by John Norman
* * * *
I sat upon a great curule chair, on a broad, three-stepped, carpeted dais in the house which I had borrowed from a friend, a citizen of Victoria, for the past few days.
I wore a mask identical to that which I had worn when I had first gained admittance to the holding of Policrates, when I had, long ago, pretended to be an agent of Ragnar Voskjard, he who was the bearer of the topaz. I remembered well the feast at which I had been entertained. The slaves in the holding, as I recalled, many of them former free women, had been quite beautiful. I well remember one of them, in slave steel, a small, exquisite brunette, who had knelt before me, lifting fruit cupped in her hands for my delectation, and, in this, of course, as the pirates wished, presenting herself as well for my survey and consideration. Later she had been sent to my room.
I had amused myself thoroughly with the small beauty. Indeed, in that night, I gathered, she had been, for the first time, taught the full meaning of her collar. When she had entered the room she had been a woman who had been enslaved; when I had left the room she knew herself to be a woman who was a slave. She had piteously begged to be bought, and to be taken with me, and kept as my own. I had learned later in the holding, when I had been captured, that she was owned in her heart by that brutal, anonymous master who had so abused her, that her love, the helpless love of a tormented, yielding slave, was his. How she had contrasted the audacity and glory of that unknown Gorean master with the timidity and weakness of the males of Earth, such as, at that time, she took me to be.
Then, last night, on the rude stones of the Street of the Writhing Slave, she helpless in my arms, locked in the chain collar of a Coin Girl, with the flattish bell and coin box, I had instructed her, and thoroughly, in the respect due, did he but assume his mastery, to one who was once of Earth. By morning she had learned this lesson well. We did not relate to one another in the perverted modality of unisexual identicals but in the order of nature, she as woman, and slave, I as man, and master. When I, finished with her for the time, had sent her fleeing from me, she had been riven with conflict. Two men, it seemed, she loved, he whom she had served in the holding of Policrates, he who had treated her with the insolence commonly accorded an Earth-girl slave by Gorean masters, and he whom she had served on the stones of the Street of the Writhing Slave, he who had treated her as a full and lowly slave, who once, perchance, had been an Earth girl.
I reached to my left and, from the rack on the gong frame, picked up the slender stick which reposed there. On this stick was mounted a rounded, fur-wrapped head. I struck the gong once, smartly, replaced the stick, and leaned back in the curule chair.
Before the reverberations of the gong had subsided I heard, hurrying towards the room, from deep within the house, the sound of slave bells.
A curtain was thrust aside at the end of the long room, and I saw her in the threshold, barefoot, her ankles belled, her feet almost lost in the piling of the deep carpet leading to the dais.
She seemed startled, stunned. How beautiful she was in the bit of yellow pleasure silk.
The other girl, who was serving as her keeper, and had now retrieved her switch, thrust her forward.
Timidly, and as though she could scarcely believe what was occurring, the girl in the yellow pleasure silk approached the dais.
She could not, it seemed, take her eyes from the mask which I wore.
Then she stopped at the foot of the dais, trembling, belled, looking up at me.
"A slave, Master," explained the girl with the switch, standing behind her.
Immediately the girl in the yellow pleasure silk fell to her knees and put her head to the carpet at the foot of the dais.
I gestured to the girl behind her, she with the switch, that she might leave. She smiled, and withdrew. I, too, smiled. Lola had done a good job with her. Lola, too, of course, had been her keeper as a Coin Girl when I had, as Jason of Victoria, by apparent accident, encountered her on the Street of the Writhing Slave. I was pleased with Lola. She had served me well. Perhaps I could reward her, by giving her to a suitable master.
I snapped my fingers and the girl kneeling before the dais lifted her head.
Furtively she looked about. She then realized that she was alone with me. She looked up at me.
"Is it you, my Master?" she whispered. "Is it truly you, my Master?"
I did not respond to her.
"If I may not speak," she said, "by your least gesture or movement of irritation, warn me to silence. I have no wish to displease you in the slightest."
I indicated, with a movement of my fingers, that she should discard the pleasure silk. She did so, dropping it behind her.
"You won my heart in the holding of Policrates," she said. "Since that time I have been yours. Never did I dream that my fortune would be such that you would even remember me, let alone see fit to bring me into your own house. Thank you, my Master! Thank you, my Master!"
I looked down upon her.
"It is my hope that you will find me pleasing," she said. "I will endeavor to be a good slave to you."
I smiled.
"Of course I must, I know," she said, "for I am your slave. I am not a fool, Master. But it is more than that. It is not only that I am afraid of being fed to your animals, or of being whipped and tortured, if I am not pleasing. No, it is more than that." There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at me. "You see, my Master," she said, "your Earth-girl slave loves you." She put her head down. "She has loved you ever since that night in the holding of Policrates. She is thus, my Master, more your slave than you could ever know." She lifted her head. "Did you make me love you that night, or were you only such that I could not help loving you. It does not matter, for I loved you then, and love you now, with the total helplessness of a slave's love for her master. You are my Master, and I am your slave, and I love you." She brushed a tear from her eye. It smeared the mascara-type compound which had been put on her lashes, making a dark smear on her cheek. "I love you, my Master," she said.
I looked down upon her. It pleased me to hear the former Miss Henderson confess her love for me, in my guise as her Gorean master.
"I do not ask that you love me, even a little, my Master," she said, "for I am nothing, and a slave. I know well, and need not be taught, that I am owned. I know that I am only an article of your property." She put her head down. "Just as you own some piece of clothing, or the thongs to your sandals, so, too, do you own me. To you, too, I am doubtless of far less value than a pet sleen. I do not ask, accordingly, nor would I be so presumptuous or bold as to ask, or beg, that you care even a little for me. No, my Master. I am only your slave." She then lifted her head again. Tears were in her eyes. "But know, my Master," she said, "that my own love, undesired though it might be, worthless as it doubtless is, that of a slave, is yours."
With my finger I indicated a place upon the mask I wore. With her fingers she reached to her own face. She touched her face, beneath her left eye. On her fingers, she saw, was the stain of the smeared cosmetic. She looked at me, frightened. She rubbed her cheek and then, her head down, rubbed her finger tips on her right thigh.
From beside the curule chair I picked up a five-stranded Gorean slave lash. I threw it to the carpet, in front of the girl.
She looked down at the lash and then, frightened, up at me. "Am I to be whipped, my Master?" she asked.
I gestured that she should return the whip, and then, briefly, placed four fingers, downward, on the arm of the curule chair. The whip would be returned, then, in the manner of the naked slave.
"Yes, my Master," she whispered.
She fell forward, to her hands and knees, with a jangle of slave bells, and put her head down. She took the staff of the whip, which is about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in diameter, gently between her teeth, and looked up at me. The staff of the whip was crosswise in her mouth. Her mouth, by the whip, was held widely open. I snapped my fingers. Head down, then, on all fours, to the small sounds of the slave bells
on her wrists and ankles, and collar, she slowly ascended the three broad steps of the carpeted dais. She was then before me, on all fours, the lovely, obedient slave, the former Miss Henderson, before the curule chair on which I reclined. She lifted her head, and, extending her slender, closely collared neck, delicately tendered the whip into my grasp. I took the whip from her, and she looked at me, frightened. Was she now to be whipped? The decision, of course, was mine. I folded the blades of the whip back against the staff, and held out the staff and blades to her. Suddenly, gratefully, tears in her eyes, sobbing, and half gasping and choking with relief, kneeling before me, grasping my calves, her head over my thighs, she covered the whip, that symbol of masculinity, and of the authority of men over her, and specifically of my own authority over her, with kisses.
"I kiss your whip, my Master," she said, gratefully, continuing to kiss the brutal, uncompromising blades and staff. "I submit to you a thousand times! Thank you for not whipping me! I am your slave, and I love you!" She then looked up at me, joyfully. "I love you, my Master," she said. "I love you!" Then, joyfully, kneeling before me, she put her left cheek down upon my right thigh. "I love you," she said. "I love you, my Master. Command me," she begged. "I am eager to serve you. I will do anything." I smiled to myself. Of course, she would do anything. She was an owned woman. Such must do anything, and superbly, and unhesitantly, upon the least wish of the Master. They are slaves. And yet it pleased me to hear the former Miss Henderson, of her own free will, beg to please me. This was a gratification which few men of Earth had obtained, I speculated, from the women of Earth. But then few men of Earth had had the illuminating experience of seeing their precious women, their sexuality liberated by Gorean males, returned to the primitive natural state of biological women, crawling, collared, to the feet of masters. Woman in her place in nature is perfect and delicious. Out of her place in nature she is a deviant and a freak.
"Master has not commanded me," said the girl, keeping her cheek down upon my right thigh.
I hung the whip, by its handle loop, over the arm of the curule chair.
"It is my hope that I am not displeasing to him," she whispered. "Perhaps he will command me later. It is my hope that he is saving me for his own pleasure, and not for the pleasure of another." She looked up at me, frightened. "I know well the power of your desire, and the strength of your arms, from the holding of Policrates. And yet in these days that you have owned me, you have used me not once. I trust that I have not lost my charm for you. I hope that it is for yourself that you are keeping me, and that you are not keeping me for another. I know that my will means nothing but it is to you that I wish to belong, and not to another. Keep me, I beg of you. I will struggle to be worthy of your decision."
I reached to the side of the curule chair and took from a bronze dish on the carpet a small leather sack. It contained some tiny scraps of meat, remnants which I had saved from my supper.
Bit by bit I fed these to the slave.
"The Master feeds his slave," said the girl. "It is thus my hope that he is not wholly dissatisfied with me."
When I had finished feeding her I gently dabbed her mouth with her hair, being careful not to disarrange the slave's lipstick with which her sweet, full lips had been adorned. It was crimson. It was, by design, kissably sensuous, designed to arouse men and provoke the lust of masters; some girls are terrified to wear such lipstick; they know how it enhances their loveliness and proclaims them well as slaves; they understand well its intention and are seldom left long in doubt as to its effectiveness; had they originally entertained doubts as to its efficacy these doubts are often dispelled rapidly, as they squirm, naked and collared, perfumed, in the arms of a strong man, as it is being ruthlessly kissed from their lips. Yet, of course, it is not simply the lipstick, but the entire appearance and ensemble of the slave, and perhaps mostly simply that she is a slave, which so enhances her desirability, which so drives men wild with the desire to have her.
I extended my fingers to her and she, gently, licked the grease from them. I then dried my hands on her hair, and she knelt back, kneeling on the broad carpeted dais before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.
"Thank you, my Master, for feeding me," she said. I nodded. Many slave girls, of course, cannot even take their food for granted. And, strictly, of course, every slave girl depends, ultimately, on the master's decision, as to whether or not she is to be fed.
"I am happy that it is you who owns me," she said. "I cannot tell you how happy it makes me, I, a slave, to belong to one such as you. In my deepest heart of hearts I desire to obey, to serve and love. I know, too, full well, that you, and ones like you, will require, and, nay, even enforce, uncompromisingly, these lovely exactions upon me. I shall then, in my womanhood, be fulfilled. How I pity the unfulfilled, frustrated women of my old world whose sex and dispositions, meaningless and largely useless in the bleak labyrinths of an artificial world, must be thwarted, suppressed and denied, in the interests of economic and mechanistic exigencies. How far are the barren, dismal corridors of such a world from our native countries. How long my people have been lost. How far we have drifted from our own hearts. How far we have wandered from home. What can any journey profit us, if it is ourselves whom we have left behind?
"But I speak foolishly, my Master," she said, "for what can such nonsense mean to one such as you, one skilled in the mastery, Gorean in blood and power? How little has your own world prepared you to comprehend such lamentations. How meaningless they must seem to you. But suffice it to say that I, who was brought to Gor, and put in a collar, and am an abject slave, am here a thousand times more free than ever I was upon my native world. The thousand trammels of my captivity on Earth I have here shed. As a slave I am more free here than ever I was there. In coming here I have found myself, for the first time, in a world such as that for which I, thousands of years ago, was bred. Here I am a woman. Here I am happy."
I looked down upon her. I did not speak.
"I kneel before you, your slave, yours to do with as you wish. Command me, and I shall obey. I am yours." She looked up at me, smiling. "Whip me, or terrify me," she said. "I must accept. I must endure. I am a slave. But I wish to please you. That is what I really wish to do. You can probably never know how much I wish to please you."
I regarded her. I did not speak.
"I am before you, and you have not dismissed me. I gather then that I may remain as I am, for the time, kneeling before you." She smiled. "I gather that it pleases you, for some reason, to have me kneeling before you, naked, and as your slave. I suppose that if I were a man it would please me, too, to have a woman so situated before me. And I shall tell you a secret, my Master, for we slaves may not keep secrets from our masters. It pleases us women, too, to kneel thusly before men, especially if we are slaves, for their perusal and inspection. And it is our hope, too, that we will be found attractive by our masters. It is they who own us, and we wish them to find us pleasing. How scandalous we slaves are!" she laughed. "Oh, Master," she said, "if my girlish prattle should displease you in the slightest, please indicate this by some gesture or expression. I will then remain silent until I sense that it may, again, be acceptable for me to speak. I know well who is master here."
But I displayed to her no disapprobatory sign.
"Do you like my bells?" she asked, happily. "They have been put upon me for your pleasure. It excites me to be belled." She lifted her left arm, and turned it. There was a shimmer of sound from the glinting rows of tiny bells locked on her wrist. "Are they not pretty?" she asked. "They mark my movements well, and as those of a slave," she smiled. Then she lowered her arm, and knelt back again, on her heels, in the position of the pleasure slave. "How happy I am yours," she said. "Thank you for bringing me to your house, my Master."
I looked down upon her, so exquisite and desirable, kneeling before me, perfumed, naked and belled. Her knees and the bells on her ankles were almost lost in the soft, deeply piled carpet before the curule chair.
"My Master licks his lips," she said. "Perhaps he sees before him a morsel which he would like to devour?"
I did not speak. 'Go hungry to the feast,' I thought, 'so say the Goreans.' And what a slave feast knelt before me!
"I gather that I may continue to speak," she said. "It seems to please my Master to hear me speak." This is not unusual, incidentally, among Gorean masters. High intelligence is highly valued in a female slave. One of the great pleasures in owning a girl is listening to her. It is a great pleasure to become intimately acquainted with her expressions and thoughts, from the most casual and trivial to the most delicate and profound. She must always, of course, be kept strictly in her place.
The contrast here between the man of Earth and the Gorean male is illuminating. The man of Earth subscribes to the thesis that he prizes a woman's mind but, considering his behavior, it seems reasonably clear that, on the whole, he does not. In his conversation, and in his advertising, and such, it seems his attention, almost exclusively, interestingly, is occupied with little more than the extents and distributions of planes and masses. Indeed, some men of Earth seem more interested in parts of women, than in women. Goreans, it might be pointed out, would find this almost incomprehensible. They would not even regard it as a perversion. They simply would not understand it.
The Gorean, incidentally, does not subscribe explicitly to the thesis that he values a woman's mind. Similarly he does not subscribe explicitly to the thesis that he values a woman's foot. It would not occur to him to propound such peculiar theses. Such theses are evidence of cultural schizophrenia and an alienation from nature. He does, however, value women, whole women, and this interest is richly documented in his sayings, his songs, his art, and his behavior. Indeed, he values them so highly that he is fond of owning them. To be sure, let us not appear to blame the man of Earth. He labors, usually, in a desert of sexual starvation. Some of his most basic physical needs are often frustrated, cruelly and systematically. In such a world, where he is seldom granted more than the appearances of women, it is natural for him to become, sadly, preoccupied with mere appearances. Often he knows little more of women than these appearances, with which he is expected, culturally, to make do. The Gorean, on the other hand, who might buy a woman, or have a lovely slave in a paga tavern for the price of a drink, has little trouble with the satisfaction of his basic sexual needs. These needs satisfied he can then attend to the latent richnesses of the prizes he can command.