by John Norman
"Be silent," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I looked at Lola. I forced myself to remember that she, in spite of her beauty and her collar, was a person. I looked at the small key, on its wire, dangling from her collar, between her breasts. It was, doubtless, the key to her confining bracelets. I must free her. Yet, as I looked down at her, I must admit that I enjoyed having her at my mercy. I knew, of course, despite the fact that she was a woman and I was a man, and that she was then to me as my own slave and I to her as her true master, that I must not permit myself this pleasure. It hinted too clearly at my dominance over her by nature, a dominance which I knew I must not permit myself to exercise, indeed, a dominance which I, of Earth, was not even supposed to permit myself to recognize. It was not congenial to the contemporary political myths of my planet. Men, not so long ago, I recalled, had not even been permitted to recognize that they were animals. Now, it seemed, although they might be granted a token permission to recognize their animality, they were refused permission to recognize the sort of animals they were. I wondered if there could be a politics which did not betray truth. Perhaps such a politics, something beyond theater and myths, might someday emerge upon the forge of history.
"There is a bucket of water at the side of the cell," I said. "Go there and drink. Then return and be again before me, as you are now."
"Yes, Master," she said. She went to the side of the room and knelt down. There was a wooden bucket there, with slatted sides, hooped with iron. It was full. She put her head down and drank. Meanwhile I put the wine, that in the shallow, chipped clay bowl, on the shelf to one side. The girl did not pay me the least attention in this. She did not expect to receive any of the wine. She was a slave. It was more than sufficient that she should kneel at the bucket and, braceleted, drink from it. Indeed, I had not forced her to crawl on her belly to a shallow pan. I wanted the table free.
I returned to the bench and sat down. In a moment the girl, again, was kneeling before me.
"Thank you, Master," she said. She had been fed and watered.
I rose to my feet and walked about her. I suppose I should not have done so, but she was so incredibly beautiful. It was a pleasure to see her displayed, fully, in her beauty and steel. She knelt very straight before me, a bit tensely, back on her heels, her knees wide. How marvelous it must be to own such a slave, I thought. Then I reminded myself that she was a person. There was something about her, subtle, in her breathing and body tone, which I could not place at the time. Too, there was an exciting odor emanating from her, easily detectable in the Gorean air, even in the pens. A man of Earth I did not even fully register or comprehend these signs. I had never seen them manifested in an Earth woman, at least in such degree. As I now understand she was attempting to hold herself still and control herself, but her body was betraying her. The evidence was manifest, exposed before my senses, but I, as a naive fool of Earth, did not even fully understand what was presented before me. I had at my feet an aroused slave girl.
I put my hands on her upper arms, good-naturedly, not understanding her shuddering, and lifted her to her feet. "Master," she begged. I knew I must free her. She had caused me a great deal of bother. I then lifted her from her feet, by one arm and an ankle. I was startled. I had not realized I could handle her so easily, nor, I think, had she realized it. "Master," she begged, "please." I then, less gently than I should have, perhaps, threw her on her belly on the table. She tensed, and lay very still. I threw her hair forward. I twisted her collar about until I had the wire and the key attached to it. I unwound the wire and placed it, with its key, at the side of the girl's head. I readjusted the collar on her neck, so that the small, heavy lock was again at the back of her neck. I observed the small hairs on the back of her neck, her hair thrown forward, and the steel, with its lock, on her neck, snug. I thrust the tiny key into the locks on the slave bracelets and, with two small, heavy clicks, and an opening of metal, removed them from her. I put the key, with the wire, and the bracelets, on the bench.
"My hands are now free, that I may please you more," she whispered. She lay before me, on her stomach, her hair thrown forward. Her hands were beside her, their backs to the table. This exposed their palms to me. The palms of a girl's hands are extremely sensitive and erotic. I resisted the impulse to trace lightly in the palm of her left hand a small cursive "Kef," the staff and fronds, that letter used commonly in the branding of female slaves.
The girl lay still. She did not move. This irritated me. Had I not freed her of the bracelets? I realize now that she was waiting to be commanded to my pleasure.
She moaned.
I looked at her. She was very beautiful, and it was extremely difficult to remind myself that I must not treat her as the marvelous and exciting woman she was but rather as a person, a thing to which its maleness or femaleness was incidental and unimportant.
"Master?" she asked.
Then, suddenly, for an instant, I saw her as Lola, a stripped and collared slave, who had caused me much misery, and who now lay before me, mine to do with as I wished. She suddenly tensed, sensing the difference in my attitude. My hands, angrily, gripped the edge of the table.
"Do not whip me, Master," she begged. "Let me try to please you. If I do not please you, then whip me."
"Do you bargain?" I asked.
"No, Master," she cried. "No, Master! Forgive me, Master! Please forgive me, Master!"
"Be silent," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I enjoyed having Lola at my mercy. Then I reminded myself that she was not to be treated according to the harsh modalities of nature, those of dominance and submission, and the enforcement of order. She was, of course, a person.
Did she truly think that I, a man of Earth, would treat her as a slave?
Surely she must know that she had nothing to fear from one such as I who would treat her with dignity and respect.
Then, suddenly, looking at her, I felt a flood of anger. It was she who had wished for me to receive twenty blows of the snake.
I flung the table up and to one side, throwing her to the floor. The table was half way across the cell.
Then she was at my feet, on the stones, kneeling in the straw, her head down, her hair before her face. I felt her lips, through her hair, kissing at my feet. Never had I dreamed that I would even meet so beautiful a woman, let alone have her in my power, attempting to placate me.
I looked down at the woman, her head down. "Lola begs to please Master," she wept. I felt, looking down at her, throughout my entire body, an incredible surge of force and power, of exhilaration. I threw back my head and laughed. She kept her head down. She trembled. Lola, I think, had heard such a laugh before. The feelings which swept me were almost incomprehensible and unutterably magnificent. I looked down at her. She was at my feet. I knew then, with a clarity and force far beyond those of argument and theory, that I stood in the order of nature. Laughing I crouched down, over her. I put my hands in her hair. I pulled her head up. Her eyes were closed. Her face, to my amazement, was rapturous. "Yes, Master," she said, "yes!" I prepared to hurl her to her back on the straw and stones, and treat her as what she was, a woman, and a slave. And then I remembered that I was a man of Earth. I released her hair. I seized her by the arms and threw her back from me. I clenched my fists. I cried out with frustration and misery. She was then on her hands and knees, on the stones. She looked at me, frightened. Then, again, quickly, she knelt. "Master?" she asked.
She was so beautiful!
I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. I gritted my teeth.
She crawled, unbidden, to me. She knelt then, close to me. She put out her hand to touch me. "Master," she said.
"Do not touch me," I said, suddenly.
She drew back her hand, quickly. "Yes, Master," she said.
I turned away from her.
"How have I failed to please you?" she begged.
"Be silent," I snapped.
"Yes
, Master," she whispered.
I strode to the wall of the cell, away from the girl. I extended my arms and, head down, leaned against the wall. I fought myself, and my desires, and my needs.
"Master?" she asked.
"Be silent!" I cried.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
I struck the heavy stone then with my fists, moaning. I must conquer myself. I must defeat myself. I must deny, thwart and suppress my impulses, my blood and manhood. I must be my own enemy. I must make myself my own victim.
"May I serve you wine, Master?" she asked.
I turned from the wall. I then had myself under control. I breathed deeply, almost gasping.
Unbidden, she went to the shelf where I had placed the shallow, chipped clay bowl of cheap, dark wine, fit for slaves. She then, holding the bowl, knelt again, gracefully, before me. Looking at me, she tossed her head, throwing her dark hair behind her. The slender steel collar was beautiful on her throat. She, holding the bowl with two hands, pressed it back against her belly, low, below the navel. I looked at the edge of the bowl, containing the wine, pressed back, into her flesh. Then she lifted the bowl before her and, gently, turning her head, placing her lips softly upon it, kissed it. She then, with two hands, head down, proffered to me the chipped, shallow bowl.
"Wine, Master?" she asked.
I took the bowl of wine from her. She trembled. She looked up at me.
I drank then, holding the shallow bowl with two hands. Then, after a bit, I lowered the bowl from my lips and looked down at the beautiful slave. I had not finished the wine.
"The wine, and Lola, are yours, Master," she said. I knew that she spoke the truth.
I lifted the wine again to my lips and again drank. Then I placed the bowl, containing its residue of wine, behind me on the table.
I had drunk as a master before the girl, the kneeling slave.
"You have tasted the wine of the House of Andronicus," she said. "Taste now the wine of Lola."
I then realized, clearly, suddenly, for the first time, that the slave before me was sexually aroused, and helpless. Hitherto I had been impervious to the obvious, manifested displays of her need. Signs of which I had hitherto neglected to take active account now seemed clear to me, even the odor of her begging slave body. I realized now I had registered many of her piteous signals, but, somehow, had forced them away from explicit, conscious recognition. I had been, I suppose, stupid and insensitive. It is one thing to understand clearly what is the case with one's slave and then, as one pleases, to satisfy or not satisfy the girl, using her needs to bring her more deeply and powerfully under your control as an abject slave, and quite another not even to know what is going on in her pretty head and lovely body. My ignorance in these matters was, I think, a function of complex factors. First, I was a man of Earth. Thus I was not accustomed to truly looking upon women, truly seeing them and trying to understand them. Most men of Earth do not, truly, unfortunately, pay much attention to women. Men often do not even, truly, know their mates. If they did, it seems that misunderstandings, divorces, and such, would be less frequent. An interesting contrast here is the Gorean master/slave relationship. Men tend to be extremely interested in things they own, and tend, usually, to be quite fond of them. Owned women do not form an exception to this general rule. The slave girl is commonly desired and prized by her master; she is one of his treasures. The Gorean master, interested in her and attentive to her, wants to know everything about her, in its complexity and intimacy. He wants to know her thoughts, her emotions and feelings, in their feminine, lyrical detail. Conversing with a lovely slave is one of the many pleasures of owning her. It is almost impossible for a girl to keep her thoughts or feelings from her master. He knows her too well. Most girls are extremely responsive to their masters, and love them deeply, with that incredible love which can be known only by an enslaved woman, that love which a woman can accord only to a man who is her total master. Yet I would be remiss did I not mention that even the most vital, animate slave, delightedly conversing with her master, knows that at a mere snap of his fingers she may have to tear aside her garments and serve him instantly as the lowliest, the most perfect, and the most abject of chain sluts. She is owned, you see. They are owned, all of them, owned, that must be understood, owned, literally owned. Perhaps that is hard for those of Earth to understand. But once that is understood, that the girl is owned, literally owned, everything becomes quite simple, and quite clear. And, interestingly, this is what she wants; she would have it no other way; she knows herself slave, and desires to be slave, fully, and without compromise. Too, it is not unknown for a woman to kneel and beg to be accepted as a man's slave. She desires to surrender and submit herself, to serve selflessly and wholly, to be subject in all things to the imperious, ravishing will of the master. Will she be accepted? "Remove your clothing," he says. She complies. She is considered, appraised. She awaits his decision, in trepidation, being examined for possible pleasingness. Let us suppose she is found acceptable. Her desirability is then acknowledged and vindicated; she is worth collaring, worth owning. Her life now has meaning. There are different senses of freedom, of course. It is not a simple thing. The slave, so unfree in some senses, even to the collar, is in other senses the freest of women, free to love, free to be submitted, free to be uninhibited, wild and sexual, free to be her deepest, most secret, most fulfilling self. Freedom in some abstract, or political, sense is clearly not essential to the happiness of a woman. Her happiness depends rather on doing as she wants to do, and being as she wants to be, most deeply. Important, too, one supposes, is the acceptance, even approval, of this modality by the environing culture or society. The female slave understands, or soon realizes, that she is a familiar, recognized, accepted, valued, prized, integral ingredient in a developed, colorful, functioning, complex society, one in which nature is acknowledged, even enhanced, by civilization rather than subverted and denied. On Gorean streets she may walk proudly in her beauty and collar. Indeed, the female slave is commonly the envy of free women.
But, too, of course, doubtless unfortunately, many slave girls are kept by men who are harsh and cold to them, and who despise them as mere slaves. These girls, too, of course, must obey. They, too, of course, must perform, and perfectly, and in all ways, for their indifferent, callous, contemptuous masters.
How ambivalent may be their feelings, those of the subdued, helpless, utterly vulnerable slaves, properties only, resenting the chains that are locked unlovingly on their fair limbs, the cuffings and bruises that seem so unfair and unearned to them, the cruel and arduous labors assigned to them, the severity and perfection of the discipline in which they are held, the seeming indifference to their desperate, manifold endeavors to please in all ways, and yet, strangely, too, despite their pique and ire, their distress and fear, they respond to, and respect, and are thrilled by the uncompromising dominance to which they are subjected. Hating the master they find themselves hoping to hear his step outside the door; furious, they long to be ordered to their knees; angry, they hope that he will hold his whip to their lips, that they may lick and kiss it with grateful deference. "How I hate him!" she thinks. And then the tiny, irresistible voice within her whispers to her, "You love him. You love him!"
Let them hope, however, that despite their lowliness and unworthiness, as mere slaves, meaningless properties that may be bought and sold, that their diligence, their devotion and lengthy, attentive labors may win for them at last a grudging smile, a commendatory, half-reluctant, rough caress, a softening of viewpoint, and attitude. They know themselves as no more than his sleek, amorous beast, and pet, but, even so, can they not hope, even against hope, to attract his interest, to win a modicum of acceptance and affection? But, alas, he may care more his pet sleen than his lovely, collared she-beast. How often that is the case! But in the end he refuses to part with her, and would, she realizes, suddenly, to her astonishment, imperil his life to keep her at his feet. Then, one day, chained, writhing under his angr
y whip, she laughs and cries with joy, knowing that he is fighting his feelings for her. She knows then, in all her sensitivity and intelligence, that she, no more than a purchasable animal, has won his heart. But she is filled with trepidation. Balances are so delicate, and the weathers of love can be subtle in their seasons. Permitted, freed of her bonds, bellying, her back afire, she squirms to his feet, and covers them with grateful kisses. He seizes her and drags rudely up her to her knees. "What a fool I am!" he cries. "Master?" she asks. "I love you, you worthless slut!" he cries. She dares not respond. He hurls her from him, in fury. She then kneels before him, head down. She is still in his collar, and will be kept there, precisely where, and as, he wants her. This is appropriate. She is a slave. "Are you worthy of being loved?" he asks. "No, Master," she responds. He then angrily gestures her back to his feet, and she crawls to them, and kisses them, and puts her head down, over them. She knows now that she is a love slave, and that he is her love master. She is aware, too, and this frightens her, that her discipline will now become even more strict. One is not easy with a love slave. Yet she is not displeased. She loves and, to her wonder, is loved in return. She lies at his feet in his collar. It has not been removed. It remains on her, as securely, as snugly, as before. Everything is again the same, and yet everything is different.
"I am yours, Master," said Lola.
I looked down upon her. No, I had not, hitherto, realized the extent of her needs. I had looked at her, but I had not truly seen her. I had looked at her as might have a man of Earth, seeing her in terms of classifications and categories, and my conditioned expectations, discounting what did not seem congenial to these categories and expectations, refusing to see, or, at least, to understand, what was clearly, objectively, presented before my senses. I now saw her, however, not in terms of generalities and conditioned expectations but as what she was, startling though it might be to my Earth-trained mind, an incredibly aroused female at my feet.