Witness of Gor coc-26

by John Norman

  “It is a lovely day,” he said. “Might I be privileged to accompany you? In the lower gardens the veminia are in bloom.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He then extended his arm and she placed her small, gloved hand upon it.

  It is not unusual on this world, incidentally, for men to prize such things as flowers. Perhaps all men have this softer side to their nature. I do not know. At any rate, men here, or most en here, do not seem to fear this part of themselves or attempt, perhaps for some cultural reason, to conceal it. Perhaps, given their culture, in which are secured their natural rights, those of manhood and the mastery, they can afford to be whole men here, not cultural or political half-men, of one sort or another. It seems paradoxical to me at first, of course, to discover that these men, with their great love of nature, would think nothing of keeping a cowering, cringing woman chained at their feet. Were we regarded, because of what we were, rightly, as being worthy of less consideration than the delicate petals of a tiny blossom? Did they know us that well? Was our nature so obvious to them? Did they know, too, I wondered, that we were the secret enemy? Did they understand the secret war? But did they understand, too, that we were the secret enemy who wishes to be subdued, and enslaved? Did they understand that we wished to lose the secrete war, to be vanquished, totally, that we wished, conquered and humbled, to bend our necks to the collars of the victors, that we might then serve them as their helpless slaves? I had soon come to understand that these mysterious juxtapositions, these seeming paradoxes, this thing, the love of flowers, the subjugation of women, and such, is all of a piece. It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, our pettiness, our vanity, and such, that they put us to their feet. It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, as the enemy to be vanquished, that they put us to their feet. It is also, simply, in part, because of their adherence to nature, and their refusal to compromise it, that they put us to their feet, where we belong. They know that if we are not kept there we will destroy them. We despise and hate men too weak to keep us as slaves, for they then deny to us our own nature, and not only theirs to themselves. We want only to be owned, and to serve and love our masters. Is that too much to ask?

  But then, suddenly, a wave of slave terror overcame me. I was a slave. It could be done with me as masters pleased! I was owned!

  I watched the free woman withdraw, her tiny hand on the arm of the slaver.

  Was she mad, I wondered. But perhaps she knew him. Perhaps he was well known in the city. Perhaps there was no danger. But surely she must understand the meaning of those three tiny chevrons on his left sleeve. Did she not know that he must have handled hundreds, perhaps thousands, like herself, in their chains and collars, appraising them, determining their order of sale, taking his profit on them?

  They were now well across the terrace.

  I wondered if she wondered, beneath her robes, and veil, walking across the terrace, what might be the feel of slave iron on her limbs, what it might be to feel the sawdust of the slave block beneath he bared feet, what it might be to hear the call of the auctioneer, proposing her for the consideration of buyers.

  “They are gone now,” I whispered to the Lady Constanzia. “Get up.”

  She rose to her knees, unsteadily, trembling. I did not think she could stand at the moment.

  “I could have been beaten,” she said.

  “You are in a collar, and clad as a slave,” I said.

  “I could have been switched,” she said. “As a slave!”

  “Of course,” I said. “I am only surprised that you were not.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “The switch,” I said, “would not have marked you. Oh, it might have put stripes on you which might, for a day or so, have had some effect on your price, but the stripes would go away.”

  “Then why was I not beaten?” she asked.

  “He might have been afraid that she did not know how to beat a slave,” I said. “He might have been afraid that she, somehow, in her rage, might have actually injured you. Perhaps he was afraid that you might have been blinded, which would, assuredly, have lowered your price.”

  She shuddered.

  “But, I think,” I whispered, “that he, a salver, suspected that you might not be truly bond, but something else, perhaps what you are, a mere prisoner. He might have thus intervened to prevent the indignity of you being beaten, as a mere slave.”

  “Do you think so?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Would the people of your city object to the switching or whipping of an errant slave?”

  “No,” she said. “If the slave is not fully pleasing, she is to be punished. Everyone knows that.”

  “And so,” I said, “they would be unlikely to interfere.”

  “True,” she said.

  “And they would think little of the matter.”

  “That is true,” she said. “They would think little or nothing of it. They might pause to jeer the girl, encouraging her to profit from her beating. That is all. It is just something that is done-and appropriately-to slaves. They must learn to be pleasing.”

  “It is the same here,” I said. “I have seen slaves publicly whipped three times in this city, once on a lower terrace, and twice in the bazaar. And several times I have seen them hastened by a blow of two of a belt or switch.”

  She shuddered.

  “They are slaves,” I said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  I looked at her.

  “-As I might be taken to be,” she said.

  “Precisely,” I said.

  “And I might then be treated similarly.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And then I, too, might be whipped, as they, perhaps even on a mere whim-whipped-literally-whipped.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “Do you think any others might know that I am not bond?” she asked.

  “I doubt it,” I said. “indeed, he may have thought you bond, but merely new to your collar.”

  “But you think he knew?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Presumably he is an experienced slaver.”

  “Do you think he had any doubts about you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, reddening. “I do not think he had any doubts whatsoever about me.”

  “I could have been whipped,” she said, wonderingly.

  “Are you able to stand?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You should have been switched,” said a male voice, to the Lady Constanzia.

  We both, startled, looked up, from our knees.

  The Lady Constanzia gasped. Then, swiftly, she thrust down her head.

  It was the fellow in the scarlet tunic, with the scarlet cloak, whom I had originally noted in the vicinity of the balustrade, where we had been looking upon the mountains.

  “Lift your head, slave,” said he to the Lady Constanzia.

  She did so.

  She kept her head up, but, after an instant, was careful not to meet his eyes. In her first glance she had grasped, with the immediate understanding a woman has of such things, the nature of his scrutiny. She knelt very straight, frightened. She was being considered, as a female. He did not hurry. And he even walked about her. Then he was again before her. “A beautiful face,” he commented to me. “Good slave curves. Excellent hair.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “You should have been switched,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I was startled. That was the first time I had heard her use the world ‘Master’ to a man.

  “Why weren’t you?” he asked.

  “I do not know, Master,” she said.

  He looked at me.

  “I do not know, Master,” I said.

  “You were very fortunate,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “I, myself, would not have been so lenient,” he said.

/>   “Yes, Master,” she said, swallowing hard. He was such as would think nothing of beating her.

  “Has she been whip-trained?” he asked me.

  “No,” I said.

  “She must indeed be quite new to her collar,” he said.

  “yes, Master,” I said. He must then, I surmised, have been reasonably close, in the crowd, during the incident with the free woman.

  “She nearly drank from the first basin,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” I admitted. He had been watching us then.

  “It seems,” he said, regretfully, “she is stupid.”

  “No, Master,” I said. “It is only that she has much to learn about her collar.”

  “She is not totally stupid?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “She has some intelligence then?” he asked, interested.

  “Yes, Master,” I said. “She is actually quite intelligent.”

  “Excellent,” he said, pleased.

  Then he looked at me, and snapped his fingers. “Collar,” he said.

  Instantly I, trained, leaped to my feet and stood quite close to him, uncomfortably close, and held my hands a little behind my body. I lifted my chin. He crooked a finger under my collar and pulled me closer to him, holding me in place. I could feel his finger against my neck, on the left side, between the steel of the collar and the flesh. I could also feel the collar drawn tighter against the back of my neck.

  “It is a state collar,” he said. “Your name is ‘Janice’.”

  “Yes, Master,” I whispered.

  He released me, and I knelt.

  He then regarded the Lady Constanzia. He snapped his fingers and said, “Collar!”

  She rose uncertainly to her feet, and approached him. She had, of course, had my example from which to profit. She, to my surprise, however, stood closer to him than I would have expected, and more close to him than I had, originally. It seemed she was improving on my example. Was she then, in such matters, to be my teacher? She lifted her chin delicately. In response to the “collar command,” the salve approaches the male, that he need not inconvenience himself by coming toward her. She then lifts her chin and places her hands behind her. It is thus that a girl renders herself vulnerable for the reading of her collar. In this case, of course, the Lady Constanzia’s hands were already behind her, her small, lovely wrists closely linked together, well pinioned, in the steel of slave bracelets.

  Still he put his finger under her collar, and, as she gasped, he pulled her even closer to him, indeed, quite close to him, “slave close,” as the expression is. She could not move back, because of his hold on her. I was alarmed. She was a free woman! I could well conjecture her dismay, her discomfort, her fear, her wild sensations-she, a free female, being held so close to him, she half stripped, he fully dressed, so powerful, so masculine!

  “’Tuta’,” he read. “It is a good name for you, slave.”

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

  “It is not a state collar,” he said to me, “but, as she is in your custody, one gathers that she must be in the keeping of the state, for some reason, perhaps pending her sale.”

  I was silent.

  He released the Lady Constanzia’s collar. “Remain where you are,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Slave lips,” he said to her.

  She looked at him, wildly, in consternation.

  “Purse your lips,” I said to her.

  She complied, frightened.

  “Close your eyes,” he said to her.

  She did so.

  She was then standing there, before him, her eyes closed, her lips pursed.

  “Her lips are of interest,” he said.

  “Please, Master,” I protested.

  “I am going to taste your lips, Tuta,” he said.

  “Master!” I protested.

  He did not immediately address himself, however, to the Lady Constanzia. Rather he stood there for a time, and let her stand there, for a time, her lips in the position he had commanded, her eyes closed, as he had ordered.

  I heard a tiny clink of metal as she pulled a bit, futilely, against the bracelets which held her small hands confined behind her back.

  Then, to my surprise, and dismay, I saw her lift her chin a little more, and stretch her neck a little, lifting her lips to him. How shameless! She was offering herself to him! Could the Lady Constanzia be a slave?

  With a low, throaty laugh, almost a growl, he then enfolded her, she helpless, braceleted, in his arms and, indeed, tasted, and lengthily, and well, tasted the lips of the free woman, the Lady Constanzia!

  After a time, perhaps even three or four Ehn, he released her, and she sank to her knees, before him. Then she looked straight ahead. Her eyes were wide. She was clearly shaken. She began to tremble. I feared she might collapse to the stones.

  He crouched down beside her, briefly.

  “Oh!” she said, suddenly.

  “She is not in the iron belt,” he observed.

  “She has not had her slave wine, Master!” I said, quickly. “Please, I beg of you! Do not! Do not!”

  He stood up.

  “Have no fear,” said he.

  “May we leave?” I begged.

  “Her lips are indeed of interest,” he said to me. “To be sure, she was more kissed than kissing.”

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  “Does she know how to use them?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “But she is intelligent, you said?”

  “Yes, Master,”

  “Then she can learn how to use them?”

  “Of course, Master.”

  “Does she know the seven basic kisses of the slave?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” I said.

  “Not even that?”

  “No, Master,” I said.

  Naturally the number of “basic kisses,” tends to vary with the nature of the analysis in question, much depending on how broadly or narrowly the notion of “basic” is understood and the criteria for distinguishing between a “basic kiss” and a major variation thereof. If I may be permitted to exaggerate a point, for purposes of clarification, one might as, are there two basic kisses with five hundred variations of each, for basic kisses with two hundred and fifty variations of each, five with two hundred variations of each, ten with one hundred variations of each, or, as some authorities might prefer, merely one thousand basic kisses? Or are there ten thousand, and so on? All authorities agree, of course, that the varieties of possible kisses, with respect to location, pressure, liquidity, duration, timing, and such, are infinite in number. The notion of “seven basic kisses,” however, is, apparently, a common one. It deftly imposes some useful order on what might otherwise be a chaos. It is nothing against the value of a classificatory scheme that it is not the only one possible. As a last note, I might add that there does seem to be general agreement among authorities on the importance of a given number of types of kisses, and perhaps that is more important than whether one accounts a given kiss A to be a variation of B, or B to be a variation of A, and so on. There are apparently, incidentally, on this world, a number of manuals devoted to slave training. In most of these, as I understand it, seven is indeed given as the number of the “basic kisses.” For what it is worth, that is the number which was impressed on me in the pens. I had had seven basic lessons on the matter, with variations taught within the lessons. There were also frequent review lessons later on. One does not, of course, forget such things. To be sure, much depends, as we were always being told, on the individual master. It is his will which, to us, is all. In our practices we were sometimes blindfolded. I presume there were several reasons for that, for example, that we might learn how to concentrate on the tactual sensations involved, that we might be able to kiss well in the dark and, when we are using male slaves to practice on, that we should not become involved with them personally. When one kisses a man as a slave it i
s hard not to feel oneself as slave to him. I do not think the male slaves objected to being used in our training. Some who began by crying out in rage, perhaps new slaves, ended up moaning with pleasure. They, too, were generally blindfolded, except when we must kiss them upon their closed eyes. Later, as our skills improved, the guards permitted us, sans blindfolds, to practice upon them. And they were harsh taskmasters, I tell you! Diligently must we strive to please them! But we preferred their severities to the helplessness of the slaves for we knew that they were such as to whom we belonged, free men. Sometimes we felt the switch when we did not do well. I so wanted to kiss he whose whip I had first kissed, but he would never permit it. I wanted to kiss him as he had never been kissed before, but he would not permit it. How he scorned me! And perhaps rightly, for I was naught but a slave! After we had kissed the guards we were much aroused. Shamelessly, later, throbbing with need, we would beg their attentions from our kennels. Sometimes they were kind to us and sometimes there were not.

  “She is quite ignorant then,” said the fellow.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  The Lady Constanzia, I am sure, did not appreciate my concurrence in this matter, but he was a free man, and I a slave, and his conjecture was, after all, obviously true.

  “A pity,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” I said.

  Do you come often to this terrace?’ he asked.

  “We have not, in the past,” I said.

  “Will you in the future?” he asked.

  “I do not know if we will be permitted aboard,” I said.

  “And if you are?” he asked.

  “Perhaps then, Master,” I said. I had wanted to come to this terrace for a particular reason. It gave access, by means of a bridge, to an area in which I had hoped I might obtain certain information. This was unknown, of course, to the Lady Constanzia. I had come here some times before, but things had not been satisfactory. One must be here, or rather at a place close by, at a certain time to learn what I wanted to know, if one could know it. The information I wanted, of course, like that which had been denied to me about the reason for my being in the pits, had been denied me. It was a simple enough bit of information, but a slave girl must be extremely careful about certain things. For example, asking a question outright, particularly of a stranger, can involve great risks. The stranger will presumably assume that you are supposed to be denied the information or you would have already obtained it from your master or keeper. To be sure, one may, kneeling, innocently request certain sorts of information, such as the directions to a shop or given street, or such, but to ask about something which is either sensitive or presumed to be generally known can be frowned upon. For example, a slave would not request information as to the departure or arrival times of sky caravans and such, and she would not, presumably, ask something of the simplicity of that which I wished to know. It would automatically be assumed that that information, for some reason, had been denied to her. One night, of course, merely be told that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, which, I had learned, is something of a saying on this world, but, more likely, one might be cuffed or beaten, and then one might have one’s hands bound behind one and one’s question written on, say, the interior of one’s thigh or on a breast, usually the left, as most masters are right handed, where when one returns to one’s keeper or master, it will be clear that one has been disobedient, and attempted to obtain the denied information illicitly.