Savages of Gor coc-17

by John Norman

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And sometimes, too," I said, "Willessly, even though your back and legs maystill sting from his lash."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "You will learn to serve him whenever, wherever and however he wishes," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And perfectly," I said.

  "Yes, yes, Master," she said.

  "For he is the Master, and you are the Slave," I said.

  "Yes, Master she said.

  "For you are nothing, and he is all," I said.

  "Master," she whispered.

  "Are you now prepared to be opened?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I looked down into her eyes.

  "Open me, Master," she said. "Open me, I beg you, as a slave, for the pleasuresof men!"

  "Very well," I said, and then, as she cried out softly, I opened her, a namelessslave, who had once been Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, from Pennsylvania, adebutante, for the pleasures of men.

  "Please, do not put me back so soon with the others, Master," she begged.

  "It is nearly morning," I said.

  "Please, Master," she said. She clutched me beneath the blankets, pressing herwarm, vulnerable softness against me "Please," she begged. The blood on theinterior of her left thigh had now dried. When it was fresh I had taken some onmy finger and forced it into her mouth, and onto her tongue forcing her to tasteit. "Yes, Master," she had whimpered. I had also traced the common Kajira mark,the common slave-girl mark that which was the same as her brand, on her thigh inthe blood, and had then smeared its residue down and onto her left calf. In themorning I wanted to make sure that the other girls in the coffle were perfectlyclear on how she had spent the night and what had been done to her.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she whispered, happily.

  I put out my hand, to the side. The grass was cold with dew. It was still dark.

  She kissed me, softly. "How incredible do I find my current reality," she,marveled. "Suddenly, it seems, I find myself a slave, and naked in the blanketsof a master, on a world far from my own."

  I said nothing.

  "And only, it seems, a common slave," she said.

  "Your reality is precisely what it seems," I assured her "You are a slave, andonly a common one."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Your brand should tell you that," I said.

  "I am not familiar with Gorean brands," she said.

  "Yours is a common slave brand," I said. "It marks most property girls. Youshare it with thousands."

  "I was of high station on my own world," she said, petulantly "Here, on Gor," I told her, "Your station, your status, your prestige, are gone,taken with your name and freedom. Here you are only another slave, anotherdomestic" I behaved as one, didn't I?" she asked, rolling onto her back, looking up atthe dark sky.

  "It was fitting and proper," I told her.

  "How shamed I am," she said.

  "Of your responsiveness?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  I smiled. The third and fourth time I had used her she had yielded almost as aslave.

  "I cannot help it," she said, "that I am responsive in the arms of a master."

  "You are not supposed to help it," I said.

  "I suppose if I had not been responsive," she said, "you would have beaten me. "Yes," I said.

  "Truly?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I betrayed myself," she said.

  "Let us think clearly about this matter," I suggested.

  "Your assertion might be construed as meaning that you had committed sometreason against yourself, or, perhaps, as meaning merely that you had revealed,or manifested, yourself. Let us consider, first, the matter of treason. A freewoman might, possibly, feel that she had betrayed herself, in this sense, if shehad so yielded to a man as to supply him with some perhaps subtle hint as to thelatency of her slave reflexes. A slave girl, on the other hand, cannot committreason against herself in this sense, for she is a slave. To commit this typeof treason one must have a right, say, to deceive others as to one's sensuality,to conceal one's sexuality, and so on. The slave girl, an owned animal, underthe command of her master, does not have this sort of right. Indeed, she has norights. Accordingly, she cannot commit this sort of reason Her legal statusprecludes its possibility. She may, of course, rationally, fear the consequencesof her responsiveness being discovered, thus increasing, perhaps to her terror,in a slave culture, her desirability. Similarly she may lie or attempt to lie,about her responsiveness, but she is then of course, merely a lying slave and,when found out, Will be treated accordingly."

  "Such treason, then," she said, "can be committed only by a free woman."

  "Yes," I said. "It is a luxury not permitted to the slave."

  "It is a function only of the free woman's right to lie, and defraud, others?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said. "It is possible, of course, for the slave, subjectively,psychologically, to feel that she has committed this treason, for she may,mistakenly, be still regarding herself implicitly, as a free woman."

  "But she cannot, in fact, have committed it, because she is a slave?" asked thegirl.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I understand, Master," she said, bitterly.

  "You see," I said, "you were still regarding yourself, implicitly, at least atthe moment, as a free woman, or, perhaps better, more narrowly, as retaining atleast one of the rights of a free woman."

  "I am not to be beaten, am I, Master?" she asked.

  "Not at the moment, at least," I informed her.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  "The second sense in which you might have intended your remark about betrayingyourself, though I think it was not the sense in which you did intend it, wouldbe the innocent sense, quite appropriate for a slave girl, of revealing ormanifesting significant aspects of your nature. In this sense, of course, aslave girl has no alternative other than to betray herself. She is under anobligation, and a quite harsh and strict one, to release, manifest and reveal,fully, and in all its depths and facets, the profundities of her nature, thefundities of her femaleness."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "I think now," I said, "it is time to chain you with the others."

  "You can just take me and chain me with them, can't you?" she said, angrily.

  "Yes," I said.

  "You took my virginity," she said. "Does that not mean anything to you?"

  "No," I told her.

  "It was, after all," she said, "only the virginity of a slave!"

  "Precisely," I said.

  She squirmed angrily.

  "Are you angry?" I asked.

  "Am I permitted anger?" she asked, warily.

  "I will permit it, for now," I said.

  "Yes," she said, I am angry."

  "Your concern is not well-warranted," I said. "Your having was merely theungating of a slave, her breaching, her opening, an unimportant prefatorytechnicality in the history of her bondage."

  "Of course!" she said.

  "Would you be so concerned about a boar's opening of she-tarsk?" I asked. Shehad seen animals of this sort in streets of Kailiauk, in the dawn of the dayfollowing her sale, when she and the others had been marched out towards theIhanke. They are used, not unoften, in small Gorean towns, to scavenge garbage.

  Ginger and Evelyn had identified the animals for them. They had also informedthem that, many towns, such an animal might, in a market, bring than theythemselves.

  "I am the she-tarsk!" she said. "I am the slave!"

  "Do you think that you are important?" I inquired.

  "No, Master," she said.

  "There, you see," I said.

  "Yes," she said, "I see." She lay back, angrily.

  There was a narrow rim of light in the east now. The air was still damp, andchilly.

  "Do you respect me?" she asked.

  "No," I told her.

/>   She gasped, in misery.

  "Kiss me," I told her, "fifty times, and well."

  "Yes", Master," she said, and began to kiss me about the face and neck. Icounted the kisses. There were fifty of thenThen she lay down beside me.

  "You used me well, earlier," she said.

  "You are a mere slave," I said. "It is simple to use a mere slave well."

  "Doubtless girls such as myself are often well used," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "And, we must submit, unquestioningly, to even our most brutal usage," she said.

  "Of course," I said. "Are you distressed?"

  "No, Master," she said. "Not really. It is only that I am not used to being ananimal, a slave."

  "I understand," I said.

  "In your use of me," she said, "you did not give me not even for your use ofme."

  "No," I said.

  "Was that deliberate?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "A clever way to make clear to me that I was only fondled animal, helpless inyour arms.

  I did not speak.

  "I can scarcely begin to cope with my feelings," she said "They are so troubled,so tumultuous."

  "Speak," I said.

  "I must lie there," she said. "I could not escape. I must submit!"

  "Yes," I said.

  "I was controlled. I was owned!"

  "Yes," I said.

  "I was powerless," she said. "How you dominated me!"

  "You were used with great gentleness," I said, "though also, to be sure, withfirmness and authority, as befits a slave As for domination, you cannot yet evenbegin to suspect what it is for a woman to be dominated by a master."

  "She would be so owned," she whispered.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Can you understand my feelings of utter helplessness, and humiliation?" sheasked.

  "I think so," I said.

  "I have other feelings, as well," she whispered.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I cannot believe how I yielded in your arms," she whispered.

  "You are merely a slave who yielded," I said. "You have not yet begun to learn,as a slave, what is the nature of true slave yieldings."

  "Doubtless I will be taught," she said.

  "You are beautiful," I said. "It is not unlikely."

  "I had never dreamed that sensations such as you induced in me could exist," shewhispered.

  "They were largely the result of your own initial responsiveness," I said, "plusthe fact that you realized you were I a slave. They cannot even form a soundbasis, I would suppose, on which you could begin to even remotely conjecture thenature of the feelings and sensations which lie before you. Beyond thesensations which you have hitherto experienced lie infinite horizons."

  "I am afraid," she said.

  "To your feelings of humiliation and helplessness, then, I said, "we may alsoadd the emotion of fear."

  "But I have other emotions, other feelings, too, Master," she said.

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Eagerness," she said, "pleasure, curiosity, excitement, sensual arousal, adesire to please, a desire to serve, a desire to be owned and mastered, a desireto be true to my basic and radical femaleness."

  "I see," I said.

  "Never before tonight," she said, "have I, now only a nameless slave, felt somuch in contact with my femininity. I have learned tonight that being a woman isa real thing to be. It is not a biological triviality. It is not aninsignificant, regrettable concomitant of a genetic lottery. It is somethingreal and important in itself, something precious and wonderful" I agree," I said.

  "And it is not to be a man," she said.

  "No," I said. "I do not think so."

  "Strange," she said, "that I should have learned this only stripped, and in thearms of a master, and on a world far from my own."

  Oft is not strange that you should learn this on a world far from your own," Isaid, "for your world is like a distorting lens, perverting even the mostconspicuous lineaments of biological reality, nor is it strange that you shouldlearn it as a stripped slave. Your stripping, particularly as it was done by aman, or at the command of a man, should put you in touch with certain femalerealities, such as your beauty, and its softness, and its subject ability tomale domination; it should also, through exposure, and through various, subtleskin stimulations, heighten your vulnerability and sensitivity; this will enableyou to feel more keenly and enable you to understand, more clearly, certainbasic truths, such as the differences between men and women, and that you,whatever you are, are not a man."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Lastly, and most importantly," I said, "you find yourself a slave. Femaleslavery is the institutionalized expression, in a civilization congenial tonature, of the fundamental biological relationship between the sexes. In theinstitution of female slavery we find this basic relationship recognized,accepted, clarified, fixed and celebrated. A civilization, you see, need notinevitably be a conflict with nature. A rational, informed civilization caneven, in a sense, refine and improve upon nature; it can, so to speak, bringnature to fruition. Indeed, a natural civilization might be the naturalflowering of nature itself, not an antithesis to nature, not a contradiction tonature, not a poison nor a trammel to it, but a stage or aspect of it, a formwhich nature itself can take.

  "I fear even to understand such thoughts," she said, "let alone consider whetheror not they might be true."

  "Consider the case of the female slave," I said. "She was once a primitive,brutish female, innocent of legalities but, in effect, owned. She is now,commonly, a collared, imbonded beauty, properly marked as merchandise,effectively displayed and marketed, and owned in the full right of law."

  "Yes, Master," said the girl.

  "Who can doubt but what here civilization, as nature's refinement or expression,has wrought an improvement?"

  "Surely, no one, Master, ' whispered the girl.

  "Too, you will note that civilization has increased the control of the girls andthe effectiveness of bondage, the marking, the identification of masters, thepapers of sale, and so on. Escape, then, for all practical purposes, becomesimpossible."

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "And you are such a girl," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "I am now going to put you with the others," I said. I stood up, thrusting theblankets to one side. She drew her legs up, feeling the coldness of the air. Ilooked down at her, she looking up at me. She was very beautiful.

  "I am at your feet," she said.

  "How do you feel?" I asked.

  "Very feminine, very female," she said.

  "How do you explain these feelings?" I asked.

  "That I am a woman, at the feet of a strong man," she said, "one who dominatesme, one who masters me, one whom I must obey."

  "You do not speak like a woman of Earth," I said.

  "I have learned much on Gor," she said, "and I have learned much this night."

  I looked down at her, arms folded.

  She put out her fingers, touching the dark blankets. Then, spinning, she lookedup at me. "It is where we belong, isn't it, Master?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I have always known it in my heart," she said, "but I never thought it wouldcome true."

  I went to pick up her tunic. I felt the blades of wet, cool grass cut at myankles. I tossed her the tunic. She knelt, holding it. It was tiny, in herhands. On it, dark and wet, moist in its fibers, were the marks of dew.

  She clutched the tunic, looking at me. She did not draw it on.

  "I am no longer a virgin, Master," she said.

  "That is known to me, I assure you," I said.

  "I am now only a full and opened slave," she said, "no different from othergirls, one, like them, readily available at the master's least desire."

  "Yes," I said.

  "I am not sore, Master," she said.

  I nodde
d.

  "But that does not make any difference, does it?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Master," she whispered.

  "Perhaps now you should garb yourself," I said.

  "This is garb?" she asked, smiling, holding out the tunic. "It is scarcely ascanty rag."

  "It leaves little doubt as to your charms," I admitted.

  "It does not even have a nether closure," she said.

  "It is not supposed to," I said. "Do you know why?"

  "That I may be reminded that I am a slave," she smiled, "that my vulnerabilitymay be heightened, that I may be invaluable to masters."

  "Ginger and Evelyn have taught you that," I said.

  "They have taught us many things," she said.

  "What about intimate secrets of slave love-making?" I asked.

  "No, Master," she said.

  "The little she-sleen are doubtless guarding such secrets from you," I said. "Ishall speak to Grunt in the morning. It will not prove to be in their interestto persist in this particular reticence."

  "Yes, Master," she said, frightened.

  "They will teach you, and the other jewels on the coffle, all they can, andquickly," I said. "Failure will be cause for severe discipline."

  "Yes, Master," she whispered.

  "An ignorant free woman is a commonplace," I said. "An ignorant slave is anabsurdity."

  "You mean I am actually to be taught how to please man, trained?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said, "trained, as the lovely animal you are."

  She looked at me, frightened.

  "And I advise you to learn your lessons well," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "You are doubtless familiar, from your former world, with arts such as sewingand cooking, commonly thought appropriate for women," I said.

  "Of course, Master," she said.

  "Can you cook and sew?" I asked.

  "No, Master," she said. "Such arts, I thought, were for lower women."

  "You will learn them," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "But beyond such arts as cooking and sewing, arts commonly thought appropriatefor women, arts with which you are familiar, there are, obviously, many otherarts. It should thus come as no surprise to you that among these other should becertain delicate, delicious and intimate arts, particularly appropriate to thefemale slave."

  "I suppose not, Master," she said.