Mariners of Gor (68 page)

What a nice bundle a slave makes, so held, so tied.

“Yes,” he said. “She is attractive.” He pointed to a place on the floor, near the table. “Kneel her there,” he said.

And the small barbarian
kajira
was so knelt.

“I understand,” said the stranger to the slave, “that you have not been named.”

“No, Master,” she said. “I have not been named.”

Sometimes one holds off on the naming of a slave, for the naming of a slave, as of any other animal, is a matter which may call for thought. To be sure, as with any other animal, names may be withheld, or changed, at will, at the master’s will.

“You are a paga slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“That is quite different,” he said, “I take it, from your former reality.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, “I was what is called a graduate student, a student of certain classical languages, Greek, and Latin, languages unfamiliar to you.”

I saw they were indeed unfamiliar to the stranger. “Like archaic Gorean,” I said.

She looked at me, suddenly, startled. “You know of such things?” she asked, eagerly.

“A little,” I said.

“He is a Scribe,” said the stranger. “You can tell from his robes.”

“You know something of Earth!” she cried.

“I am familiar with the second knowledge,” I said. “The languages you refer to are little, if at all, spoken on that world now.”

“No,” she said.

“Why would you concern yourself with them?” I asked. To be sure, this question was a test, as much as anything, to help me ascertain her depth, and worth. One hopes for such things, obviously, in a slave. One does not buy without care, one does not own without circumspection.

“They are beautiful,” she said, “and they speak of distant, different, exciting worlds, worlds in many ways natural and beautiful.”

I was pleased with this answer.

Would not such a one look well, bound before one? Would the lips of such a one, on her belly, not be pleasant on one’s feet?

“Surely you have noticed,” I said, “that words from those languages, along with those of many other languages, are found in Gorean.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“She seems to me quite intelligent,” said the stranger.

“I expect so,” I said.

To be sure, high intelligence, sometimes quite high intelligence, was often found in barbarian
kajirae
, as masters preferred it in their slaves. Few men wanted a stupid slave. The intelligent slave is more likely to survive her training, and, once trained, is likely to sell for better prices. She is also likely to be considerably more sensitive to her condition, and is likely to be far more prompt in understanding what is expected of her, the devoted and zealous service of the interests, inclinations, and pleasures of her master, than a less intelligent woman. She tends, as well, to be more vulnerable, and more sexually responsive, than her simpler sister. How easy it is, in so soft, nicely curved, and vital a property, astonished, reveling in her newly discovered profound and radical femininity, which she is no longer permitted to suppress or deny, to ignite slave fires. How helpless she will be, now the property of men, once they flame in her belly. Once they burn, would she then trade her collar for a shallow deceit, the denial and falsification of her most profound reality, that of female, for the betrayal of nature, for the repudiation of her deepest self, for the inertnesses and tepidities of freedom? She has found herself, and is content. How secure she is now, having found herself at last to be what she has always wanted to be, and has always been. Is this not the life she has secretly dreamed of living, now put upon her, as securely as her collar, as securely as her chains? She is attentive to the master, for she fears his whip, but she is inventive, as well, for she desires to please him, and be found pleasing. It gives her joy to be found pleasing. As she learns Gorean, too, her high intelligence well serves her, for her master delights in her lyrical capacity to express herself, delights in learning of her feelings and thoughts, and delights in the joys of her intellectual companionship, though she may be chained naked at his slave ring. In bondage, many such women learn their beauty, their sex, their nature, their meaning, and their identity. They learn they are not men, but women, and are content, and whole.

“Intelligence is often associated with the intensity of slave fires,” said the stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

It is well known that the most intelligent slave is often the most helpless in a man’s arms. So often are conjoined intelligence, vitality, sensitivity, and imagination with uncontrollable, inevitable responsiveness. The more intelligent woman swiftly comprehends what is being done to her, recognizes her vulnerability as a female, that she is defenseless, powerless to resist the inescapable ecstasies to which she will be subjected, that she will be mastered, as a female in the order of nature, and will soon be a gasping, begging, pleading, yielding slave. Then, in her mind and heart, she surrenders, as she knows she will, and must, and wants, rejoicingly acknowledging herself as her master’s slave. She is now herself.

There are two sexes, and they are not the same.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Ai!” sobbed the slave, squirming.

“See?” said the proprietor.

It was clear to all.

“In your studies,” I said to the slave, “doubtless you learned of certain aspects of those worlds you described as different, distant, and exciting, those worlds in many respects quite different from that which you knew, worlds in many respects natural and beautiful.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps it was such things,” I said, “which attracted you to such worlds.”

“Doubtless, Master,” she said.

“Were you aware that in such worlds there were slaves?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“And that among these,” I said, “many would be female?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And did you ever imagine yourself as a female slave?”

“—Yes, Master.”

“You spoke of yourself as a ‘graduate student’,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Oh!” she cried.

“See her press herself against his hand,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” said another.

The slave pulled back, as she could. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Do not be upset,” I said to her. “Being unable to help yourself, hoping to be touched, begging to be caressed, responding helplessly, is a sign of vitality, of health.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“And it will improve your price,” said a fellow.

“When you were engaged in your studies,” I said, “I would suppose you did not anticipate your fate, that you would one day find yourself a slave on a far world, one you had perhaps heard of, but had not realized existed.”

“I thought it was only in books,” she said.

“You think differently now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I find myself kneeling, naked and bound, collared, before masters, in a tavern in Brundisium. I think differently now.”

Many of my world, of course, did not accept the existence of her Earth, as another world. They thought it the name of a remote place on Gor, from which lovely barbarians, illiterate, somehow, unbelievably enough, not even capable of speaking the language, were harvested for the markets. Such goods, for example, must have some place of origin.

“Perhaps,” I said, “my lovely graduate student, as you call it, your current reality is not so different now from that which you occasionally imagined on Earth, when you thought of yourself as a slave in one or another of those different, ancient worlds.”

“No, Master,” she said, squirming, “but now it is real.”

I thought her quite beautiful.

But what woman is not, naked and bound?

“Master,” she said, “I think you understand me!”

“A little, perhaps,” I said.

How piteous she seemed!

“I have waited so long for one who might understand me!” she said, tears in her eyes. “You are the first who has done so, on this world!”

“He is privy to the second knowledge,” said the stranger. “See his robes. He is a Scribe.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “you would like a private master?”

She leaned forward. “Oh, yes, yes, Master!” she wept. “I want a private master, a private master!”

This is not unusual amongst slaves. It is a common dream of public slaves, tavern slaves, brothel slaves, the girls of the laundries, the public kitchens, the mills, and such, that they should have a private master. And, of course, the dream goes far beyond this, for usually the dream is to be the single slave of a private master, to be the only slave in her master’s household. For example, there is often much misery, much grief, even lamentation, in the pleasure garden of a rich man, who is assuredly a private master, where slaves may often constitute little more than another adornment, much as the colored grasses, the trimmed shrubberies, the beds of flowers, the exotic trees, the unusual fruits, to enhance the beauty of the garden. Perhaps no more than two or three preferred slaves are ever called to the slave ring of their master. Indeed, he may often bring in rent slaves from the party houses to sing and dance for him, and his guests, to play the kalika, to accompany with flute music the measuring of wine and the cutting of meat. Indeed, as the stocking and tending of such gardens is often managed by independent companies, staffed with professionals, he is likely to have several girls in his gardens whom he, personally, has never seen.

“You are looking upon me, Master,” she said. “Would that I might find favor in the eyes of Master.”

I wondered if she, as a graduate student, whatever that might be, had ever thought that she might one day kneel naked and bound before a man, a slave, and speak so.

Certainly she was beautiful. And she was clearly of high intelligence, and her background, I thought, though of Earth, was of a sort which shared certain affinities with that of my caste. Too, she impressed me as a girl who might soon, in the throes of her need, belly and grovel for the caress of a master. Already, I had understood, from the proprietor, she had begun to feel slave fires in her belly. Certainly that had been suggested by her responses to my touch. And had not her belly, as that of a slave, pressed beggingly against my hand, until she, suddenly, realizing what she had done, that she had betrayed her need, and vitality, had withdrawn it, with tears of shame?

She must, of course, learn the absurdity of shame, and that it was not permitted to the slave. If nothing else, let the whip teach her so. Such indulgences and frivolities are not permitted the slave; they are permitted only to free women, who might be foolish enough to cultivate them. The slave is an animal, and is to be as wild, and open, and free, and appetitious and sexual, as any other animal. What a pathological world from which she must be derived, I thought, to be ashamed of her health, her vitality, and womanhood. What purposes could be served, and whose purposes, I wondered, on such a world, to instigate such suspicions, such conflicts and contradictions, to set one part of a body against another part, one part of a mind against another? How ill or insane the society which might find profit in such divisions and treacheries! Why should she not be tutored in other betrayals, as well? Why should she not be taught to fear the dictates of her hereditary coils? Why should she not be terrified at the movement of a tiny corpuscle in her lovely body, not be ashamed, as well, of the beating of her heart, the circulation of her blood?

The slave is not to be ashamed of her needs; she only need fear that the master will not satisfy them.

Yes, it was clear that the slave fires had begun to burn in the belly of the fair slave before me.

And once she had bucked and writhed in the slave orgasm, helpless in her ropes or chains, she would be spoiled forever for freedom. What had freedom to offer a woman which might compare with the caress of her master?

“Does a master not look upon me with desire?” she said. “Does a master not look upon a slave with lust in his eyes?”

I was silent.

I wondered if, in her former world, when she was clothed, and free, she had ever been looked upon with lust, with thoughts of stripping, with thoughts of the rope, and leash.

And had she ever, even, I wondered, thought of herself as such a woman, one who might one day be so looked upon, and who might be purchased?

Yes, I thought, for she had imagined herself a slave.

“Buy me, Master!” she said. “I beg to be bought!”

And thus, irremediably, she acknowledged herself as that which could be bought, as slave.

“Three silver tarsks,” said the proprietor. “No less!”

The stranger laughed. Clearly the slave did not begin to be worth so much. She was barbarian, she was a mere paga girl, and from a low tavern, her accent was unusual, she had not been much trained, she was new to her collar, and she was just beginning to sense the heat of slave fires, in the grasp of which, perhaps even in days, she would find herself helpless. She was certainly beautiful, and would not have been purchased had she not been, but I did not think she would be likely to be the first pick of many of the tavern’s customers. I suspected the proprietor had not paid more than a quarter of a silver tarsk for her, in a pier market. I thought she might bring a silver tarsk, or one and a half, but not two. And I could not afford even a silver tarsk. I could, of course, afford the tarsk-bit which, in a low tavern, such as
The Sea Sleen
, might purchase a cup of paga, accompanying which, if I chose, might be her use.