by John Norman
I heard wood and glass suddenly move, as she scrambled across the cabin floor, on her hands and knees, toward the leaden sheets.
With a cry of rage I spun about and smote down with the whip. The stroke caught her across the back and buttocks and struck her to her stomach on the floor, amidst the wood and glass. Her extended hand was a foot from the leaden sheets. It had not occurred to me that she would attempt to reach the leaden sheets. Apparently she did not yet know who owned her.
I looked down upon her.
She lay there on her stomach, in the wood and glass, absolutely quietly. She did not move a muscle. She had felt the whip.
“I am not pleased,” I told her.
“No,” she cried. “No!”
I then, displeased, her Gorean master, savagely lashed the slave. She tried to crawl from the whip, but could not do so. Then she tried to crawl no more, but knelt, her head down, her head in her hands, weeping, at the side of the berth, a whipped slave.
“Forgive a slave for having been displeasing, my Master!” she begged.
She looked up, and I held the whip before her. Eagerly, crying, she took it in her hands and kissed it, fervently.
“Fetch oiled cloth, a lantern, sealing wax, a candle, such things,” I said.
She hurried to obey, and I replaced the whip on the wall. In Gorean domiciles, wherein serve female slaves, it is common to find a whip prominently displayed. The girls see it. They know its meaning. Too, displayed so, it is readily available for us.
I went to the leaden sheets and, with my knife, cut away the binding holding the sheets together. I took the envelope from within, and opened it. I examined the papers which I had extracted from the envelope. I smiled. They contained what I had expected.
The girl, from a shelf to one side, fetched a large candle, some five inches in diameter. This candle was set in a shallow, silver bowl. She had lifted the bowl upward, off the shelf. In its bottom, protruding, was a spike. This spike had been sitting in an aperture cut in the shelf, that the bowl might sit evenly on the wood. There was a similar aperture, about a half of an inch in width, in the table. She set the spike into this hole and, again, the silver bowl rested evenly on wood. This prevents the movement of the candle in rough weather. The table, too, was bolted to the floor. For similar reasons ships’ lanterns, in cabins or below decks, are usually hung from hooks overhead. Thus, in rough weather they may swing, but they are not likely to fall, scattering flaming oil about, with attendant dangers of fire. Most ships’ furniture, of course, berths and such, are fixed in place. This prevents the shifting of position which, otherwise, of course, particularly in rough seas, would be inevitable.
She lit the candle. On the table, too, in a moment, she placed waxed paper, and an envelope of oil cloth. Such things are not uncommon on ships, to protect papers which might be carried in the spray or weather, for example, on a longboat between ships, or between ships and the shore. Sealing wax, too, in a rectangular bar, she placed on the table. She then knelt beside the table. She kept her head down, deferentially, not daring to meet my eyes.
“Head to the floor,” I told her.
She obeyed, swiftly.
I replaced the papers in their envelope, from with I had withdrawn them to examine them. I then wrapped the envelope in several thicknesses of waxed paper. Then, with the sealing wax, melted by the candle, drop by drop, then smoothing the drops into rivulets of liquid wax, I seamed shut the waxed paper.
The girl trembled, to one side, kneeling, her blond hair forward, on the dark, polished floor of the cabin. The collar was clearly visible on her neck, and the small, heavy lock, by means of which it was secured upon her.
“What is your name?” I asked her, while working.
“Luta,” she said.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Whatever Master wishes,” she said, quickly. “Please do not whip me further, Master,” she begged.
“Your name now,” I said, seaming shut the last opening on the waxed paper, “is Shirley.”
“‘Shirley’!” she sobbed. “That is an Earth-girl name.”
“Yes,” I said.
Her shoulders shook with the indignity of what had been done to her.
“I was a captain’s woman,” she said.
“Do you not rejoice in your new name?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, quickly, “I rejoice in my new name.”
“Good,” I said.
She began to sob.
I inserted the envelope, now enclosed in several thicknesses of sealed waxed paper, in the larger envelope of oil cloth.
“Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Please do not whip me,” she said.
“We shall see if you are sufficiently pleasing,” I said.
“With such a name,” she said, “will I be expected to be so abject, so low, as those hot, surrendered sluts of Earth, so obedient, so owned, so helpless, in the arms of their Gorean masters?”
“What is your name?” I asked.
“‘Shirley’,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“‘Shirley’” she said. “‘Shirley’!”
“Is the answer to your question not now obvious?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she sobbed.
Earth girls have a reputation on Gor of being among the lowest and hottest of slaves. There are doubtless various reasons for this. Perhaps one is that Earth girls are alien to Gor and have no Home Stones. They are thus subject to unmitigated predation and total domination. They are slave animals, completely. Gorean men, accordingly, treat them as such. In turn, of course, their womanhood is reborn and blossoms, as it can only in a situation in which the order of nature both obtains and flourishes.
A second reason, however, I suspect, why Earth girls make such astoundingly desirable slaves, is their background. In their native environments they encounter few but psychologically and sexually crippled men, men whose merest intuitions of their blood rights are likely to be productive of conditioned, internally administered shocks and anxieties, or externally administered sanctions of censorship, suppression, ridicule and denunciation, imposed by those who are perhaps only a bit more rigid and fearful than themselves.
In such a world, largely the ideological product of superstition and hysteria, it is difficult for manhood to exist, even dormantly. Accordingly, when an Earth female finds herself translated to Gor, she finds herself, for the first time, in the presence of large numbers of men to whom nature and power are not anathema. Moreover, she is likely to find herself belonging to them. Beyond this, of course, the culture itself, for all its possible defects and faults, is one which has been constructed to be congenial to the natural biological order, and neither antithetical to, nor contradictory of it. The culture has not suppressed the biotruths of human nature but found a place for them.
The culture is a setting which transforms and enhances the simplicities and rudenesses of nature, ennobling her and exalting her, lending her glory and articulation, refining her, fulfilling her, rather than a sewer and a trap, in which she is kept half-starved and chained.
An example of this sort of thing is the institution of female slavery. It is clearly founded on, and expressive of, the order of nature, but what a wonder has civilization wrought here, elevating and transforming what is in effect a genetically coded biological datum, male dominance and female submission, into a complex, historically developed institution, with its hundreds of aspects and facets, legal, social and aesthetic.
What a contrast is the beautiful, vended girl, branded and collared, desiring a master and trained to please one, kneeling before her purchaser and kissing his whip, with the brutish female, cowering under her master’s club at the back of his cave. And yet, of course, both women are owned, and completely. But the former, the slave girl, is owned with all the power and authority of law. If anything, she is owned even more completely than her primitive forebear. Civilization, as well as nature, collab
orates in her bondage, sanctifying and confirming it.
It is no wonder that the institution of slavery provides the human female, in all her sensitivities and vulnerabilities, in all her psychophysical complexity, with the deepest fulfillments and most exquisite emotions she can know.
Briefly put, the second reason that Earth girls make such astoundingly desirable slaves is that they have been, in their Earth years, subjected, in effect, to sexual and emotional starvation. They have labored in a fruitless desert, often not even understanding the causes of their unhappiness, of their misery and frustration. Confused, they have lashed out at themselves and others, ultimately profitlessly and meaninglessly.
Translated to Gor, encountering true men in large numbers, in overwhelming numbers, so different from the crippled males of Earth, finding themselves in an exotic environment, and participating in a culture markedly different from their own, and in many respects both fearful and beautiful, and founded on the order of nature, they find themselves, in effect, restored to love. The Gorean girl knows such joys can exist, though she may or may not have experienced them. The Earth girl, commonly, did not know that such joys, truly, could exist. Only in her troubled sleep, perhaps, did the Earth girl dream of the slaver’s noose or the harsh, flat stones of the dungeon on which she might be forced to kneel.
There was a sudden, loud pounding on the cabin door.
The startled girl lifted her head, suddenly, fearfully, looking at me.
With a curt gesture I signaled she should flee to the captain’s berth. She crawled rapidly into it. I accompanied her to the berth, and stood beside her. She knelt there, on the berth, frightened. If she were to speak, her voice must be recognized, through the door, as coming from the vicinity of the berth.
She knelt there, clutching the scarlet sheet. I did not speak.
Again came the pounding. “Luta,” called a voice. “Luta!”
“Respond to the false name,” I told the girl.
“Yes, Master,” she called.
“Are you naked, and in the berth?” called the voice.
“Yes, Master,” she called.
“Are you all right?” he asked, through the door.
I drew the knife from my belt and thrust its point a quarter of an inch into her sweet, rounded belly. She looked down at it, wincing.
“Yes, Master,” she called.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
“Artemidorus,” she whispered, “first officer.”
“Are you certain that you are all right?” asked the officer, through the door.
I placed my left hand behind the small of her back, so that she could not pull back from the point of the knife. A plunging slash, she knew, might disembowel her.
“Yes, Master,” she called.
“Are you keeping yourself hot for your master?” laughed the voice, roughly.
“Yes, Master!” she called. “Is the battle nearly over?” We could hear the occasional sounds of fighting outside, from some hundreds of yards off, across the water.
“Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira,” laughed the fellow.
“Yes, Master. Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“Keep yourself hot,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I then heard him laugh again, and then turn about and climb five stairs, which must have led to the main deck, from a short companionway.
“The battle must be nearly over,” she said.
“Why do you think so?” I asked.
“My readiness for the master was being checked,” she said.
“It is fortunate that he did not choose to check it by hand,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, shuddering. She looked down at the knife.
I was curious to know how the battle outside waged. I removed my hand from the small of her back, and the knife from its ready and threatening location at her belly. She respired in relief. I placed the knife in my belt again. I saw that her lower belly, so sweetly rounded, was beautiful.
“Lie down,” I told her.
She lay on her back, and by the brass rings, some two inches in diameter, and by the leather thongs, near her shoulders, and at the bottom sides of the berth, tied her upon it.
I looked down upon her. She was beautiful, and secured.
I then went to the shattered window at the rear of the cabin. I did not make my surveillance obvious.
“May I inquire as to the situation, Master?” she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Through a gap in the pirate fleet, I could see that the beleaguered, desperate ships of the defenders fought on, stoutly.
I was convinced that they, still active, pennons still flying on their stem-castle lines, could hold out until nightfall. Yet I did not think they could withstand the concerted attacks of the pirate fleets for another day. How nobly, and well, they had fought. I was bitter. I looked back to the berth. There, tied upon it, helpless, was she who had been the woman of a pirate captain, she who had been the woman of one of my enemies. I then looked again out the window. In the water, among the larger ships, were small boats, manned by pirates. Considering them I became furious. These were being used to hunt for survivors, luckless fellows, struggling in the water, fishing for them with attentive leisure, with arrows, and with spear and knife. They would also make it difficult to return to the Tina. I glanced to the table, to the packet, now in its oil-cloth envelope, which lay there. It had immense value, if only it could be exploited. I looked again, out the window, at the ships of the pirate fleet, and at the defenders, and then I returned to the table, and sat before it.
“Master,” said the girl.
I did not respond to her.
“Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.
That the defenders had lasted this long was a function largely of two factors, first, of the crowding of the pirate fleet which made it difficult for them to bring their rams and shearing blades into play, and, secondly, the unusually large numbers, and skill, of the soldiers of Ar who had been transported in the holds of the ships of Ar’s Station, making boarding hazardous and costly.
The tactics which seemed to me obvious in such a situation the Voskjard had not yet employed.
I suspected then he might not be with his own fleet, that it might be under the command of a lesser man.
Carefully, with the sealing wax, I closed the oil-cloth envelope. I then folded it over, into a rectangular packet, and, with some binding fiber, cut from a coil of such fiber, looped at the bottom of the berth, tied it in this shape. I noticed that the girl was watching me. Accordingly, not speaking, I tore a broad strip from the scarlet sheet and, folding it five times, encircling her head with it, tied it tightly behind the back of her head, blindfolding her with it.
“Forgive me, Master,” she whimpered.
I then broke loose a board from the wall, a shelf, some two feet in length, with spike holes in it, to accommodate projections such as that on the silver candle bowl on the table. With binding fiber I tied the packet to this board. Then, with more binding fiber, I improvised a towing loop for the board. This board, then, with its towing loop, and its cargo, the packet in the sealed, oil-cloth envelope, I placed near the window.
It was at this time that I heard the signal horns of the pirate fleet. The orders, I thought, had been too long delayed. I looked out the window. As I had thought, the pirate fleet was now drawing back. The self-frustrating futility of their attack, obstinate and unimaginative, had, at long last, apparently been brought home to its commander. The pirate ships now, sent forward judiciously, singly or doubly, supported as need be, no longer crowded together in useless attempts at boarding, could now bring their rams and shearing blades into play against the cornered, pathetically outnumbered barks of the defenders. But it was now quite late in the afternoon. Doubtless this attack would be postponed until morning, that the slaughter might lose nothing of its effect, some survivors perhaps being enabled, in sm
all boats or in the water, to slip away under the cover of darkness.
I turned and slowly walked back to the side of the berth, on which the voluptuous slave was blindfolded and bound.
I looked down upon her. She knew I stood beside her. She trembled. Her sweet wrists and slim ankles moved in the leather bonds which, tied to the brass slave rings, confined them.
I removed the folded, scarlet strip of the sheet which had covered the upper part of her head, and cast it to one side.
She looked up at me, frightened. She shrank deeper, back in the berth. She had been the woman of Reginald, one of the captains of the Voskjard.
“Please, Master,” she whispered, “do not hurt me.”
She had been a woman of the enemy.
“Please, Master,” she begged, “show me mercy.”
How beautiful she was in her collar, close-fitting, and of gleaming, engraved steel, which she could not remove. How beautiful women are in collars. It is no wonder men enjoy putting them in them. How beautiful is the collar itself, and yet how insignificant is the beauty of the collar compared to the beauty and profundity of its meaning, that the woman is owned.
“You are well tied, Slave,” I told her. “You are absolutely helpless.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You are lovely,” I told her.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“A veritable delicacy,” I mused, “which was to have been kept simmering on the stove, so to speak, awaiting the pleasure of her master.”
“Yes, Master,” she smiled.
“Why did Artemidorus, the first officer, when he inquired as to your readiness, not attempt to enter the cabin, and check you by hand?”
“None may touch me save Reginald, my master,” She said, proudly, “unless I have displeased him.”
“Oh,” she cried. “Oh!”
“Have you forgotten, so soon,” I asked, “pretty slave, to whom it is that you now belong?”
“To you,” she said, “to you, Master! Oh!”
“It seems you are still simmering, little sweet, little delicacy,” I said.
She looked at me, wildly. “Your touch!” she whispered. “What is it doing to me?” Then she lifted her body, piteously, the sweet, rounded centralities of her, to me. Then I took her by the hips, holding her, pressing my thumbs into the sides of her belly. She recoiled, frightened. “Show me mercy,” she said.