by John Norman
"No!" I screamed. "No! No!"
The other girls looked up, from their own misery, puzzled, watching me.
"No!" I wept. "Please! Please, no, no!"
"Put your head back," repeated the leather worker, irritated.
Targo looked at me, puzzled. He seemed genuinely disappointed.
"But you are brave," he said. "You are the brave one."
Suddenly I went to pieces, horrified, hysterical. "No!" I screamed. I tried to scramble from the platform. The leather worker seized me. "Hold her!" he said.
"Bind her," said Targo.
I, held by the leather worker, cast wild eyes on Targo. "No, Master!" I implored. "Please!" But already my ankles were being tied together. Another guard pulled my hands behind my back and my wrists were lashed together.
"No!" I screamed. "No!"
Two guards held me by the arms on the platform. Another guard put his left arm about my throat, from behind, and with his right hand in my hair, pulled my head back, holding it still.
I could not scream. The guard's arm on my throat was tight.
"Do not move," commanded the leather worker.
I felt the back of the claws of the punch enter my nostrils, distending them. There was a tiny, sharp click. Tears burst into my eyes. I felt acute pain for an instant, and then a prolonged, burning, stinging sensation.
Everything went black, but I did not faint, held in position by the guards.
When I opened my eyes, blinded with tears, I saw the leather worker approaching my face with a tiny, steel ring, partly opened, and a pair of pliers.
As I was held he inserted the ring in my nose. It was painful. Then, with the pliers, he closed the ring, and turned it, so that its opening, where the closed edges met, was concealed within, at the side of the septum.
I began sobbing with pain, with misery and degradation.
The guards released me. One untied my ankles.
"Gag her," said Targo.
I was gagged. My wrists were not unbound, they fearing perhaps I would have torn at the ring. Perhaps I might have.
A guard, not much pleased with me, dragged me stumbling, eyes filled with tears, moaning with misery, from the platform. He threw me, half stumbling, into the wall, among the other girls. I struck the wall, and slid down it, to my knees. I could not believe what had been done to me. Everything almost went black again. I shuddered and shook, tears running from my eyes, leaning against the wall.
"Next!" had called the leather worker.
Ute, who was looking at me with puzzlement, as were the other girls, rose to her feet and went obediently to the block.
When she returned, she, too, wore a tiny, steel ring in her nose. There were tears in her eyes. "It smarts," she said to Inge.
I looked at Ute, piteously. Could she not see what had been done to me, to me!
Ute came to me and took me by the shoulders, and I sobbed against her, uncontrollably.
"Do not cry, El-in-or," she said.
I pressed my head against her shoulder.
She held my head to her shoulder.
"I do not understand, El-in-or," she said. "The most terrible thing you do not mind. You are then very brave. And then you cry about a little nose ring. It is not like having your ears pierced."
"El-in-or is a coward," said Rena of Lydius.
"Next," called the leather worker.
Rena rose to her feet and went to the platform.
"The piercing of the ears is far more terrible," said Ute. "Nose rings are nothing. They are even pretty. In the south even the free women of the Wagon Peoples wear nose rings." She held me more closely. "Even free women in the south," she insisted, "the free women of the Wagon Peoples, wear nose rings." She kissed me. "Besides," she said, "it may be removed, and no one will ever know that you wore it. It will not show." Then Ute's eyes clouded with tears. I looked at the tiny steel rods holding open the wounds in her ears. "But only slave girls," she wept, "have their ears pierced." She wept. "How can I ever hope to become a Free Companion," she wept. "What man would want a woman with the pierced ears of a slave girl? And if I were not veiled, anyone might look upon me, and laugh, and scorn me, seeing that my ears had been pierced, as those of a slave girl!"
I shook my head, and again pressed my head into her shoulder. I understood nothing. I knew only I, Elinor Brinton, once of Park Avenue, once of the restaurants and boulevards of New York and the continent, now wore in my nose a tiny ring of steel.
Inge went next to the platform, her hands still bound behind her back, that she not disturb the tiny rods in her ears. She submitted to the fixing of the ring gracefully.
She did say to Targo, "But I am of the scribes."
He said to the leather worker, "Put the ring in her nose."
She did not protest.
Lana went next to the platform. When she returned, she threw back her head, and placed her hands behind her head. "Is it not pretty?" she asked.
"It would be more beautiful if it were of gold," said Rena of Lydius.
"Of course," said Lana.
"But it is pretty," said Inge to Lana. "You are so beautiful, Lana," she said.
Lana smiled.
Inge looked at her timidly. "Am I pretty?" she asked.
"Yes," granted Lana, "the ring is pretty—and you are pretty."
Inge looked at her gratefully.
"What of me?" asked the Lady Rena of Lydius.
"You are beautiful," said Inge.
I did not lift my head from Ute's shoulder. I did not want anyone to see.
One after the other of the girls went to the platform.
Afterwards we were fed. Inge and I were unbound, and I was ungagged.
We knelt in a circle, eating from the wooden bowls of bread and stew. We were given no utensils. Our fingers served to pick out meat and bread, and the gravy we drank. The girls chatted, and most seemed to have forgotten the ordeal of the morning. If they had not forgotten it, there was very little they could do about it. Further, they knew that with their ears pierced, they might bring a somewhat higher price, and thus, perhaps, obtain a somewhat better-fixed master. Some prudish slavers, scandalized by ear piercing, refused to have it done to their girls, but Targo, doubtless because of the gold involved, had insisted upon it. Many Gorean men apparently find pierced ears in a girl extremely provocative. Craftsmen of the metal workers, men specializing in the working of gold and silver, were concerned to work out new forms of jewelry for slave females. It was said that a year ago in Ar, Marlenus, Ubar of that city, had created a sensation at a banquet given for his high officers, by presenting a slave-girl dancer before them who, though she was not in his private pleasure gardens or compartments, he had had put in earrings. Today, however, better than a year later, it was not uncommon to see a slave girl wearing, and insolently, such jewelry, even in public.
I had no objection to earrings. Indeed, if I could find an attractive pair, or pairs, I was confident I could wear them to my advantage, to please a master, to perhaps obtain my way, to perhaps help me dominate him. If I could engage his affections, I would have him then, would I not, at my mercy? I would bend my efforts to do so, and when I had done so then I might, by granting, or refusing to grant, my favors, or the fervor of my favors, control him and, though I wore the collar, own him! How else could a woman fight on Gor? She is not as strong as a man! She is at their mercy. The entire culture puts her at his feet. Well I was beautiful enough, and intelligent enough, to fight, and surely to win! I was truly a slave girl, and that I knew, but my master would learn that a slave girl could be a dangerous foe. I would conquer him. So I mused. The only thing that I did not take into my considerations was the Gorean male. He is unlike the men of Earth, on the whole so weak and pliable, so reasonable, so compromising, so much in need of recognition and affection, or its pretense. The only thing I failed to take into my calculations was that the Gorean male, whether by culture or genetic endowment, is unlike the typical man of Earth. He, unlike the typical man
of Earth, though not unlike all, is a natural master of women. There was a time in my life when I would not have understood this, or how it could be. There was surely a time in my life when I could not have believed this, when I would have found it preposterous, absurd, incomprehensible, false. But at that time I had not been brought to this world. At that time I had not been in the arms of a Gorean male.
"Eat," urged Ute.
I had scarcely touched the stew in the wooden bowl.
"We will wear the nose rings," said Ute, "until our training is finished. Then, when we leave Ko-ro-ba, they will be removed."
"Where did you hear this?" I asked. There are often rumors carried about the pens and cages.
"I heard Targo telling one of the guards," she whispered, looking about.
"Good," I said. I reached into the bowl. No one ever need know that Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, had once had a steel ring fixed in her nose.
Pleased, I joined Ute in eating.
Afterwards, after we had been hooded and taken to our private training pens in Ko-ro-ba, I trained well.
It was well that I had eaten, for the work was difficult. Perhaps Targo wished to take our minds from the events of the morning. In the evening, at the private pens, we were fed well and our group, myself, Ute, Inge and Lana, were among those groups given pastries following their meal.
I was pleased with my performance. It was right that we should be rewarded.
I was, indeed, rather pleased with my performance in general.
Sometimes I was irritated by the instructor, herself a slave, when she would commend me. "See," she would say to the other girls. "That is how it is done! That is how the body of a slave girl moves!" But I wanted to learn, that I might use my skills to enhance my fortunes on Gor. As a warrior applies himself to the arts of his weapons, so I applied myself to the arts of the female slave, which I was. I became sleek and more beautiful from the diet and the exercises. I learned things of which I had not dreamed. Our training, because it was limited to a few short weeks, did not include many of the elements that are normally included in a full training. I remained ignorant of Gorean cooking and the cleaning of Gorean garments. I learned nothing of musical instruments. I remained ignorant even of the arrangements of small rugs, decorations and flowers, things that any Gorean girl, slave or free, is likely to know. But I was taught to dance, and to give pleasure, and to stand, and move, and sit and turn, and lift my head and lower it, and kneel, and rise. Interestingly, and sometimes not altogether to my pleasure, I found the training becoming effective. In the early evening of the day on which our nose rings had been affixed I was returning to my cage, after having run an errand for Targo in the pens. I was one of his favorites, and he often used me for his errands.
As I passed by a guard, as a slave girl passes a man, he seized me by the arm and held me, almost jerking me off my feet, pulling me to him. "You are learning to move, Slave," he said. I was frightened. Then I was not frightened. I pulled slightly against his arm as though I might be frightened, but could not hope to elude him.
And indeed, of course, I could not have, in fact, eluded him, even had I cared to do so. He, being a man, was quite strong enough, as I knew, to do with me what he might please. How I resented the strength of men!
"Oh, yes, you are a clever little thing," he said.
"Master?" I said.
"I said," said he, "that you are learning to move."
I turned my head, and looked up at him, as though timidly. I tried, as I could, to keep my side to him. That seemed safer. "Perhaps, Master," I whispered, lips timidly parted, slightly smiling. I did not want to face him frontally, for fear I would suddenly find myself wrapped in his arms, and who knew what might then happen. It was not only that I mistrusted him, but, strangely, I had begun to mistrust myself. I had found, over the recent weeks of my bondage, to my fury, that men were becoming ever more interesting and attractive to me. How this thought angered me! I must struggle against it! Part of this was doubtless simply because I was in bondage and the effect of this on a female is no secret. She is dressed, if dressed, in a certain way, which excites both her and men; she must obey; she is familiar with bonds and being made helpless, which, aside from the security involved, impresses the mastery upon her and is sexually stimulating; she is vulnerable, and she is, for most practical purposes, legally and institutionally accessible, accessible as a female; indeed, legally and institutionally, as she is an animal in the eyes of the law, she is literally, and thus is accessible as, literally, a female animal; certainly she is owned, and she knows, particularly if she is a pleasure slave, that she is intended for, is seen in terms of, and exists for, the pleasures of men. That is her raison d'être, to serve and please men. It is hard then not to see men as her masters, for that is what they are; and she naturally, ineluctably, finds them attractive, men strong enough to command her, and do with her as they wish.
In this relationship she finds herself most basically, most radically female, as she finds him most basically, most radically male; this relationship, that of the male master and the female slave, is, of course, as one would expect, a relationship which is pervasively and profoundly sexual; those who fear sex must surely eschew it; it is, however, the most natural and profound relationship of its kind, an evolved, sophisticated cultural relationship growing directly out of enhanced biological realities.
She cannot help but respond, you see, in the order of nature, to the virility and power of the master; this virility and power is stimulating to the slave, overwhelmingly so; indeed, virility and power stir the bellies of even free women; it is natural then for her to want to call herself to the attention of the masters, to want to please them, to desire their touch.
Twice I had, surely inadvertently, stumbled against guards. "You are so obvious, El-in-or," had said Inge. How I hated Inge! Could she not see that these things were innocent, that they were mere accidents, that I had merely tripped!
But, of course, I also mistrusted the guard. I had some dim, abstract inkling of what it might be for a man to hold a slave girl in his arms, and that was sufficient to make me fearfully wary. And yet I must be attractive! I must be slave! No wonder free women, as I had heard, hated us. What man would prefer a free woman, I wondered, to one of us, helpless and gasping, yielding, begging, in his arms. So I kept my side to him. That seemed safer. But I did keep my ankles closely together, and flexed my knees slightly, and, of course, as I stood, the lineaments of my figure, happily somewhat concealed, if inadequately, in a common camisk, were his to survey. I was well aware of the effect this would have upon him, and enjoyed producing this effect. But I did not wish to go too far. On Earth, Elinor Brinton had enjoyed teasing and tormenting men, arousing them, for her amusement, and then leaving them dissatisfied, but here, on this world, in this place, one must be very careful about such things.
The men of Gor are not as the men of Earth.
I fear they are not gentlemen.
They do tend to be extremely concerned with honor, but there is no dishonor, you see, in using a slave as a slave. That is what is supposed to be done with them.
Here one might find oneself, particularly if one is a slave, simply seized and put to pleasure, and find oneself being abruptly, insolently used, rudely, humiliatingly, for the purpose of extinguishing the flames one had unwisely ignited.
"She-sleen," he said.
"Master?" I said.
"Do you think to provoke me while pretending not to provoke me?"
"Master?" I asked, as though what he had said could be only mysterious to me, an ignorant barbarian, a half-trained slave girl.
"Stand before me," he said, "closely, facing me."
One must obey, of course.
One does not wish to have one's camisk removed, and then be tied to the bars for a whipping. But I was distinctly uneasy. And clearly this amused the guard, the brute.
"More closely," he said.
I had no choice but to comply.
"She-sleen
," he said.
"Master?" I said.
He grinned.
He took the nose ring between his thumb and first finger and lifted it. I stood painfully on my toes.
"You are a pretty slave," he said.
"I am white silk," I whispered, now frightened, truly frightened.
He released the ring and reached for me. "What does it matter?" he asked.
I backed away from him, and turned and, stumbling, striking into the wall of cages, fled down the hall. I am afraid I did not flee as a lovely slave girl. I fled clumsily, terrified, as an Earth girl fleeing from a Gorean male.
I heard him laugh behind me, and stopped. He had been having sport with me.
He had been teasing me!
He had dared to tease Elinor Brinton!
To be sure, he might do so with impunity; she was now only a half-naked slave.
I turned and looked at him in irritation.
He clapped his hands and took a step toward me, and I turned and fled stumbling away again, hearing his laughter in the hallway behind me.
But in a moment or two I had regained my composure.
When I reached the cage I was well pleased with myself. I had attracted the guard. He had wanted me. He, of course, would not have taken me, for fear of the wrath of Targo, but I had no doubt of his desire. I shuddered. If it had not been for Targo he doubtless would have taken me, on the cement flooring, before the bars. But still, on the whole, I was quite pleased. I knew that I was desirable. I knew that I was very desirable. I was an exciting slave. I was proud. I was much pleased.
"Camisk," said a guard, and I slipped out of the garment and handed it to him. I then stood straight before him, beautifully. He is a man, I thought. Let him see how beautiful I am! I remembered the other guard. I am white silk. I have nothing to fear from him. And so I stood before him, a lovely stripped slave.
"El-in-or!" chided Inge, from within the cage.
"How do you stand before men?" I asked her.
The guard then looked toward Inge, within the cage, and, instantly, under his eye, she stood straight, exhibiting herself as I had, as a lovely stripped slave. One is not permitted clothing in the cage.