Mariners of Gor

Chapter Six

“There,” said Tarl Cabot, “do you see them, the three of them, the farther islands, Chios, Daphna, Thera?”

They were dim, in the distance, in the snow, but one could make them out. I had never been this far west of Cos and Tyros, but the merchantry of the major island Ubarates, including Cos, of course, traded here, and rogue ships, from Port Kar and Brundisium, did as well. Indeed, the major reason for the western patrols, as that of the Metioche, was to police these routes, limiting them to licensed traffic.

It was the second week past the eighth passage hand.

“Yes,” I said. “I see them.”

In an Ahn, they would be astern.

At Cabot’s thigh knelt a slave, well-bundled.

She did not seem agitated. Did she not understand we would soon be west of the farther islands?

When she had heeled her master to the rail, where he had joined me, I had examined her, as men will a slave, insofar as was possible, given her furs. She had lowered her eyes, that they not meet without permission those of a free man. Then she had knelt. I supposed she would be excellent, stripped to her neck-encirclement. Certainly her features were exquisite, and the furs, as they were cunningly wrapped and fastened, the clever she-sleen, suggested, as much as concealed, the delights at the disposal of her master. Slaves often garb and present themselves in such a way that others may envy their master for their possession.

She was quite lovely. I thought she would bring good coin off the block.

She did not meet my eyes. She was, after all, her master’s property, not mine. Even the casual glance of a slave might enflame a fellow. A slave who is careless with her glances, her smiles, might be beaten.

If I owned Alcinoe, and she smiled at another fellow, I thought I would give her a good switching.

It would teach her a lesson.

It would do her good.

I regarded Tarl Cabot’s slave.

I was pleased.

She had about her the look of a woman who is well owned, well mastered.

Commonly a slave rejoices that she is owned. It reassures her and fulfills her. She has come to understand that her sex is rightfully the property of men, and that, in her collar, the tensions and wars are over. She kneels in her place, where she wishes to be, at her master’s feet.

One is familiar with the haughtiness, the arrogance, the pride, of the typical free woman, defended by guardsmen, ringed by the walls of her city, well-veiled, well-robed, secure in her status, unassailable in station, ensconced in society’s regard, but there is another pride, too, little spoken of, which is, perhaps surprisingly, that of the slave. Even when she kneels before the free woman, in her mockery of a garment, fastened in a collar, her lovely hair in the dirt before the free woman’s slippers, she knows herself special, and prized, in a way the free woman is not. She realizes that she, amongst many women, is the one who has been found “slave desirable,” the one whom men will put in a collar, the one who will wear a collar. She revels in the fact that she has been found worthy of being owned. She is proud to be owned. This is a mark of quality, a badge of excellence. She is a prize amongst women, so desirable that men will be satisfied with nothing less than owning her. She is that desirable. She knows that she is the most coveted, the most lusted-for, the most delectable, exciting, and sought of women, the female slave. How could she not feel superior, in her sex, as a female, to the free woman in her vain, shallow trappings of dignity and station? Many have been free women, and they know the grief, the sorrow, the frustration, the misery, and loneliness, so often concealed within those cumbersome, ornate robes. The free woman often hates the slave; the slave, often, feels not only fear of, but also pity for, the free woman. So one might then contrast two prides, that of the scornful free woman, richly robed, elevated in society, switch in hand, and that of the timid, frightened creature, perhaps in a rag, a collared animal, who kneels before her. The free woman has pride in her status, the slave in her sex, in her holistic fulfilled womanhood.

One might also note the gratitude of the slave. She loves and serves, and is grateful to have been granted this privilege. It is not unknown for even free women to kneel before a man, press their lips to his boots, and beg him for his collar, that they may belong to him, as his slave. The depth of this need, of this desire, and the profundity of this love, the wholeness of it, the desire to give oneself, to surrender oneself, wholly, to another, is one of the mysterious recurrent songs of nature, its origins perhaps lost or obscure, but its strains familiar amongst her survivors. So she rejoices that she is owned, for she has now at last what she has long longed for, a master. She is a slave at his feet, doubtless stripped and collared, to be treated as he wills. To what less could she be so helplessly responsive?

He is male, and she female, he master, she slave.

How beautiful are women!

Only in the collar can they find themselves.

“You have a lovely slave,” I said to him.

“I call her ‘Cecily’,” he said.

“That is a strange name,” I said.

“She is a barbarian,” he said.

That, I supposed, explained her lack of agitation. She did not realize the import of being beyond the farther islands.

The girls of Gorean origin were being kept chained below decks, some hooded, and sedated. One could not blame a girl for being uneasy if she were being drawn, say, wrists bound behind her, naked, on a tether, into a larl’s den.

“Is she any good?” I asked.

She thrust her cheek against her master’s thigh. Clearly she was ready. It is pleasant, I thought, what men can do with slaves.

“A touch,” said Cabot, “and she juices and steams.”

“She is hot-thighed, then?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Cabot, “helplessly so.”

“Then she is broken in, nicely?”

“Yes,” said Cabot.

I thought of Alcinoe.

“I have heard,” I said, “that barbarians are good.”

“Any woman is good,” said Cabot, “once she is broken to the collar.”

Again I thought of Alcinoe. How pleasant it might be, she now a slave, to break her to the collar, to have crawling to my feet, begging a caress.

“Barbarians sell well,” I said. I wondered what Alcinoe might bring.

“Few are left long on the chain,” he granted me.

“It is said they lick the whip quickly,” I said.

“It has to do with their background,” he said. “Where they are from they are commonly denied their needs, to be owned and mastered. On Gor they find themselves at last in their place, at the feet of men. Many are astonished at the fulfillments attendant on the summoning forth, the commanding forth, of their deepest and most precious selves. They find happiness, and fulfillments, which they scarcely knew might exist, but had only dimly sensed, in their most secret dreams. On Gor, they find themselves choiceless, given no choice but to be what they truly are, and want to be, not pretend males, not sexless cogs in a societal mechanism, not pretenders and haters, but what they truly are, actually are, and want to be, most profoundly, women. Where they come from they are taught to repudiate nature, to replace her with conventions and principles alien to their deepest needs and feelings. They are taught to revere frigidity, like a free woman, to praise inertness as dignity, to fear the raptures of uncompromised submission. Denied themselves, denied masters, they writhe in frustration, and, hating themselves, and their imprisonment, they think they hate men. Taught to deny their sex, starved for sex, they find themselves then on Gor, in collars, at the feet of men who will have whatever they want from them, and what they want, too, in their hearts, to be had from them. Their exile from their own bodies and needs is at last over. It is as though, at last, starving and thirsting, they were permitted food, though from the hand of a man, and granted water, though from a pan at his feet. Often the happiest moment in the life of one of them, to that point, is when the auctioneer closes his hand, and they realize that, exposed and desired, exhibited and bid upon, they have been sold. No longer are they alone; at last they are possessed; at last they are owned. At last they have a reality and an identity. At last they belong. Indeed, they are now, literally, a belonging, a property of their master. And do they even know, out there in the darkness of the crowd, who has bought them?”

“What is this strange place from which these creatures derive,” I asked, “to what country might such pathetic, deprived creatures be indigenous?”

“It is called Earth,” he said.

“Why did you join me at the rail?” I asked.

“I thought,” said he, “you might be considering Thassa, that you might be thinking of reaching Chios.”

“The waters are cold,” I said. “I might die before I could reach her.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But if you are a strong swimmer, I think you might have reached shore.”

“I think so, too,” I said.

“You were considering the matter,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you did not leave us,” he observed.

“No,” I said. “I thought I would stay.”

“Yesterday,” he said, “a galley was commandeered, seized and launched, and seventy men, pursued, beached on Thera, fleeing inland. Two other galleys followed, she was recovered, and brought back. Some others went over the rail, seeking Daphna.”

“Many desertions,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It seems not everyone wishes to go beyond the farther islands,” I said.

“It seems not,” he said.

We stood there at the rail for a time, in the falling snow. Then we could no longer see the islands.

Before us was darkness and snow, and the surging of Thassa.

“You, however,” said he, “have remained with us.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I thought I might like to see what lies at the end of the world,” I said.