Norman, John - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor.txt

by Renegades of Gor [lit]

  with it comes a new and profoundly different understanding of one’s self and

  nature; by it, you see, a categorical and radical transformation of one’s

  realities is effected; in it one realizes, suddenly, that one is now no longer

  what one was before, that one is now something absolutely different, that one is

  now no longer a free person, but a property, subject to buying and selling, an

  animal, a slave.

  (pg.155) Phoebe knelt near the fire, back on her heels. Occasionally she would

  kneel, up, off her heels, and stir the porridge.

  “Keep you back straight,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Her body was slim, her hair was long, bound behind the back of her head with the

  black cord.

  Others about, too, were cooking.

  She still wore the garmenture so much like the curla and chatka, the cord at her

  belly and the long, single strip of cloth, the latter passing over the cord from

  the outside to the inside in front, and then up, and over it again in the back,

  moving from the inside to the outside, the whole then, above the cord, pulled up

  and adjusted, snugly.

  She stirred the porridge.

  The bottoms of her feet were dark with dirt.

  There was a scuffling sound outside and, looking up, we saw a stumbling woman,

  naked, a rope on her neck, her hands tied behind her, being dragged among the

  tents. She cast us one wild, desperate glance, and then was dragged past.

  Phoebe knelt even straighter.

  “I think it is a good thing that I kept you covered in my absence yesterday and

  today,” I said.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “Do you know why I did so?” I asked.

  “That I may learn discipline?” she said. “That I may learn that I am truly your

  servant, and what it is to be the servant of a man such as you? And that I may

  learn to be a good servant?”

  “Such things,” I said, “but there is, too, another reason.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “That it is more likely that you will be here when I get back,” I said.

  “I would not run away,” she said.

  “I was not thinking of that,” I said.

  “I do not want to run away,” she said, “but, too, I would be afraid to run

  away.”

  “But you are a free woman,” I said. “It is not as though you were a slave.”

  “But if you caught me,” she said, “you would punish me, would you not, and

  terribly?”

  (pg156) “Yes,” I said. “But still it would not be as though you were a slave.”

  She shuddered. “If I were a slave,” she said, “if I were to be branded and

  collared, I would not even dare to think of running away.”

  I nodded. Gorean, she was not unacquainted with the severities typically

  inflicted upon wayward slaves, slaves foolish enough to attempt escape. Too,

  escape, in effect, is impossible for the Gorean slave girl. The lay, the

  culture, and such, are not set up to permit it.

  “But why then?” she asked.

  “That it would be less likely that you would be stolen,” I said.

  “Really?” she asked, pleased.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you really think a man might want to steal me?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Would you?” she asked.

  “I might consider it,” I said. “I think you would look well on all fours,

  bringing me a whip in your teeth.”

  “Phoebe has gathered, the last two nights,” she said, shyly, “that she may not

  be without attractions to master?”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Even though I am a free woman?” she asked.

  “Most slaves begin as such,” I said.

  “I want to live for a master,” she said, suddenly, looking at me, “and to give

  him pleasure. I want it to be the meaning of my existence!”

  “I see, free woman,” I said.

  “’Free woman’!” she said. “I am free in name only! You know that in my heart I

  am a slave!”

  “True,” I said.

  “I want a master to be everything to me,” she said, “even if he scarcely notices

  me, or cares if I exist.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “But you have not imbonded me!” she chided.

  “No,” I said.

  “If I were stolen,” she said, “I wager that that oversight would soon be

  remedied.”

  (pg.157) “Probably,” I said. “Particularly if it were done by a professional

  slaver.”

  She hummed a little tune.

  “Surely you fear the whip,” I said, “and the hazards of the collar?”

  “The whip is good for us,” she said. “Perhaps it is hard for you to understand

  that, as you are not a woman. It makes our womanhood a hundred times more

  meaningful. The essential point here is not being whipped, of course, which

  hurts, but being subject to the whip, and being truly subject to it. You see the

  distinction, I am sure. We know that men are by nature sovereign over us. That

  comprehension requires no greater insight. Accordingly, men must then either

  fulfill their nature, or deny it, and in denying their nature, deny us ours, for

  ours is the complement to theirs. Accordingly we despise men who surrender their

  natural sovereignty. Surely we would not be so stupid, would not be such

  weaklings and fools as to do that, if we were men. It would be too valuable and

  glorious a thing to give up. Its surrender would be a tragedy. But we are not

  men! We are women, and want, truly, with everything in our hearts and bellies,

  to be women, and we cannot be women truly if men are not truly men! Lay down the

  whip, and we will attack you, and undermine you, and use your own laws,

  institutes and rhetorics to destroy you, inch by inch. Lift it, and we will lick

  your feet in gratitude. Own us, dominate us! Enslave us, properly, so that we

  may love you as women are meant to love, wholly and irreservedly, totally,

  without a thought for ourselves!” She looked at me, tears in her eyes. “Is it so

  wrong to want to be ourselves?”

  “But there are hazards in slavery,” I said.

  “I accept them,” she said, “and would try to please my master.”

  “You would be well advised to do so,” I said.

  “I know,” she smiled.

  “Attend to the porridge,” I said.

  She removed it from the fire and covered it, to let it stand for a bit. She then

  set out two bowls, with spoons, and two trenchers, for some bread.

  She served, deferentially.

  I considered her flanks, and breasts. They were excellent.

  (pg.158) Although her garmenture was assuredly scanty, she was more extensively

  clothed than many of the women in the camp. There were men here.

  She spooned the porridge into the bowls and set the bread, wedges, from a round,

  flat
loaf, on the trenchers, and knelt back. She would wait, of course, until I

  had taken the first bite.

  Considering the size of the besieging force there were not as many women in the

  camp as might have been expected. I hoped this would work in my favor. The

  paucity of women, relatively, rent slaves even bringing a copper tarsk a night,

  had largely to do with the coming and going of the slave wagons, which tended to

  carry off most of the captures, apprehended refugees, women who had fled from

  Ar’s Station for food, giving themselves into bondage for a crust of bread, and

  such, to a dozen or so scattered markets, markets such as Ven, Besnit, Port

  Olni, and Harfax.

  I bit into the bread and Phoebe then, too, began to eat, taking a small spoonful

  of the porridge.

  It had become dark now.

  We could hear the pleasure cries of a woman a few tents away.

  “Do you think she is free?” asked Phoebe.

  “Probably,” I said. “There are not too many slaves in the camp now.”

  “What do you think he is doing to her?” she asked.

  “Mastering her,” I said.

  “Do you think she is tied?” she asked.

  “Probably,” I said.

  She looked down, shuddering, blushing. The intensification of sexual pleasure,

  both physically and psychologically, by the application of selected restraints

  is well known.

  “The women I have seen in this camp,” she said, “do not appear to be

  overdressed.”

  “They are prisoners of strong men,” I said. She listened to the girl’s cried.

  “She is passionate,” said Phoebe.

  “She had probably been given little choice,” I said.

  “Nonetheless,” said Phoebe, “she is passionate.”

  “Her destiny is doubtless to be the collar,” I said.

  “So, too, I would were mine,” said Phoebe, boldly.

  (pg.159) “You are already a captive and servant, a full servant,” I said.

  “I would go beyond that,” she said, “to my ultimate meaningfulness, that of the

  slave.”

  “Eat,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I considered, again, the women from the Crooked Tarn. They had knelt well, their

  knees spread as those of slaves. Liadne had done well with them. I had wanted

  them to learn, of course, not only discipline, but something of the arts of

  pleasing men. Liadne, herself, was not an experienced slave, for, I recalled,

  she had been startled to find herself utilized, with her ankles chained, but she

  would still, presumably, be worlds of sensuousness beyond the simple free women

  in her charge. What could she have shown them in three days? Something, I

  supposed. Perhaps little more than how to make slave lips and do a little

  squirming, naked. That might be enough, however, for my purposes. The Cosians in

  the front trenches, and behind the earthworks and hurdles, who would have borne

  the brunt of sorties in the past, and had doubtless contributed more than their

  share to the assaults, would not, I thought, be averse to finding a woman among

  them, particularly one naked and on a chain.

  “She is quiet now,” said Phoebe.

  “He is probably letting her subside,” I said.

  “What is that?” she asked, suddenly, lifting her head.

  “War trumpets,” I said. I rose up and went outside the tent. She followed.

  Others, too, about, from others of the small tents, had emerged.

  From Ar’s Station came the sounds of trumpets, far off. “It is a night assault,”

  I said.

  We looked toward the city.

  We could see lights there. These were probably bundles of sticks set afire by

  defenders, and thrown, suspended on chains, over the walls, to illuminate them.

  “There must be many women left in Ar’s Station,” she said.

  “Doubtless,” I said.

  “How they must be afraid,” she said, “hearing such alarms.”

  (pg.160) “Perhaps,” I said.

  “There are many encampments of slavers, and slavers’ men, and cages, and slave

  wagons about,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  The women of a city are, of course, among its prize loot. The women of Ar’s

  Station, even the youngest and most beautiful, might now be pale, and drawn and

  scrawny, but water, and slave gruel, forced down their throats if necessary,

  could bring back their color, and fatten them for the block. Females, of course,

  make superb acquisitions, and gifts.

  We listened for a time to the distant trumpets, watched the small spots of light

  in the distance.

  Those about us, one after another, returned to their tents. It was only another

  attack, far off.

  “Men are dying there,” I said, looking toward Ar’s Station.

  “I am afraid,” she said.

  “Go into the tent,” I said.

  We reentered the tent and finished our meal, in silence.

  “Do not try to enter the city,” she said.

  “Your thigh would probably look well, roped to a post, awaiting the branding

  iron,” I said.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “Do not move when the iron presses into you,” I said.

  “Am I to be enslaved?” she asked.

  “My remarks are general,” I said.

  “You are planning on leaving me!” she said.

  “I do not know if I will see you again or not,” I said.

  “Do not try to enter the city!” she said.

  “Come here,” I said. “On your knees.”

  She approached me, as commanded. She then knelt there, slimly, beside me.

  “Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck,” I said, ‘and do not interfere.”

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Kneel up, off your heels,” I said.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “This garment you are wearing,” I said, “what is, in effect, a chatka, I am

  shortening and transforming into two slave strips.” I drew the long strip before

  the cord in front back over the cord so that it would no longer hang midway, or

  about midway, between her knees and ankles but was now (pg.161) about eighteen

  inches long. The garment then lopped below her body. I then cut the garment a

  bit behind and below the cord in front. I then moved her about and treated the

  garment similarly in the back, drawing the strip back over the cord so that it

  was now only about eighteen inches long, and then cutting it off a bit below and

  behind the cord. She now wore two slave strips, each about eighteen inches long,

  one over the cord in front, one over it in back.

  “Face me,” I said.

  She obeyed.

  “What have you done?” she asked.

  “Exactly what you think I have done,” I said.

  “You have removed nether shielding from me!” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Restore it,” she said. “Quickly! There is en
ough left of the cloth! Please!”

  She gasped.

  I had thrown the remaining portion of the cloth into the fire.

  She watched it burn, in dismay.

  “Do you feel vulnerable?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she said.

  “In such ways may one increase the passion of a female,” I said.

  She shuddered.

  “You are aware, of course,” I said, “that these pieces of cloth might be pulled

  away, easily.”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Keep your hands clasped behind the back of your neck,” I said.

  “Now what are you doing?” she cried.

  “In the future,” I said, “the cord will be tied in this fashion, or in some

  equivalent fashion.”

  She moaned, looking down.

  I had refastened it in a simple bowknot, a sort of knot which on Gor, in certain

  contexts, as in the present context, is spoken of as a slave knot. It is called

  that, I think, because it is sometimes prescribed by masters for the fastening

  of slave garments. Its advantage, of course, is that it may be easily undone, by

  anyone. It is fastened at the left side of the girl’s waist, where it is handy

  for a right-handed male, facing (pg.162) her. “Now,” I said, “it is possible not

  only to remove the pieces of cloth singly, but, if one wishes, one may easily,

  with a casual tug, remove the cord and, with it, both cloths together,

  simultaneously, expeditiously.”

  “Stripping me!” she said.

  “Keep your hands clasped behind the back of your neck,” I said. “yes.”

  She looked at me, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “Do you object to your new garmenture?” I asked.

  “Surely I am entitled to object!” she said.

  “Turn about,” I said.

  She obeyed. “Oh!” she said.

  “You may again face me,” I said.

  She turned about, again, quickly, on her knees. She looked in dismay at the

  strip of cloth which I had taken from the back of the cord, as it now flared,

  and then turned black and crumbled, in the fire.

  “Do you still feel that you are entitled to object?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “No!”

  “And why not?” I asked.

  “I am your captive, and servant, your full servant!” she said.