Fighting Slave of Gor

4 LOLA AND TELA

"Put your wrists behind you," she said.

I stood in my cell. I had been freed of my chains. I put my wrists behind me, obeying the Lady Gina. She took the manacles from her belt and expertly, almost casually, in one motion, threw them on me, snapping them shut. I gathered she had manacled many men.

She tied a belt of soft, rolled cloth about my waist. She then took a long strip of cloth, some five feet long and eight inches wide, thrust it over the cloth belt in front, took it under and between my legs, passed it under and over the cloth belt in back, and, adjusting it, drew it snugly tight.

"This is not for your modesty, Jason," she said. "It is because your lessons in Gorean will largely be conducted by slave girls."

"Slave girls, Mistress?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "They are stinking, meaningless, lascivious little sluts who have been as slaves in the arms of Gorean men. It has spoiled them for freedom. They are worthless, sensuous little beasts whose passions Gorean men have seen fit, as cruel masters, to ignite. Their sexuality, their shamelessness, their needs, their helplessness, makes them an insult to free women. I do not want them falling to their knees by you, to seize you, to fawn upon you, to hold you, to lick and kiss you."

"No, Mistress," I said.

She then removed the chain from her belt and snapped it on the metal ring attached to my collar. I had, this morning, when my chains had been removed, felt the attachment. It was as I had conjectured, a ring. It was about a quarter of an inch thick. It was sturdy. It was of iron.

"Come along, Jason," she said. She then led me, manacled and leashed, from the cell.

"This is Lola. This is Tela," said the Lady Gina, pointing, respectively, to the two girls.

I was startled. Never would I, of Earth, have believed such women could exist. I could scarcely breathe. I was stunned. I beheld, for the first time in my life, Gorean slave girls.

I met their eyes. They beheld me with a sullen interest. Both girls were incredibly beautiful, and almost naked, but that tells little about them. I suppose, if you have never looked upon a slave girl, it will be impossible for me to convey to you more than an inkling of what it is to see one, particularly for the first time. Imagine, if you will, the most exciting and desirable woman you have ever seen; then imagine her standing stripped before you in a steel collar, and that the collar is yours, and that you own her, and that she must obey. That will convey to you something of what it is to see a slave girl. I looked on the girls. Surely their bodies were graceful, curvacious and vital; surely they were both unusually, even incredibly, beautiful; surely, too, both had been limited in their raiment to the rags of half-naked slaves; yet it was not these things, strange as it may seem, which so set them apart from other women; it was not these things which made them so different. What set them so apart from other women, what made them so different, what made their beauty ten thousand times more devastating and exciting than that of other women was that they, in full actuality, in full reality, were owned slaves.

Both girls knelt before the Lady Gina. She spoke to them in Gorean. I heard the word `Kajirus', which I would later learn was an expression for a male slave, and I heard the expression `Jason', which was the name I had been given. How I envied the Lady Gina, having two such beauties kneeling before her.

The two slaves looked up at her, deferentially, attending to her every word.

I could not take my eyes from the two slave girls. They were the first slave girls I had ever seen.

The Lady Gina spoke to them rapidly, and in detail.

Slave girls are unlike and beyond all other women. Earth, with its frigid, competitive, frustrated females, trying to be men, has not even prepared one for the understanding that such fantastic, owned beauties could exist. What wonders does the collar work upon a woman! How it transforms herl The Goreans say that no woman is a true woman until she has submitted as a slave, and that no man has experienced his full sexuality until he has thrown her to the foot of his couch. Looking upon the girls I wondered if it were not a madness that any woman is let out of the collar. Are they not all, truly, the property of men? Should they not all, truly, be owned by men?

One of the girls, Lola, asked a question of the Lady Gina, to which she promptly replied. She continued then with her instructions, whatever they might be.

I clenched my fists in the manacles that confined my hands behind my back. I wanted to scream with pleasure that I had been brought to a world on which such women could exist. They were deeply sensuous, profoundly feminine, excruciatingly luscious, and slaves.

The Lady Gina turned her right hand, back down, to the floor, and lifted it slightly. Both girls, obedient to the gesture; rose together to their feet.

They turned to regard me. Both girls were dark-haired and dark-eyed. Lola's hair was darker than that of Tela. Goreans, male and female, like most of those of Earth stock, from which they are doubtless derived, or derived for the most part, are brunet types. Statistical deviations in large numbers from this type occur only in Torvaldsland and in certain other areas in the northern latitudes. Lola, I conjecture, was in the neighborhood of five feet four inches tall and would have weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds; Tela, who was a bit smaller, I would conjecture would have been about five feet three inches tall and would have weighed a pound or two less, perhaps about one hundred and eighteen pounds.

"Do you like the girls, Jason?" asked the Lady Gina.

I looked upon the two girls. They were sweetly slung, with truly feminine bodies, luscious and curvacious. Their breasts were bared. Each, about her hips, wore a gray rag, knotted high on the left hip, to expose the left hip and thigh. Each, on her throat, wore a light, locked steel collar. The collars had writing on them, incised in the steel, which I could not read. The rag at their hips and the steel on their neck were all they wore. Both were barefoot.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"They will be your principal tutors in Gorean," she said.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "Thank you, Mistress."

"Beware of them," she said.

"Mistress?" I asked.

I saw quirts thrust in their hands.

"Kneel, Jason," said the Lady Gina.

In consternation I knelt.

The quirts were thrust to my face.

"Kiss the quirts," she said.

I did so, commanded by the woman whom I feared, who was my mistress.

"In the time of your lessons," she said, "they will be to you as I, your mistresses. You will obey them, perfectly. You will learn swiftly and well"

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Look upon these slave girls," said the Lady Gina.

I looked upon them. What fantastically attractive women they were, their lovely faces framed in cascades of dark hair, their throats, closely encircled by steel collars, their shoulders, their breasts, bared, their narrow waists and sweetly flared hips, the bit of rag they wore, their thighs, calves, ankles and small, high-arched feet.

"Do you find them beautiful?" asked the Lady Gina.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Do you desire them?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

The Lady Gina nodded to the two girls and they, suddenly, viciously, began to lash at me with the leather quirts.

I put my head down, miserably. I was startled. When I looked up, confused, frightened, my body stung in a dozen places.

The Lady Gina spoke to the slave, Lola. Immediately the girl placed her hands behind her head and threw her head back, arching her back and body, legs flexed, before me. I supposed that it was sometimes in such a fashion that slave girls were ordered to display themselves for the pleasure or inspection of masters. I almost sobbed with the pleasure of seeing her.

"Your hands are manacled, Jason," said the Lady Gina. "Too bad. You would like to touch her, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Mistress," I said, miserably.

The Lady Gina nodded to the girl Tela who then, crying out angrily, struck me twice with her, quirt. Lola meanwhile broke her pose and looked at me, impassively.

I looked up at the Lady Gina. There were tears in my eyes, from the stinging of the blows of the quirt.

"Poor Jason," she said, soothingly. Then, again, she spoke to Lola. Lola, the beautiful slave girl, then tore away the rag from her hips and lowered herself to the tiles. She lay then on her back before me. She threw her ankles apart and put her wrists to her sides, their backs to the tiles. It seemed she struggled, as though she might be chained in place, and then resigned herself to her helplessness, and turned her face to me. I looked down at her. It was as though she lay chained before me. Again, suddenly, it seemed she tried to free herself, but could not do so. Then her struggles, it seemed, grew weaker, and she lay before me, as though awaiting whatever fate a master might choose to bestow upon her. Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to hold herself still. She bit her lip, to control herself. She, a slave girl, lay before a man.

The Lady Gina, suddenly, viciously, kicked her, and spoke sharply to her. The girl closed her eyes and lay perfectly still. Again the Lady Gina spoke to her. She opened her eyes and looked up at me. She lifted her body to me. Then she lay back on the tiles, watching me, her sweet breasts rising and falling with her breathing.

I could scarcely believe how beautiful, how desirable, was the female slave lying before me. I, a man of Earth, wanted to cry out with wonder that a woman could be so beautiful. I, a man of Earth, wanted to scream with joy that a woman could even begin to be so desirable. And what I did not understand at the time was that the girls, Lola and Tela, though surely astoundingly lovely, were only a little above the average for Gorean slave girls.

"Would you like to take her in your arms?" asked the Lady. Gina.

I began to squirm. "Please, don't hit me," I begged.

"Speak, Slave!" commanded the Lady Gina.

"No, Mistress. No, Mistress," I said. "I would not want to take her in my arms."

She suddenly cuffed me, angrily, and kicked me. "You can be slain for a lie, Slave," she said.

"Forgive me, Mistress," I begged.

"Did you lie?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said. "I lied! I lied! Forgive me, Mistress. Please, forgive me!''

"You would, then," she asked, "like to take her in your arms?"

I looked at the supine girl before me, holding her body as though chained. What a desirable female she was, exciting far beyond anything I could have believed existed.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

The Lady Gina then spoke to the two girls. Lola rose to her feet. She tied the brief rag again about her hips. Both took their quirts well in hand. They were long quirts, some two feet in length. They held them now, each of them, with two hands.

"You will now be beaten twice," said the Lady Gina, "once for having, as a frightened, ignorant slave, dared to lie to your mistress, and once for having desired to take a beautiful girl in your arms."

I was then twice beaten, each time with twenty strokes. The Lady Gina, then, placed the chain leash which was snapped on my collar in the hand of Lola. As I lifted my head, miserable, cringing, my back and legs lacerated and bloody, I saw, truly noticing it for the first time, a deep mark, a lovely mark, about an inch and a half high and a half of an inch wide, incised in Lola's left thigh. I was startled. It was a brand. Lola had been branded. The mark was exquisite in her flesh. The design was rather floral. It consisted of what seemed to be a straight line, rather severe, with what appeared to be, adjacent to it, to its right, two fronds, curled and graceful. I would later learn that this was, in cursive script, the initial letter of the Gorean expression 'Kajira', which is the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. The design also, according to some, is supposed to have symbolic significance. The straight line is supposed to represent the staff of discipline and the two fronds the beauty of a woman. The significance of the whole, then, would be beauty subject to the staff of discipline. Interestingly, the design also bears a remote resemblance, if one thinks about it, to the English letter `K'. Since the first sound in the expression 'Kajira' would be represented in English by the letter `K' it is quite possible that this resemblance is more than a coincidence. Certain letters of the Gorean alphabet, not all of them, bear a very clear resemblance to certain letters in certain of the alphabets of Earth. This, I suppose, was to have been expected, given the doubtless Earth origin of all, or most, of the human Goreans. The Gorean name for the letter in question, if it is of interest, is 'Kef'.

I was gasping from the beating. My body stung. But I could not, for the moment, take my eyes from the exquisite mark, the brand, in the girl's thigh. It was clear upon her, and beautiful. She wore it in her very flesh. Lola was clearly, decisively and beautifully marked. Anyone who looked upon that mark would know what she was, a female slave. I looked to the thigh of Tela. That same mark, lovely and identical, was burned into her thigh. She, too, was well marked as a female slave.

Suddenly Lola struck me in the belly with her quirt, a vicious, lashing blow. Tela, too, then, hit me with her quirt, though on the left shoulder. I cried out with misery. I looked up, puzzled, at my mistress.

"You looked upon their brands," said the Lady Gina to me. "Do not forget you are only a slave, Jason."

Lola jerked on the chain leash and thrust her quirt under my chin, pressing upwards. I stood. She tapped me on the belly and at the small of the back. I stood straight, frightened.

"Look upon the slaves," commanded the Lady Gina. "See their ankles, their legs, the sweetness of their bellies, the loveliness of their breasts, the beauty of their shoulders, their throats and faces, their hair."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. The hair of slave girls is commonly worn long and loose, unbound. The hair of both Lola and Tela was long, falling well to the small of their backs.

"They are desirable, aren't they?" asked the Lady Gina.

"Yes, Mistress," I said, tensing myself.

"You would like to own them, wouldn't you?" asked the Lady Gina.

"Yes, Mistress," I said, clenching my body against the blow or blows to come.

Then Lola, at a sign from the Lady Gina, struck me with the quirt.

"I am confused, Mistress," I cried. "I do not know what to do! Why are you doing this to me?"

"It is not different from what is done on Earth," she said. "Only there, except for children who can be, and often are, physically abused, the whips are social and verbal"

I looked at her with horror.

"It is the type of conditioning to which a male of Earth is almost certain to have been exposed," she said. "Would you like me now to remove your manacles and give you one of the girls for an hour or so, for your pleasure?" she asked.

"No," I said, honestly, shrinking back.

"Lola?" she asked. "Or Tela?"

"No," I said. "No, Mistress!"

"Suppose that I ordered you to perform with one of them, for my interest?" she asked.

I looked at her, terrified. "I could not do so, Mistress," I said

"A few minutes ago," she said, "you could have used them well."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"And now?" she asked.

"Not now," I said. "Not now."

"I am teaching you, as men of Earth are taught," she said, "to fear and suppress your sexuality. The process is simple. Tantalize and punish. Tantalize and punish. Soon, by natural psychological linkages, an association will be formed between sexuality and punishment. You will come to fear your sexual feelings, as being precursors to pain, physical or mental. This will induce anxiety in sexual situations and impair sexual effectiveness. In children, of course, the punishments are commonly forgotten, at least on conscious levels. Inexplicable anxieties, however, often remain. These anxieties, and the rules that seem associated with them, pertaining to the suppression and inhibition of sexuality, must, of course, by thinking organisms, be rationalized. An entire structure of myths is then raised to protect the individual from the insight that he was, long ago, when defenseless, mutilated and crippled. You are familiar with the nature of such myths, such superstructures and defense mechanisms. They are many and varied. These range from the praising of an idiotic celibacy in the interests of a presumably nonexistent spirit to the genres of dirty jokes and stories, in which a vengeance is taken on the thwarted sexuality by trying to make it appear small and dirty. Between these two madnesses is a variety of more dangerous antisexisms, more pernicious because subtler, recrudescent Puritanisms masking themselves under the garbage of trigger rhetorics, the usage of such expressions as 'persons' and such, designed to suppress thought and enforce social conformity."

"But what would be the point of all this madness and cruelty?" I asked.

"Why do the ugly disparage beauty?" she asked. "Why do the weak belittle strength?"

"I do not understand," I said.

"Masculinity in the male," she said, "is closely allied with sexuality. Masculinity may be best attacked by an attack on male sexuality, and the more pervasive and pernicious it is the better. Men are the natural masters. This is obvious in the study of primate biology. Thus the male must be hobbled, broken and crippled. He must be, as a male, destroyed. Women can then assume their place as his equal, or superior."

"Why do you hate men so?" I asked

"I am not one of them," she said.

"Why do you not carry your cause outside the pens?" I asked.

She laughed. "I am not a fool," she said. "Do you think I want to be branded with a hot iron? Do you think I want to be put in a steel collar and thrown naked to the feet of men beneath their whips? No, my dear Jason, I do not wish that. Those are not men of Earth up there, who will consider the arguments for their own castration with reflective care. Those are Gorean men up there."

"You are afraid of them," I said.

"Yes," she said. "I am afraid of them."

I wished that I was such a man.

"You are then," I said, "trying to make me fear my sexual feelings that I will suppress them, and with them my manhood."

"It is the best way we know," she said, "to reduce a male's effectiveness in all socially competitive situations. He is then crippled, of course, not only sexually, but, often, in many other ways, too. When his sexuality does not give him spine he becomes timid and manipulable. He is then useful to ambitious women who, at another time, might scarcely have dared to speak to him."

"What is the true point of depriving men of their sexuality?" I asked.

"Is it not obvious?" she asked. "It is to make them slaves."

"Can biology be so perfectly eradicated?" I asked.

"Not with mere conditioning techniques," she said, "There is more to be hoped for, eventually, on your world, with punishing implants, chemical alterations, the castration of unsuitable male infants, hormone injections, sex control, genetic engineering, and such. It should not be difficult, with power in the hands of women, presumably an inevitable eventuality in your type of democracy, to bring about the success of these programs."

"Why, then," I asked, "do you not wish to go to Earth and take up your abode there?"

"I am not insane," she said.

"Do you not, truly, wish for the success of such hideous programs?" I asked.

"No," she said, "for, for all practical purposes, it would be the end of the human race."

"You look then," I asked, "beyond your own selfish interests?"

"I cannot help myself," she said. "There is in me left a little bit of the human being."

"I do not think Earth will succumb to such a nightmare as you have outlined," I said.

"It is already on its way to doing so," she said. "Can you not see the signs?"

"Men, and women, will prevent it," I said.

"Earthings," she said, "are manipulated organisms, helpless in the flow of social forces, slobbering to slogans and rhetoric. They will be the first to celebrate their own downfall. They will not discover what has been done to them until it is too late."

"I hope that you are wrong," I said.

She shrugged. "Perhaps I am wrong," she said. "Let us hope so."

"More likely than your scenario for the future," I said, "would be times of great conflict and tumult, the precipitation of horrifying and vast wars."

"Perhaps," she said. "I suppose there will always be recalcitrant brutes who will not willingly surrender their manhood."

"Does the future not portend barbarism?" I inquired.

"Barbarism or the lawn party," she smiled. "You may have your choice."

"Any rational person must surely choose the lawn party," I said.

"Is that true?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"I would choose barbarism," she said. "Lawn parties are boring."

"Your sex," I said, "might not fare well under barbarism."

"We might fare better than you think," she said.

"But you might then be little better than slaves," I said, "if you were not fully slaves."

"That might suit us quite well," she said.

I was silent.

Then she looked at me, angrily. "How foolishly I have spoken to you," she said, "a mere slave!"

She then turned to the two girls. They had understood nothing of what we had been saying, of course, for they did not speak English.

"Why, Mistress," I asked, "have you spoken to me as you have? Surely your techniques would be more effective if I were imperfectly aware of them? It is as though you were warning me of your intentions."

She did not look at me, but she spoke to me. "On Gor," she said, "we would not even break our male slaves as the men of Earth are broken."

She then spoke to the two girls and they conducted me swiftly from the presence of the mistress, Lola pulling me, stumbling on the chain, and Tela, behind, prodding me with her quirt.

My lessons in Gorean were soon to begin.

I tried not to look at the beauty of the girl who led me. I knew that if I looked upon either of them as a man I would be punished. I must not permit myself to have sexual feelings. I must control myself ruthlessly. I must keep fully in mind that I was a slave.

Then it occurred to me that it would not be right for me to look upon their beauty. They could not help that they were slaves, no more than I could help it. They were, despite their beauty and rags, the brand and steel collar, true persons, like myself. I must respect them. I must not look upon them as beautiful women are biologically looked upon by strong, aggressive males. I must look upon them as persons. This was not, then, weakness on my part, but evidence of my respect for them, my nobility, my understanding, my sweetness and tenderness. That I suppressed my feelings toward them, thus, was not now evidence of my cowardice but rather of my strength and courage. I was now strong enough and courageous enough to control and conquer myself. How wonderful I was, really. I was not to be despised. No, rather I was to be congratulated and commended. Perhaps Goreans might not understand the sacrifice I had made, and how noble I was, but I was certain these things, my sacrifice, and my nobility, would have been well understood, and appreciated, by a woman of my own world.

Content then I went with the two women who were to me now, in the time of my lessons, as mistresses.

Never must I permit Goreans to rob me of my true self. I knew what was my true self, for I had been taught what it was on Earth. Years of careful conditioning and training, and a pervasive social and cultural milieu, had taught me what my true self was.

I did not think it would interfere with my slavery.