Witness of Gor (31 page)

I was only a kajira, feeding at the foot of the dais.

"Lick the pan," said Dorna.

I did so. I was angry with her. She held the switch. Had my performance not been of interest? Could she have done better? Were her curves likely to be of more interest to men than mine? But it was I who was feeding, and she who held the switch. But I could set myself to please the men! Take away her switch! Let us compete as equals!

"Lift your head," said Dorna. "How silly you look!”

There were crumbs of meal about my mouth and lips.

"Bring some meat," said the occupant of the chair.

Dorna, with an angry swirl of her silks, spun away, to return to the small table under the roofed defense work.

I wondered that the fellow accepted, with such apparent tolerance, what appeared an obvious manifestation of annoyance on the part of the slave, if not of actual insolence. Did she not fear her silks would be removed and that she might be tied to a ring and whipped? I supposed she must have felt the whip at one time or another. She did move well, of course. That suggested that she was not totally unfamiliar with the whip. We must move well. We are not free women. If we do not move well, men, and their whips, see to it that we soon do. And whatever might have been her peripheral tokens of irritation or exasperation she did obey with alacrity. Yes, I thought, she undoubtedly knew something of the whip.

Yet, too, undeniably, her behavior seemed to leave something to be desired. Perhaps she presumed too much on the status of a high slave, which status, it seemed, must be hers. Or perhaps she had been a high free woman, and her master, or masters, allowed her to act as she did, finding some amusement in the absurdity of it, she not understanding the joke, knowing they could in an instant bring her to her knees as a humbled, abject, servile, weeping slave. But, in any event, she was accustomed, it seemed, to being treated with some indulgence, perhaps even with permissiveness. How else would she have dared to exploit such latitudes of tolerance as seemed to be accorded to her? To be sure, she was a high slave. But are not such, in the final analysis, owned every bit as much as we? And is not one man's high slave no more to another than the least of his bond maids, laboring shackled in his stables, her use a perquisite for rude grooms, and is it not the case that even for the very same man she who is this evening a high slave may be tomorrow the least of his properties in the scullery? Dorna returned with a small dish in which there were some tiny bits of meat.

She handed this to the occupant of the great chair.

He regarded me, and I looked up at him, from all fours, from the floor below the dais.

"She has pretty hair," he said.

"Mine is better," said the woman.

We were both dark brunettes. Indeed, our hair was almost the same color. Perhaps hers was a little darker. I suddenly realized that our complexions must, too, be similar. I then suspected, naturally enough, immediately, that perhaps we were both of the "type”

in which the personage in the chair might have an interest. Some men, it seems, are interested in certain "types" of women. On this world men have little difficulty in finding the types in which they might be interested. Here there are many markets, some of them even specialty markets, catering to particular tastes. One may accordingly, at one's convenience, browse through various markets, seeking wares to one's liking. A fellow, sooner or later, is almost certain to find an item, fastened to one ring or another, which will conform to his particular taste. Too, as an option, "want lists" may be circulated. Some women of Earth, I suspect, owe their very presence on this world, their very brand and collar, to the fact that they happened to satisfy, unbeknownst to themselves, in virtue of some particular configuration of properties, features and such, to a greater or lesser degree, the requirements of such a list. To be sure, these are doubtless delivered to specific customers. If there is a consolation or advantage in this it is that they are almost certain to find that they are exactly, or almost exactly, what someone wants. I did think that my figure might be superior to hers, at least from the point of view of what seemed to be the common preferences of men of this world.

The occupant of the chair tossed one of the pieces of meat to the floor.

I went to it, on all fours, and put down my head, and picked it up.

The next tidbit of meat he tossed to the first step of the dais, where I retrieved it.

I looked up at him, the palms of my hands on the first step of the dais, my knees on the flagging below the dais.

He tossed the next piece of meat to the second step.

Obediently I took it. He was drawing me upward.

The next tidbit he threw to the floor of the dais, before his chair. I crawled to the floor of the dais and put down my head and picked up the bit of meat. I was grateful for it. I had not had meat since the pens. I looked up at him. My hair fell before my shoulders. I was nude. My neck was innocent of a collar. On my thigh there was, of course, the brand.

Once or twice in the pens I had been given a candy, a hard candy, and once, a part of a pastry. I did not hope for such items here, of course, at least at this time. He now held the next piece of meat between his fingers. I was to approach him, and take it from his hand. I crawled to him, and knelt before him, and dared to put my hands upon his left knee. Dorna, the high slave, was a little before me, and to my right. She was standing beside the arm of the thronelike chair, at his left. I put my head forward, delicately, to take the piece of meat, but he drew back his hand a little. I then drew back my head a little, and looked up at him.

"You are from the world called "Earth"?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What have you learned of our world?" he asked.

"Very little, Master," I said.

"But you have learned how to obey, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Are the women of your world obedient?" he asked.

"Doubtless some, Master," I said.

"But you were not," he said.

"No Master," I said.

"But you have now learned to obey, have you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"And you now obey very well, do you not?”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Instantaneously, and unquestioningly?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then put the bit of meat into my mouth.

I took it, gratefully. I finished it. I looked up at him. I hoped that he found me of interest.

Women such as I, on this world, must please men. It is what we are for.

"Do not concern yourself with her," said Dorna. "She is totally unworthy of your attention.

She is nothing, only a slut from Earth.”

The broad-shouldered, large-handed man looked down upon me. How tiny I felt before him.

He had been referred to as an "officer" by the jailer. Those large hands, I suspected, were not unpracticed in the techniques of weaponry. Certainly they seemed rough, and strong. I feared to sense what they might feel like on my body.

At his least touch I knew I would respond to him as what I was, a kajira.

Then I put my head down, quickly, for I sensed that he understood this, as well. Indeed, he could doubtless read women such as myself with ease. He had undoubtedly subjugated many of us in his time, reducing us to helpless, spasmodic, begging slaves.

"She has no status, even as a slave," said Dorna. "Put her from your mind. She is only from Earth. She is entirely worthless.”

The fellow smiled at the insistence of the slave.

"They are the coldest of the cold." said Dorna.

Two or three of the men about burst into laughter at this remark. They had experienced, and perhaps even owned, I gathered, women such as I, from Earth. Indeed, perhaps they kept one or more in their domiciles now. I doubted that we were brought to this world because we were cold. If anything, for another reason. I kept my head down. I reddened.

"Sometimes women learn heat in a collar," said a man.

"I have heard that of a slave named "Dorna,"" said another. There was laughter. Dorna looked away, angrily.

"Are you "cold," little kajira?" asked the man.

"I do not think so, Master," I said.

I wondered if some women did not, indeed, learn their heat in a collar.

"They are the hottest of the hot," said a man.

"It depends on the particular woman," said a man.

That, I supposed, was true.

I did not believe, of course, that the women of my world were cold.

Certainly, at least, they did not seem to be once they had come to this world. To be sure, there were doubtless many reasons for this. On this world we found ourselves in a true world, a biologically natural world, a world in which nature was fulfilled, and celebrated, not outlawed, denied, and denounced.

Here a natural sexuality was acceptable. Indeed, it was required of us.

Here, for example, we need not pretend to subscribe to the pathologies of identicalism, neuterism and personism. Here we found ourselves in the order of nature where, biologically, we belonged. And here, too, at last, after having lived for years in a sexual desert, unhappy, frustrated, deprived and starved, we find ourselves in a land of plenty. How eagerly we eat! How joyously we drink! But, too, of course, we have little choice in these matters. Heat is here required of us. Just as total passion and complete surrender were, in effect, forbidden to us on our old world, here they are, quite precisely, required of us. Do we have reservations, or scruples? Are there lingering vestiges of the barbaric conditioning programs to which we, even as innocent children, were subjected Such reservations, such scruples, such vestiges, may be quickly removed with the lash.

"They are all cold," insisted Dorna.

The fellow in the chair reached out and I watched his hand, with apprehension. Then he placed it on my body.

I gasped, and drew back. I trembled. I closed my eyes. whimpered.

I tried to hold myself still. He must remove his hand! He must! He must!

"She would be hot in her chains," laughed a man.

In another moment I felt I must thrust myself against him, again and again, desperately, kissing and whimpering.

Then, mercifully, he removed his hand from my body.

I looked up at him and, my eyes wide, licked and kissed his hand.

"They are all meaningless, hot-bellied sluts!" said Dorna. "That is all they are good for, rolling about, kicking, screaming, moaning, gasping, begging, in the furs!”

"They have many uses," said a fellow.

"Yes," laughed another.

"Slave belly!" snapped Dorna.

"I thought you said they were all cold," said a man.

"No," said Dorna. "It is rather that they are all trivially, meaninglessly hot.”

"They are the hottest of the hot," said another man.

"It depends on the individual woman," repeated another. Again that seemed to me true.

"They are the lowest of the low!" said Dorna.

"That is true," said a man.

"Yes," agreed another.

"Are you the lowest of the low?" asked the man.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"You are," he assured me.

"Yes, Master," I said. If I had had any doubt as to how I had stood on this world before. I had none now.

Dorna laughed.

The fellow in the chair still held, in the palm of his left hand, some tidbits of meat.

He took one of these between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and held it out to me.

I took it, and ate it.

I looked up at him. I wondered if he would again touch me.

I took the next piece of meat.

"You take your food from men," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then held another piece.

"See her being fed by hand!" said Dorna to those about.

I took the next piece of meat.

"Feed, little Earth beast!" laughed Dorna.

Suddenly the occupant of the chair turned toward Dorna and regarded her.

She turned white.

Her switch was taken from her.

Then the proud Dorna knelt beside me and, putting forth her head, angrily, in fury, was fed as I.

"You take your food from men," the occupant of the chair informed the proud woman kneeling beside me.

"Yes, Master," she said. That admission, I conjectured, had cost her much.

About us some men laughed, and some smote their left shoulders in approval.

In order that the matter be lost on no one, the occupant of the chair, of the last three pieces of meat, casting each to the floor of the dais, cast the first to the six-legged beast, which lapped it up instantly with its tongue, scarcely a scrap to such a maw, the second to me and the third to Dorna. Dorna and I, then, on all fours, from where we had retrieved that largesse which had been granted to us, cast to the floor of the dais, looked up at he who occupied the chair.