Savages of Gor (29 page)

"Perhaps," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered, happily.

I put out my hand, to the side. The grass was cold with dew. It was still dark.

She kissed me, softly. "How incredible do I find my current reality," she, marveled. "Suddenly, it seems, I find myself a slave, and naked in the blankets of a master, on a world far from my own."

I said nothing.

"And only, it seems, a common slave," she said.

"Your reality is precisely what it seems," I assured her "You are a slave, and only a common one."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your brand should tell you that," I said.

"I am not familiar with Gorean brands," she said.

"Yours is a common slave brand," I said. "It marks most property girls. You share it with thousands."

"I was of high station on my own world," she said, petulantly

"Here, on Gor," I told her, "Your station, your status, your prestige, are gone, taken with your name and freedom. Here you are only another slave, another domestic

"I behaved as one, didn't I?" she asked, rolling onto her back, looking up at the dark sky.

"It was fitting and proper," I told her.

"How shamed I am," she said.

"Of your responsiveness?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I smiled. The third and fourth time I had used her she had yielded almost as a slave.

"I cannot help it," she said, "that I am responsive in the arms of a master."

"You are not supposed to help it," I said.

"I suppose if I had not been responsive," she said, "you would have beaten me.'

"Yes," I said.

"Truly?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I betrayed myself," she said.

"Let us think clearly about this matter," I suggested.

"Your assertion might be construed as meaning that you had committed some treason against yourself, or, perhaps, as meaning merely that you had revealed, or manifested, yourself. Let us consider, first, the matter of treason. A free woman might, possibly, feel that she had betrayed herself, in this sense, if she had so yielded to a man as to supply him with some perhaps subtle hint as to the latency of her slave reflexes. A slave girl, on the other hand, cannot commit treason against herself in this sense, for she is a slave. To commit this type of treason one must have a right, say, to deceive others as to one's sensuality, to conceal one's sexuality, and so on. The slave girl, an owned animal, under the command of her master, does not have this sort of right. Indeed, she has no rights. Accordingly, she cannot commit this sort of reason Her legal status precludes its possibility. She may, of course, rationally, fear the consequences of her responsiveness being discovered, thus increasing, perhaps to her terror, in a slave culture, her desirability. Similarly she may lie or attempt to lie, about her responsiveness, but she is then of course, merely a lying slave and, when found out, Will be treated accordingly."

"Such treason, then," she said, "can be committed only by a free woman."

"Yes," I said. "It is a luxury not permitted to the slave."

"It is a function only of the free woman's right to lie, and defraud, others?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "It is possible, of course, for the slave, subjectively, psychologically, to feel that she has committed this treason, for she may, mistakenly, be still regarding herself implicitly, as a free woman."

"But she cannot, in fact, have committed it, because she is a slave?" asked the girl.

"Yes," I said.

"I understand, Master," she said, bitterly.

"You see," I said, "you were still regarding yourself, implicitly, at least at the moment, as a free woman, or, perhaps better, more narrowly, as retaining at least one of the rights of a free woman."

"I am not to be beaten, am I, Master?" she asked.

"Not at the moment, at least," I informed her.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"The second sense in which you might have intended your remark about betraying yourself, though I think it was not the sense in which you did intend it, would be the innocent sense, quite appropriate for a slave girl, of revealing or manifesting significant aspects of your nature. In this sense, of course, a slave girl has no alternative other than to betray herself. She is under an obligation, and a quite harsh and strict one, to release, manifest and reveal, fully, and in all its depths and facets, the profundities of her nature, the fundities of her femaleness."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I think now," I said, "it is time to chain you with the others."

"You can just take me and chain me with them, can't you?" she said, angrily.

"Yes," I said.

"You took my virginity," she said. "Does that not mean anything to you?"

"No," I told her.

"It was, after all," she said, "only the virginity of a slave!"

"Precisely," I said.

She squirmed angrily.

"Are you angry?" I asked.

"Am I permitted anger?" she asked, warily.

"I will permit it, for now," I said.

"Yes," she said, I am angry."

"Your concern is not well-warranted," I said. "Your having was merely the ungating of a slave, her breaching, her opening, an unimportant prefatory technicality in the history of her bondage."

"Of course!" she said.

"Would you be so concerned about a boar's opening of she-tarsk?" I asked. She had seen animals of this sort in streets of Kailiauk, in the dawn of the day following her sale, when she and the others had been marched out towards the Ihanke. They are used, not unoften, in small Gorean towns, to scavenge garbage. Ginger and Evelyn had identified the animals for them. They had also informed them that, many towns, such an animal might, in a market, bring than they themselves.

"I am the she-tarsk!" she said. "I am the slave!"

"Do you think that you are important?" I inquired.

"No, Master," she said.

"There, you see," I said.

"Yes," she said, "I see." She lay back, angrily.

There was a narrow rim of light in the east now. The air was still damp, and chilly.

"Do you respect me?" she asked.

"No," I told her.

She gasped, in misery.

"Kiss me," I told her, "fifty times, and well."

"Yes", Master," she said, and began to kiss me about the face and neck. I counted the kisses. There were fifty of then

Then she lay down beside me.

"You used me well, earlier," she said.

"You are a mere slave," I said. "It is simple to use a mere slave well."

"Doubtless girls such as myself are often well used," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"And, we must submit, unquestioningly, to even our most brutal usage," she said.

"Of course," I said. "Are you distressed?"

"No, Master," she said. "Not really. It is only that I am not used to being an animal, a slave."

"I understand," I said.

"In your use of me," she said, "you did not give me not even for your use of me."

"No," I said.

"Was that deliberate?" she asked,

"Yes," I said.

"A clever way to make clear to me that I was only fondled animal, helpless in your arms.

I did not speak.

"I can scarcely begin to cope with my feelings," she said "They are so troubled, so tumultuous."

"Speak," I said.

"I must lie there," she said. "I could not escape. I must submit!"

"Yes," I said.

"I was controlled. I was owned!"

"Yes," I said.

"I was powerless," she said. "How you dominated me!"

"You were used with great gentleness," I said, "though also, to be sure, with firmness and authority, as befits a slave As for domination, you cannot yet even begin to suspect what it is for a woman to be dominated by a master."

"She would be so owned," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"Can you understand my feelings of utter helplessness, and humiliation?" she asked.

"I think so," I said.

"I have other feelings, as well," she whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"I cannot believe how I yielded in your arms," she whispered.

"You are merely a slave who yielded," I said. "You have not yet begun to learn, as a slave, what is the nature of true slave yieldings."

"Doubtless I will be taught," she said.

"You are beautiful," I said. "It is not unlikely."

"I had never dreamed that sensations such as you induced in me could exist," she whispered.

"They were largely the result of your own initial responsiveness," I said, "plus the fact that you realized you were I a slave. They cannot even form a sound basis, I would suppose, on which you could begin to even remotely conjecture the nature of the feelings and sensations which lie before you. Beyond the sensations which you have hitherto experienced lie infinite horizons."

"I am afraid," she said.

"To your feelings of humiliation and helplessness, then, I said, "we may also add the emotion of fear."

"But I have other emotions, other feelings, too, Master," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"What?" I asked.

"Eagerness," she said, "pleasure, curiosity, excitement, sensual arousal, a desire to please, a desire to serve, a desire to be owned and mastered, a desire to be true to my basic and radical femaleness."

"I see," I said.

"Never before tonight," she said, "have I, now only a nameless slave, felt so much in contact with my femininity. I have learned tonight that being a woman is a real thing to be. It is not a biological triviality. It is not an insignificant, regrettable concomitant of a genetic lottery. It is something real and important in itself, something precious and wonderful

"I agree," I said.

"And it is not to be a man," she said.

'No," I said. "I do not think so."

"Strange," she said, "that I should have learned this only stripped, and in the arms of a master, and on a world far from my own."

Oft is not strange that you should learn this on a world far from your own," I said, "for your world is like a distorting lens, perverting even the most conspicuous lineaments of biological reality, nor is it strange that you should learn it as a stripped slave. Your stripping, particularly as it was done by a man, or at the command of a man, should put you in touch with certain female realities, such as your beauty, and its softness, and its subject ability to male domination; it should also, through exposure, and through various, subtle skin stimulations, heighten your vulnerability and sensitivity; this will enable you to feel more keenly and enable you to understand, more clearly, certain basic truths, such as the differences between men and women, and that you, whatever you are, are not a man."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Lastly, and most importantly," I said, "you find yourself a slave. Female slavery is the institutionalized expression, in a civilization congenial to nature, of the fundamental biological relationship between the sexes. In the institution of female slavery we find this basic relationship recognized, accepted, clarified, fixed and celebrated. A civilization, you see, need not inevitably be a conflict with nature. A rational, informed civilization can even, in a sense, refine and improve upon nature; it can, so to speak, bring nature to fruition. Indeed, a natural civilization might be the natural flowering of nature itself, not an antithesis to nature, not a contradiction to nature, not a poison nor a trammel to it, but a stage or aspect of it, a form which nature itself can take.

"I fear even to understand such thoughts," she said, "let alone consider whether or not they might be true."

"Consider the case of the female slave," I said. "She was once a primitive, brutish female, innocent of legalities but, in effect, owned. She is now, commonly, a collared, imbonded beauty, properly marked as merchandise, effectively displayed and marketed, and owned in the full right of law."

"Yes, Master," said the girl.

"Who can doubt but what here civilization, as nature's refinement or expression, has wrought an improvement?"

"Surely, no one, Master,'' whispered the girl.

"Too, you will note that civilization has increased the control of the girls and the effectiveness of bondage, the marking, the identification of masters, the papers of sale, and so on. Escape, then, for all practical purposes, becomes impossible."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And you are such a girl," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I am now going to put you with the others," I said. I stood up, thrusting the blankets to one side. She drew her legs up, feeling the coldness of the air. I looked down at her, she looking up at me. She was very beautiful.