John Norman

by Time Slave

  “Interesting, said Herjellsen.

  “A most obvious example,” said William, “occurs when the woman must take the automobile, in need of repair, to a mechanic. Though her socio-economic status may be far above his she must, in her ignorance, her helplessness, approach the mechanic with typical female submission behavior. Moreover, he will exploit this situation, by being patient, by looming over her, by listening to her attempt to explain the problem of the engine. Very few individuals, incidentally, can speak clearly of a complicated piece of machinery, or even know more than a few names for parts. Yet the mechanic’s attitude will make her feel inferior, ignorant, stupid, and he, by contrast, large and wise, efficient and strong. Soon she will be laughing at herself, and pretending she knows even less than she does. She finds herself forced into acting like a fool, petitioning for a favor. She smiles, she laughs uneasily, she moves her body, she is embarrassed, she blushes, she looks up at him. He agrees to repair the vehicle. He will find out what is wrong, and whatever it is he, the noble fellow, will fix it. She leaves. He has had a sexual experience. Similar exploitative matrices may exist in the context of the female student and male teacher, or the female employee and the male employer. Females are forced, in thousands of ways, to be pleasing to men, and, as they struggle to smile, and be pleasing, he symbolically enjoys her, has her, accepts her, for the time, as one of his women.”

  “What do you think of this, Gunther?” asked Herjellsen.

  “I think it is true,” said Gunther. “Further, perhaps to your surprise, I do not disapprove. Rather I approve. Women should smile, should be forced to engage in submission behavior before men.”

  “Why is that?” asked Herjellsen.

  “Because men are dominant,” said Gunther. “And it is right that women should submit to them.” He looked at Herjellsen. “Women do not smile and move provocatively because society forces them to do so; they do so because they are women; they are not the dominant sex. Display behavior, and submission behavior, is always displayed, throughout the animal kingdom, before the dominant organisms. It is natural for the dominant organism to elicit, or enforce, this behavior. Your mechanic, he in William’s anecdote, is dominant. It is thus natural for him to elicit, or enforce, display behavior, submission behavior, in your upper-middle-class woman. She is, after all, whatever might be her socio-economic class, only a female.”

  “I’m afraid you are a male chauvinist, old man,” said William.

  “As a scientist,” said Gunther, “I attempt to ascertain the truth. I do not respond like a slavering dog to political stimuli.”

  “When I spoke of helplessness,” said Herjellsen, “I did not have in mind such things as being unable to locate one’s car keys.”

  The three men looked at Hamilton. She had her head down. She knelt the short white dress well up her thighs. Her ankles, each snugly, were confined in the short, chain shackle. Her wrists, behind her back, were locked in Gunther’s cuffs.

  Brenda,” asked Herjellsen. “Are you helpless?”

  “Yes,” said Brenda. She lifted her head, and looked at them red-eyed. “How could I be more helpless?” she asked.

  “If you were nude,” said Gunther.

  She put down her head.

  “She is powerless, and at your mercy,” said Herjellsen. “You are young males. Does that enhance her sexual attractiveness?”

  “Yes,” said Gunther.

  “Yes,” said William.

  “It is natural,” said Gunther, “for a man to want complete power, absolute power, over a woman.”

  “This has to do, perhaps,” said William, “with the aggression-submission equation. For the male, maximum power facilitates total aggression; for the female, utter powerlessness gives her no alternative to complete submission.”

  “More important than such trivialities as handcuffs and ankle chains,” said Gunther, “is to force the female’s psychological submission.”

  “Of course,” said Herjellsen, “we are creatures with minds.”

  “The best lay that I ever had,” said Gunther, “was a girl given to me for the night by a friend; four years ago, a Bedouin chieftain.”

  “What was she like?” asked William.

  “Juicy, cuddly,” he said, “brown, quick, large dark eyes, long black hair. When I pulled away her silk I saw that he had had her branded.”

  “Oh,” gasped Hamilton.

  “She was a slave girl,” said Gunther, looking at her.

  Hamilton averted her eyes. “Oh,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” said Gunther, “a superb female slave-simply superb. When she entered the tent we both knew that she was in my absolute power. The psychological dimension was perfect. She stood there, waiting to be commanded. I could do with her what I pleased, and whatever it was that I pleased that is what I did with her. It was a most interesting evening.”

  “What did you do with her?” asked William.

  “I could do with her what I pleased,” said Gunther.

  “And what did you do with her?” asked William.

  “Exactly what I pleased,” said Gunther.

  “I see,” said William.

  “It was a most interesting evening,” said Gunther.

  Hamilton did not look up. She wished she had been that female slave.

  “This seems practical,” said Herjellsen, “only where there is an institution of female slavery, socially accepted, societally enforced.”

  “It is practical,” said Gunther, “wherever men are willing to make slaves, and have the opportunity.”

  Hamilton wished that she were Gunther’s slave.

  “For example,” said Gunther, “this compound is isolated.” He gestured to Hamilton. “We could, if we wished, make her a slave.”

  Hamilton looked at him. She was frightened.

  “Do not be afraid, Doctor Hamilton,” said Herjellsen, “it is not we who will make you a slave.”

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Herjellsen rose to his feet. “It is late,” he said. He nodded curtly to Brenda Hamilton, kneeling before him. “Good evening, my dear,” he said.

  Then he, followed by William, left the room.

  “Stand,” snapped Gunther, “back to me.”

  Brenda Hamilton, shackled, looked up at him. “Please help me, Gunther,” she said.

  He placed his strong hands beneath her arms and lifted her lightly to her feet.

  She stood close to him, shackled, wrists fastened behind her. She looked at him. “Please, Gunther,” she said. She lifted her lips to him.

  “Turn,” he said.

  She did so, and he, with his key, unlocked the handcuffs, and removed them from her wrists.

  “Use the wastes bucket,” he said. “I will return in five minutes.”

  “Yes, Gunther,” she said, head down, blushing.

  In five minutes he returned. She was sitting on the cot. He looked at her. Quickly, she knelt.

  “Lie on your stomach on the cot,” he said, “and place your left wrist under the iron bar.”

  She did so, and he approached her. She felt one cuff locked on her left wrist, and then the other she heard snapped about the iron bar at the head of the cot.

  He then bent to her ankles.

  He removed the chain that confined them.

  She rolled to her back, suddenly, sliding the handcuff along the iron bar, twisting the links, and faced Gunther.

  She laughed with pleasure.

  She lifted one leg, and then the other. They were long, slender, shapely, lovely. She had her eyes closed. She moved them slowly, exulting in the luxury of the movement. She lay then on her back, and opened her eyes. She stretched her left leg, and bent the right, knee lifted, heel on the mattress.

  Gunther was watching her.

  “It feels so good to move,” she said. She smiled at Gunther.

  He looked at her, angrily.

  “You do find me attractive, don’t you, Gunther?” she asked. She was smiling.<
br />
  “Whore,” said Gunther.

  “Yes,” laughed Brenda Hamilton, looking at him, “Doctor Brenda Hamilton is a whore.”

  Gunther regarded her, puzzled.

  “I’m your whore,” she said.

  “I do not understand,” he said.

  “Every woman,” said Brenda Hamilton, “if she is vital, for some man or other, would be his willing, eager whore.”

  Gunther looked at her.

  “I’m yours,” she said. She laughed.

  “Whore!” he snapped.

  “Only to you,” she laughed. “Not to William, or Herjellsen, or the blacks.”

  He looked at her, not speaking.

  “Sit beside me, Gunther,” she said. “Please.”

  He did so. He sat on the edge of the cot, looking down on her, his left hand across her body, resting on the left side of the cot.

  “I’m in your complete power, Gunther,” she said. She jerked at the handcuff, indicating that she was secured. She smiled. “You have absolute power over me,” she said. “Does that not excite you?”

  He said nothing. His eyes were expressionless.

  “You can make me do anything you want,” she said. “I will obey you, perfectly, completely.”

  With his right hand, he touched her head, and then, holding her face, turned it from one side to the other, looking at it.

  “Perfectly, completely,” she whispered.

  He removed his hand from her face.

  “Was the brown girl so marvelous?” she asked him.

  “The slave?” asked Gunther.

  “Yes,” said Brenda Hamilton, “-the slave!”

  “Yes,” said Gunther.

  “I can be better,” she said.

  “Oh?” asked Gunther.

  “Try me,” she said.

  Gunther smiled.

  “Have me stand before you,” said Hamilton, “as she did, not knowing what you will command. See which of us is better!”

  He put his hand at the neckline of her thin, cotton dress. She felt his fist in its fabric.

  “Strip me!” she begged.

  He looked down on her.

  “I’m in your complete power, Gunther,” she said. “You have absolute power over me! You can do with me what you want! Anything! Whatever you want! Does that not excite you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Too,” she whispered, “it excites me! I have never been so excited in my life, Gunther!”

  She tried to sit up on the cot and hold him with her right arm. With his left hand he forced her right wrist down, and pinned it to the mattress. The handcuff on her left wrist confined her hand at the bar. The steel slid on the iron. She could not rise. She was held. Gunther’s right hand was still at the neckline of her frock.

  She looked up at him.

  “Could I not be your slave, like that brown girl?” she asked.

  He did not answer her.

  “Caress me, Gunther,” she begged.

  Gunther stood up, releasing her. “Others will caress you,” he said.

  “Others?” asked Hamilton.

  “Yes,” said Gunther.

  “But what if I do not want others to caress me?” she asked.

  “It does not matter,” said Gunther. He bent down and picked up the chain and the two padlocks from the floor at the foot of the cot, and went to the door.

  Brenda Hamilton rolled to her stomach, and screamed and sobbed, thrusting her mouth against the mattress. She squirmed and struck at the mattress, kicking it with her feet, pounding it with her right fist. She bit at it, sobbing, and scratched at it with the fingernails of her right hand. She turned on – her side, and held out her hand to Gunther, who stood by the door.

  “Gunther!” she wept.

  “Tomorrow night,” said Gunther, “we will attempt to initiate the final test sequence of the second series of experiments. Herjellsen has told me that you will be permitted to watch.

  Hamilton regarded him, red-eyed.

  “You yourself, as you have been informed,” said Gunther, “will figure essentially in the third series of experiments.”

  “Why will you not make love to me?” asked Hamilton.

  “Herjellsen has decided,” said Gunther, “that you are to be transmitted as a virgin. He expects that it may enhance your value, if trading is pertinent.”

  “Value?” breathed Hamilton.

  “Too, Herjellsen supposes,” said Gunther, “that they might be less likely to slay a virgin. A virgin might be something of a prize.”

  “Who are-they?” asked Hamilton.

  “We do not really know,” said Gunther. “But we suspect that they will have some connection with the Herjellsen artifact.”

  “No!” cried Brenda Hamilton. “No! No!”

  “There is some danger, of course,” said Gunther, “in transmitting a virgin.”

  Hamilton looked at him.

  “The sacrifice of virgin females may be practiced.”

  Hamilton regarded him with horror.

  “But, in your case,” said Gunther, “this seems unlikely.

  Lovely as you are you are in your twenties, and this, we conjecture will be sufficient to remove you from this danger. Furthermore, such sacrifice, commonly, involves tribal girls of high station in the group, such being regarded as the fittest gifts for the gods.” Gunther looked at Hamilton. “You, not so much a girl as a woman, a stranger, ignorant, one foreign to them, one with no standing, no status, we conjecture will stand in little danger of being regarded as a desirable sacrifice.”

  Hamilton sat now on the edge of the cot. She was aghast. She trembled.

  “Furthermore,” said Gunther, “we commonly associate the sacrifice of virgins with agricultural economies, where men are more dependent on factors outside of their control, the weather, for example, than with hunting economies, where the nature of acquiring food, and the efforts relevant to its acquisition, are more clearly understood. Perhaps more importantly in agricultural economies the population is larger and the social institutions and structures more complex. A larger population is doubtless more willing to expend certain of its members; further there is in a larger population, naturally, less personal contact among all members, and this makes the sacrificial expenditure of a given member of the group a much more impersonal matter; furthermore, in the agricultural economy, with its larger population, you have, doubtless, an extensive, complex cult tradition, perhaps with its professional witch doctors or priests, providing the population with an elaborate justification for ritualized homicide. Social developments of this complexity would be less likely to occur in a hunting group. Furthermore, in a hunting group, where life would be more precarious, it seems likely to suppose that it might also be regarded as more precious. Women would be needed to bear children and carry burdens. It is not likely that they would be used as the victims in ceremonial homicides.”

  “Oh, Gunther,” wept Hamilton. “Help me to escape!”

  “Hunting groups, we conjecture, too,” said Gunther, “would, if they are to survive, be dominated by strong men, large men, rugged men, intelligent men, energetic, cunning and swift, men of much stamina, of sound constitution and hardy appetites.”

  Gunther looked at Hamilton, and she shuddered.

  “Such men,” said Gunther, “are likely to relish and appreciate, robustly, the bodies of their women. They will have better uses to put the bodies of their women to than human sacrifice.”

  “You must help me to escape, Gunther,” wept Hamilton.

  “With the conquest of agriculture, as you may not be aware,” said Gunther, “there was a concomitant degeneration of the human stock. This can be established skeletally, and also by cranial capacity. Modern man is smaller, and quite possibly intellectually inferior, to these free hunters. We have now, of course, in compensation, numbers and technology. We have libraries and a complicated culture. We are much more advanced, inferior, but much more advanced. We do not know what direction the race will take. As
we are to the hunters, future man may be to us, miserable, petty and neurotic, or, perhaps, we shall grow again, toward the hunters-and the hunters will come again, from we ourselves-for surely we are their descendants, and surely we, somehow, somewhere, hidden within us, hold their promise-latent in our genetic codes the hunters may not be dead, but only asleep.” Gunther looked at Hamilton. “The race,” said Gunther, “is divided into the farmers and the hunters, those who grow millet and barley, those who trudge in the mud and dig in the soil the swarming mobs in the river valleys, scratching with their sticks and carrying their water, and the hunters, the lonely ones, the swift ones, the solitary ones, not understood, who will not dig in the soil, the ones who know the smell of the forest, the burrow of the ermine, the track of the caribou, who rise at dawn, in the cold, who can run fifty miles in one day, who can shoot the bow and hurl the spear, and live for weeks on the land, the cunning ones, the dissatisfied ones, the pursuers of meat.”

  Hamilton looked at Gunther, strangely. Never had she heard him speak like this. He was usually silent, arrogant, taciturn.

  “The world,” said Gunther, “is divided into those who fear, those who seek security, those who do not dare to lift their eyes from their narrow fields, and the other-the hunters.” Gunther was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke again. “Do you know where the hunters have gone?” he asked.

  “No,” said Brenda Hamilton.

  “The farmers, in their numbers, have killed them,” he said.

  Hamilton regarded him.

  “But they may not all be dead,” said Gunther. “Some may be only asleep.”

  Hamilton said nothing.

  “There has always been war,” said Gunther, “between the hunters and the farmers.” He smiled. “And I suppose there always will be.”

  “There is nothing left to hunt,” said Hamilton.

  “Mankind’s greatest game is now afoot,” said Gunther. He frowned. “The farmers will do what they can to prevent its pursuit.” “What game, Gunther?” asked Hamilton. “Meat!” said Gunther. “Meat fit for the godsl” “What meat, Gunther?” asked Hamilton. “The stars,” said Gunther. “The stars.” She looked at him. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “There is nothing more to hunt.” “There are the stars,” he said. Then he left her alone. Gunther is mad, thought Brenda Hamilton, he is as mad as the others. She lay back on the mattress and twisted in the heat. She jerked at the handcuff and cursed, and then tried to find a comfortable position in which to sleep.