by John Norman
"I am Yata," I said. "Of the Chatka and Curla."
"I can read," said he.
These things, of course, were sewn into my brief black silk, with yellow thread. I knew that, of course. I felt foolish. What a stupid slave he must have thought me! I was upset, for we are intelligent, almost always, and we wish our intelligence to be recognized by our masters. Indeed, I suspected that intelligence figured into the criteria of acquisition commonly used by slavers. Intelligence, in any event, is almost always prized in a slave. There are simple reasons for that. Intelligent women are more quickly and easily trainable; they learn more quickly; they are quickly apprised, for example, of what the whip can do to them, and so they are almost immediately zealously eager to please; accordingly, they are less likely to be frequently whipped; they tend, too, to have good memories, say, for the master's friends and appointments, and so on; too, they are more aware and sensitive; they learn like dogs to be alert to the master's subtlest moods, and govern themselves accordingly. Too, they are inventive, and imaginative, and this makes them adept in diversifying the repasts they prepare, and the pleasures they provide. Too, sometimes the master wishes to talk about a thousand things, in depth and at length, and what a joy to him it is, it seems, to share these things, a thousand thoughts and observations, and intimacies, with his slave, she perhaps kneeling lovingly before him, naked, his, her hands thonged behind her back. There is little doubt in my view, nor, I suspect, in that of most masters, that intelligent women make the best slaves.
"Can you?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said.
"You leaped quickly under my touch," he said.
"I am a slave, Master," I said.
"And a pretty one," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said. "I may be had at the Chatka and Curla."
"Of course," he said.
I was pleased to see that he understood my words not as a statement of the obvious, but, rather, as an "advertising girl's" expected hawking of wares, if not as a more personal invitation.
He was handsome and doubtless knew it, the beast, and that I was only a slave girl.
"Are you the best at the Chatka and Curla?" he asked.
"That is for men to decide, Master," I said.
"Are you the most beautiful?"
"I do not know," I said.
"Really?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I am not the most beautiful."
"But you are beautiful?" he said.
"I think so, Master," I said. "It is at least my hope that men will find me pleasing."
"Are you hot?" he asked.
"Hot!" I thought.
I had been Judy Thornton! I had been of Earth!
He regarded me.
"Yes, Master," I said.
He then turned about and continued on his way.
"Try me and see, Master!" I called after him, "At the Chatka and Curla!"
I looked after him.
I was uneasy. His hand had heated me.
What A slave you are, I thought, Yata, or Teela, or Dina, or whatever men will call you! Then I thought, yes, yes, I am a slave! I supposed I had always been a slave, even on Earth. A latent slave, fit for explicit bondage. Then I had been brought to Gor. Here there was nothing latent about my slavery. I had been explicitly collared. Here I was a slave, in full legality.
Is it appropriate that you are a man's slave, I asked myself. Yes, I said to myself. That is what you should be. Do you want to be a man's slave, I asked myself. Is that what you want? Yes, I whispered to myself, that is what I want.
Then I tried to put such thoughts from me.
I then continued again on my way.
I was uneasy, sexually, emotionally, uneasy.
His hand had been strong, provocative. I had no doubt that such hands would be sure, and would quickly bring a slave to such a pitch of need that she would thrash in his arms, and be beside herself in her eagerness to serve.
I saw a sailor, and ran to him, kneeling at his leg, touching it.
"Does Master desire paga?" I asked.
"Begone, Slave," he said.
I drew back, and he strode away, with the rolling gait of his profession.
I looked about, at the boxes and bales on the wharves. I did not bother the men who were busily engaged. Their foremen did not wish them distracted by the presence and banter of a slave girl. More than once they had taken their belt to me, driving me from the vicinity of the men.
I perched on top of a large box on the wharves, holding my legs closely together.
It is not unusual for a slave girl to be demure, and provocatively feminine.
I was calmer now.
My uneasiness, my agitation, at having been touched had now much subsided. To be sure, as little as a touch on my ankle might have returned me acutely to the discomfort of my need. We cannot help reacting to such things. We are sensitized to them.
I enjoyed the smell of the salt water, the sight of the soaring harbor gulls. I wore a collar, and was clad for the pleasure of men. But I was not unhappy.
I had a clear identity. No longer was my life empty. I knew now who I was, and what I was.
When I had first been sent to the wharves, some weeks ago, my wrists had been braceleted behind me, and I had been accompanied by other girls; later I had been permitted to go alone, my wrists still locked behind my back; later I had been permitted to go alone to the wharves in wrist rings and chain, my hands before my body, separated by some twenty inches of light, gleaming chain; there are many things, clever, subtle exciting things a girl may do with such a chain; some of these were shown to me, and others I invented, sharing them with other girls at the tavern; girls struggle to become ever more perfect, and beautiful, in their slavery; girls often share slave secrets; I struggled hard to learn all that I could, to become more pleasing to masters; something in me, you see, was not at all displeased to belong to men; at one time such a thought would have horrified me, and I would have thrust it wildly from my consciousness, not daring to regard it; now I entertained it with a shameless pride; I had become a slave girl. One thing that was shown to me was the slave bridle; the male takes the light chain back between the teeth of the girl and holds it, together, behind her neck, thus, too, pinning her hands there, helplessly; he then controls her by means of the bridle; my own invention was the chain kiss; one clasps the leg with the chain against the interior of the thigh, and then, from the side of the knee, one begins to kiss the leg, one's lips and teeth hot about the chain; the male feels both the chain and her mouth, biting and kissing, climbing the chain; she climbs the chain and descends it, and climbs it again, until he orders her to leave it.
I heard the sounds of chains, and a whip. Below me I saw a line of prisoners, men of Ar who had been captured on the Vosk River in the river fightings. Cos and Ar, I knew, were at war, contesting commerce rights on the western Vosk. There were some twenty of them. They wore rags. Their wrists were manacled behind them. They were in neck coffle. The chain was heavy.
"Hurry, Sleen!" called their whip master. There were four guards with them.
One man fell and the whip master was upon him in an instant. He struggled again to his feet and continued on, in the coffle, trudging along the hot wharf.
They would be taken to a holding area, I knew, and there branded slave. They would then row on the merchant galleys of Cos. Warships commonly have free oarsmen; merchant ships commonly, but not always, use slaves.
Seeing the men, sweaty, chained, under the whip, I was affrighted. It was a grim fate which awaited them, the confinement and pain of the benches, the weight of the long oars, the shackles, the whip, the drum of the hortator, the stench, the black bread and onions of the ponderous galleys.
Then I thought that such a fate was too good for them, for they were of Ar. I remembered Clitus Vitellius, who had sported with me, and then discarded me. I remembered I hated Clitus Vitellius. How I hated him!
But I felt sorry then for the men of Ar.
The
y were not Clitus Vitellius.
Better it were Clitus Vitellius in their place! But he was a noble captain of Ar, and would not be involved in the insignificant skirmishes on the Vosk.
The prisoners, the men of Ar, disappeared down the wharf. I dropped down from the box on which I had sat.
Aurelion of Cos would not be pleased if I did not bring customers to the Chatka and Curla.
I was not chained now; the last four times I had been permitted to come to the wharves unchained; Aurelion, I think, was pleased with me. Once he had even permitted me to serve his pleasure. How proud I had been, and how envious the other girls had been. I struggled to be fantastic to him. I think he was not displeased. Afterwards he had, before leaving, thrown a candy to the floor before me which I, gratefully, in the manner of the Chatka and Curla, which was necessary, had picked up in my mouth. "Thank you, Master," I had said. The candy was hard and very sweet. I showed it off to the other girls. "I pleased the master," I boasted. "He once gave me five candies," said Narla. "Liar!" I cried. I knew the master had never even called for her. We leaped toward one another. Tima, the first girl, had separated us with a whip.
I looked about the wharves.
A long ship, I could see, was moving into its wharfage, its lateen sail furled on the long, sloping yard. It was a warship of Cos. I saw other girls, from other taverns, running down to its mooring.
Quickly I joined them.
I knelt with them, in a line of some seven or eight girls. We called forth the praises of our respective establishments. But when the men had disembarked, carrying their sea bags and weapons, none had stopped to stand before me.
I rose to my feet, looking about. Some officers, with a few members of the crew, remained on the ship. I turned away.
A sailor passed me. He carried a long bag on his shoulder, tied shut. I saw the bag move. It carried, I conjectured, a bound woman. From the lineaments of the bag, over his shoulder, I gathered she was naked. I wondered if she were slave or free. He boarded one of the numerous ships at the many wharves, going below decks.
Two men passed me, pushing a cart of furs of sea sleen. I could smell spices in a bale near me.
A man walked by carrying a long pole, from which dangled dozens of the eels of Cos.
It was now past noon, and I had not yet conducted a patron to the Chatka and Curla. Soon it would be time for me to report back.
Though I now wore no chains on the wharves I was still, of course, in a sense, chained in my bondage. I was clad as a slave girl, and wore a belled collar, which identified my master, and a belled ankle ring; too, I was branded. Masters take little risk with their girls when they send them to the wharves. They are as slave on the wharves as behind the barred gates. As a pig is a pig, and a dog a dog, so, too, the slave is a slave.
There is no place for her to run; there is no escape for her.
That did not truly displease me, for I had grown content in my collar, but I knew that if I did not report back promptly, when due, I would be beaten. That did not please me, not at all.
Gorean masters, you see, are strict with their girls.
The impossibility of escape for the Gorean slave girl, interestingly, is in its way reassuring to her, and gives her a sense of security. It is one less thing to concern herself with. When a girl grasps that her bondage is categorical, and absolute, she can begin to explore it, and enjoy it. There are freedoms in bondage which the free woman, enslaved by her freedoms, can never suspect. Or perhaps she can, and perhaps that is why they hate us so.
It was now past noon. I was growing apprehensive. I had not yet found a guest for the tables of Aurelion. Girls are not sent to the wharves for the delights of smelling the fresh sea air. They are sent forth half naked in their collars to bring back paying customers.
I parted my silk a bit and ran to kneel before a sailor. I looked up at him. "Own me at the Chatka and Curla, Master," I said. He spurned me from him with his foot, forcing me back to the hot planks of the wharf. I ran to kneel before another. "I am Yata," I said. "Please own me at the Chatka and Curla, Master," I begged.
He, with the back of his hand, struck me from his path, hurling me by the force of the blow to my shoulder on the boards. I tasted blood in my mouth. I knelt on the hot, caulked boards, angrily. He had gone. It had not been necessary to strike me.
I rose to my feet and again looked about. The large, yellow shield on the high pole in the harbor had already been hoisted and fallen, and, near it, the fire of white smoke had been lit. When the shield reaches the top of the pole in the harbor and is permitted to fall it is the tenth hour, the Gorean noon. At the same time the white-smoke fire is lit. At the twentieth hour, the Gorean midnight, a beacon is lit. These things serve to synchronize chronometers in the port, and serve to regulate schedules and the utilization of the tide tables.
I was beginning to feel desperate.
Toward me a couple was moving, a bearded sailor and a red-haired paga girl. I saw by her silk she was from the Cords of Tharna, an establishment competitive with the Chatka and Curla.
I knelt boldly in their path, and looked up at the sailor. "Yata can please you more," I said.
"He is mine!" said the red-haired girl, holding the sailor's arm.
"I am his, should he be pleased to have me," I said. I smiled at the sailor. "Please, Master," I said.
He looked from one of us to the other. I saw we both pleased him. He grinned. "Fight," he said.
With a scream of rage the red-haired girl leaped upon me, clawing and biting, throwing me back to the boards. She was larger and stronger than I.
She could not well get her hands in my hair for, as yet, it was too short. I tore at her hair, rolling with her on the boards, and got my fingers in it but she, with the heels of her two hands, struck back my head. I felt her scratch for my eyes. I screamed as her teeth bit me in the arm. I was then terrified, and tried to defend myself, as she struck me. She crouched beside me, striking down at me with her fists. I rolled over, covering my head. She leaped up. I turned. She kicked at me. I felt her foot strike me in the stomach. I could not breathe. I gasped wildly for air. She threw herself over me and held my head down, locking her right arm about it; she held her legs about my body, preventing me from using my arms; with her left hand she shoved up, as she could, the collar at my throat; then her head was pulled back and away, suddenly, from me; the sailor had her by the hair, kneeling, twisted back; she fought to look at me, held. "La Kajira, Mistress!" I wept. "I am a slave girl, Mistress!" She had clearly won. I was her inferior. I shrank back, fighting for air.
"He is mine!" she hissed.
I put my head down, in defeat.
Then she cried out in pain, as she was flung by the hair to his feet.
"You are mine," he said.
"I am yours," she whispered, terrified.
Then he took her by the hair and dragged her to her feet and left, she bent over, held by the hair, running, stumbling, beside him. To me she had been formidable, but to him she was only a wench for his pleasure.
I rose to my feet, shaken. I rearranged my silk. It had not been torn.
I looked after the sailor and the red-haired girl, stumbling beside him, held by the hair. I saw he would use her well, very well. This pleased me.
A male slave, his wrists chained, separated by some eighteen inches of linked metal, pushing a wharf cart passed me. He looked upon me. I was furious! I ran to him, in rage, and slapped him. "Do not look upon me!" I cried in rage. "I am not for the likes of you! You are a slave! A slave!" He pulled back his head, angrily. "Slave!" I screamed. "Slave!" I spun about. I saw one who must be his master, a merchant. I was red with fury. I ran to the merchant and knelt before him. I pointed to the male slave. "He looked upon me!" I cried. "He looked upon me!" "Have you permission to speak?" he asked. "May a girl speak?" I asked, frightened. "Yes," he said. Emboldened then, I pointed again to the male slave. "He dared to look upon me," I said. I knew that male slaves were carefully supervised. I knew
it could be quite unpleasant for one of them to be caught looking upon a slave girl. To be caught looking upon a free woman could mean death for them. "He looked upon me," I said, pointing to the male slave. Surely he would be, at the least, whipped for his indiscretion. The beauty of slave girls was for free men, not for the slave likes of such as he.
"You are too good for him?" asked the merchant.
"Yes," I said. I then realized this was not the proper thing to say. But I had said it.
"You are both animals," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"But you are a female," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And he," he said, "though slave is yet male."
"Yes, Master," I whispered.
"And is not the male animal the master of the female animal?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. I knew that male dominance was pervasive among mammals, and that it was universal among primates. It can be frustrated only by an extensive and complex conditioning program, one adequate, over a period of years, to distort the order of nature.
"Do you find this slave of interest?" asked the master of the male slave.
He shrugged. "She is small," he said.
I looked at him, frightened.
"But she is not without interest," he conceded.
"Do you think you can catch her?" asked the master.
"Of course," said the male slave.
I rose to my feet, frightened. I began to back away.
"She is yours," said the master.
I turned to run. He caught me before a large box, and flung me, face forward, against it. When I recoiled back from the hot wood the chain on his wrists had looped about me, and I was his, held to him by the chain about his wrists.
"It is long since I have had a wench," he said.
He dragged me along beside him, the chain looped about my body, cutting into my waist over the left hip.
"Be merciful to a slave, Master," I begged.
Behind some boxes, on the boards of the wharf, he threw me down, under him.
"Please be kind to a slave, Master," I begged.
He laughed.
The master did not hurry him, but, I think, attended to other matters.