Vagabonds of Gor

by Norman, John;

"You are not unattractive," I said.

  "I am pleased that I might be found pleasing," she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "'Why'?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I suppose," said she, "that you might then be more inclined to permit me to accompany you."

  "Is there any other reason?" I asked.

  "Of course not!" she said, stammering.

  I smiled. What a mendacious, vain thing she was. She, like all females, hoped to be found pleasing by men. She wished, like all females, to be attractive, and desirable.

  "Why are your palms facing up?" I asked.

  "I do not know!" she said, startled. She quickly turned them down, on her thighs. "I did not notice, or hardly noticed," she said. "I am sorry. I did not mean to break position. Please forgive me. I do not wish to be beaten!"

  "That is not normally regarded as a breaking of position," I said.

  She leaned back, in relief.

  "I shall call you 'Ina'," I said.

  "Not 'Lady Ina'?" she said.

  "No," I said.

  "And what shall I call you?" she asked, frightened.

  "'Captor', or such," I said, "that sort of thing."

  "Ah," she breathed, relievedly.

  "You understand?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  I looked at her.

  "—captor," she added.

  "Get up," I said, "and walk in that direction."

  She walked before me, across the small island, and then, first hesitating, then urged forward with a curt word of command, waded into the marsh. In a few moments we had come to the small bar, that tiny island, much smaller than the one on which she had been bound, on which I had drawn up the raft.

  "A raft!" she said, pleased. I do not think she could have been more pleased if she had discovered her barge, intact. So simple a device as a raft might increase one's chances of survival in the delta a hundredfold. "Look," she said, "it is one of the poles from my barge! You can see the gilding there, where it is not burned away."

  The raft was heavy. I did not think she could easily draw it, as I had, yoked and harnessed. I did not even think she could well use the pole, as it was a large, heavy one.

  "We have a raft!" she said.

  "I have a raft," I said.

  "And there are supplies!" she said.

  "Mine," I said.

  "But perhaps you will give little Ina some," she wheedled, turning about, smiling.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

  "I am wondering of what possible value you could be," I said.

  "'Value'?" she asked.

  "I do not think you will be of much help with the raft," I said.

  "Of course not," she said. "I am a woman."

  "Precisely," I said.

  "But some men think women have value," she said.

  "The value of slaves is clear," I said.

  "Think of me, then," she said, "as a slave."

  "That is less difficult than you may imagine," I said.

  She stiffened, angrily, standing in the water. Then, after a moment, she relaxed, and smiled. "I can demonstrate my value," she said, approaching me. She then stood quite close to me, and looked up at me. "You now sense that I have value, do you not?" she asked.

  "We are going to camp here, on this bar," I said, "for a few Ahn."

  She laughed, softly. I think she thought this decision had something to do with her.

  "Then we will leave," I said.

  "After dark?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Security," I said. This was even more important now that there were two of us.

  "How will you see?" she asked.

  "By the moons, by the stars," I said.

  "We will be here for some Ahn?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I think that will give me time to earn my passage," she smiled.

  "You will follow, tied, on a strap," I said.

  "My captor jests," she laughed.

  "Go to the island," I said.

  "I will do as you wish," she said.

  I looked at her.

  "I will do whatever you wish," she said, putting her finger on my shoulder, looking up at me.

  Then she turned about and ascended the bar, that tiny island in the marsh.

  In a few moments, after concealing the raft and supplies, I, too, ascended the bar. She was waiting for me, standing in a patch of soft, warm, sunlit sand.

  "The captive awaits her captor," she said, lifting her arms to me.

  "Is this how a captive awaits her captor?" I asked. "Shall I go, and then return?"

  Quickly she knelt in the sand, as I had taught her, or nearly so.

  "Your knees," I said, "they are to be more widely spread."

  She complied, her knees moving the sand to the sides, making small furrows.

  "You may now say," said I, "what you said before."

  "The captive awaits her captor," she said.

  "You may now bow your head, submissively," I said.

  She did so, frightened.

  I then regarded her. She was lovely in this position of submission.

  Slaves sometimes, when prepared for love, when ordered to the furs, perhaps from an instruction issued in the morning, or such, greet their masters rather in this fashion, kneeling, with some such formula. I think it likely she knew this, for her substitution of the word 'captive' for 'slave' and 'captor' for 'master' suggested it. Many free women know more of the behaviors of slaves, and details of the relationships between them and their masters, than many free men give them credit for knowing. Indeed, many free women, while expressing disinterest in such matters, or disgust at their very thought, tend to be fascinated by them, and inquire eagerly into them. Perhaps there is a practical motivation for such interests. Perhaps they wish to know such things in case they should one day find themselves being pulled from a branding rack, their own flesh marked. To be sure, no free woman knows really what it is to be a slave, for that is known truly only to the slave herself. Similarly, there is much in the relationship between a slave and her master that cannot be known to a free woman, much that she cannot even suspect. She is likely to learn these things, so precious, intimate and secret, so profound, wonderful and rewarding, so fulfilling, to her astonishment and revelation, only when the collar is on her own throat. She will then understand why many slave girls would rather die than surrender their collars. In the collar they have found their joy and meaning. To be sure many slave girls are worked hard and live in fear of the whip. Many serve in the public kitchens and laundries. Many carry water in the quarries and on the great farms. Such, sooner or later, long for a private master.

  "You may raise your head," I said.

  She lifted her head.

  I saw that she would attempt boldness.

  "Is your little ritual finished?" she asked.

  "Put your head down again," I said.

  She did so, quickly, frightened.

  "Ritual," I said, "is important. It is fulfilling, and meaningful. It is beautiful. It is symbolic, mnemonic and instructive. It establishes protocols. It expresses, defines and clarifies conditions. It is essential to, and ingredient within, civilization. Similarly, do not overlook the significance and value of symbolism. Even chains on a slave are often largely symbolic. Where is she to run to, slave-clad, collared and marked? She would be promptly returned to her master."

  "Yet her chains are chains, and they are real, and they hold her helplessly, and perfectly," she said, head down.

  "True," I said.

  She shuddered.

  "What are various slave rituals?" I asked.

  "The kissing and licking of the master's feet," she said, "the bringing to him of his whip or sandals, in one's teeth, on all fours, kneeling, prostration before him, the performance of obeisances, such things."

  "And you understand the appropriateness, the rightfulness, of enforcing such things on slaves
?"

  "Of course," she said.

  "Perhaps you now understand the importance of rituals?" I said.

  "Yes," she said.

  "You may raise your head," I said.

  This time she raised her head timidly.

  "But I am not a slave," she said. "I am a free woman."

  "True," I said.

  "Had I been a slave, would I have been punished?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "What would you have done to me?" she asked.

  "I do not know," I said, "perhaps cuff you a bit, perhaps lash you with my belt."

  She shuddered. "It is no wonder that slaves are obedient," she said.

  "Yes," I said. "Slaves are obedient."

  "I, too," she said, "can be obedient."

  "Stand," I said.

  She did. She was in the sand, to her ankles.

  "Approach me," I said.

  She did so, until she was quite close to me. I could reach out and take her in my arms. "You see," she said, "I can be quite obedient." I did not move. She then lifted her arms and put them about my neck. "I am now ready to earn my passage," she said.

  "Your passage?" I asked. Surely she remembered what I had told her, that she would follow, tied, on a strap.

  "My keep," she smiled.

  "Doubtless it will be the first time that you, a free woman, ever earned your keep," I said.

  "In a sense, yes!" she laughed.

  "You are sure you can stand it?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, "I am sure!"

  She then lifted her head and rose up to her toes, to kiss me, but I drew back and removed her arms from about my neck. I then held her, by the arms, before me, facing me.

  She looked up at me, puzzled.

  "Turn about," I said, "and get on your belly in the sand."

  "I do not understand," she said.

  "Are you a disobedient captive?" I asked.

  "No!" she said, and swiftly turned about and lay in the sand, prone.

  I discarded my tunic and accouterments.

  "Oh!" she cried, seized, held helplessly. "I am a free woman!" she cried, protestingly.

  I cried out, exultantly.

  "You cannot do this to a free woman!" she informed me. "Oh!"

  Again I cried out. There were tears in my eyes. I tried not to make so much noise. I did not want rencers, or animals, to be attracted to the island.

  She squirmed, and struggled. She reared up, on her elbows, in the sand.

  Again I uttered the intensity of my relief, my pleasure, my satisfaction.

  How long it had been since I had had a woman!

  "I am a free woman," she sobbed. But she was held helplessly on her belly in the sand, as in a vise.

  "Aiii," I said, softly.

  "Let me go!" she screamed.

  "Do not make so much noise," I said.

  "I?" she said, in fury.

  "Hold still," I said.

  "I have little choice," she said, angrily.

  "Do not forget you are a captive," I said.

  "No," she said.

  "No, what?" I asked.

  "No, captor!" she said, in fury.

  I supposed she had little pleasure in this, at least at the time, and perhaps I should have been a bit more concerned for her than I was, as she was a free woman, and not a mere slave, but, frankly, I was not much in a mood to concern myself with her feelings. Does a thirsting man in the Tahari concern himself with the feelings of the water with which he at last slakes his thirst? Does a starving man in Torvaldsland concern himself with the feelings of the viands on which he at last feasts?

  I continued to hold her, tightly. I was gasping, trying to catch my breath.

  It is interesting, I thought, how if one is starved for sex, and nothing better is about, one may have recourse even to a free woman. Perhaps, I thought, that is why many free women wish to keep men starved for sex, that they will then continue to be of interest to him. This is very different from the slave girl, incidentally, whose sexuality has been so liberated, triggered and honed, that she is now the helpless victim of her own needs, so much so that she often begs her master for his attentions.

  How pleasant it is to make women slaves!

  How pleasant it is to light the slave fires in their bellies!

  And how different they then are, so transformed!

  Or is it cruel to kindle such fire within them, to so enflame their delicious symmetries, to take them out of themselves and turn them into something new, the belongings of men?

  Is it boorish or uncouth to so compromise and damage their will? To take them and turn them from proud free women into needful slaves?

  Perhaps, but it is pleasant to do so, and they look so lovely at your feet, squirming, collared, begging your caress.

  I wonder sometimes if the free woman can understand these things. Sometimes I think they are utterly foreign to her, incomprehensible, far beyond her ken. Then I think of her inveterate hatred toward her embonded sisters, seemingly so inexplicable, and I wonder if she is truly so naive or uninformed as she pretends. Perhaps she hates her embonded sister because she senses the slave lives in a world denied to her, a distant, honest, wonderful world, one of submission and obedience, one of intimacy and service, one at last of radical, unabashed sexuality, one of pleasure and joy, one of love and fulfillment, one of nature—but nature enhanced with the refinements of civilization. But these matters, I suppose, are mysterious. Who can understand them? Perhaps it is not for a common soldier to delve into them. Perhaps it is best to let such secrets remain locked within the hearts of free women.

  One fact, however, remains clear in these matters, and that is the consequence, deplorable or not, of kindling what in Gorean are known as "slave fires" in the belly of a woman.

  On Earth, as I recall, and I have no reason to suppose matters have much changed on that far, polluted, mad, hypocritical, unloving, hate-filled orb, though you would be better judges than I of such matters, women, in large numbers, tended to be aloof, inert, and calculating, creatures of judgment and frost, indeed, perhaps not so much as the typical Gorean free woman, particularly of high caste, but yet something along those lines. They were usually the pursued, so to speak, rather than the pursuer, the sought rather than the seeker. That, too, is rather like the Gorean free woman. Many of the women of Earth, as I recall, seemed not to need sex, or to be much inclined to tolerate it, save as an instrument to be utilized, however reluctantly, in furthering their security or fortunes. Many men of Earth, if I am not mistaken, have resigned themselves, so to speak, thinking no better fare exists, to a diet of predictable, unseasoned, unpalatable sexual gruel, the occasional dishes of which, infrequently and reluctantly proffered, serve at least for the maintenance of life and sanity, if barely. Some men of Earth may fear that disinterest, inertness and frigidity are the name of woman. Certainly some Gorean males seem to so regard free women. This being the case, it would doubtless come as a revelation to a male of Earth to learn that women need not be that way, and that they are that way largely because they have been made that way, by a culture so designed as to bring about these estimable dignities or lamentable pathologies. Let us suppose that a fellow of Earth, long ago reconciled, and thinking himself well informed and cleverly rational in being so, to the sort of women he is familiar with, the inert, egotistical, supercilious, frigid woman whom he takes as typical of an entire sex, should discover that his current inamorata, so to speak, has recently undergone a considerable transformation. This is all theoretical, you understand, an exercise of the imagination, so to speak. I am trying to make a point. Let us suppose that, to his amazement, and perhaps consternation, it becomes clear to him one evening that she has somehow changed, that she has somehow become a needful, radically sexual creature, really, and not for mere political purposes, so to speak. He is amazed to discern not only that she has sexual needs, but that they are profound, and that she is currently, helplessly, in the throes of their grasp. She is dependent on him an
d is mortally desperate for his attentions. This would be analogous to the woman in whose belly slave fires have been lit. Indeed, it seems, somehow that they have been lit in the belly of the woman before him. She pulls away her clothing, as he seems reluctant to do this. She kneels before him, tears in her eyes. She squirms, she moves her knees, she is helpless, she is miserable. He does not know what to do with her. He considers fleeing. She tries to embrace him, piteously. He holds her from him. Somehow she must be controlled. Scarcely understanding what he is doing, he puts her to her belly on the floor, and, with a shoelace, ties her hands behind her. She squirms to his feet, pressing her lips to them. A transformation then seems to come over him, for he, too, is only human. He takes her by the hair and drags her to her bedroom. There, with one hand, he tears the bedclothes from the bed and flings them to the floor at the foot of the bed, and hurls her upon them. She turns to her side, looking up at him. "Yes, yes!" she says. "Please, please!" Then, again scarcely understanding what has come over him, he removes his belt, loops it twice about her throat, and buckles it shut. He looks down upon her. Somehow, given her behavior, her mien, that detail seems appropriate. Why? What can it mean? She is in a collar, his. "Yes, yes, please, please!" she begs. "I have dreamed of your collar! Now I am in it! Please have me, please take me, Master!" This is, of course, all theoretical, but it will give you some sense as to it might be like, from the man's point of view, should he encounter a woman in whose belly slave fires have been lit. From the point of view of a man of Earth, what a turnabout would be there! In the Gorean slave girl, of course, this sort of thing is not in the least theoretical, for masters, in her belly, have, perhaps callously and remorselessly, lit slave fires. She is now theirs, a simple kajira, a belonging of men.

  "Oh!" she said.

  "Ah!" I said, softly.

  Again I received pleasure from her.

  Then I was again quiet, she helpless in my grasp.

  She sobbed.

  "Can you stand it?" I inquired.

  "It does not matter, does it?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Sleen!" she said. "Sleen!"

  "It is not necessary to talk now," I said.

  "Release me," she said.

  "No," I said.

  "Please," she said, a strange note in her voice.

  "Why?" I asked. "Are you afraid you may begin to feel?"