Kajira of Gor

3 Corcyrus

It was warm in the room.

It seemed a lazy morning.

My fingers felt at the red-silk coverlet. I lay on my stomach on the soft, broad, red-silk surface. I tried to collect my wits. I moved my body, a little. I felt the soft silk move beneath it. I was nude. Too, I felt the warm air on my body and legs. I was not covered. I was lying nude, uncovered, on my stomach, on a wide, soft, silken surface.

I remembered the men, the straps and the box.

I turned and sprang to my hands and knees on the soft surface. I was on a vast bed, or couch. It was round and some fifteen feet in diameter. I was, half sunk in its softness, near the center of it. I had not realized such luxury could exist. A glance informed me, to my relief, that I was alone in the room. The room was a large one, and extremely colorful.

The floor was of glossy, scarlet tiles. The walls, too, were tiled, and glossy, and covered with bold, swirling designs, largely worked out in yellow and black tiles. At one point there was a large, scarlet pelt on the floor. Against some of the walls there were chests, heavy chests, which opened from the top. There were mirrors, too, here and there, and one was behind something like a low vanity. I also saw a small, low table. It was near the couch. There were also, mostly near the walls, some cushions about. To one side there was a large, sunken basin. This was, perhaps, I thought, a tub. There was no water in it, however, and no visible faucets. I saw myself in one of the mirrors, on all fours in the great bed. I hastily looked away. To one side there appeared to be some sliding doors. On my right, and several feet away, there was, too, a heavy wooden door. It looked as though it might be very thick. I saw no way, no bars or locks, no chains or bolts, whereby its closure might be guaranteed on my side. It might be locked on the outside, I supposed. But, clearly, I could not lock it from the inside. I could not keep anyone out. I could, on the other hand, doubtless be kept in. At one point on the floor there was, fixed in the floor, a heavy metal ring. I also saw, in one wall, two such rings. One was mounted in the wall about a yard from the floor and the other, about a yard to its left, was mounted in the wait, about six feet from the floor.

I quickly, frightened, crawled back off the bed. It was not easy to do, given its softness. I felt the smoothness, the coolness, of the scarlet tiles on my feet. I saw that there was, anchored at one point in the couch, at what may have served as its foot, another such sturdy ring. Beneath it lay a coil of chain. Smaller rings, too, I noted, circling the couch, appeared at regular intervals about its perimeter, about every four or five feet, or so. Beneath these, however, there lay - no chains. I fled to the window, which was narrow, about fifteen inches in width. It was set with heavy bars, spaced about three inches apart, reinforced with thick, flat, steel crosspieces, spaced at about every vertical foot. I shook the bars. They did not budge. I hurt my hands. I stood there for a moment, the shadows of the bars and crosspieces falling across my face and body. Then I fled back to the couch and, fearfully, crawled onto it. There seemed something different, frighteningly so, about this place in which I now found myself. It seemed almost as though it might not be Earth. This did not have to do primarily with the room, and its appointments and furnishings, but rather with such things as the condition of my body and the very quality of the air I was breathing. I supposed this was the result of the lingering effects of the substance with which I had been sedated or drugged. The gravity seemed different, subtly so, from that of Earth. Too, my entire body felt alive and charged with oxygen. The air itself seemed vivifying and stimulating. These things, which appeared to be objective aspects of the environment were doubtless merely subjective illusions on my part, resulting from the drug or sedative. They had to be. The obviously suggested alternative would be just too unthinkable, just too absurd. I hoped I had not gone mad.

I sat on the bed, my chin on my knees. I became aware that I was very hungry. One thing, at least, assured me that I had not gone mad.

That thing supplied a solid reference point in this seemingly incredible transition between environments. It had been locked on me in my own kitchen. It was a steel anklet. I still wore it.

I looked over to one of the mirrors. I looked small, sitting on the great bed. I was nude. I wondered in whose bed I was.

I then heard a sound at the door.

Terrified I knelt on the bed, snatching up a portion of the coverlet on which I knelt, and held it tightly, defensively, about me.

The door opened, admitting a small, exquisite, dark-haired woman. She wore a brief, whitish, summery, floral-print tunic, almost diaphanous, with a plunging neckline. The print was a tasteful scattering of delicate yellow flowers, perhaps silk-screened in place. The garment was belted, and rather snugly, with two turns of a narrow, silken, yellow cord, knotted at her left hip. She was barefoot. I noted that she did not wear an anklet, such as I wore. There was something on her neck, however, something fastened closely about it, encased in a silken yellow sheath or sleeve. I did not know what it was. It could not be metal, of course. That would be terrifying. I noted that the door, which now closed behind her, wag some six inches thick.

"Oh," said the girl, softly, startled, seeing me, and knelt.

She put her head down, and then lifted it. "Forgive me, Mistress," she said. "I did not know whether or not you were yet awake. I did not knock, for fear of disturbing you."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"I have come to serve Mistress," she said. "I have come to see if Mistress desires aught."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Susan," she said.

"Susan who?" I asked.

"Only Susan," she said.

"I do not understand," I said.

"That is what I have been named," she said.

"Named?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"I am Tiffany," I said. "Tiffany Collins."

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"Where am P" I asked.

"In the city of Corcyrus," she said.

I had never heard of this city. I did not even know what country it was in. I did not even know in what continent it might be.

"In what country is this?" I asked.

"In the country of Corcyrus," she said.

"That is the city," I said.

You are then in the dominions of Corcyrus, Mistress," she said.

"Where is Corcyrus?" I asked.

"Mistress?" asked the girl, puzzled.

"Where is Corcyrus?" I asked.

"It is here," she said, puzzled. "We are in Corcyrus."

"I see that I am to be kept in ignorance," I said, angrily, clutching the coverlet about my neck.

"Corcyrus," said the girl, "is south of the Vosk. It is. south-west of the city of Ar. It lies to the east and somewhat north of Argenturn."

"Where is New York City?" I asked. "Where are the United States?" "They are not here, Mistress," smiled the girl.

"Where is the ocean?" I asked.

"It is more than a thousand pasangs to the west, Mistress," said the girl. "Is it the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," said the girl.

"It is the Indian Ocean?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," said the girl.

I looked at her, puzzled.

"It is Thassa, the Sea, Mistress," said the girl.

"What sea is it?" I asked.

"That is how we think of her," said the girl, "as the sea, Thassa." "Oh" I said, bitterly.

"Has Mistress noted certain feelings or sensations in her body, perhaps of a sort with which she is unfamiliar?" asked the girl. "Has Mistress noted any unusual qualities in the air she is breathing?"

"Perhaps," I said. These things I had construed as the lingering effects of the substance which had been injected into me, rendering me unconscious.

"Would Mistress like for me to have her bath prepared?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I am clean."

"Yes, Mistress," she said. I realized, uneasily, that I must have been cleaned. "I have been perfumed, have I not?" I asked. I did no know if the room had been perfumed, or if it were I.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

I pulled the coverlet up, even more closely, about my neck.

I felt its soft silk on my naked, perfumed body. The perfume was exquisitely feminine.

"Am I still a virgin?" I asked.

"I suppose so," said the girl. "I do not know."

I looked uneasily at the heavy door, behind her. I did not know who might enter that door, to claim me.

"In whose bed am I" I asked.

"In your own, Mistress," said the girl.

"Mine?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"Whose room is this?" I demanded.

"Yours, Mistress," said the girl.

"There are bars at the window," I said.

"They are for your protection, Mistress," said the girl. "Such bars are not unusual in the rooms of women in Corcyrus.

I looked at the girl in the light, floral-print tunic, kneeling a few feet from the bed. It was almost diaphanous. It was not difficult to detect the lineaments of her beauty beneath it. seemed a garment which was, in its way, demure and yet, the same time, extremely provocative. To see a woman such a garment, I suspected, might drive a man half mad with passion. I wondered what was concealed in the silken sheath about her neck.

"Why have I been brought here?" I asked. "What am I doing here?" "I do not know, Mistress," said the girl. "I am not one such as would be informed."

"Oh," I said. I did not fully understand her response.

"Is Mistress hungry?" she inquired.

"Yes," I said. I was ravenous.

Smiling the girl rose lightly to her feet and left the room.

I left the bed and stood then on the tiles, near the bed, the coverlet still held about me, almost like a great cloak. The tiles felt cool to the bottoms of my feet. The weather seemed warm and sultry. I wondered if I might be in Africa or Asia.

I looked at the rings on the couch, at the ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall, one about a yard from the floor and one about six feet from the floor.

I looked at the door. There was a handle on my side of the door, but no way to lock or bar it, at least from my side.

I heard a noise, and stepped back.

The door opened and the girl, carrying a tray, smiling, entered.

"Mistress is up," she said. She then set the tray down on the small table. She arranged the articles on the tray, and then brought a cushion from the side of the room and placed it by the table. There was, on the tray, a plate of fruit, some yellow, wedge-shaped bread, and a bowl of hot, rich-looking, dark-brown, almost-black fluid.

"Let me relieve Mistress of the coverlet," she said, approaching me. I shrank back.

"It is too warm for it," she smiled, reaching for it.

I again stepped back.

"I have washed Mistress many times," she said. "And Mistress is very beautiful. Please."

I let the coverlet slip to my hips. There was no mistaking the admiration in the eyes of the girl. This pleased me. I let her remove it from me. "Yes," she said, "Mistress is quite beautiful."

"Thank you," I said.

She folded the coverlet and placed it on the great couch.

"Susan," I said. "That is your name?"

"Yes, Mistress," smiled the girl.

"What are these rings?" I asked, indicating the heavy ring in the floor, and the two rings in the wall.

"They are slave rings, Mistress," said the girl.

"What is their purpose?" I asked, frightened.

"Slaves may be tied or chained to them," said the girl.

"There are slaves, then, in this place?" I asked. This thought, somehow, alarmed me, terribly. Yet, too, at the same time, I found it inordinately moving and exciting. The thought of myself as a slave and what this might mean suddenly Hashed through my mind. For an instant I was so thrilled, so shaken with the significance of this, that I could scarcely stand.

"There are true men in this place," explained the girl.

"Oh," I said. I did not understand her remark. Did she not know that true men repudiated their natural sovereignty, forsook their manhood and conformed to prescribed stereotypes? Was she not familiar with the political definitions? I wondered then if there might not be another sort of true men, true men, like true lions, who, innocent of negativistic conditionings, simply fulfilled themselves in the way of nature. Such men. I supposed, of course, could not exist. They, presumably, in the way of nature, would be less likely to pretend that women were the same as themselves than to simply relish them, to keep them, to dominate, own and treasure them, perhaps like horses or dogs, or, I thought, with a shudder, women.

"Would Mistress care to partake now of her breakfast?" asked the girl. I was looking, fascinated, at the heavy ring set in the tiles.

"If Mistress wishes," said the girl, "she may tie me to it and whip me." I looked at her, startled. "No," I said. "No!"

"I shall tidy the room," said the girl, "and prepare it for the convenience of Mistress."

She turned about and went to the side of the room. She began to take articles from the vanity, such as, combs and brushes, and vials, and place them on its surface, before the mirror. She moved with incredible grace.

Glancing in the mirror she saw me behind her, watching her. "Mistress?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said.

She continued her work. She straightened pillows at the side of the room. She then went to one of the sliding doors at the side of the room and moved one back a few inches. She reached inside and, from the interior of the door, where it had doubtless been hanging, from a loop on its handle, removed an object. I gasped.

"Mistress?" she asked.

"What is that?" I asked.

"A whip," she said, puzzled. Seeing my interest she brought it towards me. I stepped back. She held it across her body. Its handle was about eighteen inches long. It was white, and trimmed with yellow beads. Depending from this handle, at one end, were five, pliant yellow straps, or lashes. Each was about two and a half feet long, and one and a half inches, wide.

I trembled.

I could scarcely conjecture what that might feel laid to my body.

"Am I to be whipped?" I asked. I was terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.

"I do not think so, Mistress," laughed the girl.

I regarded the whip. I wished that she had been more affirmative in her response.

"Whos whip is it?" I asked.

"Yours, Mistress," said the girl.

"But for what purpose is it to be used?" I asked.

"It is for whipping me," she said. "It is my hope, however, that I will be so pleasing to Mistress that she will not wish to use it, or not often, on me." "Take it away," I said. It frightened me.

The girl went to a wall and, near the large door, by a loop on its butt end, hung it from a hook. I had not noticed the hook before.

"There," said the girl, smiling. "It is prominently displayed, where we both, many times a day, may see it."

I nodded. I regarded the object. There was little mistaking its meaning. "Susan," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"Are there truly slaves here, in this place, in this city, or country?" "Yes, Mistress," she said, "and generally."

I did not understand what she meant by "generally."

I felt the warm air on my body. I smelled the perfume, so delicately feminine, which had been put on me.

"You said you had been "named' Susan," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"The way you said that," I said, "it sounded as though you might have been named anything."

The girl shrugged, and smiled. "Of course, Mistress," she said.

"You are very pretty, Susan," I said.

"Thank you, Mistress," she said.

"These other rings," I said, indicating the rings about the couch, "are they also slave rings?"

"Yes," she said, approaching lightly, gracefully, "in their way, but most of them are only anchor rings, to which, say, chains or cords might be attached." She then crouched by the heavy ring, that with.coiled chain beneath it, that fastened at what might, perhaps, count as the bottom of the couch. "But this," she said, "more appropriately, is the more typical type of ring which one thinks of as a slave ring. Do you see its resemblance to the others, that in the floor, those at the wall?"

"Yes," I said.

She lifted the ring. I could see that it was heavy. She then lowered it back into place, so that it again, in its retaining ring, fastened in a metal plate, bolted into the couch, hung parallel to t* he side of the couch. "By means of such a ring," she said, "a male silk slave might be chained at the foot of your couch."

The girl rose to her feet. "Surely Mistress is hungry," she said.

The light from the barred window was behind her. I also saw the shadows of the bars and crosspieces lying across the couch.

I turned and went to the low table where the tray had been placed.

"There are no chairs," I said.

"There are few chairs in Corcyrus," said the girl.

I turned to face her, almost in anguish. Something in this place terrified me. "I have been unable to keep from noticing your garments," I said.

"Mistress?" asked the girl.

"Forgive me," I said, "but they leave little doubt as to your loveliness." "Thank you, Mistress," said the girl.

"You are aware of how revealing they are, are you not?" I asked.

"I think so, Mistress," said the girl.

"By them the lineaments of your beauty are made publicly clear," I said. "That is doubtless one of their intentions, Mistress," said the girl. I suddenly felt faint.

"Mistress?" asked the girl, alarmed.

"I am all right," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said, relieved.

I then, slowly, walked about her, frightened. She stood still, very straight, her head up. She was incredibly lovely, and exquisitely figured.

"There is something on your left leg," I said, "high, on the thigh, just under the hip." I saw this through the almost diaphanous, white, floral-print tunic she wore.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. "It is common for. girls such as I to be marked." "Marked?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. "Would Mistress care to see?"

Seeing my curiosity, my fascination, she drew up the skirt of the brief tunic, with both bands, and looked down to her left thigh.

"What is it?" I asked. It was a delicate mark, almost floral, about an inch and a half high and a half inch, or so, wide.

"It is my brand," she said.

I gasped.

"It was put on me in Cos," she said, "with a white-hot iron, two years ago." "Terrible," I whispered.

"Girls such as I must expect to be marked,"' she said. "It is In accord with the recommendations of merchant law."

"Merchant law?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl. "May I lower my tunic?"

"Yes," I said.

She smoothed down the light tunic.

"It is a beautiful mark," I said.

"I think so, too," she said. "Thank you, Mistress."

"Did it hurt?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"It doesn't hurt now though, does it?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," she said.

I reached out, timidly, toward her throat. I touched the object there.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The silk?" she asked. "That is a collar stocking, or a collar sleeve. They may be made of many different materials. In a cooler climate they are sometimes of velvet. in most cities they are not used."

Under the silk I touched sturdy steel.

"That, Mistress, of course," she said, "is my collar."

"Would you take it off," I asked, "please? I would like to see it." She laughed merrily. "Forgive me, Mistress," she said. "I cannot take it off." "Why not?" I asked.

"It is locked on me," she laughed. She turned about.

"See?" she asked.

Feverishly I thrust apart the two sides of the silken sleeve at the back of the girl's neck. To be sure, there, below her hair, at the back of her neck, at the closure of the steel apparatus on her neck, there was a small, heavy, sturdy lock. I saw the keyhole. It would take a tiny key.

"You do not have the key?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," she laughed. "Of course not."

"Then you have, personally, no way of removing this collar?" I said. "Yes, Mistress," she said. "I have no way of removing it."

I shuddered.

"May I ask you "an intimate question, Susan?" I asked.

"Of course, Mistress," she said.

"Are you a virgin?" I asked,

The girl laughed. "No, Mistress," she said. "I was opened by men long ago for their pleasures."

"Opened?" I whispered.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"For their pleasures?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

You have called me "Mistress,' I said. "Why "That is the customary way in which girls such as I address all free women," she said.

"What sort of girl are you?" I asked.

"A good girl, I hope, Mistress," she said. "I will try to serve you well." "Are- you a slave?" I whispered.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

I stepped back. I had tried to fight this understanding. I had told myself that it could not be, that it must not be. And yet, now, how simple, how obvious and plausible, seemed such an explanation of the girl's garb, and of the mark on her body, and of the collar on her neck.

"I am the slave of Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus," she said. She slid the collar sleeve about the collar and, feeling with her fingers, indicated some marks on the collar. I could see engraving there. I could not read the writing. "That information," she said, "is recorded here."

"I see," I said, trembling.

She slid the collar sleeve back about the collar, arranging it in place. "I was purchased almost two years ago, from the pens of Saphronicus, in Cos," she said. "The purpose of the collar sleeve is to hide the collar," I said.

"No, Mistress," she said. "Surely the collar's presence within the sleeve is sufficiently evident."

"Yes," I said, "I can see now that it is."

The girl smiled.

"The yellow fits in nicely with the yellow of your belt," I said, "and the yellow flowers on the tunic."

"Yes, Mistress," smiled the girl. The sleeve I saw now could function rather like an accessory, perhaps adding to, or completing, an ensemble. It did, in this case, at least, make its contribution to the girl's appearance. "The belt is binding fiber, Mistress," said the girl, turning before me. "It may be used to tie or leash me, or even, coiled, to whip me."

"I see," I said. It was a part of her ensemble.

"And the flowers," said the girl, "are talenders. They are a beautiful flower. They are often associated with love."

"They are very pretty," I said.

"Some free women do not approve of slaves being permitted to wear talenders," she said, "or being permitted to have representations of them, like these, on their frocks. Yet slaves do often wear them, the masters permitting it, and they are not an uncommon motif, the masters seeing to it, on their garments." "Why do free women object?" I asked.

"They feel that a slave, who must love whomever she is commanded to love, can know nothing of love."

"Oh," I said.

"But I have been both free and slave," she said, "and, forgive me, Mistress, but I think that it is only a slave, in her vulnerability and helplessness, who can know what love truly is.

"You must love upon command?" I asked, horrified.

"We must do as we are told," she said. "We are slaves."

I shuddered at the thought of the helplessness of the slave.

"We may hope, of course," she said, "that we come into the power of true masters."

"Does this ever happen?" I asked.

"Often, Mistress," she said.

"Often?" I said.

"There is no dearth of true masters here," she said.

I wondered in what sort of place I might be that there might here be no dearth of true masters. In all my life, hitherto, I did not think I had ever met a man, or knowingly met a man, who was a true master. The nearest I had come, I felt, were the men I had encountered before being brought to this place, those who had treated me as though I might be nothing, and had incarcerated me in the straps and iron box. Sometimes they had made me so weak I had felt like begging them to rape or have me. I had the horrifying thought that perhaps I existed for such men.

"How degrading and debasing to be a slave!" I cried.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl, putting down her head. I thought she smiled. She had told me, I suspected, what I had wanted to hear, what I had expected to hear.

"Slavery is illegal!" I cried.

"Not here, Mistress," she said.

I stepped back.

"Where Mistress comes from," said the girl, "it is not illegal to own animals, is it?"

"No," I said. "Of course not."

"It is the same here," she said. "And the slave is an animal."

"You are an animal-legally?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Horrifying!" I cried.

"Biologically, of course," she said, "we are all animals. Thus, in a sense, we might all be owned. It thus becomes a question as to which among these animals own and which are owned, which, so to speak, count as persons, or have standing, before the law, and which do not, which are, so to speak, the citizens or persons, and which are the animals."

"It is wrong to own human beings," I said.

"Is it wrong to own other animals?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Then why is it wrong to own human beings?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"It would seem inconsistent," she said, "to suggest that it is only certain sorts of animals which may be owned, and not others."

"Human beings are different," I said.

The girl shrugged. "So, too, are tarsks and verr," she said.

I did not know those sorts of animals.

"Human beings can talk and thinkl" I said.

"Why should that make a difference?" she asked. "If anything, the possession of such properties would make a human being an even more valuable possession than a tarsk or verr."

"Where I come from it is wrong to own human beings but it is all right for other animals to be owned."

"If other animals made the laws where you come from," she said, "perhaps it would be wrong, there to own them and right to own human beings."

"Perhapsl" I said, angrily.

"Forgive me, Mistress," said the girl. "I did not mean to displease you." "It is wrong to own human beings" I said.

"Can Mistress prove that?" she asked.

"Nol" I said, angrily.

"How does Mistress know it?" she asked.

"It is self-evident" I said. I knew, of course, that I was so sure of this only because I had been taught, uncritically, to believe it.

"If self-evidence is involved here," she said, "it is surely self-evident that it is not wrong to own human beings. In most cultures, traditions and civilizations with which I am familiar, the right to own human beings was never questioned. To them the rectitude of the institution of slavery was self-evident."

"Slavery is wrong because it can involve pain and hardship," I said. "Work, too," she said, "can involve pain and hardship. Is work, thus, wrong?" "No," I said.

She shrugged.

"Slavery is wrong," I said, "because slaves may not like it."

"Many people may not like many things," she said, "which does not make those things wrong. Too, it has never been regarded as a necessary condition for the rectitude of slavery that slaves approved of their condition."

"That is true," I said.

"See?" she asked.

"How could someone approve of slavery," I asked, "or regard it as right, if he himself did not wish to be a slave?"

"In a sense," she said, "one might approve of many things, and recognize their justifiability, without thereby wishing to become implicated personally in them. One might approve of medicine, say, without wishing to be a physician. One might approve of mathematics without desiring to become a mathematician, and so on." "Of course," I said, irritably.

"It might be done in various ways," she said. "One might, for example, regard a society in which the institution of slavery, with its various advantages and consequences, was an ingredient as a better society than one in which it did not exist. This, then, would be its justification. In such a way, then, be might approve of slavery as an institution without wishing necessarily to become a slave himself. In moral consistency, of course, in approving of the institution, he would seem to accept at least the theoretical risk of his own enslavement. This risk he would presumably regard as being a portion of the price he is willing to pay for the benefits of living in this type of society, which he regards, usually by far, as being a society superior to its alternatives. Another form of justification occurs when one believes that slavery is right and fit for certain human beings but not for others. This position presupposes that not all human beings are alike. In this point of view, the individual approves of slavery for those who should be slaves and disapproves of it, or at least is likely regret it somewhat, in the case of those who should not be slave. He is perfectly consistent in this, for he believes that if he himself should be a natural slave, then it would be right, too, for him to be enslaved. This seems somewhat more sensible than the categorical denial, unsubstantiated, that slavery is not right for any human being. Much would seem to depend on the nature of the particular human being."

"Slavery denies freedoml" I cried.

"Your assertion seems to presuppose the desirability of universal freedom," she said. "This may be part of what is at issue."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Is there more happiness in a society in which all are free," she asked, "than in one in which some are not free?"

"I do not know," I said. The thought of miserable, competitive, crowded, frustrated, hostile populations crossed my mind.

"Mistress?" she asked.

"I do not know!" I said.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Slavery denies freedom!" I reiterated.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"It denies freedom I said.

"It denies some freedoms, and precious ones," said the girl.

"But,,,too, it makes others possible, and they, too, are precious.

"People simply cannot be owned!" I said, angrily.

"I am owned," she said.

I did not speak. I was frightened.

"My Master is Ligurious, of the city of Corcyrus," she said.

"Slavery is illegal," I said, lamely.

"Not here," she said.

"People cannot be owned," I whispered, desperately, horrified.

"Here," she said, "in point of fact, aside from all questions of legality or moral propriety, or the lack thereof, putting all such questions aside for the moment, for they are actually irrelevant to the facts, people are, I assure you, owned."

"People are in fact owned?" I asked. ~ she said. "And fully."

"Then, truly," I said, "there are slaves here. There are slaves in this place." "Yes," she said. "And generally."

Again I did not understand the meaning of "generally."

She spoke almost as though we might not be on Earth, somewhere on Earth. My heart was heating rapidly. I put my hand to my bosom. I looked about the room, frightened. It was like no other room I had ever been in. It did not seem that it would be in England or America. I did not know where I was. I did not even know on what continent I might be. I looked at the girl. I was in the presence of a slave, a woman who was owned. Her master was Ligurious, of this city, said to be Corcyrus. I looked to the barred window, to the soft expanses of that great, barbaric couch, to the chain at its foot, to the rings fixed in it, and elsewhere, to the whip on its hook, to the door which I could not lock on my side. I was again terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.

"Susan," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"Am I a slave?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," said the girl.

I almost fainted with relief. The room, for a moment, seemed to swirl about me. I was unspeakably pleased to discover that I was not a slave, and then, suddenly, unaccountably, I felt an inexplicable anguish. I realized, suddenly, shaken, that there was something within me that wanted to be owned. I looked at the girl. She was owned In that instant I envied her her collar.

"I am a slave!" I said, angrily. "Look at me Do you doubt that I am a slave? I am wearing only an anklet and perfume"

"Mistress is not marked. Mistress is not collared," said the girl.

"I am a slave" I said. I wondered, when I said this, if I was only insisting that I was a slave, that I must be a slave, because of such things as the barred window and the anklet, or if I was speaking what lay in my heart.

"Mistress is free," said the girl.

"I cannot be free," I said.

"If Mistress is "not free," she said, "who is Mistress' master?" "I do not know," I said, frightened. I wondered if I did belong to someone and simply did not yet know it.

"I know Mistress is free," said the girl.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Ligyrious, my master, has told me," she said.

But I am naked," I said.

"Mistress had not yet dressed," she said. She then went to the sliding doors at the side of the room, and moved them aside. Thus were revealed the habiliments of what was apparently an extensive and resplendent wardrobe.

She brought forth a lovely, brief, lined, sashed, shimmering yellow-silk robe and, holding it up, displayed it for me.

I was much taken by it, but it seemed almost excitingly sensuous.

"Have you nothing simpler, nothing plainer, nothing coarser?" I asked. "Something more masculine?" asked the girl.

"Yes," I said, uncertainly. I had not really thought of it exactly like that, or not consciously, but it now seemed to me as if that might be right.

"Does Mistress wish to dress like a man?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I suppose not. Not really."

"I can try to find a mans clothing for Mistress if she wishes," said the girl. "No," I said. "No." It was not really that I wanted to wear a man's clothing, literally. It was only that I thought that it might be better to wear a more mannish type of clothing. After all, had I not been taught that I was, for most practical purposes, the same as a man, and not something deeply and radically different? Too, such garb has its defensive purposes. Is it not useful, for example, in helping a girl to keep men from seeing her as what she is, a woman? "Mistress," said the girl, helping me on with the silken robe. I belted the yellow-silk sash. The hem of the robe came high on the thighs. I looked at myself, startled, in the mirror.

In such a garment, lovely, clinging, short, closely belted, there was no doubt that I was a woman.

"Mistress is beautiful!" said the girl.

"Thank you," I said. I turned, back and forth, looking at myself in the mirror. I adjusted the belt, making it a little tighter. The girl smiled.

"Are such garments typical of this place?" I asked.

"Does Mistress mean," asked the girl, "that here sexual differences are clearly marked by clothing, that here sexual differences are important and not blurred, that men and women dress differently here?"

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," she said. "The answer is "Yes,' Mistress."

"Sexuality is important here, then?" I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. "Here sexuality is deeply and fundamentally important, and here women are not men, and men are not women. The sexes are quite different, and here each is true to itself."

"Oh," I said.

"By means of different garbs, then," she said, "it is natural that these important and fundamental differences be marked, the garbs of men being appropriate to their nature, for example, to their size and strength, and those of women to their nature, for example, to their softness and beauty."

"I see," I said. I was a bit frightened. In this place, I gathered, the fact that I was a woman was not irrelevant to what I was. That I was a woman was, I gathered, at least in this place, something fundamentally important about me. This fact would be made clear about me even by the clothing which I wore. I glanced at the wardrobe. Deceit and subterfuge, I suspected, were not in those fabrics. They were such, I suspected, as would mark me as a woman and even proclaimed me as such. How would I f are in such a place, I wondered, where it might be difficult to conceal or deny my sex. How terrified I was at the thought that I might have to be true to my sex, that I might have little choice here but to be what I was, a woman, and wholly. I looked in the mirror.

That is what I am here, I thought, a woman.

There was a sudden, loud knock at the door.

I cried out, startled. The girl turned white, and then, facing the door, immediately dropped to her knees. She cried out something, frightened. The door opened.

A large man stood framed in the doorway. He seemed agile and strong. He glanced about. His eyes seemed piercing.' He had broad shoulders and long arms. His hair was cut rather short, and was brown, flecked with gray. He wore a white tunic, trimmed in red. He looked at me and I almost fainted. It was something in his eyes. I knew I had never seen a man like this before. There was something different about him, from all other men I had seen. It was almost as though a lion had taken human form.

"It is Ligurious, my Master," said the girl, her head now down to the floor, the palms of her hands on the tiles.

I swallowed hard, and then tried, desperately, to meet the man's gaze. I must show him that I was a true person.

"Get on the bed," he said. His voice had an accent. I could not place it. I fled to the bed and crept obediently upon it.

He came to the edge of the bed and looked down at me. I half Jay, half crouched on the bed. I was very conscious of the shortness of the robe I wore.

He said something to Susan and she sprang up and came to the edge of the bed. He said something else to her. I did not understand the language, or even recognize it.

"He says he thinks you will prove quite suitable," she said to me, in English. "For what?" I begged.

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

"Get on your back," he said.

Immediately, obediently, I lay supine before him.

"Raise your right knee, and extend your left leg," he said, palms of your hands at your sides, facing upward."

I immediately assumed this position. I felt very vulnerable, particularly, interestingly, as the palms of my hands were exposed. I began to breathe deeply. I was terrified. I also realized, suddenly, that I was very aroused, sexually, obeying him.

The man glanced to the side. He said something to the girl.

"He notes that you have not touched your breakfast," she said.

I moaned. I hoped that he was not displeased. It had been safe to displease the men I had hitherto known, or most of them. They might be displeased with impunity. I was afraid, however, to displease this man. I did not think he would accept being displeased. He, I was sure, would simply punish me, and well. He might even kill me.

He looked down at me.

I was much aroused. I whimpered. I expected him to rape me. I was even eager to be raped, anything to please him.

I felt his hand take my ankle. I was so charged with sensation that I almost fainted at the touch. Then I became aware that his grip was like steel. Then I saw him take a string from about his neck. On this string there was a tiny key. Startled, I felt the key inserted in the lock on my anklet. Then the anklet was removed. I lay trembling on the bed.

He stood there then, looking down at me, the anklet, string and key in his hand. I then realized, partly in relief, and, in a part of me, with disappointment, that I was not then, or at least not then, to be raped. I was not then to feel his strong hands on me, forcing me, as a woman, imperiously to his win.

"May I speak?" I whispered.

"Yes," he said.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Who is she? Where am I? What am I doing here? What do you want of me?"

"I am Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus," be said. "She is unimportant. Her name is Susan. She is a slave."

"No," I said. "I mean, who is Ligurious? Who are you? I have never beard of you."

"You need know little more of me than that I am the first minister of Corcyrus," he said.

I looked at him. He must have some connection, of course, with the men who had come to my apartment. He had a key for the anklet.

"Where am V' I asked.

"In Corcyrus," he said.

"But where is Corcyrus?" I begged. "I do not even know in what part of the world I aml"

He looked at me, puzzled.

The girl said something to him. He smiled.

"Am I in Africa?" I asked. "Am I in Asia?"

"Have you not noticed subtle differences in the gravity here," he asked, "from what you have been accustomed to? Have you not noticed that the air here seems somewhat different from that with which you have hitherto been familiar?" "I have seemed to notice such things," I said, "but I was drugged in my apartment, Obviously such sensations are delusory, merely the effects of that drug."

"The drug," be said, "does not produce such effects."

"What are you telling me?" I asked, frightened.

"After a short while," he said, "you will no longer think of these things. You will not even notice them, or, at least, not consciously. You will have made your adjustments and accommodations. You will have become acclimated, so to speak. At most you may occasionally become aware that you are now experiencing a condition of splendid vitality and health."

"What are you telling me?" I asked, frightened.

"This is not Earth," be said. "This is another planet."

I regarded him, disbelievingly.

"Does this seem to be Earth to you?" he asked.

"No," I whispered.

"Does this seem to be a room of Earth to you?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"You have been brought here by spaceship," he said.

I could not speak.

"The technology involved is more sophisticated, more advanced, than that with which you are familiar," be said.

"But you speak English," I -said. "She speaks Englishl"

"I have learned some English," he said. "She, however, speaks it natively." He turned to the girl. He said something to her.

"I have been given permission to speak," she said. "I am from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mistress," she said.

"She was brought to this world more than two years ago," he said.

"My original name was Susan," she said. "My last name does not matter. When I became a slave, of course, my name was gone. Animals do not have names, except as their masters might choose to name them. The name "Susan' was again put upon me, but now, of course, I have it only as a slave name."

"Why was she brought here?" I asked.

"For the usual reason for which an Earth female is brought here," he said. "What is that?" I asked.

"To be a slave," he said.

He then turned to the girl and said something. She nodded.

He then turned again to me. "You may break position," he said.

I rolled to my stomach on the couch, clutching at it. I shuddered.

I was not on Earth.

"Why" have I been brought here?" I asked. "To be a slave, to be branded, to wear a collar, to serve some man as though he might be my master."

"He would be your master," said the man, very evenly, very quietly, very menacingly.

I nodded, frightened. It was true, of course. If I were a slave then he who was my master would indeed be my master, and totally. I could be owned as completely, and easily, as Susan, or any other woman.

"But I think you will be pleased to learn what we have in store for you," he said.

"What?" I asked, turning to my side, pulling the robe down on my thighs. "In time," he said, "I think things will become clearer to you." "I see," I said.

"Do you have any other questions?" he asked.

I half rose up on the couch, my left leg under me, my palms on the surface of the couch. "Am I still a virgin?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

This pleased me. I would not have wished to have lost my virginity while unconscious. A girl would at least like to be aware of it when it happens. Too, I was pleased because I thought that the possession of my virginity might make me somehow more valuable. Perhaps I could use it somehow to improve my position in this world. Perhaps I could somehow use it as a prize which I might award for gain, or as a bargaining device in some negotiation in which I might be involved. Then I looked into the eyes of Ligurious, fix minister of Corcyrus. I shuddered. I realized then that my virginity, on this world, was nothing, and that it might simply be taken from me, rudely and peremptorily, whenever men might please.

Ligurious then turned and left the room. As he had left the room, though be had scarcely noticed her, Susan had knelt, with her head to the tiles. She now rose to her feet.

"Earlier," I said, "your master, when beside the couch, said something to you. What was it?"

"it is his desire," she said, "that you eat."

I quickly left the couch and went to the small table, on which the tray reposed. I did not wish to displease Ligurious.

He was the sort of man who was to be obeyed, immediately and perfectly.

I loosened my robe and sat down, cross-legged, on the cushion before the table. I picked up a piece of the yellow bread.

"Oh, no, Mistress," said the girl, putting out her hand.

"That is how men sit. We are women. We kneel."

"I will sit," I told her.

"Mistress understands, surely," said the girl, in misery, "that I must make reports to Ligurious, my master."

"I will kneel," I said.

"That is much more lovely," said the girl, approvingly.

I then began to eat, kneeling. This posture, to be sure, though I do not think I would have admitted it to the girl, did strike me as being much more feminine than that which I had earlier adopted. Certainly, at least, it made me feel much more feminine. I wondered if there was a certain rightness to women kneeling. Certainly we look beautiful, kneeling. "Me posture, too, at least if we are permitted to keep our knees closed, permits us a certain modest reserve with respect to our intimacies. Too, it is a position which one may assume easily and beautifully, and from which it is possible to rise with both beauty and grace. To be sure, the position does suggest not only beauty and grace but also submissiveness.

This thought troubled me. But then I thought that if women should be submissive, then, whatever might be the truth in these matters, such postures would be appropriate and natural for them. In any event, the posture did make me feel delicately and exquisitely feminine. I was somewhat embarrassed, to be sure, by these feelings. Then it suddenly seemed absurd to me that I should be embarrassed, or should feel guilty or ashamed, about these feelings. I think I then realized, perhaps for the first time, fully, the power of the conditioning devices to which I had been subjected. How strange, and pernicious, I thought, that a woman should be made to feel guilty about being feminine, truly feminine, radically feminine! What a tribute this was to the effectiveness of contemporary conditioning techniques! In the world from which I came sexuality was not an ingredient but an accessory. Here, on the other hand, I suspected, men and women were not the same.

Indeed, it seemed that here I would be expected to assume certain postures and attitudes, and genuinely feminine ones, perhaps merely because I was a woman. In this world it seemed that sexuality, and perhaps a deeply natural sexuality, was an ingredient, and not a mere accessory. It might lie at the very core of this world. An essential and ineradicable ele-red to be sexuality, with its basic distinctions between human beings, dividing them clearly into different sorts, into males and females. In a world such as this I realized that I might not only be permitted to express my natural, fundamental nature, but that I might be encouraged to do so. This was a world in which my femininity, whatever it was, and wherever it might lead, was not to be denied to me. I glanced at the whip on the wall. On this world, I suspected, I might even be given no choice but to be true to my sex, and fully. For a moment this made me angry.

Surely I had a right to frustrate and deny my sex if I wished. If I was afraid to be a woman, truly and fundamentally, with all that it might entail, surely I should not be forced to become one! Yet I knew that in my heart I felt a sudden, marvelous surge of hope, a sense of possible liberation, that I might here, on this world, be freed, even if I were placed in a steel collar, to be what I truly was, not merely a human being, but the kind of human being I actually was, a human female, a woman.

"Mistress' drink is cold," said the girl. "Let me have it reheated or fetch you a fresh one."

"No," I said. "It is fine." I lifted the small, handleless bowl he had used the word in two hands. I was excited that she had said "fetch." She was the sort of girl who might carry or fetch for a Master or a Mistress. "Mistress," said the girl. "You are a woman. Drink more delicately." I drank from the bowl.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. "That is more feminine." I then realized, even more profoundly than before, bow deeply sexuality must characterize and penetrate this culture. The differences between men and women were to be expressed even in their smallest behaviors. What a significant and real thing it is in this culture to be a man or a woman.

"This is warmed chocolate," I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy. "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"It is very good," I said.

"Thank you, Mistress," she said.

"Is it from Earth?" I asked.

"Not directly," she said. "Many things here, of course, ultimately have an Earth origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on this world were grown were brought from Earth."

"Do the trees grow near here?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," she said. "We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics." I put the chocolate down. I began to bite at the yellow bread. It was fresh. "Perhaps Mistress should take smaller bites," she said.

"Very well," I said. I then began to eat as she had suggested. I was a woman. I was not an adolescent boy. Again, even in so small a thing as this, I began to feel my femininity keenly. Too, again, I became very sensitive of the depth and pervasiveness of the sexuality which might characterize this world. Men and women did not even eat in the same way.

"Exceptions can occur under certain circumstances, of course," said the girl. "Mistress might, for example, in the presence of a man she wishes to arouse, take a larger than normal bite from a fresh fruit, and look at the man over the fruit, letting juice, a tiny trickle of it, run at the side of her mouth." "But why would I wish to arouse a man?" I asked.

The girl looked at me, puzzled. "Perhaps the needs of Mistress might be much upon her," she said. "Perhaps she might wish to be taken and overwhelmed in his arms, and forced to surrender to him."

"I do not understand," I said, as though horrified.

"That is because Mistress is free," she said.

I had understood only too well, of course. But I was terrified to even think such thoughts.

"Slaves, I suppose, occasionally have recourse to such devices," I said. I was eager to learn.

"A device such as that with the fresh fruit," she said, "is more appropriate to a free woman. We do have at our disposal, as slaves, however, a number and variety of begging signals, such things as groveling and moaning, and bringing bonds to him in our teeth, wherewith we may endeavor to call our needs to his attention."

"Begging signals?" I said.

"We are at the complete mercy of our masters," she said.

"Are the masters then kind to you?" I asked.

"Sometimes they consent to content us," she said.

"How horrifying to be a slave," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said, putting her head down, smiling. I saw that, again, she was answering me in the fashion in which, doubtless, I wished to be answered, doubtless with deference to my dignity, status or freedom. Sorely then I envied her her collar. My feelings now began to alarm me. I decided that it would be safest to change the subject.

"Where are the spaceships?" I asked.

"Spaceships?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I do not know," she said. "I have never even seen one."

"Oh," I said.

"Has Mistress?" she asked.

"No," I said. I gathered that Susan, like myself, had been brought to this world unconscious. We knew nothing, or almost nothing, of how we had come here. "The people of this world have very little evidence," she said, "that such things even exist. The only evidence they have, for the most part, is that of certain objects brought from Earth."

"Objects?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Usually girls, in chains."

"You refer to them as "objects'?" I asked, horrified.

"Yes, Mistress," she said. "They are slaves."

"I see," I said.

"This world is, as Mistress will discover," said the girl, "on the whole a very primitive and barbaric place. Do not expect to see complex machines and spaceships."

"Oh," I said. understand something of the discipline under which slaves might be held. I wondered what it would be like to be under such discipline. I shuddered. "Does Mistress enjoy her breakfast?" asked the girl.

"Yes," I said.

"Good," she said.

"Susan," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"This seems to be a very sexual world," I said.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"Are women safe here?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," she said. "Not really."

"You said earlier," I said, "that I was very beautiful." She had seen me naked. "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Do you think that men here, on this world, might find me of interest?" "Do you mean really of interest," she asked- "as a female slave?" "Yes," I said.

"Will Mistress open her robe?" she asked.

I did so.

"Will Mistress please stand and remove her robe, and let it dangle from one hand, and turn, slowly, before me?"

I did so. I waited, inspected.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

I nearly fainted in fear, terrified, but not a little thrilled by this insight. "Mistress would look well being sold from a block," she said.

Hastily, frightened, I pulled the robe on again, and belted it tightly.

"But I think Mistress has little to fear," she said.

I regarded her. In the girl's view, in some respects at least, as I had just learned, I was not unsuitable for slavery.

"Why?" I asked.

"You are well guarded," she said. "Your quarters, even, are in the palace of Corcyrus."

"This is the palace? There are guards about?" I asked.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"I am frightened by your master," I said.

"l, too, am frightened by him," she said.

"No doubt our fears are quite silly," I said.

"No, Mistress," she said.

"No?" I asked.

"No, Mistress," she said. "Our fears are fully justified. They are quite appropriate."

"Do you think he wants me?" I asked. I was terrified of Ligurious.

"I do not think so," she said.

"Why?" I asked, puzzled.

"If he wanted you," she said, "by now you would have been branded. By now you would be in his collar. By now you would have been chained naked at the foot of his couch.

By now you would have felt his whip. By now you would have learned to beg to serve him."

"Oh," I said.

"It is not that he does not recognize your beauty," she said.

"That any man could see at a glance."

"Oh," I said, somewhat mollified. I would have been outraged, or something in me would have been outraged, if I had not been thought worth a chain. I was sure I could prove to a man that I was worthy of a chain.

"His interest in you, merely, does not appear to be in that way," she said. "Too, of course, he has many beautiful women, and is a busy man."

"Many beautiful women?" I asked.

"Slaves," she said.

"More than you?" I asked.

"I am only one of his girls," she laughed, "and I am surely one of the least beautiful."

"How many slaves does he have?" I asked.

"He is an ambitious and abstemious man," she said. "He worked long hours in the service of the state. He has little time for the meaningless charms of slaves." "How many slaves does lie have?" I asked.

"Fifty," she said.

I gasped.

"Perhaps Mistress would like to finish her breakfast," said the girl. I knelt down before the small table, as I had been taught. I was trembling. Here, as I had just learned, one man might own as many as fifty women.

"Mistress is not eating," said the girl.

"I am not hungry," I said.

"Am I to report to my master, Ligurious," asked the girl, "that Mistress did not finish her breakfast?"

"No," I said. "No!"

"Every bit of it, please, Mistress," said the girl.

I nodded. I ate. I felt like a slave.

Then I had finished.

"Excellent, Mistress," said the girl. "I shall now dress Mistress. I will teach her the proper garments, and their adjustments, and the veils, and their fastenings. Then it will be time for her lessons."

"Lessons?" I asked, frightened.

"Yes, Mistress," she said.

"What, sort of lessons?" I asked, apprehensively.

"Lessons in language," she said. "Lessons in our habits and customs. Lessons in the details of the governance of Corcyrus."

"I do not understand," I said.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Tiffany Collins" I said.

"No, Mistress," she said.

I looked at her, puzzled.

"Put that identity behind you," she said. "Regard it as being gone, as much as if you were a slave. Prepare to begin anew.

"But, how?" I asked. "What am I to do? Who am I to be?"

"That much I know," smiled the girl. "I know your new identity. My master has told me."

"What is it?" I asked.

"From this moment on," said the girl, "accustom yourself to thinking of yourself as Sheila, Tatrix, of Corcyrus."

"Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus?" I said.

"Yes," said the girl.

"What is a Tatrix?" I asked.

"A female ruler," she said.

I looked at her, disbelievingly.

"It is a great honor for me," said the girl, "to serve the Tatrix of Corcyrus." I trembled, kneeling behind the small table. The brief robe of yellow silk did not seem much to wear. I was afraid of the world on which I found myself. "Who are you?" asked the girl.

"Sheila?" I said. "Tatrix of Corcyrus?"

"Yes," she said. "Please say it, Mistress. Who are you?"

"I am Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus," I whispered.

"That is correct, Mistress," said the girl.

"I do not understand," I said. "I do not understand anything! I do not even know the name of the world on which I find myself."

"It is called Gor," she said.