Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  I looked up at the man in the chair.

  I now felt no more than a cringing, vulnerable slave.

  “Let her be collared,” he said.

  I gasped, and put my hand to my throat.

  “There are various collars,” said Dorna.

  “A common collar will do,” said he.

  I would not have expected to have worn other than a common collar, of course, there are many sorts of collars. The most familiar are the “common collar,” which, in its varieties, tends to be flat and closely fitting, and the “Turian collar,” which, in its varieties, is more rounded, and barlike, and fits more loosely. Both lock behind the back of the neck. Dorna wore a “common collar.” Some other types of collars are decorative collars, holding collars, training collars and punishment collars.

  “A used collar?” said Dorna.

  “Certainly,” said he.

  I now realized that I was not as special or important as I had thought I might be, or had hoped I might be.

  “We have them with a variety of names,” she said.

  I had expected, naturally, to be named. It is useful, after all, for a slave to have a name. It makes it easier to refer to her, to summon her, and so on. But I would have expected a master to have considered me with some care, as he might another form of animal, and to have then selected a name for me which, at least to his fancy, seemed to him fitting or suitable, a name which might then, sooner or later, be inscribed on a collar. To be sure, not all collars have the slave’s name on them. Some apparently say things as simple as “I am the slave of so-and-so,” “I belong to so-and-so,” “I am the property of so-and-so,” or “Return me to so-and-so,” such things. An advantage of having the girls name on the collar is in tracing her. After all, a rich man might own a hundred or more women. A typical collar might read, “My name is Tula. I am the slave of so-and-so.” But it seemed now that I would not be considered, and named, with a collar, a new collar, a personal collar, eventually following the naming, as one might hope, being suitably inscribed, but that my name, whatever it was to be, would be the result of what already appeared on a collar. The collar would not be a function of the name, so to speak, but the name, it seemed, would be a function of the collar, of some name already on a collar!

  “What do you suggest?” he asked. He seemed amused.

  “She is from Earth,” said she.

  “So?” said he.

  “I then suggest,” said she, “one with an Earth-slut name on it.”

  “Would you do that to her?” he asked.

  “Surely no harm could come of it,” she said.

  A man laughed. I felt uneasy.

  “Still,” said the fellow in the thronelike chair, “she seems to have learned at least a little about our world, and, for her time here, seems unusually adept at our language. Indeed she seems, subject to what she is, and her antecedents, quite intelligent. That is clear even from her papers. Perhaps then we should be kinder to her. Perhaps we should not do that to her.”

  “Oh, no, Master,” said Dorna, quickly. “She is from that place and so that should be made clear in her name. Let her wear a name that makes clear her origin, so that men will know the treatment she deserves, and how to deal with her.”

  “Do you so hate those from that place?” inquired the man in the chair.

  “Were it not for one such,” she cried, “I would not be here in diaphanous silk with a collar on my neck!”

  “One from such a place enslaved you?” asked he.

  “No,” she said, “but were it not for him I might now be tatrix in my city!”

  “Your schemes failed,” said a man.

  “One from Earth brought your plans to naught,” said another.

  “Your city is now quite different from what it once was,” said the man in the chair.

  “You are quite fortunate to be here, and in a collar,” said another man.

  “Rejoice that you live,” said another.

  I understood nothing of this.

  “But we are now considering this little kajira,” said the man in the chair, returning his attention to me.

  Dorna looked down at me, in fury.

  I was frightened, and, unbidden, I knelt.

  “She kneels well,” said a man.

  I knelt in position, of course.

  I looked up at the man in the chair. I wondered if he would send for me this evening.

  I trembled, even thinking of it.

  Dorna, I think, was not unaware of the fact that I fell well within the regard of him in the great chair.

  “You think that a collar with an Earth-girl name would be suitable?” he asked Dorna.

  “Suitable, and appropriate, Master,” she said, in honeyed tones.

  This made me apprehensive, particularly when I recalled her remarks to the effect that this would let men know how I was to be treated, and such.

  “Shall we give her an Earth-girl name?” asked he in the chair of the men standing about.

  “Do so, Captain,” said one of them, smacking his lips.

  “Yes, Captain!” approved another.

  Many Earth-girl names I would discover, understandably enough, I supposed, have an exotic flavor to the men of this world. They tend to find them sexually stimulating. They are also, like certain names of this world, regarded as slave names. I am not fully certain why that is. It may be because they tend to be unfamiliar names to the men of this world. It may be because they are found on women brought to this world to be slaves. It may be because we often sold under such names, we then wearing them as slave names, put on us for the convenience of masters. To be sure, it may be for another reason, a simpler reason, the simple reason that we make excellent slaves. There are some names, of course, which are common to both this world and my old world, which suggests interesting questions of etiology. Similarly there are some names on this world which are on free women but which are also, often, found on slaves. One such is ‘Dina’. It is not unusual for a name of this world, incidentally, to be put on an Earth girl brought here. This is not entirely unnatural, of course, as such names are often beautiful, and, naturally, more familiar to the masters. Too, such names sometimes help the new slave to make the transition to her new status and condition. Indeed, they sometimes help to free her of her inhibitions and increase her sexual responsiveness. In other cases, it seems clear that wearing an Earth-girl name, whether one which was once her own, now put on her as a slave name, or another Earth-girl name, now also, of course, only a slave name, can have similar effects on a girl from my world, she now recognizing herself as, and being in effect, embonded fauna in an alien environment, singled out, and marked, as such, by the name. The contrast between the familiarity of the name, like a tie to an old world, and the new reality in which she finds herself can be both astonishing and stimulating. An interesting variation on this sort of thing is the giving of Earth-girl names to women of this world. This is a way of informing the, I gather, that great heat is now expected of them and that they are now, at best, to regard themselves as the lowest of slaves. To be sure, in time, as we learn our collars and condition, I think that the names make little difference. Many names, of diverse sorts, are stimulating and beautiful. And, of course, perhaps most importantly, we are well aware that any name we wear, whatever it may be, is, when all is said and done, a slave name.

  “Very well,” said he in the chair. “Choose some collar with an Earth-girl name.”

  “Yes, Master!” said Dorna, eagerly. She hurried back to the roofed defense work. I gathered that there might be several collars there, some of which bore names which either were, or might be regarded as, Earth-girl names.

  In a moment or two Dorna had returned to the dais with a collar. The collar was a common collar, flat, bandlike, gleaming, not unattractive, now closed. Looped about it was a string, on which there were two tiny keys. She showed the collar to the fellow in the chair. “Excellent,” he said. She then showed the collar to the others about the dais. “Quite
suitable,” said one fellow. “Indeed,” added another. She then hurried down the steps, and showed it to others. One man laughed. “Good,” said another. “Quite good,” smiled another. “Superb,” said another. “Excellent,” said another. She then hurried back to the dais and the man in the chair opened the collar and slipped off the keys and string. He handed the keys to one of the fellows near the dais. I gathered that he would put them somewhere, or would turn them over to someone. I did not know where they would be kept. The collar was then returned to Dorna and she came down the steps of the dais and stood near me, where I knelt.

  I looked upon the collar.

  I would wear it.

  I looked up at the man in the chair.

  “You now have a name,” he said. “It is that which is on the collar.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  I did not, of course, at that point, know my name, only that I had one.

  “Read it!” said Dorna, holding the collar before me.

  “I cannot,’ I said. The script was unintelligible to me.

  “She is illiterate,” said the man in the chair.

  “It is on her papers,” said another.

  “Stupid illiterate slave!” said Dorna. The man in the chair looked at me.

  “You belong to the city,” he said. “The collar is a state collar.”

  That I had not counted on! I did not even understand what it might be, to belong to a polity, a city, a state. Who then owned me, the polity, it seemed, the city, the state. But who did I serve? What did I do? I would doubtless learn.

  “Prepare her for her collaring,” said the man.

  “Down on all fours, slut,” said Dorna to me.

  I immediately obeyed.

  Dorna walked about me, in front of me, and handed the collar, opened, as it was, to the jailer, he who had brought me, and to my left.

  Dorna then crouched down, and, combing it a little with her fingers, brought my hair forward, before my shoulders. She then arranged it. It hung down before me. My neck was muchly bared.

  Dorna then rose to her feet and stood a bit before me and to my right.

  “Is she prepared for collaring?” asked the man in the chair.

  “She is,” said Dorna.

  “Tenrik,” said the man in the chair.

  “Yes,” said the jailer.

  “Are you prepared to collar her?” asked the man in the chair.

  “Yes, Captain,” said the jailer, whose name I now understood to be ‘Tenrik’. We, of course, do not address free men by their names but as “Master.” Similarly, we address free women as “Mistress.”

  “Collar her,” said the man in the chair.

  I was then collared.

  I was naked on all fours, before the dais, on a barbaric world, a collared slave girl.

  I heard Dorna laugh. Was she so much more than I? Did she not, too, wear a collar?

  “She is pretty in a collar,” said a man.

  “They all are,” said another.

  Dorna turned away, angrily.

  “Has she been collared?” asked the man in the chair.

  “Yes, Captain,” said Tenrik.

  I gathered that this must be part of the ritual of the collaring, as there could be little doubt, now, about the light, inflexible, gleaming circlet gracing my throat.

  “Kneel,” said the man in the chair to me.

  I knelt, in position. I knew I was beautiful in this position, collared. I had seen myself in mirrors, in the pens.

  “Remove the collar,” said the man.

  I looked up at him, puzzled.

  I could not read his eyes.

  But one does not wait for a command to be repeated. I tried to remove the collar. I could not do so, of course, as it was of inflexible steel, and securely locked.

  Dorna laughed. I threw her an angry glance. Let her remove her collar, if she could!

  “Can you remove the collar?” asked the man in the chair.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “No not forget it,” he said.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “You are pretty,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” I said.

  “Take her to the ring,” he said, gesturing to his left.

  I looked up at him, startled, but had scarcely time to react for I was seized by the hair, by the jailer, and, half scrambling, half dragged, was conducted to the side, to a ring. There I was knelt down and my wrists were tied together and fastened to the ring. I looked wildly over my shoulder. The jailer was there, and was shaking out the five strands of a broad-bladed slave whip. “Master?” I cried. Another man brought my hair well forward, again, as it had been for my collaring. “Please, no, Masters!” I cried.

  “Do you think we are weak?” asked a man.

  “No, Masters!” I said. “No, no, Masters!”

  I had seen the six-legged creatures. I had seen the great birds. I had seen the warriors go forth. I had seen them return, sometimes with loot, with booty, at the saddles, silver and gold, and women.

  Then the lash fell and I shook and sobbed. I had felt the whip before, twice in the pens, a stroke each time. I was not at all eager for a repetition of that experience.

  Again the lash fell.

  In the pens it had been a single-bladed lash.

  Again I felt the leather.

  I went to my belly, unable to remain on my knees. I could not believe what I felt.

  I had heard of this whip before, the broad-bladed, five-stranded lash, designed for use on such as I, but never before had I felt it. It is to be clearly distinguished from many other forms of whip, in particular, from the “snake,” a terrible whip used sometimes on men, beneath the blows of which even a strong man might die. The five-stranded lash, that to whose attentions I was now, to my dismay, to my misery, being formally introduced punishes terribly, but inflicts no permanent damage. It is designed to hurt, not injure. Indeed, it does not even mark the subject, which might reduce her value.

  Again the lash fell.

  “Please stop!” I begged.

  What had I done? I had done nothing as far as I knew!

  “Please stop, Masters!” I cried. How naturally I had called out to them as “Masters”! Of course, I knew by now who were the natural masters, and, indeed, on this world, even the legal masters. On this world the fundamental biological realities of dominance and submission, thematic throughout nature, had not been falsified. Indeed, they were recognized by, and acknowledged within, and confirmed, within, the very intuitions of this world. But even had it not been for my understanding of what I was, an understanding going back even to my native world, one which I had achieved, but had scarcely admitted to myself, long before I had been brought here, and one which I now understood even in terms of actual, significant, pertinent legalities of my condition and status, I would, I believe, in that moment, have called out to them as “Masters.” I would think that any woman, even the most anesthetic, even the most stupid, even the most naive, even the most defensive, even the most resistant, even the most brainwashed, would have cried out so. In such moments shams dissipate. In such moments fundamental profound realities obtrude. I think that in such moments almost any woman would be likely to see through the illusions to which she has been subjected, though the lies that she has been taught, through the puppetry of her conditioning program. Behind the fabrications and prevarications of political facades lurks the Realpolitik, so to speak, of nature. And on this world, at least with respect to women such as I, the facades do not exist. We are put on our knees. We are collard. We are in our place. We obey. We serve.

  Again the lash fell.

  I writhed on my belly on the flagging. The stones felt cold, a considerable contrast with the flames that danced on my back. The feeding in the cell, and the watering there, that I had been fed and watered, and even that I had been given some bits of precious fruit were, it seemed, quite meaningless. So, too, surely had been the blanket, and even the wastes vessel! Had I unders
tood such things as evidence of a special status, of special treatment, of special consideration, either of myself personally, or, more generally, of my soft of woman in this place? Had I interpreted such things as signs of lenience or tolerance? Had I understood them as signs of weakness or even, say, of a sort of soft kindness which I might be able, cleverly, in time, to exploit to my advantage? Let now, then, a stupid slave be disabused of such illusions!

  Again the lash fell, like lightning, flashed downward. Again I wept. No longer could I cry out. I was helpless. I could do nothing for myself. I was completely dependent on others. I was in the hands of the masters.

  Four times more the lash fell.

  I then lay at the ring, on my belly, my crossed wrists stretched toward the ring, to which they were fastened. I tried to breathe. Tears had run down my cheeks. The flagging was wet from them. The bonds on my wrists, too, from earlier, were moistened by the tears. In one place the back of my wrist was wet where a tear had slipped between the cords.

  The whip was being put away.

  I lay there.

  I suddenly realized that all likelihood there had been nothing whatsoever personal in the beating. I had not, for example, at least as far as I knew, been displeasing, nor had I offended anyone, unless it be the other kajira. I had not done anything, at least as far as I knew, in any normal sense, to provoke, or merit, the beating. To be sure, reasons are not required for beating a slave. If the master wishes, they may be beaten simply at his whim. They are, after all, slaves. Similarly, as far as I could tell, these men bore me no ill will. I was, from their point of view, only a domestic animal. The beating then, in all likelihood, had not been punitive or even, really, disciplinary. Similarly it did not seem to be arbitrary. Rather it had been, it seems, ritualistic or institutional, and, presumably, by intent, instructive. It had been painful, but surely brief, strictly considered. I had not been informed of its purpose. I had not had to beg for the beating. I had not had to denounce myself before or during the beating. I had not had to count the strokes aloud, and so on.