Mariners of Gor cog[oc-30

by John Norman

  Even when the storm ropes were strung?

  Did she think that I would be so much a fool that I would take her for an enamored slave, the sort of slave who begs to be at a master’s feet?

  Doubtless she muchly feared that I might one day take her to Ar, for the bounty.

  How clever she was in her collar.

  Perhaps, I thought, I should take her to Ar, and cast her to the feet of the great Marlenus. She was no Talena, but she had stood high in the realms of treachery which had so beleaguered glorious Ar.

  I had told her that I did not care for gold washed in blood, but I supposed she had not believed me. What might a man favor more than gold, a slave at his feet? Perhaps, I thought.

  Could the slave, I wondered, be truly enwrapped in the toils of love?

  How absurd that would be!

  But I knew that no love could compare with the love of a slave for her master, the love of a vulnerable, helpless slave, who may be beaten or sold on a whim, for her master.

  Is it not the most profound, the most helpless, the deepest, of all loves?

  But the love of a slave, I knew, was to be scorned.

  For she is a slave.

  “Can Master not guess?” she asked, again.

  “I think not,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  She was not the only slave who had been about me. Iole, too, had often been about, as had other slaves about other men. I saw the fellow who had been flogged on account of the blond slave, whom he had kissed with a might that suggested she might have been his, several days ago, and the blond slave who had been put under the slave lash for so provoking him. When he had not been looking, she had heeled him. When he turned, she knelt, her head to the deck. Then she had lifted her eyes to him, filled with tears. Twice he had cuffed her away, but each time she had returned to him, putting her hair about his feet. Once Iole had dared to brush against me, as though inadvertently, and had then, as though in contrition and terror, knelt before me, begging forgiveness. Shortly thereafter I heard men cry out and, turning, I saw her and Alcinoe rolling about on the deck, tearing at one another’s hair, screaming, kicking, biting, and scratching. “Behold,” laughed a man, “young, unmated she-sleen!” “Yes,” said another, “in the late spring!”

  I guessed it was not easy to reach into that turning, twisting, rolling, screaming, sobbing, hysterical, biting, scratching frenzy but one fellow managed to get one hand in Iole’s hair and one in that of Alcinoe, and dragged them apart, and, as they shrieked with pain, held them apart, while they tried, sobbing, their bodies wracked with pain and frustration, to kick the other. Suddenly one fellow said, sharply, “Position!” Instantly, reflexively, Iole and Alcinoe, frightened, knelt, back on their heels, knees spread, back straight, head up, looking ahead, neither to the left or right, the palms of their hands down, firmly, on their thighs. Both slaves, in the presence of the other, tried to spread their knees as little as possible, while still maintaining position, as though each might thereby seem superior to the other, as being closer to the position of a free woman. Both were breathing heavily, gasping, and the cheeks of each ran with tears, of anger, pain, and frustration. Both were bloodied, and the brief tunic of each was half torn from her fair form. I had little doubt that both would be well attended to later. “Oh!” cried Iole. “Oh!” cried Alcinoe. The fellow who had put them in position with a single word had, first Iole, and then Alcinoe, kicked their knees apart, far apart. And thus each was reminded of, or informed of, the sort of slave they were. I saw a sudden look of surprise, and then understanding, manifest itself in the features of Alcinoe. Though she might be white-silk, she was a pleasure slave. Had she truly thought that she, and her some two hundred collar sisters, on their chains, so beautiful, so vital, so carefully selected, had been brought across the breadth of mighty Thassa, all the way from continental, known Gor, merely to be tower slaves? I did not think it likely she would soon forget the two booted blows which had publicly spread her thighs, and their import.

  “Are you in need of discipline?” I had asked.

  “I trust not,” she had said.

  “What was the business between you and Iole?” I asked.

  Their fight had occurred two days ago.

  Both were now cleaned and tended, both brushed and combed, and both now in a fresh, pressed tunic.

  “It is only a matter between slaves,” said Alcinoe.

  “What matter?” I asked.

  “If I may,” she said, “I would prefer not to speak.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  I saw no reason to press her in this matter.

  “Are you not ashamed,” I said, “to have behaved as you did, to have made such a spectacle of yourself?”

  “The Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said, “would have been ashamed.”

  “But not you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “What would the Lady Flavia of Ar have done?” I asked.

  “The Lady Flavia of Ar had power,” she said. “Were the woman a slave, I would have purchased her, had her beaten, put in earrings, and sold out of the city.”

  “I see,” I said.

  I thought the former Lady Flavia of Ar might look well in earrings herself. They are inflicted, of course, only on the lowest and most despicable of slaves. The common slave fears earrings more than the slave lash or shearing. To be sure, they are attractive on a slave, and, eventually, a slave is likely to become quite proud of them, even defiantly arrogant, for what they say about her, about what she means to men and what may be expected of her in a man’s hands. She is special on a chain. Much may be expected of her. Pierced ears, too, tend to improve a girl’s price. For that reason, even in the absence of discipline, slavers sometimes pierce a girl’s ears, to her misery and horror, before putting her on the block, a pierced-ear girl.

  “And if,” said Alcinoe, “the woman was free, and even of high caste, I would have arranged for her to be in a collar by nightfall, and, chained, hurried from the city, to some mean and distant market, from which, after piercing her ears, she would be sold for a pittance.”

  Yes, I thought to myself, the former lady Flavia of Ar herself would look quite well in earrings.

  Is it not the ultimate degradation of a female slave?

  “But,” I said, “you are not the Lady Flavia of Ar.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You behaved as a slave,” I said.

  “I am a slave,” she said.

  “I trust that you and Iole,” I said, “were well punished for your altercation.”

  Normally masters do not much mix in the squabbles of slaves but, in this case, damage had been done, slaves bloodied, and tunics torn. Too, the slaves, in response to the command, “Position,” had not knelt properly.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “We were tied, side by side, and well lashed.”

  “Who wept first?” I asked. “Who cried out first for mercy?”

  “I,” she said. “I wept first. I was weakest. I first cried out for mercy.”

  I was not surprised at this.

  “After what stroke?” I asked.

  “The second,” she said.

  “So soon,” I said.

  “Iole cried out after the fourth!” she said.

  “Still,” I said, “the second?”

  “Master may recall,” she said, “that long ago I was lashed.”

  “Yes,” I said, “for lying. You claimed I had raped you.”

  “I remembered the blows,” she said. “I was terrified to feel another! I knew what it would be like! One stroke and I knew! I cried for mercy after the second stroke. Iole laughed, even in her pain, but she, too, soon, cried out for mercy.”

  I was not surprised. They were both lovely female slaves.

  “You fear the whip,” I said.

  “We all do,” she said.

  “Some free women,” I said, “think that slaves are weak, that they fear the whip.”

  “I did not fear i
t when I was free,” she said, “for I had never felt it.”

  “Many free women,” I said, “scorn slaves for their fear of the whip.”

  “Let them be stripped and tied, and put under it,” she said, “and see how long they scorn it, and how quickly they beg for the surcease of its attentions.”

  “It is a useful device in improving a slave,” I said.

  “Doubtless,” she said.

  “Perhaps you would do much to avoid it,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, her head down.

  “You are quite sensitive to pain,” I said.

  “So, too, is Iole!” she said. “So, too, are we all!”

  I saw little of Iole now. She must now respond to the snapping of fingers of Aeacus, who seemed somewhat taken with her, after she had been half stripped by Alcinoe.

  The five-stranded slave lash, of course, is designed to punish, and keenly. It is also designed not to mark, for one would not wish to lower the value of a slave.

  There are differences, of course, amongst slaves.

  “You are not a strong slave,” I said.

  “No,” she said, “Alcinoe is a small slave, a weak slave, a helpless, vulnerable slave. She cries easily, she has little control over her emotions, her skin is much alive. It is thin, soft, and sensitive!”

  I was pleased to hear this, for the body of such a woman can become a burning tissue of awareness. It is, far beyond that of duller women, alive and helpless, aware of the tiniest differences of temperature and air, and acutely so if naked or in a tunic; it is aware of the smallest differences in textures and fabrics, in the feel of fur, in the weaving of a mat under bare feet, the coolness of a scarlet tile, the whisper of silk on a thigh, the coarseness of a rope bound about her body, a strap on her wrist, the clasp of slave bracelets, holding her small hands behind her body, the weight of shackles on fair limbs.

  “I am pleased you fear the whip,” I said. I was indeed pleased, for in such a case, it need seldom, if ever, be used. To be sure, it is occasionally useful, like a stroke of the switch, to remind a girl that she is a slave. It is well for a girl to never be in the least doubt about that. Even the most loving and kindest of masters will enforce a perfect discipline on his chattel, which reassures her, and to which she is helplessly responsive, sexually and psychologically.

  Never let her forget to kneel appropriately, and obey quickly. Never let her cease to be pleasing to her master.

  The least imperfection in a slave is not to be tolerated, for she is a slave.

  “I do fear it,” she said. “Muchly so, terribly so, dreadfully so.”

  “Excellent,” I said.

  This is common in a woman whose body is much alive.

  “It scalds me, and burns me, and each stroke immerses me in fire,” she said. “It shows me no mercy!”

  “Then you would try to be a good slave, would you not?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, “Master.”

  “Good,” I said. “How many strokes did you and Iole receive?”

  “Ten,” she said. “And in the end we were helpless in the ropes, unable to stand, our weight on our bound wrists, shuddering, sobbing, our bodies afire, from the encircling tentacles of the lash, scarcely able to breathe.”

  “If one of you had seriously injured the other, cost an eye, or such,” I said, “it might have gone seriously with you.”

  She shuddered. “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Your discipline,” I said, “was administered by an armsman.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You were courteous enough to thank him, I trust,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “Suspended in the ropes, in our pain, as we could, we sobbed our gratitude.”

  “The common point of a whipping,” I said, “is to improve the slave.”

  “I think, Master,” she said, “that we both are now much concerned to be better slaves, and more pleasing to our masters.”

  “You were both foolish,” I said, “to try to keep your knees more closely together than prescribed.”

  “Each wished to appear superior to the other,” she said.

  “Surely you were taught to kneel with your knees apart,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “But I did not even know that I was a pleasure slave!”

  “You know now,” I said.

  “But I am white-silk!” she said.

  I found this of interest.

  “For now,” I said.

  “When am I to be opened, who is to open me?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps after your sale, by whoever buys you.”

  She looked at me, wildly.

  How helpless are slaves, as other animals.

  “The whip, then,” I said, “after your beating, was pressed to your lips, to be kissed.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “And you kissed it?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, “fervently, piteously, hoping that it would strike us no more.”

  “I am curious,” I said, “to inquire into a familiar distinction, but now, particularly, in the case of the slave, Alcinoe, a slave of the ship of Tersites.”

  “Master?” she said, puzzled.

  “You fear the whip,” I said.

  “Terribly, Master.”

  “You are subject to it,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “I am a slave.”

  “How do you feel about being subject to the whip?” I asked.

  “I fear the whip,” she said. “I am terrified of its stroke.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  This is common with high-grade slaves, delicate, well-formed, finely featured women, women of high intelligence, profound emotion, and active imagination, irremediably sensate, tactually enlivened women, women keenly alive, women profoundly stirred by the floor beneath their knees, by leather thrust to their lips, profoundly responsive to the fingers of a man’s hand on an ear lobe or thigh, women with helplessly sensitive bodies.

  Such women, being so desirable, and alive, bring by far the highest prices off the block.

  “I dread it,” she said. “I will do anything to avoid its stroke.”

  “But,” I said, “how do you feel about being subject to it?”

  “Must I speak?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I love it,” she whispered.

  “Speak further,” I said.

  “Must I?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It is hard to understand,” she said. “I do not know if a man can understand it.”

  “Speak,” I said.

  “It is something I became aware of,” she said, “when I first felt certain needs, and feelings, in my body. They were hard to understand. I looked about, and I saw the incredible, mighty differences between men and women, and understood that I, by nature or the will of Priest-Kings, was of that profoundly different sort, the woman. And I wondered why this should be, and what it might mean. How was I to understand it? What did it mean for my sex, and for me, who was of that sex? I felt myself somehow a part of that great difference, and union. Men were so aggressive, so possessive, so ambitious, so powerful, so strong, so proudly, so naturally, so unquestioningly, so intimidatingly so. We, on the other hand, were small, weak, soft, slight, and beautiful. Who was master, who was slave? Was nature to be denied? What of my feelings, my needs? Was I to pretend to be a man, in which sorry pretense I must fail, or should I listen to my heart, and acknowledge my difference? Nay, not only acknowledge this difference, but welcome it, celebrate it, acclaim it, rejoice in it! Is it not as meaningful, as glorious, as right, to be a slave as a master? Is one truly better than the other? Does the slave not need the master, and the master the slave? Is not each incomplete without the other? Of course, I tried to be as a man! I tried to live that mockery, that stunting lie. I sought to stand against them, rather than kneel gratefully at their feet! I flung myself, with like-minded wom
en, into the games of power, exploiting my liberty to narrow and circumscribe that of men. How I thought I hated them, while I really wanted to be put in their chains. I used my sex, as I could, bestowing cordialities, hinting at favors, to influence men who, entrapped in the conventions of the cities, refrained from tearing away my veils and robes and putting me, as I deserved, in the bracelets of a slave. How natural then that they should seek the beauties of the paga taverns, that they should raid far cities to bring back women, much as I, naked, in coffles. How I, and my kind, hated slaves, women in their fitting place in nature, who, in radiance, and contentment, so joyful, were fulfilled by masters! How we envied those degraded, pathetic, despicable things in their tiny tunics, their bodies so bared, and collars, so unslippable, so closely encircling their throats, their thighs marked, as the animals they were, that all would recognize them as the properties of men. How cruel I was to my own slaves, making them suffer in proxy for my own self-hatred. How I kept them from men, that they might howl in anguish, and know something of my own unhappiness and deprivation. Then, to my horror, I found myself in a collar! How I fought the slave in me, until I met a man whose feet I yearned to kiss.”

  “You may continue to speak,” I said.

  “I am a woman,” she said. “I suppose master cannot understand the rightfulness, the deliciousness, of the feeling that a woman has when she is dominated by a man. She responds, with her whole being, to his domination. In her subjection she feels most woman, most helplessly, most completely, most rightfully woman. She desires no choice. She rejoices to be put under his power.”

  I recalled a hundred slaves, a thousand slaves, on the streets of Ar, Jad, Brundisium, Temos, such places. I recalled the swaying hips of slave dancers, the proffering of paga, the extended hands of girls on the shelf, begging to be purchased.

  “I want to be a slave,” she said, “and love being a slave. I am a slave. I desire to be what I am. How can I be happy otherwise? To be sure, I am terrified, too, to be a slave. For I know what may be done with me, and how I may be treated. But I am content in a collar, for it is that in which I belong.”

  “You are destined to be a particular sort of slave,” I said.