornamentation, or whatever, you are to consider the total effect, the entire ensemble.”
***
“Well done, Tiffany,” he said. “You bring the whip well.”
He took it from between my teeth.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Next,” he said.
***
I knelt before him, my head down, the palms of my hands on the tiles, in the fashion which Ligurious had required of his girls. “I beg for love, Master,” I whimpered. “I beg for love!” I licked at his feet. “I beg for love, Master!” I said.
“You do it very well,” he said.
I lifted my head, tears in my eyes. “But I do beg for love!” I said. “I have not been contented in weeks!”
“How many of you other girls,” asked the whip master, regarding the class, “beg for love?”
“I, Master!” cried a girl. “I, Master!” cried others.
“How many?” he asked.
And there was not one girl, naked and in her collar, in the entire class who did not raise her hand.
“Good,” said the whip master. “Then you are hungry.”
Our training then continued.
***
“No two masters are the same,” said the whip master, “except in so far as each is the total master, just as no two slaves are the same, except that each is a total slave.”
We all sat facing him, our backs against the wall of the training room. The palms of our hands were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.
“You must, accordingly, strive to understand, relate to, serve and please the unique master in each man. You must bring your own individual personalities and talents to bear on his challenge. Try in your uniqueness to be perfect and special for him in his uniqueness. Read him. Learn him. Be one acutely aware of him. Be sensitive to his moods, and their changes. Find out what he wants from you, and then see that he gets it, and more. Find out what he wants you to be and then be it, beyond his wildest dreams. Remember that you are the slave. You exist for his service and pleasure.”
***
“That is it, Tiffany,” he said. “Stretch your limbs. Examine their fairness. Now look at the master. That is how you take bath before a man. Will he drag you forth and have you on the slippery tiles or will he take you in the bath itself?”
***
“Do not forget to kiss the sandal, humbly, before tying it on his foot,” said the whip master, “just as, when you remove them, you kiss them before putting them away.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
***
“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.”
***
I knelt before the whip master, anxiously lifting the tray to him. He picked up one of the biscuits. He turned it over.
“This biscuit is burned on the bottom,” he said. “If this happens again, you will be whipped.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master.”
***
“Good, Ruby,” said the whip master. “That is how to remove a man’s tunic. Make it a sensuous experience for him, in which you show him your slavery and your eagerness to serve. You may replace your tunic, Abdar.”
“Yes, Master,” said the hooded slave.
“You next, Tiffany,” said the whip master.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
***
“These biscuits are acceptable,” he said. “In fact, they are good.”
“Thank you, Master!” I said.
***
“Good, Tiffany,” said the whip master. “That is how you belly to a man. Put your head down, now. Let me feel your lips and tongue.”
“Master,” I whimpered.
“Good,” he said. “Later, too, when your hair reaches a suitable length, make certain that it falls about the master’s sandals.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
***
I sensed that our training was coming to an end. We were returning to various basics, almost as elementary as scales to the musician, such things as basic kisses, caresses, position, attitudes and movement.
“Good,” he said.
I had once been Miss Tiffany Collins, of Earth. I now lay on my belly on the tiles, naked and in a collar, licking and kissing at the feet of a Gorean male. It was my hope that he would find me pleasing, totally.
***
“Attention, Class,” said the whip master.
We all straightened up, sitting, facing him, our backs against the wall of the training room. The palms of our hands were flat on the floor at our sides and our legs were extended before us, the ankles crossed, as though bound.
“The results of your tests, your examinations, are now in. It is my pleasure to inform you that you have all passed.”
We dared not break position, so well trained we were, but we cried out with pleasure. We had worked hard. We did not wish to be fed to sleen, or, perhaps, if our internal slavery was adequate, but our external performances insufficient, being sent to a laundry or returned to a mill, where we might have to remain perhaps indefinitely.
“It is an excellent class, one of the best I have had,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” said several of the girls.
“Too,” he said, “there is not one of you, as the tests have shown, who is not an authentic slave; there is not one of you who, from the bottom of her pretty belly, does not belong in a collar.”
I knew this was true of me. I did not know, of course, if it were true of the other girls or not. And the last doubts on the rightness of the collar on my neck had been dispelled in my training. I now knew it belonged there. I was pleased to have been brought to Gor where I, whether I wished it or not, with absolutely no compromise, would be put in it.
“I am proud of all of you,” said the whip master. “You are all luscious and exciting sluts. Indeed, I think there is not one of you would not bring a silver tarsk on the open market.”
We cried out, elated, to hear this. We looked at one another, joy in our faces. I almost lifted the palms of my hands from the floor and uncrossed my ankles, but, of course I did not do so. How pleased we were. What high praise this was.
We had not understood how valuable we might have become as women.
“But, remember,” said the whip master, “you have, really, learned only a little. You have been familiarized with only a small selection of basic skills, apprised of only a handful of fundamentals. Your education, when you leave here, is not complete, but only begun. You may learn more in your first few days out of school, in the practical contexts of bondage, under the control and whips of masters, than you have here in five weeks. But even then, remember that you, in your collars, are still amateurs at slavery. You could not begin to compete with an experienced girl. Continue to apply yourself, to learn, to work, to love and serve. Some years from now you may begin to grasp an inkling of what can be the skills, the sensitivities and talents, the emotions, the depths of feeling, of the slave The other side of the coin of freedom is bondage. One cannot exist without the other. The master is free and you are slave.”
We looked at one another. There was much in what he said. We must strive desperately to please. We were, for most practical purposes, new girls, untutored in our collars. Most of us, even, were from the mills. We would be zealous to please. Most masters are sensitive to this. They are likely to be kinder to an unskilled girl zealous to please than a skilled one who permits her performances to lapse from standards of perfection. She may, of course, at the master’s whim, by various correctional devices, be swiftly restored to zealousness.
Sometimes, too, of course, she is merely sold into a lower slavery, that she may earnestly endeavor, perhaps through years of effort, to work her way up again to, say, a single-master-single-slave relationship. The mistake of even minutely relaxing or reducing the quality of her service is not one a girl is likely to make twice.
“All that remains now,” said the whip master, “is to give you some experience in the types of situations in which you are likely, at least in your initial bondage applications, to find yourself.”
Chapter 28 - SCHOOL; I HAVE GRADUATED
“I am so tired,” I said.
“So, to am I,” said Crystal.
“We all are,” said Tupa.
It was now late at night. We had been serving this mock banquet, under the directions of a floor manager, our whip master generally to the side, looking on, since early morning. It was done in the training room, with tables set up. We did not serve actual food, of course, though we carried trays and dishes, and such.
“You are Tiffany?” asked the floor manager.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Fruit there,” he said, pointing to a place at the table. One of his aides was there, playing to role of a banqueter.
“Yes, Master,” I said. I, and the rest of the class, was naked, save for our collars and strings of slave bells tied about our left ankles. It was not thought necessary to soil slave silks in what, in effect, was a successive series of rehearsals. The floor manager did wish to make certain, of course, that we moved well, belled. The floor manager, or banquet manager, or feast master, as one may think of him, is extremely important in this type of affair. He controls the arrangement and order of the banquet, the catering, if any is required, and the musicians, dancers and serving slaves.
Our class, twenty girls, were acting as the serving slaves. Another class, the next cycle in the training program, was kneeling to one side, observing. I wanted desperately to talk to one member of that next class.
The musicians were no longer playing now. Similarly the dancers were off to one side, many of them now sleeping. The musicians were free. Musicians on Gor, that is, members of the caste of musicians, are seldom, if ever, enslaved. Their immunity from bondage, or practical immunity from bondage, is a matter of custom. There is a saying to the effect that he who makes music, must, like the tarn and the Vosk gull, be free. This is a saying, however, which I suspect was invented by the caste of musicians, to protect itself from bondage. For example, there are many musicians on Gor, not members of the caste, who are enslaved. For example, it is quite common on Gor to train a slave girl in the use of a musical instrument, that she might be more pleasing to masters. It never seems to occur to anyone that she should then be freed. Indeed, it is felt that since she is in a collar, it will make her performance, her playing and perhaps her singing, even more superb. Too, some male slaves are fine musicians.
The only other caste on Gor which is generally considered, for most practical purposes, as immune from bondage is the caste of players. These are the fellows who make their living from the game of Kaissa, playing it for prizes, charging for games, giving instruction and exhibitions, annotating games, and so on. They are usually poor fellows but generally have little trouble securing a night’s food and lodging for a game or two. The general affection and respect which Goreans feel for the game of Kaissa is probably the explanation for the practical immunity from bondage commonly accorded the members of the cast of players. Slaves are seldom permitted to play Kaissa. In some cities, it is against the law for them to do so. It is often thought to be an insult to the game to even let them touch the pieces.
The dancers, on the other hand, several of whom were sleeping to the side, were all females, and slaves. Few free women, I suspect would dare to dance the dances of Gor before strong men. If they did so, how long could they expect to remain free? Any woman who dares to appear so before men, and dance, it is said is in her heart a slave. Let her then be collared! Whatever may be the truth in these matters it is a fact that almost all of the dancers on Gor are slaves. Indeed, many of the most beautiful and exciting slaves on Gor are dancers. They bring their masters much gold.
I now knelt before the low table, before the floor manager’s aide. I carried a round, empty silver platter, about eighteen inches in diameter. The floor manager accompanied me to the place, and crouched down, beside me, watching.
I lowered my head and body, from the waist down, humbly, and then slowly, gracefully, lifted my body and head to where I might look up into the eyes of the aide. I then lifted the tray upward and toward him, proffering it to him, as though it might contain luscious fruit, at the same time lifting my body subtly to him.
“Fruit, Master?” I asked.
“How did it look?” asked the floor manager.
“Good,” said the aide. “Do you wish to take this perspective?”
The floor manager stepped over the low table, going behind it. “Again, Tiffany,” he said.