by John Norman
No, no, I thought.
“Do not be afraid,” something seemed to say to me. “Acknowledge your reality! It is not wrong to be what you truly are. Only then will you know yourself whole, and, enslaved, most free.”
No, I cried out, to myself.
“Do you really think you will be given a choice?” asked the small, insistent, internal voice.
I am a free woman, I said to myself.
“You know you belong on your knees before men,” said the secret voice. “You have wanted to kneel before them, and submit yourself to them, as a slave, for years, since the first hopeful budding of your body.”
Certainly not, I said to myself.
“Have you not dreamed of masters?” asked the voice.
Do not torment me, I said to myself.
“You wish the men, then, to see to it?” asked the voice.
I do not understand, I wept to myself.
“Perhaps they will help you,” suggested the voice.
I do not understand, I said to myself.
“Apparently you wish for them to do so,” said the voice.
I sensed myself on a threshold, tottering on a brink, between conditions and realities, between what I was and what, for years, I had been told I should be, what, for years, I had pretended to be.
Then I straightened my body, and threw back my head, proudly. “I am a free woman!” I cried. “I am a free woman!”
Almost at the same time, the voice which had so tormented me, that small, insistent, inward voice, somehow within me, again spoke. “Foolish slave,” it said, “do you not know slaves are not permitted to lie?”
I remembered reading, in the confiscated books, that there were penalties for such failures and faults in a slave.
Then I looked about, in terror.
I remembered that I had been marked.
Had I been less than fully pleasing?
I feared so.
Hopefully no one had heard me, hopefully no one would know!
Scarcely had my cry ceased to ring within the stones when the bolt was thrown back, and the guard entered.
He put his hand tightly, painfully, in my hair, and forced my head down, to his hip. Then I was dragged, stumbling, from the chamber. I remembered, from the books, something of what was being done to me. I was being conducted somewhere, where I did not know, in the helpless, shameful, leading position commonly used with a female slave. “Forgive me,” I cried. “Please do not hurt me, Master!” How easily those words escaped me. Might they not have escaped the lips of a frightened slave? And how naturally I had addressed a free man as “Master!” I recalled, from the party, that all free males were to be addressed as “Master,” and all free females as “Mistress!”
I was taken to a side chamber. One of my hands was freed from the bracelets, and then both hands were fastened together again, but before me. I was placed before a dangling rope. I looked up. It was threaded through a heavy metal ring over my head. Most of the rope was on the other side of the ring. It ran to the opposite wall, where it was looped, loosely, about a large hook. The end of the rope near me was fastened about the chain of the bracelets.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
A moment later I felt my braceleted wrists being pulled upward, toward the ring. The guard hauled on the rope until I was stretched, and I could just feel the stones of the flooring with the tips of my toes. He then secured the rope, fastening it about the hook on the opposite wall, holding me in position. I was well extended. What position could this be? He then tied together my ankles, and fastened them to a ring on the floor.
Why was I fastened in this way?
What could he intend?
I feared I knew.
“Please,” I said. “Forgive me! I will try to be a good slave!”
Had I not been marked?
He was behind me. I sensed he had something in his hand, perhaps retrieved from a peg on the wall.
“Forgive me, Master,” I wept. “Please, Master!”
I had never been struck in my life, until the party, when I had been subjected to the lashing of Nora’s angry switch.
I would have done almost anything to escape that switching. I remembered, in the pain, blind with misery, acknowledging her Mistress, and myself slave.
She, my enemy, and rival, being acknowledged Mistress! And I no more than a groveling, frightened, beaten slave at her feet! What a triumph that must have been for her, to see her despised rival, in beauty, in popularity, cringing at her feet, belled, collared, half naked, weeping, a slave with no option but to endure the displeasure of her Mistress!
That beating had been unpleasant, to be sure. And I could well understand how a slave will dread the switch, and do much to escape it.
Surely I would do so!
I had no wish to feel it again!
I tried to turn, to look behind me. I could not well see what he had in his hand. “What are you going to do, Master?” I asked, frightened.
Then I was put under the slave whip of Gor.
I am sure the beating was light, and intended to be more informative than anything else, but, still, I had, for the first time in my life, felt the flexible, broad-bladed, five-stranded Gorean slave lash, designed specifically for the discipline of female slaves, a lash designed to punish but not to mark.
Released from the rope, and my ankles freed from the ring, I sank to the floor. I was scarcely aware that my hands were once more being fastened behind my back. I lay there, my body afire, a whipped chattel, a slave.
I could not believe the pain.
I now knew the penalties which might attach to a slave’s lapses.
I would now strive to be a good slave, a pleasing slave.
I now knew I could be whipped, and would be whipped, if I were not pleasing.
I would do my best to be pleasing.
I could see the boot-like sandals of the guard, near me.
How small, vulnerable, dependent, and weak then seemed my sex. How different we were from men!
How obviously, if they chose, they were the masters!
And here, on this world, they had so chosen.
I struggled to my feet, sobbing, and hysterical, looked about, past the guard, and ran to the opened door of the small chamber, and, barefoot, ran down the hall. I was not striving to escape. I came to the opened door of the rounded room and stumbled through it, and knelt in the center of the room, trembling, my back aching, with my head down to the stones.
In a few minutes I was joined by the guard.
“Your training will begin in the morning,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“You may thank me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
I now knew I was a slave. It had been well taught to me. My only hope, now, was not to permit myself to be mastered. To be sure, I would have masters, as I was a slave. But it is one thing to be a slave, and have masters, and it is another, I thought, to be mastered.
I must never permit myself to be mastered, I thought.
And yet, as I knelt there, I knew I wanted to be mastered.
Yes, Allison, I thought, you want a master.
Since puberty you have wanted a master.
And now I suspected, a slave, I might be easily mastered.
You know, Allison, I said to myself, you may have many masters, and be mastered by any or all of them, as they might please.
Yes, Allison, I thought, you will doubtless be mastered many times. Then I thought to myself, you are no longer “Allison,” slave, for slaves have no names but at the pleasure of their masters. You are now nameless. It is masters who will name you, as any property, or beast, if they please, and as they please.
My training will not be detailed. Interestingly, it lasted only a few days. One learns the kisses and caresses, the kneelings, the manner of tying sandals, of dressing and bathing masters, and such, but most attention was devoted, interestingly, to the acquisition of Gorean, and a
number of servile skills, such as cooking, sewing, cleaning, laundering, and such. The point of Gorean, I suppose, was to provide a barbarian slave with enough linguistic skill to make her survival more likely. It was not hard for me, and I suppose for other female barbarians, to adapt myself to Gorean. I do not think there was anything surprising or anomalous in this, for the linguistic skills of women, for whatever reason, tend to be considerable. Is not language the art, and joy, of women? To be sure, the intensity of the instruction, and the immersion in the speech world of Gor were doubtless relevant. Perhaps of importance, as well, was the natural way it was taught. I learned it much as a child learns his native language, in the beginning by ostension, and then by metaphor, correction, refinement, and intuition. Even throughout human history on Earth, women, I realized, as I now, must strive to learn the languages of conquerors and masters. It seems not unlikely then that the women who most swiftly and successfully learned the languages of their captors and masters, and were then most successful in pleasing and placating them, would be those most likely to survive and breed. Whatever may be the truth in such matters, my skills proceeded apace. To be sure, I was highly motivated. I wished to survive. Too, I did not care for the occasional impatient admonition of the switch when I badly misused a word, confusing similar sounds, or found myself guilty of some lapse in grammar. On the whole, I enjoyed the lessons in Gorean, but, initially, tended to resent the instruction in domestic felicities. I came from a class in which such things were for other sorts of women, low women, and such skills were, however important they might be, below me, and my kind. Certainly I knew nothing of cooking, and such things. Such things were the concern of servants, whom we hired, inferior women, of one sort or another. I tried to make this clear to my instructresses, who found my reluctance amusing. “For servants?” one said. “But you are less than a servant. You are a thousand times below a servant, for you are a slave!” And another said, “A master will expect you to do such things, and well, and I do not think it would be wise to disappoint him.” Another said, “If your master is not satisfied with your meals you may expect to be whipped. You are a slave, not a free companion, lofty in her dignity, who may be as clumsy and inept as she wishes.” “Do you understand?” asked another. “Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Keep your stitches small and neat,” said another, “and do not burn your food.” “Yes, Mistress,” I said, and then addressed myself diligently to those tasks to which I had hitherto regarded myself as superior.
I had now been fitted with a collar of the house, one which had been hammered about my neck. It was large, high, heavy, and uncomfortable. I could scarcely lower my chin. It was quite different from the light, lovely, comfortable, but quite secure, common collars which Gorean masters commonly lock about the throats of their kajirae, collars, for example, of the sort which I envied in my instructresses. Perhaps the point of such collars, the house collars, was to make their trainees eager to be brought to the block.
The grimy white ribbon which had identified me as “white-silk,” had been cut from my throat, before my head and neck had been laid across the anvil, for the hammering shut of the house collar. But then, when the house collar was in place, a smaller ribbon, also white, had been looped and knotted about the house collar. It, at least, was clean.
“It is only of rep cloth,” said one of the instructresses.
“Not of silk,” said another.
“She is too plain,” said one of them.
“No,” I said, “I am beautiful!”
“She will do,” said another.
I did not understand this. I knew myself to be extremely beautiful. But then, at that time, I did not understand the general high quality of Gorean kajirae. What gifts they are for men!
“Do not despair, Allison,” said one of the instructresses. “You will grow more sensuous, more beautiful, in your collar.”
“In my collar?” I said.
“Of course,” said one of the instructresses.
“The masters know what they are doing,” said another.
I had been permitted the name, Allison, but it had been made clear to me that it was now only a slave name. Somehow this seemed very meaningful to me, that ‘Allison’ was now a slave name.
As my progress in Gorean continued, and I became more adept in servile skills, being permitted to launder for the guards, and do some simple cooking for their mess, I was granted a tunic. Doubtless it had been worn by others before me, but, to me, it was inordinately precious. Certainly I would do much to keep it.
One of the first things I had done, when introduced into a training room, one walled with mirrors, was to hurry to the side, and examine my thigh.
“Vain slave!” laughed an instructress.
In the mirror one achieves a certain distance from the brand, and sees it rather as another might look upon it. In the mirror I saw a branded slave girl, and, a moment later, with a frisson of recognition, I realized the branded slave girl was I.
“It is a nice mark, Allison,” said one of the instructresses.
“Sometimes such things are bungled,” said another.
“Not by our iron master,” said another. I recalled that it was rumored that she was not unoften in his arms.
How frightful, I thought, to be badly branded. To be sure, such things seldom occurred. Most marking is done by members of the caste of Metal Workers. Most such shops will have a slaving iron, and it is often at hand, and, if not heated, ready to be thrust into the glowing coals of his forge. The Metal Workers, too, do most of the collar work, measuring, fitting, and such. Some free women are branded and collared within an Ahn of their taking.
I regarded the mark.
I recognized that it clearly enhanced my beauty, perhaps a thousandfold. The matter, however, was not purely aesthetic. I did not doubt that much more might have to do with its meaning, what it proclaimed about its bearer!
I examined the mark. It was small, fine, lovely, and tasteful, and telling in its meaning.
And it was on me.
“We have work to do, Allison,” said one of the instructresses.
“By nightfall,” said another, “you must learn to bathe a man, care for his leather, and kiss his feet.”
Could there really be more than one way to kiss a man’s feet, I wondered.
I would learn there was.
I looked into the mirror.
The slave, I knew, is the most seductive and desirable of women.
How can free women compete with her? The free man may find the free woman of interest, for example, in matters of family, position, power, and wealth, but is it not the despised, meaningless slave to whom he turns for pleasure?
Is it not the slave which his biological heritage demands?
I sensed the power of the slave.
Can we not drive men mad with pleasure?
I considered the brand. What jewel, what ring, what necklace, I wondered, has the free woman, to compete with that?
But consider the slave.
Consider her plight.
She is owned.
She well understands that she is property. The collar is hers, the whip is his. Is it any wonder she is concerned to be found pleasing?
Too, if she need not fear the competition of the free woman, she must fear that of other slaves. What if she is found lacking? Will she not be thrown into the market, and another purchased?
Are not animals such as she cheap?
“Keep me, Master!” she begs. But perhaps he is tired of her. Perhaps he now wants another. She has failed, failed to be such that he would never think of selling her. So back to the block with her!
She pleads, but she is slave, and he master.
I had wondered if it is not the slave which the male’s biological heritage demands. But, if this were so, I asked myself, it seems unlikely such a thing could exist in isolation, as some sort of biological anomaly. What then of the female, what then of the woman? Might there not be then, as well, something which is demanded there, or
longed for there, by the woman, a consequence of her own biological heritage? If the male’s heritage demands the slave, might not the heritage of the woman demand, or long for, the master?
Are there not genetic insistencies which whisper about our hearts?
At this point in my training I thought mostly of the male, learning how to be appealing to him, learning how to please him, and such.
This is surely comprehensible.
I had felt the Gorean slave whip.
I did not, at the time, understandably enough, sense what might be done to the slave, what might be done with me.
I had needs, of course, but little more was involved, at first, than curiosity and uneasiness. When I was a girl I did not even comprehend, nor was I informed, as to the nature of the changes in my body, changes which were preparing me for men. Much of this, in the beginning, was little more than an unfocused restlessness. I felt stirrings within me into which I was not to inquire. It was not appropriate for a woman to do so. If they existed, they were to be, at best, sources of dismay and regret. Did not I, and my acquaintances, laud our superiority to such things, in effect competing with one another in our alleged frigidities? To be sure, at least from high school on, I was alarmed at intrusive thoughts, thoughts so unlike me, so improper for me, which I tried to dismiss, and, too, by incomprehensible dreams for which there could be no possible explanation, dreams in which I found myself in chains, dreams in which I found myself in the arms of masters. Certainly I was taught to suspect and fear certain embarrassing suspicions and promptings. Such were not suitable for one of my sex and class. These suspicions and promptings, such thoughts, were not only incompatible with my dignity and self-respect, but incompatible with the conventions and proprieties in terms of which my life was to be managed. Indeed, for years I had been taught to ignore my needs, to minimize them, to conceal them, to suppress them, even deny them. I must pretend to others that I was untroubled by such things, which were only to be found, if at all, in the lowest and most despicable of women. I feared I, in my discomforts and afflictions, might be unique amongst other young women of my acquaintance. Surely they were superior to such embarrassing weaknesses. Or were they lying to me, as I was lying to them?
