Explorers Of Gor

32
Female Display Behaviors; A Slave Girl's Dream; Bark Cloth And Beads

"Do not drop it," said Kisu, strained, sweating.

The girls cried out in anguish, slipping, trying to keep the canoe from falling. Ayari struggled with the bow. Behind him were the three girls, then Kisu, amidships, and myself, at the stem. We could hear the cataract some two hundred yards away. The canoe, on our shoulders, tilted upward at a twenty-degree angle. Rocks slipped behind us, rolling down the grade.

"This is impossible," said Ayari.

"Keep moving forward," said Kisu…

"I am tired," said Ayari.

"Upward, upward!" said Kisu.

"Very well," said Ayari. "I never argue with big fellows."

The portage was not easy, and it was not our first. This was the eleventh cataract of the Ua.

Sometimes we used rollers beneath the canoe, and hauled with ropes.

The boats of Shaba had been sectioned, to facilitate such portages. He had had numerous strong men to carry the burdens. We had only ourselves, and three slight-bodied female slaves.

"I can go no further," said Ayari. This was the fourth portage of the day.

"Let us rest," I said.

Gently we lowered the canoe. While the others held it I, with rocks, braced it that it might not slip backwards down the grade.

Trees surrounded us. Overhead bright jungle birds flew. We could hear the chattering of guernon monkeys about.

"Bring up the supplies," said Kisu.

"Yes, Master," said the girls, sweating. They went back down the grade some hundred yards to gather up the paddles and sacks, and roped bundles, which contained our various goods. We moved these things separately, usually a hundred or two hundred yards at a time. Kisu and I took turns at the stern. It requires great strength to brace and support the canoe at that point.

"Shaba passed here," said Kisu, sitting down, wiping the sweat, like river water, from his head.

"Our portages," I said, "would be much more difficult if he had not preceded us."

"That is true," grinned Kisu. We generally followed the portage routes determined by Shaba and his scouts. They had located sensible geodesic contours and, in traversing the area, had, because of their larger vessels, cut away various trees, vines and obstacles.

I smiled to myself. I had little doubt that we, now, were moving much more swiftly than Shaba. Too, he had lost a week, with the illness of several of his men, a dozen or so, as we had learned, at the village at which we had recently traded.

I was pleased with the situation. I suspected, from the degree of recovery of the jungle following the passage of Shaba and his men, that he was not more than fifteen or twenty days ahead of us on the river.

I looked down the grade. Approaching us, in single file, led by Tende, came the slaves, carrying supplies. Last in the line, naked, came the blond-haired barbarian, erect and lovely, balancing on her head, steadying it with her hands, one of the bundles of our supplies. She looked at me. I saw that she looked at me as a slave girl at her master. It pleased me. She put down the bundle. She then, like the other girls, who had also discarded their burdens, returned down the grade. These transports of goods took them two trips.

Ayari was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Kisu, sitting, was looking down through the trees at the swift, churning water of the river.

In a few minutes the girls, again, made their way upward. Again they came in a single file. Again the blond-haired barbarian was the last in the line, again, lovely and erect, balancing on her head a bundle, one roped heavily and wrapped in bark cloth.

"Do not put down your burden," I said to her. I then rose to my feet and went to where she stood, beautiful and obedient. She straightened herself even more, steadying the bundle on her head. I walked slowly about her, inspecting the slave beauty of her.

"You make a lovely beast of burden," I told her.

"I am a beast of burden, Master," she said. "I am a slave."

I looked at her, and our eyes met, and she lowered her eyes, frightened. Could I know the truth of her? Could I know how she had confessed herself slave and needful of my touch? Of course not, for I had been asleep, and I could not understand her English. Yet, from the very morning following that night of her secret acknowledgments, five days ago, our relationship had been subtly, deliciously, different. She had begun, from that time, timidly, to look upon me with the vulnerable need of a slave girl. She had, secretly, acknowledged herself slave and mine. It was now merely up to me to do what I wished with her. She lifted her eyes again to mine. For an instant they were frightened. Could I know her secret? Of course not. How could I? Swiftly she again lowered her eyes.

"You may put down your burden," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Rest now," I told her. "Lie on your stomach, head to the left, with your legs spread, and your hands at your sides, backs of your wrists to the ground, palms facing upwards."

"Yes, Master," she said.

The day had been long and hard.

We had now made camp. A small stream was nearby, which led into the Ua…

She stood before me and then, without asking, gently, delicately, untied, and opened and took from me the shreds of the soiled tunic which I wore. It was muddied and caked with dirt, from the days in the jungle, from the muddy banks of the Ua. As she removed it from me she kissed me softly, tenderly, about the chest and left hip.

"Are you a trained slave?" I asked her.

"No, Master," she said.

She then knelt before me, holding the tattered, muddied garment against her. "Master's garment is muddied," she said…

I said nothing.

Then she leaned forward and kissed me, softly.

"Does the Earth woman kiss her Master?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Then she leaned forward and again kissed me, softly.

"Surely you are a trained slave," I said.

"No, Master," she said, looking up at me. And then she rose to her feet.

I crouched by the stream and watched her, on her knees, in the fashion of the primitive, owned female, clean and rinse the garment of her master. The proud Earth woman, unbidden, served as my laundress.

When she had finished with the garment and wrung it much dry, I had her replace it on my body. I would let it finish its drying on my body. Before she tied shut the tunic she kissed me again, softly, this time on the chest and belly, and then again knelt before me, her head down.

"Gather wood for the fire," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

It was now late, and the others were asleep.

Tende and Alice were already, hands tied behind them, wrist-tethered to the small tree which served us as slave post.

The blond-haired barbarian regarded me, and then lowered her eyes, and put a bit more wood on the fire.

It is not always easy to make a fire in the forest. There are commonly two large rains during the day, one in the late afternoon and the other late in the evening, usually an Ahn or so before midnight, or the twentieth hour. These rains are often accompanied by violent winds, sometimes, I conjecture, ranging between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty pasangs an Ahn. The forest is drenched. One searches for wood beneath rock overhangs or under fallen trees. One may also, with pangas, hack away the wet wood of fallen trees, until one can obtain the dry wood beneath. Even during the heat of the day it is hard to find suitable fuel. The jungle, from the heat and rain, steams with humidity. Too, like the roof of a greenhouse, the lush green canopies of the rain forest tend to hold this moisture within. It is the fantastic oxygenation produced by the vegetation, conjoined with the humidity and heat, and the smell of plant life, and rotting vegetable matter and wood, that gives the diurnial jungle its peculiar and unmistakable atmosphere, an encompassing, looming, green, warm ambience which is both beautiful and awesome. The nocturnal jungle is cooler, sometimes even chilly, and the air, a little thinner, a shade less rich, is different, the sun's energy no longer powering the complex reaction chains of photosynthesis. Yet, at night, perhaps one is even more aware of the presence and vastness of the jungle than during the day. In the daylight hours one's horizons are limited by the encircling greenery. In the night, in the darkness, one senses the almost indefinite extension of the jungle, thousands of pasangs in width and depth, about one.

The blond-haired barbarian stirred the fire with a stick. I watched her.

One does not make one's camp in the jungle near tall trees. Because of the abundant amount of moisture the trees do not send down deep tap roots, but their root systems spread more horizontally. In the fierce winds which often lash the jungle it is not unusual for these shallowly rooted trees, uprooted and overturned, to come crashing down.

It seemed she wished to speak, but then she did not speak.

There is an incredible variety of trees in the rain forest, how many I cannot conjecture. There are, however, more than fifteen hundred varieties and types of palm alone. Some of these palms have leaves which are twenty feet in length. One type of palm, the fan palm, more than twenty feet high, which spreads its leaves in the form of an opened fan, is an excellent source of pure water, as much as a liter of such water being found, almost as though cupped, at the base of each leaf's stem. Another useful source of water is the liana vine. One makes the first cut high, over one's head, to keep the water from being withdrawn by contraction and surface adhesion up the vine. The second cut, made a foot or so from the ground, gives a vine tube which, drained, yields in the neighborhood of a liter of water. In the rain forest some trees grow and lose leaves all year long, remaining always in foliage. Others, though not at the same time, even in the same species, will lose their foliage for a few weeks and then again produce buds and a new set of leaves. They have maintained their cycles of regeneration but these cycles, interestingly, are often no longer synchronized with either the northern or southern winters and springs.

"Master," said the girl.

"Yes," I said.

"It is nothing," she said, looking down.

In the rain forest we may distinguish three separate ecological zones, or tiers or levels. Each of these tiers, or levels, or layers, is characterized by its own special forms of plant and animal life. These layers are marked off by divergent tree heights. The highest level or zone is that of the "emergents," that of those trees which have thrust themselves up above the dense canopies below them. This level is roughly from a hundred and twenty-five feet Gorean to two hundred feet Gorean. The second level is often spoken of as the canopy, or as that of the canopies. This is the fantastic green cover which constitutes the main ceiling of the jungle. It is what would dominate one's vision if one were passing over the jungle in tarn flight or viewing it from the height of a tall mountain. The canopy, or zone of the canopies, ranges from about sixty to one hundred and twenty-five feet high, Gorean measure. The first zone extends from the ground to the beginning of the canopies above, some sixty feet in height, Gorean measure. We may perhaps, somewhat loosely, speak of this first zone as the "floor," or, better, "ground zone," of the rain forest. In the level of the emergents there live primarily birds, in particular parrots, long-billed fleers, and needle-tailed lits. Monkeys and tree urts, and snakes and insects, however, can also be found in this highest level. In the second level, that of the canopies, is found an incredible variety of birds, Warblers, finches, mindars, the crested lit and the common lit, the fruit tindel, the yellow gim, tanagers, some varieties of parrot, and many more. Here, too, may be found snakes and monkeys, gliding urts, leaf urts, squirrels, climbing, long-tailed porcupines, lizards, sloths, and the usual varieties of insects, ants, centipedes, scorpions, beetles and flies, and so on. In the lower portion of the canopies, too, can be found heavier birds, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and the umbrella bird. Guernon monkeys, too, usually inhabit this level. In the ground zone, and on the ground itself, are certain birds, some flighted, like the hook-billed gort, which preys largely on rodents, such as ground urts, and the insectivorous whistling finch, and some unflighted, like the grub borer and lang gim. Along the river, of course, many other species of birds may be found, such as jungle gants, tufted fishers and ring-necked and yellow-legged waders. Also in the ground zone are varieties of snake, such as the ost and hith, and numerous species of insects. The rock spider has been mentioned, and termites, also. Termites, incidentally, are extremely important to the ecology of the forest. In their feeding they break down and destroy the branches and trunks of fallen trees. The termite "dust," thereafter, by the action of bacteria, is reduced to humus, and the humus to nitrogen and mineral materials. In the lower branches of the "ground zone" may be found, also, small animals, such as tarsiers, nocturnal jit monkeys, black squirrels, four-toed leaf urts, jungle varts and the prowling, solitary giani, tiny, cat-sized panthers, not dangerous to man. On the floor itself are also found several varieties of animal life, in particular marsupials, such as the armored gatch, and rodents, such as slees and ground urts. Several varieties of tarsk, large and small, also inhabit this zone. More than six varieties of anteater are also found here, and more than twenty kinds of small, fleet, single-horned tabuk. On the jungle floor, as well, are found jungle larls and jungle panthers, of diverse kinds, and many smaller catlike predators. These, on the whole, however, avoid men. They are less dangerous in the rain forest, generally, than in the northern latitudes. I do not know why this should be the case. Perhaps it Is because in the rain forest food is usually plentiful for them, and, thus, there is little temptation for them to transgress the boundaries of their customary prey categories. They will, however, upon occasion, particularly if provoked or challenged, attack with dispatch. Conspicuously absent in the rain forests of the Ua were sleen. This is just as well for the sleen, commonly, hunts on the first scent it takes upon emerging from its burrow after dark. Moreover it hunts single-mindedly and tenaciously. It can be extremely dangerous to men, even more so, I think, than the Voltai, or northern, larl. I think the sleen, which is widespread on Gor, is not found, or not frequently found, in the jungles because of the enormous rains, and the incredible dampness and humidity. Perhaps the sleen, a burrowing, furred animal, finds itself uncomfortable in such a habitat There is, however, a sleenlike animal, though much smaller, about two feet in length and some eight to ten pounds in weight, the zeder, which frequents the Ua and her tributaries. It knifes through the water by day and, at night, returns to its nest, built from sticks and mud in the branches of a tree overlooking the water.

I listened to the noises of the jungle night, the chattering, and the hootings, and the clickings and cries, of noctutnal animals, and birds and insects.

I glanced to the blond-haired barbarian. It was nearly time to secure her for the night.

Contrary to popular belief the floor of the jungle is not a maze of impenetrable growth, which must be hacked through with machete or pangs. Quite the contrary, it is usually rather open. This is the result of the denseness of the overhead canopies, because of which the ground is much shaded, the factor which tends to Inhibit and limit ground growth. Looking about among the slender, scattered colonnades of trees, exploding far overhead in the lush capitals of the green canopy, one is often exposed to vistas of one to two hundred feet, or more. It is hard not to be reminded of the columns in one of the great, shaded temples of Initiates, as in Turia or Ar. And yet here, in the rain forest, the natural architecture of sun, and shade, and growth, seems a vital celebration of life and its glory, not a consequence of aberrations and the madness of abnegations, not an invention of dismal men who have foresworn women, even slaves, and certain vegetables, and live by parasitically feeding and exploiting the superstitions of the lower castes. There are, of course, impenetrable, or almost impenetrable, areas in the jungle. These are generally «second-growth» patches. Through them one can make ones way only tortuously, cuffing with the machete or panga, stroke by stroke. They normally occur only where men have cleared land, and then, later, abandoned it. That is why they are called «second-growth» patches; they normally occur along rivers and are not characteristic of the botanical structure of the virgin rain forest itself.

The blond-haired barbarian dropped some turgs on the fire.

"Why are you feeding the fire now?" I asked.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

I smiled. She did not wish to retire so soon. But surely she knew it was nearly time for me to tie her at the slave post.

"It is time to secure you," I said.

"Must I be secured tonight?" she asked. Then she looked frightened. "Forgive me, Master," she said. "Please do not whip me."

"Go sit with your back to the slave post, in binding position," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I let her sit there for a few minutes. She did not dare to look back at me over her shoulder.

"Come here," I then said, "and kneel before me."

She did so. "Please do not strike me, Master," she begged.

"What is on your mind tonight?" I asked.

"Nothing, Master," she stammered, her head down.

"You may speak," I said.

"I dare not," she whispered.

"Speak," I said.

'Tende and Alice are clothed," she said.

"They are scarcely clothed," I said, "and the bit of rag they wear may be stripped away from them in an instant on the least whim of a master."

"Yes, Master," she said.

She looked at me, agonized, tears in her eyes.

"Do you, an Earth woman," I asked, "desire again that opportunity, once afforded to you, but rejected by you, to beg to earn clothing?"

"Yes, Master," she said. "I beg that opportunity."

"Though you are an Earth woman?"

"Yes, though I am an Earth woman, Master," she said.

"It is yours, Earth woman," I said.

She put down her head. "I beg clothing, Master," she sobbed.

"Do you beg to earn it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"In any way that I see fit?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"In such a situation as this, formerly," I said, "you spoke of Alice, your sister in bondage, as a whore."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It now seems that it is you," I said, "who are the whore."

"Yes, Master," she said. "It is now I who am the whore."

"But you are mistaken," I said, "in your own case, as you were in the case of Alice."

She lifted her bead. "Master?" she asked.

"In your vanity," I said, "you dignify yourself."

"Master?"

"Do you think you are free?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"The whore," I said, "is a free woman. Do not presume, in your insolence, lest you be cut to pieces, to compare yourself with her. She is a thousand times higher than you. You are a thousand times lower than she. She is free. You are slave."

"Yes, Master," she said, sobbing, head down. "Please forgive me, Master." She shook with emotion.

I regarded her.

"I beg to earn clothing, in any way my master may see fit," she said, "and I, humbly, beg this as what I am, only a slave."

She lifted her head. Our eyes met.

"Engage in female display behaviors," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Female display behaviors," I said. "Surely you are familiar with the biological concept, and the sorts of behavioral patterns which are subsumed beneath it."

She looked at me.

"They are quite common," I said, "in the animal kingdom."

"I am not an animal," she said.

'The human being," I said, "is not alien to nature, nor disjointed from it. He is, in some respects, one of its most interesting and sophisticated products. He is not something out of nature nor apart from nature but one of its complex fulfillments. It is not that he is less an animal than, say, the zeder or sleen, but rather that he is a more complicated animal than they. In a sense, given the rigors of evolution and selection, the human contains in itself not less animality than his brethren whom we choose to place lower on the phylogenetic scale than ourselves but more. The human is not less of an animal than they, but more. In him there is, in a sense, that of complexity and sophistication, a greater animality than theirs."

"I am aware, as any educated person," she said, "of our animal heritage."

"It is not only your heritage," I said. "It is, now, and recognize it, if you dare, your reality."

She looked down.

"Perhaps, someday," I said, "sleen will become sufficiently intellectual to make mistakes in reasoning. When they do, their first fallacy will doubtless be to decide that they are not really sleen."

"That is silly," she said. She smiled.

"Is it less silly," I asked, "if it is done by human beings?"

"Perhaps not," she said.

"To be sure," I said, "if I have a problem in algebra I will give it to a mathematician before I will turn it over to a sleen. The reason for that, however, is not that the sleen is an animal and the mathematician is not, but rather that the mathematician is better at algebra than a sleen. The word 'animal' may be used in various senses, not all of them complimentary to animals. In the literal sense of 'animal' the human being is an animal. In a rather different sense of 'animal', we sometimes draw a distinction between human beings and animals, that is, we take the category of animals and divide it in two, calling one sort of animals, ourselves, human beings, and letting what is left over, the other sorts of animals, count as the animals. Do not ask me to explain the logic of that distinction. There are also senses of 'animal' which are complimentary and derogatory, for example, 'He has an animal charm' or 'He acts like an animal when he is drunk'."

I looked at her.

"Also," I said, "if you are interested in these matters, you are not simply an animal in the literal sense, in the biological sense of 'animal', but in the sense that persons, individuals with rights before the law, are distinguished from animals."

She regarded me, frightened.

"In that sense, my dear," I said, "I am not an animal, and you are an animal. Yes, my dear, you are legally an animal. In the eyes of Gorean law you are an animal. You have no name in your own right. You may be collared and leashed. You may be bought and sold, whipped, treated as the master pleases, disposed of as he sees fit. You have no rights whatsoever. Legally you have no more status than a tarsk or vulo. Legally, literally, you are an animal."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"You may now engage in female display behaviors," I said.

"I do not know any," she said.

I laughed.

"I am not a lewd girl," she said.

"Does the slave have pride?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"Perform," I said.

"I do not know how," she wept. "I do not know how!"

"Peel away the hideous encrustations of your antibiological conditioning," I told her. "Hidden in every cell in your body, in the genetic codes of each minute cell, the product of a long, complex evolution, lie the marvels of which I speak. In the deepest part of your brain lies the provocation to these truths. You are the result of thousands upon thousands of women who have pleased men. Evolution has selected for such women. Do not tell me that you do not know these behaviors. Deny them, if you will, but they have been bred into you. They are a part of your very being. They are, my sweet slave, in your very blood."

"No," she wept.

"Perform," I said.

She threw back her head with misery, and clutched at her hair and then, suddenly, startled, her hands at her hair, looked at me, her eyes wide. The line of her breasts had been lifted nicely.

"Yes," I said, "consult the animal in you."

"What am I doing?" she wept.

She now sat, and extended her leg, and took her right ankle in her hands, and moved her hands slowly from her ankle to her calf. Her toes were pointed, emphasizing the sweet curve of her calf.

"Is it not now coming back to you?" I asked. "Is it not almost like a memory, a kinesthetic and intellectual recollection? Are you not now getting in touch with certain feared basic and rudimentary feelings and reactions? Can you not, now, begin to sense the ancient truths, those of the female before the male?"

"I am frightened," she whispered.

"Build up the fire," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"That I may better see my female perform."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I watched her gather twigs, how she walked, how she held them, how she returned to the fire and, kneeling, sometimes glancing at me, placed them on the fire. As I had thought she was even then engaging in female display behavior. I had thought she would. I wondered if she were fully conscious of what she did. I suspect she was only partly aware of it. And yet, clearly, I saw that she was excited. How subtly and marvelously she manifested her beauty. In so small a thing as the way in which a woman places a plate on the table before a man, or a twig upon a small fire, she may invite him to her rape. I do not think she was fully conscious of how provocative she was. Yet, doubtless, she was intensely aware of my eyes upon her. I wondered if women knew how beautiful they were. I supposed not. Otherwise why would any of them be puzzled when they were enslaved. I observed her movements. She had begun to recognize her bondage, to understand, in her heart, that she was truly a slave girl.

"You move as a slave girl before her master," I said.

"I am a slave girl before my master," she said.

The slave girl moves, and carries herself, differently from a free woman. This is evident in such small things as fetching a cup for her master or in pouring his wine. These movements, and bodily attitudes and postures, subtle and beautiful, difficult to fully disguise, have betrayed more than one slave beauty who, disguised as a free woman, has sought to flee a city. The spears of guards, lowered, to her dismay, suddenly block her way. "Where are you going, Slave?" they ask. She is then knelt and stripped, her collar and brand revealed. Returned to her master, she may be confident that her punishment will not be light.

I looked at the slave.

An Earth woman who exhibits sensuous movement is commonly ostracized or in some other way socially punished. The contempt in which the exotic dancer on Earth is held, despite the richness of her music and beauty, is a symptom of this pathology. The freedoms of the Earth woman do not extend to the point where she is permitted to move as a woman. That she is not supposed to be free to do. The freedoms of the Earth woman, in. effect, are freedoms to conform, within reasonably narrow limits, to certain socially approved stereotypes. Females of Earth, not permitted to move as women, are expected to perform what are, in effect, male-imitation movements. It is little wonder that they occasionally, crying out with frustration, dance naked before a mirror. It is little wonder that in their dreams they are roped and thrown to warriors. On Gor, of course, the woman, if she be slave, is no longer prohibited, because of cultural requirements, from expressing the kinesthetic realities of her womanhood. The slave girl learns to think of herself as deeply and radically feminine, as uncompromisingly feminine. She thus, soon unconsciously, thinks and moves as what she is, a female. Moreover there is a special modality to the movements of the slave girl. She knows not only that she is a female, but a female in the most radical and profound sense, an owned female, one at the bidding of masters. This excites her, and cannot help hut be reflected in her movements. She is the most natural, biological and profound of women, the woman at the mercy of men, who must obey and serve them, the slave girl.

The blond-haired barbarian put a bit more wood on the fire. I smiled. The men of Earth think often of sex as a simple matter of explicit congress. This is, however, much too limited. The perimeters of sex are not limited to those of physiological union. Any woman, I suppose, knows this; it is unfortunate that It is not recognized by more men. The blond-haired barbarian and I, she beneath my will, were now surely intensely engaged in sex; yet she was feet from me, and I was not touching her.

"The fire is high enough," I said. "Now kneel before me, Slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Stretch like the sleek little animal you are," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Now rise gracefully," I said, "and walk back and forth before me."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I watched her. "You are a pretty slave," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Now stand before me, and lower your head."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Lift your head again, and lower it again," I said, "this time more deferentially."

"I obey, Master," she said. She again lifted her head and, this time, slowly, gracefully, deferentially, inclined it to me.

"Excellent," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"You now stand before your master," I said, "your neck bent in submission."

"Yes, my Master," she said.

"Lift your head now," I said, "and look at me."

"Yes, Master," she said. She did so.

"You are an Earth woman," I said. "On Earth, as I understand it," I said, "your delicious and vulnerable animality, your feminine animality, the most basic and deepest female of you, helpless and needful, was, as a matter of cultural policy, consistently suppressed and frustrated."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Did you daydream?" I asked.

"I fought them," she said.

"Foolish," I said.

"But they kept recurring," she said.

"Of course," I said.

She looked at me.

"Was there a common theme? I asked.

"Yes," she said, "myself in a position of submission before men."

"hat is natural," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And at night," I said, "occasionally erupting from the depths of your mind, indicative of your cruelly frustrated needs and desires, were certain sorts of dreams.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Describe to me now one of them."

"There was one of them which more than once I dreamed," she said, "which returned to me, again and again."

"Describe it to me," I said.

"But such things are so private to a girl," she said.

"Speak, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "It seems I was in the jungles of South America, a continent on my native world, Earth, or perhaps it was some other world. I do not know. I was a traveler, or tourist. There was some group involved. The details are unclear. We were examining the ruins of an ancient civilization, great blocks of stone, huge, frightening carvings."

"Yes?" I said.

"I wore boots, and a skirt and short-sleeved blouse," she said, "and a helmet, of lightweight material, to protect me from the sun. Too, I wore sunglasses, pieces of colored glass sometimes worn by those of Earth before their eyes, sometimes to guard their expressions and features, but usually to reduce the glare of a bright sun."

"I understand," I said.

"'What is that carving? I asked our native guide. He was a tall, red man, handsome and strong. He wore an open-throated blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. It is like a half-tunic for the torso, with sleeves. Too, he wore blue trousers. Such a garment covers the lower body, and fits about the legs."

"I am familiar with such garments for the upper and lower body," I said. "They are worn in Torvaldsland and in other areas, generally in the northern latitudes."

"'Is it not obvious? he asked. 'It is the carving of a naked slave girl kneeling before her master. I was so embarrassed. 'Perhaps she is only a captive, I said, angrily. 'Look, he said, pointing. 'She wears a neck belt. 'Oh, I said. 'See its knot and disk, he asked, 'the distinctive slave knot, and the disk, that identifying the master? 'Yes, I said. 'It is the neck belt of a slave, he said. 'I see, I said. 'She is a slave, he said. 'Then, I said, 'she would have to do what her master tells her. He then, with two hands, removed my sunglasses. He looked directly into my eyes. 'Yes, he said. I trembled, for, in that instant, he had looked upon me as a woman, one perhaps containing within herself a slave. He then turned me so that I must look again upon the carving of the subservient girl, the kneeling slave at the feet of her master. I then saw it in the bright and direct light of the sun. It was clear that she was lovely, even in the rudeness of the carving. On her throat was the neck belt of bondage, doubtless tied shut with a slave knot, and, fastened to it, identifying her, the disk of the master. How horrifying it is to look upon such a reality so directly. How much better it is to deny it, or to see it only, as through colored glass, through the softened, tinted lies of civilization. He then handed me back the sunglasses. 'Do not put them back on, he said. How angry I was! Immediately, angrily, I put them back on."

"Continue," I said. "What occurred next in this dream?"

"That night, of course," she said, "I was captured, ruthlessly gagged and bound with black straps. For days I was carried into the jungle. I began to stink. My clothing, rotting from my sweat, and the heat and humidity, began to disintegrate on my body. Too, it was half torn away from snagging on thorns, and from the lashings of branches. In the beginning I was tied on a pole, carried on the shoulders of men. Then a sack was put over my head and I was thrown on my belly in a canoe. Then, later, at some point I did not recognize, after I had again been carried into the jungle, the sack was removed. I was then, hands tied behind me, marched before my captors. I stumbled before them for days. When I dallied I was beaten with sticks. At last we came to a clearing in the jungle. There was a city in this clearing. The architecture of the city was identical to that of the ruins we had earlier visited, but this city was not in ruins. It was a living city populated, thriving, hidden in the jungle. It was not known what had become of the population of the city which had been permitted to fall into ruins. No marks of war or fire, or other forms of sudden destruction, had been discernible. Meals had apparently been left uneaten, and fires untended. At a given point, perhaps determined by their priests or chiefs, for no reason that is clear to us, the population, it seemed, had abandoned the city, marching away into the jungles. The fate of the population was one of anthropology's mysteries. I was thrust toward the city. I, perhaps alone of all white people, now understood, or thought I understood, what had become of the population of the city which, over centuries, had fallen into wins. They had come here, it seemed, to this point in the jungle, and, here, had rebuilt their city. The numerous individuals, red men and women, in theft colorful feathers and robes, on the walks and terraces of this city, maintaining their old way of life, it seemed, were their living descendants. Sticks, pushed against my back, guided me to a narrow doorway, leading into a room, carved out of living rock, in the base of what I took to be a temple. There four red girls, who were beautiful, were awaiting me. I was unbound and turned over to the four red girls, who treated me with great deference. They fed me and, gently removing my clothing, bathed me. They combed my hair and perfumed me. I was given golden sandals to wear and a single robe, high-collared, ornate, of brocaded gold. My old clothing, and my boots, which the girls, laughing, cut to pieces with small knives, were burned. Outside the doorway, with large, curved knives, stood two huge men, warriors, on guard."

The blond-haired barbarian looked at me.

"Continue," I told her.

"That night they came for me," she said. "My hands were tied behind my back. Then two straps were put on my neck and, by two men, the girls following. I was led forth. I was conducted down a long street, between mighty buildings. Men and women followed me, with long-handled, feathered fans. There was much singing. There were numerous torches, and drums. At the end of the street, before a group of men standing on the wide steps and the surface of a broad, stone platform, some ten feet in height, we stopped. The drums and singing, too, suddenly stopped. A sign was given, by one of the men on the height of the platform. The straps were removed from my neck. My hands were freed. I looked up at them. Another sign was given. The girls removed my sandals and then, gracefully, drew away my robe. I looked up again at the men. I was now stark naked. The man on the height of the platform, red, in his robes and feathers, regarded me for some time. Then, by nodding his head, and a simple gesture, he indicated his approval. There was a shout of pleasure from the crowd which made me shudder. My wrists were seized and a long thong was tied on each wrist. Men then began, by these wrist leashes, to drag me up the steps. The singing and drums had then again commenced. 'No! I screamed, when I reached the top of the platform, for I then saw, before me, a large, oblong piece of stone, a massive, primitive stone altar, discolored with huge stains of dried blood, with iron rings. 'No! No! I screamed. But I was lifted from my feet and, my back to the ground, screaming, carried by many men, was helplessly hurried to its surface. I was thrown on my back on the altar and my hands, by the wrist leashes, were fastened apart and over my head to iron rings. At the same time my legs, by the ankles, were jerked apart, painfully so. I felt thongs tied on my ankles. I cried out. My legs were pulled even more widely apart. Men strung the thongs on my ankles through the iron rings at the foot of the altar. I screamed. By the thongs my legs were drawn apart even more. I was then, as I wept and begged for mercy, fastened in that cruel position. The ceremony began. The priest, from a golden dish, lifted up a knife. It was long and translucent, eighteen inches in length, of slender, bluish stone. I twisted on the altar, under the torches. All about me were the robes and feathers, the savage red faces; the thongs bit deeply into the flesh of my wrists and ankles; the singing, the drums, began to intensify in crescendo; they became deafening; the priest lifted the knife. It was then that I saw him, sitting on an oblong pillar of stone, some eight feet in height, some forty feet from the altar. He was sitting cross-legged, watching, impassively. Though he now wore the robes and feathers of this savage people, I recognized him instantly. It was he who had been the guide of the tour in which I had been a member, that tour with which I had been, visiting the rums of the mysteriously abandoned city. It was he who had explained to me the meaning of the carving of the kneeling girl, who had told me not to replace my sunglasses, he whom I had disobeyed. 'Master! I screamed to him. 'Master! "

"'Master'?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "I called him 'Master'."

"Why?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said. "It startled me, that I should have called him that. Yet the utterance came naturally, helplessly, from deep within me, an irrepressible, incontrovertible acknowledgment."

"You called him 'Master'," I said, "because, in your heart, you knew that he was your Master."

"Yes, Master," she said. "That is it. I suppose I had known from the first instant I had seen him that he was my Master, and I was his Slave, but how could I, an Earth woman, have admitted that, even to myself, let alone to the superb, red brute."

"What occurred then in the dream?" I asked.

"He lifted his hand and spoke out to the priest and the men about the altar.

"I lay there, helpless. He pointed to me and said something in his own tongue. I could tell that it was scornful.

"The priest, angrily, returned the knife of blue stone to the golden dish. Others, too, were angry. The thongs at my ankles were cut free. My wrist leashes were untied from the iron rings. The crowd began to become ugly. By a hand on my arm I was thrust from the altar. It seemed now they did not want me on the altar. I was struck by a man. I cowered. My wrist leashes were seized by two men and I was dragged before the pillar of oblong stone on which sat he to whom I had called out 'Master'. The anger of the men, and the crowd, I suddenly realized, was not directed at the red brute sitting upon the stone, but, startingly, frighteningly, at mc. They were not angry with him for interfering with their ceremony but somehow, for no reason I understood, with me. I shuddered, held naked by the wrist leashes before the stone, the object of the contempt and wrath, the scorn and fury, of the multitude. I, terrified, felt their hatred directed upon me, almost as though it came in waves. 'Why did you not tell us you were a slave? he asked of me. He spoke in English. 'Forgive me, Master, I begged. 'To our gods, he said, 'the offer of a contemptible slave would be an insulting sacrifice. 'Yes, Master, I said. The first time I saw you, he said, 'I thought you were a slave. Yet when I ordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you did so. 'Forgive me, Master, I said. 'Surely you know that any free man has authority over a slave girl? he asked. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'When you did not obey, he said, 'I then thought perhaps that I had been mistaken about you, that perhaps you were not a slave, but a free woman, and thus might serve as a suitable sacrifice to our gods. 'Yes, Master, I said, my head lowered. 'But, as I had originally thought, he said, 'you were only a slave. 'Yes, Master, I said. I did not raise my head. 'When I ordered you not to replace your sunglasses, you did so, he said. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'Why? he asked. 'Forgive me, Master, I said. 'You were disobedient, he said. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'Whip her, he said."

The blond-haired barbarian looked at me.

"Continue," I said.

"There were two rings before the stone, about five feet apart," she said. 'They knelt me down."

"Kneel down," I said, "precisely as in your dream."

"Yes, Master," she said. She knelt down. "My wrist leashes," she said, "were then slipped through the rings, the free ends of each in the hands of a standing man."

"It is interesting that that should be in your dream," I said. "It is a device for maintaining a differential tension in the body of a beaten girl.".

"It seemed natural," she said.

"It is natural," I said. "Now place your wrists exactly as they were at the beginning of your beating."

"Yes, Master," she said. She extended her wrists downward and to the sides.

"What then occurred?" I asked.

"I was beaten," she said.

"How many strokes?" I asked.

"Eleven," she said. "Ten for disobedience, and one, to remind me that I was a slave."

"Interesting," I said. "That, too, is sometimes done."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You will now," I said, "count the strokes, and, after each count, react as you did in your dream."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I observed her. The beating, in her dream, had apparently been quite efficient I studied her facial expressions, the movements of her body. Sometimes under the blows or in fearful anticipation of them she twisted or changed position, once sitting, sometimes crouching, once on her stomach; most of the blows were across her back, but two had been delivered frontally, and two to her left side, and one to her right side. In all this I was conscious, in her movements, of how the two men with the wrist leashes, tightening or slackening them, toyed and played with her, as one sometimes does with a slave, skillfully managing her in her beating.

"The beating was then finished?" I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Apparently you were well beaten," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I was well beaten."

"At the end of the beating you well knew that you were a slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I well knew then that I was a slave."

"What occurred then?" I asked.

"I cowered kneeling, sobbing, before my master," she said. "The men then thrust my wrist leashes back through the rings and, by means of them, dragged me to my feet. I looked up at my master, piteously, searching his face for the least sign of kindness. But there was none. I was a woman of a foreign and hated race, and a slave. 'You are a worthless slave, he said. 'Yes, Master, I wept. He gestured to his right. I was dragged to the side by the wrist leashes. Stumbling I saw before me a circular opening in the stone, like a sunken, sheer-sided pool some eight feet in diameter. The men went to either side of the pool, dragging me by the wrist leashes toward it. I heard grunting and movement, and stirred water, in the pool. In the light of lifted torches I saw its contents. I screamed. In the pool, clambering over one another, lifting their jaws upward were crocodiles, beasts like river tharlarion but differently hided and plated."

I nodded. The marsh tharlarion, and river tharlarion, of Gor are, I suspect, genetically different from the alligators, caymens and crocodiles of Earth. I suspect this to be the case because these Earth reptiles are so well adapted to their environments that they have changed very little in tens of millions of years. The marsh and river tharlarion, accordingly, if descended from such beasts, brought long ago to Gor on Voyages of Acquisition by Priest-Kings, would presumably resemble them more closely. On the other hand, of course, I may be mistaken in this matter. It remains my speculation, however, that the resemblance between these forms of beasts, which are considerable, particularly in bodily configuration and disposition, may be accounted for by convergent evolution; this process, alert to the exigencies of survival, has, I suspect, in the context of similar environments, similarly shaped these oviparous predators of two worlds. Certain other forms of Gorean beast, however, I suspect do have an Earth origin. This seems to be the case with certain birds and rodents and, possibly, even with an animal as important to the Gorean economy as the bosk.

"Struggling, trying to pull back, fighting the wrist leashes, screaming, inch by inch," she said, "I was drawn toward the pool. 'Master! Master! I screamed. Then I was drawn to the very edge of the pool. I looked back wildly over my shoulder, sobbing. 'Please, Master! I wept. 'Have mercy on me, Master! Mercy, Master, mercy! Take pity on a worthless slave! The wrist leashes then tightened, to plunge me forward into the lifted, waiting, lunging jaws. I threw my head back. I do not know from where within me came then that piteous wild cry that I then uttered. 'Let me please you! I cried. He must have given a sign, perhaps raising his hand, for the wrist leashes, tight on my small wrists, no longer pulled me forward, but neither did they let me move an inch back. 'Let your girl try to please you, Master! I cried. 'The girl begs to please her master! I could scarcely believe that I had uttered those words. I was horrified that I had said them. They were the words, surely, of a slave. Yet how naturally and spontaneously they had come from me! What could it mean? I was dragged back before the oblong stone. There my wrist leashes were removed. I ran, terrified, to the stone, and pressed myself against it. I scratched at it with my fingernails, and looked up at him. 'Do you desire to please your master? he asked. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'As a slave? he asked. 'Yes, Master, I said, 'as a slave. I looked at him. I now knew what the words I had uttered had meant, those words which had so horrified me, and which, yet, had come so naturally and spontaneously from me. They had meant that I was truly a slave, and truly desired to please my master. Then, in my own heart, my slavery was well confirmed in me. 'Do so, he said. 'Yes, Master, I said, and stepped back from the stone."

I listened to the noises of the jungle night. I threw some more twigs on the fire.

"'You understand clearly, do you not, he asked, 'that if you are not sufficiently pleasing, you will be thrown to the crocodiles? 'Yes, Master, I said."

"Continue," I told her.

"I was terrified," she said. "I looked up at the brute. I knew that, if I were to live, I must please him, and please him well, and as a slave."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I moved before him," she said, "as a slave."

"Do so now," I said, "precisely, in every detail, as you did in your dream."

"Ah!" she said. "How clever you are, Master. How cleverly you have tricked me!"

I regarded her, not speaking.

"It is again a matter of female display behaviors, is It not?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"But these behaviors," she said, "would now be extracted from my most intimate and secret dreams."

I did not speak.

"You are a bold, demanding master," she said.

I did not speak.

"Do not make a girl so expose her needs," she begged.

"The slave girl must honestly expose her needs," I said. 'The hypocrisy of the free woman, her concealment, her subterfuges, her lies, are not permitted to the female slave."

"Oh, Master," she wept, miserably.

"Are you prepared to perform?" I asked.

"Do not so violate the privacy of a girl's dreams!" she begged.

"You have no privacy," I said. "You belong to me."

"Am I not to be permitted the least vestige of my pride?" she asked.

"No," I told her.

"I am a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I shall now perform for my master," she said.

"Do so," I said, "and precisely, in each and every detail, as In your dream."

"Yes, my master," she said. She looked at me. "Remember," she said, "that I was forced to do this, that I not be hurled to the waiting jaws of crocodiles, beasts much like river tharlarion. That I not suffer so horrible a fate I knew that I must please him well, and as the slave which I had now been proven to be."

"For your very life you performed," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, "as a terrified slave,"

"Perform," I commanded.

Almost instantaneously she seemed transformed. I was startled. I found myself, for the first time, partner to a woman's dream. How vividly she was re-enacting the experience. Nay, how intensely was she reliving it. I could sense almost the high, oblong stone, that rude, barbaric eminence, on which, cross-legged, sat her master. I could almost sense the torches, the pool of reptiles to one side, the rude altar, with its rings, in the background. I could almost feel and see the savages, those red men and women, in their ornate robes and feathers, in the. midst of whom a white beauty, freshly enslaved, piteously strove to save her life by pleasing her stern red master.

I watched her perform. I marveled. I think that no one will ever again be able to lie to me about women. How incredibly exciting and marvelous they are! What a fool a man is who does not seek, and release, the deepest slave in them!

Then she was on her belly, whimpering, scratching at the turf, her face pressed against it. Delicately she extended her tongue and licked a stone. Then, moaning, she rolled onto her back and twisted, moving her head from side to aide, in the dirt before me. The firelight was beautiful on her body. I think there was no aspect or attitude of her beauty which she had not, pleadingly, presented before me for my inspection and appraisal. Then she lay on her back, her knees drawn up, before me. She arched her back. Her breasts were lifted beautifully. I observed their lovely rise and fall, correlated with the respiratory cycle of her small lungs. Then she lay back, her shoulders in the dirt, and pressing against the earth with her small feet, piteously lifted before me, for my examination, and seizure, if I pleased, the deep belly of her, the sweet cradle of her slave's heat How vulnerable are female slaves! I rose to my feet. my fists clenched. She lay back, before me, at my feet "It was thus," she said, "that I tried to please him." I scrutinized, from head to toe, the naked slave who lay at my feet I could feel my fingernails in the palms of my hand. I gritted my teeth. I must not now take her. She was not yet fully ready. One must sometimes be patient with slaves. The next time I took her, I resolved, she would be a well-prepared feast. On the occasion of that feast it was my intention to teach the girl who she was, truly, to free at long last the hidden slave which was her secret self, her true self, that girl which, hitherto, had been permitted to emerge only in the disguise of clandestine dreams, that piteous girl, denied and suppressed, who had been for so long so cruelly imprisoned in the dungeon of her mind. I would free the secret slave from her dungeon; then I would make her mine. I would call her 'Janice'.

The girl sat up. I sat down, cross-legged. The fire was now low.

"What then occurred in your dream?" I asked.

"My master descended then from the height of the great stone," she said, "and, with his hand, indicated a direction in which I must precede him. He followed me, with a torch. I walked through the city and then, coming to a great temple, or building, with stone steps, stopped. He indicated I must climb upwards. The edifice was constructed of mighty blocks of stone. Its construction paid tribute to the engineering skills of his people. There were mighty carvings on many of the stones. I found the building, somehow, familiar. He then directed me to walk to my left, and I walked upon one of the broad terraces, many feet from the ground, which, like tiers, were integral to the structure of the edifice. I had the feeling I had been here before. In the light of his torch I could see that many of the carvings were colored, the natural hues and pigments not worn away by wind or rain. In the daylight the building, or temple, must be incredibly barbaric and colorful. 'Stop, he told me. I stopped. 'Turn and. kneel, he said. I turned about, facing him, and knelt down, on the hard, broad stone of the terrace. He then lifted the torch to the wall of stone which was at my left. I gasped. Kneeling beside me, carved in relief on the great stone, was a naked girl. 'It is a likeness of myself, I whispered. 'Yes, he said. I could see, from the carving, and the pigments, that the girl was figured like myself, and was light-skinned, and had yellow hair and blue eyes. But she wore a yellow neck belt and I did not. I knew then why the building seemed so familiar. It was identical to that which, in ruins, had been visited by our tour. And I now knelt, as the girl in the carving I had earlier seen had knelt. 'I had this carving prepared, he said. 'I ordered it made, sending a runner ahead, almost the first moment I saw you. 'You had determined then, I said, 'that you would have me as your slave. 'Of course, he said. He then placed his torch in an iron rack, projecting from the wall. On an iron table, to the right of the rack, there was a flat box. 'Lie on your right side, exposing your left thigh, he said. 'Yes, Master, I said. From the box he then took a small, curved knife and a tiny, cylindrical leather flask. I gritted my teeth, but made no sound. With the small knife he gashed my left thigh, making upon it a small, strange design. He then took a powder, orange in color, from the flask and rubbed it into the wound. 'Kneel, he said. I did so. From the flat box he then took a yellow neck belt, two inches in height, and beaded. It is fastened with a thong, which ties before the throat 'Say "I am a slave. I am your slave, Master," he said. 'I am a slave, I said. 'I am your slave, Master. He then put the neck belt on me, tying it shut with the thong, with what I knew must be a slave knot From the box then he took a yellow leather disk, which had a small hole, possibly drilled with a tiny stone implement, near its top. There was writing in some barbaric script upon it. He threaded an end of the thong through the hole and then, using the other end of the thong, too, knotted the disk snugly at the very base of the collar, in the front, below my throat He looked down at me. 'You have been knife branded, he said. The orange mark upon your thigh will be recognized in the jungle for hundreds of miles around. If you should be so foolish as to attempt to escape any who apprehend you, seeing the mark, will return you to the city as a runaway slave. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'Master, I asked, 'did the girl in the carving, in the ruined city, have such a mark on her thigh? It could not have been seen, of course, for, as she knelt, it was only her right side which was revealed to the viewer. 'Yes, he said. 'It has been put upon her. 'I do not understand, Master, I said. 'This is a slave's neck belt, he said, jerking at the snug collar on my throat I felt it pull against the back of my neck. 'It, too, he said, 'marks you as a slave. You are not permitted to remove it' 'Yes, Master, I said. The disk, of course, he said, 'is a personal identificatory device. It marks you as an article of my individual property. 'Yes, Master, I said. 'Master, I asked, 'how could you know that the other girl, she in the other carving, wore upon her thigh a knife brand? 'I put it there, he said. 'Master? I asked. 'Recollect clearly the carving, said he. 'Can you not now recognize the girl in it, in spite of the weathering which defaced it, in spite of the lengthy ravages of time inflicted upon it? 'Master? I asked. 'Think hard, said he. 'Consider the matter deeply. 'It was I, I whispered. 'And the master? he asked, standing before me, his arms folded. 'You, I whispered. I felt faint 'The jungle, said he, 'is a strange place. Even we, its people, do not fully understand it. 'But the people left the city, mysteriously, I said. 'Perhaps we never left it, he said. 'Look about you. I looked about, from the high tier on the temple, or building, on which I knelt 'It is the same city, I whispered. I shuddered. I was terrified. 'Do you not feel that it is right and fitting that you should be kneeling at my feet? he asked. 'Yes, I whispered, 'Master. It was a strange feeling. 'The interstices, and cycles, of time, said he, 'are interesting. He looked down at me. 'Have we not been here before? he asked. 'Do you not recognize me, my fair slave? he inquired. 'You are my master, I whispered. 'And I have caught you again, he said, 'and again put you to my feet. I looked up at him, trembling. Then I am an eternal slave, I said, 'and you are my eternal master. 'You are an eternal slave, he said, 'but you have had many masters, as I have had many slaves. I looked up at him, terrified. 'But you, my pretty white woman, are one of my favorites. You will serve me well, and I will get incredible pleasure from you. 'Yes, Master, I whispered. I knew then that I was an eternal slave, and that be was one of my eternal masters. He then withdrew from the flat box the last of the objects which it contained, a slave whip. He thrust it to my mouth and I kissed it. 'Stand, said he. I stood. Then he looped the whip about me, behind me, high on my thighs, and, drew me toward him. I felt the stiff gold of his brocaded robes against my breasts. He held me so that I could not move. I lifted my lips to his."

The blond-haired barbarian then put down her head, and did not speak.

"What happened then?" I asked.

She lifted her head, and smiled. "I do not know," she said. "I awakened."

"An interesting dream," I said. "Strange," I mused, "that in the dream of a naive Earth woman such details should occur, details such as the differential tension of the wrist straps in a beating and the extra stroke, given sometimes to remind a girl that she is a slave. Too, the kissing of the whip is a quite accurate detail, one practiced in many cities, but surely a surprising detail to occur in the dream of a girl ignorant of bondage. Knife branding, too, practiced by some primitive peoples, is quite rare. It is strange that you should have heard of it. It is a practice of which even many of those involved in cultural studies are ignorant." I looked at her. "You are quite inventive," I said.

"Perhaps I am an eternal slave," she smiled.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you believe," she asked, "that there can be warps in time?"

"It does not seem likely to me," I said, "but I would not know about such things. I am not a physicist."

"Do you think," she asked, "that people may have lived before, that they may have had many lives and have met one another perhaps time and time again?"

"I would not wish to rule out such possibilities," I said, "but such a thing seems to me very unlikely."

"It was an interesting dream," she said.

"I conjecture, though I do not know," I said, "that the dream was speaking to you not of truths of other worlds and other times, but of this world and this time. I suspect, that the dream, in the beautiful allegory of its symbolism, was conveying to you not mysterious truths of other realities but concealed truths of your own reality, truths which your conscious mind, because of its training, could not bring itself to recognize with candor."

"What truths?" she asked.

"That woman, in her nature," I said, "is the eternal slave, that man, in his nature, is the eternal master."

"The men of my world," she said, "are not masters."

"They have been crippled." I said, "and it seems, are being slowly destroyed."

"Not all of them," she said.

"Perhaps not," I said. "Yet if one of them should so much as question the renunciatory and negativistic values with which his brain has been imprinted he will be immediately assailed by the marshaled forces of an establishment jealously presiding over the dissolution of its own culture. Is it so difficult to detect the failure of public philosophies? Are unhappiness, frustration, misery, scarcity, pollution, disease and crime of no interest to those in power? I fear the reflex spasm. 'But we were not to blame, they will say, as they wade in poisoned ashes."

"Is there no hope for my world?" she asked.

"Very little," I said. "Perhaps, here and there, men will form themselves into small communities, where the names of such things as courage, discipline and responsibility may be occasionally recollected, communities which, in their small way, might be worthy of Home Stones. Such communities, emerging upon the ruins, might provide a nucleus for regeneration, a sounder, more biological regeneration of a social structure, one not antithetical to the nature of human beings."

"Must my civilization be destroyed?" she asked.

"Nothing need be done," I said. "It is now in the process of destroying itself. Do you think it will last another thousand years?"

"I do not know," she said.

"I fear only," I said, "that it will be replaced by a totalitarian superstition uglier than its foolish and ineffectual predecessor.

She looked down.

"Men would rather die than think," I said.

"Not all men," she said.

"That is true," I mused. "In all cultures there are the lonely ones, the solitary walkers, those who climb the mountain, and look upon the world, and wonder."

"Why is it," she asked, "that the men of Gor do not think and move in herds, like those of Earth?"

"I do not know," I said. "Perhaps they are different. Perhaps the culture is different. Perhaps it has something to do with the decentralization of city states, the multiplicity of traditions, the diversity of the caste codes."

"I think the men of Gor are different," she said.

"They are, presumably, or surely most of them, of Earth stock," I said.

"I think, then," she said, "that, on the whole, it must have been only a certain sort of Earth man who was brought to this world."

"What sort?" I asked.

"Those capable of the mastery," she said.

"Surely there are those of Earth," I said. "who are capable of the mastery."

"Perhaps," she said. "I do not know."

"Stand, Slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You have moved well this night, Slave," I said. "You have well earned a brief rag for your thighs."

"Thank you, Master," she said. I do not think she could have been more pleased if I had considered allowing her a sheath gown of white satin, with gloves and pearls.

I cut a length from the red bark cloth, about five feet in length and a foot in width. I wrapped it about the sweetness of her slave hips and tucked it in. I pushed it down so that her navel might be well revealed. It is called the "slave belly" on Gor. Only slave girls, on Gor, reveal their navels.

"You make me show the 'slave belly, Master," she said.

"Is it not appropriate?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, "it is."

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are a slave, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. I liked it, too. It reveals, well, the roundness of her belly and, low at the hips, the beginning of subtle love curves.

"Do you understand the meaning of the tuck closing on the skirt?" I asked.

"Master?" she asked.

I then, rudely, tore away the garment, spinning her, stumbling, from me. She gasped, brutally and suddenly stripped. She looked at me, frightened, again naked before her master.

"Do you now understand?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I threw her the garment again.

Hastily she put it on again, not neglecting to thrust it well down on her hips, that the slave belly would be well revealed.

"Excellent, Slave," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

I then reached into a sack, near the fire. I drew forth from it a handful of strings of beads. I threw her a necklace of red and black beads, which I thought was nice.

"Master," she asked, pointing, "may I also have that string of beads."

Tende and Alice each had two strings of beads. I saw no reason why the blond-haired barbarian might not be similarly ornamented.

I handed her the second string of beads and put the others back in the sack. She had already put the first string, that of red and black beads, about her throat. She looped them twice and still they fell between her lovely breasts, one loop longer than the other. The second string of beads was blue and yellow. Both strings were of small, simple wooden beads, suitable for slave girls. "Master," she asked, holding out to me the blue and yellow beads, "would you not, please, put this string upon me?"

"Very well," I said, standing behind her, looping them twice, one loop smaller than the other, about her throat. Each loop, as with the red and black beads, fell between her sweet breasts.

"Why did you want this string?" I asked.

"Are blue and yellow not the colors of the slavers?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. Blue and yellow are often used for the tenting of slave pavilions, and in the decor of auction houses. The wagons of slavers often have blue and yellow canvas. Sometimes they bind their girls with blue and yellow ropes. Sometimes their girls wear yellow-enameled collars, and yellow-enameled wrist rings and ankle rings, with chains with blue links. In his best, a slaver will usually wear blue and yellow robes, or robes in which these colors are prominent He will, normally, in his day-to-day business, wear at least chevrons, or slashes, of blue and yellow on his lower left sleeve.

"Are blue and yellow beads then," she asked, "not appropriate for me, for I am a slave?"

"They are very nice," I said, "but any simple, cheap beads, say, of wood or glass, will do as well for a slave."

"I see, Master," she said. "But may I keep them?"

"Until I, or any free man," I said, "sees fit to take them from you." I held her by the upper arms, from behind. "You do not own them," I said. "You only wear them, and on the sufferance of free men."

"Yes, Master," she said. "I own nothing. It is, rather, I who am owned."

"Yes," I said. I turned her about, to face me. "You are beginning to feel and understand your slavery, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. "Tonight you taught me much. For the first time in my life, tonight, I moved totally as a woman. I do not think I could go back, Master, to moving as a man."

I held her, tightly, and looked sternly into her eyes. "You are not a man," I told her. "You are a woman. That is what you are. Try to understand that. You are a woman, not a man."

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"It is thus permissible for you, truly, to move as a woman, and to feel and think and behave like a woman."

"I am a slave," she said, "and yet, strangely, I am beginning to feel so free."

"You are breaking through the constrictions of a pathological conditioning program," I told her.

I looked at her.

She trembled.

"Go to the slave post," I said. "Sit there, with your back to the post, your hands crossed behind your back."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I took a piece of improvised binding fiber, a narrow strip of leather some five feet long, and crouched down behind her.

"You freed me of many inhibitions tonight, Master," she said. "Was that your intention?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"I am grateful," she said.

"Oh!" she winced, as I knotted her hands behind her back.

"I am a woman," she said. "I want to be a woman, truly."

"Have no fear," I said. "You will be."

She looked at me.

"Gorean men," I said, "do not accept the conceit and pretense of pseudo-masculinity in female slaves."

"They would enforce my womanhood upon me?" she asked.

"You are a slave," I said. "You will be given no choice but to manifest your total womanhood to your master, in all its full vulnerability and beauty."

"But then I would have to obey, and please them," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Surely they would show me some compromise," she said.

"The Gorean man," I said, "does not compromise with a female slave. If necessary, you will learn your womanhood under the whip."

"But what if, even then," she asked, "I am not sufficiently pleasing?"

"You will then perhaps be fed to sleen," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I fastened the free end of the binding fiber to the slave post, and stood up.

"I am a secured slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"There was one thing I did not tell you about my dream."

"What was that?" I asked.

"It is something that you will not understand," she said, "for you are a man."

"What is that?" I asked.

"It was when I must needs please my master well, and as a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I wanted to please him," she whispered.

"Of course," I said. "You were desperate to please him, for you knew that if you were not pleasing to him, you would be cruelly and horribly destroyed."

"But I wanted to please him, too, for another reason," she said.

"What was that?" I asked.

"You will not understand," she said. "A man could never understand."

"What?" I asked.

"I wanted to please him," she said, "-because he was my master." She looked at me. "A girl can want to please her master," she said, "because he is her master."

I did not speak.

"Can you understand that?" she asked.

I shrugged.

"Do you think that we would make you such superb slaves if we did not want to he your slaves?"

"Perhaps not," I said.

"A girl desires to please her master," she said. "Can you understand that, Master?"

"I think so," I said.

"I desire to please you," she whispered.

"I see," I said.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Why did you not rape me tonight, Master?" she asked. "Am I not pleasing to you?"

"Later, perhaps," I said.

"You're training me, aren't you. Master?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.