Witness of Gor

21

“I am a free woman,” said the Lady Constanzia.

“Of course,” I said.

We were in the Lady Constanzia’s cell. She had eaten, and I was preparing to leave the cell.

She was wearing the brief, white, sliplike garment, of which she was fond. It was not unlike a slave tunic.

“But I want to be a true woman!”

“Dismiss the matter from your mind,” I said.

“But what if the free woman is not the same as the true woman?” she asked.

“Obviously it is not,” I said.

“I am in anguish,” she said.

“Do not concern yourself with such matters,” I advised her.

“I must!” she wept.

“The free woman is a political concept,” I said, “with a particular political history, relevant to a particular time and place. The true woman is a biological concept, relative to a species, its nature, and the conditions germane to its fulfillment.”

“I have been free,” she said. “Now I want love.”

“Put such thoughts from your mind,” I said.

“But I am afraid of love,” she wept.

“Of course,” I said.

“It makes slaves of us!” she wept.

“Yes,” I said.

“Janice,” she said.

“yes,” I said.

“I want to be a slave!” she whispered.

“Dismiss the thought fromyour mind,” I said.

“Today,” she said, “when we were above, when he came to the ring, I spread my knees before him!”

“You must not do so!” I said. “You are a free woman!”

“Do you think not being branded, not being collared, makes me a free woman?” she asked.

I did not respond.

“Do you think not being legally embonded, in some technical sense, makes me a free woman?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I love him!” she said. “I love him!”

“You do not even know him,” I said.

“We have talked for days at the ring!” she said. “He cannot even look at me without my wanting to cry out for his touch!”

“It is the slave garb,” I said, “the collar.”

“In them I am myself!” she said.

“You are a free woman,” I said.

“No!” she said.

“Very well,” I said. “Then I shall not take you again to the surface.”

“No, no!” she said. “Please, forgive me, Janice. I am sorry. Forgive me! I will obey! I will obey!” Hurriedly then she put on the robes of concealment.

I then left the cell.

I locked it with special care. I was pleased the guard did not have the key, for I feared that the cell door now was no longer closed on a free woman, but on something considerably more desirable, something considerably more tempting.