by John Norman
I clenched my fists.
"Master," said Lola.
I had not even understood that a woman could have such feelings, in such depth and desperation. My education on Earth had not familiarized me with the complex and deep needs of women. That, I think, is the second reason I had not been hitherto alert to Lola's needs. I simply did not register what I saw. I did not know that that sort of thing, in such degree and intensity, could exist. I was furious. My education had apparently been kept deliberately incomplete in this respect. I had little doubt but what many specialists on Earth were familiar with such facts, facts they found it politically pertinent to suppress, or, should one say, politically pertinent to avoid bringing forward for general attention. There is much to investigate in science. Surely not all areas need be explored equally, especially if unguarded researches might, if published, bring ruin upon one's career. How much easier it is to be objective about the constituents of the atom than about ourselves.
I looked down upon the girl.
I had, of course, never seen such need manifested in a girl of Earth. But then, of course, I had never seen a girl of Earth, naked, in a steel collar, thrown to my feet in the straw of a Gorean dungeon either. I wondered if the girls of Gor were truly incredibly different from the girls of Earth. They seemed so sexually alive, so feminine and vital, whereas the girls of Earth, many of them, seemed so inhibited, so timid, so restricted, so tight, so embarrassed, so ashamed and frightened of their sex. It was as though they feared to let themselves go; as though it was terribly important for them to hold themselves in. Indeed, what was the pseudomasculinization of many of the women of Earth, in clothing and mental garb, but a hysterical attempt to deny their sexuality? What did the women of Earth fear? That a true acknowledgment of their deepest sexual needs would lead them to kneel at the feet of a master?
Lola looked up at me, tears in her eyes. Slavery, I suddenly suspected, releases femaleness in the woman. I did not suppose that Gorean free women could have brought themselves to this pitch of exposure, vulnerability and excitement, which was perhaps not unusual for a slave girl. The major difference then, I suspected, lay not so much between the Gorean woman and the Earth woman, but between the free woman and the slave. I recalled that Gorean slavers brought Earth women to Gor as slaves. Surely they would not have done so if such girls did not sell well, and, of course, they would not sell well unless they proved, on the whole, to be pleasing slaves, and fully. Many an Earth girl, I suspected, who might have thought herself frigid or sexually inert on her own world discovered to her horror that, collared, stripped, she was hot, helpless, exquisite meat in her master's furs. The girl of Earth would discover her sexuality on the planet Gor, or her master's whip would know the reason why.
"Did Master enjoy his wine?" asked Lola.
"I have not yet finished it," I said. The bowl was behind me, on the table.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I had drunk from the bowl which she had proffered to me. I had been standing. She, a naked slave, had been kneeling before me. I had drunk with her at my feet, as a master. Power had been in my body when I had drunk the wine. I recalled that I should have castigated myself for the feelings of strength which had been in me at that time, but I had failed to do so. I had felt powerful and magnificent. I realized now, of course, I should have been ashamed. I wondered if it were so wrong to feel magnificent and powerful. Was it truly unworthy of a man to feel magnificent and powerful? Why, I wondered. Why is it wrong for a man to feel like a man? Perhaps, I pondered, it is not wrong for a man to feel like a man. Perhaps it is not even wrong for a man to be a man. Who could think such, save perhaps some who were not themselves men?
"Would you like me to again serve you wine, Master," asked Lola.
"No," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She put her head down, deferentially. I realized then she was waiting for me to take her by the arms and throw her on her back on the straw, claiming her, subjecting her to the ruthless domination, sometimes tender, sometime harsh, always uncompromising, accorded by a master to one who is only a miserable slave.
Tears came to my eyes. I wanted her. Yet I knew I must not touch her. I was a man of Earth. I must remember that. And she was a helpless girl, a person.
She looked up. "Taste me," she said.
I then realized, to my chagrin, that another reason I might not have been alert to her needs was because of my fear. He who does not recognize a woman's needs certainly does not have to consider whether or not he should satisfy them. When a girl exposes herself as a slave it would seem there is then extended to the male an invitation to her mastery. She was at my feet, a slave. Did this not, then, challenge me, in effect, to put my collar on her. He who fears he cannot satisfy a woman, or fears he will be unable to do so, often pretends he does not understand her need. If necessary he may chide her, gently, or belittle or ridicule her, attempting to make her ashamed of her need, that it will therefore be overlooked that he has not satisfied it. If the female can be tricked, thusly, into the verbal repudiation of her needs, the male, in his weakness, relieved, need not consider fulfilling them. These deceptions, of course, are seldom successful; unhappiness, conflict and frustration, accordingly, for both males and females, for the needs cannot be physiologically repudiated, become endemic. One who fears to be a master, who doubts his capacity, his power, his strength, his will, his resoluteness, will be expected to turn a deaf ear to the pleas of even the most piteous of beautiful slaves. How can he be expected to fulfill another who fears, first, to fulfill himself? No man can be truly happy who does not own a slave. No woman can be truly happy who does not belong to a master. But if, in an unguarded moment, I had suddenly glimpsed my terror at the prospect of fulfilling myself, of accepting the responsibility, the joy and incredible power, energizing and exalting, of the mastership, of answering the obvious depth needs of the lovely, surrendered female before me, I swiftly thrust such a frightening comprehension out of my thoughts. I feared to look deeply into myself, and into women. Was I strong enough to accept honestly what I might find there? Is it not safer to cower in the caves of lies than stand upon the cliffs of truth, surveying the world? Yet when one stands in the sunlight, and feels the winds of reality, how dank and shameful seem the dark shelters of falsehood, and how foolish it seems then to have once feared daylight and fresh air. But swiftly I, a man of Earth, well tutored in my myths, scoffed that I might have feared to assume my manhood. I was well aware of the definitions of my manhood, and how well I must fulfill them, that I must be gentle, solicitous, feminine, and sweet, and obedient to the whims of females, lest I be a brute. But into those definitions did not enter, as I now recognize, hints of a nature formed by a harsh evolution, remarks pertaining to genetic dispositions selected for in times when the meadows were bestrode by the prowling tread of the saber-toothed tiger and the hills rang with the trumpeting of mastodons; those definitions did not tell of the dark songs and cries of hunters; they did not speak of campfires or knives of blue flint; they did not speak of warriors, or of meat turned on green spits by captured, neck-thonged women; one reality seemed to have eluded the verbal formulas I had been taught; one item had been left out of the definitions; it is called man.
"I kneel before my master," said Lola. "I await my rape."
I cried out with misery and frustration. Lola looked at me, startled, unable to comprehend the conflict which raged within me. I wanted to seize her and throw her to her back, and vent my wrath and joy upon her, uncompromisingly exercising the nocturnal rights which had been assigned to me over her, taking her hot slave flesh in my arms, making it writhe to my least touch, making her scream her submission to me as her master, but I knew that I was a man of Earth, and that she was a person.
Suddenly, angrily, stupidly, foolishly, I lashed out at her, cuffing her back with the back of my left hand. She fell backward. I was startled that I had struck her. Yet it had happened so swiftly I had hardly realized what I was doing. I had been furi
ous not really with her, but with myself. Lola was innocent. She was only a naked, aroused, beautiful, collared slave at my feet. It was not her fault that she had been thrown to me nor was it her fault that her needs were those of what she was, a slave girl. Yet she was the obvious precipitant of my dilemma, my misery. It was thus that I had suddenly, irrationally, struck her. It was foolish, and meaningless, that I had done so. She was flung back in the straw, blood at her beautiful mouth. I expected her to look at me with horror and reproach. Instead, she put down her head and crawled swiftly to my feet. She then lay on her stomach in the straw before me, her upper body lifted on her elbows, her head down, over my feet. I felt her lips, sweet and full, kissing at my feet. There was a kind of wonder and pleasure in her voice. "Yes, Master," she said. "Thank you, Master. I am sorry if I was not pleasing to you." I then understood that she had taken the blow as a token of my mastery over her, an explicit expression of my sovereignty over her. I felt her lips kissing at my feet, happily, gratefully.
"It is enough," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She continued to lie at my feet, her head turned to the side, her right cheek on my feet. I felt her hair, too, on my feet.
A slave girl is subject to discipline. She may be struck with or without reason. Usually, of course, the master would have a reason, however trivial it might be. Sometimes, of course, he may strike her with no obvious reason whatsoever, even one which is trivial. This serves to remind her that she is a slave and that no reason is needed to strike her.
I looked down at Lola.
She looked up at me, and then, turning her head and lifting herself on her elbows, she again kissed my feet. She then rolled from my feet a yard or so away in the straw. She lay on her back and regarded me, happily. "It will not be necessary to strike me again, Master," she said. "I will be docile, and obedient and loving." She looked up at me, smiling, her left knee raised, her hands beside her, palms up, in the straw. "Have me, Master," she said. "Subject me, uncompromisingly, to your pleasure."
"Do you beg it?" I asked. I did not know why I asked the question.
"Yes, Master," she said, smiling, "I beg it."
"Why were you put in with me tonight?" I asked.
"To be punished," she said. She smiled. "I await my punishment, Master," she said.
Then suddenly I was afraid, and guilty, and confused. I was weak, and I reddened, and stammered. I had struck the poor thing. And surely she did not expect me to be strong, and to take her in hand, as would have a Gorean master. I was of Earth. And did she not know she was a person?
"I am sorry I struck you," I stammered. "It was a stupid and cruel thing to do. I was really angry not so much at you, as at myself. I behaved as a brute. I am very sorry."
She looked at me, frightened. She did not understand me, or the forces which moved within me. How could she have understood me, she a Gorean girl, collared, whom strong men had long ago taught her womanhood? Did she not know that I, because of my fears, was trying to make her like a man? Could she not, like many of the women of Earth, because of her own fears, try, too, to be like a man? Each sex could then, because of its fears, try to protect itself from the other, denying the obvious complementarities of nature, the fitting together of diverse dispositions and modalities. The wholeness is not achieved, the puzzle is not solved, by trying to put together pieces of the same configuration.
I looked at her. Quickly, trembling, confused, she knelt, making herself small. She put her head down to the straw.
"Do not be cruel to me," she begged. "If I have displeased you, simply whip me. I do not understand you, or what you are doing. I am only a poor female slave. Please do not torture me in this insidious fashion. If I have so grievously displeased you, I beg to be simply put under the honesty of a leather discipline."
"I do not understand," I said.
She moaned. "Please do not subject me to these tortures, Master," she begged. "Lola is only a poor slave. Just tie her and whip her. Perhaps then she will learn to please you better."
"I am not trying to be cruel to you," I said. "I am trying to be kind to you."
She moaned.
"Look up," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. She looked up, frightened.
"I'm sorry I struck you," I said. "I am very sorry."
"But Lola is only a slave," she said. "Slaves are meant to be struck and abused."
"I am sorry," I said.
"Sorry?" she said.
"Yes," I said. "I am truly sorry."
She shuddered. "Tie me and whip me," she begged.
"Here," I said, hurrying to the wine, which I had left on the table behind me. I took the wine and, as the girl trembled, crouched near her, holding the wine to her lips. Shuddering, she drank. "You see," I said, "you served me wine, now I serve you wine." "Yes, Master," she said, trembling. I understand now her trepidation better than I did at the time. My emotional conflicts and frustrations, my warring motivations, expressing themselves in inconsistencies in speech and behavior, had terrified her. She was a Gorean girl, and her experiences on Gor had not prepared her to understand a male who had been taught to suspect his own nature, and to torture and lacerate himself for impulses, desires and feelings as natural as the circulation of the blood and the movement of molecules through the membranes of cells. Shame she could understand, such things as the chagrin of a man who has failed in honor, but pathologically conditioned guilts, instilled neurotic anxieties, used as control devices to perpetuate sickened societies, were unfamiliar to her. I think, now, she may have feared that she was in the presence of a madman, one to whom her beauty, her vulnerability and helplessness seemed meaningless, one who seemed not to understand that she was a woman and a slave, one who seemed ignorant of her desires, impervious to her needs, one who did not seem to know what to do with her or how to handle her, one who, though ostensibly sane, and possibly dangerously strong, yet behaved unpredictably and irrationally, one who, though ostensibly a male, behaved in no fashion remotely resembling that of a man. It is little wonder she was frightened. Surely, she must have surmised, if I were not mad, I was at least a fool. Who but a fool would not drink when he was thirsty, or eat when he was hungry? But I was not a madman or a fool. I was neither, or perhaps both. I was a man of Earth.
"Forgive me," I begged the girl.
She shuddered, spilling a bit of wine. She looked at me with terror. I did not strike her.
"Are you finished?" I asked.
She nodded her head, frightened.
"There is some left," I said. "Finish it."
I held the chipped bowl, and the girl, frightened, finished the wine. I put the shallow, chipped bowl on the table.
I returned to the girl, and crouched down beside her. She feared to meet my eyes.
"Please forgive me," I begged.
She shuddered.
"Forgive me," I said, irritably.
"I forgive you, Master," she said, quickly.
"I did not mean, truly, to order you to forgive me," I said. "I would appreciate it if you, of your own free will, would voluntarily forgive me."
"Yes, Master," she whispered. "I forgive you, of my own free will, voluntarily."
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't hurt me, please, Master," she begged. She refused to meet my eyes.
"Look at me," I said.
"Please do not torture me, Master," she said.
"Look at me," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
She lifted her head and looked into my eyes. I was startled. The girl was genuinely frightened.
I saw the slender steel collar on her neck. My eyes must have momentarily hardened, or glinted. She shuddered. Then I again controlled myself. "You need not call me 'Master'," I said, kindly.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do not call me 'Master'," I said.
"I am a slave, Master," she wept. Disrespect in a slave can be punished by death.
"Do not call me 'Master'," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. "I mean 'Yes,'" she wept.
"Call me 'Jason'," I said.
She looked away from me, down, trembling, terrified. "'Jason'," she whispered. "Please do not kill me, Master."
"I do not understand," I said.
"You have scorned my beauty," she wept. "You refused to rape me. You have forced me to show you disrespect. Now will you not, cruelly, punish me for being insufficiently beautiful, for not having yielded in your arms as an abject slave, and for having shown you disrespect? Will you not now throw me to your feet and kick and beat me mercilessly, venting your displeasure upon me?"
"Of course not," I said.
She shrank back. "The House of Andronicus would not like it if you killed me," she said. "I am their property."
"I have no intention of killing you," I said.
She shook with relief. Then she looked at me. "I am here," she said. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Nothing," I said.
"I find that hard to believe, Master," she said.
I shrugged.
"What game are you playing with me?" she said. "For what cruel treatment and punishment are you preparing me?"
"None," I said.
She shuddered. "I know you are not of Gor," she said. "Are all men of your world like you?" she asked.
"Most, I suppose," I said.
"How their slaves must live in terror of them," she said.
"Most men of my world do not have slaves," I said. "Our women, almost uniformly, are kept free."
"Whether they wish it or not?" she asked.
"Of course," I said, "in such a matter their wishes are unimportant."
"That is called freedom?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "I suppose so."
"But some men, strong men," she said, "must enslave their women."
I nodded. I had known of such cases. Such men, I supposed, made their own laws.
"But most men of your world," she said, "do not have slaves."
"Of course not," I said.
"Did you have slaves?" she asked.
"No," I said.