Witness of Gor

6

“On your belly,” had said a man.

I complied.

It is unthinkable on this world that such a command not be obeyed instantly, or, at least, that one such as I not obey it instantly.

And so I lay on my belly, on the colorful tiles, in one of the sales rooms in the pens.

Too, of course, one does not simply sprawl on one’s belly. There are ways, diverse ways, of assuming this position. We are taught them. Other women, women unlike us, one supposes, do not know them. They, too, of course, can be taught. In this house, such a command, unqualified, requires that the head be turned to the left and the arms be placed down, beside the body, the palms up. A slightly different command requires the crossing of the wrists behind the back and the crossing of the ankles, as well. This is sometimes used when one is to be bound. If one receives permission to look up, or is commanded to do so, which is frightening, the hands are normally placed to the sides, at the shoulders, and one then lifts one’s upper body. The belly itself, of course, remains in contact with the surface on which one lies, the grass, the dirt, the gravel, the deck, the floor, the tiles, whatever the surface may be. But there are numerous variations in such things, as there are in ways to kneel, ways to hurry, ways to serve, ways to crawl to the furs, and such. There are even ways in which the whip, if called for, is to be brought. In our training, as you might suppose, we learn many things. In time our training, extending even to the tiniest nuances of attitude, and to the smallest movements and gestures, is internalized, indeed, in such a way that we are no longer, or seldom, even aware of it, it having become, in effect, the way we are. There is a world of difference between us and certain other women, women unlike us, as you might suppose, but what is perhaps less obvious, and what might be pointed out, is that there are considerable differences amongst us, even those such as I, as well. Consider merely the matter of training. One of us who is trained will normally, other things being equal, be appraised more highly than one who is not, one who is superbly trained will normally, other things being equal, be appraised more highly than one who is merely well trained, and so on. I refer, of course, to appraisals in a practical, factual manner, having to do, for example, with what men will pay for us.

“She bellies well,” observed a man.

“Has she been long in the pens?” inquired another.

“Not long,” said he who had spoken first.

“Has she made progress?” asked a fellow.

“She has made excellent progress,” said another.

“Can she understand what we are saying?” asked another.

“Yes,” said another.

“She is quite intelligent then,” asked one of the men. I did not recognize his voice. I did not think I knew him. I had not, of course, looked boldly about. Too, when one is on one’s belly, with the head turned to the side, one is scarcely in a position to study the countenances about one. Too, even if one is standing, or working, or serving, one seldom meets the eyes of such men directly.

“Considering her origin, and what she is, she is extremely intelligent,” said a man.

“Good,” said the fellow who had spoken before, him I did not recognize. But, to be sure, he was with three or four others who, too, I did not know, or doubted that I knew. They were from outside the house. I was sure of that.

“She is absolutely ignorant of the political situation?” asked the fellow I did not know.

“Yes,” said a man.

“She is from the world, Earth,” pointed out another.

“There is such a place?” asked a man, one of those I did not know.

“Yes,” he was assured.

“It is an excellent source of stock,” said another.

“And she has only recently arrived on our world,” asked one of those I did not know.

“Recently enough,” he heard.

“She has been in the pens?” asked another, one of those I did not know.

“She has not been outside them since her arrival,” said a man.

That was true. I had little, if any, idea of the nature of the world to which I had been brought.

“Are you interested in her?” asked one of the men I knew, one from the house.

“Have her stand, and turn,” said a man.

I heard the snapping of fingers.

Quickly I rose to my feet, and turned, before them.

“Interesting,” said a man.

“Clasp your hands behind the back of your head,” said a fellow from the house.

I complied.

“Arch your back,” said another.

My left foot was now slightly advanced. I was bent backwards, by back arched. My hands were clasped behind the back of my head.

“Yes,” said another. “Interesting.”

“Belly,” said the fellow who had first spoken to me.

Instantly I returned to my belly, as I had been before, my head turned to the left, my arms back, down at my sides, my hands turned so that my palms, their softness, faced up, exposed.

The new fellows, those who were strangers in the house, I gathered, were not to be shown more, not without having requested it, it seemed, not without having, in effect, committed themselves to some degree, in virtue of the expression of some explicit, rather more tangible, interest. Those of the house were skilled in what they were doing.

“Perhaps we should look at others.” Said one of the fellows I did not know.

“We have items from various cities, and from villages and districts, brought in from time to time, requisitioned, and such,” said the fellow from the house. “We have an excellent item from Besnit, blond, whose hair comes to her ankles.”

“It must be an outworlder,” said a stranger, impatiently, he who seemed to be first among those I did not know.

“That was my understanding,” agreed the fellow from the house.

“But there must be other outworlders,” said one of the strangers, rather lightly.

“Yes, we still have several,” said a fellow from the house. “As you recall, you looked upon them last night, by lamplight, while they slept, in their kennels. This one, as I understand it, was your choice.”

I lay there. I had not realized that I, and the others, had been looked upon last night, while we slept. There is, of course, no way to prevent that.

“You have seen the papers,” said one of the fellows of the house to someone. “You have seen the reports. You have spoken to the teachers, and trainers.”

“They have other outworlders,” said the cautions fellow, one of the strangers.

“We do not have as many as we did,” said a fellow of the house. “They tend to be distributed about. We get only our share. Too, of those we receive, we normally have orders for several. Some we ship without training, to other houses and such. You must understand that, over the past few years, as their value has come to be more generally recognized, such items have become more popular.”

“And more expensive,” observed a stranger, irritably.

“Sometimes,” it was admitted.

“Are you sure you want an outworlder?” asked one of the fellows of the house.

“Yes,” he was told.

“Given your specifications,” said the fellow from the house, first among those of the house, “I really think this item is your likely choice.”

There was a silence.

“You must understand,” said the fellow from the house, first among them, “that your specifications are not easy to fulfill. If an item is reasonably skillful in the language it is not likely to be ignorant of the world, and, if it is ignorant of the world, it is less likely to be adept with the language.”

“This one is intelligent?”

“Quite so, subject of course, as made clear, to her origin, and what she is.”

“Let us consider others,” said the cautious fellow.

“We have seen them. We have examined their papers, and which,” said the stranger who, I took it, was first among them.

“We have several items in stock,” said the fellow from the house, who was first among those of the house. “You may examine them, if you wish, more so than you have already done. Nonetheless I really think that this item is the one best for your purposes. It should well satisfy your needs. I conjecture that it should do quite nicely.” He added, “I am quite familiar with our current inventory.”

“You could examine items at another house,” said another fellow of the house.

There was silence.

“Are you interested only in an item which satisfies the criteria you have made clear to me?” asked he who was first of those of the house.

“I do not understand,” said a man.

“I might, with your permission,” said the first fellow, “mention that this particular item has certain qualities to recommend it, should you be interested in them, beyond being intelligent, an outworlder, having developed, in a short time, a modest command of the language, and being ignorant of political intricacies.”

“Other qualities?” asked a fellow.

“Other then those which are quite evident to your senses, other than those which you could detect by merely laying eyes upon her,” said the fellow from the house, first among those of the house.

There was laughter.

I lay there, before them.

“Are such things also of interest to you?” asked he who was first among those of the house, first, at any rate, among those present.

“Are they not always of interest? Asked a fellow.

There was more laughter.

“More importantly,” said one of the strangers, “should she not be such as to appear plausibly to have been purchased for the typical reasons for which such an item might be obtained?”

“Yes,” mused another man.

“I assume you,” said the fellow from the house, “that she could be excellently, and judiciously, purchased for just such typical reasons.”

“She fulfills such criteria, independently?”

“Assuredly,” said the fellow from the house.

“Let her perform,” said he who, I took it, was first among the strangers.

“Prepare,” said he who was first among those of the house.

I rose lightly to my feet, and turned, and, head down, put my hand to my left shoulder. I was unclothed, of course, but had I been silked the disrobing loop would have been at the left shoulder. I had learned how to remove the silk gracefully. Now, of course, I must merely pretend to do so. I moved my hand as thought loosening the disrobing loop, and then, gracefully, stepped away from the silk which had supposedly fallen about my ankles. I then, facing the strangers, the new comers, knelt before them, in position of obeisance, my head down to the floor, the palms of my hands on the floor, too.

“She looks well in such a position,” said a man.

“They all do,” said another.

I had known, of course, for years, even before puberty, that such deferences, obeisances, and such, were owned to men, but I had never expected, except perhaps in dreams, to find myself in my present position, one in which I was subject to, and must have in accordance with, such appropriatenesses.

“Begin,” said he who was first among those of the house.

I rose to my feet, and, obedient to the injunction under which I had been placed, began to move. I moved first before one man and then another. I began, of course, with he whom I immediately sensed was first among the strangers. I sensed this from his position, central and prominent among them, and from the nature of his gaze upon me, which I could meet only for an instant. I moved before the men, first before one and then before another, approaching, withdrawing, sometimes as if unwilling, or shy, sometimes almost as if daring to be insolent or rebellious, but not quite, or not really, of course, for if such things are misunderstood one may quickly feel the lash. It is more as thought a token challenge were offered but one which is clearly understood as, and its presented as, no more than that, for one knows that even such tokens may be swept away, and crushed, and one may find oneself suddenly upon one’s knees, in one’s place, cringing in terror, in the rightful servitude of one’s nature. And then there is a sensuousness which can be taunting, in effect, a challenge to one’s conquest, and a sensuousness which is taunting in another respect, an invitation to partake of proffered raptures. And there are the movements of petition, of pleading, of begging. There are movements of these, and of many other sorts. Some of these movements I had been taught. Others, in effect, were known to me from long ago. I had, in secrecy, practiced them, before mirrors, when alone. I had found them somehow in the piteous recesses of my needs, had drawn them forth as though from an ancient knowledge. I had wondered who it was sometimes that I could have known such things. Had I moved thusly long ago, in a former life, before a prince of some royal house on the Nile, before some caliph in his cool, white palace abutting the slow waters of the Tigris, in the house of some oligarch overlooking the Tiber? Or were these things locked in the very cells of my body, in the mysteries of genes and chromosomes, a part of my nature, selected for, over thousands of generations? Perhaps, thusly, such as I had, at times, writhed naked and piteous at the feet of some primitive hunter, before his fire, that he would not use the heavy stone in his hand, that I might be permitted to live. How I would have been prepared to accept, the relish, eagerly, gratefully, the harsh terms which he might decree! And here, too, it seemed, in this place, new revelations had come to me of my nature. Here, away from my own world, with its confusions, its lies, its contradictions, its asceticism, its hatred, its envy, its resentment, its pervasive negativities, it seemed as though for the first time I could be what I truly was, without pretending to be something else. Here for the first time I felt I could be me, not some other. Had I so moved in Thebes or Memphis, or Damascus, or Baghdad, or Athens or Rome? I did not know. But if I had, here, in this place, such possibilities seemed much more real to me. It was as though I were suddenly in touch with a thousand possible lives, ones which I might have lived, ones which, surely, I could have lived. Or if these things lurked in the beauties of biological heritage, here at any rate, it seemed such an inheritance, such a heritage, might, at last, be spread forth in the light, a treasure no longer concealed, denied, in dank vaults, but put forth to gleam in public view, to be honestly what it was, to be admired, to be prized, to be used.

Oh, there are many such movements, and they must flow into one another well.

“Ah!” said a man.

I then transposed into floor movements, as these are often the climactic episodes of such a performance.

I made certain, of course, that I concluded my performance before he who was first among the strangers. It would not do at all to have finished it elsewhere. Sometimes an item such as I, struck with love, or careless, may move cumulatively, so to speak, and most meaningfully, before one who is not first in such a group. Such an error, however, despite its understandability, the desire to display oneself before, to call oneself to the attention of, and to attract him in whose power one wishes to be, can be very dangerous. Such things can lead among the men to rivalries, to fallings out, even to duels and bloodshed. And for one such as I they might lead at best to the thronging of the wrists and the waiting at the post, for the lash.

I heard exclamations from the men, the sudden intakes of breath, tiny sounds of surprise, murmurs of approval. These things coursed though the group, some even from those in the house. Such as I, you see, do have some power, but the ultimate power of course, is not ours.

Then I lay on my back, the performance concluded. My left knee was up, and drawn further back than my right knee, which was also raised. My hands were down beside me, at my sides. The palms were up, as is proper. The vulnerability of the palms is part of the symbolisms involved. My head was turned to the right, and I looked toward he who was first among the strangers. Then having done this, I turned my head back, and looked up. I could see the pitting of ceiling above me. My hair was about. My body was covered with a sheen of sweat. I was breathing heavily.

“She is quite beautiful,” said a man.

“She has become even more so, since she came here,” said he who was first of those present, he who was of the staff of the house.

I lay there feeling their eyes upon me.

I had found the way in which I was regarded by these men, almost from the beginning, as soon as I became aware of such things, almost from my first moments after having crawled from the corridor in line, with the others, chained by the neck, to the first processing area, to be startling, or, at least, very surprising. You see, I had never thought of myself, really, on my old world, as having been beautiful. I had thought of myself as perhaps pretty, at best. I did have, I suppose, delicate, some said, exquisite, features. But my body, you see, would be all wrong for my own culture. It approximates, very closely, that of the statistically normal female. For example, it is not unusually long legged, and it does not, as it might if it were almost breastless, seem to be, in effect, that of a stripling youth. It is, rather, for most practical purposes, only the body of a normal woman, as women are, only that. Agencies would not select me, for example, as a model, or, at least, one fulfilling the normal stereotypes of the model. For example, I could never slip a chain on my waist, fastening me perhaps to a beam. It would hold me quite effectively. The nature of my body would keep me its prisoner. And so I had never thought of myself as beautiful. But here I found, in this culture, that the standard of beauty is set by what women really are, in the helplessness of their hormonal richness, rather than, for some reason, the way boys often are, in their adolescence, before they achieve the girth and strength of their manhood. So, to be sure, I might not have worn certain narrow, stiltlike garments as well as a model but I had learned, initially to my surprise, and later to my dismay, and terror, and later, yet, rather to my contentment, and even joy, that I might, in a bit of silk, or in a bracelet and a pair of bangles, seem to be such that in me men might take great interest. Most of those who had been on my chain were, like myself, normally figured females. There had been only two of the “model” sort and they, it seems, had been brought here for a specialty market. The men did not regard them with much interest. As I began to understand how I, and my sort, those with normal figures, were viewed on this world, I began to feel sorry for the “models,” whom, at one time, I would, absurdly, have envied from afar. How difficult it must be for them, given their previous experiences, to recognize, and adjust to, the simple tolerance, if not contempt, in which they now find themselves held. But there is surely hope for them here, as there was, too, for us, on the old world. As we once were on the old world, so, too, here they are encouraged to put aside all thoughts of their “faults” and “plainness,” or what counts as such here, and compensate with qualities of personality, attentiveness, and character. But I do not feel sorry for them. For just as there doubtless were men, true men, on the old world, though on such a world, though on such a world they must guard the secrecy of their manhood, who would prize the normal female, she made for arms, and crying out, and yielding, so, too, there must be on this world men, and doubtless true men, who find the tall, breastless “model type” of interest. Two such, for example, were brought here. They were on my chain. But it is nice to find out that one is such that, in a given culture, one is regarded as beautiful. Too, I think the culture is more normal than that from which I was extracted, as it seems that beauty might most plausibly be found within the normal parameters of womanhood, rather than, say, at its fringes. For what its worth, as an economic sidelight on such matters, normally figured women, assuming, of course, that they are attractive and beautiful, tend, by far, to bring the highest prices. To speak plainly, men on this world, statistically, will pay more for them. Perhaps another remark or two might be made here. Whereas I am short, as are most women, I am not fat. My figure, which is small, has been “optimized,” so to speak, at least from the point of view of these men, within its own parameters. I have had no control over this. It has been seen to. It is a matter of diet, exercise, proper rest, and such. In the house these things are, in effect, taken care of for me. I am told that outside the house, however, items such as I, depending on their situation, are often assigned more personal responsibility in such matters, subject, of course, to supervision and discipline. They are expected, outside the house, just as within the house, it seems, to keep the latitudes of their bodies within certain prescribed parameters.

If they become lax in such matters, they are punished. A second point is that one of the men, as I have indicated, spoke of me as having become even more beautiful since my arrival here. I think this is true, as mirrors, and guards, have testified. The truest beauty, of course, comes from within, and, I suppose, from many sources. It may be, for example, a function of the lessening of inhibitions, and the removal of anxieties and internal contradictions. It may come from contentment, from happiness, from fulfillment, from joy, from such things. Such things cannot help but transform one’s expressions, one’s movements, one’s entire attitude and behavior. The beauty of the outside begins its journey from within. And, lastly, it is only fair to mention, behind such things, the subtleties of silking, of perfumes, of cosmetics, of adornment, and such. We are expected to know such things, and to utilize them to achieve desired effects. At times I had trembled, seeing what was revealed in the mirror, and understanding the only way in which such a thing could be understood by a man, and yet knowing, too, that that was I, that tasteless, brazen, garish, dramatic, provocative thing, in one of my authentic modalities. And then, too, such things could be applied with sensitivity and taste, and sometimes, if one wished, so subtly that only I perhaps might guess what enhancements had been applied. And at other times we were permitted only a rag or a bit of silk and taught so to stand, to sit or kneel that even so, without cosmetics, with no more perhaps than our hair combed, we would be beautiful. There are mirrors in most of the training areas. These accustomed us to be acutely conscious of how we might appear to others. This is very helpful, particularly in the early phases of training, before so many things, such as good posture and graceful movement become second nature to us. Sometimes I, and others, were placed before the mirror, in a rag, or silk, and told to stand there, or kneel there, or sit there, and see ourselves as we were. I would look into the mirror, and see myself as I was. I was now very different from what I had once been. I was now quite different. And so I had come to a place where I had found myself to be beautiful, even extraordinarily so. I looked into the mirror. I saw there one who was beautiful. This much pleased me. But, too, sometimes, I was frightened. I saw there in the mirror before me not merely one who was beautiful, but one’s whose beauty was only in one sense hers. In another sense, it was not hers, just as she herself was no longer hers, but another’s.

I lay before the men, suitably. I was looking up at the ceiling.

My hair was about my shoulders. I was still trying to regain my breath, from the exertion of my performance. My breasts heaved.

“Is she hot?” asked a man.

“It is so certified, by the house,” said one of the strangers. I gathered this information had been obtained from my papers.

“We have had to warn the guards away from her,” said one of the fellows from the house.

I kept my eyes up, on the ceiling.

“Already she has learned to beg,” said a man.

“She has been instructed to keep her hands within the bars of her kennel,” said another.

“In a few weeks,” said one of the fellows from the house, “she will be utterly unable to help herself.”

One of the fellows from the house walked over to me. “Put your knees down,” he said.

Immediately I complied. He then kicked one of my ankles to the side, so that I lay with my legs open.

I kept my eyes on the ceiling.

He who was apparently the leader of the strangers came and stood near me.

I looked up, but then looked away, quickly. I dared not meet his eyes.

He stepped away from me.

I moaned, a little.

“Are you interested?” asked the one who was first of those present, of the house.

“We will take her,” said the leader of those not from the house.