"Yes," I said.
"The girls who are kept slave in the cities," she asked, "are they happy?"
"Many are blissfully happy," I said. "Strange," I mused, "that that should be so, and yet the facts are incontrovertible, Many of them, collared, subject to the whip, are yet blissfully happy. It makes little sense to me. I do not profess to understand it."
"I sense how it could be, Master," she said.
"A girl, of course," I said, "in having many masters learns how to please men. She must, of course."
"I am sure that is part of it, Master," said Audrey. "May I speak?"
"Yes," I said. "I sense," she said, "what my true master would be like."
"Any man who owns you is your true master," I said.
"That is true," she laughed. "But I have a dream of a perfect master, to whom I could be but a perfect slave."
"I see," I said.
"Other girls, too," she said, "must sense this sort of thing."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Do not men have some sense of what sort of girl would be their perfect slave?" she asked.
"Some girls are surely more attractive and desirable than others," I said, "and clearly this is not a simple function of physical appearance. Indeed, some rather plain girls are, for no reason that is clear to me, tormentingly attractive, intensely desirable."
"There is no simple answer," she said.
"No," I said, "I do not think so."
"Is it not true," she laughed, "that all men want a woman who will bring them their slippers in her teeth?"
"Sandals," I corrected her.
"Sandals," she laughed.
"Yes," I said, "every man wants such a woman."
"And a slave girl must," she said.
"If the master so instructs her," I said. "Of course."
"All men want," she laughed, "is a girl panting in their arms."
"Surely more than that," I said. "Any girl can be made to pant in a manes arms," I pointed out.
"That is true," she said, bitterly. She was slave. She knew she could be forced to yield to any man.
"What is it that you are trying to say?" I asked.
"You could not easily delineate for me your criteria for the perfect slave," she said, "nor I to you my criteria for the perfect master. Indeed, one might be a perfect slave to one master and not to another, as one might be the perfect master to one slave and not to another."
"Go on," I told her.
"But we both sense," she said, "that there would be a rightness, or rightnesses, about such matters."
"Perhaps," I said.
"I think I would know my perfect master as soon as his eyes met mine," she said.
"I doubt it," I said.
"I would certainly know," she said, "that it might well be he."
"Perhaps," I granted.
"Too," she said, "I suspect that you generally have little difficulty in picking from a line of chained girls those who are of the most interest to you."
"That is true," I smiled. "But such difficulties, even should they occur, are, of course, not intolerable."
"Beast," she said. "But my point, Master, if I may be permitted to continue to speak, is that both of us would sense rightnesses, fittingnesses, matches, agrecabiities. complementarities, in such matters."
"Of course," I said. Then I said, "Ah yes, your point is an interesting one."
"Yes," she said. "Suppose that a woman is, as I am, a natural slave."
"Yes," I said, "the buying and the selling."
"A girl will often have many masters, will she not?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "A comely girl may change hands many times."
"And a master, of course," she said, "is likely to own, from month to month, or year to year, several different girls."
"Yes," I said. Most Gorean masters could not afford more than one girl. The price obtained on one, of course, can be applied to the purchase of the next. In this sense, after the initial investment, provided one both sells and buys, girls are cheap.
"A man, too," she said, "buys women who are attractive to him. It is harder for the woman, but she, too, at times, is in a position to influence her sale. She will try to appear more beautiful and pleasing to the man she wishes to buy her than to one she does not wish to buy her."
"The slaver will take her hide off with the whip if he catches her at it," I said. "Too," I said, "at a public auction that sort of thing is difficult or impossible."
"Yes," said Audrey, "in a public auction, as I understand it, a woman is completely at the mercy of the men."
"Your point is an excellent one," I said. "If women are true slaves, and men are true masters, and slave exchanges are frequent, there is a resonable chance that a man may find his choice slave, and a girl her choice master."
"Or perfect slave and master," she whispered.
"Yes," I said.
The bliss of many slave girls now seemed less puzzling to me. First, as girls, natural slaves, they were in a relationship to which, in effect, they were bred by nature, that of the submitting organism in an ancient biological complementarity of male and female; female slavery is but the cultural institutionalization, the expression and perfection, to be expected in conscious, intelligent organisms, intent upon remaining true to nature, rather than violating it, of the male's control and ownership of his female. Man owns woman by nature; in a complex society, and in a world with property rights and laws, female slavery, as a legalized fact, is to be expected; it will occur in any society in which touch is kept with the truths of nature. Gorean law, of course, is complex and latitudinous on these matters. For example, many women are free, whether wisely or desirably or not, and slavery is not always permanent for a slave girl. Sometimes a girl, winning love, is freed, perhaps to bear the children of a former master. But the freedom of a former slave girl is always a somewhat tenuous thing. Her thigh still bears the brand. And, should her ears be pierced, it is almost certain she will, sooner or later, be re-enslaved. It is hard for men to leave a woman who can be a good slave girl free. She will always dread that in the night men will come again for her, hooding her, carrying her to a distant city, to be again put on the block of a steaming market, that once again her throat will be encircled by a steel collar and that she will kneel at the feet of a new master. Slavery also, of course, encompasses the ownership of male slaves, for which there is less precedent in nature. Where males are concerned the institution is primarily economic. The labor of male slaves is useful and cheap. It is applied in such places as the quarries, the roads, the great farms, in certain types of cargo galleys, on the wharves, at the walls of cities and in the forests. Male slaves are usually debtors or criminals; sometimes they are captives, taken in actions against enemy cities or facilities; sometimes they have merely accrued the displeasure of powerful men or families; some slavers, working in gangs, specialize in the capture of free men for work projects; they obtain a fee per head on a contractual basis.
The second reason for the bliss of many slave girls, that sequent upon the appropriateness of bondage for the beautiful woman itself, her female joy in being made to be true to herself, slave, was that, given the flesh transactions in a given city, sooner or later, masters tended to find girls who were, from their point of view, superb slaves, apd girls tended to find men who were, from their point of view, marvels as masters. It is a beautiful moment when the woman realizes that the man who owns her is her love master, and the man realizes that the girl he bought, looking up at him, tears in her eyes, is his love slave.
Then the only danger is that he will weaken. One must be strong with a love slave. If one truly loves her, he will be that strong. The slavery in which a love slave is kept is an unusually deep slavery. She must serve him with a perfection which would stun and startle other girls; if she should fail in any way, even in so small a way that the lapse would be overlooked in the case of another wench, or bring perhaps a mild word of reprimand, she is likely to be tied at the slave ring and whipp
ed; there is a good reason for this; she is, you see, a love slave; no woman can be more in a man's power; and with no woman must he be stronger.
Too, of course, if a relationship should weaken, or not prove enduringly satisfactory, the girl is simply put in cuffs and taken to a market.
The relationship which does not prove satisfactory is soon terminated. This termination is completely in the power of the master.
"Enough discussion," I said. "Let us have you."
"Yes, have me, Master," she whispered. Her lips met mine, eagerly.
"You are a highly intelligent slave," I said, "Audrey."
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"You have been instructive to me," I said. "I am pleased by this."
"Men of Earth," she said, "will not listen to a woman.
"Some men will," I said. "But what you intimate is true. Generally men of Earth will not listen to women. Their minds are closed on the matter. Being men they think all human beings are the same as themselves. It is a natural fallacy. Masculine women, those unfortunate creatures, in their frustration, exploit this weakness in the men of Earth. They tell them what they want to hear. This they then take as evidence confirming their preconceptions. It is sad that the true needs of women must then be sacrificed to the ignorance of men and the political and economic ambitions of hirsute frustrates."
"You speak cruelly," she said.
"I am sorry," I said. "Doubtless the matter is more complex than these simplicities suggest."
"I pity women who are not women," she said.
"On Earth," I said, "they proclaim themselves the true women."
"That is natural," she said. "What do you expect them to say?"
"I suppose you are right," I said.
"I think so," she said.
"What counts on Earth as the liberation of women." I said, "is cunformance to a certain stereotype, an aggressive, man-like, Lesbian image, one alien to, and offensive to, most normal women. Most women do not truly wish to be men. They find it difficult to believe that they cannot be true women until they are like men. A true liberation of women might be desirable, one which would permit them to be themselves, whatever they might be, a liberation that would free a woman to be feminine rather than constrict her to the imitation of manhood, a liberation without preset images and goals, which would permit her to find herself, wherever and however she might be, honestly, a liberation that would not be a gibberish of political prescriptions, a facsimile of the most sordid side of alien. malelike egoisms, a liberation that would free women in all their latent richness, their diversities and glories, that would be open enough to accept gratefully and, yes, celebrate such currently denigrated properties as softness, tenderness and love. A liberation of a woman. too, which does not permit her to be wild and free and sensuous, and true to her true needs, is not a liberation but a new imprisonment."
"I do not want to be liberated," she whispered to me.
"Do not fear," I told her. "You will not be."
She looked up at me, and kissed me.
"A woman as beautiful as you will be kept as a slave." I said. "You are too beautiful to be free."
"I will be kept as a slave?" she asked.
"Yes, because men want you as a slave," I said.
"My will means nothing?' she asked.
"Nothing," I told her.
She looked up at me. "I am content, Master," she said.
"You are a slave," I said.
"I am a woman," she said.
"And a slave," I said.
"Yes, a slave," she said. Her eyes were moist. "Do you know why I am content?" she asked.
"No, Slave," I said.
"Because I am a slave," she said. "It is strange," she said, "we have talked of freedom, of liberation. And yet I feel that somehow, though I am slave, I am the most liberated, the most free of women. For the first time in my life I am free to obey, to love and be pleasing."
"You are not simply free to do such things," I said, "you must do them."
"Yes," she said, "and I have found myself, with bondage strings on my throat, in a barbarian's tent, on a strange world."
"It is here," I said, "that you are forced to be true to your own nature. Nothing else is permitted."
"True freedom," she said, "is to follow one's own nature."
"All else," I said, "is rhetoric, and the dictates of others."
"Then I am free!" she cried.
"Be quiet," I said, "or I will take you outside, tie you to the pole and whip you."
She looked at me, frightened. "Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Do you think you are free now?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said.
"You are not free," I said. "You are a slave. You are in total bondage."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do not forget it," I said.
"No, Master," she whispered, frightened.
"Perhaps I should whip you," I said.
"Rather let me try to please you," she begged. She was frightened.
"Very well," I said. The slave girl then fell to kissing me, eager to placate the master.
It is well not to let a girl grow too enamoured of her bondage. It is well not to let her forget that she is only a slave.
Later Audrey lay in my arms. "I am happy, Master," she whispered.
"Let us sleep now," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.- "Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I am pleased that you won my use in the gambling. I have been pleased to serve you."
"Let us sleep now," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"Master," she said. She spoke very softly, that she not awaken me, should I be asleep.
"Yes," I said.
"Do you think Imnak will keep me a slave forever," she asked.
"No" I said, "I do not think so."
"Will he free me?" she asked.
"Of course not," I said.
"Will I be killed?" she asked.
"I do not think it likely," I said, "if you are sufficiently pleasing."
"I will be sufficiently pleasing," she said, earnestly. "What do you think will be done with me?" she asked.
"Imnak now has Poalu," I said.
"He does not need me any longer," she said.
"No," I said, "nor Thimble, though you are both pretty things to have in the tent."
"What will he do with us?" she asked.
"It is my guess," I said, "that both Thimble and yourself will be traded south next spring for tea and sugar."
"Traded! For tea and sugar!" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Audrey Brewster sold for tea and sugar!" she said.
"Thistle, the slave," I said.
"But I am she," she said.
"Be pleased that panther girls are not selling you for arrow points and a handful of candy," I said.
"Who are panther girls?" she asked.
"Strong women, huntresses who frequent the northern forests," I said. "They enjoy selling feminine women like yourself."
"Oh," she said.
"You are a slave," I said. "Do you think you would like to be a woman's slave?"
"No," she said, shuddering. She kissed me. "I am a man's slave," she said.
"It is true," I said.
"Are panther girls truly so strong?" she asked.
"Not really," I said. "Once captured and conquered, collared and silked, their thigh burned by the iron, thrown to a man's feet. they are as quick to kiss and lick as any woman. Indeed, they make superb slaves. They bring high prices in the markets. They are only girls desperate to fight their femininity. When they are no longer permitted to do this they have no choice but to become marvelous women and slaves. A conquered panther girl is one of the most abject and delicious, and joyful, of slaves."
"I see, Master" she said.
"How would I be taken south?" she asked.
"Afoot, your neck tied to a sled," I said.
"I do not
want to remain a slave of red hunters indefinitely," she said. "I think I would like to be taken south."
"What you like is of no interest." I said.
"I know," she said.
"If I were to be taken south," she said, "would I be sold there?"
John Norman - Gor 12 Page 31
