by John Norman
“Then the fact that I am a woman of Earth and you are a man of Earth need not protect me,” she said.
“Of course not,” I said, “no more than it has protected other women of Earth who, over the long ages, have found themselves placed in bondage.”
“I see,” she said.
“Incidentally,” I said, “I reject not only your contention as being false, and obviously false, but its supposition, as well.”
“Its supposition?” she asked.
“That I am a man of Earth, and you a woman of Earth,” I said.
“Surely we are of Earth!” she said.
“It is true that our planet of origin is Earth,” I said. “Is that all you have in mind?”
“No,” she said.
“What else?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “It is hard to speak to you when I am stripped and kneeling!”
“Our realities have now changed,” I said. “We are now of Gor.”
“No!” she said.
“You lost the entitlements and prerogatives of the woman of Earth when, in a Gorean slave pen, your lovely thigh was branded.”
“Please do not speak so explicitly of my body,” she said.
“I shall do as I please,” I said.
She put her head down, not responding.
“You were then only a girl of Gor, and a slave,” I said.
She looked up, angrily. “And I seem to recall,” I said, “that on the Street of the Writhing Slave, you cried out, confessing to me, that she in my arms was now naught but a Gorean slave girl.”
She looked at me, angrily. She bit her lip.
“And, as I recall,” I said, “she cried herself mine.”
She looked at me, in fury.
“Have you forgotten?” I asked.
“No,” she said. I was pleased to see that she was too shrewd to lie to me.
“But however you are pleased to view these matters,” I said, “it makes little difference to me, whether we think of ourselves as being of Earth or Gor.” I looked at her, naked before me. I fingered the slave whip. “Our realities, in either case,” I pointed out, “remain much as they are.”
“As an Earth man could own an Earth woman, you could own me on Gor?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“May I get to my feet?” she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“You cannot own me!” she cried.
I did not deign to respond to so foolish an assertion. Did she not know that she was a branded, collared Gorean slave girl?
“Oh, I know you could own me,” she laughed, uneasily, “but I know that you will not choose to own me.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You knew me from Earth,” she said.
“That will make the owning of you all the more delicious,” I said.
“‘Delicious’?” she said.
“Yes, ‘delicious’,” I said, “my beauty.”
“‘_Your_ beauty?’” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “‘_my_ beauty.’”
“You speak of me as though I were a slave,” she said, resentfully.
“You are a slave,” I told her.
“But you will free me!” she cried.
“If that were my intention,” I said, “it seems strange that I have just put my collar on you.”
“But that was surely a joke, a cruel jest,” she said.
“Feel the collar,” I said.
She lifted her hands to the collar.
“Is it heavy or uncomfortable?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“It is a woman’s collar,” I said. “But it is close-fitting, of inflexible steel, and securely locked.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You have worn such collars before, have you not?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“You are familiar with them, and their effectiveness?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Have I offered to remove it from you?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Can you remove it?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“Try,” I said.
Pathetically she struggled with the collar. Then, after a moment, she ceased her useless struggles. “No,” she said, her fingers still hooked within the locked, obdurate band, “I cannot remove it.”
“You may then fairly assume,” I suggested, “that it has been fastened upon you.”
“I know it has been fastened upon me,” she cried. “I cannot get it off!”
“What sort of collar is it?” I asked.
“A slave collar!” she cried.
“Precisely,” I said.
“Is it not a joke?” she whimpered.
“No,” I said.
She looked at me, frightened.
“I am beginning to grow impatient with you,” I said. “Perhaps you should be lashed.”
She shrank back. “But you have brought me to our house,” she said.
“Not our house,” I said, “_my_ house.”
“You would keep me as a slave in the very house where once I was free?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But I have made certain improvements, bars and certain security devices, for example. Also, I have put in a new and stouter kennel for you and a new slave ring at the foot of my couch.”
She looked at me, aghast.
“It is my hope that you will like them,” I said.
“What sort of man are you?” she asked.
“One who will own you, fully,” I told her.
“Then I am to understand,” she said, “that it is possible that you might, in all seriousness, choose to keep me as your slave?”
“The choice is already made,” I said. “It was made long ago.”
“And what did you choose?” she asked.
“Are you stupid?” I asked.
“I am not stupid,” she said.
“You speak as though you are stupid,” I said. I wondered if, truly, she was stupid. If so, it would lower her value, considerably. I was growing weary of her fencings, her inanities, her protests. Did she think she was a free woman? Perhaps she must soon be reminded that she was a slave. That could be easily done.
“This is Gor,” she said. “The choice, of course, is yours, totally.” She looked at me, angrily. “What did you choose for me?”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Freedom,” she said, “respect, honor, dignity.”
“No,” I said.
“—Slavery?” she asked.
“Yes, I said.
“—Full slavery?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her, “total and complete slavery.”
“I see that you must be taught the character and will, and the intelligence and power, of a woman of Earth,” she said. She rose to her feet. “Take this collar off my neck, fellow,” she said. “Do it now!”
I looked at her.
“I am calling your bluff,” she said, “—Jason.” Then suddenly she screamed, struck by the Gorean slave lash, her body stripped, stumbling across the room, striking against the wall, at whose foot she fell. She looked up at me, in terror, from the foot of the wall.
“Crawl to the center of the room, and lie there on your belly,” I said.
Swiftly she did so.
“It is your bluff which has been called, little slave,” I said.
She lay at my feet, shuddering, prone, her hands at the sides of her head.
“I will let you kiss me,” she said “I will even let you make love to me!”
I looked down upon her. I was furious. She had been an insolent slave.
“Let me be your employee,” she said. “I am willing, even, to be your love employee! You do not need to pay me much. You do not need to pay me anything at all! I will work for nothing for you! Let me be your love servant! Sometimes I will even serve you as might a slave girl!”
“What did I ever think I
saw in you?” I asked her. “What possible interest could I ever have thought I had in you?” I ran the whip along her side, and she shuddered. “To be sure,” I said, “you are rather pretty, in a trivial and servile fashion.” I continued to move the whip on her body, and she whimpered, helpless on the tiles before me. “I wonder what I could get for you,” I said, “such a petty, stupid, worthless, meaningless, stinking little slave.” She was whimpering. “Oh!” she said. “You do have the reflexes of the slave though,” I said. “That would surely improve your price.” She cried out in shame, putting the side of her head down to the tiles, her fingers scratching at them. “I think I shall put you up for sale, you pretty, meaningless little brute,” I said.
“Oh, oh,” she cried.
“Are you hot in your collar, little brute?” I asked, angrily.
“Oh!” she cried. Then she began to sob. Her tears fell to the tiles.
“But before you could be put up for sale,” I said, “you must learn certain lessons, which apparently you have earlier failed to master, on the position, and condition, of the Gorean slave girl.”
She shuddered with fear. She saw now, on the tiles before her, gently swinging, the shadows of the five loosened blades of the Gorean slave lash.
“You will not whip me,” she said. “Surely you will not whip me!”
I then, furious with her, savagely laid the whip to her beauty. She writhed, and screamed, and twisted, and turned beneath the whip, from her belly to her back, and to her sides, and to her back, and to her sides again, and back, trying to fend the blows. She had displeased me. She had dared even to speak my name.
Then she lay before me, on her back, her legs drawn up, her hands extended. “Please, Master,” she wept, “do not beat me further.”
“What did you call me?” I asked.
“Master,” she said. “Master, Master!”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you are my Master!” she said. “Because you are my Master!”
“Are you sure of that?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Have you any doubt of it?” I inquired.
“No, Master,” she said. “No, Master!”
“What are you?” I asked.
“A slave!” she cried.
“Whose slave?” I asked.
“Yours,” she wept, “yours, Master!”
I then permitted her to scramble to her knees and she knelt before me, kissing at my feet. “You seem not as vain and arrogant as you were before,” I said.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Perhaps you have learned a little more of your slavery now,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“What do you wish to do?” I asked.
“Please my Master,” she said.
“The answer is suitable,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“Lift your head,” I said.
She did so, fearfully, looking at me.
“Drop to your hands and knees, to all fours, and turn away from me,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You spoke my name,” I said. “It is strange that you, a Gorean slave girl, should have made that mistake.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, “but I have been well whipped.”
I then struck her again with the lash. “Oh!” she cried.
“Perhaps you should have been slain,” I said.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said. “Please, no, Master.”
“Oh!” she cried out, in misery, the lash again swiftly falling upon her.
“And you were lax in your deference,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”
Again I struck her.
“Did you think that such things would go unnoticed?” I asked her.
“No, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”
Again I struck her.
“And you were insolent,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master!”
Again I struck her.
“Did you expect your insolence to be overlooked?” I asked. “No, Master,” she said. “Please, please, forgive me, Master!”
“Oh!” she cried, in pain, once more well lashed.
Her head was down. Tears were upon the tiles.
“What shall I do with you?” I asked.
“I am your slave,” she said. “You may do with me whatever you wish.”
“That is known to me,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Why were you insolent?” I asked.
“It is difficult to speak in this position,” she said.
“Speak,” I said.
“When I saw that it was you, and remembering you from before, I sought to exploit your weakness, and conquer you. There is some gratification in this for a woman, for she is then a little bit like a man, a master, which she knows in her heart she is not. Too, it pleases her to torture weak men, men too weak to put her in the chains she longs to wear. But these gratifications, ultimately, are shallow and empty, and we, in our hearts, know that. Each sex has its place, and neither will be happy until it occupies that place. The place of man is master; the place of woman is slave. Gorean men, of course, do not see fit to tolerate our nonsense. They put us promptly in our places. They make us slaves. Had you not been from Earth, I would not have dared to behave as I did. Seeing you, remembering you from before, it did not even occur to me that I might be kneeling before one who had become, truly, a Gorean male. I wish that I had understood that, clearly. I could have saved myself much pain. Women engage in battles which they yearn to lose. We wish to be overwhelmed and conquered. That is why we fight. If we do not protest and fight, of what value to a man, we ask ourselves, will be our conquest? But, of course, I should not have fought you. I am only a slave girl, a girl already collared and conquered. I am not a free woman. It was presumptuous of me to indulge myself in the vanities of a free woman. I am a slave. I should have submitted myself to you, immediately and fully. Forgive me, Master. It is my hope that you will permit me to live.”
I regarded her. She was pretty, in my collar, and on all fours.
“May I explain my behavior further, Master?” she asked. “It may make you regard me less harshly.”
“Do so,” I said.
“I want to be a slave,” she said. “I feared you would free me. It was thus that I challenged you. It was thus that I tried to incite you to my conquest. It was thus that I tried to make you angry, that you might make me your slave, and keep me as such, uncompromisingly.”
“That was not necessary,” I said.
“I am now well aware of that, Master,” she said. “I did not know it at the time, however.”
I said nothing.
“My behavior, however foolish it might have been, was motivated by a desire to be kept in bondage,” she whispered. “Perhaps now you will think more understandingly, more pityingly, of your girl.”
“So you desire to be a slave?” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “fervently.”
“And you are a slave,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “completely.”
“Do you think that you are free, or that you have any rights whatsoever?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said. “I know that such delusions are not permitted to a Gorean slave girl.”
“Do you not fear your bondage?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “and sometimes we fear it terribly, the uncertainty and the terrors of it, knowing that men can do with us what they please, but these things heighten our experience, adding zest and spice to it, making it more meaningful, and, too, without them, we know that we would not truly be in bondage, which is the condition for which we yearn.”
“So you accept the miseries and terrors of bondage?” I asked.
“Willingly, and gladly, Master,” she said, “and did we not do
so then unwillingly and tremblingly must we accept them, for we are slaves.”
“Do you like being a slave?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You are worthless, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “except in so far as I might have some small value as a man’s slave. I do not know my current market value.”
I, too, did not know her current market value. Such things can shift from day to day. They are subject to considerable variance, being functions of many factors, such as the girl herself, her intelligence, and training and beauty, the money in the economy, the conditions of supply and demand, and even the market in which she is sold and the time of year that she is put upon the block. A girl who is sold in a prestige market and, in the afternoon before her sale, placed with other lovely inmates within the chromed, ornate bars of an exhibition cage, has moved and posed upon the instructions of prospective bidders, is almost certain to bring a higher price than another girl, who by the hair, is pulled from a crowded, wooden, bolted cage and thrown upon a sales platform, or who, say, is sold from one of the cement, public viewing shelves of a common street market.
Too, generally girls bring higher prices in the spring. I have little doubt that there is some intensification of the slaving done on Earth at a certain time of year, that the captured girls may be brought to the spring markets. Many Earth-girl slaves, on Gor, comparing notes, discover that they were sold in the spring. The more intelligent among them realize that this is not likely to have been a coincidence. They then have a deeper and more active appreciation of the intelligence, methodicality and organization of the men who saw fit to bring them to Gor.
Suddenly, angrily, I lashed her with the whip. She shuddered, struck. “Do you like that?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said, “but I love it that you can do it to me, and will, if I am not pleasing to you.”
I walked around, before her. “Worthless little trollop,” I said.