Witness of Gor (41 page)

How liberating it was for me to come to this world, where I might, at last, be myself, as I truly was!

To be sure, vitality is expected in a slave. In markets, we may even be tested for it. It is not only, you see, that a profound sexuality, an acute sexual sensitivity, an uncontrollable responsiveness, is permitted in a slave, it is required in her. It is one of the things for which we are purchased. We are slaves, you see. We are not free women.

But of what use would my vitality, if such it might be, be in this place? I wanted to feel the arms of a guard upon me. I wanted to lie, moaning, in his arms. But instead I lay cold, and bound, in a net.

I twisted, and sobbed.

"There is someone there!" announced a voice, a woman's voice, from somewhere to my right, in the darkness.

"Yes," I said, startled.

I heard the creak of a chain, to the right.

"I knew something descended into the net," she said. "I thought I heard it.”

I turned, as I could, in the net, toward the voice. "It was I," I said.

"You are in the power of these brutes as well?" she asked.

I was silent. I did not know who was there in the darkness. I heard the chain creak once more.

"You are in the power of these creatures as well?" she asked.

"Totally," I said.

"Are you chained?" she asked.

"I am bound," I said, "hand and foot.”

"They bind us well, do they not?" she inquired.

"Yes!" I said.

"I am imprisoned," she informed me.

That intelligence seemed strange to me, as it seemed her voice was quite near me. To be sure, I could not see in the darkness.

"I am soon to be free!" she assured me.

I was not certain as to how to interpret this remark, issuing from the darkness, from this unknown source.

"How I despise these fools!" said the voice. To such a remark, of course, I did not dare reply.

"How poorly they treat us!" she cried.

I did not dare respond.

"Have they treated you well?" she asked.

"I have been whipped," I said. Indeed, I had been twice whipped.

"Poor thing!" she cried. "You must be of low caste!”

I was silent.

"They would not dare to whip me!" she announced.

I thought the speaker might profit from a whipping.

"You have an unusual accent," she said, suddenly.

"I am from far away," I said, evasively.

"Are you clothed?" she asked.

"Please!" I protested.

"The beasts!" she said.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"In the pits," she said. "I think somewhere beneath the keep, somewhere beneath the fortress. I truly do not know. This place is a labyrinth!”

"What ransom are they asking for you?" she asked, suddenly.

I was silent.

"It will not be as high as mine," she informed me.

"You are from far off?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you know in what city we are?" I asked.

"No," she said. "I was brought here, my features wrapped in my own veils!”

I decided I should not dare to speak further to her, even in what seemed to be our common predicament.

"How were you brought here?" she asked.

"My features, too, were obscured," I said. Need she know that I had, in much of my journey, worn a slave hood? I was becoming very uneasy with our conversation.

"None of these beasts have so much as glimpsed my features," she averred.

I could make no such claim, of course. I was, and had been, public to men; I belonged to them; I was subject to their regard and whim, I had been exposed as frequently and routinely, and, I suppose, as naturally and as appropriately, as any other sort of domestic animal. Indeed, but a bit before, I had performed for men, before the dais, providing them not only with a glimpse of my beauty, if beauty it was, but with an authentic, detailed, lengthy, provocative display of it an exhibition designed to leave little to conjecture concerning at least the externals of whatever interest I might hold for them. It seemed I could have done little more unless I had stood chained on a sales platform, to be literally handled as the curved, tender little beast I was, or had perhaps been conducted behind the purple screen to be tested in a more intimate fashion. In such exhibitions, in such performances, movement, grace and rhythm are, of course, quite important. It is the moving, living, breathing, vital woman which is of interest. One must not only look beautiful, you see, but one must be beautiful.

"Such, I gather," said she, "has not been the case with you.”

"No," I said.

"Men have looked, then, upon your face?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"They would not dare to look upon mine!" she said.

I was silent.

"And have they seen more than that?" she asked.

"I am naked," I admitted.

"Poor thing!" she cried. But I think she was pleased to have been concretely apprised of this intelligence.

"You, too, are at their mercy!" I exclaimed, trying to sit up in the net.

"No, no!" she cried. I heard a rattling, as though of bars. I thought she must, then, be clutching them, and shaking them. She seemed frustrated. I heard the bars shaken again. I heard, too, the creaking of the chain from the right. Below me, too, if I was not mistaken, I heard again, a stirring, in the water. Something below, perhaps, had surfaced, or approached, hearing the sounds above.

"I am of high caste!" she cried. "I should not be here thusly, so held, so humiliated!”

I was silent.

I lay back in the net, bound.

"Men are fools!" she cried.

It was she, of course, and not they, who seemed to be in some sort of confinement.

"They are fools!" she wept.

The men I had seen on this world did not seem to me to be fools.

Indeed, they seemed to be anything but fools. By the force and intellect in them I had often felt awed. They did make many men of my old world now, in this perspective, seem fools. Here men seemed assured of themselves. They had not been confused, and bled, and subverted, and crippled, by a sick society. Here they had never surrendered their natural dominance. Here, for the first time, I had begun to understand what true men might be like, in all their splendor, in all their natural, bestial magnificence.

"How I hate men!" she cried. "How I despise them!”

I would certainly not respond to this. Indeed, what if she were a spy, set to examine me, perhaps even, cruelly, to trap me into some insolent inadvertence, trying to tease from me some careless, thoughtless, prideful, idly arrogant remark? Too, of course, more importantly, I did not, in fact, hate the men I had found here, nor did I despise them. If anything, I tended to admire them, and feel grateful toward them. Too, they tended to excite me, as a female, as few men of my old world had. To be sure, I did regard them with a healthy respect, even fear. They were, after all, the masters.

"But what could one such as you, of low caste," said the voice, "know of one of my sensitivity and nature? How could one such as you understand the feelings of one such as I?”

"Only with great difficulty, if at all, doubtless," said I, perhaps somewhat testily.

"But have no fear," said she. "I will be patient with you. We are, after all, despite the discrepancies in our caste, sisters in sorrow, in misery and grief.”

I was silent.

"We have in common our precious freedom," she said.

I did not respond to this. To be sure, I was confident that she was in some sort of confinement, and I lay bound and naked, in a net. But I did not doubt she had in mind some more serious sense of freedom, and one that made me uneasy. From things she had said, I had little doubt but what she was, in a sense important on this world, "free." On the other hand, in a sense also important on this world, and doubtlessly more profoundly important, I was not "free" It was riot merely that I had a collar on my neck, close-fitting and locked as it might be, and a brand on my thigh, lovely and unmistakable, put there deeply and clearly for all to see.

Nor was it even that my nature was such as to put me helplessly, lovingly, and appropriately at a man's feet. It was rather that in the full legalities of a world, in the full sanction of the totality of its customs, practices and institutions, in the fullness of its very reality. I was not free. I was an animal, a property, a slave.

I had had little, if anything, to do with free women. I had encountered two of them earlier, in the pens, and not pleasantly. I have briefly, as I recall, recounted the nature of that interlude elsewhere. I did know that an impassable gulf separated me from such lofty creatures, an unbridgeable chasm one of the same immeasurability that separated the lowliest of domestic animals, which slaves were, from the heights and glories of the free person.

"What is your caste?" she asked.

I was silent.

"Mine is the Merchants," she said.

"That is not a high caste is it?" I asked. I had heard conflicting things about the Merchants.

"It certainly is!" she cried.

I was silent.

"I would take you to be of the Leather Workers," she speculated.

I did not respond.

"Or perhaps, less," she said, "you are one of those boorish lasses from the fields, that you are of the Peasants.”

Again I did not respond.

"That is doubtless it," she said, seemingly satisfied.

The Peasants were generally regarded as the lowest of the castes, though why that should be I have never been able to determine. That caste is sometimes referred to as "the ox on which the Home Stone rests." I am not clear as to what a Home Stone is, but I have gathered that it, whatever it might be, is regarded as being of great importance on this world. So, if that is the case, and the Peasants is indeed the caste upon which the Home Stone rests, then it would seem, at least in my understanding, to be a very important caste. In any event, it would seem to me that the Peasants is surely one of, if not the, most significant of the castes of this world. So much depends upon them! Too, I am sure they do not regard themselves as being the lowest of the castes. In fact, I doubt that any caste regards itself as being the lowest of the castes. It would seem somewhat unlikely that any caste would be likely to accept that distinction.

Perhaps many castes regard themselves as equivalent or, at least, as each being the best in diverse ways. For example, the Leather Workers would presumably be better at working leather than the Metal Workers, and the Metal Workers would presumably be better at working metal than the Leather Workers, and so on. One needs, or wants, it seems, all the castes.

"Yes," she said, "you are of the Peasants.”

I was silent.

I trusted she would not fall into the clutches of peasants. I understand that they are not always tolerant of the laziness and insolence of arrogant, urban free women. They enjoy using them, when they obtain them as slaves, in the fields. I wondered how the woman in the darkness would feel, sweating, harnessed naked to a plow, subject to a whip, or crawling, perhaps hastened by the jabbing of a pointed stick, into a dark, low log kennel at night. But perhaps she would be permitted to sleep chained at her master's feet, within reach, at his discretion. But I feared it might be dangerous to speak to this person.

To be sure, we were both in the darkness. But she was free. I was not free.

"Do not be sensitive that you are only of the Peasants," said the woman. "There is much to be said for the caste.”

"Yes," I said. "Those who eat are often thought to owe it a debt of gratitude.”

"Surely," she agreed.

That seemed to me quite generous on her part.

"You were doubtless picked up on a country road," she said, "perhaps ravished in the nearest ditch.”

"Perhaps," I said.

"I myself was the victim of an elaborate plot, an intricate stratagem to secure a highborn prize for ransom.”

"Oh?" said I.

"As you are merely of the Peasants," said she, "you must fear, terribly.”

"Why is that?" I asked, not that I was not afraid. I was a slave.

"They may not hold you for ransom, you see," she said.

I was silent.

"I hesitate to call this to your attention, but you must face the possibility, my dear," she said.

"These men are brutes, powerful brutes! They may have another fate in store for you, one we dare not even think of!”

"What?" I asked.

"How obtuse you are, my dear," she said.

I did not speak.

"You are of low caste," she said. "Surely you can guess.”

I was silent.

"The collar!" she whispered.

I was silent. I was relieved, muchly. I had feared, from her tone of voice, and such, that she might have had something else, something dreadful, in mind, such as being thrown to a sixlegged carnivore of the sort which I had encountered on the ledge, or on the surface of the tower. But I did not think I would have to fear such a thing unless I proved to be displeasing, and I had no intention of being displeasing, at least if I could help it. Not only was I determined to be pleasing, if only as a matter of simple prudential consideration, that I might not be whipped or slain, but I genuinely, authentically, sincerely wanted to be pleasing. Something in me, from the time of puberty onward, had wanted to serve men, and love them, helplessly, and fully. Yes, I admit it, and on this world the admission costs me naught! I want to please men!