Could it be true, what he said, I wondered. If so, what an inordinate gift I might receive, and yet it would not be a gift, truly, but merely something done in the interests of the free, that their properties, such as I, might remain more valuable!
I dared to meet his eyes. Then, frightened, I quickly lowered my eyes.
“Would you like to lick and kiss my feet,” he asked, “a suitable act of deference from one such as you?”
I shook my head negatively, timidly.
“You will be a good girl, will you not?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“‘Yes’?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “I will be a good girl.”
“‘Yes’?” he said.
“Yes, I will be a good girl—Master,” I said.
“You may now beg to be beaten, if you are not pleasing,” he said.
I did not speak. I was afraid to speak.
“How stupid she is,” he said, wearily.
“I am not stupid,” I said, adding, “Master.”
He rose from the couch on which he had been sitting, and went to the wall to my left. From a peg there he removed an object, with a long leather handle, which might be grasped with two hands, and five broad, soft blades, which he shook free.
“I beg to be beaten if I am not pleasing,” I said.
“You will be,” he said.
“But I am a woman,” I said.
“But a slave,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“‘Yes, Master’,” he said.
“Yes—Master,” I said.
“Turn about, and put your head to the floor,” he said, “and clasp your hands behind the back of your neck.”
“Master?” I said.
“Now,” he said.
I complied.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“We will get this over as quickly as possible,” he said.
“I am a virgin!” I said. “Ai!”
He was quick, and then he thrust me from him. I shuddered from the rude, callous, repetitive, brutal, plunging violence to which I had been briefly subjected. Then he crouched beside me. I whimpered. Then, a moment later, his hand was drawn across my lips and pushed into my mouth. I tasted secretions, and my own blood. I lay on my side, he now above me, now standing beside me.
“Perhaps you should have been more courteous, when a stranger entered your office,” he said.
I was silent, trying to realize what had been done to me.
“Should you not have been more courteous?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“I then envisaged,” he said, “having you in this way, and seeing you as you are now, so before me.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“I am,” he said, “of the caste of Slavers.”
“I did not know, Master,” I said.
He stepped away from me.
I knew, of course, that a slave is entitled to no consideration. Yet I think I had not understood that simple matter so well until now. I was an object, a beast. And I had been used as such.
My body shook.
Two strange, conflicting emotions warred within me. One was a violent rage at what had been done to me, a rage rife with shame, degradation, humiliation, frustration, and an acute sense of a lack of recourse, a sense of an utter helplessness, and the other, even stronger, was a sense of its fittingness. Was I not a slave? Was this not what could be done with me? Too, I had the terrifying sense that if he had been a little patient, taken his time, caressed me a little, put his teeth to me, spoke his mastery, I might have cried out, grateful, yielding. I had received the sense of what might be done with me, and what I might become. How horrifying if I might find myself a yielding, begging slave in the arms of her master! How could I think of myself then as other than a moaning, worthless, subdued, conquered, pleading kajira? I trusted he had no sense of this torment within me. I lay at his feet, naked, on his chain. Surely I must prove to him that I was not a slave, that I was proud, noble, and independent, not a woman who belonged at a man’s feet, not a slave!
Without speaking, he left the room.
He had replaced the whip on the wall. This pleased me. I would learn, happily, that most Gorean masters are sparing with the whip. But it is always there. I did not know what it would feel like. It had not been used on me. I was not anxious to feel it. I determined to do much to avoid its stroke. Later, once I had felt it, I would be shudderingly, keenly, desperately anxious to avoid its stroke. It is designed to punish, to punish terribly, but not to mark. It is useful in the disciplining of slaves.
He returned a bit later, with some water, and two biscuits. He put a wastes bucket within reach.
He then left the room, again.
I resolved, after he had left, in the midst of conflicting emotions, despite my profound inclinations to the contrary, as I was beginning to sense what I might be, and perhaps had always been, to behave in a way which certain militant factions in my society, with their self-serving agendas, might approve. They did not know me, of course, but they apparently took for granted their right to impose their particular values and views on me, and millions of others, by a variety of means, including those of the state.
After a bit he returned to the room.
“Have you fed and relieved yourself?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You omitted the word ‘Master’,” he said.
“Apparently,” I said.
“You are a bitch, are you not?” he said.
I was silent.
“You are stupid,” he said.
“No,” I said, “I am not stupid.”
“In any event,” he said, “you have not yet learned your collar.”
“I do not expect to learn it,” I said.
“That is typical, at first,” he said, “with some, with the more stupid ones.”
“I am not stupid,” I said.
“It is soon, of course,” he said.
I looked away. I put my hands on the chain dangling down from the ring on the metal collar about my neck. The chain seemed heavy. It would doubtless have held a man.
“Have you ever been whipped?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“That is sometimes helpful,” he said.
“Doubtless,” I said.
“In any event,” he said, “tomorrow I will remand you to a training house. There you will be trained.”
“I will not be trained,” I said. “I am not an animal!”
He looked at me.
“What you did to me!” I cried.
“It was good to get it out of the way,” he said. “Accustom yourself to such things. You are a slave. Free women will envy you.”
“I was a free woman!” I said.
“Not really,” he said. “I have a good eye for such things.”
“Free!” I said.
“In some trivial, legal sense, perhaps,” he said. “But you are not a free woman now. You are a different sort of woman now.”
“Free!”
“Once you are collared and branded,” he said, “you may see things differently.”
“I will not accept being trained as an animal,” I said.
He looked down at me, wearily. I lowered my eyes, sullenly, defiantly. He then turned and went to a chest, at the side of the room. Such things are much more common in Gorean domiciles than closets and cabinets. He put back the lid of the chest, and reached within it, withdrawing a handful of what appeared to be shackles, and manacles, and a few short lengths of chain, apparently adjustable.
He dropped this paraphernalia beside me, and, kneeling beside me, grasped my right wrist, which he twisted behind my back. I felt one of the manacles claspe
d about it. Then my left ankle was seized and drawn back, and shackled, fastened to my right wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked, uneasily. “Oh!” I said, as my left wrist was pulled back, close to my right ankle.
I heard a snap, as it was fastened there.
“‘Master’?” he asked.
“Master,” I said.
“You use the word ‘Master’,” he said. “But you do not yet understand it.”
“Master?” I asked.
“But you will,” he said, “girl.”
“What are you doing, Master?” I asked. “Oh!” I said, as another adjustment was made.
“Putting you in close chains,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“You require discipline,” he said.
“Oh!” I said, wincing.
“In the morning,” he said, “you will beg training.”
“Never!” I said. “Never!” I could scarcely move. “Release me!” I demanded. “Oh!” I cried, as, with snaps, he further adjusted the apparatus in which he had seen fit to place me, even more tightly.
“Release me!” I said. “Release me!” I then begged. “Please, please release me, now!”
He stood up, towering over the knot of slave at his feet.
“Until the morning,” he said.
“Do not leave me like this!” I cried.
“You are chained,” he said, “close chained. As in any chaining you cannot free yourself. But do not struggle, do not fight the chains. I do not want you marked, bloodied, or scarred. If you are marked, your profitability, such as it is, will be reduced, and I will be displeased. Indeed, if I find you marked, you will be whipped as few women have been whipped. It is yours to lie quietly, and endure. You have now been warned.”
“Do not leave me like this!” I begged, again, more piteously.
I heard the door close.
I squirmed, scarcely capable of movement.
Chapter Eight
He tossed a sandal to the floor, some feet to my right.
“Go to it, on all fours, kiss it, and bring it to me, on all fours, in your teeth,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
It is easy to move so, in a slave tunic.
He then cast the second sandal to the floor, some feet to my left, and I fetched it, similarly, and, putting down my head, deposited it, too, at his feet.
I then knelt before him.
“In your training,” he said, “were you taught how to lace a master’s sandals?”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You may sandal me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
In a few moments I had laced the sandals in place.
A slave is grateful for the privilege of serving her master.
“What did they call you in the training house?” he asked.
“‘Phyllis’,” I said. It is not unusual for a girl’s former name, in a sense, particularly in the case of barbarians, to be kept on her. To be sure, technically, it is not the same name, as the legal name vanishes with the girl’s freedom. ‘Phyllis’ was now a slave name, bestowed at the discretion of a master or mistress, as any animal might be named by its master or mistress. The retention of a former name is convenient, of course, as easily solving a naming problem, and a barbarian slave is well identified by being given a barbarian name, which is commonly done, her former name, or another such name. Sometimes an enslaved Gorean woman is given a barbarian name, to enforce upon her the lowliness, the humiliation, and degradation, of her new status. The societal position of the Gorean free woman, incidentally, particularly in the high cities, is far higher than that of the average free woman of Earth. Accordingly her reduction to bondage is likely to be far more devastating to her than such a reduction in the case of the average woman of Earth. Many of the women of Earth, for example, think little of baring their features, and their ankles, in public, an exhibitionism which would be unthinkable for most Gorean free women, and certainly for those of the higher castes. One can well imagine the feelings of a former Gorean free woman, who might have, in daring, scandalous boldness, occasionally allowed a glove to slip a little, affording a glimpse of wrist, finding herself exposed in public, tunicked and collared, only another slave.
“It has a Cosian ring to it,” he said.
I did not understand this.
“I am told some free women have that name,” I said.
“Cosians, perhaps,” he said.
I knew little of Gor at that time. I would later learn that Cos was a major state, somewhere to the east. At that time I did not even know where I was. Curiosity, I had been told, is not becoming in a kajira.
“Your Gorean is coming along nicely,” he said.
“In the training house, the switch often abetted my learning,” I said.
“You must strive to become adept in the language of your masters,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Do you hope to please your master?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said. I well knew the penalties for being displeasing. Yet, interestingly, I found I wanted to be pleasing to men, and that I hoped to become more so. It seemed to me, now, right and fitting that I should be owned, that I should submit, and serve.
I was different from men, very different.
This very obvious difference, on my former world, had been ignored, or denied. Here I found myself in a place where such differences were recognized. Men were not women, and women were not men. Is it not strange that there are worlds where such an observation should appear surprising, and be hailed as a profound insight? And this, I would learn, that men were not women, and women were not men, was the case amongst even the free. But for women such as I, in this place, women who were not free, such differences were profound. Our differences from men were not only acknowledged by society, but, by brand, collar, and tunic, confirmed and celebrated. Women such as I, not being free, were not permitted to deny or dismiss the truths, needs, and passions of our sex. For women such as I, such pretenses would be no more than a laughable hypocrisy. Needs and passions, desires and yearnings, should be no more things of shame than health and beauty. Too, women such as I were not encased in proprieties and conventions, not hedged in by society, not permitted to hide ourselves behind veils, or within cumbersome robes, not permitted to bargain, to tease and taunt, to barter our favors for social or economic advancement. We could be bought and sold. We were the most female of all women, the most basic and fundamental of all women, and would find ourselves in our natural place, there where we belonged, at the feet of men, their slaves.
“Brand!” he snapped.
Instantly, without even thinking, I shifted my weight to my right knee and extended my left leg, fully, drawing the tunic to the hip.
“Excellent,” he said.
I had been marked my first morning in the house of training, and a house collar, a training collar, had been hammered about my throat.
Female slaves on Gor are commonly collared.
I hated the training collar.
I now wore a light metal band, flat, and close-fitting, on my throat, secured with a small lock at the back of the neck.
It was a very common Gorean collar. I would later learn that, in the south, collars were often rounded, and looser. These are usually referred to, in their varieties, as “Turian collars.” Turia, I would learn, was a large city in the southern hemisphere.
“You may kneel again,” he said.
I did so.
“You kneel,” he said, “with your knees closely together.”
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