Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  “I do not know if I have that much courage-to go that far,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Is that really necessary,” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What sort of collar,” she said.

  “A slave collar,” I said, “the collar of a slave.”

  “Might there not be something else?” she asked. “Something which might resemble such a collar?”

  “No,” I said. “It would have to be a slave collar, an authentic slave collar.”

  She turned pale.

  That is the end of that, I thought.

  Then it seemed she came to some sort of resolution. And it seemed her entire body suddenly shuddered with delight, thrilled. A bridge, it seemed, had been crossed.

  “Of course,” she said. “Of course, I would have to be collared. Of course! Have me collared! And it must be the collar of a slave. Of course! Yes! Put me in a slave collar!”

  “It would have to be an authentic slave collar,” I said, “an actual slave collar.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “And it would be on you, truly on you,” I said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “It would have to be locked,” I said, “and you would be unable to remove it.”

  I would take no chances with her, if it was not locked on her, if she were not well fastened within it.

  It would perfect my custody of her.

  If she were to escape my charge for even an Ahn I would be held responsible.

  Too, it would be dreadfully dangerous if someone should, either routinely or on provocation, perhaps a guardsman, discover that it was not locked.

  “Let it be locked!” she said. “Let me be helpless it in!”

  “You want it to be locked?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to be helpless in it!”

  “You would be,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

  “There is one compensation for the degradation,” I said, “though it is nothing in which you would be interested.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “The slave collar is very pretty on a woman,” I said. “The beasts who design them doubtless have that in mind. It much enhances the beauty, the attractiveness, and interest, of a woman.”

  “That is, of course, of no interest to me,” she said.

  “Certainly not,” I said.

  “But do you think I would be pretty in such a collar?”

  “Strikingly so,” I said. “You would be stunning in one.”

  “Oh?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “But, too, you must recognize its effect on men, for it says to them that you are such as belong to them, that you are lovely and helpless, that you are kajira, that you exist for their service and pleasure.”

  “Perhaps it has, too, its effect on the woman,” she speculated.

  “Yes, it does,” I said, “clearly.” But I thought it unnecessary, and perhaps improper, to elaborate on this, as she was a free woman.

  “Such things are, of course, of no interest to me,” she said.

  “Of course not,” I said. As she was a free woman, she could lie with impunity. I myself, if caught in a lie, could be switched mercilessly.

  “Please, dear Janice,” she said, earnestly. “Please convey my petition to the pit master!”

  I regarded her. I did not really wish to risk the wrath of the pit master.

  “I want to see the sun!” she wept.

  Could there be more to it than that?

  “I am not sure of this,” I said.

  “Please Janice!” she wept.

  “I will ask him,” I said.

  That night I had knelt before the pit master. “Master,” I had asked, “may I speak?”

  “Yes,” he had said.

  I conveyed to him the petition of Lady Constanzia. I feared I might be cuffed.

  “She wants to see the sun,” I said.

  “Undoubtedly,” he said, “but she also wishes to have her body bared and to have it looked upon, it adorned in the rags of a slave.”

  “Master!” I cried, scandalized.

  “It is not what all women want?” he asked.

  “I do not know, Master,” I said.

  “Is it not what you want?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” I said, boldly. Then I added, in a whisper, “But I am a slave.”

  “And so, too, are all women,” he said.

  I put my head down, trembling. I did not know if what he had said were true or not. Certainly some of the women who had been in my training group had denied in vehemently, particularly in the first day or two. But sometimes, at night, I heard them crying out with gratitude to masters in their sleep. Too, they had soon trained excellently. A little later I had often heard them conversing among themselves eagerly, looking forward to their sales, discussing what they hoped for in the way of masters.

  “Master,” I had asked, “may I again speak?”

  “Yes,” he had said.

  “I do not know the reason for which I was brought here.”

  “You have not yet been informed,” he said.

  “Was I brought here to take care of the free woman, Lady Constanzia?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “For what, then?” I asked.

  “You will learn, in time,” he said.

  “Master!” I begged.

  “Curiosity,” he said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

  “Yes, Master,” I whispered. “Forgive me, Master!”

  Two days later, for the first time, I had knotted the rag about the hips of the Lady Constanzia and, as she has straightened her body, had cinched the halter on her.

  “Oh!” she had said.

  She was kneeling.

  “Must it be so tight?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “To better display you,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “Certainly you do not object?”

  “No,”

  “When you walk, or move, try to do so with some care,” I said.

  “I will,” she said.

  The rag about her hips had, in its authenticity, no nether closure.

  The female slave is commonly denied even a minimum of shielding for her delicious intimacies. She is to be vulnerable, and instantly available, with a minimum of inconvenience, to the attentions of the master.

  “I am frightened,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I fear I do not even know how to walk,” she said.

  “Of course you know how to walk,” I said.

  “-as a slave,” she said.

  “It is just a matter of walking freely, and well, beautifully, attractively gracefully, with ease and loveliness, showing your joy in your bondage and womanhood, with vulnerable femininity.”

  “I am afraid,” she said.

  “You will have no difficulty,” I said.

  “It is so different,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “In the robes of concealment, we must walk sedately, with carefully measure tread, with dignity.”

  How else could one walk in such impediments, I wondered, so ornate and heavy, so confining and cumbersome? One is, of course, free.

  How different were such garments from the usual scanty lightness of the slave’s garmenture, usually a brief, revealing garmenture permitting her the luxurious freedom of her limbs, a garmenture in which she finds herself permitted a joyous and uninhibited freedom of movement. To be sure, she is in her collar.

  “Do you think, truly,” she asked, apprehensively, “that we can be successful in this?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you think that anyone might take me, truly for a slave?” she asked.

  “Without the least difficulty,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “Your movements, of course,” I said,
“as you have not been trained, and have not felt the whip, and such, will not have the grace and beauty of a more experienced girl, one who has been fully taught her collar.” I recalled that my own posture, slovenly from Earth, had been corrected in the pens with the stroke of a switch. Men like their slaves to be beautiful before them. “But,” I said, “I do not think that will matter. We will pass you off as a new slave. That will be all right. You will be seen, however, as fetchingly exciting, and doubtless men will see you in terms more of your potential, than your present, will see you in terms of what they can do with you and make of you.”

  “What they can do with me, and make of me?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  I had then showed her the collar which had been kindly provided by the pit master. “The name on it, I am told,” I said, “is ‘Tuta’.”

  “You cannot read?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  She took the collar and looked at it. “Yes,” she said. “It says ‘Tuta’.”

  “I am sorry it is such a name,” I said. “I had hoped for something more aristrocratic, more prestigious.”

  “It is fine,” she said.

  “I am told,” I said, “that it is a common slave name.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have heard it many times. It is commonly worn by low girls.”

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “Rather sensual sluts,” she said.

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “The name reeks of sexand slavery,” she said.

  “Forgive me,” I said.

  “Like ‘Fina’ and ‘Janice’,” she said.

  I put down my head.

  “It was the choice of the pit master,” I said.

  “He is perceptive, and has excellent taste,” she said.

  I looked at her, startled.

  “I love it,” she said. “It is just right for me. It will do wonderfully well.”

  “Once you put on the collar,” I said, “you will, for the purposes of our disguise, no longer be Lady Constanzia, but only Tuta.”

  She put the collar about her neck, with the lock in front, and closed it. There was a small, solid click. Then, carefully, as it was a close-fitting collar, like most such collars, she turned it on her neck, so that the lock was at the back. This is the common way in which such collars are worn. She then smiled at me. “Now I am Tuta,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “you are now Tuta.”

  “Is Tuta pretty?” she asked, timidly.

  “Tuta is beautiful,” I said.

  She suffused with pleasure, basking in my commendation. She put down her head, blushing, her face and exposed limbs red with delight. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I stood up.

  I looked down upon her.

  She looked up, smiling, but a little frightened.

  I thought I had probably been too indulgent with her. She was, after all, a free woman, and how often would a slave have such as she in her charge?

  “Stand Tuta,” I said, suddenly sharply, “and put your wrists behind your back, and lift your chin. You are to be braceleted and leashed.”

  “Janice,” said the free woman, the Lady Constanzia of Besnit, now disguised as Tuta, a slave.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I would not as the sort of slave I am supposed to be, be kneeling thus, would I?”

  We were kneeling on the broad steps leading to the upper terraces.

  Her knees were widely spread, as those of a pleasure slave.

  “No,” I said, “as you are presumably not to be understood as a pleasure slave.”

  She closed her knees, it seemed to me, reluctantly.

  “But,” I said, “any slave might kneel so, for example, as a placatory gesture, to avert a master’s wrath, to interest a man, to plead with him that he might have mercy upon her, and give attention to her needs, and such.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “But it is only in the pleasure slave,” I said, “that the position is commonly required.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Failure to kneel properly, for one such as I,” I said, “is cause for discipline.”

  “Discipline?”

  “The whip, or such,” I said, “whatever the master pleases.”

  “I see,” she whispered.

  “Straighten your back,” I said. “Lift your head.”

  She did so.

  “You inspect your handiwork?” she inquired.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I am more exposed than most slaves,” she said, “am I not?”

  “Less so than those who are kept naked,” I said. I regarded her.

  I had knotted the brown rag low on her hips, so that their lovely flare might be the better noted.

  “Is the halter too tight?” I asked.

  “I do not object,” she said.

  This halter, improvised from a brown rag, like the skirt, was, in its simplicity and raggedness, as I have suggested, believable as, and suitable for, a slave halter. Too, if there were any doubts as to the matter, they surely would have been dispelled by the manner in which it was on her, by the height, tightness, and insolence with which it confined her, leaving little of the delights of her lineaments to speculation, the knots jerked tight with casual authority. Would she be clad as a slave? Then let her know how slaves might be clad, for the interest and delectation of men, we at the mercy of those delicious, masterful beasts.

  “Am I attractive?” she asked.

  “I would think so,” I said.

  “Do you think men might be interested in me?”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  “Enough to pay good money for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Am I beautiful?” she asked.

  “yes, beautiful,” I said.

  “Am I truly beautiful?”

  “Yes,” I said, “you are truly beautiful. And you are also vain. Quite vain.”

  “But slaves are permitted vanity, are they not?” she inquired.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But you are not a slave.”

  “Perhaps you are mistaken,” she said. She smiled.

  How irritating a free woman can be!

  I looked away.

  “I am clothed as a low slave, am I not?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You enjoyed devising these garments, and putting me in them, didn’t you?” she asked.

  I turned, to look back upon her.

  “Yes,” I said, “free woman.”

  “A slave’s vengeance on us?” she laughed.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Was I supposed to be dismayed, to be scandalized and shamed?” she asked.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “Were you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “But when we came to the exit, at the height of the tunnels, you hung back,” I said. “You were terrified. You feared to be drawn, as you are, into the light.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was afraid then!”

  “Do you wish to return to the cell?” I had asked her.

  “No,” she had wept.

  “You will then, free woman,” I had said to her, “emerge into the light, and as you are!”

  I had then, she braceleted and helpless on the leash, unable to resist, drawn her forth, out into the light. Then she had stood there, just outside the opening to the tunnel, “slave clad,” her head lifted, her eyes closed against the light, in the full light of the sun. she has seemed suddenly rapturous. It had been done. She stood there, outside of the tunnels. Her bared feet were on the warm stones. The light of the sun fell full upon her, illuminating and warming her. It was hot and bright on her muchly exposed body.

  “I will show you the bazaar,” I had said.

  “These garments make me attractive, don’t they?” she asked.

  “You are attractive anyway,” I said, “and would never be more so than if you were n
aked in your collar.”

  “But they do, too, make me attractive, in their way, do they not?” she asked.

  “As all suitable slave garments,” I said, “they stimulate and provoke interest.”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “They conceal and hint,” I said, “but, as slave garments, they are not permitted to deceive or falsify.”

  “I understand the distinction perfectly,” she said.

  “Even the relative modesty of a common slave tunic,” I said, “tends to be stimulatory.”

  “Doubtless,” she said.

  “I have haltered your breasts high,” I said, “the better to emphasize the line of your body, and the better to show you as one subject to bonds, but it is clear, from the way in which this is done, the deception is not involved. For example, it is quite clear what would be the case were they free to be gazed upon without interference, the halter having been, say, cut away. Too, the line in question is one of several quite natural ones. It would be similarly well revealed if your wrists were fastened to an overhead chain or if you were thrown on your back, head down, half over a couch.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “You would doubtless look delightful in a variety of slave garments,” I said. “I think you would look quite fetching, for example, in a common slave tunic, sleeveless, brief and such.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Let us come again and again to the surface. And garb me variously!”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “But never forget,” she said, “as you have garbed me now!”

  “You do not object?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I love it!”

  “Perhaps,” I said, somewhat maliciously, “the next time, if the pit master permits us a repetition of this adventure, I will march you thought he streets as a bare-breasted slave, permitted only a string and slave strip.”

  She suddenly squirmed and jerked at the slave bracelets confining her hands behind her back. “Surely, Janice,” she cried, “you would not!”

  I laughed.

  “You are teasing me!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Tell me more of slave garments!” she begged.

  “Are you rested?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We must be on our way,” I said.

  “Please!” she said.

  “There are many varieties of slave garments,” I said, “which have their various purposes and utilities, such as display of the slave, the mockery or humiliation of the slave, the assurance of her instant availability, punishment garments, confinement garments, and such.”