And any who might look upon that mark would know me slave.
Gone then would be an array of pretenses, of hoaxes, of possibilities, of lies. I then needed only to be looked upon to be recognized to be what I was, and was only, a slave.
"You are awake," whispered a woman to me.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"You may be pretty," she said, "and the men may like you, but do not think that you are better than us."
"No, Mistress," I said.
"You are a little slut," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"And you are going to be a work slave, too, my dear," she said.
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
"Now go to sleep, barbarian slut," she said.
"I will try, Mistress," I said.
In a moment or two, suddenly recalling the wild sensations the driver had induced in me, I inadvertently moaned and moved.
"Be quiet!" said the woman.
"Yes, Mistress," I said. "I am sorry, Mistress!"
Then I lay there frightened, chained, on the blanket, on the boards of the wagon bed, under the overhead tarpaulin. I turned and grasped the blanket. I bit at it. My thighs moved.
I was afraid.
I feared that already slave fires had been lit in my belly.
24
The Mill
I stood in a long line, single-file, of some twenty girls. We were all naked. We were in the yard of one of the linen mills of Mintar, of Ar.
I heard the second of the two heavy gates close behind us. I looked back, and about me, across the yard, at the high walls, with their guard stations.
"Do not even think of escape, Tiffany," said a girl behind me, Emily.
"There is only one way out of here," said another girl, behind her, "and that is to please your way out."
Almost any woman, I supposed, could become pleasing. And even women who, objectively, seemed rather plain, I knew, as their attitudes changed, and as they became submissive, and yielding to their femininity, in their deepest emotions, could become beautiful. Still, of course, in a mill, few would know this. Such a woman, I supposed, aching for a man's touch, might be kept indefinitely in the mill, working her long hours of tiring labor, her left ankle chained to the loom. The mills, incidentally, like certain other low slaveries, such as those of the fields, the kitchens and laundries, serve an almost penal function on Gor. For example, a free woman, sentenced to slavery for, say, crimes or debts, may find herself, once enslaved, by direction of the court, sold for a pittance into such a slavery. Such slaveries also provide a place to utilize women who are thought to be good for little else. Most women, after a short time in such a slavery, strive to convince masters of their fuller potentialities for service and pleasure. If the woman prefers to remain in such a slavery, of course, that, too, is found acceptable by the masters.
"But that, too, is dangerous," said another girl, "for if you are too pleasing, the whip masters will hide you and keep you for themselves."
"You are all sluts," said a large, ugly woman, Luta, a few spaces back.
A whip cracked, and we all jumped, frightened. We were naked. We did not want to feel it. "No talking in line," said a man. We were then silent. Luta need not have spoken as loudly as she had. I do not think the man would have minded it if we had spoken quietly among ourselves.
I was afraid of Luta. She was large and strong, and I could tell she did not like me.
"Next," said a man at a table, and we moved up one space.
Only two of the girls in this line had been in the slave wagon on the Argentum road with me, Emily and Luta. Though Emily bore an Earth-girl name she was Gorean. On Gor Earth-girl names are commonly used as slave names. If you have an Earth-girl name it is probably, somewhere on Gor, being used as a slave name. Similarly, if you were to go to Gor and give that to them as your name they would assume immediately that you, too, bearing such a name, were a slave. And, indeed, if you were taken to Gor, I suppose you would be.
"Next," said the man at the table. We moved up another space.
I was not now collared. It had been removed from me a few Ehn ago, before I had been assigned to this line. I had worn it for only a few Ahn. Outside of Ar we had stopped at the office and holding area of a man associated with the various enterprises of Mintar, including his mills. There we were to be divided up and, with others, transferred to closed slave wagons. One does not usually take an open slave wagon on the streets of Ar, in deference to the sensibilities of free women. While others were in the holding area I was taken by Tenrak, which was, as I had later learned, the name of the leader of the two drivers, to the shop of a metal worker. There something was done to me. Then I was returned to the holding area, now a slave. At the holding area I was put in a transfer collar. The others were already in theirs. These collars were color coded for our destinations, some girls being delivered to one place and some to another. There is an ordinance in Ar, incidentally, that all female slaves must wear some visible token of bondage. This is commonly a collar. Sometimes, too, however, it is a bracelet or anklet. This was the first time I had ever ridden in a common slave wagon. My ankles were shackled about the central bar. The girls were shackled on the bar in the order of the drivers' delivery schedule, the first girls to be delivered being shackled closest to the wagon gate, and so on. Our wagon was checked at the great gate of Ar. A guardsman climbed into the back of the wagon, crouching down, doing this work. I, naked, in the colored-coded collar, my ankles chained, sheared, attracted no undue attention. I did cry out, however, for the guardsman, in leaving, touched me aggressively, and intimately. I recoiled, wildly, frightened, trying to cover myself. But he was then gone. I looked after him, shuddering. I was horrified. He had been so bold! But then, of course, I was only a slave. I saw Luta looking at me, with hatred. I dared not meet her eyes, and looked down. In a moment the wagon was passing through the great gate at Ar.
"Next," said the man at the table.
I then stood before the table, naked.
"Thigh," he said.
I turned sideways, so that he might see my left thigh.
"Common Kajira mark," he said, and made an entry on a sheet. "Face me, Girl," he said.
I did.
"Arrived sheared," he said, and made another entry. "What is your name?" he asked.
"Whatever Master wishes," I said.
"What have you been called?" he asked. "Quick!"
"I have been called Tiffany," I said.
"You are now 'Tiffany,'" he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. He wrote something down, presumably the name. He seemed to have heard it before, unlike the drivers. Some other "Tiffany" had perhaps, at some earlier time, stood where I stood. I also realized that I had now been named. I had lost the name "Tiffany Collins" a few Ahn ago, when I had been marked, when I had become slave. That name was gone, as soon as the iron, hissing, curling smoke, had been lifted from my flesh. A free person had been locked in the branding rack. A mere animal was released from it. The name "Tiffany" had now been put on me as a mere slave name, a name which might be removed or changed at the whim of masters. I wore the name "Tiffany" now as Susan had worn the name "Susan," now merely as a named animal, merely by the will and decision of masters.
"Have you had experience in a mill, Tiffany?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said.
"Come around to the side of the table and kneel here," he said. I did so. He then bent over and, cupping his left hand under my left breast, held it steady and, with a grease pencil, across it, above the nipple, inscribed four characters. "That is your mill number, Tiffany," he said, "four thousand and seventy-three."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Now, go there," he said, indicating another table, several yards away, near the wall.
"Yes, Master," I said. Tenrak and Durbar, at the office of the man of Mintar, outside the gate, had received ten copper tarsks for me. This did not seem to me much but it was, of course, enough to give them each fiv
e nights of pleasure in a paga tavern. I recalled that Drusus Rencius had thought I might go for something between fifteen and twenty tarsks. I had gone for only ten. On the other hand it had not been an open sale. Too, of course, I was shorn and being considered in terms of utilization in the mills. Some girls, Tenrak had assured me, go for as little as five copper tarsks. Ten copper tarsks, he assured me, was a good price for a mill girl.
I now stood before a man near the wall. Behind him was a table, on which there were, aligned, several collars, all seemingly identical in appearance and design. He had an aide with him.
The man looked at my left breast, reading the characters written there.
"Four-zero-seven-three," he said. He was then handed a collar, the next in a series of diminishing rows.
"Name?" he asked.
"Tiffany, if it pleases Master," I said.
"Can you read?" he asked.
"No, Master," I said.
"You are an ignorant girl," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said. "Please forgive me, Master."
"It is acceptable," he said, "as you are a slave."
"Yes, Master," I said. "Thank you, Master."
"Your accent suggests that you are barbarian," he said.
"Yes, Master."
"You are from the world called—Earth," he said.
"Yes, Master."
"The sluts of Earth," he said, "are worthy only to be the slaves of the men of Gor."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And you are a slut of Earth," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And thus," said he, "you are worthy only to be the slave of men of Gor."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And that is what you now are," he said, "—the slave of men of Gor."
"Yes, Master," I said.
And I was not, somehow, wholly displeased that this was the case. The average man of Earth had not prepared me for the virility, the strength, the possessiveness, the intelligence, the will, the power, the force, the command of the men of Gor.
The Earth conditioning which had tried to twist, stunt and taint my womanhood was muchly troubled in the presence of such men.
Their existence had come as a revelation.
In their presence I had begun to sense what a wonderful and precious thing it was to be a woman, what a joyful, exciting, thrilling, meaningful thing it was to be a woman.
To be sure, they collar us, they put us to their feet, they use us as it pleases them.
They so much desire us that they make us theirs, wholly.
Few women on Earth, I conjecture, have been so desired, so loved, so mastered.
Doubtless not since the cultures and markets of ancient Rome, of medieval Persia, such times, such places.
I had begun to sense on this perilous, primitive, beautiful world what might be the natural relationship between man and woman, a relationship expressive of the character of a species hewn by eons of evolution rather than local agendas and expediencies dictated by a subglandular minority's self-serving politics of lies and oppression.
"You are very different from my noble and glorious Free Companion," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
And yet I noted that his eye roved me well.
I felt sorry for his Free Companion.
Men enjoy having slaves.
I suppose they cannot be blamed. What male does not, honestly, truly, want one?
And what woman, I wonder, does not long for her true master?
He then showed me the collar, indicating the engraving on it. "This is a company collar," he said. "It says, 'I belong to Mintar of Ar. I work in Mill 7. My number is four-zero-seven-three.'"
"Yes, Master," I said. The collars would differ, then, only in the Girl Numbers.
"Lift your chin, Tiffany," he said.
I did so, and the collar was placed about my neck and snapped shut. The first collar I had worn had been a color-coded transfer collar, put on me at the holding area outside the gate, probably primarily to comply with the ordinance that female slaves in Ar must wear a visible token of their bondage; otherwise we might simply have had our destinations written on our bodies. This was my first owner collar. The laws of Ar, incidentally, do not require a similar visible token of bondage on the bodies of male slaves, or even any distinctive type of garments. The historical explanation of this is that it was originally intended to make it difficult for male slaves to make contact with one another and to keep them from understanding how numerous they might be. On the other hand, male slaves are not numerous, at least within the cities, as opposed to the great farms or the quarries, and they are, in fact, usually collared. Some, however, depending on the whim of the master or mistress, may wear a distinctive anklet or bracelet. A consequence of this ordinance from the point of view of a female slave is that she cannot now even permit herself to be taken for a free woman by accident; her bondage is always manifest; it is helpful from the man's point of view, too; he always knows the status of the woman to whom he is relating; one relates to free women and slaves quite differently, of course; one treats a free woman with honor and respect; one treats a slave, commonly, with condescension and authority.
"Kneel and kiss the whip of Mintar," he said. He took a whip from the table and held it before me. "Again and again," he said, "tenderly, lingeringly."
I did so. I trembled, thrilled, forced to kiss a man's whip, and in the intimate manner of a slave. I supposed that I would never see the man whose whip I was kissing.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Tiffany," I said.
"In what mill do you work?"
"Mill 7."
"What is your girl number?"
"4073," I said.
"Whose collar do you wear?"
"The collar of Mintar of Ar."
"Who owns you?"
"Mintar of Ar."
"Who do you love?"
"Mintar of Ar."
"Welcome to Mill 7, Tiffany," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
He then replaced the whip on the table and handed me, from a basket, two tunics. They were folded, and washed, and brown. "Thank you, Master," I said. I held them close to me. I would later discover that they were rather common slave tunics, brief, with no nether closure. Too, they were sleeveless, slit at the sides, and with a plunging neckline. On the front of the left shoulder there was a design, in white and yellow, bearing what I would later learn was an inscribed "Mu." This was a design, I would later learn, which was common to many of the different enterprises of Mintar. "Mu" is the first letter of the name Mintar. White and yellow, or white and gold, are the colors of the merchants. There was nothing on the tunic which was specific to the mills, or Mill 7. Such a tunic might have been worn by girls laboring or serving in almost any of his holdings. It was thus, in a broad sense, a company tunic. I wondered how many girls Mintar owned, or were owned by the enterprises of Mintar.
"Go now, over there," he said, pointing, "and get in that line, where you see that small yellow flag. You will be in the chain of Borkon. He will be your whip master."
"Yes, Master," I said. Borkon, I realized, whoever he was, was he whom I must now strive to please. "Is that all, Master?"
"Yes," he said. "Did you expect to be intricately measured, to be toe-printed, and such? You are not a high slave. You are a low slave, a mill girl."
"Yes, Master," I said. "Forgive me, Master." I then leapt up and ran to stand in the indicated line. In a few Ehn I was joined there by Emily and Luta. The other girls were being sent to other lines.
In a few Ehn more we were approached by a short, muscular man in a half tunic. He came walking towards us, across the yard. He had emerged from one of the mill buildings. His arms were extremely thick. There was a whip at his belt.
When he stopped near us, we knelt, a common behavior for slave girls in the presence of a free man.
"Stand," he said.
We stood. We straightened our bodies. He walked
about us, slowly.
"So," he said, "it is the usual collection of she-urts and she-tarsks. Still, I see at least two of some interest. What is your name?"
"Tiffany, Master," I said, frightened.
"We are going to get on well, aren't we, Tiffany?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. "Oh!"
"Good," he said.
He had felt me.
Such may be done with slaves. Still, he did not own me. I was owned by Mintar of Ar, whoever that might be.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Emily," said the girl behind me.
"We are going to get on well, aren't we, Emily?" he asked.
"Yes, Master!" she said.
Her response suggested that she, too, had been touched.
"Good," he murmured, "good."
I think we were the only two he touched. It was perhaps not a coincidence that Emily and I had been sent to his chain. Probably the minor administrators tended to distribute certain women among the chains judiciously, seeing that each whip master had one or more of interest on his chain.
Both Emily and I had apparently responded satisfactorily to the whip master's brief, casual test.
To be sure, the bodies of Gorean kajirae are expected to be responsive, and vital.
If they are not the masters will wish to know the reason why.
Frigidity is an option for the free woman; it is not for the slave girl. Frigidity cannot long survive the collar, the chain and lash. It is simply not permitted.
Too, there are simple tests known to Gorean males past puberty for ascertaining the genuineness of a slave's responses. Sometimes the simple comprehension that a woman understands that such things can not be convincingly shammed and that serious consequences, the whip or such, will follow upon the detection of their fraudulence brings her around almost instantly. Too, of course, the collar, and the entire milieu of bondage, transforms and heats a woman, as nothing else. Slave fires, once kindled in her belly, cannot be extinguished; if not raging, they smolder; or lie dormant, ready to be conveniently and quickly reawakened into flame. Indeed, often they seem of their own accord, like a force of nature to burn and flame anew in the slave, and she then will find herself crawling even to the feet of a hated master, begging for his caress.
Kajira of Gor Page 32
