by John Norman
“As I am sure she knew,” said the young man.
“The things on her feet are pretty,” said a fellow.
“How can she keep her hair up like that?” asked another.
“She has a very pretty face,” said another.
“She has a small, trim, excellent figure,” said another.
The young man lifted his hand for silence. These brief remarks just preceding had all been in Gorean, of course. They had been spoken casually, with no particular intent in mind that she should understand them. But, of course, by now her Gorean was sufficient to follow them. She heard them with mixed feelings, and apprehensions. It is a strange thing to hear oneself referred to in such a fashion, so objectively, so casually. Did they not know she was a person? Did they think that she was an object, an animal on display?
“Begin,” said the young man.
Hesitantly, frightened, she began.
“As I told you,” warned the young man in English.
She moaned. He would have nothing less than that she attempt to honestly and forthrightly make clear to those in the room what she had taught for many years, what her colleagues in the movement expected of her, what she had been commended for, the views on which her standing, reputation and prestige had been founded, the sorts of things she had abundantly published, in journals created specifically to accommodate and broadcast such views, the ideology to which she had, in effect, given her life.
Occasionally he helped her with a word in Gorean; occasionally he prompted her, reminding her of this or that, for clearly he wanted her to express her position as forcibly and plausibly as the subject matter might admit.
He asked her upon occasion to move about. She did so, now acutely conscious of her figure within her clothing. Never on Earth had she been so much aware of the movements of her body within her garments, or how they rested upon it, or clung about it. But here she was much aware of such things. How frighteningly, how vulnerably soft and beautiful it was, shielded within her garments, she sensed. Twice he asked her to gesture, in such a way that he might hear the tiny sound of the two bracelets striking against one another, as though so accidentally. That sound was very meaningful to her, particularly under the circumstances, and she did not doubt but what it was similarly meaningful to him.
“Thank you for the lecture, slave girl,” he said, when she was done. “Now remove your garments.”
She first removed the jacket, and put it on the floor beside her. She then removed her pumps, and put them side by side, beside the jacket.
She then regarded him.
At a small gesture, she continued.
She unbuttoned the blouse, beginning with the high collar, and then slipped it from her shoulders.
More than one of the men present struck their left shoulders with the flat of their right hand.
She looked at the young man.
“They are expressing approval,” he informed her, in English.
She wore a white brassiere, which hooked in the back, and had two narrow shoulder straps.
She then unfastened the black skirt, and dropped it about her ankles, then stepped away from it, and lifted it to the side.
Interest was expressed in the garter belt. She freed the stockings from it, unfastened it, put it to the side, and then, sitting on the marbled floor, rolled the stockings down, and removed them.
As she removed the stockings, there could be no mistaking the loveliness of her thighs, the sweet bend of her legs at the knees, the turn of her calves, these lovelinesses each, slowly, in turn, being bared.
She then, again, stood. She was clad now in only brassiere and panties, except, of course, for two bracelets, and a locked ring, on her left ankle.
“Loosen your hair,” he said.
She did so, and shook it loose. It was very beautiful, dark brown, and glossy. She swept it back behind her with two hands, with a lovely gesture.
There were expressions of pleasure, of admiration, from several of those in the room.
She was clearly a lovely slave.
She went to slip the two golden loops from her left wrist, but the young man shook his head, almost imperceptibly, negatively.
She stiffened, but obeyed.
Those it seemed would be left her, at least for the time.
She slipped the shoulder straps of the brassiere over her arms, where they hung for a moment, and then she pulled the brassiere down.
“Excellent,” said the fellow in the blue and yellow robes.
She blushed.
Even had she not known the word, she would have understood him, from his tone, and expression, only too well.
Some of the men struck their left shoulders. Some of the women present uttered small sounds of admiration.
She realized suddenly that that of which they approved, her body, was not hers, that her body, and, indeed, she herself, was another’s property.
She turned the brassiere about, until the hooks were before her, at her belly.
She then unhooked it and dropped it with her other garments.
Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes and she looked piteously to the young man in the curule chair, that he might leave her some sop to her modesty, that he would not be merciless with her, not publicly, not before this throng.
But his eyes were stern.
Then she stood bared before him, a naked slave, save for two loops of gold on her left wrist, and an anklet of steel.
“Now,” said he to her, “my lovely young instructor with your Ph.D. in gender studies, you may crawl to me, naked, on your belly.”
She went to all fours, and then lowered herself to her belly. Then, inch by inch, she approached the dais, ascended the steps, and was then before him.
“More closely,” he said, “and spread your hair over my feet.”
She brought her hair forward, and put her head at his sandals, her hair about his feet.
“This, now,” he said, “is truly you. This is how I wanted you, and how you wanted to be, even then, so long ago, at my feet, a slave.”
She looked up at him tears in her eyes.
He removed the two golden loops from her wrist. She now wore only the steel anklet.
“Lick and kiss my feet, slave,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And thus,” said he, “you are the living refutation of your own ideology.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “— Master.”
After a time, to her consternation, he pulled his feet away from her soft tongue and lips, her tears and her hair.
“Guard,” said he, “take this slave away, and see that the last phase of her treatment is concluded.”
“Surely there is no more, Master!” she cried.
“Oh yes,” he said, menacingly, “I have something very special in store for you, slave girl.”
She was dragged naked from the room.
Outside the door she, still held, was permitted to bend down and seize up her tiny tunic, that which she had left in this place, when she had donned the other garments. The paper wrappings, the tape, the cardboard boxes, were still there, where she had left them.
She was then drawn naked, rudely, through the corridors, her upper left arm, hurting her, in the powerful grip of the hurrying guard. She clutched her tiny tunic in her right hand, but could not put it on. She was taken through the corridors much as she had seen other naked beauties, save that she was not bound or chained.
Faces, some of them frightened, of young women, peered at her from behind bars.
In a short time she was in her kennel area and was urged up the steel ladder until she reached her tier, at which point she was forced to crawl painfully on all fours over the steel grille work until she reached her kennel.
In a moment she was locked within.
She tried, hysterically, to thrust the anklet from her, but could not do so.
She began to weep.
She turned about, kneeling, and clutched the bars, crying.
Af
ter a time she drew on her tiny tunic, and moved some straw about in the kennel. She then lay down, wrapping herself, as she could, in the short, thin blanket.
She wept.
He had had the fullness of his vengeance on her, surely. It seemed that she could not have been more thoroughly reduced and humiliated.
And yet she knew that she had been thrilled to be at his feet, a helpless, subdued, submitting, dominated slave.
It was what she was, she realized, and what she most profoundly wanted to be, and had always wanted to be, a slave.
What did he have in mind for her?
She did not know.
All she knew was that he would do what he wished with her, and that she was his slave.
Chapter 10
SHE IS PRESENTED BEFORE HER MASTER,
FOLLOWING THE FOURTH AND FINAL PHASE OF HER TRANSFORMATION
She wept, trying to hold the guard’s wrist, where it was fastened so deeply, so cruelly, in her hair, she bent over, her head at his hip, hurried forth, into the room, in a common Gorean leading position.
She was then thrown to her belly within the yellow circle, before the curule chair. Hastily, fearfully, she struggled to her knees, lifted her arms, tried to smooth and straighten her hair, and brushed it back, behind her shoulders, and knelt, before her master.
Though he was the same, clearly to her, now, he seemed older, more mature, certainly now older than she, more frightening to her.
“Are you in a suitable position, for what you have been told you are?” he inquired.
She knelt in the beautiful position that had been taught her, back on her heels, back straight, head up, palms of the hands on her thighs.
He continued to regard her.
Tears sprang to her eyes.
She widened her knees. It was the last, small adjustment that had been taught to her, and that most recently. It was a position appropriate for her type of slave, the Gorean pleasure slave.
He continued to regard her.
Sobbing, she widened her knees still further before him. She wore the same tiny tunic she had been given before, except that now it had been slit at the sides, from the hem on both sides, to both the left and right hip, so that a flash of hip might be bared as she moved, and so that, when she knelt, it might fall between her thighs, as it now did. And so she knelt before her master, in the one of the common positions of the Gorean pleasure slave, her knees spread widely, she vulnerably opened then, save for the tiny veil of cloth, before him. The same position, of course, is commonly used by naked slaves.
She looked up at him, tears burning in her eyes.
“Has Tutina been nice to you?” he asked.
She shuddered. It was a test. “She has treated me precisely as I have deserved, Master,” she said.
He smiled. His smile told her how clever he understood her to be. Could she conceal nothing from him?
No love was lost between herself and Tutina. She had hated Tutina from the first, even from the moment she had first seen her at the opera, so long ago, probably because she had seemed simple, stupid and so beautiful, but, more likely, as she was, in fact, neither simple nor stupid, because she was beautiful and was with the young man. Too, Tutina now held authority over her. Tutina wore the talmit, and was to her and, indeed, to several others, it seemed, “first girl.” And that authority was exercised over her charges, and particularly over her, it seemed, with a malicious pleasure. She, as the others, had learned to fear her switch.
Tutina, who derived from Earth, and, indeed, had once a been a native of her own nation, and city, was abundantly, natively, fluent in English. But Tutina would speak only Gorean to her. In this way Tutina, who was fluent in that language, put her, at this time, at a considerable disadvantage. Her young charge must then tensely strain to understand, struggling to apprehend the subtleties of an unfamiliar tongue, trying desperately not to miss a word. How uncertain, frightened, and ignorant her young charge so often felt. How cleverly Tutina had her then at her mercy.
But, as Tutina perhaps had not realized, she was thereby rapidly improving her charge’s Gorean.
The young charge was jealous of Tutina, of her power, her beauty, and her standing closer to the master. The young charge would have preferred to be her master’s only slave, lying contentedly, curled, licking, at his feet. But he had at least two slaves, and perhaps more. She did not know. So she knew why she feared, and resented, and hated Tutina. What she did not understand was why Tutina should seem to hate her so. After all, what had the beauteous Tutina to fear from her? What had Tutina to fear from such as she, a low slave?
Then his gaze became harder.
“Have you seen yourself, as you are now,” he asked, “in the large mirrors in the training room?”
“Yes,” she said.
Those mirrors were as fine as any she had known on Earth.
“Naked?”
“Yes,” she said, putting her head down. She had been forced to look, stunned, taken aback, by the incredible, youthful, vulnerable loveliness she had seen there.
“How old are you, or would you say,” he asked, “looking upon yourself as you are now?”
“I do not know,” she whispered.
“I would say,” he said, “that you are something like eighteen or nineteen years of age.”
She nodded. She could remember photographs of herself at that age, or near that age, and what she had seen in the mirror was the same, or much the same, save, of course, for the nudity, and, she suspected, some present superiority of figure, that from the serums, or perhaps the diet and exercise. The background reflected in the mirror had been quite different, of course, that of a training room on an alien world, with its painted lines on the floor, its rings, and whips and bars, and such, from the background of the photographs.
“Have you had your slave wine?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She shuddered. She had been knelt and held, her head forced back, and cruelly held so by the hair, and her mouth forced open, and the spike of the wooden funnel forced between her teeth. Then the wretched, foul stuff was poured into mouth, her nostrils at the same time being pinched tightly shut. When she had to breathe she must imbibe the slave wine. Afterwards her hands were tied behind her, that she might not induce its vulgar emission.
“You cannot now conceive,” he told her. “If a releaser, as one speaks of it, is later administered, which is a quite sweet, flavorful drink I am told, you will again be able to conceive. Conception in slaves, of course, is closely supervised. They are crossed, mated, and bred only as, and precisely as, masters desire.”
She nodded.
Masters must be careful of their stock.
“Sometimes, in rural areas,” he said, “there is a breeding festival, and slaves from miles about, hooded and bound, carefully selected, of course, on leashes behind wagons, in crates, and so on, are brought to the breeding grounds.
He could breed me, she thought.
“It is a time of much feasting and merriment,” he said, “much like a fair.”
He could literally breed me, she thought. I wonder if he will breed me.
She looked at him. Before he had been as he was now, much as he had been as a student, at least physically, but she had been, say, in her late twenties. She knew now, of course, given their last encounter, that he could own, dominate and master her, even were he as he was now, and she older, she in her late twenties. The principle of her femininity had been helpless before, and overwhelmed by, the principle of his masculinity. She would have obediently writhed at his feet and obeyed him in all things. He would, even then, have been the total and categorical owner of, and master of, her womanhood. She had sensed that even in the classroom, so long ago. She knew how she would have been, on any terms he might have set, helplessly his. But now she was only, say, eighteen or nineteen, and he, surely, somewhere in his early twenties. Now he was older, and even more mature, than she. She was now no more than a girl before him.
Could he like
me, she wondered.
Has he plans to keep me for himself?
I love him, she thought.
“How do your lessons proceed?” he asked.
“I trust, well,” she said. “But there is something I do not understand.”
“What is that?” he asked.
“I sense that there are many things I do not know, that there are many things that I am not being taught.”
“That is true,” he said.
“I am still very naive, very ignorant,” she said.
“True,” he said.
“Would I not be more valuable if I knew them?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Why am I not taught them then?” she asked, puzzled.
“Think,” he said.
“In order that I remain naive and ignorant, in order that I remain negligible, in order that I remain meaningless, that I remain nothing, that I not be more valuable?” she asked.
“Do you like your present accommodations?” he inquired.
“Doubtless they are in accord with the directions of Master,” she said.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Master is cruel to his slave,” she said.
“You could have been put in close chains, or in a slave box, or a slave pit,” he said.
Her new accommodations were a tiny slave cage. It was some four feet, by four feet by four feet, formed of closely set metal bars, a half inch or so in thickness, except for the floor, which was of metal. She could not stretch out her body fully within it. The bars were somewhat narrow, one supposes, with that half inch or so in thickness, but they were fully and perfectly adequate for holding a female. It was not unlike the sort used by many hunters in the field, in their base camp, for the temporary confinement of their catches. There was no straw in the cage, but she had been permitted to retain her blanket.
“Each time,” she said, “you have treated me more cruelly, granted me fewer privileges, been harsher with me!”
“The better to accustom you to your bondage,” said he, “slave girl.”
“Do you not like me, Master?” she asked.