by John Norman
"Master?" she asked.
"For years, you have been a slave," I said, "only one who was not yet properly owned, a technicality recently remedied on Gor."
She looked up at me.
"This is what, implicitly, in effect, your aunt was recognizing," I said, "though perhaps not fully consciously. It seems to have been recognized even more clearly by your former superior, the female executive. She dressed you, and treated you, did she not, as, in effect, a slave?"
"Yes," said the girl, angrily.
"I think," I said, "in spite of other possible considerations and advantages which might have been involved in her behavior and attitudes, she was trying to be kind to you, trying to make it clear to you what you were, trying to encourage you to be true to your own nature."
"Perhaps!" said the girl, angrily.
"You like pretty clothes, do you not," I asked, "and like to be attractive to men?"
"Yes!" she said.
"On Gor," I said, "as opposed to your world, it is customary to enslave slaves."
She looked up at me, angrily.
"On Gor," I asked, "have you been branded, and enslaved?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I am a slave?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
She turned her head, angrily, to the side.
I looked down at her. She was exquisitely beautiful. I did not doubt but what Grunt could get five hides of the yellow kailiauk for her.
"Look at me, Slave," I said.
She regarded me, quickly. "Yes, Master," she said.
"Slaves such as you, on Earth," I said, "not legally embonded, often use their beauty to their own advantage. It opens doors. It smoothes ways. It makes things easy for them. They use it to further careers, to buy wealth, and to belittle other women."
"Yes, Master?" she whispered.
"But here, on Gor," I said, "things are quite different."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Here, on Gor," I said, "your beauty is owned, and fully, as are you."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"To whom does your beauty belong, on Gor?" I asked.
"To the master," she said.
"Yes," I said, "and it is he, not you, my dear, who will decide what is to be done with it, fully, and how it is to be used."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Your palms," I said, "—keep them facing upward, to the moons of Gor."
"Yes, Master," she said.
She trembled. On some level she doubtless well understood this, the soft, tender, open sweetness of her palms exposed vulnerably, helplessly, to the looming, blazing light of the moons of barbarian Gor.
She had, in her fear, turned her palms slightly inward.
She now again, given my admonition, frightened, held her palms open and upward, correctly.
The repetition of a direction or command is normally taken as a cause for discipline, but, as she was new to Gor, and frightened, and clearly eager to obey, and please, I decided not to beat her. Her brand was still smoking, as the saying goes. Too, she was very beautiful.
I looked down upon her.
"Please forgive me, Master," she whispered, frightened.
I was pleased to see that she was alert to her error. It was subtle. The former Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, I discerned, was not only a lovely slave, but one who was highly intelligent.
This much pleased me.
Goreans, incidentally, do not object to intelligence in a woman. I trust that this acceptance of female intelligence is not surprising, or disturbing, to males of Earth. In any event, I merely note this, and do not comment on it. Most Goreans, for example, have no objection to taking a highly intelligent woman in hand, and stripping her and collaring her, and teaching her her womanhood. They will do this with her as readily as with any other sort of woman. They do not object to having such a woman at their feet, perhaps cleaning them with her tongue. They will fasten her at their slave ring as readily, and as casually, and use her as lengthily and richly there, as any other sort of female, perhaps more so. And there is a consensus, interestingly, that intelligent women make the best slaves. They swiftly understand what is required of them—namely, everything. They train brilliantly and serve with perfection. As they are intelligent, they are likely to be sooner in touch with their deepest nature and needs than a less intelligent woman, who is likely to be more a victim of social engineering, and more mired in a conditioned image alien to her deeper self. The less intelligent woman is likely to be so much a victim of her culture that she may fight coming to grips with her basic biotruths for weeks. She is determined to resist her femininity and womanhood; she struggles to be what others have told her she should be rather than what, in occasional still moments, she senses herself to be. The intelligent woman, on the other hand, may attain insights in days, or even hours, which a less intelligent woman may not come to for weeks. She learns her place in nature with celerity. In the keeping of true men, so different from most of those of her old world, she swiftly learns to kneel and obey, in grateful relief. The more intelligent woman, more in tune with her nature and needs, and who is inclined to have a rich inner life, has in her fantasies and dreams enacted realities upon herself whose roots lie in the most secret recesses of her subconscious mind, in the dispositional latencies of her most secret heart; she has in her dreams and fantasy life relived ancient existences, recollected flights and servitudes, bindings and captures, and familiarized herself with thongs and collars; in her dreams and fantasy life she has readied herself to fulfill again her ancient destiny; she has readied herself to be again the prey of man, the fruit of his harvesting, the victim of his conquest. She has longed for a master and, in effect, has prepared herself for him. She desires to be overwhelmed and to have no choice but absolute submission. Stripped and hurled to his feet she understands the strength of men, and their desire and will. Knelt, she looks up at him, and realizes she will not be permitted to resist the ecstasies which he will enforce upon her. The collar is locked on her neck. She knows now she belongs to him. As a slave girl she licks and kisses the whip. She chains well and is splendidly needful at the slave ring. She is likely to sell for an excellent price.
"It is done," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she breathed.
This time her lapse would go unpunished. In the future I suspected she would be very much more aware of such things. A girl's obedience is to be instantaneous and unquestioning. If she is positioned in a certain manner, she is not to break position without permission. For example, if she is knelt, she is not to rise to her feet until given leave to do so. Similarly, commonly, she may not speak without permission.
Many feel that moonlight has an aphrodisiac effect on the female, this having to do subconscious symbolisms, associated with natural rhythms, waxings and wanings, biological cycles, and such. Sometimes a slave is chained naked under the moons of Gor. It is not unusual then for her, after a time, to whimper and moan, and call plaintively for her master.
I looked down on her.
Her palms were facing upward, opened.
She was frightened.
Her entire body, as I had stripped her, was now bathed in moonlight.
"Have you had your slave wine?" I asked.
"Ginger, one of my Mistresses," she said, "forced me to drink a bitter beverage by that name."
"Why has your Master, Grunt, sent you to my blankets?" I asked. "Why has he himself not seen fit to open your slave's body to the pleasures of men?"
"I do not know, Master," she said.
I crouched down beside the naked body of the former Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, who had been a debutante, now that of a mere slave, supine on my blankets.
"What are the duties of a slave?" I asked.
"They are complex, and manifold, Master," she said.
"Speak generally," I said.
"We are to be absolutely docile," she said, "totally obedient and fully pleasing."
<
br /> "Are there any qualifications to that?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said, "there are no qualifications. We are slaves."
"And are you prepared to fulfill the duties of a slave?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "and I must, Master, for I am a slave."
"The answers are correct, and suitable, Slave," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"I am to take your virginity," I said. "You understand that?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Would you prefer that your virginity would have been taken from you while you were a free woman?" I asked.
"No," she said, "rather as a will-less slave, as I am now, subject to the decision and imperious will of a strong master."
I held my hand, opened, a bit above her left breast. She arched her back, pressing that marvelous, lush contour of her enslaved softness against my hand. I did not move my hand. She lay back, tears in her eyes. "You well know how to humiliate a slave, Master," she said. I smiled. The test had been an interesting one.
"Do you think, in time, you will prove to be a hot slave?" I asked.
"Hot?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "responsive, sexually vital, owned, helplessly and uncontrollably passionate."
"I do not know, Master," she said. "What if I do not?"
"Then you will presumably be slain," I said.
She shuddered with terror.
"But do not fear," I said. "Most masters are patient. You will, most likely, have a month or more in which to develop the appropriate secretions and spasms."
She looked at me, with misery.
"I do not think it is anything to worry about, really," I said. "Most girls, under the circumstances, find very little difficulty in becoming passionate female slaves. Too, the entire Gorean milieu contributes to the development of passion in the female slave. She is dressed in a certain way, for example; she is commonly collared; she is subject to discipline; her performances are commanded, and subject to scrutiny and improvement, and so on. The main thing is to attempt to be fully pleasing to the master, in every way. Too, you will commonly have a gauge of your progress; if your master is not pleased you will be beaten or whipped."
"I see," whispered the girl.
"I have seen girls such as you before," I said. "They commonly develop into the hottest of slaves."
She trembled, frightened.
"Remember," I said, "it will be to your advantage to be a hot slave, and, indeed, the hottest slave you can be. This will make you more pleasing to your master, and to those to whom he, at his caprice, consigns you."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"The true wonder in these matters," I said, "and what seems most delightful to me, is the way, gradually, the girl's heat begins to develop from within, until she is transformed, in effect, into a needful slave. She is then, of course, not only legally and physically at the mercy of men, but needfully, as well."
"How much a slave she would be then!" exclaimed the girl.
"No one claims that the Gorean slave girl has an easy lot," I said.
"How piteous to be such a girl!" she said. "Surely men would have mercy on her!"
"Perhaps," I said, "if she is sufficiently beautiful, and sufficiently pleasing."
"Do you think I will develop such passion?" she asked, frightened.
"Yes," I said.
"Do you think, then," she asked, "that men might be moved to show me mercy?"
"You already begin to sense what you might become, don't you?" I asked.
"Yes," she whimpered.
"It is a good sign," I said.
"Do you think that if I became such a girl, Master, men might show me mercy?" she asked.
"Perhaps," I said, "—if you were sufficiently beautiful, and sufficiently pleasing."
"I would try to be both," she said.
"You are a slave, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I think it likely that you would be shown mercy, at least upon occasion," I said. "But you, yourself, in a few weeks, will better know the answer to your question."
"In a few weeks?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "when you find yourself on your knees at the feet of a man, or on your belly, crawling to him, to lick his feet, to beg his least touch."
I then, gently, began to caress her. In a few moments, interestingly, she began to moan.
"I am a slave," she whimpered, looking up at the stars, the Gorean moons.
"You may now request your fulfillment," I informed her.
"I request my fulfillment, Master," she said.
"I will be gentle with you this time," I said, "but sometimes, you must understand, you will be used quite differently, for example, with contempt or scorn, or brutality, or cruel indifference, or, perhaps, with ruthless power."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Similarly," I said, "you will learn to serve in whatever position your master dictates and in whatever garb, or lack of garb, he pleases."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And sometimes, too," I said, "you may have to serve in bonds, even cruel bonds, such things as thongs, and cords and chains."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And sometimes, too," I said, "will-lessly, even though your back and legs may still sting from his lash."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You will learn to serve him whenever, wherever and however he wishes," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And perfectly," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"For he is the master, and you are the slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"For you are nothing, and he is all," I said.
"I understand, Master," she whispered.
"Are you now prepared to be opened?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I looked down into her eyes.
"Open me, Master," she said. "Please, open me, Master! I beg it—I beg it as a slave. Please, Master, open me—please open me, please open me, Master—please open me, Master—for the pleasures of men!"
"Very well," I said, and then, as she cried out softly, I opened her, a nameless slave, who had once been Miss Millicent Aubrey-Welles, from Pennsylvania, a debutante, for the pleasures of men.
* * * *
"Please, do not put me back so soon with the others, Master," she begged.
"It is nearly morning," I said.
"Please, Master," she said. She clutched me beneath the blankets, pressing her warm, vulnerable softness against me. "Please," she begged. The blood on the interior of her left thigh had now dried. When it was fresh I had taken some on my finger and forced it into her mouth, and onto her tongue, forcing her to taste it. "Yes, Master," she had whimpered. I had also traced the common Kajira mark, the common slave-girl mark, that which was the same as her brand, on her thigh in the blood, and had then smeared its residue down and onto her left calf. In the morning I wanted to make sure that the other girls in the coffle were perfectly clear on how she had spent the night and what had been done to her.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she whispered, happily.
I put out my hand, to the side. The grass was cold with dew. It was still dark.
She kissed me, softly. "How incredible do I find my current reality," she marveled. "Suddenly, it seems, I find myself a slave, and naked in the blankets of a master, on a world far from my own."
I said nothing.
"And only, it seems, a common slave," she said.
"Your reality is precisely what it seems," I assured her. "You are a slave, and only a common one."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Your brand should tell you that," I said.
"I am not familiar with Gorean brands," she said.
"Yours is a common slave brand," I said. "It marks most property girls. You share it with thousands."
"I was of high station on my own world
," she said, petulantly.
"Here, on Gor," I told her, "your station, your status, your class, your prestige, are gone, taken with your name and freedom. Here you are only another slave, another domestic animal."
"I behaved as one, didn't I?" she asked, rolling onto her back, looking up at the dark sky.
"It was fitting and proper," I told her.
"How shamed I am," she said.
"Of your responsiveness?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
I smiled. The third and fourth time I had used her she had yielded almost as a slave.
"I cannot help it," she said, "that I am responsive in the arms of a master."
"You are not supposed to help it," I said.
"I suppose if I had not been responsive," she said, "you would have beaten me."
"Yes," I said.
"Truly?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I betrayed myself," she said.
"Let us think clearly about this matter," I suggested. "Your assertion might be construed as meaning that you had committed some treason against yourself, or, perhaps, as meaning merely that you had revealed, or manifested, yourself. Let us consider, first, the matter of treason. A free woman might, possibly, feel that she had betrayed herself, in this sense, if she had so yielded to a man as to supply him with some perhaps subtle hint as to the latency of her slave reflexes. A slave girl, on the other hand, cannot commit treason against herself in this sense, for she is a slave. To commit this type of treason one must have a right, say, to deceive others as to one's sensuality, to conceal one's sexuality, and so on. The slave girl, an owned animal, under the command of her master, does not have this sort of right. Indeed, she has no rights. Accordingly, she cannot commit this sort of treason. Her legal status precludes its possibility. She may, of course, rationally, fear the consequences of her responsiveness being discovered, thus increasing, perhaps to her terror, in a slave culture, her desirability. Similarly she may lie, or attempt to lie, about her responsiveness, but she is then, of course, merely a lying slave and, when found out, will be treated accordingly."
"Such treason, then," she said, "can be committed only by a free woman."
"Yes," I said. "It is a luxury not permitted to the slave."
