by John Norman
“What manner of place is this?” she asked. “Why am I being taught what I am being taught? What are you going to do with me?”
“You have many questions,” he said.
“Please!” she begged.
“I have planned two more phases in your treatment,” he said.
“Two?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Two.”
He then lifted his hand, indicating that she was to be removed from his presence. The attendant took her by the left arm, which was bared, as you may remember, and pulled her beside him, from the room. He had never handled her in this way before. She whimpered in protest, but was hurried along.
He soon put her in her cell, and closed its gate.
She turned about, to see him standing there, outside the bars, looking at her. He had not stood there before, and looked at her like that. She backed away, until she was stopped by the back wall of the cell.
On Earth there might have been many ways to respond to such attentions, a sneer, a chilling stare, a look of contempt, a scornful dismissal, a demeaning question, a nasty, caustic word, a haughty, supercilious shrug and a turning away, many ways to respond, and to all of these she had had recourse at one time or another, but here, somehow, she sensed that the entire force of society and an armed state might not stand visibly, menacingly, behind her otherwise meaningless little stare or word. So she stood against the back wall of the cell, frightened, and said nothing to him. After a time he left. She looked at the image in the metal mirror to her right. She supposed that, perhaps, on this world, women, or at least women such as she, women such as she who was revealed in that mirror, in the tunic, she so interestingly curved, might be looked upon in that way, and with impunity. Perhaps it was acceptable to do so; perhaps it was done without thought, as a matter of course. What of the young, naked women, those whom she had seen sometimes in the corridor, those who had been bound, or cuffed, or chained by the neck, those women, she asked herself, those women, their necks in collars? How could a man not look upon them, she wondered, without feeling interest or desire?
Later a man in green robes entered the cell.
“Injection position,” he said.
Immediately she lay down on her right side, drawing her knees up.
Chapter 8
SHE IS PRESENTED BEFORE HER MASTER,
FOLLOWING THE THIRD PHASE OF HER TRANSFORMATION
“A slave girl,” announced the attendant.
She knelt within the yellow circle, on the marble floor, before the curule chair on which he, robed, reclined. Her back was straight, but her head was down. The palms of her hands were on her thighs.
This time there were several individuals in the room other than she, the attendant, and he. There were several men there, in robes and tunics of various cuts and hues, and some women, in a variety of tunics or gowns. The women were all ankleted or collared.
She had heard exclamations of pleasure from the men as she had entered, and knelt. Too, there had been some soft cries, it seemed of admiration, and surprise, from some of the women. She dared not look, but wondered if some of her instructrices might not have been there. She wondered if they were pleased with her, with their work, how she had turned out. She hoped so, fervently. She had learned the importance of pleasing them, her ankleted superiors.
“Lift your head,” he said.
She did so, and looked into the eyes of her master.
She wore a tiny slave tunic. It was light, white, and silken. It came high on her thighs. At the left shoulder, where it would be convenient to a right-handed man, there was a disrobing loop. She was, of course, barefoot. The anklet was still on her, as it had been, even since her first world.
He suddenly clapped his hands with pleasure. “Yes!” he said. “She is the same, the same! That is how she was, and now that is how she is!”
She doubted that she had ever been before as what she was now, a barefooted, half-naked slave on an alien world.
Still she did not doubt that she looked now much as she had when she first knew him, he then merely a student, among others, not her master.
“Splendid!” he said.
She wondered if he had, even then, as a student, she feared he had, while she taught, sitting at her desk, behind its modesty screen, or moving before the class, she was sure of it, speculated upon her, stripping her in his mind, considering what she might look like as a female slave, his.
And she now knelt before his chair, on the cold marble, a slave girl, his.
“That is exactly,” he said to the assembled throng, “how she was when I first knew her!” He turned to some men in the room who wore green robes. “You have done well with her,” he said, “as you have with the others.”
They bowed courteously.
He descended from the curule chair, for the first time in their encounters in this room, and walked about her, scrutinizing her, perhaps appraising her. She kept her head up, her back straight, maintaining position. One can be punished terribly for breaking position without permission.
He then, again before her, crouched down before her. “You are twenty-eight again,” he whispered to her. “You are the same, the same, again!”
She was silent.
She remembered back, so long ago.
Her hair had been dark and glossy. She had worn it high on her head, in a severe bun. She recalled studying her figure, critically, approvingly, in her apartment, standing before the mirror in brassiere and panties. It was so long ago.
“You are the same,” he whispered.
Her hair was now loose, as women such as she must commonly wear it.
She had known that she would be brought before him today.
No longer was she kept in a cell but was housed now in a slave kennel, on the sixth level of an entire wall of such kennels, reached by steel steps and grilled walkways. Her kennel was the same as the others, uniformly so. It was something like four feet by four feet, with a depth of some ten feet. To the right of its small gate, rather as in the cells, there was a mirror of polished metal, a large mirror for the size of the kennel. It occupied a part of the wall to the right, as one faced the gate, extending from the floor of the kennel to its ceiling. It had that location, near the gate, presumably that the light might better reach it.
The kennel was furnished, for amenities, with some loose straw and a small, short, torn, thin, threadbare blanket. It was enough for slaves such as she. Such are seldom spoiled.
After having made certain, as she could, that the attendants were not on the grilled walkways giving access to the tiered kennels, she had removed her tunic and knelt before the polished metal surface at the side.
Her figure now, she was sure, was superior even to what it had been so long ago. In a way this pleased her, but, too, it frightened her because she realized that it made her more desirable, considerably so, and on a world where female desirability was, it seemed, approved and prized. She remembered the young women in the corridor, naked and bound, some chained. She was sure that her figure was superior now even to what it had been so long ago. Perhaps, she thought, this might be due to some subtle, benign, ameliorative effect of her treatment. But, more likely perhaps, it had to do with her diet, that diet imposed upon her, and, presumably, the variety of exercises she had recently been taught, and in the zealous, stressful performance of which she was closely supervised. She heard a step on the steel ladder outside, some yards below her kennel. Quickly she slipped into the tunic again. She lay down, her legs drawn up, very closely together, pretending to sleep. Through half-closed eyes, she saw the attendant pass. When he had gone, she rose up again to her knees. She then regarded herself again, now in the tunic. She straightened her body, and shrugged. She was not displeased with the slave she saw. One who knew women, she thought, as these men seem to, would have little difficulty, she in such a tunic, in conjecturing her most intimate and delicate lineaments.
Then she had lain down to sleep.
Tomorrow she knew she
was to be presented before her master.
****
“Yes,” he whispered. “You are now the same, the same.”
She did not break position.
He then stood up and, approvingly regarding her, stepped backward a pace, and then turned and ascended the dais, and resumed his place in the curule chair.
It seemed he could scarcely bear to take his eyes from her.
Could he like me, she wondered suddenly, frightened.
He turned to one of the men near him, a tall fellow in white robes trimmed with gold, the dress robes, she had learned, of the Merchants. “What do you think of her?” he asked.
“A pretty little piece of collar-meat,” he said. “A standard property-girl. Typical flesh-loot. There are thousands like her in the markets. She is meaningless.”
“I remember her from long ago,” said the young man.
“Perhaps she is special then in some way to you,” said his interlocutor.
“No,” said the young man, “except insofar as her flanks are of some interest.”
She understood little of their exchange. Some of the expressions seemed clear enough, but she did not, truly, register them in their full import, as they applied to her. It was rather as though she heard them, but would not understand them.
In particular she was puzzled by, and vaguely alarmed by, the reference to markets.
So I am of no concern to him, she thought, except insofar as my flanks might be of some interest! But then, suddenly, she feared it was true. Indeed, of what other interest could she, or such as she, on this world, be to any man? Again she remembered the bound, naked beauties in the corridor. Here, on this world, she feared that men were the masters and would simply, as they wished, have their way with women, doing as they pleased with them, as is the wont of masters; she feared that everything would be on their terms, on the terms of the men, on the terms of the masters, fully, precisely.
Surely, she thought, there must be some way to trick them out of their power! But she feared that these men were not so stupid.
No, in no particle, manner or facet, in no way, would they give up their power.
They were not stupid.
She dared not break position.
“How do your lessons proceed?” he inquired.
“Well, I hope,” she said, adding softly, “— Master.”
He smiled. She saw that he was pleased to hear that word on her lips, addressed to him. Never before had she used this form of address to him, save, of course, in her dreams and thoughts. She felt warm, beautiful, stirred, helpless, so much more aware then of the reality of her enslavement. How weak he is, she suddenly thought, angrily, that he would wish to be so addressed! Is he so pathetic, she thought. Does he really need that, she thought. Is he so weak? But then she realized that these were merely the automatistic, defensive, frightened, programmed responses, the mindless, inculcated reflexes, of her culture’s conditioning program, with its reductive, leveling, negativistic agenda, the outcome of centuries of resentment, denial, hatred, sacrifice, and fear. It was only weak men, she now understood, who would fear to accept, wield, and relish the mastery, the birthright of an ancient biological heritage. How she would hate and despise men who were too weak for the mastery, who would fearfully seek to avoid its privileges, powers and responsibilities! No, he, and others like him, were far from weak! They were strong, much stronger than the timid, boring weaklings so endemic, like bacteria, on her former world. He, as others on this world, was strong enough, mighty enough, to expect, require, and enforce the deference due them, to require and enforce the submission of the principle of femininity, in all its wondrous softness, desirability and beauty, to a more severe, more dangerous principle, that of their masculinity.
On this world men were the masters, at least of women such as she. That was the simplicity, and the terror, of it.
“Does that word cost you much?” he asked.
“No, Master,” she whispered.
“Slave,” he sneered.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, putting her head down. She felt that this was true, but that there was nothing wrong with it, that this was nothing to be ashamed of, certainly not if that was what one truly was, if one were a slave, truly.
Some people undoubtedly were, she thought, and she had learned, in the last few days, that she was one of them.
She was thrilled to address this word to him, and, too, to other males.
She had learned, incidentally, that she must address all free men as ‘Master’ and all free women, though she had not yet encountered one on this world, as ‘Mistress’.
She was uneasy at the thought of free women. How would they regard her, she only a slave?
Her training, in this last period, that in which she had come to understand that she was most perfectly and naturally a female slave, had been quite different, on the whole, from her former lessons, save of course, for the continuing instruction in the language. She had been taught how to kneel, and move, and lie down, and remove her clothing, and present herself for binding, and enter and leave rooms, and greet masters, many such things. She had also learned various forms of deference and obeisance. She could now dress and undress a man. She could do it with her teeth, with her hands tied behind her. She had been taught uses for various aspects of her body, for example, her tongue and hair. She had learned how to move on all fours, and fetch a whip in her teeth. She had learned how to beg to be beaten, but she trusted earnestly that she would be spared that for which she was trained to beg. She could now lick and kiss a whip in such a way that it would drive a man wild. She had learned how to put chains on herself from which, once closed, she could not free herself. She had learned how, kneeling before a man, to take food from his hand. She had learned how to eat from pans on the floor, forbidden to use her hands. She was taught how to lie provocatively on furs, on the floor, at the foot of a master’s couch, chained there by the neck to the slave ring. She was taught how to beg prettily to be permitted to ascend the couch itself, to serve. She was taught, even, how to bring sandals to a man, head down, on all fours, carrying them in her teeth. She had learned which sandal was to be placed first on which foot, and in what order they were to be tied, and the kisses, expressing her gratitude that she was permitted to perform this service.
“What is your name?” he asked.
She looked up, startled. It was a test, of course.
“Whatever Master pleases,” she said. “I have not yet been named. I am now only a nameless slave.”
He leaned back.
She caught her breath a little. She wondered if she had had a name since the time, on her former world, when she had been ankleted. From one point of view, of course, though she must be forgiven for not understanding this at the time, she had lacked a name for months before she had even seen the young man again, after a hiatus of so many years, at the opera. It had been taken from her when a certain document, in its turn, among others, had been signed, and rudely stamped. From that time forth then, from at least one point of view, she had been a nameless slave, though naturally, at the time, quite unaware of this.
She wonders now, as she writes this, if you, reading this, if you are there, reading this, if you might unwittingly be now as she was then. Perhaps you, similarly unbeknownst to yourself, have been scouted, and selected. Perhaps you were noted at work, say, in an office, or shopping in a supermarket, or on the street, or driving. Perhaps you should not have worn those shorts, or bared your midriff, or worn your hair in that fashion, or worn that svelte, mannish suit, or moved in such a brusque manner, or spoken sharply to the cab driver. Perhaps it was a small thing. Perhaps in the cocktail lounge, in your short, lovely outfit, with the chiffon, you should not have been so animated, so charming, should not have worn those three strands of pearls about your neck, so closely, so much like a slave collar. Perhaps it was merely your appearance, suddenly striking someone with a telling import, nothing you could have anticipated, or prevented, or how you moved,
or how you spoke a given word, or phrase. Who knows what is meaningful to them? Perhaps you were noted with interest, and jottings made. Perhaps you were filmed, perhaps more than once, say, at different times of day, in different lights and such, and the films reviewed in secret screening rooms. And so, perhaps, unbeknownst to yourself, you are now as I was then, one designated for harvesting, and for transportation, to an alien world. Perhaps you are now, as I was then, now, at this very moment, no more than a nameless slave.
She wondered if she were now to be named. The name, of course, like an anklet, or a collar, would simply be put on her. It would be merely a slave name, hers by the decision of the master, a name subject to whim or caprice, subject to change at any time. Yet it would be her name. It would be her name as much as any such name, for example, one put on a pig or dog.
But he did not name her.
She remained, for the time, a nameless slave.
She wondered why there were so many people in the room.
He spoke to the assembled throng. He spoke in the language she had been learning and he did so fluently. Kneeling, she struggled to follow him. She was sure that she figured somehow in what he was saying. Sometimes, as he spoke, one or another of the men, or women, looked at her and laughed. This made her uneasy. He had a slight accent in the language. She thought that she would, even if she had not known him, have been able to conjecture with plausibility that his native tongue might be English. To be sure, there were many different accents in the house, and even, as far as she could tell, among those who natively spoke the language she had been learning. Doubtless they came from different areas, or walks of life, or such.