by John Norman
After all, she belongs to him. She is his property, his animal.
What is it to be owned, to be mastered?
Life, truly lived, becomes a thousand times more exciting, more meaningful, to her. She finds herself in a world whose colors are deeper and richer than she ever knew they could be; she finds she hears sounds she never heard before; she smells smells she has never smelled before; she becomes aware of subtleties of taste which doubtless were there to be experienced, but were never hitherto noticed; and, too, assuredly, in the realm of touch and feeling new worlds, new vistas, are opened for her, to the delicacy of her finger tips, to her body's awareness of pressures, temperatures and textures. These things, the wealth of sensations and realities, bring her alive and stir her belly. They arouse her. She knows she must obey or be punished. The free woman may be coy; she may play her games; she may tease; she may wheedle to be wooed, or coaxed, or cajoled. The master, on the other hand, while perhaps accepting, even enjoying, such amusements with a free woman, for after all he may already have a collar ready for her, does not accept such things in a slave. He does not argue with the slave, nor discuss things with her. He puts her to his feet.
And where else should a slave be? Where else would a slave wish to be?
I looked about. The feast had finished, and most of the villagers had returned to their homes. Some lay about, near the embers of the fires.
We stood near the rack on which the new slave, she who had been the free woman, Melina, lay captive. Thurnus was nearby, and Sandal Thong, and Radish, Verr Tail and Turnip.
"I name you Melina," said Thurnus to the confined slave.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"What is your name?" he said.
"'Melina', Master," she sobbed.
He had much shamed her by giving her in slavery the name she had borne as a free woman. She wore it now as the cognomen of a slave.
"May a slave speak?" she asked.
"Yes," said Thurnus.
"Why have you had my head shaved?" she asked.
"To return you as a shamed slave to the village of your father," said he.
"Please keep me, Master," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"That I may please you," she whispered.
"Strange words from one such as you," he scoffed.
"I beg to be kept to please my master," she said.
"Have you been bereft of your wits by the brand," inquired Thurnus.
"I only wanted to be the companion of a district leader," she said.
"You are now anyone's slave to whom I give or sell you," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I did not move to become district leader," said Thurnus, "for it was your urging and intent that I do so. Had I sought the position it would have seemed to all that I did so for your ambition and to avoid the lashing of your tongue."
She squirmed on the rape-rack, confined by the beams, in misery.
"In a man's own hut," said he, "he must be master, even though he has selected out for himself a companion. It is the part of his companion to befriend and aid him, not to insult and drive him."
"I was a poor companion," she whispered. "I will try to be a better slave."
"If I choose to seek the leadership of the district," said Thurnus, "I will do so. If I do not wish to do so, I will not."
"As Master wishes," said Melina, the slave.
"You knew little of the matters of being a companion," said Thurnus.
"I will study more diligently the matters of being a slave," said Melina.
"You will begin in the morning, when you are publicly whipped," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
He put his hand on her body.
"At one time you cared for me," she said.
"Yes," he said, "that is true."
"Do you find my body of interest, Master?" she asked.
"Yes," said Thurnus.
"And I am strong," she said. "I can pull a plow by myself."
Thurnus smiled.
"Keep me, Master," she begged.
"Why?" he asked.
"I love you," she said.
"You know the penalties for lying?" he asked.
"I do not lie, Master," she said. "I do love you." One of the penalties which may in a peasant village be inflicted upon a lying slave girl is to throw her alive to hungry sleen. I had little doubt but what Thurnus might do this if he caught one of his girls in a lie.
"How can that be?" asked Thurnus.
"I do not know," she whispered. "It is a strange, helpless feeling. I have lain here in the stocks. I have thought much."
"Tomorrow," said Thurnus, "you will have less time to think, and more time to work."
"Long ago I loved you," she said, "but as a free woman. Then, for years I did not love you, but despised you. Now again, after long years, I feel love for you, only now it is the shameful, helpless love of a bond girl for her master."
"In the morning you will be whipped," said Thurnus.
"Yes, Master," she said. She looked up at him. "You are strong," she said, "and masterful. You are a great man, whether you are a district leader or not. My freedom blinded me to your manhood and your worth. I saw you not for the things you were but for the things you might, enhancing my own person, become. I saw you not as a man but as an instrument of my own perceptions and ambitions. I regret that I did not, in my companionship, relish and celebrate what you were, rather than an image of what you might become. I never truly knew you. I knew only the image of my own invention. I never truly looked at you. Had I done so, I might have seen you."
"You were always a shrewd, clever woman," said Thurnus.
There were tears in her eyes. "I love you," she said.
"I am putting you out into the village as a village slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"At night you will be confined in a sleen cage. During the day you will feed on what men will throw you. Each day you will serve a different hut in the village."
"Yes, Master," she said.
He looked down at her.
"May I speak?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"May I not, too, sometimes serve my master?" she asked.
"Perhaps," said Thurnus. He made as though to turn away.
"Please, Master," said Melina.
He turned to face her.
"Please touch your slave," she said.
"It is long since you have asked my touch," said Thurnus, regarding her.
"I beg it, Master," she whispered. She lifted her body in the stock. "I beg it!"
"As an abject and meaningless slave?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "as an abject and meaningless slave—one hoping her master will take pity on her, and touch her."
"Can it be," asked Thurnus, "that the slave, in her sleen collar, is aroused?"
"She desires to please her Master."
"Is she aroused?" inquired Thurnus.
"Yes," she cried, suddenly, half-choking, piteously. "She is aroused! She is aroused! For the first time in years she is aroused!"
Thurnus looked down upon her.
"Piteously aroused!" she whispered.
Thurnus turned away.
"Wait, Master!" she cried. "Please do not leave me! Please do not leave me!"
He turned to look back at her.
"I cannot stand it!" she wept. "I am helpless! I never knew I could feel this way!"
"And what is the nature of your feelings?" he asked.
She knew herself under the gaze of her master.
"Speak," he said.
His voice was not pleasant.
"They are the feelings of a needful slave!" she wept.
"Are you a needful slave?" he asked.
"Yes, Master!"
"So," said he, scornfully, "she who was the proud free woman, Melina, of Tabuk's Ford, is now a needful slave."
"Yes, Master!" she wept.
She lifted her body to him, piteous
ly.
He returned then to her side, then, and regarded her, regarded her as what she now was, a slave, and a piteous slave, and one obviously in the throes of her slave needs.
"Please touch me, my Master! Please touch me. I beg it! I beg it! Please, my Master, please touch your slave!"
Again she lifted her body to him, even more piteously.
We turned away as Thurnus, swiftly and brutally, raped the slave girl in the stock.
When he had finished with her she lay gasping, half shattered in the stock. "Oh, Master!" she cried. "Master," she whispered.
"Be silent, Slave," said Thurnus.
"Yes, Master," she said, and the girl in the sleen collar was silent.
I looked upon her. I suspected that never had Thurnus used her with such authority and force. Years ago, doubtless, she had been loved with the gentle tenderness accorded to free women. This was the first time in her life, I suspected, that she had felt the uncompromising, unbridled lust that may be vented on the helpless body of a female slave. Never before had she had an experience like this. Never before had she been so had. She looked after Thurnus, startled, confused, awe-struck, bewildered, enraptured. I saw she wanted to cry out to him, to beg him to return to her, but she dared not, for she was under discipline. Morning would be time enough for her to be whipped.
Thurnus drew his tunic about him. He looked at me. Under the eyes of a free man, I knelt.
"I have given you to Tup Ladletender," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"He was promised you, in payment for the powder he gave to one in the village," said Thurnus. "The powder was used, though it did not have the effect that one in the village had intended. Accordingly, on behalf of one who was of the village, who can no longer transact the affairs of business, having fallen into the unfortunate state of slavery, I, on behalf of that former person, now one of my beasts, tender you to him in payment for the powder."
"Yes, Master," I said. My fists clenched in the slave bracelets. I was tendered in payment for a small, worthless powder. I grew angry. Surely I was at least a few copper tarsks' worth of slave girl. "But the powder was worthless," I pouted.
"But so, too, are you, pretty little Dina," said Thurnus. He threw back his head and laughed.
"Yes, Master," I said, angrily.
He turned to Sandal Thong. "I pronounce you my preferred slave," said he. "You will sleep in my hut, and tend it."
"A slave is grateful," said she, "Master."
"Too," said he, "you are first girl."
"As Master wishes," she said.
Radish, Verr Tail and Turnip fled to her, hugging her and kissing her. "We are so happy for you," said Turnip.
"I am first girl," said Sandal Thong.
"I am so happy for you," said Radish.
"Fetch a switch," said Sandal Thong.
"Sandal Thong?" asked Radish, stunned.
"Fetch a switch," said Sandal Thong.
"Yes, Mistress," said Radish, hurrying away.
In a few moments Radish returned, carrying a switch, which she placed in the hands of Sandal Thong.
"Kneel," said Sandal Thong to the three girls. They knelt.
"In a straight line, four horts apart, facing the master," she said. She dressed their line. "Straight," she said. She kicked back Radish's knees. "Backs straight, hands on thighs, bellies sucked in, heads high," she said. She tapped Verr Tail on the belly with her switch. Verr Tail sucked her belly in, tight. She tapped Turnip twice under the chin. Turnip lifted her chin. In their eyes I could read their distress. But they knelt beautifully under Sandal Thong's discipline.
Sandal Thong inspected the line.
Something was perhaps not yet just right.
"Ah!" she said suddenly.
It seemed a thought had just come to her.
She scrutinized the girls, and they looked up at her, puzzled.
"Spread your knees, you meaningless sluts!" she snapped. "Now! Instantly! Widely! More widely!"
The girls, in consternation, did so.
"From now on," she said, "you are no longer simple field slaves. You are now also pleasure slaves. You will all be pleasure slaves for the Master! Surely you have learned something from little Dina!"
She again inspected the line.
The girls now knelt in perfection, and as pleasure slaves.
Sandal Thong turned then to Thurnus. "Here are your slaves, Master," she said.
"Excellent," said Thurnus. He looked upon the three girls. They dared not move a muscle. All were positioned with perfection, and unmistakably as pleasure slaves. I had little doubt but that Sandal Thong would richly switch any of them who disobeyed in the least, or gave the least hint of disobedience. Thurnus grinned. He began to suspect the wonders that he would now have from these girls.
Before him, you see, they now knelt as pleasure slaves!
I stood nearby, braceleted.
How I would have loved to provide wonders for Clitus Vitellius!
Every true man, I thought, deserves one or more pleasure slaves.
As a slave myself, of course, I would have preferred to be the only slave of a beloved master.
How the beasts with more than one girl make them compete desperately to please them!
I myself would have wanted to be a thousand slaves to my master, that I alone might please him in a thousand ways, in a thousand modalities, as a thousand girls. I would wish to be such a slave to him, so marvelous a slave, that he would never desire another, that it would never even occur to him to think of another.
"Excellent," said Thurnus. "Excellent."
I had little doubt that Thurnus, for his considerably improved slaves, would soon be the envy of the village. Too, I supposed, shortly, that every embonded wench in the village would discover that she would be subjected to similar delights and disciplines.
This village, I suspected, would become famous for its pleasure slaves.
And I did not doubt but what other villages, too, would be so influenced.
Once a man understands that a woman can be a pleasure slave how will he ever thereafter want her as anything different or see her as anything less?
Sandal Thong then herself knelt before Thurnus, she, too, as a pleasure slave.
The implicit petition of her posture, and its tacit confession of her will and desire, was not lost on her master.
Thurnus gestured to the other slaves.
"You may cage them at your pleasure," he said.
"Yes, Master," said Sandal Thong.
Sandal Thong muchly loved her master.
In her love for Thurnus, clearly, she was determined that he would have the best not only from herself, but from all his girls. Too, I had little doubt but that when it was the turn of the village slave, Melina, to serve the house of Thurnus that she, too, would fall under the same strict discipline. Sandal Thong, switch in hand, would see that Melina served her master to perfection.
"You may rise, Dina," said Tup Ladletender to me.
I rose, standing in close bracelets.
The rope collar of Thurnus was removed from my neck. It was no longer appropriate that I wear it. I had changed hands. I now belonged to another.
"You may bid your former cagemate farewell," said Sandal Thong.
Radish, Verr Tail and Turnip came to me and wished me well, hugging and kissing me. I, too, wished them well.
"Slaves to your cage," said Sandal Thong.
"We must go to our cage," said Radish to me. "I wish you well."
"I, too, wish you well," I said. "I wish you all well."
The three girls hurried to the cage. Sandal Thong, switch in hand, came to me. She hugged and kissed me. "I wish you well, Dina," she said.
"I, too, wish you well, Mistress," I said. I addressed her as mistress, for she was first girl.
Sandal Thong then turned and followed the other girls, to lock them in the cage for the night.
Thurnus came over to me and put his hand on my head, and shook it.
I looked at him, tears in my eyes.
"The village," said he, "is no place for you, little Dina. The days are too long and the work too hard." He looked at me. "You have the body of a pleasure slave," he said. "You belong at the feet of men."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Come along, Slave," said Tup Ladletender, taking my arm.
He began to lead me away. I stopped, and turned, pulling against his arm.
"I wish you well, Master," I said to Thurnus.
"You cannot even pull a plow," he said.
"I make a very poor she-bosk," I said.
"You are not the she-bosk," he said, "but the meadow." I put my head down, reddening. It was not mine to plow, but to be plowed. "I wish you well, little slave," said Thurnus.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
I felt Tup Ladletender's hand close more firmly on my arm. "Will it be necessary to beat you?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said, frightened, and hurried on beside him, his hand on my arm.
His cart, with the two large wheels, and the two long handles, was near the village gate.
The gate was opened for us by its tender.
I expected to be tied to the back of the wagon, that I might follow in its dust. To my surprise he placed me between the two handles. He removed the slave bracelets, putting them in a drawer in the side of the cart.
"I am too weak to draw the cart, Master," I told him.
He removed two pair of wrist rings and chains from another drawer. He locked one wrist ring from one pair on the left handle, and snapped its matching wrist ring on my left wrist. He then locked one wrist ring from the other pair on the cart's long right handle and snapped its mate about my right wrist. I was chained between the handles. There was about a foot of chain between each wrist ring locked on its handle and its matching ring which clasped my corresponding wrist.
"I cannot draw the cart, Master," I told him.
I cried out as the whip cut my back. I seized the handles and threw my weight against them, bent over, digging with my feet into the dirt.