Witness of Gor (53 page)

Sometimes, of course, I would suppose that he had planned this earlier, looking forward to the time when he might draw me forth. But, at other times, I am reasonably confident that my use was merely a matter of the interest of the moment. But sometimes, too, I had waited, anxiously, for him, to plead in whispers for his attention, not wanting to awaken the others. Sometimes my plea 'would be granted. At other times it would be denied. I had heard there were guards in the pits, or depths.

Doubtless they had their rounds to make, of the cells or whatever incarceratory devices might be found in this place. I did not think they would check this area.

This was the place of the pit master. He would doubtless strictly control the gratifications of the women here, as much as, or perhaps even more so than, their food and bonds. I saw the pit master turn toward me. I was very frightened. He terrified me. But I, too, one of his charges, as much as the others, would doubtless be looked in upon. I pretended to be asleep. I heard him approach the cage. I was sure, then, he was quite close to me. Through my closed eyelids I was aware of the lamp. But he did not turn away! For better than a minute he stood there. Then, frightened, I rose to my knees in the cage and, facing him, put my head down to the tiny iron floor, performing obeisance.

"Why did you pretend to be asleep?" he asked.

"Forgive me, Master," I said. He was silent.

"I was afraid," I said. "Forgive me!”

"How is your belly?" he asked.

"My back, Master?" I asked. I thought I must have misunderstood him.

"Your belly," he said.

"Master?" I asked. Then I said, "It is all right, Master. Thank you, Master.”

"You have a hot belly," he said, "particularly for one so new to the collar.”

I kept my head down. I was silent.

"You may be easily controlled by it," he said. "It puts you much at our mercy.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"In the beginning," he said, "I think I will permit you to be touched by men only infrequently.”

"As Master wishes," I whispered.

"We shall see how you serve.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Lift your head," he said.

I did so, but I did not look at him.

"Lift your hair, and turn your head from side to side.”

I put my chained hands to my hair, and lifted it, and turned my head from side to side.

"Pierced-ear girl," he murmured.

Then he said, "You may lower your hands.”

With a movement of my head, I tossed my hair down, about my shoulders.

I adjusted it a little, with my hands, they close together. I kept my head up. I had not received permission to lower it. I did not, of course, look upon him.

"You are pretty," he said.

"Am I pretty?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Am I handsome?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Forgive me, Master.”

"For speaking the truth?”

"The opinion of a slave is worthless," I said.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"I do not wish to offend Master," I said.

"Do you think, because you have been put in a collar, you become less intelligent?”

"No," I said.

"Slavery has many effects on a woman," he said, "It softens her, it enhances her beauty, it gives her a profound sense of herself, it fulfills her, it increases, considerably, her sexual responsveness, it increases a thousandfold her capacities to love, but one effect it does not have, it does not reduce her intelligence.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Why should it?" he asked.

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

"It does not.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"There is a sense," he said, "in which the opinion of a slave is worthless, and another sense in which it might not be worthless. The sense in which it might not be worthless is the sense in which it might be true, or insightful, or helpful, such things. But in that sense the opinion of an urt or sleen, or any other form of animal, might not be worthless. It might be true, or insightful, or helpful, such things. The sense in which the opinion of a slave, or other form of animal, is worthless is the sense in which it is just that, the opinion of a slave, or animal. Do you understand?”

"Yes, Master," I said. My thoughts, like my feelings, did not count.

They were only those of a slave.

How these men, these brutes on this world who had never relinquished their manhood, dominated us! How totally, how uncompromisingly, they dominated us! How deliciously they dominated us!

"Intelligent women," he said, "make excellent slaves.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

"They understand what has been done to them, what they then are, how they must be, and so on.”

"Yes, Master," I whispered.

"And they are quick to grasp the impossibility of escape, and the irreversibility, by their own efforts, of what has been done to them.”

"Yes. Master," I said. But did he not understand how much more there was to it than this? Did he not understand the need for the master, the longing for him, the yearning for him? Did he not understand the need to serve, and love, selflessly? "You look quite well in chains.”

"Thank you, Master.”

"You belong in them.”

"Yes, Master.”

"You know that, don't you?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I whispered. I was such a woman. Even had it not been for such things as the desire to serve and love wholly, with no thought of self, only with thought for the happiness of the master, I would have belonged in chains. I knew that. I had been petty, and vain, and selfish, and doubtless, to some extent, still was. I had little doubt that if I had been permitted to retain my freedom I would have abused it, almost certainly so in my old world. How fitting then, I recognized, that men, in their arrogance, not wishing to accept such insult and folly on my part, had simply made me a slave, had simply branded me and put me in a collar. I now wore chains. I was now subject to the whip. I would obey, and be pleasing. These things had been decided by men.

"Master!" I begged.

"Yes?" he said.

"For what reason have I been brought here?”

"Here?" he asked.

"To this city, this place," I said.

"To this particular city, and this particular place?" he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"You will learn in time," he said.

"Master!" I begged.

"Yes?" said he.

"I do not know my name," I said.

"It is on the collar," he said. He indicated that I should more closely approach the bars. I put my right cheek against them, my eyes closed. I felt his pawlike hand slide the kajira collar up, beneath the sirik collar. "There it is," he said, lifting the lamp a bit. "It is there, your name, on the collar, which you cannot remove from your neck.”

Of course I could not remove the kajira collar! Such collars are not made to be removed by a girl. They are locked. The lock is at the back of the neck. Such collars are light, close-fitting, and attractive. They are pretty. One does not slip them.

I knew that the name was on the collar, and that, thus, in a sense, my name was on me, clearly and obdurately, for anyone to see, anyone who might be literate and care to peruse the collar. In this way a girl may be more easily recognized, and remembered, or identified or traced, or such. She is denied the refuge of a gracious and sheltering anonymity.

And of course I could not remove the sirik collar either. It was locked on me, as well.

The brute knew this. He was merely reminding me of my helplessness. It was doubtless an excellent lesson to be administered to a slave, and particularly, I supposed, to one such as I, an Earth-girl slave.

"It was shown to me," I said, "but I cannot read. I am illiterate! It was never told to me.”

"Even if you could read," he said, "you could not see it now, for it is on your collar.”

"Please, Master," I said, my eyes closed. "I would know my name.”

I must, I knew, hear my name first from the lips of a man.

"Do you beg to know the slave's name?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said. "I beg to know the slave's name.”

"It is a barbarian name," he said, "short, luscious, and splendidly fitting for a slave.”

"Yes, Master," I said. He was silent.

"I beg to know the slave's name," I said.

"It is 'Janice'," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"'Janice'," I said.

"That is the sort of name beneath which a slave squirms well," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I felt the chain from my wrists between my thighs. Thence it ran back to my shackled ankles.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Janice, Master," I said.

"Go to sleep now," he said, "Janice.”

"Yes, Master," I said.

In a bit he had returned to his furs. He blew out the tiny flame of the lamp.

We were then in the utter darkness.

I lay there for a time, and then lifted the chain on my wrists a little. I pressed my lips to it, and then to the manacles on my wrists, one after the other. I was ignorant of many things, but now, at least, I was no longer ignorant of my own name. I now knew who I was. I was Janice.

I then fell asleep.

FOURTEEN "How free slaves are!" she cried, delightedly.

"Shhh, Mistress," I cautioned her.

"You must not call me 'Mistress'!" she whispered.

"Forgive me," I said. Such things, from training, and from force of habit, sometimes slip out.

"And do not ask for my forgiveness," she whispered. "Please! Someone might hear! Think of me only as a slave in your charge.”

"I will try," I said. We had come from the bazaar with its sights and sounds, and booths and stalls, and the crowding, and the music. I much enjoyed that part of the city. We were now climbing steps to the upper terraces and courts. From there one may obtain a grand view of the mountains.

"I am so grateful to you!" she said.

I held her leash, preceding her. Her hands were braceleted behind her.

"It was your idea," I said. "I only conveyed your pleas to the depth warden Had I not done so, in some failure to comply with your request, I might have risked serious discipline.”

"Nonetheless, I am grateful!" she exclaimed. "You need not, I am sure, have conveyed my pleas. You might even have managed somehow to escape punishment for the inadvertence.

Since my care was put in your keeping I have not even seen the depth warden. He might never have known. You might have pretended to misunderstand, or forget, or you might have denied that such pleas were made.”

"In such a matter," I said, "your word would be taken over mine.”

"How vulnerable are slaves!" she marveled.

"Yes," I said, climbing upward. "We are vulnerable.”

"But you could have conveyed my pleas in such a manner as to have had them discounted, or rejected as haughty demands, or such.”

I was silent.

"You must have enjoined them upon the depth warden with sympathy.”

I supposed that was possible. She had been so pathetic.

"Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed, in pain.

"Do you wish to pause?" I asked.

"No," she said, looking at me, wincing, lifting one foot a little.

"Your feet are not yet toughened," I said. She was barefoot, of course.

This was in accord with her guise.

"Do you wish to wait?" I asked.

"Someone is coming," she said.

Coming down the stairs was a man.

"Come, slave!" I said. "Do not dawdle!”

With a little cry of pain she followed me up the stairs, the leash straight between us. Little consideration is shown to slaves. The fellow glanced at us, sizing us up, as men do, as slave meat, in passing. We looked down. Had he stopped, we would have knelt.

"Is your foot all right?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I think that the very first day on which I had seen the free woman, several days ago, over the pool, had been the same day on which a transformation had begun to be wrought in her. There were doubtless several causes for this, not to mention a certain ripening of her understanding, of how she was fully, truly, even though a prisoner, at the mercy of men. Specifically, I think it was useful to have had to explicitly, frequently, and humbly address the depth warden as "sir,”

which practice apparently, in its present authentic form, began on that day, to know that she was not permitted to attempt to interfere with the latching of the cage, and might thus, at any moment, waking or sleeping, be plunged into the pool, to the creatures which frequented it, and, perhaps most significantly, to learn that she, though a free woman, was being housed in a slave cage. This latter comprehension, in itself, it seemed, had acted profoundly upon her consciousness. She had begun soon after that, as I had learned from the brunette, Fina, she preferred by the pit master, who slept at his feet, to kneel in the cage at the approach of the pit master, the depth warden, who commonly attended to her. Further, she began, aside from the courtesy expressed in the use of the expression "sir," to address him with great deference, and to importune him, when she dared, in suitable humility. Too, as she now used the word "sir”