Savages of Gor

by John Norman

  She looked at me, frightened.

  "You are a slave," I told her. "Yield, and yield fully—and as a slave."

  She then, gratefully, clutched the youth, and put her head back, rapturously sobbing and shuddering.

  I then saw that my presence, interestingly, had had an inhibiting influence on her. She had been on the brink of yielding, a nerve's width away, but had been fighting her feelings and herself, apparently shamed to yield as a slave to another man in my presence.

  She cried out with pleasure, clutching the red youth.

  "Winyela," said the Dust-Leg woman, scornfully.

  Slave girls must yield, and fully, to any man. Their entire mental set, so to speak, in the furs, is oriented toward providing the master with marvelous pleasures, and, in their own case, to feel as richly and deeply as possible, and, in the end, in an uncompromised and delicious capitulation, submitting fully to their master, to obtain the surrender spasms of one who is merely a vanquished woman, naught but an owned and degraded slave. This is quite different from the mental set taken by the free woman to the furs, of course, with attendant deleterious consequences for the free woman, in so far as any woman could be called free who is not surrendered and owned. The free woman is expected to pervert her nature in the furs, behaving as a cultural identical rather than as what she is by nature, the servant and slave of her master. It is little wonder that the free woman, concerned with her putative identicality, her status, her image, her dignity and pride, is often inhibited and sexually inert in the furs. The Goreans say that if one has never had a slave one has never had a woman. Similarly there is a secret saying, among Gorean men, that no female is a woman, who has not been made a slave. The free woman, often, fears to feel. The slave, on the other hand, fears not to feel, for she may then, in all likelihood, be punished. The same frigidity which may be accounted a virtue among free women, figuring in their vanity competitions, how well they can resist men, is commonly among slaves an occasion for the imposition of severe discipline; it can even constitute a capital offense. The degraded slave has little choice but to yield, and yield well. An interesting question arises as to whether a woman, permitted her own will in the matter, as a slave is not, can be forced to yield. There are two answers to this question, and the division between the answers is primarily a function of the time involved. Within a given amount of time, say, half of an Ahn, some women can resist some men. On the other hand, there will be some men whom they cannot resist and to whom, despite their will in the matter, they will find themselves uncontrollably yielding. Given a longer amount of time, however, any woman may be made to yield, whether she wishes to or not, by any man. Sometimes, after such a yielding, she is then collared. "Resistance is now no longer permitted," he tells her. "Yes, Master," she says. She now knows that she, as a slave, must open herself to feeling, and even seek it avidly, even knowing whence it leads, to the acknowledgment of the male as her master, and of her as his slave.

  Behind me the red-haired girl was whimpering with pleasure in the arms of the red youth.

  "Winyela," snorted the Dust-Leg woman, contemptuously.

  "Four," I said, recalling her attention to our bargaining.

  "Two," she said, eyeing the mirror.

  "Four," I said.

  "Three," she said, suddenly, beaming, the fine, strong teeth bright in her broad, reddish-brown face.

  "Three," I agreed. I saw she wanted the mirror. I gave her the mirror and she gave me the three beaded rectangles. She then rose up, well pleased, and took her leave. I folded up the blanket with the goods, and the beaded rectangles, within it. I had certainly not driven a difficult bargain. Grunt, two days ago, had received five such articles for a similar mirror. I should, I supposed, have set my original price higher.

  I looked to my right and I saw the two red warriors tying beaded collars on the necks of Ulla and Lenna. Kailiauk robes lay on the grass. Earlier today Grunt had fashioned a travois for his pack kaiila. Such a device, the poles crossing over the withers of the kaiila, reduces the animal's speed but makes it possible for it to transport a heavier weight. Travois are common, particularly in the movements of camps, among the red savages. The travois, I suspected, would be heavily laden by the time Grunt was ready to return to Kailiauk.

  I glanced to where the kaiila of the Dust Legs were located. The girl there, the dark-haired girl in the beaded collar, still knelt as she had been placed, at the paws of her master's kaiila. Her head was still down. She did not look up. She was under excellent discipline.

  Between where the men sat and the coffle, a bit to the right, was the spread-out kailiauk robe under which Grunt had put Margaret, naked, her legs drawn up. She had been under the robe for hours. It would be hot under the robe, in the sun, and there would be insects in the grass. I grinned. I think she was learning her slavery. It was a clever trick on Grunt's part. Certainly the Dust Legs who, like most red savages, are an inquisitive, observant folk, would be curious as to the precise nature of the goods which lay beneath that robe. Clearly it was a woman. Was Grunt trying to hide her?

  I saw leather thongs put on the necks of Ulla and Lenna, the beaded collars thrust up to admit them. These thongs were then tied to the high pommels of the kaiila saddles. Such saddles are not uncommon among the red savages, though they are commonly used for visiting, trading and ceremonial journeys. In hunting and war the red savage commonly rides bareback. The thongs were some seven or eight feet in length and the red savages knelt Ulla and Lenna down, their hands still tied behind them, by the forepaws of their kaiila.

  One of the red savages was now walking over to the kailiauk robe beneath which lay Margaret.

  The red youth now rose from the side of the red-haired girl, adjusting his breechclout. He then indicated that she should roll onto her stomach, which she did. He then slapped her twice, commending her. Her hands clutched at the grass. He then sauntered away.

  I walked over to her. "It seems I have served my purpose," she whispered, angrily, in English.

  "One of your purposes," I said, "for the time being." I spoke to her in English.

  She rose to her hands and knees, and looked up at me. She put down her head, reddening. I laughed at her. She looked up again, angrily, and then, again, put down her head, blushing. "Why did you make me yield?" she asked.

  "You wanted to," I said. "And, besides, as a slave, you must yield."

  She did not speak.

  "Are you angry?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "I heard you cry out, and whimper with pleasure," I said.

  "It is true," she said. "I did want to yield. How terrible I must be."

  "Such feelings," I said, "such desires to yield, are not only permitted of the slave, but required of her."

  "Required?" she said.

  "Yes," I said. "Do not confuse yourself with a free woman. You are quite different from her."

  "And as a slave," she said, "I had to yield. I had no choice, did I?"

  "No," I said. "The slave must yield, and fully."

  "How can you respect me?" she asked.

  "Assume the belly position, and kiss my feet, Slave," I said.

  She did so.

  "What now was your question?" I asked.

  "How—how can you respect me?" she asked, half choking.

  "I do not," I told her. "Do you know why?"

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because I am a slave," she said.

  "True," I said.

  "How strong are the men of this world," she said, wonderingly. "How they own, and dominate us. How different they are from the men of my former world. Little has prepared me for this. How, before men such as these, can we be anything but women?"

  "Your question about respect was stupid," I said. "Perhaps you should be lashed."

  It irritated me that she had spoken so generally of the men of Earth. I was sure there were strong, fine males on Earth. They were not all crippled weaklings. Some, I was su
re, saw through the conditioning regimens to which, even as children, they had been uniformly and persistently subjected. Some, I supposed, might upon occasion hear, perhaps in still hours, far off, old songs, the songs of the hunt, of capture, of victory, of the heart. The howling of denied genetic beasts, like the cries of imprisoned wolves, might upon occasion drift across the ice of the winter night. Too, the men of Gor were human, certainly derived from Earth stock, brought perhaps long ago to this world, in the Voyages of Acquisition, when Priest-Kings, the golden lords of Gor, were still young, and curious, about the universe and its vast and mysterious contents. The differences then between the men of Gor and those of Earth, I supposed, would be less genetic than cultural. Every plant, every seed, every bacterium has a nature, its own. How odd it would be if man had no nature, but was unique in the universe, in being an empty vessel to be filled with ideology, an amorphous handful of clay to be molded into shapes, however bizarre, by the self-serving sculptors of society. Man was once the questioner. One wonders if he might, someday, recollect himself. Surely there is much to question. Has he forgotten himself? One wonders if he has much profited by bartering his rationality for frustration and misery? Perhaps one day men, like angry titans, will seize and shift continents and the world will become again green.

  "Please do not lash me, Master," she said.

  I turned to leave.

  "Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Tonight," she said, "I beg to be taken from the coffle for your pleasure."

  "Tonight," I said, "I think I may be more in the mood for Lois or Inez, or perhaps Priscilla. We shall see. And tonight, in the coffle, you will be bound, hand and foot. Perhaps that will teach you not to ask stupid questions."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I then went over to the kailiauk hide where one of the Dust Legs was standing. Grunt had joined him there. Grunt seemed reluctant to lift the hide.

  "Hou," I said to the Dust Leg.

  "Hou," said he to me.

  "Ieska!" called one of the Dust Legs, rising to his feet, from where the men had been sitting. This was another of the names by which Grunt was known in the Barrens. It literally means one who speaks well. Less literally, it is used as a general expression for an interpreter.

  Grunt excused himself and went to see what the man wanted. He was the fellow who had been looking at the hatchet. The fellow was holding up three fingers, and then he pointed to the dark-haired girl kneeling by the kaiila.

  In an instant she had been summoned, and she hurried to him, as she could, with her head down, following the sound of his voice. When she reached her master and Grunt her master put his hand under her chin and thrust up her head. She looked about, startled, wildly, now permitted to regard her surroundings. She saw the other kaiila, the men, Grunt, myself, the girls in the coffle. Then she was stripped and knelt naked, before Grunt. He had her rise and turn slowly, her back arched, her hands behind the back of her head, before him. Then he again knelt her.

  "Tarl," called Grunt to me. I went to him, and he tossed me his whip. "See if she whips well," he said.

  The girl looked up at me, frightened.

  "On your hands and knees," I told her. She assumed this posture.

  Much can be told of the responsiveness of a girl by how she moves beneath the whip.

  I would give her three lashes. After all I was not whipping her, but testing her.

  I would not strike her with my full strength, but, on the other hand, she must know clearly that she had been struck.

  How else could the test prove significant?

  She cried out, thrown to her belly by the first stroke. I then administered the second stroke. She cried out in misery and turned to her side, pulling up her legs. I then struck her a third time and she cried out again, sobbing, and pulled up her legs even more.

  I thought she moved well beneath the whip. She obviously felt it, keenly.

  "On your hands and knees," said Grunt. He then, as she shuddered, felt her, she recently impressed with the might of men over her, she freshly lashed.

  "Good," said Grunt.

  She became Grunt's for three hatchets. She was, after all, only a white female slave and they were fine hatchets.

  Her former master kept her brief shirt dress. It was, after all, the girl who had been traded for, not the shirt dress. This did not matter, of course, really, for Grunt doubtless, if he wished to clothe the new slave, had an extra slave tunic or so among his goods. Too, he had the tunics left from Ulla, Lenna, and Margaret. The Dust Legs had traded for the girls, not their tunics. To be sure, Grunt would not, I suppose, have minded throwing the tunics in, if they had been wanted. But they were not wanted, of course. The red savages preferred running their new acquisitions naked beside their kaiila. This would be a splendid way to bring them to camp and display the success of their trading. Who knew? In time, if the girls worked out well, they might be rewarded with a shirt dress, or even some colorful rags from the cuttings of trade cloth. It is not a foregone conclusion, you see, that the female slave on Gor will be clothed. If she is fully pleasing, serving with absolute perfection, in her numerous domestic duties and in her squirmings in the furs, of course, the average master will doubtless be inclined to grant her clothing, say, a tunic, or such. One might think of this as her "earning her clothing" but that would be incorrect, as she can earn nothing. Rather, what she can do is be so marvelous a slave that her master will grant her clothing, if it be his pleasure. If she is displeasing, of course, the privilege of being permitted clothing may be revoked. In this sense, clothing, as several other things, such as food, and bonds, may be used in her discipline. Few girls desire to be sent into the streets naked, save for their collars. Much derision would there greet them. Too, I suppose, if Grunt had wanted it, the red savage might have left him the other girl's shirt dress. But he did not need it, or want it. Too, its cut, fringing, and beading doubtless identified it as Dust Leg. To be sure, most of the tribes had no particular animus toward the Dust Legs, other than, perhaps, to look down upon them somewhat because of their trading, and their relationships with white men. Another reason for bringing white female slaves into the Barrens in tunics is that this, apparently, in the eyes of the red savages, seems to certify them as authentic white females, so to speak, namely, females from the far-off "white world," women from the distant white civilizations. And it pleases them to have such women as their complete and abject slaves. This has to do, one supposes, with what has been spoken of as the Memory. Is it not pleasant to take the women of the enemy and turn them into one's docile, cringing, frightened, servile beasts, both of burden and pleasure?

  "Ieska! Wopeton!" called the fellow by the kailiauk hide.

  We left the dark-haired girl on the grass, where she had been lashed, and then purchased.

  The Dust Leg requested that the kailiauk hide be thrown aside. Grunt, a shrewd fellow, appeared to demur, and, indeed, even invited the fellow to examine the other girls on the coffle. The fellow, however, scarcely cast a glance at them, but they shrank back, under even so cursory an examination, fearing to belong to a red master. He did look for a longer moment at the red-haired girl but Grunt said something to him, and he turned from her again to speculate on what might lie concealed beneath the kailiauk hide. Grunt apparently did not wish to release the red-haired girl in a common sale. He had, it seemed, another disposition in mind for her. I remembered he had speculated that he would get five hides of the yellow kailiauk for her. No, she had not been brought along, marched into the Barrens, as a mere beast of burden. He had something else in mind for her.

  One or two of the other Dust Legs now came over to where lay the kailiauk hide, concealing Margaret, the stripped English girl. The first Dust Leg was now showing signs of impatience. He was no fool. It was clear to him that Grunt, if he truly, seriously, wished to hide a girl, would presumably cache her, bound and gagged, out of sight, perhaps in a slit trench a pasang or so away. As it was, the kailiauk hide wa
s presumably a device to arouse the interest of a possible buyer. The Dust Leg doubtless realized this. Further, he doubtless realized that his interest, in spite of the obviousness of this stratagem, was piqued. I could not blame him, accordingly, for feeling some irritation or resentment. I hoped Grunt knew what he was doing. He had already, in his trick with Ulla and Lenna, in my opinion, been treading on dangerous ground. Suddenly the Dust Leg, Grunt speaking to him, broke out in laughter. It took me a moment or so to understand what was happening, but, in an Ehn, it became quite clear. The Dust Leg, if interested, was to bid, sight unseen, on what lay beneath the kailiauk hide. The whole thing was, in effect, a joke and a gamble. The matter now put in a clearer light, the Dust Leg, and his fellows, were delighted. He tried to walk about and peep beneath the hide and Grunt, with great apparent earnestness and seriousness, hurried about, tugging down the hide at the edges. Red savages, on the whole, are fond of jokes and gambles. Their jokes, to be sure, might sometimes seem a bit eccentric or rude to more civilized folk. A favorite joke, for example, is to tell a young man that his kaiila offer to the parents of his prospective woman has been refused, thus plunging him into despair, until, with roars of laughter, he is informed that it has been accepted. This type of thing, incidentally, does not count, culturally, as a violation of truth telling, a practice which the red savages take with great seriousness. Gambling, too, is of great interest to the savages. Common games are lots, dice and stone guessing. Betting, too, may take place in connection with such things as the fall of arrows, and the appearance and movements of animals, particularly birds. Kaiila races, perhaps needless to say, are very popular. An entire village is likely to turn out to watch such a race. What was going on, further, could not be clearly understood unless it is understood that the Dust Legs knew and respected, and liked, Grunt. Such a game they would not have played with a stranger. Theoretically, one supposes, a high bid might be made on what lay concealed beneath the hide and then the hide, the bid accepted, might be withdrawn to reveal a wench as ugly as a tharlarion, but the Dust Legs knew, in the practical context, that Grunt would not do this to them. They understood, in the context, that he would be sure to put something not only good, but very good, beneath that hide. Similarly, since bids are almost always lower on an unseen commodity, he would be, in effect, making them a gift. The Dust Leg refused, with great drama, to go higher than two hides for what lay beneath the hide. Grunt, he made it clear, must now either accept or reject that offer. It was, of course, accepted, and Grunt, with some flair, threw off the hide. Margaret, suddenly exposed, cried out with fear. She blinked against the light and made herself, lying on her side, as small as possible. Curled naked on the grass, revealed, terrified, owned, she was exquisite. The two friends of the Dust Leg shouted out with pleasure and, striking him about the shoulders and back, congratulated him on his good fortune. Margaret cringed at their feet. The Dust Leg, more than pleased, tried to get Grunt to accept at least one extra hide for the girl, but this, of course, Grunt magnanimously refused to do. A bargain struck was, after all, a bargain to be adhered to. He was, after all, was he not, a merchant? Margaret was jerked to her knees and the Dust Leg tied his beaded collar on her throat. He then bound her small wrists tightly before her body with a long thong and, pulling her to her feet, led her away, by the free end of the thong, followed by his friends, to his kaiila.