“We are free women!” said the first woman.
“You are all debtor sluts,” I said.
The first woman gasped, startled, so referred to, and the second and third woman cried out in anger. The fourth whimpered, knowing what I had said was true. The fifth was silent.
I recalled that the porter, when I had come to the outer gate, at the height of the bridge over the moat, seeing that I was not a female, had made me show money, and a considerable amount of it, before he had admitted me. This was probably because of the crowding at the inn, and perhaps inflated prices, in these unusual, perilous times. Women, I had gathered, on the other hand, would not be required to show such money. This, of course, was presumably not so much because such a challenge might be thought to be demeaning to a free woman, as, perhaps, that women on Gor, in a sense, are themselves money. They are, or can be, a medium of exchange, like currency. This is particularly true of the slave, of course, who, like other goods, or domestic animals, has an ascertainable, finite value, whatever free persons are willing to pay for her. Women such as these, those at the wall, would be surrendered by the management of the inn for the equivalent of their unpaid bills. They would then be in the power of their “redeemers,” any who might make good their debts. Lacking such a “redemption” they might then expect to find themselves, sooner or later, sold as slaves. In this way the inn usually recovers its money and, not unoften, turns a profit. Particularly beautiful specimens of impecunious guests are sometimes kept by the inn itself, as inn slaves.
“Please do not refer to us in such a fashion,” said the first woman.
“In what fashion?” I asked.
“As you did,” she said.
I put my hand under her chin and, half lifting her, shoved her back, not too politely, against the logs. “Speak it,” I said.
“As ‘debtor sluts’!” she said.
“Are you not debtor sluts?” I asked.
“But through no fault of our own!” she said.
“Oh?” I asked.
“No!” she said.
“Surely the prices at the inn are posted, or are available upon inquiry,” I said.
She was silent.
“Did you not know that you had not enough money?” I asked.
They were silent.
I tightened my grip on the first woman, thrusting her back more tightly against the logs.
“Yes! Yes!” she gasped. “I knew!”
“We all knew!” said the second woman.
“We are free women!” said the third woman. “We expected men to be gentlemen, to be understanding, to take care of us!”
“We counted on the kindness of men!” said the fourth woman.
“They will do anything for free women!” said the second woman.
I laughed, and they shuddered in their chains, against the wall. It was still raining, but the force of the storm had muchly subsided. I released my grip under the chin of the first woman.
“Do not laugh!” begged the first woman.
“In short,” I said, “you entered the inn, and remained here, in spite of the fact that you had not the wherewithal to meet your obligations, expecting perhaps you might somehow do so with impunity, that your bills would perhaps be simply overlooked, or dismissed by the inn in futile anger, or that eager men could be found to pay them, doubtless vying for the privilege of being of service to lofty free women.”
“Would you have had us spend the night on the road, like peasants?” demanded the third woman.
“But these are hard times,” I said, “and not all men are fools.”
The third woman cried out with anger, shaking her shackles. She was well curved, and diet and exercise could much improve her. I thought she might bring as much as sixty copper tarsks in a market. If that were so, and the inn sold her for that much, they would have made then, as I recalled, some twenty-five copper tarsks on her.
“When you discovered you had not the price of the inn’s services,” I said, “you might have asked if you might earn your keep for the night.”
“We are not inn girls!” cried the second woman.
“It is interesting that you should think immediately in such terms,” I said. “I had in mind other sorts of things, such as laundering and cleaning.”
“Such tasks are for slaves!” said the fifth woman.
“Many free women do them,” I said.
“Those tasks are for low free women,” she said, “not for high free women such as we!”
“Yet you are now at the wall, in shackles,” I said, “and have upon you not so much as a veil.”
“Nonetheless,” said the second woman, “we are high free women, and women such as we do not ‘earn our keep.’”
“Perhaps women such as you,” I speculated, “will soon, at last, find yourself doing so.”
“What do you mean!” she cried.
“Are there others like you inside?” I asked the first woman, the Lady Amina of Venna.
“Only one,” she said, “she who owed the most. She was kept inside. There was not a shackle ring for her here.”
“Why should she who owed the most be kept inside, and we, who owe less, be shamefully chained here, in plain view, and exposed to the elements?” asked the fifth woman.
“Perhaps she who is inside has already begun to earn her keep,” I said.
The fifth woman shrank back against the logs.
“My arms ache,” said the second woman.
“Have other free women entered the court, since you have been fastened here?” I asked the first woman, the Lady Amina of Venna.
“Yes,” she said, “and have seen us here. Some of them then, after visiting the keeper’s desk, doubtless those with insufficient funds, left the inn.”
“There seems a point then in having you chained here,” I said, “aside, of course, from such things as having you brought to the attention of fellows who might redeem you and making clear the inn’s disapproval of attempted fraud, namely, that you might serve as a warning to other free women, women who might otherwise have been tempted to try similar tricks.”
“If we are not redeemed, what will be done with us?” wailed the fourth girl.
“Surely you can guess,” I said.
“No! No! No!” she cried, in misery.
“Redeem me!” begged the fifth girl. “I will make it worth your while, handsome fellow.”
“Slave!” cried the first woman, angrily, to the fifth woman.
“Slave! Slave!” said, too, the second woman to the fifth.
“Come now,” I said to the first and second woman, “she is not a slave —yet.”
“‘Yet’!” cried the fourth woman.
Too, I was amused that the first and second woman seemed to think that slaves might bargain. They had a typical free woman’s misconception of what was involved in total female slavery. The slave is owned. She does not bargain. She owes all to the master, and gives all to the master. She strives to be fully pleasing, in all ways, and hopes desperately that she will prove so. Perhaps they would learn that—sometime.
“I am not like these other women,” said the first woman, suddenly. “Redeem me! Some women, such as these, doubtless, have made a way of life of what you refer to as ‘tricks.’ I have not! This is the first time I have ever had recourse to such fraud!”
The other women cried out angrily in their chains.
“Once is enough,” I told the first woman.
“It costs only forty tarsks to redeem me!” she said.
“You would probably bring more than that in a slave market,” I said.
“Please!” she wept.
“I would cost only twenty-seven tarsks to redeem!” called the fourth girl.
“Redeem me,” said the second woman. “I am of high caste. Consider the glory of redeeming a woman of high caste!”
“The slave,” I said, “has no caste, no more than a verr or tarsk.”
The woman cried out in misery, helpless in the shackles.
“I am shapely, and blond,” said the third woman, suddenly. “Redeem me!”
“Slave!” chided the fifth woman.
“Slave!” retorted the third.
“I do not want to be a slave!” cried the first woman.
“Obviously you are not a slave,” I said, “for you have no wish to be pleasing.”
“I wish to be pleasing,” said the fourth woman, suddenly.
“I have slave needs, I confess it!” said the fifth woman.
“I find that of interest,” I said.
“I, too, have slave needs!” cried the fourth woman.
I had not doubted that. There was something about her body which seemed lusciously slavelike.
“I, too!” suddenly wept the third woman. I regarded her. I thought she would indeed move well in a man’s hands.
“But I do want to be pleasing!” said the first woman.
I looked at her.
“Do not consider her,” said the second woman. “Redeem me! I, too, have slave needs! I confess it! I have slave needs!”
“I, too, have slave needs!” suddenly cried the first woman.
“You?” I asked, as though skeptically.
“Yes!” she wept. “Yes!”
The first time I had laid eyes on her, of course, I had seen that she was born for silk.
“Let me kiss you!” called the fifth woman.
The others gasped in astonishment, in anger, in protest, in indignation, in outrage, at her boldness.
“Taste me,” called the fifth woman, enticingly.
“Slut! Slut!” cried the other women.
It had been a slave’s invitation. I wondered where the free woman had heard it. Not all free women are as ignorant as many men believe. There had been many indications that the fifth woman’s slavery was very close to the surface. To be sure, she may have often fought it. I did not know.
“The eager lips of a free woman await you,” called the fifth woman.
“Terrible!” cried the fourth woman, but the excitement, the eagerness and envy in her own voice were only too clear.
“Slut!” cried the first woman.
“Slut!” cried the second.
“Contemptible slut!” cried the third.
I went to stand before the fifth woman and she, pulling at her chains, leaning forward, tried to reach me. I stood there for a moment, she straining toward me, I regarding her, thinking. She looked at me. I now let her wonder, now that she had made her bold overture, if I would choose to accept it. Perhaps, now, to her shame, to her humiliation, before her sisters in custody, her revelatory, astonishing, compromising advance would be rejected. Perhaps, even, she might be cuffed, or mocked. I saw fear in her eyes. So I took her in my arms and put my lips to hers. It began as a free woman’s kiss but, as I held her, and pressed her to me, and she then pressed herself to me, it ended as a kiss which, though doubtless still that of a free woman, hinted at unmistakable latencies within her, that she might, under suitable conditions of helplessness and submission, and perhaps proper training, be capable of at least the nearest reaches of the kisses of slaves.
I released her, and she looked at me, shaken. She grasped the chains above the manacles tightly. Then she recovered herself. She released the chains above the manacles and her small hands now appeared as they had before, the clasping iron of the upper part of the shackles close below the fleshy part of her palms, below the thumbs, and at the sides of the hands. She squirmed a little. “Redeem me,” she said, slyly.
“Taste me!” said the lovely, slighter girl, who was fourth, who had seemed perhaps the quietest of the five. I thought she might go the gentlest, and the most willingly, and the most gratefully, to her chains.
“Slut!” cried the third woman.
I then kissed her.
I saw that she would make a superb slave.
“Do you not wish to be redeemed?” I asked her.
“Yes!” she said suddenly. “Yes, of course!” But I saw she would never be truly happy, except where she belonged, in a collar.
“Me!” said the third woman, suddenly. “Kiss me, too! Taste me, too!” I gathered that she, too, did not wish to be left out in these competitions. She did not wish to miss her opportunity to see if she might, by the bestowal of her favors, and the promise of such favors, as well, please me, and, by enticement or trickery, inveigle me into purchasing her redemption. I also saw, from her behavior and attitude, that she regarded herself as the most beautiful of the five, and the most likely to succeed in any such contest. Accordingly I gave her little time but merely took her in my arms and unilaterally, forcibly, briefly, crushed her lips beneath mine, and then flung her back against the logs. She looked at me wildly, disbelievingly. Was she not blond? But she would have to learn to please men.
I then stood back, and regarded the three women.
“You have not tasted me,” said the second woman. I think she feared I was pondering a choice among the other three.
“Do you beg it?” I asked her.
“‘Beg’!” she cried.
“Yes,” I said.
I then looked away from her.
“Yes!” she cried. “I beg it!”
I kissed her. I would have to admit it, women kiss well in shackles, even free women. She looked at me. Then, she, too, recovered herself. “Though I am of high caste,” she said, “I have permitted you to kiss me, and not merely upon a sleeve or gloved hand, but wholly upon my lips, and not even through a veil, no, upon my exposed and naked lips themselves, unveiled, almost as though I might be a slave! Therefore, in return for this inestimable gift, it is I whom you must now in honor redeem.”
“You are a female,” I said, “and such are made for the kisses of men.”
“I am of high caste!” she said.
“Perhaps—now,” I said. Slaves, of course, are casteless, as are other animals. No longer is one woman divided from another by artificial distinctions. In this sense there is a democracy of slaves. They all begin the same, regardless of previous distinctions, such as position or wealth. They all begin at the same point, as naked women, branded and collared, who must then strive with one another to see who can be most pleasing to masters.
She looked at me in fury.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “I do not have a slave whip with me.”
“You would beat me?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
She shrank back against the logs.
I thought she would look well, in her curves, crawling at the feet of men, reduced to the centrality of her womanhood, the female slave.
I then regarded the four women whose lips I had tasted. Each had, in a sense, though free, prostituted herself to me, that she might thereby influence me to rescue her from her clear and obvious plight, that of a debtor slut. Each was willing to bestow her favors in order to obtain her redemption. These were women, I had gathered, who had made a practice of relying upon the generosity and nobility of men, or of some men, to obtain their way in life, in a sense resorting frequently to types of female fraud, regularly exploiting and, in a sense, making dupes of men. Doubtless they had, at least until now, congratulated themselves on their success in such matters. Now, however, they were chained to a log wall in an inn’s court. Frightened now, it seemed that they, even though free, were ready to escalate the level of their artifices. Perhaps in more normal times, perhaps even while they were still fully clothed, and veiled, they might have found eager fellows to make good their bills, perhaps at the first sign of distress, even the moistening of an eye. These, however, were not normal times. I considered the four women. They had requested to be tasted, as slaves. One had even begged explicitly, as I had seen to it she would, she who reputed herself to be of high caste. That had amused me. Only the first woman had not so demeaned herself. She, of all of them, was different.
I heard the small sound of her shackle chains on the ring. “I beg to be tasted,” she said.
I looked upon her.
/> I saw that she was beautiful, and not different from the rest. She, too, was only a slave.
“I beg it,” she said.
I regarded her.
“Are you disappointed in me?” she asked.
“If you were a free woman, perhaps,” I said, “but not if you are a slave.”
Even in the apparently freest of women, of course, there is a slave who waits for her master. There is a Gorean saying to the effect that among women there are only slaves who have masters and slaves who do not have masters. Some men fear the slave in a woman; others provide it with the mastering it longs for, and needs. Some women pretend to be free, or like men, just to please men, thinking that that is what is wanted of them, and not the genuineness of their own womanhood. In that sense, paradoxically, it is further evidence of her slavery that she, the slave, eager to please, and trying to fulfill the expectations of others, will even, at least for a time, try to deny her own nature, ultimately unsuccessfully, of course, as is witnessed by her frustration and unhappiness.
“Please,” she said.
“Who begs to be tasted?” I asked.
“The Lady Amina of Venna begs to be tasted,” she said.
Her sisters at the wall gasped at her boldness, that she should use her own name in this fashion, rather as might a slave.
She looked at me.
She could not pull far from the wall because of her shackling. If she were to be kissed, it would be at my discretion.
“Lady Amina begs it,” she said.
She was a free woman. Yet I saw that she was well curved, and would nestle well within the arms of a master.
“Please,” she said.
I went to her and took her in my arms. I drew her toward me, from the wall. The shackle chain moved in the ring. Because of the chaining she was bent back. I looked upon her. Though she was free she, like the others, was neither clothed nor veiled. Thus, though she was a free woman, her lips were open to me, naked to me, exposed, in the manner of the slave. She looked up at me, those lovely, vulnerable lips parted. She felt slave good in my arms. I kissed her.
“Oh!” she said, softly, as I drew back.
I had made the determination in which I was interested. She belonged in a collar.
Renegades of Gor Page 5