Tribesmen of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I looked about.

  I opened the small square gate in a nearby alcove, set in the bars, some ten inches from the floor. The opening is about eighteen inches square.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I would use a standard Tahari tie.

  “Tarl?” she asked.

  The door is opened that the girl’s beauty not be hurt against the closed bars of the tiny gate.

  “Oh!” she cried. I thrust her, holding her by her arms from behind, on her knees, belly tight, against the flat iron piece over which the door swings, in closing. Her knees were thus through the bars, on the inside of the cell. With a length of binding fiber, about her knees and behind and over the bars I secured her in position. She could not fall backwards. I then took her wrists up, one at a time, she, startled, not resisting, and tied them, on the outside, each to a separate bar, on either side of the small iron gate. “Tarl!” she said. She could grasp the bars with her small hands.

  I regarded her.

  “Tarl,” she said, “you need not carry your plan so far. We shall not be surprised. Girls will not be permitted to return here until the earliest hours of the morning. We shall not be surprised. It is not necessary to fasten me like this, in this undignified manner, and so helplessly.”

  I said nothing. How foolish I thought her. But she was, of course, a woman of Earth.

  “Enough of this joke,” she said, irritably. “Release me, now! Now!”

  But she did not find herself released.

  “Tarl,” she said. The right side of her face was pressed against the flat iron bar, some two inches high, at the top of the opening, against which the gate, when closed, rests. “Do you realize what you have done?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You have put me in Tahari whipping position,” she said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “It is degrading,” she said. “Release me, immediately!” She squirmed. She was helpless, warrior-tied. “Immediately!” she said. “Immediately!”

  But she was not released.

  I took the whip from my sash.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I am going to introduce you to the most meaningful of all relationships between a human female and a human male,” I said.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “—that of slave girl to master.”

  “Do not jest, beloved Tarl!” she said.

  I did not respond to her, and I suspect my silence more alarmed her than any reply she might have received.

  I think then she began to suspect her fate.

  Now frightened, she squirmed on her knees, thrust through the bars and tied there, and pulled at her bonds, which fastened her wrists to the bars on either side of the small gate.

  “You well served Ibn Saran,” I said, “but you may recall that it was I who had you first as a slave, in a tavern in Lydius, and now I have you again.”

  “I am not a slave!” she cried.

  “You are mistaken,” said I, “mere girl of Earth, pretty slave girl.”

  “What are you going to do?” she cried.

  “Conjecture,” I encouraged her. “Speculate.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “You were not pleasing,” I said.

  “You cannot whip me!” she said. “I am not that! I am not a Gorean slave girl!”

  “You were not pleasing,” I said.

  “You cannot whip me,” she cried.

  “Do you not deserve a thousand whippings?” I asked.

  “Forgive me, Tarl,” she said. “Forgiveness is sufficient!”

  “Not for a proud, insolent, nasty, little slave,” I said.

  “I am a woman of Earth!”

  “You are now a slave on Gor.”

  “You will not truly strike me with the whip, will you?” she asked. She spoke to me, her head turned, over her left shoulder. “I am a woman of Earth,” she said. “I am not a Gorean slave girl. You cannot treat me like a mere Gorean slave girl. You know you cannot do it!”

  I opened the whip, letting the broad, soft leather fall loose.

  “We are alone here,” she said. “None will know whether you strike me or not. You need not strike me. You may simply say that you did. I shall, in the deception, corroborate your story. The charade that you would keep me as a slave need not now be prolonged.” She tried to turn her head, to look at me. But she could not see me. “Surely you have no intention of making me a true slave, for you are only of Earth,” she laughed. “Only of Earth!” Then she said, “Release me, now! I demand it! You are only of Earth! Only of Earth! I simply demand to be released, Tarl! Now! Now!”

  I said nothing.

  She did not find herself released.

  “None will know if you do not whip me,” she said.

  “I will know,” I told her. “And one other, too, will know.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “The pretty little she-animal and slave, Vella,” I said.

  Her fists clenched in the bindings.

  “You may call me Elizabeth,” she said.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “Oh, Tarl,” she scolded.

  I smiled. Did she not know there was no Elizabeth unless a master chose to call her by that name?

  She spoke more confidently now. “I am a woman of Earth,” she said. “It is not necessary to beat a woman of Earth to teach her a lesson, should that be perhaps, amusing and preposterous though it is, what is in your mind. She, Tarl, is not an animal who must be whipped. She is a person. She is not a mere Gorean girl, a simple, vital, half-animal thing. She is a person! A true person! I have learned my lesson, Tarl. I am truly sorry. I was cruel and petty. I know! I am sorry. I have learned my lesson. It will not be necessary to beat me.” She smiled. “Untie me, Tarl,” she said. “Untie me now.”

  I stepped to the bars.

  “Thank you, Tarl,” she said. But I did not untie her. I held the bit of bleached slave silk, removed from my sash, over her nose and mouth. She could breathe easily through it, and speak through it. But she could not breathe or speak without feeling it, without inhaling and taking into her very body the faint, lingering traces of slave perfume, hers, which yet clung to it. Suddenly her voice, her lips moving beneath the silk, became less certain. “I am not a Gorean girl,” she said, “fit for physical discipline. I am not one of those animals who understands only the whip.”

  “A Gorean girl, I assure you,” I said, “if she is in a collar, understands far more than the whip, but it is true that she understands the whip. She understands it quite well. You, on the other hand, an ignorant female of Earth, do not seem to understand even that much.”

  “Tarl?” she said.

  “But you can learn,” I said.

  I replaced the bit of silk in my sash. I stepped back.

  “I am a woman of Earth!” she cried. Her small hands, wrists warrior-tied to the bars, clenched the bars in terror. She turned her head again, desperately, trying to look at me. She could not see me. “Tarl!” she cried. “Tarl?”

  I swung back the whip.

  “I am not a Gorean slave girl!” she cried. “You will not punish me as a Gorean slave girl!” she cried.

  “You are a Gorean slave girl,” I said.

  “No!” she said.

  “And you will be punished as one.”

  “No!” she cried. “No!”

  “You have not been pleasing,” I said.

  “No, no!” she said.

  “Remember Klima,” I said.

  “No, no, no, please, no!” she wept.

  “Were you pleasing, as a slave girl?” I inquired.

  “Perhaps not,” she conceded. “But—” And then she screamed.

  I had planned this interlude of discipline with some care, first, having in mind Klima, second, a simple instance of slave instruction, one fitted for a common, average girl, this to let her know how she would stand to me. The first portion of her discipline, that having to
do with Klima, could not, of course, be commensurate with the gravity of her offenses, and the sufferings of Klima, but it would serve to remind her that she had behaved in a way not pleasing to a free man. The second portion of the discipline was no more than an introduction to a common bondage, appropriate for an unimportant girl. This would begin, then, in its way, the true, or more appropriate, punishment for Klima.

  The first twenty strokes were used to punish the slave, timing them differently, placing them variously. The second twenty strokes would be easier to bear, with an accountable rhythm, and a more centered placement, from below the neck to above the small of the back. The second set of strokes would be primarily to instruct her. I had decided, after the more obviously punishment portion of the discipline, to regard her as, and treat her as, a new slave, one new to the household, one I might have just purchased for my interest, one who was a stranger to me, one I did not know.

  When a slave is introduced into a new house, often carried over the threshold bound and naked, she is commonly tied and whipped; the purpose of this is to leave her in no doubt as to what she is in the new domicile; in this way she is assisted in understanding that within the new walls, in the new collar, under the new mastery, she is as much slave as before, and perhaps more. This status is not something which a wise master lets a woman forget, ever.

  So I divided the whipping into a more strictly punishment portion, which was scarcely more than a token considering her laxities and offenses, and Klima, and an instructional portion, which would seem rather routine and perfunctory, and in its way, considering our relationship, profoundly unsettling, and insulting. It seemed to me then an excellent modality in which to conduct our relationship, seeming to drive a wedge between the past and the present. And what could better remind her of the past than that I should treat her in the present as though the past did not exist, treat her as no more than any other slave. To be sure, I would doubtless, from time to time, remember Klima. But, on the whole, let her be treated as though she was not special to me, but merely another slave, one I might have picked up anywhere. That she should be treated with indifference, or without special regard, as though she were only another girl, seemed fitting to me. This would surely remind her of Klima, and, from my point of view, as she was a common slave, she should be treated as one; to be sure, I found gratification in this, a gratification to which I was entitled in virtue of Klima, and a gratification to which I was entitled, in any event, because it pleased me, as her master.

  After the fourth stroke she screamed out, weeping, “I have been punished! Stop! Stop! A girl has been punished! Stop!” After the sixth stroke she cried out, “Please stop, I beg of you, Master!”

  “Master?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes, Master!” she cried. “Please stop, Master!”

  “Not ‘Tarl’?” I asked

  “No, Master, Master! A slave begs forgiveness for her earlier impertinence, Master,” she wept.

  The first twenty strokes did I give the slave girl.

  “Please enough, Master!” she wept.

  I then accorded her some respite.

  She, tied in position, clung to the bars.

  “Forgive me, and release me,” she wept. “I love you. Let us start over. Let us begin again, let us begin again.”

  “I shall now,” I informed her, “give you twenty more strokes.”

  “No, please, no!” she cried.

  “Do not fear excessively,” I said, “for these will be uncomplicated, simple, instructional strokes, for you are now to me a new slave.”

  “A new slave!” she cried.

  “Precisely,” I said.

  “Only that, Master?” she wept.

  “Only that, pretty Kajira,” I told her.

  “No!”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “As though I might be any girl, brought home from a market?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Surely you are familiar enough by now with Gorean custom,” I said, “to have heard of the simple admonitory or introductory beating.”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “We are starting over, as you wished,” I said. “We are beginning again. This time, however, I will make no mistake with you. We are beginning again, but this time properly, beginning as I should have begun before, from the first moment I saw you, with you as total slave, and I as complete master, absolute slave and absolute master.”

  She shuddered. She pressed against the bar at her belly. She squirmed. There were tears on the bars to the side. Her small hands were tied apart. She gasped, she fought for breath. She sobbed.

  She was lost in pain and fear.

  I supposed that she now found herself in a meaningful relationship.

  The blows then had been measured, and the rhythm had been such that she could set herself for them. Too, they had been mercifully placed, not almost randomly placed, appearing unexpectedly in all their stinging heat here and there on her body.

  Then, in a few moments, I was finished.

  I lowered the whip.

  “Do you thank me for your two beatings?” I inquired.

  “Yes, yes, Master!” she wept. “Your slave thanks her master for her two beatings!”

  “You will note,” I said, “that I did not ask you to count the strokes. Was this not merciful on my part?”

  “Yes, Master! Thank you, Master!”

  “But you doubtless kept track, as you could,” I said.

  “I tried, Master,” she wept.

  “I did not lose count, did I?” I inquired.

  “I do not know, Master!” she said. “I do not know! Forgive me, Master!”

  I had not, of course, lost track. Some masters test the slave in this fashion, holding short a stroke or two, to see if the slave will respond truthfully. If she does not, she may receive the missing strokes, plus an additional twenty. I did not care to do this, for sometimes the slave, in her misery and pain, becomes truly confused, or is even unable, in her bewilderment, her hysteria or consternation, to give an accurate accounting of the strokes, even if she should be desperately concerned to do so. It is easy, in one’s pain, to convince oneself that more strokes, as one wants the beating to end, have taken place than have actually been occurred.

  “So you have received two beatings?” I said.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Do you think the first well deserved, and the second instructionally appropriate?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master!” she cried. “Yes, Master!”

  “I think,” I said, angrily, “that for the first beating ten thousand lashes would not have been sufficient.”

  “No, Master,” she wept.

  “But for the second,” I said, “twenty strokes is not an uncustomary number, neither too few nor too many, suitable, one supposes, for an initiatory beating, an induction beating, a beating of welcome, a salutational whipping.”

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

  Forty lashes, incidentally, is not much of a beating, particularly considering what she had done. Surely it was scarcely commensurate with her lapses. On the other hand she had certainly felt it. I had no wish to hurt her, in particular, but rather to instruct her, and bring her into line. The point is not to hurt a slave, but rather to bring out the best in every girl, and to make her the best slave possible. I was not interested in punishing Vella, so much as making her a good slave. Some, the stupid, may need the whip more than others. Vella, in my view, was highly intelligent. I did not think she would much need the whip. Most slaves are seldom whipped. The knowledge that they may be whipped, and will be, if not pleasing, is sufficient to encourage them to diligence. Occasionally, they might be whipped to remind them that they are slaves.

  “Do you wish to be lashed further?” I asked.

  “No, Master! No, no, Master!” she said.

  I regarded her, she who had been my taunting, insolent, beautiful enemy, who was now my whipped slave
.

  “Please be merciful, Master!” she begged.

  “You were displeasing,” I said.

  “Forgive me, Master!” she begged.”

  “Do you think you have profited from your beating?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she wept, “yes, Master!”

  “Do you think you have been improved?” I asked.

  “It is your slave’s hope that she has been improved, Master!” she sobbed.

  Then I untied her from the bars.

  I think that the proud woman of Earth had now come to a new understanding of herself, that she now understood herself as what she now was, a mere slave.

  She fell to the tiles before me, a half-hysterical, trembling, beaten slave, reaching for my ankles, pressing her lips, hot and wet, to my boots, her tears hot on the leather.

  In such a way a slave may attempt to placate her master.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  “A Gorean slave girl at the feet of her master,” she said.

  “That, and no more,” I said.

  “No, no, let me be special to you,” she sobbed, not daring to look up.

  “No,” I said.

  “No?” she said,

  “No,” I said.

  “Please,” she wept.

  “And now there is more to be done to you,” I said.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “I have not yet begun to punish you,” I said.

  She looked at me, tears in her eyes, through her wet, tangled hair, with fear, and wonder. I tied her small garment, which I picked up from the floor, about her neck, and her hands behind her back. I strode through the halls, she, stumbling, running, following me. Outside, I untied her, and then retied her, belly up, head down, over the saddle of a kaiila, and took her to the nearby kasbah, which had once been that of Tarna. There I took her down to the fourth level, the lowest level, and, throwing the tiny garment into a cell, whence it would be retrieved later, I took her to the branding chamber, threw her into the device, and locked it on her thigh. I then drew her small wrists forward and locked them in the snap bracelets. Hassan was there and the iron was already hot. It was the same iron with which he had, the night before, marked the proud Tarna. It had been cleaned, with a solvent. One iron, properly cared for, can mark thousands of women. “No, Master,” she said, “please!” “Do you wish to mark her?” asked Hassan. “Yes,” I said. I would place the mark on her left thigh, above that of the four bosk horns. It would be the common Gorean female slave mark, fitting for a low girl, such as she, one who had not been fully pleasing.