I glanced about, at the other Waniyanpi women kneeling near her. They were, I take it, her harness mates, responsible with her, I supposed, for drawing one of the travois.
"Are you happy?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said. "I am wonderfully and gloriously happy. That must be clearly understood."
"I understand," I said.
"Oh," she said, lifted in my arms. I then carried her several yards away, among the lodges. I then lowered her to her knees in a quiet spot.
"Are we alone?" she begged.
"Yes," I said.
She began to sob inside her hood.
She reached out, desperately, and held me about the legs, I standing before her. She pressed her cheek against my thigh. I could feel the hood, hot and damp, soaked with tears, between her cheek and my leg.
"Save me from them," she wept. "They are lunatics. They forswear the most obvious truths of human nature. Among them the males cannot be men and the females cannot be women. It is a sick, perverted world! They struggle against passion. They are afraid to feel. They are terrorized by desire. They pervert their reason. They deny their senses. They are mad, all of them!"
I crouched down and took the sobbing woman in my arms.
"They will make me ashamed of my body," she wept. "They may drive me insane, I do not want their dismal peace, their pathological tranquillity, their vacuous serenity. I am not a turtle. I am not a vegetable. I am a woman. I want to be what I am, truly. I do not want to be ashamed of my needs or my sex. I want to live, and feel!"
She was Gorean woman. This had made the transition to a Waniyanpi community additionally difficult for her. The transition, presumably, because of their conditioning and upbringing, having acclimated them to what, in effect, were Waniyanpi values, would doubtless have been much easier for a woman from Earth.
"It is not wrong to want to be alive, is it?" she asked.
"No," I said, "it is not wrong to want that."
"They pretend to be happy," she said, "but they are not happy. They are miserable, and filled with hate."
"Let us rejoice," I said, "that their madness is confined to a handful of isolated compounds in the wilderness." How frightful it would be, I thought, if such an arid lunacy should infect a wider domain.
"Save me from them," she begged.
"It is not practical," I said.
She sobbed anew, and I held her more closely.
"You were found with the soldiers," I said. "That is doubtless why you were sent to a Waniyanpi community. It is your punishment."
"A most just and suitable punishment," she said, bitterly.
"Yes," I said. It was a particularly terrible punishment, of course, for a woman such as she, one who had some idea of the possibilities of life and feeling.
"Better to be the lowest slave, naked and chained, of the cruelest master on Gor," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Look," she said, drawing back, sobbing, putting her hands to the hood. "They are afraid even to let us see true men."
"It is perhaps more merciful that way," I said. "That way, perhaps, you will experience less distress and torment when you return to the Waniyanpi compound."
"But I have known true men," she said.
"That makes it much harder for you, of course," I admitted.
"I hunger for the touch of a true man," she said. "Waniyanpi males are weak, pathetic and meaningless."
"It may not be their fault," I said. "They may be only trying to fulfill the stereotypes of their culture."
"We were made to chew sip roots on the way to the camp," she said, "to protect us, if our red masters should choose to seize and rape us."
"The precaution, however," I said, "proved unnecessary, did it not?"
"Yes," she said. "We are only Waniyanpi females. No man wants us."
I did not speak.
"They do not fear our men, do they?" she asked.
"No," I laughed. "Even a boy would think nothing of using you in the presence of an entire work crew of Waniyanpi males, if he felt like it. They would not interfere."
"Why are we not desired?" she asked.
"You are taught, explicitly or implicitly," I said, "to behave and dress unattractively, even, so to speak, to think unattractively. Most males, thusly, assuming them to be vital and healthy, would not be likely to find a Waniyanpi woman of much interest. They might tend to think of them as being, in some odd way, repulsively unnatural, or, perhaps, worse, as being mentally ill. Too, of course, in the camps of our red masters you must realize that there are alternatives available."
"We are not really like that," she said.
"I do not suppose you are," I said.
"We have needs and hungers, too," she said.
"I suppose you do," I said. It did seem to me that the usual male assessment of the Waniyanpi female was likely to be somewhat hasty and negative. Men are often too abrupt, it seems to me, in their judgments. They might profit from some instruction in patience. Such women, unfulfilled as females, starved for male domination, I supposed, taken sternly in hand, stripped and put to a man's feet, might prove to be grateful and rewarding slaves. In a matter of days, I suspected, it might be difficult to tell one, licking and kissing at one's feet, warmly, lovingly and gratefully, from a more normal slave.
"I suppose, if a man were sufficiently desperate," she said, "he might find us of interest."
"Probably," I said. Studies and case histories suggested that this sort of thing was true.
"The least desirable," she said, bitterly, "are the last desired."
"Perhaps," I said.
"It is so ironic!" she said.
"What?" I asked.
"When I was free, in Venna, and elsewhere," she said, "I was desired and could not be obtained. Now that I am a slave and can be obtained, I am not desired."
"I see," I said.
"It is a new experience for me, and one not to my liking, not to be desired."
"Oh?" I said.
"I had thought, when free," she said, "that if ever I fell slave, men would put me frequently to their pleasure."
"That is common with slaves," I said. "It was a fair assumption."
"And that I must needs fear only that I might not sufficiently please them."
"To be sure," I said, "a natural fear with slaves."
"But not once," she said, "have I been put to the service of my masters."
"Surely you have frightened fleer from the maize, gardened and picked produce," I said.
"But not once," she said, angrily, "have they put me to their intimate service, forcing me to perform with the skills and talents of the female slave."
"It is perhaps just as well," I said. "You were a free woman, and you have not had much training. If you did not do well, you might be whipped severely, or perhaps slain."
"Oh," she said.
"Being a slave girl is very different from being a free woman," I said. "From a free woman a man expects little, or nothing. From a slave girl, on the other hand, he expects, as it is said, everything, and more."
"I understand," she said.
"A free woman may be valueless and, if she wishes, account this a virtue. A slave, on the other hand, must be superbly pleasing. She must see to it, with all her intelligence and beauty, that she is her master's attentive, sensitive, skillful treasure."
"I would like to be such a treasure to a man," she said.
I did not speak.
"May I call you 'Master'?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"When I was free, I was regarded as being very beautiful. Indeed, it was said by some that I was as beautiful, even, as a slave."
"A high compliment," I acknowledged. I recalled the first time I had ever seen her, on her curule chair, on her high cart, in the column of the Kurii and mercenaries. She had worn the robes of concealment, but only a wisp of diaphanous silk, presumably by intent, had feigned to hide her feature
s. I recalled, even then, wondering what she might look like in the shimmering dancing silks of an enslaved female or, say, stripped and collared, crawling to a man's feet.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
How different, then, was that absurd pretense of a veil, that sweet diaphanous sheen of material, compared to the rude, coarse sack which had now been tied over her head. How disgusting were the Waniyanpi.
"Surely I am no less beautiful now than I was then," she said.
"Perhaps," I granted her.
"And now I am a slave," she said.
"That is true," I said.
"Have me," she begged, suddenly. "Touch me. Caress me. Hold me. Take me!"
"But you are a Waniyanpi female," I said, "above sex. That has been decided by your masters."
"I am a slave," she said. "I need the touch of a man."
"But you have been rescued from sex," I said. "You have been accorded honor and dignity. You have been made identical to a certain form of male. This is supposed to be what you want. You are now, your nature betrayed and nullified, supposed to be happy and fulfilled."
"I am miserable," she wept.
"Interesting," I said.
"I am a woman," she said. "I need attention as a woman. Comfort me. Hold me. Be kind to me."
I did not speak.
"Whip me, beat me, if you wish," she said, "but pay attention to me as a woman. I am a woman. Let me, I beg you, be a woman."
"That is not permitted, as I understand it," I said, "to the Waniyanpi female."
"I have been put with the Waniyanpi," she said. "It was my punishment. But I am not one of them. Take pity on me. Have mercy on me. I am not truly a Waniyanpi female. I am a woman. I have the feelings of a woman. I want the sensations of a woman. I need the sensations of a woman. Have mercy on me, Master!"
"You do not now seem to be a proud agent of Kurii," I said.
"I am no longer an agent of Kurii," she said. "I am now only a female slave."
"And a pleading female slave, it seems," I said.
"Yes," she said, "I am now only a pleading female slave."
I did not speak.
"I know, now," she said, "that I am not garbed attractively and that a sack has been put over my head but underneath these things I am a woman, with a woman's needs and desires. That cannot be concealed by all the lies and the coarse, cruel cloth in the world. No shameful or pernicious raiment, no imposed masking of the features, no falsity of the tongue or mind can change what I am, a woman."
I did not speak.
"I strive to interest you," she said.
"It would not be good for me to accede to your request," I said. She must, after all, return to the compound of the Waniyanpi.
"You saw me stripped and in a yoke," she said, "tied to the axle of a wagon."
"Yes," I said.
"Am I not attractive?" she asked.
"You are," I said.
"And do you not find me attractive?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Have me," she said.
"It would not be wise," I said. I did not think it would be good for her.
"I beg to be put to your service, Master," she said.
"And if you were," I asked, "what would you fear?"
"Only that I might not please you sufficiently," she said.
"The answer is suitable," I said.
"Touch me, have me," she begged.
I did not respond to her.
"You are still there, are you not?" she asked, frightened, kneeling, reaching out. "You have not left me?"
"No," I said. "I am here."
"I have chewed sip root," she said, plaintively. "We women from the compound, dragging the travois, were all made to do that, to protect us should we be taken and raped by our masters."
"I understand," I said.
"You have nothing to fear," she said.
"I understand," I said. It would be difficult to explain to her, I conjectured, that my concern in this matter was not for myself, but for her. The memory of a man's touch, of any man's touch, I thought, would be a cruel souvenir for her to carry back to the compound. I did not think that that memory would make the bleakness and loneliness of the compound easier to bear. It is better, perhaps, for one who must live on porridge never to know the taste of meat and wine. If one must live with the Waniyanpi, perhaps it is best to be of the Waniyanpi. It is, at any rate, safer. Sanity can be perilous in a country of lunatics.
"Please," she begged. "Touch me, hold me, let me know that men still truly exist."
"You surely, as a former free woman," I said, "have known the touch of men, their arms."
"But only on my own terms," she said, "never as what I am now, a slave."
"I see," I said. To be sure, perhaps it is only the female slave, the woman at the total mercy of a master, who can know, truly, what it is to be in the arms of a man, what it is, truly, helplessly, to feel their touch.
"Please," she said.
"You must be returned to the Waniyanpi," I said.
"Have me," she begged. "I will serve you even as a slave."
"What did you say?" I demanded.
"I will serve you even as a slave," she whispered, timidly.
I seized her, cruelly, by the upper arms. I shook her once, viciously. "Oh!" she cried, in misery.
"You are a slave," I told her. I then shook her again, and flung her, viciously, to the dirt.
"Yes, Master!" she said, in the hood. "Yes, Master!"
"You are no longer a proud free woman," I told her. "You are now a slave, and only a slave! If you are used, of course, you will be used as the mere beast, and slave, you are!"
"Yes, Master!" she whimpered.
I looked down at her, angrily. Arrogance, even inadvertent arrogance, in a slave is not accepted. She lay on her side, in the dirt, her head in the hood. The gray dress had come up now, high on her right thigh. Her leg was beautiful. I clenched my fists, that I might not subject the frightened, lovely embonded beast to the treatment suitable to her condition.
"Let me be a woman," she begged. "Let me be a woman!"
I considered the Waniyanpi. "It is against the law," I said.
I then lifted her up and threw her, she helpless and hooded, over my shoulder.
"I hate you, I hate you," she wept. "I hate you!"
I then carried her back to the shelter and put her, again, with her sisters, her harness mates, other females of the Waniyanpi.
15
Hci's Trick
"Behold!" said Hci. "In good faith do I greet you! In the time of the festivals, now, let us make good feelings between us."
"Greetings," said Canka, standing before his lodge.
Behind Hci were two of his fellows, of the Sleen Soldiers. One held a string of twenty kaiila.
"Demonstrating the warmth that is in my heart for you," said Hci, "I give you twenty kaiila!" He motioned for the fellow with the kaiila to come forward.
"Do not!" said Canka.
"They are yours!" cried Hci, with an expansive wave of his hand.
"I do not have twenty kaiila," said Canka. "I am not the son of a chief."
"You need not return me kaiila," said Hci, concernedly. "You will not lose honor, as you know, if you return to me, in magnanimous reciprocity, something of comparable value."
"But what might I have of comparable value?" protested Canka, angrily. It seemed clear that he was to be outdone in the giving of gifts, in the display of generosity. Technically, of course, Hci should not have offered gifts to Canka of a value which Canka could not repay. Such might shame or embarrass the recipient.
"Her," said Hci, pointing to Winyela, standing near the lodge entrance. "I will take her!"
Winyela turned white.
"No!" cried Canka. "I will not give her up! She is mine!"
"I have given you a gift of great value," said Hci, as though puzzled. "You will give me nothing in return?"
"You may not have her!" said Canka
.
"Very well, my friend," said Hci. He looked about at his fellows, and the others, too, of which there were now several, about. He smiled broadly. "The kaiila, however, having been given, are yours. I do not regret my generosity. I regret only that you have taken so surly an attitude in this matter."
One of the Sleen Soldiers with Hci slapped his thigh with amusement. There was laughter, too, from others gathered about. More red savages, as if from nowhere, the word of Hci's visit to the lodge of Canka apparently having rapidly spread, appeared. There was now a crowd in front of the lodge.
"I have given Canka twenty kaiila," said Hci to the crowd. "In return he does not give me even one she-kaiila." He pointed to Winyela.
There was laughter from the crowd.
"Take back your kaiila!" said Canka, angrily.
"How can that be done?" asked Hci. "They have already been given."
"I give them back to you!" said Canka, in fury.
"Very well," said Hci, smiling. His fellow of the Sleen Soldiers tightened his grip on the lead rope.
"Hci is very clever," said Cuwignaka to me. "He knows Canka does not wish to surrender Winyela. His caring for her is now well known in the camp. Even so, he did not put his plan into effect until after Canka had refused to give her to his father, Mahpiyasapa, for the Yellow Knives. If Canka would not surrender her to Mahpiyasapa he would not, of course, surrender her to Hci in an exchange of gifts."
"Hci, then," I said, "did not expect to obtain Winyela."
"Of course not," said Cuwignaka. "I do not even think he wants her. She is pretty but there are many pretty girls in camp. The Isanna have more than two hundred. Too, he may be the son of a chief, but he is still only a young man. He would not want to pay twenty kaiila for such a woman. For a young man that would be a crazy price to pay. She is only a white slave. A young man would not want to pay more than four or five kaiila for such a woman. Most white slaves go for a hide or less. Besides, after the cutting of his face, Hci has, for the most part, avoided the company of women, even slaves. Hci, I think, would rather kill Fleer and Yellow Knives than master slaves."
"He is, then, risking nothing," I said.
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