Explorers of Gor

by John Norman

  The blond-haired barbarian dropped some twigs on the fire.

  "Why are you feeding the fire now?" I asked.

  "Forgive me, Master," she said.

  I smiled. She did not wish to retire so soon. But surely she knew it was nearly time for me to tie her at the slave post.

  "It is time to secure you," I said.

  "Must I be secured tonight?" she asked. Then she looked frightened. "Forgive me, Master," she said. "Please do not whip me."

  "Go sit with your back to the slave post, in binding position," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I let her sit there for a few minutes. She did not dare to look back at me over her shoulder.

  "Come here," I then said, "and kneel before me."

  She did so. "Please do not strike me, Master," she begged.

  "What is on your mind tonight?" I asked.

  "Nothing, Master," she stammered, her head down.

  "You may speak," I said.

  "I dare not," she whispered.

  "Speak," I said.

  "Tende and Alice are clothed," she said.

  "They are scarcely clothed," I said, "and the bit of rag they wear may be stripped away from them in an instant on the least whim of a master."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  She looked at me, agonized, tears in her eyes.

  "Do you, an Earth woman," I asked, "desire again that opportunity, once afforded to you, but rejected by you, to beg to earn clothing?"

  "Yes, Master," she said. "I beg that opportunity."

  "Though you are an Earth woman?"

  "Yes, though I am an Earth woman, Master," she said.

  "It is yours, Earth woman," I said.

  She put down her head. "I beg clothing, Master," she sobbed.

  "Do you beg to earn it?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "In any way that I see fit?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she sobbed.

  "In such a situation as this, formerly," I said, "you spoke of Alice, your sister in bondage, as a whore."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "It now seems that it is you," I said, "who are the whore."

  "Yes, Master," she said. "It is now I who am the whore."

  "But you are mistaken," I said, "in your own case, as you were in the case of Alice."

  She lifted her head. "Master?" she asked.

  "In your vanity," I said, "you dignify yourself."

  "Master?"

  "Do you think you are free?" I asked.

  "No," she said.

  "The whore," I said, "is a free woman. Do not presume, in your insolence, lest you be cut to pieces, to compare yourself with her. She is a thousand times higher than you. You are a thousand times lower than she. She is free. You are slave."

  "Yes, Master," she said, sobbing, head down. "Please forgive me, Master." She shook with emotion.

  I regarded her.

  "I beg to earn clothing, in any way my master may see fit," she said, "and I, humbly, beg this as what I am, only a slave."

  She lifted her head. Our eyes met.

  "Engage in female display behaviors," I said.

  "Master?" she asked.

  "Female display behaviors," I said. "Surely you are familiar with the biological concept, and the sorts of behavioral patterns which are subsumed beneath it."

  She looked at me.

  "They are quite common," I said, "in the animal kingdom."

  "I am not an animal," she said.

  "The human being," I said, "is not alien to nature, nor disjointed from it. He is, in some respects, one of its most interesting and sophisticated products. He is not something out of nature nor apart from nature but one of its complex fulfillments. It is not that he is less an animal than, say, the zeder or sleen, but rather that he is a more complicated animal than they. In a sense, given the rigors of evolution and selection, the human contains in itself not less animality than his brethren whom we choose to place lower on the phylogenetic scale than ourselves but more. The human is not less of an animal than they, but more. In him there is, in a sense, that of complexity and sophistication, a greater animality than theirs."

  "I am aware, as any educated person," she said, "of our animal heritage."

  "It is not only your heritage," I said. "It is, now, and recognize it, if you dare, your reality."

  She looked down.

  "Perhaps, someday," I said, "sleen will become sufficiently intellectual to make mistakes in reasoning. When they do, their first fallacy will doubtless be to decide that they are not really sleen."

  "That is silly," she said. She smiled.

  "Is it less silly," I asked, "if it is done by human beings?"

  "Perhaps not," she said.

  "To be sure," I said, "if I have a problem in algebra I will give it to a mathematician before I will turn it over to a sleen. The reason for that, however, is not that the sleen is an animal and the mathematician is not, but rather that the mathematician is better at algebra than a sleen. The word 'animal' may be used in various senses, not all of them complimentary to animals. In the literal sense of 'animal' the human being is an animal. In a rather different sense of 'animal', we sometimes draw a distinction between human beings and animals, that is, we take the category of animals and divide it in two, calling one sort of animals, ourselves, human beings, and letting what is left over, the other sorts of animals, count as the animals. Do not ask me to explain the logic of that distinction. There are also senses of 'animal' which are complimentary and derogatory, for example, 'He has an animal charm' or 'He acts like an animal when he is drunk'."

  I looked at her.

  "Also," I said, "if you are interested in these matters, you are not simply an animal in the literal sense, in the biological sense of 'animal', but in the sense that persons, individuals with rights before the law, are distinguished from animals."

  She regarded me, frightened.

  "In that sense, my dear," I said, "I am not an animal, and you are an animal. Yes, my dear, you are legally an animal. In the eyes of Gorean law you are an animal. You have no name in your own right. You may be collared and leashed. You may be bought and sold, whipped, treated as the master pleases, disposed of as he sees fit. You have no rights whatsoever. Legally you have no more status than a tarsk or vulo. Legally, literally, you are an animal."

  "Yes, Master," she whispered.

  "You may now engage in female display behaviors," I said.

  "I do not know any," she said.

  I laughed.

  "I am not a lewd girl," she said.

  "Does the slave have pride?" I asked.

  "No, Master," she said.

  "Perform," I said.

  "I do not know how," she wept. "I do not know how!"

  "Peel away the hideous encrustations of your antibiological conditioning," I told her. "Hidden in every cell in your body, in the genetic codes of each minute cell, the product of a long, complex evolution, lie the marvels of which I speak. In the deepest part of your brain lies the provocation to these truths. You are the result of thousands upon thousands of women who have pleased men. Evolution has selected for such women. Do not tell me that you do not know these behaviors. Deny them, if you will, but they have been bred into you. They are a part of your very being. They are, my sweet slave, in your very blood."

  "No," she wept.

  "Perform," I said.

  She threw back her head with misery, and clutched at her hair and then, suddenly, startled, her hands at her hair, looked at me, her eyes wide. The line of her breasts had been lifted nicely.

  "Yes," I said, "consult the animal in you."

  "What am I doing?" she wept.

  She now sat, and extended her leg, and took her right ankle in her hands, and moved her hands slowly from her ankle to her calf. Her toes were pointed, emphasizing the sweet curve of her calf.

  "Is it not now coming back to you?" I asked. "Is it not almost like a memory, a kinesthetic and intellectual
recollection? Are you not now getting in touch with certain feared basic and rudimentary feelings and reactions? Can you not, now, begin to sense the ancient truths, those of the female before the male?"

  "I am frightened," she whispered.

  "Build up the fire," I said.

  "Master?" she asked.

  "That I may better see my female perform."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I watched her gather twigs, how she walked, how she held them, how she returned to the fire and, kneeling, sometimes glancing at me, placed them on the fire. As I had thought she was even then engaging in female display behavior. I had thought she would. I wondered if she were fully conscious of what she did. I suspect she was only partly aware of it. And yet, clearly, I saw that she was excited. How subtly and marvelously she manifested her beauty. In so small a thing as the way in which a woman places a plate on the table before a man, or a twig upon a small fire, she may invite him to her rape. I do not think she was fully conscious of how provocative she was. Yet, doubtless, she was intensely aware of my eyes upon her. I wondered if women knew how beautiful they were. I supposed not. Otherwise why would any of them be puzzled when they were enslaved. I observed her movements. She had begun to recognize her bondage, to understand, in her heart, that she was truly a slave girl.

  "You move as a slave girl before her master," I said.

  "I am a slave girl before my master," she said.

  The slave girl moves, and carries herself, differently from a free woman. This is evident in such small things as fetching a cup for her master or in pouring his wine. These movements, and bodily attitudes and postures, subtle and beautiful, difficult to fully disguise, have betrayed more than one slave beauty who, disguised as a free woman, has sought to flee a city. The spears of guards, lowered, to her dismay, suddenly block her way. "Where are you going, Slave?" they ask. She is then knelt and stripped, her collar and brand revealed. Returned to her master, she may be confident that her punishment will not be light.

  I looked at the slave.

  An Earth woman who exhibits sensuous movement is commonly ostracized or in some other way socially punished. The contempt in which the exotic dancer on Earth is held, despite the richness of her music and beauty, is a symptom of this pathology. The freedoms of the Earth woman do not extend to the point where she is permitted to move as a woman. That she is not supposed to be free to do. The freedoms of the Earth woman, in effect, are freedoms to conform, within rather narrow limits, to certain socially approved stereotypes. Females of Earth, not permitted to move as women, are expected to perform what are, in effect, male-imitation movements. It is little wonder that they occasionally, crying out with frustration, dance naked before a mirror. It is little wonder that in their dreams they are roped and thrown to warriors. On Gor, of course, the woman, if she be slave, is no longer prohibited, because of cultural requirements, from expressing the kinesthetic realities of her womanhood. The slave girl learns to think of herself as deeply and radically feminine, as uncompromisingly feminine. She thus, soon unconsciously, thinks and moves as what she is, a female. Moreover there is a special modality to the movements of the slave girl. She knows not only that she is a female, but a female in the most radical and profound sense, an owned female, one at the bidding of masters. This excites her, and cannot help but be reflected in her movements. She is the most natural, biological, and profound of women, the woman at the mercy of men, who must obey and serve them, the slave girl.

  The blond-haired barbarian put a bit more wood on the fire. I smiled. The men of Earth think often of sex as a simple matter of explicit congress. This is, however, much too limited. The perimeters of sex are not limited to those of physiological union. Any woman, I suppose, knows this; it is unfortunate that it is not recognized by more men. The blond-haired barbarian and I, she beneath my will, were now surely intensely engaged in sex; yet she was feet from me, and I was not touching her.

  "The fire is high enough," I said. "Now kneel before me, Slave."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Stretch like the sleek little animal you are," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Now rise gracefully," I said, "and walk back and forth before me."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I watched her. "You are a pretty slave," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "Now stand before me, and lower your head."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Lift your head again, and lower it again," I said, "this time more deferentially."

  "I obey, Master," she said. She again lifted her head and, this time, slowly, gracefully, deferentially, inclined it to me.

  "Excellent," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "You now stand before your master," I said, "your neck bent in submission."

  "Yes, my Master," she said.

  "Lift your head now," I said, "and look at me."

  "Yes, Master," she said. She did so.

  "You are an Earth woman," I said. "On Earth, as I understand it," I said, "your delicious and vulnerable animality, your feminine animality, the most basic and deepest female of you, helpless and needful, was, as a matter of cultural policy, consistently suppressed and frustrated."

  "Yes, Master," she whispered.

  "Did you daydream?" I asked.

  "I fought them," she said.

  "Foolish," I said.

  "But they kept recurring," she said.

  "Of course," I said.

  She looked at me.

  "Was there a common theme?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, "myself in a position of submission before men."

  "That is natural," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And at night," I said, "occasionally erupting from the depths of your mind, indicative of your cruelly frustrated needs and desires, were certain sorts of dreams."

  "Yes, Master," she whispered.

  "Describe to me now one of them."

  "There was one of them which more than once I dreamed," she said, "which returned to me, again and again."

  "Describe it to me," I said.

  "But such things are so private to a woman," she said.

  "You are a slave," I reminded her.

  "Yes, Master," she said. "Forgive me, Master. Such things are so private to—to a girl."

  She was, of course, in her status, as well as in her vulnerability, desirability, and beauty, well thought of in terms of that category. Too, objectively, she was youthful. Kur slavers tended to bring such women to Gor. The stabilization serums, administered to such, routinely, often while the subject was unconscious, would then see to the retention, even the enhancement, of this youthful beauty, with all its attractiveness and charms. Such women, of course, sell well.

  Perhaps a remark on the appropriateness of expressions might not be amiss at this point.

  In the use of expressions, say, such as 'woman' and 'girl', much depends on context. In one context, for example, as in the current context, the expression 'girl' is beautifully appropriate, its use being justified not only by descriptive accuracy, a concern with physiological veridicality, so to speak, but by social aptness, institutional relevance, instructional utility, and such. Too, does it not suggest youth, freshness, excitement, desirability, attractiveness, and, to some extent, beauty, helplessness, and vulnerability? In some other context, on the other hand, the deep, slave richness of the luscious expression 'woman' would seem more deliciously appropriate. For example, consider the locution: "Woman is slave." There, clearly, "Girl is slave" would not be correct. What is meant to be conveyed in the latter context is that according to a respected nature's decree, having to do with a thousand subtleties, principles, and genetic linkages, the male in our species is dominant, and powerfully so, not the female. Anything else is a perversion of nature, and results in unhappiness, misery, confusion, frustration, and, often, ill health, mental and physical, for both sexes. Indeed, the
denial of, and abuse of, nature can shorten lives.

  It is interesting that considerable attention, upon Earth, should be directed toward relatively minor, but certainly serious and real, threats to human life, such as the inhalation of, or the ingestion of, certain substances, while the ill effects of a pervasive pathological conditioning program, which distorts, disfigures, twists, and stunts the natural relationship between the sexes are ignored. Indeed, these cultural poisons, despite their deleterious consequences in human costs, are recommended for universal inhalation, and ingestion, so to speak. The atmosphere smokes with the fumes of falsehood. There is more concern on Earth for the health of trees than humans. The political concern with the flourishing of nature stops short at human nature. Politics is interesting, particularly if viewed with equanimity from afar, rather than from within, as human ruins collapse about one.

  "Speak, Slave," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said. "It seems I was in the jungles of South America, a continent on my native world, Earth, or perhaps it was some other world. I do not know. I was a traveler, or tourist. There was some group involved. The details are unclear. We were examining the ruins of an ancient civilization, great blocks of stone, huge, frightening carvings."

  "Yes?" I said.

  "I wore boots, and a skirt and a short-sleeved blouse," she said, "and a helmet, of lightweight material, to protect me from the sun. Too, I wore sunglasses, pieces of colored glass sometimes worn by those of Earth before their eyes, sometimes to guard their expressions and features, but usually to reduce the glare of a bright sun."

  "I understand," I said.

  "'What is that carving?' I asked our native guide. He was a tall red man, handsome and strong. He wore an open-throated blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. It is like a half-tunic for the torso, with sleeves. Too, he wore blue trousers. Such a garment covers the lower body, and fits about the legs."