by John Norman
In the supermarket she sensed he had looked upon her and seen her as a stripped slave.
She had never forgotten that look.
How could any woman?
He had seen her as what she was—a vulnerable woman, an unclaimed, needful slave.
How stunned she had been!
How her body had suddenly burned within her garments.
She had followed him as, as he had said, a slave girl follows her master.
There are many slaves, she thought. Are there many masters? My culture has not taken the slave out of me. She has cried out within me, for years, for her chains, and the caress of a master.
She wondered if, in men, or in some men, there might be a secret master, restless within the male breast, snarling within, raging, hungry for its prey, its capture, its slave.
How much illness, how much violence, how much cruelty, she thought, might be averted if only men were free, statistically, to be themselves, and how much cruelty, petulance, neurosis, and unhappiness might be done away with if only the natural needs of women were recognized, rather than denounced and subverted.
“You may now rise, and dress yourself,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered. “Thank you, Master.”
Conversation2
“I am not an animal!” she cried.
“Surely you are,” she said. “Are you so unacquainted with biology as to doubt that? Have you not lungs, organs, and such? Have you not a belly appropriate to your kind? A nervous system, a digestive system, and, obviously, something that will be of interest to men, a reproductive system? Thus, if it is wished, you may be crossed with suitable stock, and bred. Clearly you are an animal. Do not presume to deny it. You are an animal, and an animal of a certain sort, a mammal, a human mammal, and, obviously, a human female mammal. Consider the delicacy of your features, their obvious sensitivity and even, obviously, their beauty. You have lovely eyes, and lashes, and sweet lips. And you have abundant and lovely hair, deeply rich and brown. Unfortunately it is not auburn.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“I see you are already interested in your objective value.”
“My objective value?”
“Do you shiver? Or do you tremble? Interesting how you try to draw those tiny shreds of garments about you. Do you think they much conceal you, or protect you? They haven’t left you with much, have they?”
“My objective value?”
“Are the chains heavy?”
“Objective value?”
“Doubtless, as you assess yourself, you are priceless. But that is a subjective estimation, as you will discover. It is not your objective value. Your self-appraisal on the score of your own worth, you see, is not likely to withstand the scrutiny of the market. You will discover, you pretty, arrogant little thing, that your self-assessments of your value are not only unreliable, but simply illusory. Do not look so petulant. And do not pull so at your chains. Do you think you can free yourself? Do you think you can remove them? On the other hand there are girls who have low self-esteem, and think poorly of themselves, who, to their surprise, and doubtless delight, discover they are prized, and avidly sought. But you need not fear that sort of awakening. I fear yours, though you are quite beautiful, it must be admitted, will be less welcome.”
“So I am beautiful?”
“Of course, were you not, it is unlikely you would find yourself where you are.”
“What is wrong with my hair?”
“Nothing, you are nicely pelted.”
“‘Pelted’!”
“Auburn hair, you see, tends to be prized. It is rare. And blond hair sells well, too, presumably as it is less common.”
“Then let them dye my hair,” she snapped.
“And have them risk torture and impalement?” she laughed. “I think not!”
“I do not understand.”
“On this world, honesty is not frowned upon. Rather, deceit is disapproved, and often savagely. It has to do with honor, I am told, something apparently of interest to the men of this world. This world, you see, is very different, in many ways, from that with which you are more familiar.”
“Why have I been brought here?”
“I wonder if you are stupid.”
“I am not stupid!” she said. “Why do you smile?”
“Once, long ago, I recall I, too, said that, though the circumstances were different. It was shortly before I found myself kneeling naked, for the first time, before my master.”
“‘Master’?”
“Certainly.”
“You mean as in ‘one who to whom you belong,’ as in ‘one who owns you’?”
“Of course.”
“You cannot be owned!”
“How naive you are!”
“I do not think you are stupid.”
“I do not think so, either. Indeed, I am supposedly quite intelligent, and surely so, if the IQ scores of your world have any significance.”
“I assure you I am not stupid, either!”
“Perhaps not, but it seems that at present you have little but your beauty to commend you.”
“My beauty?”
“Rejoice. Be grateful. That is your hope. Men like such things.”
“Please do not speak to me as though I were stupid!”
“Naive, then?”
“No!”
“I think so, that, at least.”
“Do not humiliate me.”
“That is not my intention. That will be done by the masters, and well, if they choose.”
“Masters?”
“Of course.”
“I do not wish to be humiliated.”
“But you do. And do not fear. They can make us weep, and beg and grovel, as it pleases them.”
“Why have I been brought here?”
“It is questions like that which suggest that you are stupid.”
“I—I am not stupid!”
“No, I would suppose not, or you would not be here. If you were truly stupid, you would have been less desirable, less of an acquisition, less of a prize. If you were truly stupid you would not have been found of interest. They are interested in only the most desirable, la crème de la crème. These men have little interest in stupid women.”
“You have not told me why I have been brought here.”
“If you do not know, perhaps you are indeed stupid.”
“No!”
“There are trade-offs, of course. Perhaps in your case they compromised on intelligence, in order to obtain other things of interest.”
“Do not speak as though I might be merely beautiful!”
“As I look upon you now, lifting the lamp, perhaps ‘pretty’ would be better.”
“Beautiful!”
“Perhaps. You are, at least, a well-curved bit of meat.”
“Do not speak so of me!”
“Perhaps it is something else. Are you vital?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is not important—now. You will grow in such ways. They will see to it. Until you are helpless, and uncontrollable.”
“I don’t understand!”
“You will be totally at their mercy, begging.”
“I don’t understand you! You speak in riddles! You torture me! I don’t understand you! I understand nothing! Why have I been brought here?”
“Conjecture.”
“No!”
“Your horizons of possibility seem rather limited.”
“I am not stupid! I am not stupid!”
“Then ignorant, perhaps?”
“Why have I been brought here?”
“You know.”
“No, no!”
“Pretending not to recognize the obvious does not mean that it does not exist
.”
“No!”
“Yes, weep, weep, weep in your chains, curvaceous little thing, in helplessness and futility, if you wish. It will doubtless do you good.”
“What do they want with me? Why have I been brought here?”
“You dare to play these games with me? Do you see this switch at my wrist? It can be used upon you. Good. You are afraid. You crawl back in the shadows, on the straw. You do not wish to feel pain. Excellent. You will be tractable. You will train well.”
“Please be kind to me.”
“You wish, I gather, for me to tell you what you fear, and what you suspect, and what you wish to hear?”
“No, no!”
“Do not fear. I have no intention of doing so. Why should I insult whatever bit of intelligence you might have? Let me say only that the moment of which you have long and frequently dreamed is nearly at hand.”
“I do not understand.”
“A good switching would much improve you.”
“Please, no.”
“I am patient with you, little fool. The men will not be.”
“Why have I been brought here?”
“Consider the loveliness of your face, how exquisite it is, the vulnerability, delicacy, and sensitivity of its features, and the prettiness of your legs, the sweetness of your thighs, the width of your hips, the narrowness of your waist, the loveliness of your bosom. The delicacy of your wrists and ankles, the subtleties of your shoulders and throat, the curvatures of your body. Can you then ask such a question?”
“I do not understand.”
“Such things will make you attractive to men.”
“I hate men!”
“How unfortunate, for you will belong to them.”
“No!”
“Totally, completely, absolutely—in all ways.”
“You speak as though I might be owned!”
“You are owned.”
“I cannot be owned!”
“You are mistaken.”
“I cannot be owned! I am not a dog, or pig!”
“You are less than they, but you do not yet realize it.”
“No, no!”
“You have a lovely throat, slender and sweet, and aristocratic. It will look well encircled with a collar.”
“A collar?”
“Certainly.”
“What sort of collar?”
“One like mine, one signifying the same.”
“What sort of collar?”
“The collar of a slave—a slave collar.”
“No, no!”
“Do not struggle so, so wildly, so futilely. Please, desist. You may injure yourself. And the masters might be displeased.”
“Masters! Masters! —Masters?”
“Yes, the men.”
“Release me from the wall!”
“Have no fear, you will soon be released.”
“Good!”
“Even now the iron is heating which will mark you.”
“Mark me?”
“Yes, the iron that will mark you slave.”
“No, no!”
“You cannot expect not to be marked, for you might be mistaken for a free woman, and that would be terrible. How insulting to free women! To be sure, it is highly unlikely that a woman such as you, so sweetly bodied, so beautiful, so small, so soft, so feminine, yes, feminine, truly feminine, do you object, would be mistaken for a free woman. That would seem unthinkable. Just looking upon you a free person would know you for a slave. Yet, the brand is required by Merchant Law. One cannot be too careful about such things. Too, the brand will help you to remember that you are a slave, simply that, a slave, that, and nothing else.”
“How is my objective value to be determined?”
“Simply, by what men will pay to own you.”
“Pay?”
“Of course.”
“I am a free person!”
“Do not be naive.”
“I cannot be owned!”
“You are mistaken.”
“I can’t be owned—”
“I do not understand. Why can you not be owned?”
“I—I am not an African!”
“You refer to a race, or group, I take it, of your world. I know something of your world, which is why I am here, speaking to you in a language you can understand. On this world races, as you seem to think of them, do not exist. Here, free men stand to one another as individuals, not as representatives of groups, not, in effect, as members of gangs, as of brigands. But even on your world, slavery was never restricted to those whom you ignorantly put together so naively as “Africans.” All races, as you think of them, were subject to bondage. For centuries, whites, as you might think of them, enslaved whites. Too, blacks, as you might think of them, enslaved blacks, and Asians, as you might think of them, enslaved Asians, and those you might think of as the indigenous peoples of what was known as “the new world” enslaved one another.”
“Not now!”
“My dear, slavery still exists on your former world, in several areas. And it would exist more broadly except that a relatively small, but technologically advanced and powerful, portion of your population, perhaps in a jealousy concerning the pleasures of the mastery, being enjoyed by others, not by themselves, or fearing that they themselves might one day succumb to bondage, took the liberty of imposing their military and economic will on other peoples. But that could change. Indeed, as bondage has its values and rationale, and its obvious appeal to thinking men under certain conditions, it may come about that the darker peoples, so to speak, may reinstitute the condition, when sufficiently powerful or so motivated, and then that the vaunted superiors will find themselves, in their turn, in their chains, in the holds of slave ships, and on the auction blocks. Who then, I wonder, will “rescue” them? The appeal of bondage is obviously universal, and a turning of the world might bring it about again.
“I see you do not care to speak. Perhaps you do not like these thoughts. Yet I thought I saw you tremble in your chains.”
“No!”
“Surely you understand that slavery represents an advance in civilization over obvious alternatives.”
“What?”
“Being slain, being exterminated, being tortured to death, being burned alive, and such.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Surely you understand the attractions of ease, of pleasure and power to human beings?”
“—Yes.”
“And you can understand then how a strong human being might prefer a life of greater ease, one in which he is served less by himself and more by another, a life in which he may extract what pleasures he wishes from another, one over whom he holds absolute power.”
“One must deny oneself such pleasures and powers!”
“Why?”
“I—I do not know.”
“Nor do I. Why should the strong not avail themselves of such delights? Why should they not choose to be pleasured, to be powerful? Is that not the sane, sound, and healthy fulfillment of their natural right? Why should not those who can seize the delicious fruits of life do so? Why should the rewards and perquisites of nature, her gifts and bounties, not be taken advantage of by the strongest and fittest, the most powerful, the most intelligent, the aristocrats of nature?”
“Let it not be so!”
“What an amusing little tart you are! But put aside these questions of your former world, and its conflicts, confusions, and vicissitudes. It is here that you are now. And be assured, curvaceous little mammal, that on this world, an honest. open, beautiful world, slavery is an institution with universal incidence. Its value is accepted and understood. It is historically sanctioned and practiced. It is a matter of custom, law, and tradition. It is unquestioned and universally accepted.
“Wh
y should those who are natural slaves not be slaves, and those who are natural masters not be masters?
“Do not hide your face in your hands. Look up at me. Wipe the tears from your eyes. Have you never dreamed of being a slave, really, of meeting a man like no other, one before whom you could not help but kneel, and lick and kiss his feet, and would melt in need and submission, one to whom you could at best be an abject object, a mere property, a domestic animal, an item of livestock, purchasable from a pen, a lovely beast, one from which is to be derived service, and ecstatic pleasure?
“I see you have.”
“No, no, no!”
“Are you even worthy to be the slave of such a man?”
“Please do not so speak to me!”
“Well, here you will meet men such as you never knew could exist, men beyond your wildest and most erotic dreams, men before whom you can be naught but such a slave, an utterly abject slave. Oh, you will learn to serve well, and you will experience pleasures, and provide pleasures, the nature and intensity of which, and the extent of which, you cannot now even conceive. Oh, you will make a delicious little slave.”
“No, no!”
“I see it in you.”
“No!”
“But are you even worthy of being such a slave?”
“I do not know!”
“Men have brought you here. They know their business. They think you have promise, or you would not find yourself in this place. They have seen fit to give you a trial.”
“A trial?”
“An opportunity to prove yourself worthy of a brand and collar. I hope that you will do well, pretty little slave.”
“And if I do not?”
“I would try desperately, if I were you. These men are not patient.”
“And if I fail?”
“There are animals to be fed, to whom you would be a lovely dessert, a most tasty morsel.”
“No!”
“Do not fail.”
“I do not want to be a slave!”
“There you are mistaken.”
“No!”
“You have always dreamed of meeting your master, a man so magnificent, so powerful, that you know instantly in your heart that you are rightfully his, a man so overwhelming and attractive that before him you can be naught but a dutiful, submitted, passionate, enraptured slave.”