Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  I lay down in the cage, curling up.

  I saw the slave who had borne the torch, and who had locked me in sirik, putting out the two wall lamps. This left only the tiny lamp on the table, recently lit, where the monster read. I could see the glint of the lamplight on the bars of the kennels, and on some chains hanging on the wall. On the wall, too, I saw, briefly, for I quickly looked away, hanging on its peg, the whip. How placid it seemed, how quiet now. Yet its very sight filled me with fear. I was subject to it. The brunette removed fur from a chest and spread them near the table. From the same chest she removed a coil of chain, and put it carefully, presumably not to disturb the monster, by a ring, toward the foot of the furs. She then lay down upon the furs, toward their bottom. High status had she amongst us, certainly! She was the only one amongst us, for example-of me, and the women in the kennels, and those at the wall-who had clothing. And she was at the foot of his furs, not that I envied her that privilege! It was not as though he were one of those powerful, handsome brutes, as many I had seen here, before whom a slave might faint with weakness and desire.

  He moved the scroll a little, rolling shut what he had read, unrolling, opening, a new vista of ideas.

  The slave at the foot of his furs, I thought, might be asleep.

  I rose to my hands and knees in the cage. He chain from my collar dangled to my wrists, and went thence to my ankles. There were so many things I wanted to know. I did not know under what city I might be, I did not even know the name of the world on which I found myself. I did not even know my own name. I wanted to call out to the brute at the table. But I did not dare to do so.

  Then I lay down again.

  I glanced toward the wall. One of the women there, sneeringly, with her blanket about her, formed words toward me. I could dimly make them out in the tiny light. “Pierced-ear girl!” she had said. I looked away. I knew I might have to fear her, or the others. They might not only treat me badly, as I might expect, being a barbarian, a new girl, and such. But they might trick me in such ways that I might be beaten.

  I moved a little in the cage. There was a tiny clink of chain.

  I saw the beast put down the scroll and push the lamp a little to one side. He did not extinguish it. He turned about on the bench, and sat there, for a time, regarding the brunette. The light, as he had placed, it, fell softly upon her. I think she was asleep. He then slid from the bench and, bent over, the great body on those tiny legs, went to the ring and chain. He attached the chain to the ring, with a click. The brunette stirred again, and uttered a tiny moan, and a little, inarticulate cry, still asleep. But then, with its clear, firm, definite click, the ankle ring was upon her, fastening her to the ring. I do not think she awakened during this. But, I suspect, too, in some way, on some level, she was aware that she was chained. Is not even a free woman aware of such a thing, on some level, when, as she sleeps, she is chained to her own bed? Does this enter into her dream? Does she dream it so, fearfully? Surely its very possibility is to be rejected from consciousness with all the force of rationality! Surely it was only a dream! How amusing! But she awakens and finds herself chained. As the woman was sleeping the chain was first set to the ring and thence to her body, that the tether will be in place as soon as the restraint snaps about her ankle. Had she been awake, the procedure would presumably have been reversed. When the woman is awake the usual procedure is to put the first bond on her body, so that she will know it on her, that she is bound or shackled, and then too attach it, she now aware that she is subject to your will in this matter, to whatever one pleases.

  The brute then returned to his reading, putting the lamp where it had been before, as though nothing had happened.

  But the brunette was now chained!

  I lay on my back in the sirik. I could feel the chain from my collar, running over my body, to the wrists. Then it continued, over my belly, and against the interior of my right thigh, until it flowed to my ankles. I moaned and turned to my side.

  I tried to come to grips with my chains, and the bars, and my reality. How could I begin to understand what had been done with me? How could I begin to understand what I had become, what I now was? How could I being to cope with this turn in my life?

  I lay on the small, square iron floor of a confinement.

  Here was a becaged slave. Could she be I?

  Here was a slave, behind bars, in this tiny prison, naked and chained. Surely she could not be I!

  She wore a slave collar, and was branded. Surely she could not be I!

  But it was I!

  I sobbed, afraid. I must do as I was told. I most obey. I must fear the whip.

  Then, trembling, frightened, I recalled the use to which the monster had put me.

  Oh, he had well had his will with me!

  I recalled the feelings, uneasily. Even now they made me squirm.

  My ears were pierced.

  I reddened in the darkness, heated and sweating. How I had yielded to him, as such a slave!

  He had made me his!

  I had been conquered and enraptured, destroyed and renewed, rent in fragments and made whole, freed and enslaved, broken and created.

  And in the end, overwhelmed, struggling to comprehend, I had found myself more a slave than ever. The strongest chains, you see, are not those of iron, nor the strongest bonds those of steel. How frail are such things compared to the chains of desire, the bonds of need! Even now, as fulfilled as I had been, I could sense a growing restlessness in my body. To be sure, it can be dangerous to be too importunate. One can be whipped for it. But what men can do to a woman, had surely, in me, been at least begun. How natural it is, once one understands these things, to fall to one’s knees, begging plaintively.

  I knew myself, as I lay there, to be wholly a slave. It was what I should be, and was.

  How fortunate I was to have been made what I was!

  How few women have been made what they are!

  I had been named, but did not know my name.

  In time the beast, the monster, closed the scroll, tying it shut with a string.

  He lowered the lamp a little, but left it on the table. There was only a little light now in the chamber. His shadow seemed wild, deformed, exaggerated, on the walls. He glanced once toward me, but I pretended to be asleep. The other slaves, I think, were asleep. I saw him crouch near the brunette and then he took her by the upper arms, and pulled her to a sitting position. She made a little cry, half in her sleep. There was a rustle of chain. I saw her arms raise as her tunic was drawn up, over her head, and then discarded. He then pulled her by the upper arms, the chain leaving its coil by the ring, toward the center of the furs. Then her arms were about him, to my horror. But she was a slave. She must obey! I heard him grunt, in satisfaction. She uttered a tiny cry. I did not know if she were fully awake or not. But then I saw her, to my dismay, press her lips to that monstrous visage. Had she been commanded to do so? I did not know. I had heard no command. Once, in training, I had had to lavish loving kisses on a discarded sandal. To be sure, it had been appropriate to do so, and, and I had been pleased to do it, for it had been a man’s sandal. Too, I would have begged to have done it, even at that stage of my training, and would have done it gratefully, had it been the sandal of he whose whip I had first kissed, but, alas, it had not been. I could see the two of them, together, in the dimness, in the flickering glow of the tiny lamp. She was held tightly in his arms. Escape would have been impossible for her, even had she not been chained. But, too, it seemed she pressed her beauty, even eagerly, against that grotesque body. Her curves were superb, even for those of a slave. I did not doubt her value in a market. She had been seized in her sleep, and drawn to him. He had wished her. Nothing more need be said. We are at the convenience of the master, fully, whatever, however, and whenever he may please.

  I lay very quietly in the cage. I did not want to stir, and move the chain.

  I could hear them together, some feet away, on the furs. They made tiny sounds. I sometimes hear
d the movement of the chain. I It was she, it seemed, who was slept at his feet, but, as the whim might seize him, I was sure he might have availed himself of any of the women in the place, state slaves, but here, in this place, as his own slaves. He might have drawn forth one of the blondes from her kennel, he might have utilized one of the women at the wall, perhaps she who had sneered at me, she as lowly, and as much at his mercy, as any other, or, indeed, he might have opened my cage and draw me forth, as well, the new girl, the barbarian, to use me as he saw fit, perhaps on a blanket, perhaps on the stone floor itself.

  In time he put her from him and she found her tunic and put it on, pulling it down, over her head. She then crept to the foot of the furs and lay there.

  I saw her reach up, as though to touch his foot, but then she drew her hand back.

  Doubtless she had a name. But I did not know it. I did not know that of the others, either. I did not even know my name!

  I lay very quietly, in my chains, in my cages.

  How small it was!

  I was no more than any of the women here, no more than a slave. Indeed, in a way, I was less than they, for I was a barbarian, and my ears were pierced.

  But I felt strangely excited, and moved, and stirred.

  Whereas I was terrified to be exactly where I was, to be here, in this specific place, in the depths below the fortress, or city, at the mercy of some misshapen beast, I was not at the discontented that I had been brought to this world, nor was I discontented, though I grasped its perils, to be a slave. Even in the little I had seen of it I had found myself falling in love with this world, with its honesty, its truth and beauty. Surely a brand and collar is a small price to pay for being permitted to come here, to tread such soils, to breathe such air. And here, too, I had learned to be alive, and to feel and experience, with a keenness, and with depths and heights, I would never have believed possible on my old world. Too, here, in this place, I had, for the first time in my life, come to understand my own most profound reality, that which had been concealed beneath the veneers of civilization, that which had called out to me in secret moments, crying out even in my dreams. I had been told I must live a lie. I had been told I must pretend to be what I was not. But here I had learned I must live the truth, and must be true to myself.

  Here I was given no alternative but to be what I was.

  I was grateful, and joyful.

  But what mattered such reflections? What matters it whether I am pleased, or fulfilled, or satisfied? It matters not at all. I am a slave, and must serve.

  I am choiceless. My will means nothing. How delicious this is to me! I am excited, and thrilled, and stimulated in all my senses, to understand the uncompromising domination to which I am subject. I am owned and must obey, and with perfection! I would not have it otherwise. But even if I wished, I could not have it otherwise. On my neck is a Gorean collar.

  Even if I screamed and cried out, and struggled, and wept, and pulled futilely against my chains, and beat on the bars of my cage, nothing would be changed, save that I would be whipped to silence.

  It had been done to me.

  I was here.

  On my neck was a Gorean collar.

  The brunette slave lay quietly at the foot of the furs, the chain running from her left ankle to the ring. I think she was asleep. I am sure the others were, as well. The monster, bent over, picked up the tiny lamp, its flame long lowered, from the table, and, moving slowly, went to the kennels which one by one, lifting the lamp a little, he checked. From where I was I could not see two of the women in the kennels. They must have been toward the back of the kennel. I could see the shadows of the bars on the kennel walls, from the lamplight. I did see the figure of one of the women, the chained, kenneled brunette. The shadows of the bars fell across her body, the shadows moving with the movement of the tiny lamp. Then the monster shambled toward the wall. I saw the tiny lamp lifted and saw, at the wall, the women there, the five of them, chained. They lay in various attitudes. Three lay upon their blankets, doubled. The bodies of two of them were partly covered with a fold of blanket, the belly of one, the calves of another. One of the women, she using her blanket doubled, lifted her head a little, blinking, but then put it down again, on the blanket. Such nocturnal checks are not unusual in the pens, of course. I had awakened once or twice in the pens, early in my training, to see the light of a lamp on the walls, the shadows cast there by the bars. But then, after a time, one tends to sleep though such things. One knows, of course, that one’s presence in the kennel is likely to be verified during the night. Too, one knows, as a slave, that one is not permitted modesty, not even in one’s sleep, that one’s beauty may be looked in upon, that as one lies there, exposed, behind the bars, it may be subjected to the consideration and scrutiny of men, as they please. We are, in our way, public. Sometimes even buyers, I have heard, scrutinize us in our sleep. I think those who had purchased me from the pens, for this place, may have so regarded me, once or twice, in my sleep. It is said that sometimes slavers enter the boudoir of a free woman and scrutinize her in her sleep, in this considering what value, if any, she might hold as a slave. How does she move in her sleep, how does she twist, or turn, what tiny noises does she make? Perhaps her movements, and her tiny cries, and such suggest needs, and latencies, of interest. He regards her. Yes, she is a slave. She needs only the brand, the collar. Should he take her then, or should he merely enter her name on the list, to be picked up later, at one’s convenience? I would suppose that men might sometimes find it pleasant, to look in upon us, in our helplessness, and our sleep. Sometimes, too, we might find that we had even in our sleep, all unbeknownst to ourselves, aroused their desire. Sometimes, indeed, the guard had awakened me, by a gentle tapping on the bars. He had then brought me forth, to serve him. Sometimes, of course, I would suppose that he had planned this earlier, looking forward to the time when he might draw me forth. But, at other times, I am reasonably confident that my use was merely a matter of the interest of the moment. But sometimes, too, I had waited, anxiously, for him, to plead in whispers for his attention, not wanting to awaken the others. Sometimes my plea would be granted. At other times it would be denied. I had heard there were guards in the pits, or depths. Doubtless they had their rounds to make, of the cells or whatever incarcenatory devices might be found in this place. I did not think they would check this area. This was the place of the pit master. Her would doubtless strictly control the gratifications of the women here, as much as, or perhaps even more so than, their food and bonds. I saw the pit master turn toward me. I was very frightened. He terrified me. But I, too, one of his charges, as much as the others, would doubtless be looked in upon. I pretended to be asleep. I heard him approach the cage. I was sure, then, he was quite close to me. Though my closed eyelids I was aware of the lamp. But he did not turn away! For better than a minute he stood there. Then, frightened, I rose to my knees in the cage and, facing him, put my head down to the tiny iron floor, performing obeisance.

  “Why did you pretend to be asleep?” he asked.

  “forgive me, Master,” I said. He was silent.

  “I was afraid,” I said. “Forgive me!”

  “How is your belly?” he asked.

  “My back, Master?” I asked. I thought I must have misunderstood him.

  “Your belly,” he said.

  “Master?” I asked. Then I said, “It is all right, Master. Thank you, Master.”

  “You have a hot belly,” he said, “particularly for one so new to the collar.”

  I kept my head down. I was silent.

  “You may be easily controlled by it,” he said. “It puts you much at our mercy.”