Men would decide if and when a woman, or, better, a woman such as I, would be permitted to speak.
I was then put to my belly on the carpet, and my hands were taken behind me, and fastened together, closely, by means of one member of the second pair of nylon stockings. My ankles were then crossed and bound together by the last stocking. I tried to turn. I felt a man’s shoe on my back, pressing down, pinning me to the floor. “Lie still, kajira,” said a voice.
That word, again. Gagged, I could not even disabuse them of the notion that my name was not Kajira, but Phyllis.
I lay still. I could not part my hands, nor my ankles. The man’s foot was then removed from my back.
How dare he treat me so? I lay prone, bound, hand and foot, gagged, helpless. How I was treated! What did he think I was? Did he think I was nothing, a slave?
How could they be so stupid, I wondered, to think Paula was more interesting, or attractive, than I!
What fools they were!
There was no comparison.
I was far more beautiful!
“It is early,” said the largest man, he who had held me, he whom I took to be first amongst the three men. “We will wait a time, and depart after dark.”
“There is coffee,” said the second man, glancing into the kitchen, noticing the pertinent vessel.
“Good,” said the third man.
At a gesture Paula rose, hurried to the kitchen, and knelt beside the stove.
The men then followed her, repairing to the kitchen.
I was dragged by the arm onto the linoleum of the kitchen and thrust to one side, by the table.
“May I speak?” asked Paula, kneeling by the stove.
“Yes,” said the second man.
“Gor?” she asked, timidly.
“Yes,” he said.
“La kajira,” she said.
“We know,” he said. “We heard.”
“I beg to be collared, marked, and mastered,” she said.
“You will be,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, softly, “—Master.”
“Now,” said the large fellow, he who had held me, “serve coffee.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Appropriately,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” said Paula, and rose to busy herself with this task.
Shortly thereafter, having ascertained the preferences of our captors, she served the coffee to them, as she had to me, kneeling, lifting the cups.
Is that how a slave serves, I wondered, so subserviently, so submissively?
Did she not know she was the same as a man?
Or was she, or I, the same as a man?
What if we were not, profoundly, really?
“How is it that a beauty like you, kajira, is keeping company with such a mediocrity?” asked the third man. I felt his shoe nudge me in the ribs.
“Oh, Master,” she protested, “do not speak so! She is not a mediocrity! She is my friend. She is bright. She is chic. She wears clothes well. She is extremely beautiful! She is popular. She may be the most beautiful woman I know.”
The third man laughed.
“Now, now,” said the second man, “she is not that bad.”
“A pot girl,” said the third man.
“We would not have picked her up,” said the leader, “were it not for Kurik. She is the one he called a ‘bitch’. Apparently he found her annoying, displeasing, or such, and so decided to have her picked up and sent to Gor.”
“She will be less displeasing there,” said the second man.
“She will learn her sex there, its meaning and uses,” said the leader, “or be fed to sleen.”
I had heard Paula refer to “sleen” before, but she had not clarified the reference. I gathered that, for some reason, she had thought it better not to do so.
“It seems a shame to waste a capsule on her,” said the third man.
“Kurik was annoyed,” said the leader.
“You are too critical,” said the second man. “Many kettle-and-mat girls, and pot girls, are extremely attractive in their way, and they are as begging, and hot, and helpless, on the mat as a two-silver-piece pleasure slave.”
“We need not use a capsule on her,” said the third man. “We could keep her in a girl cage on the ship.”
“We will let Kurik decide,” said the leader.
“I think she has promise,” said the second man. “Consider the ankles, the wrists.”
“Her homeliness,” said the leader, “has nothing to do with her coloring, her figure, or such, for many men are found of such a configuration, but with her character, her impatience, her personality, her vanity, her nastiness, her pride.”
“The whip and slave gruel,” said the second man.
“Yes,” said the leader, “she might have possibilities.”
“Kurik is not a fool,” said the second man. “He might have been annoyed, but I am sure there was more to it than that. Certainly he would not recommend that every woman who is a nuisance, or bother, should be transported to Gor. He is a good judge of collar meat.”
“Possibly,” said the third man.
“Well,” said the leader, with satisfaction, looking down at Paula, “the afternoon has not been wasted.”
“Indeed not,” said the third man. “We are fortunate. How often, when one stoops to pick up a pretty pebble, a common gem, will one find a diamond, as well?”
I struggled, in fury.
“Lie still,” I was told.
“More coffee,” suggested the leader.
“Yes, Master,” said Paula.
I lay on the linoleum, helpless. Later, Paula knelt, humbly, head down, to the side.
The hands on the kitchen clock moved, sometimes it seemed slowly, sometimes rapidly.
The men played cards, at the kitchen table.
It was growing dark outside. After dark, I feared that Paula and I were to be taken somewhere. I was much aware of the time. I was much afraid. After dark, late, a metal-and-leather apparatus was drawn forth from a small case. It had a bit. It was put on Paula, from behind, and fastened in place. I do not know if they feared she might, at last, cry out, on the street, or they merely wished to familiarize her with her helplessness in a slave bit. I was angry! How willingly she submitted, even eagerly, to her bitting! I was drawn upright, rudely, to my knees, still in my bonds. They let me stay that way for a few moments, they looking down at me, perhaps that I would better know myself kneeling, and bound, before men. I put my head down. My ankles were freed, and I was drawn to my feet. My improvised gag was removed, and then I, too, was bitted. The device was forced into my mouth, and thrust back between my teeth. It locked behind the back of my neck. I realized that I could not tear it from my mouth, even had my hands been free. I wondered if slaves sometimes served in such devices, perhaps at suppers with free women present. Well then would they be reminded that they were slaves, and well then would the free women be reminded, to their pleasure, of their difference from, and their superiority to, slaves, such lowly, humble, marketable, negligible beasts. I would later learn that there were several varieties of slave bits, which differ considerably, aesthetically, and in comfort, while being uniform in their efficiency, that with respect to rendering a slave incapable of speech. A major difference amongst such bits is with respect to their closure. That in which Paula had been placed, and that in which I was shortly thereafter placed, once snapped shut, could be opened only by a tool or key. In that sense they were much like slave collars. Such bits are commonly used when one or both hands of a girl are free. Most bits, however, indeed almost all I would become familiar with, are intended, like the common gag, to be used with a bound or braceleted slave who, given her securing, cannot reach the device. In such a case, a keyed lock, most often, is not deemed necessary. It might, of co
urse, be used in some cases, as when one wishes to preclude certain possibilities, say, a secured slave’s responses, once relieved of the device, to a stranger’s questions. Also, any attempt to adjust, ease, or remove a bit or gag is cause for discipline. Accordingly, gagged or bitted slaves, even if their hands are free, would seldom dare to touch the gag or device. It was put on them by a master. Thus, they must wait until the master sees fit to relieve them of the impediment. Such things help a girl better understand her slavery. The keyed devices in which Paula and I were placed were doubtless intended to make it impossible for us, should we attempt to do so, to dislodge the bits. My wrists were still bound behind me, tightly, with one of my nylon stockings. A handcuff was snapped about Paula’s right wrist, and she was drawn toward me. The other cuff was then snapped about my left wrist, after which I was unbound. We then stood before the men, bitted, and handcuffed together, her right wrist to my left wrist. The cuffs were the same as those in which I had earlier awakened. We were then hooded, blankets thrown over us, and belted about our necks.
“You will be fed in the van,” said the leader.
“Slave biscuits,” laughed the third man.
The simplicity of his remark startled me, and dismayed me. I did not fully understand it, but I was frightened. Slave biscuits! Did he think I was an animal? To be sure, when I was hungry, I would learn to accept such fare, even beg for it.
“The trip,” said the leader, “will take several hours. There will be a sheet on the floor of the van. I trust you will be comfortable. You may have to be caged for a time in the warehouse, as additional stock is expected.”
I was not stock, I wished to protest, but could not do so, as I was bitted. And, too, I feared I was now stock.
Chapter Four
In the van, after the first hour, we were unhooded and unbitted. We were given small, thick disks of what I took to be some sort of unleavened bread.
“Eat,” said one of our captors, who rode with us in the back of the van.
We obeyed.
We were given water, as well.
We were not permitted speech.
We were kept handcuffed together.
This very much displeased me, for I had taken a great dislike to Paula. She was not more attractive than I! I had rather scorned her, and even felt sorry for her before. Now I resented her. One needed only examine the models in the fashion magazines, watch television commercials, watch beauty pageants, attend to the standardized ideals of womanhood promoted in our culture, so much at odds with the normal, typical woman, to recognize the naivety and ignorance of our captors. They knew no more about beauty than sculptors and painters, from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissance, to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, and so on. But, too, if she was really so beautiful, I was not that different from her, really! I suppose she was intelligent, but surely not more intelligent than I. She could not be too intelligent; she read books. There was likely to be little there, in such reading, having to do with enhancing your appearance, improving your popularity, manipulating others, advancing your career, or such.
“May we speak, Master?” asked Paula.
“No,” he said.
“Well, I will speak,” I informed him.
“Do you wish to wear a slave bit?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “no!”
I had had more than enough of that hideous device. I would do much to avoid it. I would be very obedient. I would try to be pleasing. I would smile. If worse came to worst, I might even let one of those insensitive brutes kiss me.
“In another hour,” said the fellow, after a time, glancing at his watch, “we will arrive at the embarkation point. You will be briefly housed there, with others, in a well-lit subterranean warehouse, prior to your shipping. You will not be shipped immediately, as other merchandise is currently en route to the embarkation point. You will receive a briefing, a short orientation, such that you will understand what you now are and what you are now for, and some preliminary training. We want you to survive your first week on Gor.”
“Gor!” I thought. “Surely he does not expect us to believe that there is such a place, supposedly another planet, supposedly another world!”
“Your serious training will take place in one of several houses,” he said. “We supply such houses. Some houses conduct their own sales; others commonly have arrangements with independent markets.”
I shuddered.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
I nodded. I wore only the silk nightgown.
He removed his jacket, and put it about me.
We then remained silent, as before. We had not been permitted to speak.
The van sped on.
Chapter Five
The van had slowed, and turned, and was now jolting over a rough surface. We drove for some twenty or thirty minutes. There were apparently dips in the road. We occasionally heard branches brush the sides and roof of the vehicle.
The van stopped.
“We must clear the gate,” said the fellow with us. “There are hidden surveillance cameras, the fence is charged.”
I assumed that this, the clearing or whatever it might be, would be done from the outside, or that the men in the cab would attend to it. Certainly our captor showed no indication of leaving us alone in the van. Unattended, even handcuffed together, might we not have attempted flight?
But I was afraid that Paula, even given such an opportunity, might have dallied, or, if she ran, it would have been merely for my sake, that I might not have been impeded.
Did she long to be on a chain? Did she hope to belong to a man, categorically, as no more than his possession?
He lifted the lid of a box to his left.
I did not understand this.
We heard a creaking, as of the swinging of two large objects, presumably the leaves of a gate.
The man with us reached into the box to his left, and withdrew two objects, apparently of pliant, folded leather.
The van moved a little ahead, and then stopped again.
One of the two men in the cab, I gathered, had left the vehicle.
“We have cleared the gate,” said the man with us. He shook out the two objects he had removed from the box to his left. They were leather and sacklike; each had a short belt threaded through leather belt loops. I noted, as well, on each object, two rings, and what appeared to be a small lock of some sort.
I was uneasy.
We heard the creaking sound again, followed by a sound of joining and locking metal, and a rattle of chain.
“You are going to be hooded,” said the man with us. “Hold still.”
The leather, sacklike thing was drawn over my head, and, with the belt, drawn shut under my chin. It was apparently buckled shut. Then I heard a tiny sound of metal, and the click of a small lock.
I could see nothing. I felt helpless. I wanted to scream with fear. I put my right hand to the apparatus, fumbling at the buckle behind my neck.
“Put your hand down, kajira,” he said. “You cannot remove it. It is locked on you.”
I would soon grow accustomed to such devices, and how helpless I would be in them.
I lowered my hand. My name was not ‘Kajira’. It was ‘Phyllis’, ‘Phyllis’!
I could clearly hear Paula being served with a similar device.
A moment or two later the fellow who had left the vehicle returned. We heard the door of the cab close.
The van then lurched ahead, again.
A minute or two later it stopped, again, and, a moment later, we sensed the fellows in the cab leave the vehicle.
I felt the jacket removed from my shoulders. I felt chilly. I wore only the nightgown. My knees were drawn up, as I sat on the van floor. I was barefoot. I supposed our captor then donned the jacket.
Shortly thereafter we heard the gate at the back of th
e van lifted. I felt cold air rush into the vehicle. It might still be dark. I did not know. I shivered.
“Two,” said a voice.
“On your feet, kajirae,” said our captor. “Move to the door; you will be lifted to the walkway.”
I moved gingerly toward the opening, Paula drawn hesitantly, cautiously, after me, by her right wrist.
I was taken into someone’s arms, powerful, masculine arms, and lifted from the van, and placed on a wooden surface. Almost simultaneously, my left wrist fastened to her right wrist, Paula, doubtless similarly in someone’s arms, was deposited beside me.
I heard the fellow who had been with us in the van descend to the walkway. “You are going to be ankleted,” he said, “placed in numbered anklets. Do not try to remove the anklets. You will not be able to do so. They will be locked on you. We will keep track of you by means of the numbers. They will identify you in our records, where your hair and eye color, your measurements, and such, will be recorded. It is important to keep track of one’s stock. If it is helpful, you may begin to think of yourselves as what you now are, objects, or animals, stock, only that. You no longer have names, unless we choose to give you names. I wish you well, sweet beasts. May you find yourselves well collared, and subject to the whips of strong masters.”
How helpless we were, where we knew not, hooded and handcuffed together.
“This way,” said a voice, and I felt a hand grasp my upper right arm.
We were conducted along a wooden walkway. I could hear the shoes, or boots, of the men on the boards. We were then stopped. I heard the sound of a key in a lock, and a hasp being freed from its staple. Shortly thereafter I heard a door, I think a wooden door, swung back, and we were led within what I supposed might be a shed. The floor was of wood, as had been the walkway. Then we were stopped again. The next sound I heard seemed incongruous with the others. It did not fit in with the apparent primitiveness, or rurality, I had assumed characterized my surroundings.
Plunder of Gor Page 5