by John Norman
"Five," I suggested to the Dust-Leg woman. I recalled that Grunt had, two daysago, at another trading point, received five such rectangles for a similarmirror. I smiled when I made this suggestion to the Dust-Leg woman. In suchtrading, it is a good idea, on both sides, to smile, a great deal. This makesthe entire exchange, if one takes place, a good deal more pleasant for bothparties. Not only are tensions eased but vanities are less likely to becomeinvolved in the trading. It is easier, if one is smiling, to get a little lessthan one would like, or to give a bit more than one might otherwise choose to.
Concessions, thus, for both sides, are less like defeats and more like favorsbestowed on friends. In the long run, this increases the percentage of mutuallysatisfactory bargains, and the individual who has found dealing with yousatisfactory, of course, is more likely to deal with you again. He becomes, ineffect, a customer. It is better to make less profit on a customer and have himcome back than make a higher profit and not see him again. These, at any rate,were the sentiments of Grunt, who seemed popular with the Dust Legs, and, as faras I can tell, they are substantially sound.
I glanced again to the white female slave of the Dust Legs, kneeling, eyes down,in her beaded collar, by the kaiila. I thought if she were washed and combed shemight not be unattractive. It was easy to see why Dust-Leg men might find suchgoods of interest. It might be pleasant to have such a lovely animal about, tocook one's meat, to keep one's lodge and please one, humbly and obediently, inthe furs. I could also see why Dust-Leg women could view such a commodity withdistaste and contempt. How could they, free, begin I compete with a slave? Howcould they even begin to do it unless they, themselves, also became slaves?
"Two," said the Dust-Leg woman.
"Five," I said. My interest in the Barrens, of course, was not in trading. Asfar as I was concerned I might have give the woman the mirror. On the otherhand, I realized, and Grunt had made it clear to me, too, that one must notinsult the red savages nor deal with them unrealistically, particularly in thelight of other traders and merchants who might follow me. If I gave away goods,or traded them too cheap this would suggest that I was delivering cheap orinferior merchandise, an inference it would not be in our interest for redsavages to draw. Too, if they thought the goods sound, they might think they hadbeen paying too highly for them in the past, or expect that future dealers woulddeal with them similarly, which, of course, they not be likely to do, nor beable, realistically, to afford to do.
One of the Dust-Leg men was examining, with great care the hatchet which Grunthad shown him. Grunt excused himself and rose to his feet. One does not hurryred savages in their perusals of products.
Grunt went again to his stores and brought forth some packages, wrapped in waxedpaper. "Canhanpisasa," said Grunt. "Canhanpitasaka. Canhanpitiktica." He thenbegan pass out, to the Dust-Leg men and women about, pieces candy, lumps of cakesugar and flakes of dried molasses. The woman with whom I was dealing, too,received a palmful of molasses flakes. She smacked her lips. Grunt and she thenexchanged what I took to be appropriate civilities and compliments.
She pointed to Grunt. "Wopeton," she said. "Akihoka, Zontaheca."
I looked at Grunt. I knew one of his names among red savages was Wopeton, whichmeans Trader, or Merchant.
"She says I am a skillful and honest fellow," he said.
"Hopa! Wihopawin!" he said to her.
The plump woman doubled over, laughing. "Hopa', I knew meant "pretty' or" attractive'.
"Wawihaka! Wayaiha!" she laughed.
"I told her she was a pretty woman," said Grunt, "and now she is teasing me. Shesays I am a joker, one who makes others laugh."
"Two," said the Dust-Leg woman to me.
"Five," I said to her.
Grunt looked about, the sweets in his hand. He saw a red youth near the men,sitting together. He motioned him to come closer. The lad wore a shirt, leggingsand a breechclout, so much perhaps because he was visiting at a trading point.
Grunt offered him some of the sweets. The young man shook his head, negatively.
He was eyeing the red-haired girl.
"Ah!" said Grunt. Then he turned to the red-haired girl "Strip," he told her.
Swiftly, unhesitantly, a slave, frightened, she did so. "Be flattered," saidGrunt to her. "Our young visitor finds you of greater interest than some bits ofmolasses." He then put his boot squarely in her back and thrust her forward, onher belly, before the young man. "Please him," he said.
"Master?" she asked.
"Rise to your knees before him," he said. "Remove his breechclout with yourteeth. Attempt to interest him in you."
"Yes, Master," she wept. But it would not be the first time she had pleased oneof Grunt's visitors.
Grunt watched the girl struggle to her knees. He replaced the sweets, wrappingthem, carefully in his pouch.
The girl looked up, frightened, at the red youth.
"Four," I said to the Dust-Leg woman. I supposed I should have actually set myoriginal price higher. Already I would obtain less for the small mirror thanGrunt had for a comparable item the day before yesterday.
"Winyela," said the Dust-Leg woman, in disgust, glancing behind me to thered-haired girl.
I glanced back. Frightened, and humbly, and delicately she was pleasing theyouth. I had little doubt but what he would find her of interest.
"Winyela," said the Dust-Leg woman, and spat into the grass, A few yards away, near the kaiila, the white slave girl of the Dust Legs kepther head down, not daring to raise it.
Grunt had now gone back to the coffle, where most of his girls huddled together,the chain on their necks, and removed Ginger, and Ulla and Lenna, the twoSwedish girls, from the chain. All of the girls in the camp, with the exceptionof the red-haired girl, had now been named. In each case their former Earth namehad been put on them, but now, like a brand, by their master's decision, as aslave name. The two Americans, beside the red-haired girl, were Lois and Inez;the French girl was Corinne; the two English girls were Priscilla and Margaret.
That the red-haired girl had not been named as yet was not a function of thefact that either Grunt or myself saw any difficulty with Millicent as a slavename. The former debutante's name seemed to us quite suitable for a slave'sname. It was rather that he did not yet wish her to be named. She was tocontinue, for the time, as a nameless slave. The object of this was to lower herstanding in the camp, and to assist in her training. Granting her in hospitalityto various of his guests had a similar object. Grunt now came forward, Ulla andLenna bent over, one on each side of him, their hair in his hands. Gingerfollowed, a pace or two behind. Five of his girls were, now, not in the coffle,four of these being the red-haired girl, and Ginger, and Ulla and Lenna. Theother was the English girl, Margaret, whom he had put naked, her legs pulled up,under a kailiauk hide, on the grass.
Grunt threw both of the girls to their knees near the sitting men. He thenjerked their tunics from them. "Bring your hair forward, over your breasts," hesaid. "Cover yourselves, as best you can." His commands were translated, rapidlyand expertly, by Ginger. The two girls complied immediately. They coveredthemselves, as they could, with their hair. They crossed their hands and coveredtheir breasts. They clenched their knees together. They put their heads down.
The seated men laughed. It amused them to see slaves in such postures. Did theythink they were free women, before captors? Yet, too, I think there were fewthere who were not aroused seeing the women in this position. Such a position,in its pathetic pretense to modesty, begs to be rudely terminated; it taunts themaster, in effect, to the ensuing and uncompromising exposure of the slave. Sucha position, if prolonged more than a few moments, can become a nuisance orinconvenience to the master. It is, thus, seldom lengthily tolerated. Itsprimary value, and there is little other reason for permitting the slave toassume it, is to lead her to believe, and hope, that she may be accorded sometiny particle of dignity or respect, an illusion which then, to her shame andhumiliation, may be totally shattered by the master.
Grunt then drew in the grass, with the heel of his boot, a circle, some ten feetor so in width.
He then looked to the Dust Legs. One of the men stood up and pointed to Ulla.
Grunt then ordered her to stand in the circle, orders conveyed by Ginger, which,frightened, half crouched over, she did.
I saw that the red youth now had the red-haired girl on her back in the grass.
"Resist, to the best of your ability," said Grunt to Ulla. She nodded her head,frightened, hearing the translation from Ginger.
The Dust Leg then, with a rawhide thong, stepped into the ring in the grass.
Ulla tried to resist him, as best she could, but, in a moment, bruised andvomiting, he not having been gentle with her, she was on her belly in the grass,her hands being jerked behind her and tied. He then put her on her back on thegrass, pulling her up so that she rested on her elbows. He kicked her legsapart.
"Eca! Eca!" said the other men.
"Eca!" agreed Grunt, heartily.
"You, Lenna, my dear, now," said Grunt. "Into the circle! Fight! Fight!"
Ginger translated this, but I think Lenna needed little in the way oftranslation.
Clearly Lenna did not wish to be abused, as had been Ulla. On the other hand sheknew she must obey, and to the best of her ability.
Another red warrior leaped into the circle, a bit of rawhide thong loosely inhis mouth. Lenna struck wildly out at him and he seized her wrist turning herabout and thrusting her wrist high and painfully behind her back. She screamed.
I feared be would break her arm. Then he kicked her feet out from under her andshe was on her belly. He then seized her by the hair with both hands and yankedher up on her knees and bent her backwards, until her head was at the grass,exhibiting the bow of her captured beauty for his fellows. Then he threw herforward, again, on her belly, and, in a moment, kneeling across her body, hadlashed her wrists tightly behind her body. He then, like his fellow, turned herto her back, pulled her up, so that she rested on her elbows, and, standing up,over her, kicked her legs apart, too. Ulla and Lenna, together, then, lay in thecircle, up on their elbows, their legs kicked apart. The second fellow hadhandled Lenna even more rapidly, I thought, than had the first fellow handledUlla. Both girls had been speedily vanquished, and both now, helpless, laytrussed, their legs symbolically spread, at the feet of their conquerors.
"Eca!" said the men. "Eca!" commended Grunt. "Eca!"
"Remember," said Grunt to the helpless Ulla and Lenna, "you are to be totallypleasing to masters. You are never, unless commanded to do so, to resist oroppose them in any way. Your hands could be cut off or you could be tortured andkilled."
"Yes, Master," said the girls, fearfully, in Gorean, following Ginger'stranslation.
Ulla looked at the man who had vanquished and bound her. Lenna regarded the manwho had served her similarly, and with such dispatch. Neither of them, I think,had expected to be made so helpless so quickly, and with such strength. Lennaand Ulla exchanged glances and then looked away from one another, reddening,shamed. They had been well bound, as women, and as slaves. Doubtless they werewondering what it would be like to be owned by such men.
Grunt then sat down and began to talk with the other men, not the two stillstanding, as though nothing had happened, as though it had been only a bit ofsport with two imbonded sluts, only an amusement for the entertainment of hisguests.
One of the standing men pointed to Ulla, and said something. The other pointedto Lenna, and, too, said something.
"Oh?" asked Grunt, innocently.
I smiled to myself. It is hard for a man to subdue and bind a naked womanwithout wanting her. I thought Grunt would get an excellent price for the twobeauties.
The red-haired girl, whimpering, was still lying beneath the red youth, clutchedin his arms. She looked at me, frightened. He was again, eagerly, at her body.
She had well succeeded, it seemed, as her master had desired, in arousing hisinterest. He had turned her about, roughly, curiously, this way and that, fromtime to time, caressing her and examining her, and making her please him. Therewas some blood at her mouth, where, once or twice, he had cuffed her. I saw herhands, half wanting to grasp him, half wanting to thrust him back. He wasspeaking to her in Dust Leg, slowly and clearly. "Yes, Master," she whimpered,in Gorean. "Yes, Master." It amused me that the youth, like so many individualsto whom only one language is familiar, so familiar that it seems that all humansmust, in one way or another, be conversant with it, seemed to think that thegirl must surely understand him if only he would speak slowly enough and withsufficient distinctness. Grunt, of course, might have helped her, but he wasengaged in business. I, myself, though I had acquired a few words of Dust Leg,had little more idea, specifically, of what the youth was saying than the girldid. His tone of voice suggested that he was not commending her on her beauty, apastime on which the masters are inclined to waste little time with their whiteslaves, but ordering her to do something. "Relax," I told the girl. "Let looseof yourself. Feel. Yield."
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, rapturouslysobbing and shuddering.
I then saw that my presence, interestingly, had had an inhibiting influence onher. She bad been on the brink of yielding, a nerve's width away, but had beenfighting her feelings and herself, apparently shamed to yield as a slave toanother 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 tospeak, in the furs, is oriented toward providing the master with marvelouspleasures, and, in their own case, to feel as richly and deeply as possible,and, in the end, in an uncompromised and delicious capitulation, submittingfully to their master, to obtain the surrender spasms of one who is merely avanquished woman, naught but an owned and degraded slave. This is quitedifferent 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 anywoman could be called free who is not surrendered and owned. The free woman isexpected to pervert her nature in the furs, behaving as a cultural identicalrather than as what she is by nature, the servant and slave of her master. It islittle wonder that the free woman, concerned with her putative identically, herstatus, her image, her dignity and pride, is often inhibited and sexually inertin the furs. The Goreans say that if one has never had a slave one has never hada woman. Similarly there is a secret saying, among Gorean men, that no female isa 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 alllikelihood, be punished. The same frigidity which may be accounted a virtueamong free women, figuring in their vanity competitions, how well they canresist men, is commonly among slaves an occasion for the imposition of severediscipline; it can even constitute a capital offense. The degraded slave haslittle choice but to yield, and yield well. An interesting question arises as towhether a woman, permitted her own will in the matter, as a slave is not, can beforced to yield. There are two answers to this question, and the divisionbetween the answers is primarily a function of the time involved. Within a givenamount of time, say, half of an Ahn, some women can resist some men. On theother hand, there will be some men whom they cannot resist and to whom, despitetheir will in the matter, they will find themselves uncontrollably yielding.
Given a longer amount of time, however, any woman may be made to yield, whethershe wishes to or not, by any man. Sometimes, after such a yielding, she is thencollared. "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, andeven seek it avidly, even knowing whence it leads, to the acknowledgment of themale as her master, and of her as his slave.
Behind me the r
ed-haired girl was whimpering with pleasure in the arms of thered 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 herbroad, 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 roseup, 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 difficultbargain. Grunt, two days ago, had received five such articles for a similarmirror. 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 thenecks of Ulla and Lenna. Kailiauk robes lay on the grass. Earlier today Grunthad fashioned a travels for his pack kaiila. Such a device, the poles crossingover the withers of the kaiila, reduces the animal's speed but makes it possiblefor it to transport a heavier weight. Travels are common, particularly in themovements of camps, among he red savages. Travois, I suspected, would be heavilyladen 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, thedark-haired girl in the beaded collar, still knelt as she had been placed, atthe 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-outkailiauk robe under which Grunt had put Margaret, naked, her legs drawn up. Shehad 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 herslavery. 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 asto the precise nature of the goods which lay beneath that robe. Clearly it was awoman. Was Grunt trying to hide her?