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

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  small and weak.

  “What is wrong?” I asked, angrily.

  “It is nothing,” he said.

  “Whatl” I demanded.

  “It is only that I had expected, from what I have heard, that Lady Sheila would

  be somewhat different than I find her.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  He continued to look at me.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “I had expected Lady Sheila to seem more of a Tatrix,” he said, “whereas you

  seem to me to be something quite different.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Forgive me, Lady,” be smiled. “If I answered you truthfully I would fear that I

  might be impaled.”

  “Speak,” I said.

  He smiled.

  “You may speak with impunity,” I said. “What is it that I seem to be to you?”

  “A female slave,” be said.

  “Oh!” I cried, in fury.

  “Does Lady Sheila often go unveiled?” be asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “A Tatrix has no secrets from her people. It is good for her

  people to be able to look upon their Tatrix?”

  “As Lady Sheila wishes,” he said, bowing. “May I now withdraw?”

  “Yes!” I said. He had seen me without my veil. I felt almost naked before him,

  almost as though I might truly be a slave.

  “I shall be at your call,” he said. He then withdrew.

  I twisted on the couch and turned again to my back. I looked up at the ceiling.

  The effects of the wine I had had for supper were still with me. I think it may

  have been drugged.

  It was not easy to sort things out. I had had a strange dream, mixed in with

  other dreams.

  “I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus,” I had said to Ligurious, in the palanquin. “Of

  course,” he had said.

  How can I be the Tatrix of Corcynis, I asked myself. Does this make any sense?

  Is it not all madness? I could understand how women could be brought to this

  world to be put in collars and made slaves, like -Susan, for example, and

  doubtless others. That was comprehensible. But why would one be brought here to

  rule a city? Surely such positions of privilege and power these Goreans would

  reserve for themselves. The more typical position for an Earth girl, I suspected

  to find herself at the feet of a master. I wondered if I were truly the Tatrix

  of Corcyrus. Surely I had seldom exercised significant authority. Too, at times,

  my schedule seemed a bit erratic or strange. At certain Alin I was expected to

  be in the public rooms of the palace and, at others, even at the ringing of

  palace time bars, for no reason I clearly understood, I was expected to be in my

  quarters.

  “Certain traditions customarily govern the calendar of the Tatrix,” Ligurious

  had informed me. At certain times I bad been conducted to my quarters I bad

  thought that sessions of important councils had been scheduled, councils at

  whose sessions it would be natural to expect the presence of the Tatrix. The

  matters to be discussed in certain of these meetings, however, I had learned

  from Ligurious, were actually too trivial to warrant the attention of the

  Tatrix. Thus it was not necessary that I attend. In certain other cases, I was

  informed, the meetings had been postponed or canceled. Protocols and customs are

  apparently extremely significant to Goreans. What seemed to me inexplicable

  oddities or apparent caprices in my schedule were usually explained by reference

  to such things. It is fitting that the proprieties of torcyrus be respected by

  her Tatrix, even when they might appear arbitrary, had said Ligurious.

  I looked up at the ceiling, in the hot Corcyran night.

  Was I the Tatrix of Corcyrus?

  Susan, I was sure, believed me to be the Tatrix. of Corcyrus. So, too, I was

  confident, did my bodyguard, Drusus Rencius, once of Ar.

  Too, I had not been challenged in the matter in my audiences, my public

  appearances, or even in court. By all, it seemed, I was accepted as the Tatrix

  of Corcyrus. Ligurious, first minister of the city, even, had assured me of the

  reality of this dignity. And had I wished further confirmation of my condition

  and status surely I had received it earlier today, from the very citizens of

  Corcyrus itself. “Hail Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrusl” they had cried.

  “I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus,” I had told Ligurious. “Of course.” he had said.

  Inexplicable and strange though it might seem, I decided that I was, truly, the

  Tatrix of Corcyrus.

  I closed my eyes and then opened them. I shook my head, briefly. The effects of

  the wine I had had for supper were stin with me. I think that it might have been

  drugged. What purpose could have been served by such an action, however, I had

  no idea.

  I bad had a strange dream, mixed in with other dreams.

  I whimpered on the great couch, lying in the heat of the Corcyran night.

  I was Tatrix.

  How extraordinary and marvelous this was! Too, I was not insensitive to the

  emoluments and perquisites of this office, to the esteem and prestige that might

  attend it, to the glory that might be expected to be its consequence, to the

  wealth and power which, doubtless, sometime, would prove to be its inevitable

  attachments.

  In office, clearly, I acknowledged to myself, I was a Tatrix.

  I wondered, however, if there was a Tatrix within me, or something else.

  I forced from my mind, angrily, the memory of the girls in brief tunics, chained

  by the neck, kneeling down, heads down, in the street. I forced from my mind,

  angrily, the memory of the women in the market, naked, chained in place,

  awaiting the interest of buyers.

  I twisted on the great couch, in misery.

  Nowhere more than on this world had I felt my femininity, and nowhere else,

  naturally enough, I suppose, had I felt it more keenly frustrated. I wondered

  what it was, truly, to be a woman.

  I had had a strange dream. I had awakened into it, or had seemed to awaken into

  it, from another. In the preceding learn I had been on my hands and knees on the

  tiles of a strange room. I was absolutely naked. There was a chain on my neck

  and it ran to a ring in the floor. Drusus Rencius, standing, was towering over

  me. He carried a whip. He was smiling. I looked up at him, in terror. He shook

  out the long, broad, pliant blades of the Whip. It was a five-stranded Gorean

  slave whip. I looked at the blades, in terror. “What are you going to do?” I

  asked. “Teach you to be a woman,” he said. I had then seemed to awaken into

  another dream. In this one was Ligurious. I felt portions of the coverlet being

  wrapped about me, between my shoulders and thighs. My arms were pinned to my

  sides, within the coverlet. I whimpered. It seemed that I was only partially

  conscious. Then I became aware of someone else in the room, bearing a small,

  flickering lamp. Ligurious held the coverlet with his right hand, holding it

  together, holding me in place, helplessly within it. With his left hand, it

  fastened in my hair, he pulled my head back painful
ly. This exposed my features

  to the lamp. I sobbed, responding to this domination.

  “Do you see?” he asked. “Is it not remarkable?”

  “Yes,” said a woman’s voice. I gasped. It was as though I looked upon myself.

  She, as I had, earlier in the day, wore the robes of the Tatrix. She, too, as I

  had, wore no veil. In the madness of the dream, in its oddity, it was surely I,

  or one much like myself, who looked upon me. How strange are dreamsl

  “I think she will do very nicely,” said Ligurious.

  “fbat, too, would be my conjecture,” said the woman.

  Ligurious moved his right hand, grasping the rim of the coverlet, tight about my

  breasts.

  “Do you wish to see her, fully?” he asked. I whimpered. I realized he could

  strip the coverlet away, baring me in the light of the lamp.

  “You are not so clever as you think, Ligurious,” she said.

  “Do you think I do not see that you, in stripping her, would be, in effect, and

  to your lust and amusement, stripping me, and before my very eyes?”

  “Forgive me,” smiled Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus.

  “Pull the lower portion of the coverlet down further,” she said. “You have

  revealed too much of her thighs.”

  “Of course,” he smiled, and adjusted the coverlet, drawing it down, over my

  knees.

  “Men ate beasts,” she said.

  “You well know my feelings for you,” he said.

  “They will go unrequited,” she said. “Content yourself with your slaves.”

  I feared the woman bending over me. I could sense now that even if she seemed

  superficially much like me, at least in appearances, she was in actuality quite

  different. She seemed highly intelligent, doubtless more so than I, and severe

  and decisive. She seemed harsh, and hard and cold. She seemed merciless and

  cruel; she seemed arrogant, impatient, demanding, haughty and imperious. Such a

  woman I thought, as I am not, is perhaps a true Tatrix. Surely it seemed more

  believable that such a woman might hold power in a city such as Corcyrus than I.

  The lamp again approached more closely. Again my head was pulled back,

  helplessly, firmly, forcibly.

  “She is not as beautiful as I,” said the woman.

  “No,” said Ligurious. “Of course not.”

  Then my hair was released and the two figures took their way from the room.

  I had then twisted on the couch, freed myself of the confinements of the

  coverlet, and, sensible of the effects of the wine, or perhaps a containment of

  the wine, had fallen into a dreamless sleep.

  I heard movements outside the door. The guard was being changed.

  I could not lock the door from the inside. Yet I lay nude, on my back, on the

  great couch. I wondered if this was brazen. I rolled to my side and pulled my

  legs up. I bit at the silken coverlet. I wondered if there was a Tatrix within

  me. I did not think so. There was something else in me, I feared, something that

  I had only become clearly aware of on this barbaric world, this world in which I

  must be true to my femininity, and in which there were true men.

  I then understood, I thought, the strange dream I had had.

  It was not contrasting now, I thought, perhaps two selves, or, more likely, two

  women, muchly resembling one another, but rather it had been calling to my

  attention, in its figurative imagery, in the symbolic transformations common to

  dreams, a discrepancy between what I in actuality was and what it was expected,

  doubtless, that a Tatrix should be. The contrast, I realized, had been clear, I

  helpless, sobbing under the domination of Ligurious, little better than a slave,

  and she above me, far superior me, haughty, decisive, imperious, cold and

  powerful. I sobbed. I knew then from the dream, or from what had seemed a dream,

  that there was no Tatrix in me. I was not a Tatrix, not in my heart. I was, at

  best, something different. Angrily I arose from the couch. I went to the window.

  I put my hands on the bars. Many times, secretly, I had tried them. They were

  heavy, narrowly set, reinforced, inflexible. I laid my cheek gently against

  them. They felt cool. I then drew back and, my hands on the bars, looked out,

  across the rooftops of Corcyrus, to the walls of the city, and to the fields

  beyond. The city was muchly dark. Some of the major avenues, however, such as

  that Iphicrates, were illuminated, dimly, by lamps. In many Gorean citim when

  men go out at night, they carry their own light, torches or lamps. I then looked

  upward, into the humid night. I could see two of the three moons of this world.

  I then, suddenly, angrily, shook the bars. They were for my own protection, I

  had been informed. But I could not open them, or remove them, say, with knotted

  clothing or bedding, to lower myself to the levels below. They might indeed

  serve to keep others out, perhaps climbing upward, or descending on ropes from

  the roof above, but they surely served as well, and as perfectly, to keep me

  within! What is this room, I asked myself, is it truly my protected quarters, or

  is it, rather, my cell? I walked back to the center of the room, near the great

  couch. I looked at the bars. Then I went to the long mirror behind the vanity. I

  looked at myself, in the mirror, in the dim moonlight, filtered into the room.

  She is rather pretty, I thought. She may be pretty enough, even, to be a slave.

  Susan, I recalled, had thought it possible that a man, some men at least, might

  find her of interest, really of interest, of sufficient interest to be worth

  putting in bondage. I wondered if she could please a man. Perhaps if she tried

  very i hard to be pleasing some man, in his kindness, might find her acceptable.

  I turned before the mirror, studying the girl that I was thusly displaying. Yes,

  I thought, it is not impossible that I she might be considered worthy of a

  collar. “Mistress would look well being sold from a block,” Susan bad said. “Are

  you free, Tiffany?” I asked the image in the mirror. “Yes,” I told myself. “I am

  free.” I turned my left thigh to the mirror, I my chin. I studied the girl in

  the mirror. I wondered what she would like, with a brand, with a collar. “You

  see, Tiffany,” I said. “You are not branded. You are not collared.”

  I looked at the girl in the mirror. I wondered who I was, what I was.

  “I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus!” I said.

  But the girl in the mirror did not appear to be a Tatrix. She appeared, clearly,

  to be something else.

  I forced from my mind the memory of the slaves I had seen earlier, the girls in

  the street, in their one-piece, skimpy garments, heads down, kneeling, chained

  together by the neck, the girls in the market, in their chains, stark naked,

  kneeling, too, their heads down to the warm cement, being publicly displayed for

  sale.

  “What are you?” I asked. “Do you not dare speak? Then show me. Show me!”

  Slowly, numbly, frightened, I turned about and went to the foot of the great

  couch. I knelt there, and, putting my head down, tenderly lifted up, in two

>   hands, a length of the chain that lay coiled there. I kissed it. “No!” I cried

  out to myself, replacing the chain. But then I rose up and, timidly, softly,

  went to the wall where the whip hung. I removed the whip from its hook and knelt

  down with it. I wrapped its blades back about the handle. Then, humbly, my head

  down, submissively, near the point where the five long, soft blades join the

  staff, holding it in both hands, I kissed it. “No!” I wept, in protest. Then I

  replaced the whip on its hook. I went then again to the mirror. The vanity was

  low enough, meant to be used by a kneeling woman, and I was back far enough,

  that I could see myself on the tiles, completely. I saw the girl in the mirror

  kneel down. “No,” I said. I saw her kneel back on her heels. I saw her

  straighten her back, and lift her chin, and put her hands on her thighs. “No!” I

  said. I saw her spread her knees. “No,” I said. “No! No!” I had seen girls in

  the palace do that, for example, when a free man had entered a room. Sometimes,

  too, in identically this same position, they would keep their heads submissively

  lowered, until given permission to raise them. This variation, and similar

  variations, depend on the specific discipline to which a given girl is

  subjected. The head is usually kept raised; this precludes the necessity of a

  specific command to lift the head; in the headlifted position she has no choice

  but to bare her facial beauty to the viewer; too, her least expression may be

  read; too, of course, she can see who is in the room with her and is thus better

  able, even from the first instant, to discern his moods, anticipate his needs,

  and resp I leaped to my feet, furious with the girl in the mirror. She, lied!

  She lied! I fled to the wardrobe. I flung back the sliding doors. I am Tatrix! I

  tore my yellow robe, that of brief silk, from its carved hanger. I put it on me,

  swiftly, angrily, belting it, tightly. I ran to the door leading from my

  quarters. I reached to the handle and jerked it wildly towards me. I had opened

  this door a hundred times. I cried out in surprise, in misery. This time it did

  not yield. I jerked twice again, both of my hands on the handle. The door,

  somehow, was fastened on the other side. It seemed, or something on it seemed,