“And are not those the very women who first bare their breasts to conquerors and beg the privilege of licking their feet?”
“Perhaps, upon occasion,” said Aemilianus.
“If it were truly a fate worse than death,” I said, “or even so miserable or unfortunate a lot, it seems it would be very hard to understand their happiness, their emotional fulfillments, their ecstasies, their willingness to die for their masters.”
“Perhaps then,” he said, “for all its demands and duties, it is not truly a fate worse than death.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, “else, after a time, they would not love it so.”
“Perhaps those who would foolishly call it so do so only in their attempts to dissuade themselves from their desperate fascination with it, and longing for it.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“At any rate,” he smiled, “let them not make pronouncements on such matters until they have had some experience of that of which they speak, until they have had for a time, so to speak, the collar on their own necks.”
“Yet,” I said, “slavery is a most serious matter.”
“It is,” he granted.
Gorean slavery is categorical and absolute. The slave is a property, an animal. She is incapable of doing anything to alter, change or affect her status. She is owned by the master, and owes him all. She can be bought and sold. She must serve with perfection.
Aemilianus looked at the Lady Claudia, “Do you understand the nature of our discourse, of that of which we speak?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” he said.
She looked at him.
“Claudia, Lady of Ar’s Station, free woman,” he said, sternly.
She, kneeling before him, regarded him.
“Put your head to the deck,” he said.
Men gasped, to see a free woman perform this act. More than one, I am sure, wanted to seize her.
“Lift your head,” said Aemilianus.
She did so.
“You have been found guilty of treason,” he said, “and sentenced to impalement. By the power that was vested in me I did this. By the same power, I now rescind the sentence of impalement.”
“Commander!” she cried, tears in her eyes.
“Do you expect to escape punishment?” he asked.
She put down her head, shuddering.
“Do you know the sort of chains you wear?” he asked.
“Slave chains,” she said.
“They look well on you,” he said.
She did not speak.
Then, suddenly, in a moment, as of panic, seemingly unable to help herself, she tried the chains, those on her wrists, trying to slip them from her wrists, then jerking at them, but they held her well.
“You understand clearly, do you not,” he asked, “what I now propose to do?”
“Yes,” she said, frightened.
“It is my intention,” he said, “to sentence you to slavery. Do you understand this, and what it means?”
“I think so,” she said, “—as far as any free woman can.”
“Do you have anything to say before I pass such sentence upon you?”
“No,” she said.
“I sentence you to slavery,” he said, uttering the sentence.
She trembled, sentenced.
“It only remains now,” said Aemilianus, “for the sentence to be carried out. If you wish I, in the office of magistrate, shall carry it out. On the other hand, if you wish, you may yourself carry out the sentence.”
“I?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“You would have me proclaim myself slave?” she asked.
“Or I shall do it,” he said. “In the end, it does not matter.”
“In my heart,” she said, “I am, and have been for years, a slave. It is fitting then, I suppose, that it should be I who say the words.”
Aemilianus regarded her.
“I am a slave,” she said.
Men cried out with pleasure and smote their left shoulders in Gorean applause, gazing on the new slave.
She then looked about herself, frightened, now no more than another lovely slave amongst men, one of hundreds of thousands such as she, this one kneeling chained before Aemilianus.
“Bring the other slave here, too,” said Aemilianus, gesturing to the former Lady Publia.
In a moment the two slaves, naked, and in their siriks, were before him. Men adjusted the positions of the slaves, rudely, so that they knelt well, back on their heels, their backs straight, their knees spread.
“Calliodorus, my friend,” said Aemilianus, “behold two slaves.”
“I behold them,” said Calliodorus.
“Do you find them pleasing?” asked Aemilianus.
“Yes,” said Calliodorus. “Both were obviously born for the collar.”
“This one,” said Aemilianus, indicating the former Lady Publia, “at least for the time, we will call ‘Publia.’”
“Who are you?” asked Calliodorus of the former Lady Publia.
“Publia!” she said.
“Lady Publia?” he inquired.
“No,” she said, “only Publia, Master, only Publia, a slave!”
“And this one,” continued Aemilianus, indicating the former Lady Claudia, “at least for the time, we will call ‘Claudia.’”
“Your name?” asked Calliodorus of the former Lady Claudia.
“‘Claudia’!” she said, quickly.
“Lady Claudia?” he inquired.
“No, no, Master!” she said. “I am only a slave, who has been given the name ‘Claudia’!”
Both names now, of course, were slave names. Slaves, as properties, and animals, may be named, if one cares to name them, as one wishes. Most slaves are named, of course, as it makes it easier to refer to them, and summon them, and so on. Names may be changed, of course, at the master’s whim. A girl may be rewarded with a lovely name, or punished with an vulgar, ugly, demeaning name. Some names are given based on physical or psychological characteristics. Usually the names are ones that appeal to the master. Sometimes a free woman is infuriated to learn that a spurned suitor has given her name to one of his slaves. To be sure, she herself may end up in his collar, and, if so, is likely to be given a common slave name, such as Lana, Tuka, Lita, or such. Too, it is not at all unlikely that she will find herself under the governance of the slave, now “first girl” to her, who was given her name, and now wears it, while she, perhaps, now wears the earlier name of the slave, perhaps Sandal Thong. It might be mentioned in passing that Earth-girl names, June, Jane, Lois, Phyllis, and such, are popular Gorean slave names. This is perhaps because Goreans tend to think of Earth women as slave stock. There are a number of reasons for this, for example, they tend to eschew face veiling, thereby shamelessly exposing their features to public inspection, a convenience, incidentally, for woman hunters; they think little of baring portions of their body unthinkable to the Gorean free woman, particularly of high caste, such as the ankles, arms and wrists, and even of the exposure of the navel, spoken of in Gorean as the “slave belly”; many have their ears pierced and dare to mount rings in them, a degradation on Gor commonly imposed only on the lowest and most degraded, and most exciting, of slaves; their native language is not Gorean, and thus they are barbarians; they lack Home Stones; they are easily harvested, and so on. Too, about the only Earth women Goreans are familiar with are those they buy from slave blocks. The major reason, however, in my view, is that the Earth female, raised in a pathological, neuteristic culture, one in which they are taught to fear, suspect and reject their most basic sexual urges, and their genetically coded depth female nature, find in the natural world of Gor a wondrous blossoming of, and liberation of, their basic femininity, that of the basic, primitive, natural woman. After the constraints and lies of an environment warped politically to subserve unnatural interests and goals they encounter for the first time in their lives men who are quite different from most of the men
they have been familiar with, men who have not been culturally tamed, men who have not been thwarted, frustrated, crippled, diminished and reduced, and nearly unmade, by calculated regimens of social engineering, men who straightforwardly, unapologetically, forthrightly, innocently, naturally, robustly, virilely, and powerfully desire them, and will possess and treasure them, and own them and master them, and fully, as men are wont to do with women. They have then escaped the sexual desert of Earth and have found themselves brought into the radiant, glorious reality of a world such as the Earth once was, a natural world where the males are men, and the females theirs. I think that Earth females are prized on Gor for a very simple reason. Categorically mastered, and owned, they make superb slaves. They thrive in bondage. In the uncompromising domination to which they are subjected they find exaltation. Nothing less than the fullness of their womanhood is permitted them. They are grateful, joyful, to be at last a woman in the arms of a true man. In the modality of master and slave is found the recognition of, and institutionalization of, within a civilized framework of law, custom and tradition, the ancient complementarity of the sexes, a complementarity consequent upon the extreme and beautiful dimorphism, physically and psychologically, found within the human species. Nature fulfilled is nature triumphant, and nature triumphant is nature as it should be. Happiness is not evil. Joy is not wrong. How few people understand that! But, alas, how many livelihoods and profits would be jeopardized or vanish if such truisms were acknowledged! In any event, for whatever reasons, Earth girls are popular on Gor. They sell well. That doubtless explains why they are being brought to Gor in ever larger numbers.
“It is my request, if it is not too much trouble,” said Aemilianus to Calliodorus, “that both of these slaves be taken to Port Cos, and there properly branded and collared.”
I smiled. It did not seem likely that in the future there would be any doubts about Publia’s status, nor, indeed, that of Claudia either. I thought they would both look quite lovely in the garments of slaves, if they were permitted clothing.
It is common to mark slaves. The brand shows them slave; the collar usually identifies the master, thus making clear whose slave they are. The garmenture of slaves, of course, if they are permitted clothing, is usually brief and attractive. For example, in a Gorean marketplace, in a plaza or bazaar, even in a crowd, it is easy to pick out, instantly, the slaves, given the striking brevity of their tunics. Men enjoy seeing the arms and legs of slave girls, their scarcely concealed exquisite figures, honed to perfection by diet and exercise, their beautiful features, their flowing hair, which is seldom bound, and so on. They are part of the beauties of a city. Normally tunics are worn in urban areas. The common camisk and ta-teeras are usually regarded as a bit seductive for common street wear. Some men take their girls with them about the city, in their peregrinations and promenades, commonly leashed, as domestic animals, for companionship, to show them off, and such. In many areas in Gorean cities, as well, there are slave rings, to which a girl may be chained while the master busies himself elsewhere. Needless to say, it is pleasant to see these beauties kneeling or sitting, or lying, at the rings. It is one of the many lovely sights in a Gorean city. Interestingly, when women are brought into the city, to be taken to slave houses, if they are not in slave wagons and are marched in coffles, two surprisingly different practices vie for popularity. Some slavers bring the girls into the city naked, in coffle, as they would normally be kept outside the walls, to save the soiling of tunics, and such, and others sheet the girls, covering them substantially with a sheet thrown over the head, and fastened about the neck by the coffle collar. The sheet commonly reaches to the calves of the girls. Their hands in this arrangement are usually thonged behind them. One view is that the slaver who marches his lovely beasts naked is doing this as a form of advertising of wares; the other view is that the slaver who marches the girls sheeted is interesting men in what they cannot see, allowing their imaginations to flame with speculations. Another supposed advantage of the sheeted technique is that the girls are frightened and disoriented, and this increases their slave fears. Some fear in a woman is sexually stimulatory to a man, of course. It makes her easier to handle, though a brief cuffing is sometimes required. Too, interestingly, particularly at first, a bit of fear on the girl’s part can be sexually stimulatory to her, as well. It acknowledges her vulnerability and her domination, which are sexually stimulatory to her, and, on a subconscious level, the mechanisms of her body open themselves, and her, not only to receive the master but, hopefully, to render themselves, and her, more pleasing to him.
This commonly takes place, of course, not in a context of brutality and pain, but in a context of custom and tradition, and institutionalization. She knows him free; she knows herself slave.
Eventually, of course, there is little fear on the part of the slave, other than to fail to be found pleasing.
She warmly, and joyfully, surrenders herself to the arms of the master.
She loves her collar; she kisses her chains; she is filled with warmth and love; she wants to be his, and is his; she wants to be owned, and is owned; she loves to be owned, and now knows herself owned, and well owned.
She has been found desirable enough to be owned. She is that beautiful.
She is, of course, kept under discipline.
This is appropriate.
How could it be otherwise?
She is a slave.
If she is not pleasing, she must expect to be punished.
One of the major fears in a slave, of course, is that of the whip. Masters know that the fear of the whip is every bit as effective, and sometimes more so, than the whip itself. What is important, of course, is not that the girl is whipped, but that she knows she will be whipped if she is not pleasing. The awareness of the whip and its readiness, if called for, is a most potent incentive to zeal in pleasing the master. She does not wish to feel it, and will go to great lengths to escape its kiss. But she sees the whip, too, as a symbol of the mastery, and the power of the master over her. She is thus thrilled, as well as frightened, at the very sight of the whip. Few slave girls respect a man who is not strong enough to use the whip on them when they deserve it. It is part of the domination they crave. A saying of girls is, “Without the whip I am not his slave, and he is not my master.” The saying, of course, is false; if he is legally her master then he is legally her master. For example, she may find herself being sold. To be sure, there is a trivial sense of being owned which is largely a matter of legalities, and another sense in which, the legalities being firmly in place, the girl knows herself her master’s slave in a sense which brooks no misunderstanding or compromise. He will have everything from her, and she knows she will, and must, yield him everything. She begs for his chains, even to be beaten, if he should so please. She is overwhelmed with love and submission; in his arms she is wholly his, subdued and conquered, in his arms naught but a lovely, writhing, gasping, collared beast, in his arms naught but an ecstatic, ravished chattel.
A supposed advantage of the normal-coffle practice is that the women, being marched naked into a strange city look about themselves and feel themselves especially vulnerable and helpless. So, I suppose, one may take one’s pick between these practices. Each, doubtless, has its points. It might be mentioned that coffles often run a gauntlet of men, women and children who gather to see the new animals being brought in. It is not unusual for the occupants of a coffle, of either sort, to be verbally and physically abused by free women and children, the children taking the behavior of the free women as a license authorizing their own tricks and pranks, to be spat upon, struck with switches, pelted with small stones, and such. Men, on the other hand, content themselves with acclaiming or commenting on the coffle, applauding, whistling, jeering, and so on. After all, they will probably be the buyers. Sometimes the eyes of a man and that that of one of the naked jewels on the “slaver’s necklace” will meet, and each, breathlessly, will suddenly recognize the other, she recognizing him as the
long-awaited, now-discovered master of her most secret fantasies, and he recognizing her as his perfect slave, she so frequently collared in his most exciting dreams. One hopes, in such a case, that he will be able to afford her.
“And then,” said Aemilianus, “if you would, as one of these females was prepared to surrender herself to Cosians, and the other served Cosians, in betraying her city, see that they come into the keeping of Cosians.”
“That will be easy to arrange,” said Calliodorus. “There are many Cosians, envoys and such, in Port Cos.”
The girls exchanged glances. Their fates were being decided by men, but I did not think unjustly.
Both were of Ar’s Station, and thus of the heritage and traditions of Ar, but they would come into the keeping of Cosians, mortal enemies of Ar, and thus of Ar’s Station. To be sure, their fate was not unlike that of many women from Ar’s Station. As women, of course, they were spoils in the games of men. It has ever been so. Conquerors have ever led away the women of the enemy, making them theirs, to be used for their purposes, for love, service and breeding, from the thonged, stripped, switch-driven captive females of defeated cave dwellers to the contemporary, crowded holds of slave ships plying the latitudes of gleaming Thassa. On Gor wars have been fought for slaves. As a medical note, so to speak, one might recall that the inhabitants of Iceland are serologically more akin to those of Ireland than Norway. This is the result of hundreds of Irish girls, unusually exquisite girl prey, Irish females then as now being well noted for their beauty, brought back to Iceland chained between the oar benches, following the depredations of Norsemen. Doubtless as they served their masters in the halls, roasting meat and carrying flagons of mead, they heard warriors regale young men with the tales of the women of their native land. Perhaps, even, they were ordered to strip and pose before the young men, to excite them to the pursuit of the delicious emoluments doubtless awaiting them at the conclusion of a successful voyage. Would the young men not wish such a prize for their own? Would it not be pleasant to own one or more such lovely thralls? Too, one could always sell them. They would fetch high prices. And thus do captains recruit eager oarsmen for their bold ventures.
Renegades of Gor Page 47