Dancer of Gor

4 The Whip

I screamed suddenly under it awakening under it startled not believing it not expecting it the suddenness it was like lightning the cracking sound like the sky breaking the snap like fire my body wrenching I pulling upwards the chain on my neck I fell to my side I pulled at the chain then the snap again no no please no so sharp so loud the fire the pain I screamed I was naked the chain cut my neck "Kneel," he snarled, "head to the floor," I sobbing obeyed. "So," said he, "the modern woman under the whip."

I trembled, kneeling, my head down, the palms of my hands on the floor. "Now, slut," said he, "your power is gone, all of it, that mistakenly given to you by foolish men."

I moaned, bent over, small before him, in a position of obeisance to his manhood, in pain.

"Look up," he said. "Kneel, kneel straightly. Put your hands on your thighs. Head up. Split your knees. More widely, slut!"

I obeyed.

I was then kneeling before him, straightly, my head up, my hands on my thighs, my knees widely spread, the chain from my collar dangling down before me, between my breasts, I could feel it on my body, and going back, between my knees, to a ring. I was terrified. I thought I must be mad. My body was in pain. There seemed something different here. The air was different, a thousand times, it seemed, cleaner and fresher. I had never known such air existed to be breathed. It made me feel somehow charged and alive. The whip seemed still, hot and terrible, to burn on my body. And something else was different, too, something subtle, something I supposed I might quickly become accustomed to, but that now frightened me, terribly, in its implications. Literally the world had a different feel. Its gravity preposterously enough, seemed less than that with which I was familiar. I dismissed this from my mind as some sort of confusion, or illusion. But I knew that I was in pain, sharp, miserable pain, fiery, burning pain, put on me by a man, and that that was real. Too, I knew I knelt before a man. That, too, was real. I was an educated, civilized woman, a modern woman, I supposed, in some sense, but I found myself kneeling before a man! Too, this startling me, this strangely affecting me, it seemed that this was somehow appropriate for me, that it was rightful for me, that it was where I belonged. I felt incredibly alive, and rightful there. Too, he had whipped me awake. What did that mean? What must be my nature here, then, I wondered, or my condition or status, in this place, that I could be so awakened? Though I was an educated, refined, civilized woman, a contemporary woman, a modern woman, I supposed, in some sense, I had been awakened by a whip! I had felt the lash!

"Where am I?" I begged.

"On my world," he said, simply.

"Please do not lie to me," I begged.

"Interesting," he said. "Are you accusing a man of lying to you?" He shook out the whip" s coil.

"No," I said. "No!" I understood then that sexuality was important in this place, wherever it was, and that we were not of the same sex.

"Ah, I see," he said. "Of course. You are merely still simple, and naA?ve. Yes, I suppose it would be hard for you to believe, particularly with your banal, sly, limited, intelligence, my delicious, nasty, little animal." To my relief he recoiled the whip.

"Your world?" I said.

"Your life is going to be different now," he said, "quite different, dramatically different in a number of ways."

"Your world?" I begged.

"Yes," he said.

"Another planet?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"You do not seriously ask me to believe that, do you?" I asked.

He shrugged.

"Really!" I said.

"Can you not detect a difference in the atmosphere?" he asked. "Is it so difficult to detect? Too, can you not, really, at least now, more importantly, sense differences in the gravitational field?"

I shuddered.

"I see that you can," he said.

"I am now truly on another planet?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

I felt faint. For a moment everything seemed to go dark. I wavered. In my heart I knew that what he was saying, incredible though it might seem, despite the startling enormity of it, was true.

"You have many adjustments to make, my pretty little animal," he said. I looked at him.

"And there is no escape for you," he said, "from this world, You are here to stay. It is now your world, as well as mine. You are going to be here, and live on its terms, and exactly so, my modern woman, my hateful little charmer, for the rest of your life."

"Please, no!" I said.

"Put your hands, clasped, behind the back of your head, and put your head back," he said.

I did so.

"Farther back," he said.

I put my head farther back.

"Please," I said. "Please!"

He walked about me. "It is here that sluts such as you belong," he said.I shuddered, feeling the coils of the whip move on my stomach.

"Yes," he said, coming around in front of me again, "I think you will do very nicely."

"Do?" I said.

"You may resume your original position," he said.

I returned then to my former position, with my hands on my thighs.

I knelt before Teibar, who had captured me on Earth, making me his prisoner after hours in the very library where I had worked. He was clad now in a tunic. I did not understand this, but it seemed to fit in well with the plain room in which I was confined. That garment, so simple, so physically freeing, so attractive, I supposed, might be congenial to this world, as it had been to several of the worlds of Earth. I suspected it was not untypical of this world. He had strong arms, and strong legs. I was even uneasy looking at him in such a garment. I knew that I had found him physically disturbing, and deeply and profoundly so, even on Earth, and had felt helpless and weak before him, but now those feelings, now that I saw him as he was on his own world, so splendid and powerful, so uncompromising, so fierce, so vital, so masculine, masculine like no man I had ever seen, or had known could exist, seemed multiplied a thousand times. It was like a lion before me, a lion whose teeth could rend me, whose paw, with a blow, could break my neck. And I was chained within his reach!

He was regarding me.

I dared not meet his eyes directly. I saw the whip in his hand. Men on this world, I suspected, were not patient with women, or at least women such as I. "What is to be done with me, on this world?" I asked.

"You are not wearing clothes," he said, as though he might be just noticing this.

"No," I said.

"You are chained by the neck," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"I think it must be obvious," he said.

I shuddered. I wondered what it might be like, to be a female on a world like this, or the sort of female I was, on a world like this, where, unlike Earth, men had not been weakened.

"You are afraid, aren" t you, slut?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Good," he said. "That is as it should be. And you have every right to be afraid, I assure you, even, indeed, far more afraid than you can even begin to understand now."

I shuddered.

"It is amusing, " he said, "to consider how the nature of your life is going to change."

"Were many women brought here?" I asked.

"In your shipment," he said, "one hundred. You were the hundredth." "That seems a great many," I whispered.

"I do not gather them all, of course," he said. "There are others engaged in these enterprises, as well. The captures are brought together from various places, one from here, one from there, this attracting little attention." "From various countries?" I asked. "America, England, France, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan?"

"Yes," he said. "But your shipment was largely regional."

"Is it difficult to «gather» these girls?" I asked.

"No," he said, "they are trapped more easily than the small animals you call rabbits. Consider your own case."

"Do your people do this sort of thing regularly?" I asked. "We have our schedules," he said.

"Are there other groups engaged in this sort of thing?" I asked.

"I think so," he said, "But I know little about them."

"I was the hundredth?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

" I was saved for last?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"That was your doing?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I have asked for a transfer to other duties," he said, musingly, regarding me. "It is thus possible that you may be the last female I will bring her from your world. To be sure, I will doubtless capture other women from time to time, here on my world, women native to my world, and perhaps, from time to time, Earth girls who have been brought here earlier."

"But you chose me for your last catch," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

He smiled, fingering the coils of the whip.

"Surely you could have taken others," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"But you did not," I said.

"No," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

He did not respond.

"There is something different or special about me, somehow, from your point of view, isn" t there?" I said. I had sensed this from the first.

"I did wish to make my last catch a particularly delicious one," he said. "I do not understand," I said.

"Do not underestimate yourself, and your desirability as a female animal," he said.

"I am too short," I said. "I am too meaty. I am not tall, spare and willowy." "Do not be stupid," he said.

"Am I attractive?" I asked.

"Certainly," he said. "You are superbly cuddly slut. Do you think I would get my pay if I did not bring in first-class females?" I then realized that the tastes of men here might run more to the natural female, sweet and cuddly, and marvelous, than the stereotypes of beauty on my own world. In a sense I was moved with pleasure to learn this. In another sense I was terrified. Here I then understood I might find myself desired, and sought, and hunted, perhaps even as an animal, exquisitely delectable female quarry.

"But even so," I said, "perhaps you found something, or thought there was something, different or special about me?"

"I find you personally," he said, "quite desirable, even excruciatingly attractive."

I shrank back in the chain. How could he speak so openly of sexual matters? Too, I was afraid, as a female, found of interest, before him.

"But, yes," he said, "beyond such things you are special to me." "In what way?" I asked.

"In your capture there is something symbolic," he said. "It is thus fitting that you be what might be my last capture of a female of your world."

"You seem to hate me," I said.

"Yes," he said, "I do."

"Why?" I asked.

"You are a modern woman," he said, "and, as such, you represent a perversion of humanity, a pernicious and wanton perversion, one maliciously deleterious to the centralities of human sexuality, both of the male and female, and thus on literally inimical not only to the quality but, ultimately, to the very future of the human species."

I looked at him, startled.

"You are a modern woman," he said, "and would destroy men."

"No!" I said.

"But you will not, I assure you," he said, "destroy men here, Modern Woman. Here, rather, you will serve them fully, and fearfully, and delectably, and to the utmost of your abilities."

"I am not a modern woman," I said. "I have never, in my heart, been a modern woman. In my heart I am a primitive woman, one who has been bred upon from the time of caves, an ancient woman, a needful, loving woman! I was an alien, and sorrowful, and lost, and miserable, in my world as you were!"

"Liar!" he cried. He snapped the whip in fury, and I shrank back, startled by its sound and threat, before him. "You are so clever, you lying slut!" he hissed. "You are so quick, so cunning, so dangerous!"

"Please," I said.

"But I see through your tiny tricks!"

"Why do you think I am a modern woman, in some sense you despise," I asked, "because I can speak clearly, because I can think, because I have read a book? Do you not think that true women, loving, needful women, can do these things? Do you not think that what you can love, they, too, can love?"

"They demean such things," he said, "using them as baubles and adornments." I wept.

"Perhaps those little adornments, those little vanity devices," he said, "will make you more amusing, and interesting, in your collar."

"My collar?" I asked, aghast.

"Have you not seen what is being done to men on your world?" he asked. I was silent.

"If you are not active in such matters," he said, "what have you done to reverse them?"

I was silent.

"You are thus, at the least, an abettor, or accomplice, in such crimes," he said.

"No!" I said.

"Thus, if only by tacit consent, you, too, are guilty of them," he said. "No!" I protested.

"What do you think of the men of your world?" he asked.

"I despise them! They are weaklings!" I cried, suddenly. They deserve to have us take their world from them, to be thrust aside with words and writs, to be superseded by contrived legalities, to be relegated by statutes and slogans to the peripheries of power, to become trammeled, and crippled, as they are advised, as they are castrated, to become nothing, to be deprived of their pride and strength, and thus even of the potentiality of their unused manhood, to take our orders, to obey us!"

"Your position, I take it," he said, "is motivated by your hatred, jealousy and envy of men?"

"I do not think so," I said. "I do not want to be a man. I want to be a woman. My anger, my frustration, is motivated, I think, not by their manhood, and that I am not a man, as seems to be the case almost universally with the women you despise, if we can believe physicians in the matter, but rather by their lack of manhood, which denies me as well as them, which keeps me form being a full woman."

"You are a clever slut, in your small way," he said. "I never doubted it. How cunningly you would turn things! But I am not deceived by your petty tricks. You envy men, and not being one, would try to destroy them."

"No!" I said.

"Yes," he said, "you are a modern woman, and would, like others, if you could, destroy men. I find you, and others like you, guilty, and grievously guilty, guilty of crimes against the very future of the human race on your world. Here you will discover, however, that men, the men of my world, are not inclined to find this sort of thing acceptable. You will learn here, I fear, that they do not see fit to tolerate such intentions and attempts."

I trembled.

"Here," he said, "my young, lovely, charming pretentious slut, you are going to learn what it is to be a woman, truly. Here, too, by my intent, I having brought you here, it pleasing me, you will in a lifetime of beauty, degradation and service pay for your crimes. Here, modern woman, your being a modern woman will be taken from you. You will henceforth be another sort of woman."

I looked up at him, frightened.

"We will revenge the men of Earth," he said.

I put down my head, terrified. I supposed, in some senses, I had been a modern woman, and that I was, in some sense, guilty of crimes. I had little doubt I would be punished. Men would doubtless have their vengeances upon me.

I looked up at my captor.

He had brought me to his place, at least in part, it seemed, out of just such a sense of fittingness, out of just such a sense of rightfulness and justice. "Good morning, Miss Williamson," he said.

"Good morning," I whispered. As he had used my name I was not at all sure it was really mine. It had sounded different, somehow. I suddenly feared that I might have any name, almost like a dog.

How incredibly attractive he was to me! How weak he made me feel!

I thought that I was, as human beings went, quite intelligent, but before this man, before such a man, I sensed that my intelligence was as nothing. I sensed, as I had long before, in the library, that he, in his power, intelligence and maleness, was totally my superior, indeed, that I could at best be little more than an animal at his feet.

"Hold still," he said. He crouched before me, the whip in his hand. "What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Position," said he. I readjusted my position, improving it, kneeling, back on my heels, my back straight, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.

"What are you going to do?" I asked. My body could still feel, dimly, the hot marks of the lash.

"Put your head down," he said. "Farther back."

I was then looking, in effect, at the beams and plaster of the ceiling. "This is a test," he said.

"Ai!" I cried, suddenly, recoiling, jerking back, falling on my side, in a rattle of chain. I was then at the end of the chain, away from him, it taut from the ring, it holding my head forward. I could withdraw no further. I put my knees together, tightly. I put my hands over them. I looked at him in horror. "Good," he said. "It is as I thought."

I could not believe what he had done.

"You are alive," he said, coiling the blade back against the staff. "I had thought you would be. Your body, its curves, suggests a rich abundance of female hormones. Such will put you, of course, more at the mercy of men."

The touch had been totally unexpected.

"Beast!" I said. "Beast!"

The touch had been gently, but it had been purposeful. Apparently it had told him what he wanted to know.

"Beast!" I wept.

I had not realized what he was going to do. I had not had an opportunity to prepare myself for the touch, to perhaps steel myself into inertness. I was then suddenly fearful. What is such men simply did not permit a woman to steel herself into inertness, what if it were literally incumbent upon her to feel, and irreservedly, perhaps even under the threat of discipline, of fierce punishment, or worse, in all her hot, sweet, vulnerable openness? As it was, taken unawares, I had been forced to show myself, and before this beast, this lion of a man, responsive. I blushed red, hotly.

He stood up. "Return here, and kneel," he said, "and as you were before." He indicated the spot, gesturing with the whip, near the ring, where I had knelt. He shook out the blade of the whip.

I hurried, crawling, to the spot, and knelt there, as I had before.

He looked down at me.

"Make me pay," I whispered.

"What?" he said.

"I am ready," I whispered.

He smiled.

"I am naked before you," I said. "I am on a chain. You have aroused me. You have made me show myself responsive. You have taken all pride from me. You despise me. You hate me. I gather that I am to be made to pay for my crimes, that men here will make me pay for them, for being a modern woman. I am ready to pay. Make me pay."

"On your back," he said. "Throw your legs apart." Tears in my eyes, I obeyed. "The modern woman," he smiled, "on her back."

"Where I belong!" I said.

"Or on your stomach," he smiled, "or kneeling, bent over, or in any one of a thousand postures of submission and service."

I shuddered, understanding the sorts of things that might be required of me, and even routinely, on this world.

I closed my eyes. I feared I might swoon at his least touch. I had never met anyone who remotely compared with him. I had not even known such men could exist. To such a man I knew that I, even with all my refinement, education and intelligence, could never be more than a dog, a panting bitch, at his feet. He had ever spoken of a "collar." What could he have meant?

I opened my eyes.

"Do you beg?" he asked.

"Would you make me beg?" I cried.

"Yes," he said.

"Very well," I wept. "I beg!"

"The modern woman begs," he smiled.

"I beg," I said. "I am not longer a modern woman."

"Oh, yes," he smiled, "you are still a modern woman, as of now. But, in time, you will no longer be one. In time, that will be taken from you."

"I beg!" I said. "I beg!"

"Surely you have forgotten something," he said.

"What?" I asked, in misery.

"You are a virgin," he said.

I looked at him, wildly, tears in my eyes.

"Kneel, as you were before, slut," he said.

"Beast!" I wept. "Beast!" But I crept to my knees, and knelt before him, as I had been commanded. I was shaking. Tears fell from my eyes. He had had no intention of having me. My virginity, somehow, seemed a factor in this. I wondered what this, really, could have to do with anything. Had it not been for that I think I would, even in the library, by such a man, have been put to lengthy uses. Muchly I suspected would I have been forced to pleasure him, and doubtless Taurog and Hercon, as well.

"Beast!" I wept.

"I am leaving," he said.

I looked up, frightened.

"It was only that I wished to see you before I left, and how you might look, here, a chain on your neck, hateful, charming slut, in a waiting room.""A waiting room?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "They will be coming for you shortly. You will have a busy morning. Others are already being processed."

"Processed?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. He then turned away from me.

"Wait!" I cried.

He turned about, again to regard me.

I thought desperately. I wanted to keep him with me. "Are all women awakened here," I asked, "by the whip?" My body was still sore from the blows. "No," he said, "of course not. It was merely that I thought it might be informative and salubrious for you to be awakened thusly, that you might then, from the beginning, obtain an inkling as to what, for you, was to be the nature of your new world."

I regarded him, aghast.

"Have no fear," he said. "Such things, if ever, is rarely done. As you may well imagine, it tends to interfere with a woman" s sleep."

"With her beauty sleep?" I said, ironically.

"In a way, that is quite true," he said. "Good rest is important to her, for her loveliness, her alertness and service. It is the same with other domestic animals."

I looked at him, angrily.

"Most of your beatings will occur, at any rate, I assure you, when you are fully awake."

"Beatings?" I asked.

"A hazard of what is to be your condition," he said.

"An occupational hazard?" I inquired.

"The condition is not an occupation," he said. "An occupation is not something you are, but something you do. Too, you might change an occupation. Your condition, on the other hand, in the sense I have in mind, is not what you do, but what you are. Similarly, you will be totally unable to change your condition. You will be absolutely powerless to alter, influence or change it in any way whatsoever. Once it is imposed upon you it will then be something which you, quite simply, and categorically, are. To be sure, susceptibility to the beatings of which I spoke, similarly to an occupational hazard, in its way, is an inevitable concomitant of what will be your condition. The frequency and nature of these beatings, of course, will probably depend much on you. If you are not pleasing, you will doubtless be beaten, and well. If you are pleasing, and perfectly so, you may or may not be beaten."

I looked at him, trying to understand what was being said to me. I did know, of course, I could be beaten. I had already felt the lash. I was not eager to feel it again.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"I do not understand what you are saying," I said.

"Oh?" he asked.

I put my hands on the chain that attached me by the neck to the ring in the floor. "I do not understand what I am doing here," I said. "What is going to be done with me?"

"You mean, immediately?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"You" re going to be branded," he said, "and put in a collar." I regarded him with disbelief.

"But so, too, will the other girls," he said. "You will have your brands and collars."

I could not speak.

"Such things are prescribed by merchant law," he said.

"This," I whispered, frightened, "is then truly a world such as that of which you spoke, a world in which women such as I are bought and sold as slaves?" "Position," he said.

Immediately, I released the chain and knelt as I had before, back straight, back on my heels, my hands on my thighs, my knees spread.

"Yes," he said.

"And that is the fate you have decided for me," I said, "that I be a slave." "Yes," he said.

I was silent.

"It will be amusing, from time to time, to think of you in exacting and perfect bondage, where you belong, so right for you, striving desperately to please masters, for fear of your very life, my delectable, hateful slut." "That is why you did not take my virginity," I said, "because you had this fate in store for me?"

"Yes," he said.

"My virginity could affect my price?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"It is if I were an animal," I said.

"Soon," he said, "you will be an animal, in full legality."

"You captured me," I said, poutingly. "My virginity belongs to you. It is yours, truly."

"I do not want it," he said.

I looked at him, startled.

"I give it to whoever buys you, and welcome," he said.

I bit my lip, to keep from crying out in anger.

"Against my will I find you extremely attractive," he said, "even infuriatingly so. Indeed, I must put you from my mind. Soon I will forget you. Soon you will be only another number, another entry in my records. But it is you I find attractive, and not some meaningless part of you. What is the virginity of a hateful modern woman, a despicable slut like yourself, really worth? Nothing. It is worthless. Oh, it might be amusing, as an act of imperious arrogance, to take it from you, to rend it, to be the first to force you apart, to be the first to open you for the uses of men, but it is even more amusing to show you my disdain for the worthless bit of fragile, temporary tissue by which you set such grand and unnatural store, and leave its fate to the lotteries of markets, and to whoever makes the successful bid on you. Let it go to him, whoever he is, who first buys you."

I clenched my fists on my thighs. I sobbed. I wept.

"It is thus," he said, "I show my contempt for you."

I looked up at him.

"Charming," he said.

I sobbed.

"But it is not I, but others," he said, "who will put your charms to use." "Do not leave me," I begged.

But he had gone.

I lay down on the floor. I pulled my legs up. After a time I heard the voices of me outside the door. I did not understand their language. They were coming for me.