by John Norman
She tried to withdraw her hands, but could not do so.
"Put your ankles back," I said.
I guided them into their places. The ankle stock is a simpler device, as the rear board is part of the bench. I then found the front board and fixed it in place. I then stepped back to regard her.
"Either the wrist or the ankle stocks would serve to keep you in place," I said. However, the wrist stocks may be removed from the bench and serve as its own bond, if one wishes. Similarly it might be opened, if one wished, say, to free the prisoner's hands for feeding or, if she is a free female, perhaps for the signing of papers." A slave, of course, being a domestic animal, cannot sign papers, not in a legal sense, no more than a tarsk or sleen. Her name, if she has one, is only a slave name, put on her for the convenience of a master. As she does not have a name in her own right, so, too, accordingly, she has no signature in her own right. "To be sure," I said. "It is highly unlikely that a free female would be on this barge."
She squirmed a little, uneasily, on the smooth wood. She tried again to withdraw her hands, futilely. She moved her ankles a little in the ankle stocks.
"Don't you think so?" I asked.
"Of course," she said.
"You will probably agree that you are helpless," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"And yet," I said, "there is yet another device, a similar device, not chains and such, which is often utilized in the keeping of women on a barge such as this. It provides additional security. Also it helps them to keep clearly in mind that they are, if they are, slaves."
She looked at me, puzzled.
Then I looked about and found one of the pairs of long boards, each board with its matching semicircular openings long enough to cover the five positions on one of the benches. I then inserted the rear board in the iron framework above the bench. "Put your head back," I said, "so that your neck, resting back, is half encircled in the semicircular opening." She did so. I then slid the matching board in place, frontally, in the framework, until its back flat edge was flush against the flat front edge of the rear board. In this fashion, by means of the matching semicircular openings in the two boards, her neck was fully, and closely, encircled. I then, by means of metal pins, passing through holes, and clips fastening together matching rings, secured the apparatus in place. As the boards were thick, her chin was forced up.
"How does it feel, Ina?" I asked.
"I am a free woman," she said. "I am a free woman!"
"Would you care to be transported over long distances in this fashion," I asked, "perhaps often in darkness?"
She regarded me.
"Doubtless it might be uncomfortable in such a barge, if the shutters were closed," I said.
She moved her head a little, and her hands.
"You might also note that even if the windows were unshuttered," I said, "they are set well above the eye level of an occupant of one of these benches. On the other hand, from the deck, which is on a higher level, one can easily look down, and within."
She squirmed, helplessly.
"Do you think the slaves kept in such devices can escape?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"And do you think you might escape?"
"No," she said.
"Do not hurt yourself on the wood," I said.
She looked at me.
"To struggle in such devices, if you were a slave," I said, "might earn you a lashing."
Tears came to her eyes.
"Presumably your master would not wish you to risk marking yourself, as that might lower your value."
"I see," she said, bitterly.
"Too," I said, "if you were a slave, presumably you would not wish to mark yourself either, for various reasons."
She looked at me.
"Such might mar your beauty," I said, "and slaves, like other women, are vain of their beauty."
"Some are so proud of it," I said, "that perhaps they should be lashed for it."
She shuddered.
"Also," I said, "if a slave mars her beauty, she may then be less likely to be purchased by an affluent master."
"I understand," she said.
"Many women," I said, "prefer light duties in a rich man's house to heavy labors in a low-caste hovel."
"I suppose so," she said.
"Too," I said, "many would rather be a handsome master's perfumed pleasure slave, his treasure, than a drunken brute's kettle-and-mat girl."
"Yes," she said.
"A strange response from a free woman," I observed. She looked to the side, her chin held high by the boards. "You are probably one of the very few free women," I said, "who have ever sat upon such a bench."
"You put me here!" she said.
"You were curious to know what it would be like," I said. "Why?"
"Nothing," she said.
"Many free women are curious about such things," I said, "what it would be like to wear chains, to be subject to a whip, to have a master, such things."
She did not meet my eyes.
"That is because they are slaves," I said.
"I am a free woman!" she said. "I am a free woman!"
"Do you regard your present restraints as improper?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "as I am a free woman!"
"But yet you find them exciting," I said.
She looked at me, startled.
"It is an easy enough matter to determine," I said.
She shrank back, as she could.
"But for slaves," I said, "I suppose you would regard them as proper enough."
"Yes," she said, uncertainly.
"As I recall, you have little sympathy for slaves."
"None, of course," she said.
"Because they are slaves?"
"Yes," she said, "of course."
"And they are totally other than you?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"But if you were a slave," I said, "such things would be quite fitting for you?"
"I am not a slave!" she said.
"But if you were," I said, "you would regard your susceptibility to such things, your subjection to such things, as quite suitable, as quite desirable, perhaps even proper and imperative?"
"Yes!" she said.
"Where are you going?" she cried.
"Hunting," I said.
"You cannot leave me here, like this!" she cried. I smiled.
"Do not go!" she said. "I beg you not to go!"
"I shall be back," I said, "probably in a few Ahn."
"What of me?" she said.
"You will remain where you are," I said.
"What will I do?" she asked.
"You will sit there," I said, "and think."
"Come back!" she cried.
I turned, by the door. "Release me!" she cried. "You are quite pretty," I told her.
"You can do this to me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Release me!" she cried. "No," I said.
"I shall scream!" she said.
"I could always gag you," I reminded her.
She made an angry noise.
"On the other hand," I said, "you are an intelligent woman. I will thus leave the matter to your common sense. In the first place there is probably no one around to hear you. At least I hope not. In the second place, if there is anyone around to hear you, it would almost certainly be rencers, and then, I suspect, it would be back to the pole with you."
I thought that she might, even in the moonlight, have turned a shade paler.
"Accordingly," I said, "I would not make too much of a fuss, if I were you."
She moaned.
"You cannot be too downcast," I said, "for I note that your chin is high. If it were any higher you could probably not see me leave at all. You could presumably note only the nature of the ceiling."
"Are you truly going to leave me here, like this?" she wept.
"Yes," I said.
25 Ina Begs to be First My Feast
"I did not know that it
was you," she whispered.
"It is," I said.
It was now daylight.
She was beautiful in the stocks, though she must have suffered discomfort.
"I have brought down two small gants," I said, "with stones."
I had, as I had intended, in addition to bringing down the gants, reconnoitered the neighborhood. As I had thought I might, I had found, here and there, evidence of the retreat of the men of Ar, the remains of campfires, discarded gear, and such.
I put down the gants on the bench, near her, in one of the other places. There are five places on each bench. There is a center aisle. There are five benches on each side. There are, about the sides of the cabin, various rings. By means of such rings, and chains, of course, an indefinite number of girls, well beyond those in the fifty places on the benches, could be transported. Though it is not practical in the delta, such barges, too, could be tied together, and towed. Many slave barges, of course, carry no more than fifteen or twenty girls.
I looked at her. How well she was held in the stocks.
Conscious of my eyes upon her she sucked in her belly and straightened her body, as she could.
Yes, she was quite beautiful.
"I hope my captor finds me pleasing," she whispered.
"Perhaps, for a free woman," I said.
She did not ask me where I had been, or why I had taken so long. She knew enough not to do so. Such impertinence can be a cause for discipline.
"I think we can have a small fire for the gants," I said. "I think we can set it in here, on a plate. There will be little smoke, and what there is will be randomly distributed, escaping various windows. I do not think it will be detectable."
She did not ask to be released from the stocks. I took it that in the several Ahn I had been gone various things, as I had expected, even though she was a free woman, had become clear to her.
She made a small noise, of need.
That interested me. I had left her in the stocks primarily for her instruction, and not for her arousal.
She looked up at me. I saw in her eyes that she now indeed understood some things which might not have been clear to her before, primarily that her subjection to my will was uncompromising and absolute.
"You sit where doubtless many slaves have sat," I said.
She made another small noise, of need.
"You do not sound like a free woman," I said. "You sound like an amorous slave."
"In the first Ahn," she said, "I was angry. I even struggled a little, but please do not beat me for it!"
"Not this time," I said.
"Then later, as I realized I must await you here, where you had put me, and as you had put me, and for as long as you wished, I began to have strange feelings."
"Yes?" I said.
"I began to long for you, to yearn for you," she said.
"That is understandable," I said, "as you wished to be released."
"No," she said. "It is not that simple."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Helpless here," she said, "I began to have strange feelings in my belly, and whole body, for you."
"It is the constraints," I said. She looked at me, piteously.
"Oh!" she said.
"I see that you speak the truth," I said.
"Yes!" she said.
"Interesting, the effects of such devices upon a woman," I mused.
"It is not just the constraints," she said, "I assure you."
I looked at her.
"It is also the meaningfulness of it, and the wholeness of the thing."
I nodded.
"You have subjected me to your will," she said, "and I am helpless!"
"As much so as a slave?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said.
"No," I said, "not nearly so, not even remotely so, for you are not owned."
"Touch me!" she begged.
These things had to do, I think, with male dominance, and its effects upon a woman, the finding of herself helplessly where she belongs, and her understanding this, in her true place in nature. In the female, sexuality, it seems, is a matter of the totality of her being. It is a wondrous, glorious thing involving, and transforming, the beautiful wholeness of her. The female slave, for example, in her excitement and beauty, is an embodiment of sensuality, love and service.
"Touch me!" she begged.
"Shall I release you?" I asked.
"Release me or not, as you please," she wept, "but touch me!"
I regarded her.
"I am absolutely helpless," she wept. "I beg it!"
"You desire sexual relief?" I asked.
"I am a free woman," she said. "Please do not have me speak so!"
I looked at her.
"Yes," she wept, "I desire sexual relief!"
"A bold admission," I said.
"Please!" she said.
"But if you obtain such relief," I said, "your needs, in time, will reassert themselves, perhaps even more relentlessly, imperatively."
"Please," she said.
"To be sure," I said, "it is not as though you were a slave, and this were to occur within the full comprehension of a categorical bondage."
"Please!" she said.
"You are pretty," I said. I put my hand on her.
"In the manner of the master!" she said. "Please, in the manner of the master!"
"But you are a free woman," I said.
"Please!" she begged. "Ohhh! Ohhhhh!"
"Steady!" I said." I did not want her to hurt herself in the stocks.
Her small shoulders thrust up suddenly against the collar stocks. Her small hands pulled back in the wrist stocks, but could not escape their grasp. Her hands opened and closed. Her head turned to the side, her eyes closed.
"Steady!" I said.
But apparently she could not control herself. She was in the grip of her own needs, which seized her and would do as they pleased with her, having their way with her, whether she wished it or not, giving her no quarter.
Then she subsided, and looked at me, wonderingly.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Yes," she breathed.
I inspected her limbs, where they were enclosed in the stocks. There was some redness, and some minor abrasions from scraping, on the ankles, and neck, but it was nothing serious.
"What you did to me!" she said.
"As I told you before," I said, "it is your body, and your sensitivity."
"If I were a slave, you would own them, you would own it all!"
"You are a free woman," I said.
She looked at me wildly, protestingly.
"It is your body," I said.
"But you made it do what you wanted," she said, "behave as you wished!"
"Perhaps," I said.
I freed her neck of the planks, putting them to the side.
"I could not help myself," she said. "You made me behave as though I might have been a puppet, on strings!"
I freed her ankles. "Perhaps," I said.
I stood up.
She looked up at me, her wrists still in the wrist stocks, these stocks keeping her, in virtue of the slots and fastenings, on the bench.
"I could not believe my feelings," she said, "what you made me feel!"
I freed the wrist stocks from the rings and clips which held it in its slots in the armrests. It could now be lifted out of the slots. She still, of course, wore it. If she were to stand it would still be on her. Sometimes, incidentally, such stocks, and similar stocks, are used to fasten a girl's hands behind her body, at the sides. There is a large variety of stocks, and yokes, of course, for various purposes.
She looked up at me.
"I did very little," I said.
"Consider the nature of my responses!" she said.
"I did very little," I said.
I freed her wrists of the stocks, and put the stocks to the side.
"But my responses!" she said.
"I, if anything, merely triggered them," I said.
"No," she said
. "You summoned them, you called them forth!"
"If you wish," I said.
"You mastered and commanded them!"
"If you wish," I said.
"As you may now master and command me!" she said, suddenly kneeling before me.
I looked down on her.
She put her head down and kissed my feet, as eagerly and avidly as an ardent slave, hoping to please her master. Then she lifted her head, and looked up at me, tears in her eyes.
"I cannot believe what I felt!" she said.
"You look well on your knees," I said.
"It is where I belong," she said, "before you."
"Before men," I said.
"Yes," she said, "before men!"
"It was only a touch," I said.
"Do not forget," she said, "that you had put me at your mercy, and that I was controlled and helpless."
"Still it was only a touch," I said.
"It was in an entire context," she said.
"That is true," I said.
"And the thing is a wholeness," she said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"And there was in me, I sense now, a readiness for that experience," she said, "and a fittingness in me for it. Too, in it I sensed the hint of a possibility, of a modality of existence, of a way I might be, of a possible way of life."
"I did very little," I said.
"It was you," she said, "who constructed the entire context of surrender, of helplessness, of submission."
"Of submission?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said.
"Interesting remarks," I said, "from a Cosian spy."
"Forget what I have been," she said. "Think of me now only as what I am, and only am, a woman at your feet!"
"I see," I said.
"For the first time," she said, "I begin to sense what it might be to belong to a man, to be his, totally."
