by John Norman
“Have you done well in the alcove?” he asked. He had, of course, the reports of the taverner.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes?” he inquired.
“Certainly,” said she, “I am helpless. I am naked. I am on a chain. Many have had their way with me. How can I help that? I have been handled with authority and scorn. I have been handled like meat. Frequently have I been treated with abruptness and disdain. Many a time I have been thoughtlessly, arrogantly, perfunctorily brutalized.”
He considered her. There are times when such things are good for a woman, when she is learning her condition, when she needs reassurance, when she is to be reminded of her status, and such. But there is more, so much more.
“The last two nights,” he said, “though the tavern has been crowded, no more than three men, it seems, and strangers, deigned to accept your services, deigned to send you to the vat, that you might fetch them paga.”
“Yes, three,” she said.
“It seems,” said he, “that few have cared to accept your goblet, that few have deigned to sip your paga.”
Her eyes flashed, angrily.
“You understand my meaning, do you not?” he asked.
“Yes!” she said, angrily.
“Does that not concern you?” he asked.
“It pleases me,” she said. “I rejoice!”
The lore and practices, the customs and commonplaces, of the paga tavern, as I understand it, may be unfamiliar to some. This is conveyed to me by my charming amanuensis, whom I have permitted to speak. Briefly, a paga tavern, in most of known Gor, and certainly in the high cities, is a comfortable, pleasant place where one may obtain wholesome food and strong drink, a convivial place where one can meet friends, exchange views, and conduct business, a place where one can attend to the latest news and gossip, a place where one can usually find a game of kaissa or stones, a place of entertainment and recreation. Many taverns, particularly the larger sorts, have musicians, and dancers. All have paga slaves. In the better taverns, in the more respectable taverns, they serve commonly in silks, brief, diaphanous silks which leave little to the imagination, and bells, in the lower taverns nude and in chains. The girls may approach the tables, for their service to be accepted or rejected, or summoned to a table by a gesture or a snapping of fingers. They kneel for they are in the presence of free men, and hope to garner a permission to serve. Commonly a cup of paga is ordered and the girl is sent to fetch it, and bring it back to the table. Usually the proprietor or one of his men takes the coin. The girl, if she is wanted, comes with the price of the drink. She may be ordered to an alcove, or dragged or switched, to its confines. Most men, of course, are content with the paga, but it is pleasant, now and again, to know that the beauty who serves it may be enjoyed with no extra cost. Usually it is only free men and slave girls who are found in the taverns. Free women are not permitted in most such taverns. And, too, of course, it is dangerous for them to enter such precincts. Sometimes a free woman, one perhaps too bold, and too insatiably curious, will clothe herself as a slave, even to the collar, to enter the tavern, but, as I have said, it is dangerous for them to do so. For example, they might, in all innocence, deplorably, be mistaken for a true slave. Too, more than one free woman has come into a collar in that fashion, one she cannot remove.
Some find it hard to understand why a free woman would run such risks.
But then why do some wander in the poorer districts at night, venture unescorted outside the walls, frequent the higher bridges in the moonlight?
Do they sense a life beyond the encumbrances of their robes, a mode of being beyond the corridors of respect and dignity, a reality beyond the high, enclosing, barren walls of propriety?
How hard it is to understand!
To what cry do they attend?
To what song do they listen?
“Do you think your gruel and pellets are free?”
“I suppose not,” she said.
“One such as you is not expensive,” he said. “But still there are costs to keeping you.”
She was silent.
“What do you think you are kept for?” he asked.
“Apparently for being beaten and abused,” she said.
“Not at all,” he said. “You are being kept to be beautiful and pleasing, to serve well, to be a thrashing, lascivious delight in the furs, to be attractive, to be desirable, to bring men to the tavern, and their coins, their coins, their coins, to make money.”
“That is disgusting,” she said.
“Not for one such as you,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yes, it is what you are for.”
“I see,” she said.
“I gather,” he said, “that several men, at first, at least, visited you.”
“You may call it that, I suppose,” she said. “They spoke of it, or more than one did, as “trying me out.””
“Of course,” he said. “You were a new girl, a new piece of collar meat.”
“Collar meat!”
“Yes,” he said.
“Happily they were dissatisfied,” she said. “None came back.”
“Did that not distress you?”
“It pleases me.”
“But it must puzzle you,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “for I supposed myself attractive. On Earth, men and boys beseeched me for my company. I often turned down four or five invitations a week.”
“You were indeed popular,” he said.
“Yes,” she sniffed.
“Your beauty doubtless had much to do with that.”
“I am beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“I was smug, aloof, inaccessible there,” she said, ruefully. “Here I may be alcoved by anyone with the price of a drink. You did not pay a coin?”
“No,” he reminded her.
“What are you doing here, then?” she asked.
“Chatting,” he said.
She laughed.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
“I was thinking,” she said, “of all those boys and men on Earth who wanted me to go out with them, whom I refused, and dismissed. Now I am naked, and on a chain, fastened in an alcove, helpless, and any of them might have me—literally take me in their arms and have me—have me!—for so little as the price of a drink!”
“I do not think they would,” he said. “I doubt that they would know what to do with you, as you are.”
“As a meaningless, naked slave!”
“Yes,” he said.
“The males here are so virile,” she said. “They are so strong, so thoughtlessly, unquestioningly, and powerfully male, so magnificently male, so innocent in their audacity. How they look upon me!”
“They are not men of Earth,” he said. “They are Goreans, and you are a slave.”
“And is that how the men of Gor look upon such as I, on slaves?”
“Yes, simply, as the lovely, desirable, ownable animals you are, perfect and appropriate instruments for their service and pleasure, once properly trained and disciplined, of course, but do not think ill of the men of Earth. Few of them can begin to understand what has been done to them. Most know little more than that they are frustrated and unhappy. It is a matter of acculturation, of confusions, of inconsistent twistings and belaborings, of competitive thickets of pale and impossible principles, of commands which cannot be obeyed, of goals which cannot be reached, and, if reached, would be devoid of life and value.”
“Am I beautiful?” she begged.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then why have I been taken off the floor? Why have I been stripped and chained here, alone?”
“Perhaps that we might have this conversation?” he said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Let us return
to your visitors,” he suggested.
“None came back,” she said.
“And you are puzzled, because you are beautiful?”
“—Yes,” she said.
“But you are a slave,” he said, “and beauty is common amongst slaves.”
“So I have gathered, from my observations, of my sisters on the floor,” she said.
“Therefore,” said he, “we must look beyond beauty. Beauty, after all, is cheap. Did you know that? I see not. It may be inexpensively purchased in any market. Most men take it for granted in a slave, though, to be sure, certain forms of beauty appeal more to certain men than others, and so on, and some men will kill for a woman who takes their fancy, in one way or another, but even in such cases more than beauty is almost always involved, unless perhaps a fellow is merely looking for a decoration or an adornment, rather like a shrub or statue, for, say, his pleasure garden.”
“Pleasure garden?” she asked.
“Rich men can afford them,” he said. “But,” he continued, “there are sensings involved. On your world, as I recall, it is common to conceal one’s ignorance in these matters by an unilluminating appeal to expressions such as ‘chemistry’ or ‘magic’. On Gor our ignorance is as profound as yours, I assure you, but we seldom attempt to mask it by recourse to convenient, unintelligible lexical deceits. One supposes such things are involved as biographical antecedents, motivations, and interests, sometimes almost explicitly unrecognizable noticings of responses and movements, readings of bodies and, in particular, of expressions, however fleeting, many of these awarenesses somehow registered but apparently often not articulated, the quick discernment of possibilities, the subtle detection of latencies, and such, sensings, so to speak, not fully understood perhaps, but sensings often forcible and irresistible. Why is it that a man buys one woman and not another? Why does he affix his collar on one fair throat and not another? There are reasons, doubtless, but they are hard to detect. And why does one woman long to wear the chains of one man and not of another? Why does one long for the bracelets and leash of a given fellow, and not for those of another? Why does one woman yearn to kneel before a given man, lifting her lips and tongue to his whip, to kiss, lick, and caress it, and not another? There are reasons, one supposes. But they may be difficult to discern. How is it that one woman may suddenly, perhaps after months, look into the eyes of a man and see her love master, and he into hers, and see his love slave? These things are hard to understand.”
“You are frightening me,” she said.
“Each man,” said he, “wants his perfect slave, and that perfect slave is found in the whole of her, in every inch and bit of her, not just in her beauty, but in the fullness of her being, in her heart, her mind, her emotions, her dispositions, her nature, her character, in the all of her.”
“I understand nothing of what you are saying,” she said.
“I think you do,” he said, “and that is why you are frightened.”
She put down her head and concealed her eyes in the furs.
“Look at me, slut,” he said, sharply.
She looked up, quickly, frightened.
“What are you?” he snapped.
“A slave, a slave,” she whispered, “—Master.”
“And on Earth?” he asked.
“Not that,” she said. “I was free! Free! On Earth there are no slaves!”
“Do not be naive,” he said. “And had you been a slave on Earth you might have been better prepared for Gor.”
“There are slaves on Earth?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “and many are kept in superb bondages.”
“I did not know,” she said.
“How naive you are,” he said. “On Earth there are men and women. Why then should you not expect, too, that there would be masters and slaves?”
She bit on the furs, shaking her head, miserably, frightened.
“But on Earth,” he said, “you were not a slave. You were free.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
“As free, at least,” said he, “as any other woman in your unhappy, miserable world, that ludicrous habitat, free to twist and lament, and struggle and perspire, and weep, within the denials, confinements, and strictures, the unseen hobbles and irons, of your culture.”
She regarded him, angrily. Her small hands clutched the furs about her throat.
“In a Gorean collar,” said he, “you will find yourself more free than ever you dreamed of being on Earth.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“In a collar,” said he, “a woman is most herself, and thus most free.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“On Earth,” said he, “you were a college graduate, a member of a sorority, a spoiled brat, and a flirt, and a junior employee in the art department of an advertising agency.”
“How could you know about these things,” she asked, “that is, the college, the sorority, the advertising agency?”
“Advertising,” said he, “is useful in a culture such as yours was, in turning the wheels of frustration and greed, in manufacturing spurious needs, in designing and peddling images, in marketing cosmetics and statesmen, in goading and stirring an insatiable economy to ever greater frenzies of absurdity and vacuity. It is a duplicitous and fraudulent activity. I can see why one as pretty, and as empty, meaningless, and frivolous as you, would be attracted to the endeavor.”
“They paid well!” she said.
“Certainly,” he said. “Hypocrisy and dishonesty are well rewarded in a meretricious culture.”
“No!” she cried. “—Yes,” she whimpered.
“You are a shallow, frivolous, meaningless little mercenary slut,” he snarled.
“Do not be cruel!” she begged.
“All of you belong on the slaver’s necklace,” he said. “It is time you sluts were useful. It is time you were good for something. Coffle the lot of you, and put you up for sale. Perhaps someone will be stupid enough to buy you.”
She regarded him, aghast.
But,” said he, “understand this now. And understand it well, little slut. Earth, and such things, are behind you. They are no longer your reality. Things have radically changed for you. You are on a different world. You have a new reality now, and you have one reality only now—understand that—only one—that of a Gorean slave girl.”
“It is hard for a girl to understand that she is a slave,” she whispered.
“A collar and a lashing can sometimes help her to grasp the fact,” he said.
She shuddered.
“I am a slave, aren’t I?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I understood very little of what you were saying before,” she said, “about sensings, about love slaves, about men—about women.”
“It is perhaps too early to talk to you about subtle things,” he said. “Later you may recall my words, and understand them. It is not necessary now.”
“Is something necessary now?” she asked, uneasily.
“Let me ask you a simple question,” he said. “Do you wish to live?”
She regarded him, suddenly terrified. “—Yes,” she said, “yes!”
“Then something is necessary now,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“This,” said he, “remember that you are neither special nor privileged. You must begin to earn your gruel and pellets. We spoke of beauty not being enough, did we not?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do not forget that,” he said. “Remember it. It is not enough to be as beautiful as a slave, as though any free woman could be truly as beautiful as a slave. One must know oneself as a slave, and be a slave. It is a thing within. It is quite different from being a free woman. Consider your “visitors”.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Of course,” she said. “I was naked. I was on a chain!”
“So might be a free woman,” he said.
She was silent.
“Did you beg to please, did you beg use?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” she said.
“Did you gasp, did you cry out, did you moan?” he asked.
“I bit my lip,’ she said, “to remain silent, to betray not the smallest feeling, to give them not the least satisfaction.”
“But you felt things?”
“One cannot help that,” he said.
“And you gave yourself no pleasure, no satisfaction?” he asked.
“Certainly as little as possible,”