Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “No!” cried the girl. “You should have freed me!”

  I looked at her, in her rage. I did not suppose she had acted much differently than would have many women. The Goreans believe, of course, that in the belly of every woman there is a slave girl, waiting to be revealed by the right master.

  “You should have freed me!” she cried. “You should have freed me!”

  I looked at her, in her rage, her beauty, her clenched fists, the brief, revealing rag.

  “You are too beautiful to be free,” I told her.

  She reacted as though struck.

  She looked about, at the men in the room, clad in the garb of the Tahari. They looked upon her. She shuddered, knowing that among them she was too beautiful to be free.

  She turned again to face me. She drew herself up. “I am pleased I identified you for Ibn Saran,” she said. “I am pleased that I testified against you at Nine Wells. Punish me.”

  “You are not to be punished because you identified me for Ibn Saran,” I said, “nor because you testified against me at Nine Wells.”

  She looked at me, furious.

  “Were you not commanded by your Master, Ibn Saran, to so testify?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You were a good slave girl. You are to be commended,” I said. “Throw her a candy,” I said to one of the men.

  He did so.

  “Eat it,” I told Vella.

  She did so.

  “You are to be punished,” I said, “and punished only, because you, a slave girl, have not been found pleasing.”

  She looked at me with horror.

  “For so little?” she said.

  I gestured to a man, an Aretai, in white burnoose, with black kaffiyeh and white agal cording, who stood nearby. He tossed a Gorean slave whip to the tiles, some twenty feet from the girl.

  She looked at the whip in disbelief. Earth women, no matter what they do, are never punished. She could not believe that she was to be treated as a Gorean slave girl.

  “Fetch the whip,” I told her.

  She stood straight. “Never!” she cried. “Never! Never!”

  “Bring a sand glass,” I said, “of one Ehn’s sand.” It was brought. The Gorean day consists of twenty Ahn; the Gorean Ahn, or hour, of forty Ehn, or minutes; the Ehn consists of eighty Ihn, or seconds. An Ihn is slightly less than an Earth second.

  The glass was inverted.

  She looked at it. “You can never make me do this,” she said, “Tarl.”

  She watched the sand slip through the glass. She turned to face me. “I’m pleased that I betrayed Priest-Kings. I’m pleased that I served Kurii. I’m pleased that I identified you for Ibn Saran. I’m pleased that I testified against you at Nine Wells! Do you understand? Pleased!”

  A quarter of the sand had slipped through the glass.

  “You did not free me in Lydius. You kept me a slave!” she cried petulantly.

  The sand had now slipped half through the glass. She looked about, from face to face, finding in them no sign of emotion, and then again she faced me.

  “Of course I smiled at Nine Wells,” she cried. “I wanted you sent to Klima! I wanted you sent there! Vengeance was sweet! Only you escaped! Of course I mocked you from the window of the kasbah of Ibn Saran! There would be no women at Klima! Of course in insolence I hurled you a bit of perfumed silk, to torment you in the march and, later, at Klima. Of course I lightly blew you a kiss of farewell, delighted in my triumph over you! Of course! Of course! Yes, yes, I mocked you when you were helpless! It gave me much pleasure to do so!”

  There was only a quarter of the sand remaining. She looked at it, miserably.

  She turned to me again. “I was cruel and petty, Tarl,” she said. “Forgive me!”

  The sand was almost slipped from the glass.

  “I am a woman of Earth,” she cried. “Of Earth!” Such women, of course, were never punished, no matter what they did. They were always forgiven. “Forgive me, Tarl!” she cried. “Forgive me!”

  But she was a Gorean slave girl.

  “Never will I fetch the whip!” she cried.

  Then, crying out with misery, frightened, a moment before the sand slipped from the glass, she turned toward the whip.

  “In the fashion of the Tahari,” I told her.

  She moaned, and fell to her hands and knees. The men, impassively, watched her go to the whip and pick it up, in her teeth.

  “Put the whip down,” I told her.

  She put the whip down, dropping it from her teeth. She looked at me, joyfully. “Kneel,” I told her. She did so, puzzled. “Strip,” I told her, “without rising to your feet.” She did so, angrily, slipping the tiny, torn rag over her head and putting it to one side. She shook her hair; she straightened her body. A murmur of appreciation coursed through the men in the room. Then one, in Gorean fashion, struck his left shoulder, and then the others. She knelt, straight, while men applauded the beauty of her. How proud she was! How fantastically beautiful are women! And I owned her.

  “Tie your garment about your right ankle,” I told her. She did this, sitting, and then, again, knelt.

  “Do you not know how to kneel?” I inquired.

  She looked to one side, irritably.

  “Spread your knees,” I said.

  She looked at me, with fury.

  “More widely,” I said.

  She complied.

  She then knelt before us, knees widely spread, tears in her eyes, on the tiles, in the position of a Gorean pleasure slave.

  This is a lovely position for a woman.

  Too, in this ceremonial or symbolic posture, fraught with meaning, a woman is under no delusion as to how she stands with respect to men. Goreans, incidentally, tend to be fond of symbolism and ceremony. Such things tend to be important in their culture.

  I enjoyed putting the former Miss Elizabeth Cardwell in this position before the many men in the room.

  If she was so proud of her Earth background, let her know what it was to kneel as a slave before Goreans.

  Let her writhe helplessly in her humiliation.

  But, too, let her understand all she was to men such as these, no more than a barbarian slave girl.

  Many slaves, incidentally, assume this position joyously, brazenly and delightedly displaying his slave before the master, exulting in the rapture of their bondage, acutely aware of their desirability as a slave, flaunting their vulnerability, tempting their master, hoping to lure him to their use, signaling their ready slaveness, manifesting their eagerness to serve, their desire to please. Too, of course, most masters require it of all pleasure slaves, even in a casual kneeling, in greeting, while awaiting instructions, while waiting to be summoned, or to serve, while he may be drafting notes, or conversing with others, and so on. In time, of course, a pleasure slave thinks little or nothing of kneeling in this position for it is simply her position, at least before men. Before women, however, she, even if a pleasure slave, will commonly kneel in the position of the tower slave, with her knees closely together. If the slave’s heat is on her, she may tie the bondage knot in her hair, beg to serve wine, squirm a bit, dare to turn her palms upward a little on her thighs, and such things. Too, the tear-filled eyes, the exquisite, delicate features, the trembling lips, of a slave may reveal much. Too, of course, she may explicitly beg use. “I beg use, Master.” “Chain me, Master.” “Whip me if I do not please you, Master.” “Master’s girl begs to be put to master’s pleasure.” “A girl desires to serve her master.” “A girl is on her belly at the feet of her master. She presses her lips to his foot. She pleads with master that he will deign to caress his unworthy slave.” “I am unworthy to be a free woman, for in my belly rage slave fires. I am yours. I am wholly at your mercy. I do not ask respect or dignity. Treat me, rather, with the patient audacity and prolonged, resolute contempt that is my due. Conquer me well. Give me no quarter. I ask only that you be merciless and ruthless. I ask only that you treat me as the slave I am.”
There are many ways in which the slave may signal her need to the master, and some of these will vary, of course, amongst particular masters and slaves.

  I let her remain that way for a time, until she had reddened, and could no longer meet my eyes.

  “To all fours,” I said.

  She went to all fours.

  “Now pick up the whip again,” I said, “—in your teeth.” She did so.

  She did not wear a collar. I had had that of Ibn Saran removed. I would put her in one of mine later. She was naked except that about her right ankle was tied a rag, and, strangely perhaps, about her left wrist was knotted a bit of bleached slave silk.

  She looked at me, the whip in her teeth.

  “Now go to the general slave quarters, outside your former quarters, and wait there, to be beaten,” I told her.

  She left the room, on all fours, the whip in her teeth, a slave girl on her way to discipline.

  I turned to one of the men nearby. “Be as her caller and guard,” I said to him.

  He nodded, and, bending down, picked up a strap which lay nearby.

  “I shall come presently,” I told him. He acknowledged this. He left the room, following the girl.

  A guard is not used in such cases to prevent the escape of the girl, for, in such a situation, in a house or kasbah, there is no escape for her. He serves to protect her, interestingly, from other slave girls. The strap or coiled rope he carries is used less often to hasten, in a humiliating fashion, a girl who might otherwise dally on the way to discipline, though it may serve this purpose, than it is to drive other girls from her. Such a strap or rope, of course, can sting hotly through slave silk. She is very vulnerable, you see, the girl who is to be punished, on the way to discipline. She is naked; she is not permitted to rise; she may not even speak, for the whip must be held between her teeth; to drop it is twenty extra lashes. Resentments, jealousies, petty feuds, enemies, are common among female slaves. Particularly is there jealousy and hatred for the most beautiful slaves, or for the highest slaves. Such a girl, on her way to discipline, is a delight to those who hate and envy her, and who would be only too pleased to take this opportunity to jeer and abuse her, sometimes cruelly and physically. Although many girls in the kasbah were chained here and there for the pleasures of men, most were freed of impediments, that they might fetch and serve, and be seized when and wherever the men might want them. These, in the halls, would constitute a genuine danger to Vella, who, a high slave, had been the object of much envy. How pleased they would be to see proud Vella crawling in the halls to her discipline. The second reason a man accompanies the girl is to be the caller. He performs what is spoken of sometimes as the whip song, though it is not a song, but rather a series of calls or announcements. These summon other girls to witness one of their sisters on the way to discipline. “Here is a girl who has not been fully pleasing,” cries the man. “Look upon her. She is going to discipline. She was not completely pleasing. See her! Come, witness a girl who has not been fully pleasing!” These cries bring the other girls, with their burdens, and such, to watch the progress through the halls of the girl who is to be punished. Soon a derisive, moving gauntlet is formed, through which, constantly, the miserable, whip-bearing girl crawls. She is spat upon, and struck, with hands and straps, and kicked, and much abused, but, of course, only within those limits set by the caller and guard. This sort of thing is thought desirable in the Tahari, in encouraging the whip-bearing girl to be more dutiful in the future, and the girls of the gauntlet to resolve, too, to be more dutiful, that it not be they, next, at the mercy of their enemies and rivals, who carries the whip. The actual whipping in the Tahari, incidentally, is usually a matter between the girl and the master, or him and his men. Other girls are seldom permitted to watch one of their sisters being whipped. All they know, when the doors close, is that she will be whipped.

  * * * *

  As I had had business in the audience chamber, I had not soon sought the slave. It was perhaps two Ahn later, our deliberations then concluded, that I recalled her.

  I did inquire, however, of the fellow who had accompanied her to the general slave quarters the nature of her journey to that destination. It was not other than I had anticipated.

  It was no secret in the kasbah that lovely Vella, whom I had found displeasing, had been the favorite of Ibn Saran, that she had been a high slave, that she had been pampered and privileged, that she had been given the luxury of private quarters, and special jewelries and silks, that she had disdained to commingle with her sisters in bondage, that she, though only of Earth, had held herself better than they.

  Accordingly, then, an unusually large number of girls had gathered to escort Vella gleefully, as though in festival, to the slave quarters. Some of these were, I suppose, alerted by the chant of the caller, but a great many, it seems, had been lingering in the vicinity, anticipating this journey. Vella herself, I gathered, had not anticipated that she would be making it. But her sisters in bondage, it seems, knew more of these things than she. Perhaps Vella had thought she would be dealing with a pliant, manipulable man of Earth; but then not even all men of Earth are such; did she not know that; they, the girls, on the other hand, given their different cultural background, did not expect vacillation and weakness from a man, but what they, Gorean girls, had come to expect from a man, conviction, assurance, decision, resolve and strength.

  The strap of the caller, lashing about, is painful through slave silk, but many of the girls, it seemed, had risked even this, that they might dart in and abuse the crawling slave. I fear that many felt the strap that day, and I understand that he was forced more than once to lay about him vigorously, but still, shrieking, crying out and clustering about, as I understand it, they would rush in, to strike their small blows, or, sometimes at a distance of no more than a yard or so, fling small objects stingingly against the helpless, crawling slave. And surely, in any case, from all, there was no dearth of jeers and viciously ejected, scornful spittle.

  I found the girl on all fours, the whip in her teeth, her head down, in the general slave quarters. She was absolutely alone there. The guard had left her there. The other girls had been ordered back to their assignments and duties of the day.

  I closed the doors to the general slave quarters.

  We were alone in the large, beautiful, tiled, pillared room.

  I went before her.

  She looked up at me. I took the whip from her teeth and thrust it in my sash.

  She moved the back of her right forearm across her mouth. Her jaws must have ached. It is not pleasant to hold the whip between your teeth for Ahn, awaiting the master’s pleasure. I noted that she had not broken position, even when I had closed the doors. It behooved her, of course, when the doors were open, to maintain position, for a lapse in that matter might be noted by any casual passer-by. That she had retained it when we were alone, with the doors closed, indicated that she was wary, that she was not sure how she was to relate to me.

  To be sure, she was a woman from Earth, and I was a man from Earth. On the other hand, she was a Gorean slave girl, and I was her master.

  “Remove the rag from your right ankle,” I told her. She did this, and put it to one side.

  She had come through the corridors from the audience chamber on her hands and knees, carrying the whip, head down, in her teeth, between two lines, moving with her, of slave girls, girls running, when she had crawled by them, to be again at the head of the line, to have again their lashing stroke, their cry or jeer.

  I threw her a towel that she might wipe her body and long, swirling dark hair, cleaning it. She did so, gratefully. I saw that she had been much struck and abused. The girls had had much sport with her as she had crawled, helpless, to her discipline. Vella was obviously the object of much hostility among the other slave girls. She was apparently much resented and hated. Vella was too beautiful, I supposed, to be popular with women. The very beauty which made her prized among men would make her an object of hostility
and loathing among women. A beauty like Vella on Gor had little choice but to relate to men, and, of course, she a slave, on their terms. Too, she had been a high slave, much above the other girls; that surely, as well as many other matters, would have elicited, if not justified, hatred, anger, and resentment; now, of course, she was fallen far below them; she was now a fit object only for their abuse and scorn, to be tempered only to the degree to which they were willing to feel the flash of the guard’s strap through their silk. She looked at me, tears in her eyes.

  “Tarl?” she asked.

  She moved toward me, and slipped to her feet, encircling my body with her small arms. About her left wrist, knotted, was the bleached silk from Klima. She put her head against my shoulder, and then lifted it, softly kissing me. She was a very delicious, and beautiful naked slave. “I love you, Tarl,” she said.

  “Give me your left wrist,” I said.

  She extended her left wrist to me. I removed from it the silk from Klima.

  “Throw it away,” she said. “Let us forget it. Let us never consider it again.”

  I put it in my sash.

  That seemed to puzzle her, but she smiled, and put her head to my shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for allowing me to remove that hideous, greasy rag from my ankle, and for relieving me of that hateful bit of faded silk, which you must cast away. It so reminds me of the tragic misunderstandings and errors of our past. I see now that you desire, as I, that we should begin again. I, too, welcome this opportunity. Let us do better this time, beloved Tarl. I am sure that if we both bend our most serious and finest efforts to the matter we can work out a meaningful relationship.”

  I regarded her, not speaking.

  I had thought the slave would have been wiser than this.

  “We must both do our best. We must both try,” she said.

  I smiled. She would be well advised to try, if she wished to live.

  “I did not realize until now your plan,” she said, “to pretend to make me your slave, to fool the others.” She looked about. “We are alone,” she smiled.