Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  he had used the word in two hands. I was excited that she had said “fetch.” She

  was the sort of girl who might carry or fetch for a Master or a Mistress.

  “Mistress,” said the girl. “You are a woman. Drink more delicately.”

  I drank from the bowl.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said. “That is more feminine.” I then realized, even more

  profoundly than before, bow deeply sexuality must characterize and penetrate

  this culture. The differences between men and women were to be expressed even in

  their smallest behaviors. What a significant and real thing it is in this

  culture to be a man or a woman.

  “This is warmed chocolate,” I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

  “It is very good,” I said.

  “Thank you, Mistress,” she said.

  “Is it from Earth?” I asked.

  “Not directly,” she said. “Many things here, of course, ultimately have an Earth

  origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on

  this world were grown were brought from Earth.”

  “Do the trees grow near here?” I asked.

  “No, Mistress,” she said. “We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is

  made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics.”

  I put the chocolate down. I began to bite at the yellow bread. It was fresh.

  “Perhaps Mistress should take smaller bites,” she said.

  “Very well,” I said. I then began to eat as she had suggested. I was a woman. I

  was not an adolescent boy. Again, even in so small a thing as this, I began to

  feel my femininity keenly. Too, again, I became very sensitive of the depth and

  pervasiveness of the sexuality which might characterize this world. Men and

  women did not even eat in the same way.

  “Exceptions can occur under certain circumstances, of course,” said the girl.

  “Mistress might, for example, in the presence of a man she wishes to arouse,

  take a larger than normal bite from a fresh fruit, and look at the man over the

  fruit, letting juice, a tiny trickle of it, run at the side of her mouth.”

  “But why would I wish to arouse a man?” I asked.

  The girl looked at me, puzzled. “Perhaps the needs of Mistress might be much

  upon her,” she said. “Perhaps she might wish to be taken and overwhelmed in his

  arms, and forced to surrender to him.”

  “I do not understand,” I said, as though horrified.

  “That is because Mistress is free,” she said.

  I had understood only too well, of course. But I was terrified to even think

  such thoughts.

  “Slaves, I suppose, occasionally have recourse to such devices,” I said. I was

  eager to learn.

  “A device such as that with the fresh fruit,” she said, “is more appropriate to

  a free woman. We do have at our disposal, as slaves, however, a number and

  variety of begging signals, such things as groveling and moaning, and bringing

  bonds to him in our teeth, wherewith we may endeavor to call our needs to his

  attention.”

  “Begging signals?” I said.

  “We are at the complete mercy of our masters,” she said.

  “Are the masters then kind to you?” I asked.

  “Sometimes they consent to content us,” she said.

  “How horrifying to be a slave,” I said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said, putting her head down, smiling. I saw that, again,

  she was answering me in the fashion in which, doubtless, I wished to be

  answered, doubtless with deference to my dignity, status or freedom. Sorely then

  I envied her her collar. My feelings now began to alarm me. I decided that it

  would be safest to change the subject.

  “Where are the spaceships?” I asked.

  “Spaceships?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I do not know,” she said. “I have never even seen one.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Has Mistress?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. I gathered that Susan, like myself, had been brought to this world

  unconscious. We knew nothing, or almost nothing, of how we had come here.

  “The people of this world have very little evidence,” she said, “that such

  things even exist. The only evidence they have, for the most part, is that of

  certain objects brought from Earth.”

  “Objects?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Usually girls, in chains.”

  “You refer to them as ‘objects’?” I asked, horrified.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said. “They are slaves.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “This world is, as Mistress will discover,” said the girl, “on the whole a very

  primitive and barbaric place. Do not expect to see complex machines and

  spaceships.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  understand something of the discipline under which slaves might be held. I

  wondered what it would be like to be under such discipline. I shuddered.

  “Does Mistress enjoy her breakfast?” asked the girl.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good,” she said.

  “Susan,” I said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said.

  “This seems to be a very sexual world,” I said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said.

  “Are women safe here?” I asked.

  “No, Mistress,” she said. “Not really.”

  “You said earlier,” I said, “that I was very beautiful.” She had seen me naked.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

  “Do you think that men here, on this world, might find me of interest?”

  “Do you mean really of interest,” she asked- “as a female slave?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Will Mistress open her robe?” she asked.

  I did so.

  “Will Mistress please stand and remove her robe, and let it dangle from one

  hand, and turn, slowly, before me?”

  I did so. I waited, inspected.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

  I nearly fainted in fear, terrified, but not a little thrilled by this insight.

  “Mistress would look well being sold from a block,” she said.

  Hastily, frightened, I pulled the robe on again, and belted it tightly.

  “But I think Mistress has little to fear,” she said.

  I regarded her. In the girl’s view, in some respects at least, as I had just

  learned, I was not unsuitable for slavery.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You are well guarded,” she said. “Your quarters, even, are in the palace of

  Corcyrus.”

  “This is the palace? There are guards about?” I asked.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said.

  “I am frightened by your master,” I said.

  “l, too, am frightened by him,” she said.

  “No do
ubt our fears are quite silly,” I said.

  “No, Mistress,” she said.

  “No?” I asked.

  “No, Mistress,” she said. “Our fears are fully justified. They are quite

  appropriate.”

  “Do you think he wants me?” I asked. I was terrified of Ligurious.

  “I do not think so,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked, puzzled.

  “If he wanted you,” she said, “by now you would have been branded. By now you

  would be in his collar. By now you would have been chained naked at the foot of

  his couch.

  By now you would have felt his whip. By now you would have learned to beg to

  serve him.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “It is not that he does not recognize your beauty,” she said.

  “That any man could see at a glance.”

  “Oh,” I said, somewhat mollified. I would have been outraged, or something in me

  would have been outraged, if I had not been thought worth a chain. I was sure I

  could prove to a man that I was worthy of a chain.

  “His interest in you, merely, does not appear to be in that way,” she said.

  “Too, of course, he has many beautiful women, and is a busy man.”

  “Many beautiful women?” I asked.

  “Slaves,” she said.

  “More than you?” I asked.

  “I am only one of his girls,” she laughed, “and I am surely one of the least

  beautiful.”

  “How many slaves does he have?” I asked.

  “He is an ambitious and abstemious man,” she said. “He worked long hours in the

  service of the state. He has little time for the meaningless charms of slaves.”

  “How many slaves does lie have?” I asked.

  “Fifty,” she said.

  I gasped.

  “Perhaps Mistress would like to finish her breakfast,” said the girl.

  I knelt down before the small table, as I had been taught. I was trembling.

  Here, as I had just learned, one man might own as many as fifty women.

  “Mistress is not eating,” said the girl.

  “I am not hungry,” I said.

  “Am I to report to my master, Ligurious,” asked the girl, “that Mistress did not

  finish her breakfast?”

  “No,” I said. “No!”

  “Every bit of it, please, Mistress,” said the girl.

  I nodded. I ate. I felt like a slave.

  Then I had finished.

  “Excellent, Mistress,” said the girl. “I shall now dress Mistress. I will teach

  her the proper garments, and their adjustments, and the veils, and their

  fastenings. Then it will be time for her lessons.”

  “Lessons?” I asked, frightened.

  “Yes, Mistress,” she said.

  “What, sort of lessons?” I asked, apprehensively.

  “Lessons in language,” she said. “Lessons in our habits and customs. Lessons in

  the details of the governance of Corcyrus.”

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Tiffany Collins” I said.

  “No, Mistress,” she said.

  I looked at her, puzzled.

  “Put that identity behind you,” she said. “Regard it as being gone, as much as

  if you were a slave. Prepare to begin anew.

  “But, how?” I asked. “What am I to do? Who am I to be?”

  “That much I know,” smiled the girl. “I know your new identity. My master has

  told me.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “From this moment on,” said the girl, “accustom yourself to thinking of yourself

  as Sheila, Tatrix, of Corcyrus.”

  “Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus?” I said.

  “Yes,” said the girl.

  “What is a Tatrix?” I asked.

  “A female ruler,” she said.

  I looked at her, disbelievingly.

  “It is a great honor for me,” said the girl, “to serve the Tatrix of Corcyrus.”

  I trembled, kneeling behind the small table. The brief robe of yellow silk did

  not seem much to wear. I was afraid of the world on which I found myself.

  “Who are you?” asked the girl.

  “Sheila?” I said. “Tatrix of Corcyrus?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please say it, Mistress. Who are you?”

  “I am Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus,” I whispered.

  “That is correct, Mistress,” said the girl.

  “I do not understand,” I said. “I do not understand anything! I do not even know

  the name of the world on which I find myself.”

  “It is called Gor,” she said.

  4 A Night in Corcyrus

  I awakened, sometime late at night. I had been dreaming in Gorean, the language

  spoken in Corcyrus, and, I had learned, in much of this world.

  Jt

  Several weeks had passed since I had been brought here. In this time I had been

  immersed, for hours, for Ahn, a day in studies and trainings pertinent to my new

  environment. I was still muchly imperfect in many things, but there was little

  doubt in my mind, nor I think in that of my numerous teachers, that I had made

  considerable progress.

  I lay nude, late at night, on the great couch. The night was warm.

  Supposedly I was Sheila, the Tatrix of this city, Corcyrus.

  I could still feel the effects of the wine I had had for supper. I do not think

  that it was an ordinary wine. I think that it was an unusual wine in some

  respects, or, perhaps, that it had been drugged.

  I had had a strange dream, mixed in with other dreams. It was difficult to sort

  these things out.

  In the past few days, gradually, I had been entered into the public life of

  Corcyrus, primarily in small things such as granting audiences, usually with

  foreigners, and making brief public appearances. Always, in these things,

  Ligurious, happily, unobtrusively, was at my side. Often, had it not been for

  his suggestions, I would not have known what to do or say. I Had even, the day

  before yesterday, held court, though, to be sure, the cases were minor.

  “Let the churl be stripped,” I had said, imperiously, “and a sign be put about

  his neck, proclaiming him a fraud. Then let him be marched naked, before the

  spears of guards, through the great gate of Corcyrus, not to be permitted to

  return before the second passage hand!”

  This was the one case which I remembered the most clearly.

  The culprit was a small, vile man with a twisted body. He was an itinerant

  peddler, Speusippus of Turia. I had found him inutterably detestable. A Corcyran

  merchant had brought charges against him. He had received a bowl from Speusippus

  which was purportedly silver, a bowl seemingly stamped with the appropriate seat

  of Ar. The bowl upon inspection, the merchant becoming suspicious as to the

  weights involved, had turned out to be merely plated. Further, since the

  smithies of Ar, those authorized to use the various stamps of Ar, will not plate

&
nbsp; objects without using relevant variations on the seal of Ar to, indicate this,

  the object was not only- being misrepresented but was, in effect, a forged

  artifact. This had led to a seizure and search of the stores and records of

  Speusippus.

  Various other discrepancies were found. He had two sets of weights, one true and

  one false. Too, documents were found recording the purchase of quantities of

  slave hair, at suitable prices, some even within the city of Corcyrus itself.

  This hair, as was attested to by witnesses, had been represented to the public

  as that of free women, with appropriate prices being expected. Hair,

  incidentally, is a common trade item in Gorean markets. It is used for various

  purposes, for example, for insect whisks, for dusters, for cleaning and

  polishing pads, for cushionings, decorations and ropes, particularly catapult

  ropes, for which it is highly prized. It is not unusual, incidentally, for slave

  girls, particularly for those who may not have proved superbly pleasing, as yet,

  to discover that their hair, even while it is still on them, is expected, like

  themselves, to serve various lowly, domestic purposes. For example, when a girl,

  serving at a banquet, hears the command, “Hair,” she knows she is to go to the

  guest and kneel, and lower her head, that her hair may be used as a napkin or

  wiping cloth, by means of which the free person, either male or female, may

  remove stains, crumbs or grease from his hands. Similarly a girl’s hair, if

  sufficiently long, may be used for the washing and cleaning of floors. In this

  she is usually on her hands and knees, and naked and chained. The hair is used

  in conjunction with the soap and water, in the appropriate buckets, being dipped

  in, and wrung out, and rinsed, and so on.

  Hair incidentally, is not used for the application of such things as waxes or

  varnishes, because of the difficulty of removing such substances from the hair.

  Such a mistake could necessitate a shearing and a lowering of the market value

  of a girl for months. For similar reasons, a girl’s hair, even within a cloth,

  if it is still on her, is seldom used for such purposes as buffing and

  polishing. Hair is common, of course, as a stuffing for pads used for such

  purposes, for example, for tile purposes of cleaning, buffing and polishing.

  I was pleased to see the odious Speusippus turned about by guards and dragged