by John Norman
“It is natural,” I said. “Now place your wrists exactly as they were at the beginning of your beating.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. She extended her wrists downward and to the sides.
“What then occurred?” I asked.
“I was beaten,” she said.
“How many strokes?” I asked.
“Eleven,” she said. “Ten for disobedience, and one, to remind me that I was a slave.”
“Interesting,” I said. “That, too, is sometimes done.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You will now,” I said, “count the strokes, and, after each count, react as you did in your dream.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I observed her. The beating, in her dream, had apparently been quite efficient I studied her facial expressions, the movements of her body. Sometimes under the blows or in fearful anticipation of them she twisted or changed position, once sitting, sometimes crouching, once on her stomach; most of the blows were across her back, but two had been delivered frontally, and two to her left side, and one to her right side. In all this I was conscious, in her movements, of how the two men with the wrist leashes, tightening or slackening them, toyed and played with her, as one sometimes does with a slave, skillfully managing her in her beating.
“The beating was then finished?” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Apparently you were well beaten,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “I was well beaten.”
“At the end of the beating you well knew that you were a slave,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “I well knew then that I was a slave.”
“What occurred then?” I asked.
“I cowered kneeling, sobbing, before my master,” she said. “The men then thrust my wrist leashes back through the rings and, by means of them, dragged me to my feet. I looked up at my master, piteously, searching his face for the least sign of kindness. But there was none. I was a woman of a foreign and hated race, and a slave. ‘You are a worthless slave,’ he said. ‘Yes, Master,’ I wept. He gestured to his right. I was dragged to the side by the wrist leashes. Stumbling I saw before me a circular opening in the stone, like a sunken, sheer-sided pool some eight feet in diameter. The men went to either side of the pool, dragging me by the wrist leashes toward it. I heard grunting and movement, and stirred water, in the pool. In the light of lifted torches I saw its contents. I screamed. In the pool, clambering over one another, lifting their jaws upward were crocodiles, beasts like river tharlarion but differently hided and plated.”
I nodded. The marsh tharlarion, and river tharlarion, of Gor are, I suspect, genetically different from the alligators, caymens and crocodiles of Earth. I suspect this to be the case because these Earth reptiles are so well adapted to their environments that they have changed very little in tens of millions of years. The marsh and river tharlarion, accordingly, if descended from such beasts, brought long ago to Gor on Voyages of Acquisition by Priest-Kings, would presumably resemble them more closely. On the other hand, of course, I may be mistaken in this matter. It remains my speculation, however, that the resemblance between these forms of beasts, which are considerable, particularly in bodily configuration and disposition, may be accounted for by convergent evolution; this process, alert to the exigencies of survival, has, I suspect, in the context of similar environments, similarly shaped these oviparous predators of two worlds. Certain other forms of Gorean beast, however, I suspect do have an Earth origin. This seems to be the case with certain birds and rodents and, possibly, even with an animal as important to the Gorean economy as the bosk.
“Struggling, trying to pull back, fighting the wrist leashes, screaming, inch by inch,” she said, “I was drawn toward the pool. ‘Master! Master!’ I screamed. Then I was drawn to the very edge of the pool. I looked back wildly over my shoulder, sobbing. ‘Please, Master!’ I wept. ‘Have mercy on me, Master! Mercy, Master, mercy! Take pity on a worthless slave!’ The wrist leashes then tightened, to plunge me forward into the lifted, waiting, lunging jaws. I threw my head back. I do not know from where within me came then that piteous wild cry that I then uttered. ‘Let me please you!’ I cried. He must have given a sign, perhaps raising his hand, for the wrist leashes, tight on my small wrists, no longer pulled me forward, but neither did they let me move an inch back. ‘Let your girl try to please you, Master!’ I cried. ‘The girl begs to please her master!’ I could scarcely believe that I had uttered those words. I was horrified that I had said them. They were the words, surely, of a slave. Yet how naturally and spontaneously they had come from me! What could it mean? I was dragged back before the oblong stone. There my wrist leashes were removed. I ran, terrified, to the stone, and pressed myself against it. I scratched at it with my fingernails, and looked up at him. ‘Do you desire to please your master?’ he asked. ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. ‘As a slave?’ he asked. ‘Yes, Master,’ I said, ‘as a slave.’ I looked at him. I now knew what the words I had uttered had meant, those words which had so horrified me, and which, yet, had come so naturally and spontaneously from me. They had meant that I was truly a slave, and truly desired to please my master. Then, in my own heart, my slavery was well confirmed in me. ‘Do so,’ he said. ‘Yes, Master,’ I said, and stepped back from the stone.”
I listened to the noises of the jungle night. I threw some more twigs on the fire.
“‘You understand clearly, do you not,’ he asked, ‘that if you are not sufficiently pleasing, you will be thrown to the crocodiles?’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I said.”
“Continue,” I told her.
“I was terrified,” she said. “I looked up at the brute. I knew that, if I were to live, I must please him, and please him well, and as a slave.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I moved before him,” she said, “as a slave.”
“Do so now,” I said, “precisely, in every detail, as you did in your dream.”
“Ah!” she said. “How clever you are, Master. How cleverly you have tricked me!”
I regarded her, not speaking.
“It is again a matter of female display behaviors, is It not?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“But these behaviors,” she said, “would now be extracted from my most intimate and secret dreams.”
I did not speak.
“You are a bold, demanding master,” she said,
I did not speak.
“Do not make a girl so expose her needs,” she begged.
“The slave girl must honestly expose her needs,” I said. ‘The hypocrisy of the free woman, her concealment, her subterfuges, her lies, are not permitted to the female slave.”
“Oh, Master,” she wept, miserably.
“Are you prepared to perform?” I asked.
“Do not so violate the privacy of a girl’s dreams!” she begged.
“You have no privacy,” I said. “You belong to me.”
“Am I not to be permitted the least vestige of my pride?” she asked.
“No,” I told her.
“I am a slave,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I shall now perform for my master,” she said.
“Do so,” I said, “and precisely, in each and every detail, as In your dream.”
“Yes, my master,” she said. She looked at me. “Remember,” she said, “that I was forced to do this, that I not be hurled to the waiting jaws of crocodiles, beasts much like river tharlarion. That I not suffer so horrible a fate I knew that I must please him well, and as the slave which I had now been proven to be.”
“For your very life you performed,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, “as a terrified slave,”
“Perform,” I commanded.
Almost instantaneously she seemed transformed. I was startled. I found myself, for the first time, partner to a woman’s dream. How vividly she was re-enacting the ex
perience. Nay, how intensely was she reliving it. I could sense almost the high, oblong stone, that rude, barbaric eminence, on which, cross-legged, sat her master. I could almost sense the torches, the pool of reptiles to one side, the rude altar, with its rings, in the background. I could almost feel and see the savages, those red men and women, in their ornate robes and feathers, in the. midst of whom a white beauty, freshly enslaved, piteously strove to save her life by pleasing her stern red master.
I watched her perform. I marveled. I think that no one will ever again be able to lie to me about women. How incredibly exciting and marvelous they are! What a fool a man is who does not seek, and release, the deepest slave in them!
Then she was on her belly, whimpering, scratching at the turf, her face pressed against it. Delicately she extended her tongue and licked a stone. Then, moaning, she rolled onto her back and twisted, moving her head from side to aide, in the dirt before me. The firelight was beautiful on her body. I think there was no aspect or attitude of her beauty which she had not, pleadingly, presented before me for my inspection and appraisal. Then she lay on her back, her knees drawn up, before me. She arched her back. Her breasts were lifted beautifully. I observed their lovely rise and fall, correlated with the respiratory cycle of her small lungs. Then she lay back, her shoulders in the dirt, and pressing against the earth with her small feet, piteously lifted before me, for my examination, and seizure, if I pleased, the deep belly of her, the sweet cradle of her slave’s heat How vulnerable are female slaves! I rose to my feet. my fists clenched. She lay back, before me, at my feet “It was thus,” she said, “that I tried to please him.” I scrutinized, from head to toe, the naked slave who lay at my feet I could feel my fingernails in the palms of my hand. I gritted my teeth. I must not now take her. She was not yet fully ready. One must sometimes be patient with slaves. The next time I took her, I resolved, she would be a well-prepared feast. On the occasion of that feast it was my intention to teach the girl who she was, truly, to free at long last the hidden slave which was her secret self, her true self, that girl which, hitherto, had been permitted to emerge only in the disguise of clandestine dreams, that piteous girl, denied and suppressed, who had been for so long so cruelly imprisoned in the dungeon of her mind. I would free the secret slave from her dungeon; then I would make her mine. I would call her ‘Janice’.
The girl sat up. I sat down, cross-legged. The fire was now low.
“What then occurred in your dream?” I asked.
“My master descended then from the height of the great stone,” she said, “and, with his hand, indicated a direction in which I must precede him. He followed me, with a torch. I walked through the city and then, coming to a great temple, or building, with stone steps, stopped. He indicated I must climb upwards. The edifice was constructed of mighty blocks of stone. Its construction paid tribute to the engineering skills of his people. There were mighty carvings on many of the stones. I found the building, somehow, familiar. He then directed me to walk to my left, and I walked upon one of the broad terraces, many feet from the ground, which, like tiers, were integral to the structure of the edifice. I had the feeling I had been here before. In the light of his torch I could see that many of the carvings were colored, the natural hues and pigments not worn away by wind or rain. In the daylight the building, or temple, must be incredibly barbaric and colorful. ‘Stop,’ he told me. I stopped. ‘Turn and. kneel,’ he said. I turned about, facing him, and knelt down, on the hard, broad stone of the terrace. He then lifted the torch to the wall of stone which was at my left. I gasped. Kneeling beside me, carved in relief on the great stone, was a naked girl. ‘It is a likeness of myself,’ I whispered. ‘Yes,’ he said. I could see, from the carving, and the pigments, that the girl was figured like myself, and was light-skinned, and had yellow hair and blue eyes. But she wore a yellow neck belt and I did not. I knew then why the building seemed so familiar. It was identical to that which, in ruins, had been visited by our tour. And I now knelt, as the girl in the carving I had earlier seen had knelt. ‘I had this carving prepared,’ he said. ‘I ordered it made, sending a runner ahead, almost the first moment I saw you.’ ‘You had determined then,’ I said, ‘that you would have me as your slave.’ ‘Of course,’ he said. He then placed his torch in an iron rack, projecting from the wall. On an iron table, to the right of the rack, there was a flat box. ‘Lie on your right side, exposing your left thigh,’ he said. ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. From the box he then took a small, curved knife and a tiny, cylindrical leather flask. I gritted my teeth, but made no sound. With the small knife he gashed my left thigh, making upon it a small, strange design. He then took a powder, orange in color, from the flask and rubbed it into the wound. ‘Kneel,’ he said. I did so. From the flat box he then took a yellow neck belt, two inches in height, and beaded. It is fastened with a thong, which ties before the throat ‘Say “I am a slave. I am your slave, Master,”’ he said. ‘I am a slave,’ I said. ‘I am your slave, Master.’ He then put the neck belt on me, tying it shut with the thong, with what I knew must be a slave knot From the box then he took a yellow leather disk, which had a small hole, possibly drilled with a tiny stone implement, near its top. There was writing in some barbaric script upon it. He threaded an end of the thong through the hole and then, using the other end of the thong, too, knotted the disk snugly at the very base of the collar, in the front, below my throat He looked down at me. ‘You have been knife branded,’ he said. The orange mark upon your thigh will be recognized in the jungle for hundreds of miles around. If you should be so foolish as to attempt to escape any who apprehend you, seeing the mark, will return you to the city as a runaway slave.’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. ‘Master,’ I asked, ‘did the girl in the carving, in the ruined city, have such a mark on her thigh?’ It could not have been seen, of course, for, as she knelt, it was only her right side which was revealed to the viewer. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It has been put upon her.’ ‘I do not understand, Master,’ I said. ‘This is a slave’s neck belt,’ he said, jerking at the snug collar on my throat I felt it pull against the back of my neck. ‘It, too,’ he said, ‘marks you as a slave. You are not permitted to remove it’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. The disk, of course,’ he said, ‘is a personal identificatory device. It marks you as an article of my individual property.’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I said. ‘Master,’ I asked, ‘how could you know that the other girl, she in the other carving, wore upon her thigh a knife brand?’ ‘I put it there,’ he said. ‘Master?’ I asked. ‘Recollect clearly the carving,’ said he. ‘Can you not now recognize the girl in it, in spite of the weathering which defaced it, in spite of the lengthy ravages of time inflicted upon it?’ ‘Master?’ I asked. ‘Think hard,’ said he. ‘Consider the matter deeply.’ ‘It was I,’ I whispered. ‘And the master?’ he asked, standing before me, his arms folded. ‘You,’ I whispered. I felt faint ‘The jungle,’ said he, ‘is a strange place. Even we, its people, do not fully understand it.’ ‘But the people left the city, mysteriously,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we never left it,’ he said. ‘Look about you.’ I looked about, from the high tier on the temple, or building, on which I knelt ‘It is the same city,’ I whispered. I shuddered. I was terrified. ‘Do you not feel that it is right and fitting that you should be kneeling at my feet?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I whispered, ‘Master.’ It was a strange feeling. ‘The interstices, and cycles, of time,’ said he, ‘are interesting.’ He looked down at me. ‘Have we not been here before?’ he asked. ‘Do you not recognize me, my fair slave?’ he inquired. ‘You are my master,’ I whispered. ‘And I have caught you again,’ he said, ‘and again put you to my feet.’ I looked up at him, trembling. Then I am an eternal slave,’ I said, ‘and you are my eternal master.’ ‘You are an eternal slave,’ he said, ‘but you have had many masters, as I have had many slaves.’ I looked up at him, terrified. ‘But you, my pretty white woman, are one of my favorites. You will serve me well, and I will get incredible pleasure from you.’ ‘Yes, Master,’ I whispered. I
knew then that I was an eternal slave, and that be was one of my eternal masters. He then withdrew from the flat box the last of the objects which it contained, a slave whip. He thrust it to my mouth and I kissed it. ‘Stand,’ said he. I stood. Then he looped the whip about me, behind me, high on my thighs, and, drew me toward him. I felt the stiff gold of his brocaded robes against my breasts. He held me so that I could not move. I lifted my lips to his.”
The blond-haired barbarian then put down her head, and did not speak.
“What happened then?” I asked.
She lifted her head, and smiled. “I do not know,” she said. “I awakened.”
“An interesting dream,” I said. “Strange,” I mused, “that in the dream of a naive Earth woman such details should occur, details such as the differential tension of the wrist straps in a beating and the extra stroke, given sometimes to remind a girl that she is a slave. Too, the kissing of the whip is a quite accurate detail, one practiced in many cities, but surely a surprising detail to occur in the dream of a girl ignorant of bondage. Knife branding, too, practiced by some primitive peoples, is quite rare. It is strange that you should have heard of it. It is a practice of which even many of those involved in cultural studies are ignorant.” I looked at her. “You are quite inventive,” I said.
“Perhaps I am an eternal slave,” she smiled.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Do you believe,” she asked, “that there can be warps in time?”
“It does not seem likely to me,” I said, “but I would not know about such things. I am not a physicist.”
“Do you think,” she asked, “that people may have lived before, that they may have had many lives and have met one another perhaps time and time again?”
“I would not wish to rule out such possibilities,” I said, “but such a thing seems to me very unlikely.”
“It was an interesting dream,” she said.
“I conjecture, though I do not know,” I said, “that the dream was speaking to you not of truths of other worlds and other times, but of this world and this time. I suspect, that the dream, in the beautiful allegory of its symbolism, was conveying to you not mysterious truths of other realities but concealed truths of your own reality, truths which your conscious mind, because of its training, could not bring itself to recognize with candor.”