Savages of Gor

by John Norman

  "Certainly," I said.

  "I am a slave," she said. "I must submit."

  "So," said I, "she who was a debutante submits?"

  "Yes, Master," she said. "She who was a debutante submits. She is now a slave. She is Master's, his to do with as he pleases."

  "In family barterings," I said, "barterings concerned with alliances to consolidate or improve social position, the woman's utility, as I understand it, is substantially realized with the successful completion of the bartering process, when she is, in effect, exchanged for status and power. Her life after that is doubtless much her own, and she will be permitted to be, and may even be expected to be, annoying and unpleasant, irritating and petulant, demanding and hysterical, spoiled and expensive, and sexually frigid, but such is not the case, I assure you, with the explicit, legal slave. A fellow, after all, is going to see to it that he gets his money's worth out of her. If necessary she may be whipped until she juices at so little as a snapping of his fingers. And he will put up with not the least nonsense from her, and will see to it that she pleases him—fully. So you see there is a considerable difference between these two "slaveries," so to speak, one hypocritical and fraudulent, the other quite genuine."

  She gasped. My hand moved higher on her thigh.

  She controlled her breath. My hand, now, was again still.

  "We, of course," she said, "would be permitted our clubs, our activities, our parties, our affairs."

  "Yes," I said.

  "But it would be a meaningless existence," she said, "meaningless." "Oh!" she said.

  My fingers now rested on her brand. "What is this?" I asked.

  "My brand," she said.

  "You must be a slave," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Your existence on Gor," I said, "you will find far from meaningless. You will find it quite meaningful, I assure you."

  She shuddered.

  "It is rather something else which you will find is meaningless on Gor," I said.

  "What, Master?" she asked.

  "You, yourself," I said.

  "Me?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said, "for you will be only an article of property, a meaningless, purchasable trinket, a worthless bauble, an owned woman, a slave."

  She looked at me with horror.

  "Surely you are aware that you may be purchased or sold, or bartered, literally, not metaphorically, bartered, or given away, or commanded, as men please, that you are naught but an embonded woman, a totally meaningless slave?"

  "Yes, Master," she moaned.

  "Did you wear a white gown, of ankle length, when you were presented as a debutante?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  My hand was now tight upon her brand. "Say," I said, "'I am now naught but a branded slave on Gor.'"

  "I am now naught but a branded slave on Gor," said the girl.

  I moved my hand upward, to her hip, and to the sweetness of her waist at the hip.

  "Your hand is high beneath my tunic, Master," said the girl.

  "Do you object?" I asked.

  "No, Master," she said. "I am a slave. I may not object."

  "The clothing in which you were exhibited to the buyers," I said, "which was removed for their interest, in your sale, did not seem to me the clothing of a debutante. It seemed to me rather the clothing of a girl, and of a certain sort of girl, say, one who works in an office."

  "I wished to avoid the imminent and obvious fate of the debutante," she said, "to be bartered for position and power on the marriage market."

  "This was the occasion, doubtless, in which your aunt expressed her view that such, in effect, was all you were good for."

  "Yes!" she said. "Oh!" she said.

  "You have lovely curves," I said.

  "Are you warming me for my taking?" she asked.

  "They would bring a high price," I said.

  She moaned.

  "Your aunt," I said, "as we have suggested, seems to have had a very limited conception of your utilities. It probably never even entered her ken, for example, that you might one day be a scantily clad, branded slave."

  "Master?" asked the girl.

  "On the other hand," I said, "she knew you very well, and, in some way, may have been touching on something of importance."

  "I do not understand," said the girl.

  "I do not mean to insult you, a girl from Earth," I said, "but you are obviously extremely feminine. You have, doubtless, a large number of female hormones in your body."

  "Master?" she asked.

  "Your aunt was then, perhaps, trying to convey to you that your most congenial and appropriate destiny, what might be best for you, what might be most natural for you, would be for you to find yourself naked in the arms of a man."

  "As little more than a slave?" she asked.

  "As perhaps no more than a slave," I said.

  "I cannot help it that I have a feminine face, that I have a feminine body," she said. "I cannot help it that I am feminine!"

  "Why would you want to help it?" I asked.

  "It is wrong to be feminine!" she said.

  "That is obviously false," I said. "What is your next point?"

  "I know that I am feminine," she wept. "I have known it for years, from my desires and feelings, even from before the interior truths of my reality manifested themselves so unmistakably, so unrepudiably, in my body, shaping and curving me for the destiny of the female, and for the lustful, appraising eyes of men."

  I regarded her, not speaking.

  "I am afraid to be feminine!" she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because," she wept, "I sense that it is, ultimately, to be the slave of men."

  "You desired to prove your aunt wrong," I said.

  "Yes," she said. "I would prove that I was independent, that I was capable, that I could achieve success on my own. My talents would be obvious. I would be hired promptly. I would be rapidly advanced. I would become a female executive. That would show my aunt! That would show myself! That would show men!"

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "I took money and left home," she said. "I scarcely informed my family as to my decision or whereabouts. I went to a great city. It is called New York. I rented expensive quarters. Confidently, I sought a significant position in business."

  "And then?" I asked.

  "Alas," she said, ruefully, "I found my credentials sorrily lacking. I could find no work of the sort in which I was interested."

  "I see," I said.

  "After weeks of misery and frustration," she said, "I contacted my family. A position was immediately arranged for me."

  "I see," I said.

  "It was not, however, at all, what I had hoped for," she said. "I became, in effect, the secretary to a female executive, her 'girl' in the office. She took charge of me and, in effect, prescribed my mode of dress and behavior."

  "It was largely due to her, then," I said, "that you wore the attractive garments you did, when you were stripped for the buyers at the house of Ram Seibar?"

  "Yes," she said, "and she even prescribed that the pearls I wore must be synthetic, as being more befitting than real pearls a girl in my position."

  "I see," I said. "Did you protest this?"

  "I did not wish to lose my job," she said.

  "I see," I said. I was pleased to learn that she had not worn the false pearls of her own volition. That would surely mitigate her culpability in the matter, at least to some extent, in Gorean eyes. She had, of course, agreed to wear them. That they might regard as important. That agreement, of course, had been formed, in a sense, under duress. The Goreans, on the whole a fair folk, would doubtless take that into consideration. The degree of duress might be regarded as significant. The matter was surely subtle. Grunt, in any case, as I knew him, would not be interested in punishing her for that action, as it had taken place when she was free. That life was behind her now. Her whippings, now, doubtless, would be functions of such things as wheth
er or not she was sufficiently pleasing as a female slave. Still, I would inform Grunt of this development. He would find it of interest. Masters find almost everything about their slaves of interest. Too, it would please him.

  "And so," she said, "I continued to run her errands, to answer her telephone in a pretty voice, to do her filing, to bring her her coffee, to address her deferentially, to smile at her clients and walk in a certain way past them."

  "I understand," I said.

  "Doubtless she enjoyed having me do this," she said, bitterly, "my station in society having been so superior to hers."

  "Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

  "It was to be made clear to all her colleagues," she said, angrily, "that I was only a girl, fit for lowly labors and being pleasing to her superiors. Clearly I was a different sort of woman from her!"

  "Perhaps you were," I said.

  "Dressed as I was, forced to behave as I was," she said, "how could men see me as executive material?"

  "Doubtless it would be difficult," I said.

  "Yes," she said.

  "You are very feminine," I said, "perhaps you are not executive material."

  She squirmed, angrily.

  "She well used my femininity, my meaninglessness, my prettiness," she said, "to highlight, to point up and accentuate, by contrast, her own quite different image, that of strength and competence, of decisiveness, of command, of authority and power."

  "I have seen such women naked," I said, "in a collar, kissing the feet of men."

  "Oh?" she said.

  "But they are not so beautiful as you," I said.

  She was silent.

  "Do you feel that your treatment by her was motivated by some insecurity on her part, by fear for her position or status, that she may have seen you as a threat?"

  The girl was silent for a moment. Then she said, "No, I do not think so."

  "That is interesting," I said.

  "I could not have begun to compete with her," she said.

  "You were not that sort of woman," I said.

  "No," she said.

  "Do you think she disliked you, or hated you?" I asked.

  "I don't think so, really," she said, slowly.

  "Can you conceive it possible that she may have seen you rather more as you were, than as you saw yourself?"

  "Master?" she asked.

  "She may have dressed you as she did," I said, "and treated you as she did, and made you do the things you did, for a very good reason."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Because you are feminine," I said.

  She was angrily silent.

  "Did you enjoy doing the things you were told?" I asked. "Did you enjoy obeying?"

  "Sometimes," she whispered.

  "I see," I said.

  "Sometimes she assigned me, or loaned me, to a male colleague," she said. "Some I despised," she said, "for they seemed so ingratiating, apologetic, and weak. They would ask me if I would please do this, or please bring them that, and so on. Sometimes they would even do their own menial tasks and fetchings. I held them in contempt. They were just as the women who hate men had told them they should be. It has always been surprising to me why some men are so pathetically anxious to please women who hate them."

  "But the women who hate them would not, on the whole, admit that," I said.

  "Of course not," she said. "That would be a gross tactical error."

  "Perhaps it should be the women who should try to please the men," I said.

  "That would be a different world," she said.

  "And a more natural one," I said.

  "Many fear nature," she said, "particularly the most unnatural."

  "Nature is not so terrible," I said.

  "At least not for the natural," she said.

  "So you despised some of these men?"

  "Yes," she said. "But even so I had an uneasiness when one of them, even one of these weak ones, would have me do something for him. As weak and pathetic as they were, they were still males, and I was a female, and serving them. I had ambivalent feelings then, part of me resenting that such as they, weaklings, should be in authority over me, and another part of me feeling unsettling, strange sensations, as I served them. They were, after all, males and I, a female, was obeying them."

  She seemed reluctant to speak further.

  "Continue," I said.

  "Too, there were other male colleagues to whom I was occasionally assigned or loaned who were quite different. They would simply tell me to do something. I sometimes felt insulted or resented their abruptness, but it was these men to whom I sincerely hoped, and without the least ambivalence, I would be found pleasing. They treated me as what I was, a pretty employee, a girl, an instrument or convenience. Those I enjoyed serving, and obeying. Sometimes I would even go to the ladies' room to recover, to deal with my confusing, troubling emotions. In their presence I might even become aware of the movement of my thighs within my dress. Sometimes I dreamed of them, coming for me, strangely, with chains. Were the chains meant for me? Usually I would awaken suddenly, sweating and frightened. But then I would try to go to asleep again, eagerly, immediately, hoping to continue the dream. Alas, it was seldom to be so! Then one night it seemed to me that I awakened in chains, locked on my ankles, and wrists, and neck, and that I was fastened to a heavy ring on the tiles of a palace, and I lifted the chains and looked upon them wonderingly but without fear. I understood nothing. I was naked. I was chained. What had become of my clothing? Why was I stripped? Why was I chained? Where was I? Who had put me there? Why was I there? What would be done with me? What might I now be? Surely in some sense I was quite different now, the same, and yet different. Were self-serving and self-seeking to be no longer permitted to me? Must I now live not for myself but for others? My reality was now different, but seemingly a thousand times more real than what I had hitherto taken to be reality. The chains held me well. I must remain where I was. Another will had decided this, not mine. My disposition was now in the hands of others, but what others I did not know. I must wait. Then I saw a figure approach. I could not see his features. But he carried a whip. I knew that he was going to whip me, and that it was appropriate that he do so. It was right that I be whipped. I knelt and put my head down to the tiles. I awaited the stroke of the whip. With it I would be informed. It would leave me in little doubt as to what I now was. The thought went through my head, 'Show me that I belong to you, Master. Teach me. With the stoke of your whip, claim me. I am yours.' I had the sense, as I knelt there, head down, chained, that from now on I would be understood and treated as was appropriate for me, as I should be understood and treated. It would now be done for me as it should be done for me. Others had decided it. I was not discontent. My life would now change. But this awakening was itself within a dream, from which I shortly awakened. How miserable I was then to have awakened and found the palace gone, and the chains vanished. Should I not have rejoiced? But I did not! And how fortunate, doubtless, to discover that I was now returned to the shallow vapidities of a meaningless quotidian existence. But I recalled, you see, a brighter, fresher, greener, more sensate, more living reality. I recalled the tiles of a palace, the weight of obdurate, clasping chains, my nudity, the tiny movements of air upon my body, the feel of the flat, colored surface of the tiles beneath my knees, and, too, beneath my forehead, as I knelt, my hair spread upon them, betokening submission, humbly rendering obeisance, hoping to be found pleasing. How horrifying, doubtless, to kneel head down, helpless, naked, chained, awaiting the fierce stroke of a man's claiming lash. And yet, alas, it was not with relief, and gladness, but in grief, and moved by disappointment and sorrow, that I awakened. How can that be understood? Why did I not have the feelings I should have had? Am I so ill-educated and uninformed? What a terrible woman I was to have such dreams!"

  "Not at all," I said. "Such dreams may be disturbing to the waking mind, which does not understand them at the time, but they are not unusual, and, indeed, are indicative of health and n
ormality."

  "When I knew I was to be sent to such a male, one of the different ones, I would be unusually concerned with my appearance and dress. Much attention would I give to my hair and cosmetics, to the belting of my dress and the fall of its folds upon my body. I would spin before the mirror, to make certain the dress swirled well and provided a swift glimpse of my calves. Sometimes they rebuked me for tardiness, for such men are not noted for their patience. But they were not aware, of course, of the reason for my lack of promptitude, which reason, naturally, I dared not confess to them. When reproved by them, for one thing or another, I would sometimes cry, in secret, I was so miserable. It was hard for me to do other in their presence than speak softly. Sometimes I stammered. Sometimes they would demand that I speak up. Sometimes, to my anguish, they would simply dismiss me, simply send me from their presence. I would address them, and naturally, it seemed, and despite my superiority of social position, as 'Sir'. Those were the men I enjoyed obeying, and serving. Those men, of course, were all married, for women quickly sense their maleness, their virility and power. Such men are sought out, at all costs. Do we not all search for our master, our chain?"

  "But generally," I said, "you served the female executive?"

  "Of course," she said. "Almost always. And she worked me well. I did almost everything in the office for her that was mechanical, trivial, and routine. I am sure she received much pleasure from putting me to such labors, ordering me about, and so on, despite the difference in our social strata, a difference certainly not to her advantage. But, too, I think sometimes she was concerned to keep me away from the men."

  "Perhaps she herself occasionally felt female," I suggested.

  "That is hard to believe," she said.

  "It is possible," I said.

  "Perhaps," she said.

  "And a free woman," I said, "cannot hope to compete in attractiveness with a female slave."

  "I was not then a female slave!" she protested.

  "One does not need a brand and collar to be a female slave," I said. To be sure, such things are useful, in marking and identifying her—publicly."

  "Doubtless," she said.

  "Surely you agree," I said, "that female slaves should be marked, and identified, publicly."