by John Norman
"It sounds very beautiful," she said.
"It is," I said.
"Are there many slave girls in these cities?" she asked.
"Yes, many," I said.
'Tell me of them," she said.
"They are commonly kept barefoot," I said, "and are clad in brief tunics. Their hair is usually worn long and loosely. Their throats are normally encircled by collars, which identify their masters."
"Are such girls treated kindly?" she asked.
"It depends on the will of the master," I said. "They are slaves."
"Of course," she said.
"Most girls are treated kindly," I said, "provided they are absolutely pleasing in all ways."
She was silent.
"That is little enough to expect from a slave," I pointed out.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No," she said. "It is only that the domination to which the Gorean slave girl is subject is so uncompromising, so complete."
"It is absolutely uncompromising and complete," I told her. "Goreans are not men of Earth," I said. "They will have what they truly want from a woman, everything."
"Though I am destined to be the helpless victim of their will, their power and their lust," she said, "yet I cannot help but admire and fear such men."
"They will make you be a woman, their woman," I said.
"In my most secret dreams," she said, "I longed for such a man. I did not know they could exist."
"Something in your heart," I said, "whispered to you that there must be somewhere such men."
"It was only a longing dream," she whispered, "the yearning of a girl for a true man, one proud and free and strong, one not dishonest, one not broken, one not robbed of himself, one who could by his might and strength make me as much a woman as he was a man."
"And then?" I asked.
"And then, one day, on a platform in the Sardar, I learned that it was not a simple dream, but that it had been a dream to which there corresponded a fearful reality."
"You, wench of Earth," I said to her, "now lie naked on Gor, a slave girl."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Are you frightened?" I asked.
"Yes," she whispered. "I am terribly frightened." She clutched my arms. "Should those of Earth not be told that there truly is a Gor?" she asked.
"No," I said. "It is better that they do not know."
"How many girls, this very night on Earth," she asked, "are being brought to Gor?"
"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps none. I do not know the schedule of the slave runs."
"The horror, and the joy, of it," she said.
"Joy," I asked, "Slave?"
"Yes, joy," she whispered. "Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Would you please stand over me?" she asked.
I did so.
"Yes," she said, "that is how I imagined him, the man in my dreams, he for whom I longed, he who would come for me and place me, regardless of my will, resolutely in his total bondage."
"And what did you do?" I asked.
"I knelt before him, like this," she said, "and put my head to his feet." She looked up at me. "You see," she said, "I knew, in seeing him, that he was my master."
"And what did he do?" I asked.
"He did not let me speak," she said, "but took me by the shoulders and gently, but powerfully, pressed me back."
"Like this?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Oh, I wanted to protest, and speak, and question him, but I saw in his eyes that I must not do so."
"And then?" I asked.
"He told me that he would try me out," she said, "and see if I pleased him. If I did not he would leave me alone, and unharmed, and I should not see him again. But to beware, for if he was pleased with me, he would take me away with him, to a far world, one very different from my own, where he could keep me as he wished, and would do so, as a slave." She smiled at me. "He encouraged me to try to resist him, that I might keep my pride and freedom." She looked up at me. "You see, he only wanted me if I truly was a slave," she said.
"What did you do then?" I asked.
"I opened my body to him like a flower," she said. "I said to him, 'Do not leave me, Master. Take me with you. I am truly a slave as you have suspected. You are the first man to discern this. Thus you are the first man to whom I belong.'" She smiled. "'Yes,' he said, 'I see that you are a slave, but I do not know if you will please me.'"
"And then?" I asked.
"Then," she said, "I was very afraid, for I sensed that if he should so much as touch his lips to mine I could never again be anything but a man's slave. What if I should not please him? Would he not then simply abandon me, leaving me behind, a masterless girl, a lonely, forlorn slave on a world empty of men strong enough to be a woman's master?"
I supposed it was hard for one who was a slave to be in a world in which there were no masters. Perhaps there were masters on such a world, but she had not yet found them. The slave seeks her master, the master his slave. When they find one another they will know it. She will kneel to him, and he will accept her as his.
"Did he permit you to speak further?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I opened my arms to him. I said to him, 'I will try with all my heart to please you, my master, that I may be found worthy to be taken with you as your slave.'"
"What then did he say?" I asked.
"He said nothing," she said. "He only held me by the arms, and I could not move. Then he laughed. Then he used me for his pleasure."
"His domination was ruthless?" I asked.
"Yes," she smiled, "lovingly ruthless."
"He treated you as a slave?" I asked.
"Completely," she said.
"As was proper," I said.
"Of course," she smiled. "I was his slave. Should a slave not be treated as a slave?"
"Of course," I said.
"When he finished with me," she said, "I said to him, 'Have I pleased you, Master?' He did not respond but, from a bottle, poured a tiny bit of fluid into a cloth. 'Did I please you, Master?' I again begged. Then he placed the damp cloth over my mouth and nose, holding it tightly. 'Yes,' he said, 'you have pleased me, Slave.' I looked up at him. I could sense the fumes in the cloth. 'You are a pretty slave,' he said. 'You will bring a good price in the market.' I realized then that he would only keep me for a time, and would then sell me. I realized then that I would have many masters. I struggled, but I could not escape. Then I lost consciousness."
"An interesting dream," I said.
"Then one day," she said, "I awakened, chained on Gor." She kissed me. "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"The girls who are kept slave in the cities," she asked, "are they happy?"
"Many are blissfully happy," I said. "Strange," I mused, "that that should be so, and yet the facts are incontrovertible. Many of them, collared, subject to the whip, are yet blissfully happy. It makes little sense to me. I do not profess to understand it."
"I sense how it could be, Master," she said.
"A girl, of course," I said, "in having many masters learns how to please men. She must, of course."
"I am sure that is part of it, Master," said Audrey. "May I speak?"
"Yes," I said. "I sense," she said, "what my true master would be like."
"Any man who owns you is your true master," I said.
"That is true," she laughed. "But I have a dream of a perfect master, to whom I could be but a perfect slave."
"I see," I said.
"Other girls, too," she said, "must sense this sort of thing."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Do not men have some sense of what sort of girl would be their perfect slave?" she asked.
"Some girls are surely more attractive and desirable than others," I said, "and clearly this is not a simple function of physical appearance. Indeed, some rather plain girls are, for no reason that is clear to me, tormentingly attractive, intensely desir
able."
"There is no simple answer," she said.
"No," I said, "I do not think so."
"Is it not true," she laughed, "that all men want a woman who will bring them their slippers in her teeth?"
"Sandals," I corrected her.
"Sandals," she laughed.
"Yes," I said, "every man wants such a woman."
"And a slave girl must," she said.
"If the master so instructs her," I said. "Of course."
"All men want," she laughed, "is a girl panting in their arms."
"Surely more than that," I said. "Any girl can be made to pant in a man's arms," I pointed out.
"That is true," she said, bitterly. She was slave. She knew she could be forced to yield to any man.
"What is it that you are trying to say?" I asked.
"You could not easily delineate for me your criteria for the perfect slave," she said, "nor I to you my criteria for the perfect master. Indeed, one might be a perfect slave to one master and not to another, as one might be the perfect master to one slave and not to another."
"Go on," I told her.
"But we both sense," she said, "that there would be a rightness, or rightnesses, about such matters."
"Perhaps," I said.
"I think I would know my perfect master as soon as his eyes met mine," she said.
"I doubt it," I said.
"I would certainly know," she said, "that it might well be he."
"Perhaps," I granted.
"Too," she said, "I suspect that you generally have little difficulty in picking from a line of chained girls those who are of the most interest to you."
"That is true," I smiled. "But such difficulties, even should they occur, are, of course, not intolerable."
"Beast," she said. "But my point, Master, if I may be permitted to continue to speak, is that both of us would sense rightnesses, fittingnesses, matches, agreeabilities, complementarities, in such matters."
"Of course," I said. Then I said, "Ah, yes, your point is an interesting one."
"Yes," she said. "Suppose that a woman is, as I am, a natural slave."
"Yes," I said, "the buying and the selling."
"A girl will often have many masters, will she not?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "A comely girl may change hands many times."
"And a master, of course," she said, "is likely to own, from month to month, or year to year, several different girls."
"Yes," I said. Most Gorean masters could not afford more than one girl. The price obtained on one, of course, can be applied to the purchase of the next. In this sense, after the initial investment, provided one both sells and buys, girls are cheap.
"A man, too," she said, "buys women who are attractive to him. It is harder for the woman, but she, too, at times, is in a position to influence her sale. She will try to appear more beautiful and pleasing to the man she wishes to buy her than to one she does not wish to buy her."
"The slaver will take her hide off with the whip if he catches her at it," I said. "Too," I said, "at a public auction that sort of thing is difficult or impossible."
"Yes," said Audrey, "in a public auction, as I understand it, a woman is completely at the mercy of the men."
"Your point is an excellent one," I said. "If women are true slaves, and men are true masters, and slave exchanges are frequent, there is a reasonable chance that a man may find his choice slave, and a girl her choice master."
"Or perfect slave and master," she whispered.
"Yes," I said.
The bliss of many slave girls now seemed less puzzling to me. First, as girls, natural slaves, they were in a relationship to which, in effect, they were bred by nature, that of the submitting organism in an ancient biological complementarity of male and female; female slavery is but the cultural institutionalization, the expression and perfection, to be expected in conscious, intelligent organisms, intent upon remaining true to nature, rather than violating it, of the male's control and ownership of his female. Man owns woman by nature; in a complex society, and in a world with property rights and laws, female slavery, as a legalized fact, is to be expected; it will occur in any society in which touch is kept with the truths of nature. Gorean law, of course, is complex and latitudinous on these matters. For example, many women are free, whether wisely or desirably or not, and slavery is not always permanent for a slave girl. Sometimes a girl, winning love, is freed, perhaps to bear the children of a former master. But the freedom of a former slave girl is always a somewhat tenuous thing. Her thigh still bears the brand. And, should her ears be pierced, it is almost certain she will, sooner or later, be re-enslaved. It is hard for men to leave a woman who can be a good slave girl free. She may always dread, if she wishes, that in the night men will come again for her, hooding her, and carrying her to a distant city, to be again put on the block of a steaming market, that once again her throat will be encircled by a steel collar and that she will kneel at the feet of a new master. Slavery also, of course, encompasses the ownership of male slaves, for which there is less precedent in nature. Where males are concerned the institution is primarily economic. The labor of male slaves is useful and cheap. It is applied in such places as the quarries, the roads, the great farms, in certain types of cargo galleys, on the wharves, at the walls of cities and in the forests. Male slaves are usually debtors or criminals; sometimes they are captives, taken in actions against enemy cities or facilities; sometimes they have merely accrued the displeasure of powerful men or families; some slavers, working in gangs, specialize in the capture of free men for work projects; they obtain a fee per head on a contractual basis.
The second reason for the bliss of many slave girls, that sequent upon the appropriateness of bondage for the beautiful woman itself, her female joy in being made to be true to herself, slave, was that, given the flesh transactions in a given city, sooner or later, masters tended to find girls who were, from their point of view, superb slaves, and girls tended to find men who were, from their point of view, marvels as masters. It is a beautiful moment when the woman realizes that the man who owns her is her love master, and the man realizes that the girl he bought, looking up at him, tears in her eyes, is his love slave.
Then the only danger is that he will weaken. One must be strong with a love slave. If one truly loves her, he will be that strong. The slavery in which a love slave is kept is an unusually deep slavery. She must serve him with a perfection which would stun and startle other girls; if she should fail in any way, even in so small a way that the lapse might be overlooked in the case of another wench, or bring perhaps no more than a mild word of reprimand, she is likely to be tied at the slave ring and whipped; there is a good reason for this; she is, you see, a love slave; no woman can be more in a man's power; and with no woman must he be stronger.
Too, of course, if a relationship should weaken, or not prove enduringly satisfactory, the girl is simply put in cuffs and taken to a market.
The relationship which does not prove satisfactory is soon terminated. This termination is completely in the power of the master.
"Enough discussion," I said. "Let us have you."
"Yes, have me, Master," she whispered. Her lips met mine, eagerly.
* * * *
"You are a highly intelligent slave," I said, "Audrey."
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"You have been instructive to me," I said. "I am pleased by this."
"Men of Earth," she said, "will not listen to a woman."
"Some men will," I said. "But what you intimate is true. Generally men of Earth will not listen to women. Their minds are closed on the matter. Being men they think all human beings are the same as themselves. It is a natural fallacy. Masculine women, those unfortunate creatures, in their frustration, exploit this weakness in the men of Earth. They tell them what they want to hear. This they then take as evidence confirming their preconceptions. It is sad that the true needs of women must then be sacrificed to the ignorance of
men and the political and economic ambitions of hirsute frustrates."
"You speak cruelly," she said.
"I am sorry," I said. "Doubtless the matter is more complex than these simplicities suggest."
"I pity women who are not women," she said.
"On Earth," I said, "they proclaim themselves the true women."
"That is natural," she said. "What do you expect them to say?"
"I suppose you are right," I said.
"I think so," she said.
"What counts on Earth as the liberation of women," I said, "is conformance to a certain stereotype, an aggressive, manlike, Lesbian image, one alien to, and offensive to, most normal women. Most women do not truly wish to be men. They find it difficult to believe that they cannot be true women until they are like men. A true liberation of women might be desirable, one which would permit them to be themselves, whatever they might be, a liberation that would free a woman to be feminine rather than constrict her to the imitation of manhood, a liberation without preset images and goals, which would permit her to find herself, wherever and however she might be, honestly, a liberation that would not be a gibberish of political prescriptions, a facsimile of the most sordid side of alien, malelike egoisms, a liberation that would free women in all their latent richness, their diversities and glories, that would be open enough to accept gratefully and, yes, celebrate such currently denigrated properties as softness, tenderness, and love. A liberation of a woman, too, which does not permit her to be wild and free and sensuous, and true to her true needs, is not a liberation but a new imprisonment."
"I do not want to be liberated," she whispered to me.
"Do not fear," I told her. "You will not be."
She looked up at me, and kissed me.
"A woman as beautiful as you will be kept as a slave," I said. "You are too beautiful to be free."
"I will be kept as a slave?" she asked.
"Yes, because men want you as a slave," I said.
"My will means nothing?" she asked.
"Nothing," I told her.
She looked up at me. "I am content, Master," she said.
"You are a slave," I said.
"I am a woman," she said.