Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  I whimpered.

  Could he read in me my signs of growing helplessness?

  I was refined, I was delicate, I was sensitive! How could this be being done to me? But then I recalled that I was a slave.

  I uttered a small, helpless cry, one of weakness, but one, too, in its way, of petition.

  Please do not desist, Master!

  But, of course, he would not desist.

  I rejoiced that in his heart, as in the hearts of such men, there was no mercy.

  “See the slave!” cried one of the women at the wall.

  And so progressed my subjugation.

  “Master!” I wept.

  And thusly was I humiliated, and thusly was I disgraced, and debased and degraded.

  Soon I began to lose control!

  “Oh!” I said. “Oh!”

  His victory was at hand.

  Soon I knew I would be naught but a yielding slave.

  “Master!” I cried.

  “Ah,” said he. He was then like a lion in feeding, blood running from its jaws.

  I then yielding to him my utter submission, my total surrender.

  I could not help myself.

  I was slave.

  And thusly was I, a mere slave, again conquered.

  I lay for a time at the ring.

  He went to one of the small slave cages to the left and pulled it somewhat forward and to the right, until it was a bit to the left of the unoccupied kennels. He then went to the table and busied himself there, with some papers, perhaps mine. The brunette slave came and crouched down beside me. She carried a wet cloth and wiped the gruel from my face and, I fear, some from my hair, as well, as I had sometimes, gasping, and squirming, twisting, writhing, thrust my head too low, too near the dish. “You have a good belly.” she said. “It is a hot belly. It is an excellent belly for a slave.” “Thank you, Mistress,” I whispered. I had known, of course, that I could be easily aroused, and that I was unusually responsive, and, in moments, could become even helplessly so. To be sure, such reflexes, and such, are expected in a slave. She may be beaten if she is inadequate. They are even trained in her. We are not free women. Also, interestingly, as earlier suggested, sexual responsiveness in the slave is openly regarded as a desirable property, like intelligence and beauty. These three things all considerably improve her price. In a slave sexual vitality, uncontrollable responsiveness, then, is not regarded as a source of embarrassment, scandal, or shame. Nor are sexual inertness and frigidity regarded as virtues, or as concomitants thereof. We are not free women. Similarly, and naturally enough, our vitality is not something to be hidden, except, of course, from free women. Indeed, we must accustom ourselves to hearing it candidly discussed, particularly in situations in which our sale may be in question. Too, naturally, it is one of the properties which, if we are on the auction block, we must expect to hear proclaimed to they buyers.

  As earlier suggested, it is the whole slave, all of her, every bit of her, that is for sale.

  It is the whole slave, all of her, every bit of her, the whole she of her, that men want, and buy.

  I lay at the ring.

  He had permitted me to retain no particle of dignity. To be sure, I was not entitled to any, as I wasa slave. No choice had been mine. He had had all from me. To be sure, I must yield it at so little as the snapping of fingers. I was a slave.

  Would the brunette regard me with reproach? I did not meet her eyes. She rose to her feet and went to one side. I heard from one side, the gentle sound of some links of chain.

  Surely I must reproach myself, but I could not bring myself to do so. It was not merely that I was a slave, and thus will- less in such matters, and that I must obey, and with perfection, and such, but rather that I felt fulfillment, a calmness, a contentment.

  I felt metal anklets, linked, being snapped about my ankles.

  “The knots, Master,” said the brunette.

  The pit master rose from the table and undid the ropes tying my hands before my body.

  Metal wristlets, linked, were snapped about my wrists. These wristlets, by a length of chain, were attached to the anklets.

  The rope tying my collar to the ring was undone.

  I felt a metal collar clasped about my neck, over the kajira collar. This collar was attached to the same chain that ran from the linkage of the anklets to the linkage of the wristlets. My ankles, wrists, and neck, then, were on a common chain. I was in sirik.

  I knelt as the pit master checked the locks. Then he returned to his work at the table.

  I looked up at the brunette.

  How I had yielded to the beast!

  But I saw no reproach in her eyes.

  How grateful I was!

  She must understand how helpless I was! Not only that I was a legal slave, but that I was, undeniably, in my body, my mind, my needs, a rightful slave, a full and natural slave.

  It is what I am, I thought. I cannot help myself! Be kind to me.

  But in her eyes there was not the least reproach. I was grateful for this, for resentment, pettiness, jealousy, and competition are common among slaves. In a sense, we are not all rivals for the favor of masters?

  “May I speak, Mistress?” I whispered.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Do you know my name?” I whispered.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is on your collar.” She might have just seen it. She might have noted it, earlier, even when the pit master, seemingly idly curious, before beating me, he not having concerned himself with the matter before, examined the collar. She could read then. I could not read. How low I was!

  “It is a state collar, is it not?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do not tell me my name,” I said.

  “No one then, truly, has told it to you yet?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Have no fear,” she said. “I have no wish to be thrown to sleen.”

  A girl’s name, you see, if one is permitted to her, is given to her by men. It is, thus, from men that she must first hear it spoken. If there should be some inadvertence or error in these matters, she will be given a new name, one she will hear first from masters. A girl, such as the brunette, who knew my name would be careful not to be the first to speak it to me. Afterwards, of course, it does not matter. The name is then as familiar and common as that of any animal.

  “Cage her,” said the pit master.

  “On all fours,” said the brunette.

  I went to all fours, in my chains.

  The brunette went to the small cage and opened the gate. She indicated the entrance. “Enter the cage,” she said.

  I crawled to the cage and entered it.

  The gate was shut behind me.

  I turned about, on my knees, inside. I put my head down, in the collar, when the pit master came to check the closure of the cage. Then he went back to the table. I lifted my head. I knelt there, behind the bars. The cage had a floor and ceiling of solid iron. The four sides, on the other hand, were open, save for the bars. The bars were stout and closely set. They must have been an inch in diameter and some three inches apart. I put my face against them. There was a tiny clink of chain from the linkage on my wristlets, they touching the bars. I looked up at the brunette. One cannot begin to stand upright in such a cage, nor can one extend one’s body fully within it. Within it one must kneel, or sit, or lie, one’s body curled up.

  “Mistress,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why am I here?”

  “For the same reason as the rest of us,” she said. “It is the will of men.”

  “But what am I to do?” I asked.

  “What you are told,” she said.

  “Are there others here?” I asked.

  “Others?”

  “Men,” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I regarded her, plaintively.

  “Guards,” she said.

  “Am I available to them?” I asked.


  “At the discretion of the pit master,” she said.

  I briefly closed my eyes.

  “But these are not their quarters. They do report here from time to time. Doubtless they will be pleased to learn of your addition to our number.”

  “That is what I am here for,” I asked, “for the guards?”

  “Your availability to them is incidental,” she said. “The pits are, in effect, in this area, a prison, and one in which, for the most part, the lowest and most dangerous prisoners are kept.”

  I shuddered.

  “There is little danger,” she said, “if you watch your step.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “I do not know what will be your precise duties,” she said, “but I would expect that you, as the rest of us, will be given some corridors, within which you will discharge assigned tasks.”

  “Tasks?” I asked.

  “Bringing food to the prisoners, replenishing cisterns, emptying wastes buckets, carrying fresh straw, cleaning cells, that sort of thing. One cannot expect the guards to do that.”

  “No,” I said.

  “In many cities,” she said, “such work is performed by free women of low caste, but here it is done by slaves. Do you know why?”

  “No,” I said.

  “That a token be conveyed to the prisoners of the contempt in which they are held.”

  “I see,” I said. I rather doubted that this token was likely to be interpreted by the prisoners in the same fashion that the judiciary of the city, or the free women of the city, whatever city this might be, had anticipated. It was my guess that a male prisoner might more enjoy a glimpse of a slave than the lengthy scrutiny of a free woman. To be sure, it might be different if the free woman were a prisoner or criminal, sentenced to the prison for a time, to serve there, perhaps denied her veil, perhaps being forced to reveal her ankles or even calves to the prisoners. They might enjoy that. But I recalled the pleased howling and catcalls of the prisoners above, those I had passed on my journey along the ledge. They had seemed vital and strong. I had felt myself relished, even to my terror. To be sure, I was not serving the. Also, there surely seemed a paradox here, for free men, outside of the prisons, and such, apparently delighted in being served by slaves, and the strongest and most powerful, it seemed, would have it no other way. It must be the principle of the thing then, I supposed, that in the prison it was imposed upon them, presumably as some sort of insult or disparagement, while in their freedom, on the other hand, it was something they would themselves relish and require.

  “Too,” she said, “you may upon occasion be used to torment and taunt them, that they may, in their misery and frustration, the better understand their helplessness.”

  “I see,” I whispered.

  “Their time in the pits,” she said, “is not intended to be pleasant.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “It is a form of torture,” she said.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “In all things,” she said, “remember to be pleasing to the pit master.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “For you may be given not only to the guards,” she said, “but to the prisoners.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “They might tear you to pieces,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “I trust that you will rest well,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mistress,” I said.

  “How is your back?” she asked.

  “It hurts,” I said.

  “Mistress!” I said.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “The free woman said that my accent was terrible. Is it terrible?”

  “How vain you are!” she smiled.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Speak,” she said.

  “I am a barbarian,” I said. “I come from a world I call “Earth.” I and several others were brought here to be slaves. I do not know the city to which I was first brought, nor where I am now. I do not even know my name. I do know that I am a slave.”

  “You speak very well,” she said.

  “My accent is not terrible?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But it is, at least at this point, a slave accent.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  “But accents,” she said, “do not matter, you must understand, whether or not you have one, or of whatever sort it might be. What matters is what you are, that you are a slave. Most slaves, you see, such as myself, do not have accents, or at least in any ordinary sense. But we are total slaves, I assure you, just as you are, and will remain, others things being the same, even should you be able, masters permitting it, to lose your accent.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Mistress,” I said.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Is the pit master truly human?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “He cannot help that he was born as he was.”

  I looked down.

  “He is afraid to go to the surface,” she said, “in spite of his intelligence, and his great strength, for there even children mock and ridicule him. It is better that he is here.”

  “He makes me sick to look upon him,” I whispered.

  “Then do not look upon him,” she said.

  “He must make you sick as well,” I said.

  “No,” she said.

  “Why do they call him “the Tarsk”?” I asked.

  “I would suppose that would be obvious,” she said.

  “What is a tarsk?” I asked.

  “You have never seen one?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “It is a form of beast,” she said. “To be sure, I do not think he really looks like a tarsk. I think they call him that not so much because he looks like a tarsk, really, as because, in some ways, in what they take to be his ugliness, he reminds them of a tarsk.”

  “He is hideous,” I said.

  “I am not sure of that,” she said.

  “No, he is hideous, hideous!” I said.

  “One grows used to him.”

  “Never!” I said.

  “What manner of man is he?” I asked.

  “He is actually a gentle creature,” she said, “save when aroused. To be sure, he is strict.”

  “You must loathe him,” I said.

  “No,” she said.

  “You must fear him,” I said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “You seem to have some sort of special relationship to him,” I said.

  It was she who had carried the torch and assisted him, she who had fed me, and such.

  “He sleeps me at his feet,” she said.

  I shuddered.

  “You will not compete with me for his favor?” she smiled.

  “No, no, no!” I said, shuddering.

  “You yielded well,” she smiled.

  “I could not help myself,” I said. “I am a slave. Any man can make me yield!”

  “Any man?” she asked.

  “Yes!”

  “Even one you resent or loathe?”

  “Yes!”

  “Even one you dislike, or despise, or hate?”

  “Yes!” I wept.

  “And yield fully, even against your will, unreservedly, unstintingly, unable to help yourself?”

  “Yes!” I sobbed. “I cannot help myself! I am helpless in their arms! You must understand such things!”

  “Yes,” she said. “I understand them quite well.”

  A tear ran against the bar, against which was pressed my right cheek.

  ‘You are beautifully vital,” she said.

  “Are you not, too, a slave?” I asked, my eyes burning with tears.

  “Men must find you a very beautiful, and very valuable, property,” she said. “You would undoubtedly bring a high price in the market.”

  “Are you not, too, a slave!” I wept.

  “Yes,” she said. “I, too, am a slave.�
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  I put my head down a little. I could feel the two bars against my forehead. My hands, chained, continued to grasp the bars.

  “Do you think you are the only one whose belly has screamed in the darkness for a man’s touch?” she asked. “The only one that has desired to kneel? The only one that has desired to serve, and love, and with her whole being, holding back nothing? The only one that has cried out, and squirmed gratefully under the haughty, audacious touch of one who owns you?”

  I looked up, regarding her, tears in my eyes.

  “And we would not be other than as we are,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “We would not be other than as we are.”

  “We are slaves,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “It is time now for you to rest,” she said.

  “I am afraid!” I whispered.

  “There is much to fear when one is a slave,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said.

  Then she had turned away.

  I knelt in sirik, in the cage, grasping the bars, looking after her.

  The “Tarsk,” the pit master, or, to use his more exact title, the depth warden, was still at the table. His small legs were under him on the bench. His large upper body, swollen and disproportionate, boulderlike, leaned forward, over the table. He had put aside the papers, which may have been mine, and was now, by the light of a small lamp, perusing a scroll. It was doubtless late.

  I sat down in the cage, my knees drawn up. The sirik fitted me very well. My measurements might have been sent down from above, earlier. I looked about. I was well exposed to view, on four sides, given the construction of the cage. To be sure, I might have been even better revealed, had it not been for the bars, which were thick and closely set. There are a great many varieties of slave cages, with respect to the number of occupants for which they are designed, and, within such parameters, with respect to shape, size and materials. I was in a fairly standard, common-model, single-girl cage, one involving a design compromise between display and security, security not from the point of view of containing the occupant, which a lighter cage would be fully effective in doing, but security against being broken into by thieves. At one end of the spectrum one has cages which are designed primarily for display, cages within which the woman is held as helplessly as a kitten but which are not thought to afford adequate resistance to men equipped with suitable tools. Cages of this sort are usually used temporarily, as during daylight hours in enclosed courts, and such, when slavers’ men are about. At the other end of the spectrum are heavy cages in which the bars may be two inches in diameter and spaced but an inch or so apart, in which the occupant can be barely discerned. Cages of the sort in which I was currently kept are sometimes spoken of as “tantalizers,” for a great deal of women is displayed, surely enough to arouse interest, but, because of the bars, perhaps not enough to make a satisfactory determination. The slaver then, of course, agrees to draw the occupant forth for more careful examination. In this way, a girl’s charms, she now drawn forth from the cage and displayed, are assured their due consideration. It is easy to insufficiently attend to, or even neglect, or dismiss, these charms when she is merely one of a number of others, chained, say, in a sales barn or on a cement shelf in an open market. But let the buyer now, his interest aroused, his attention focused, examine the occupant. What now of her visage, and hair, of the delicacy of her throat, the slightness of her wrists, the trimness of her ankles, the smallness of her hands and feet, and her slave curves? And thus might an excellent buy, perhaps one even fit to be a love slave, be brought to his attention, a buy which, otherwise, might have passed tragically unnoticed. To be sure, he might only be buying for investment purposes, or perhaps he merely wishes to pick up a gift for a friend. There are also, of course, a large number of other incarceratory devices, such as slave chests, or boxes, and slave sacks. These, of course, are not designed to display the slave, but are intended for other purposes, in particular, punishment or transportation. The sort of cage in which I was held is also suitable, incidentally, for transportation. There was no need, of course, that I be chained in the cage. That was only, I supposed, to help me keep in mind that I was a slave. I had no blanket. The others had blankets. I hoped I might be given one later. I was a new girl. There were three women in the kennels, the brunette and two blondes, and, at the wall, there were five women, each chained there by the neck and left ankle. Two of the kenneled women were chained, the brunette and one of the blondes. I hoped that I might, in time, be adjudged not only worthy of a blanket, but even of a kennel, for there were five such, and two were empty. I did not expect to be given such luxuries now. I was a new girl. I was not certain that I wanted to be chained at the wall, for I feared the other women there. I was a barbarian, and my ears were pierced.