Guardsman of Gor (24 page)

"I kiss your whip, my Master," she said, gratefully, continuing to kiss the brutal, uncompromising blades and staff. "I submit to you a thousand timed Thank you for not whipping me! I am your slave, and I love youl" 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 bio

logical 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.

Let us suppose that the Gorean youth buys his first girl. Before this, of course, he may have used house slaves or the girls in the paga taverns. Indeed, in gangs of roaming youths, he may have caught and raped slave girls on errands in his own city. Some young men regard this as an interesting sport. If a magistrate should chance upon them in some alley he will commonly say, "Thigh," to them, and they will turn the girl, so that he may see if she is branded or not. If she is branded, he will commonly continue on his rounds. The unauthorized rape of slave girls, without the permission of their masters, is officially frowned on in most cities, but, too, it is as often winked at.

There are thought to be two major advantages to the custom of permitting, and, sometimes, of even encouraging, the practice. First, it provides a way of satisfying the sexual needs of young men who may not yet own their own girls, and, secondly, it is thought to provide a useful protection for free women. Free women, incidentally, are almost never raped on Gor, unless it be perhaps a preparatory lesson preceding their total enslavement.

There seem to be two major reasons why free women are seldom raped on Gor. First, it is thought that they, being free, are to be accorded the highest respect, and, secondly, slave females are regarded as being much more desirable. There is little difficulty, commonly, incidentally, in distinguishing between the free woman and the slave. The garment of the slave is usually brief, distinctive and sexually exciting; it is designed to show her to men; the garments of the free woman, on the other hand, are commonly multitudinous, concealing and cumbersome; they are designed to protect her modesty, and hide her from the eyes of men.

In many cities it is a capital offense for the slave girl to don such garments. They are not for her. She is only a slave. Similarly, free women will almost never touch the garment of a slave. They would be scandalized to do so. Such garments are just too sexually exciting. On the other hand, there have been cases when a free woman, boldly, has donned such a garment and dared to walk in the streets and upon the bridges, masquerading as a mere slave upon an errand for her master. She will not be recognized for, commonly, when she goes out, she is veiled.

On the streets, now, of course, she will be taken for only another slave. She revels in this new-found freedom; she exults in the bold appraisals to which she now finds herself subjected, those which free men may fittingly bestow upon a slave; she inclines her head submissively as she passes. free men; should they stop her, perhaps to question her, or inquire after directions, she falls to her knees before them; then, later, aroused, excited, trembling, breathless, she returns to her home and enters her compartment, perhaps there to throw herself on her couch, to bite and tear at the coverlets, sobbing with unrelieved passion.

The excursions of such women, commonly, grow more bold. Perhaps they take to walking the high bridges, under the Gorean moons. Perhaps they fall to the noose of a passing tarnsman. Perhaps they attract the attention of a visiting slaver. His men receive their orders. She is brought to him and subjected to rude assessments. If she is found sufficiently comely she is gagged and hooded, and slave iron is locked upon her body. When this caravan leaves the city she is carried away with it, another girl, another piece of merchandise, in chains, bound for a distant market, and a master.

One of the most interesting examples of such a case occurred in Venna some years ago, in the vicinity of the Stadium of Tharlarion, where tharlarion races are held. Several young men captured for their sex sport what they took to be a slave girl, and thrust her, gagged, her hands bound behind her, into the corner of one of the giant tharlarion stables behind the stadium. They discovered only after her thorough and lengthy raping and their own apprehension that they had been lavishing their predatory attentions not upon a slave but upon a young and beautiful free female who had been masquerading as a slave. Obviously the case was complex. The decision of the judge was generally regarded as judicious. The young men were banished from the city. Outside the gate, lying in the dust of the road leading from Venna, bound hand and foot, was the girl. She was clad in the rag of a slave. The young men were seen leaving the vicinity of the city leading the girl behind them, her hands bound behind her, on a neck-rope.

Suffice it to say, in one way or another, the Gorean male finds his sexual satisfaction. Now let us suppose, again, that he has now bought his first girl. This girl will generally mean much more to him, of course, than one who might be bought for him by, say, his parents. Every young man wishes to buy a girl who will appeal, personally, to him. Mothers, in particular, can be nuisances in such respects. The young man will wish to buy a helplessly passionate, hot-eyed slut whom he can whip-train, on her belly, kissing at his feet, to his every disposition and pleasure, and the mother will wish to buy him a "sensible girl." It is sometimes difficult for the Gorean mother, as for the Earth mother, to realize that their little boys have at last become men.

The young Gorean male, we shall suppose, now brings his girl home. This is now his own domicile, of course. There he is totally alone with her. There he puts his collar on her. She will wear it. It marks her as his. She looks up at him. She is at his feet. Let us suppose he gives her a few initial rapings, if only to get the feel of her body. He then orders her about, to cook for him and to serve him. Now, having had her, and having had her serve him, and owning her, fully, he can begin to get to know her. The same girl whom he bought as a mere piece of slave meat from a sales block, for his pleasure, we shall suppose, when brought home, and put in a collar at his feet, turns out to be a highly intelligent, sophisticated vulnerable and delicate organism.