Witness of Gor (74 page)

"Put your head back and open your mouth," he said.

She then put her head back, and he inserted the spike of the water bag between her teeth.

He watered her, briefly. She wanted more. It was not given to her. I saw her tongue try to obtain each last drop, each residual moistness, from about her lips. He then went to the next woman.

"Do you beg water?" he asked. "I am to be addressed as 'sir'.”

"Yes, sir," she said. She was then watered.

She was watered more liberally than the other woman. She had doubtless learned from the other's experience. Her belly would be nicely rounded. A similar effect is obtained when a woman is wrist shackled and must pull the chain of the shackles back tightly against her waist.

I had had to do this in the corridor of the pens, while kneeling, shortly after being ordered from the pitch-dark cell. It is "having one's belly beneath the chain." That is, of course, also a way in Gorean for referring to a girl's bondage. For example, "I am pleased to note that Lady So-andSo's belly is now beneath the chain." "Excellent! How long has her belly been beneath the chain?" and so on. A slaver's practice is often to put binding fiber, or binding leather, about a girl's waist, snugly, and tie her hands behind her back. This, of course, narrows her waist, rounds her belly, and contributes to the accentuation of the bosom.

This is not really a slaver's "trick" because it is obvious what is being done. It is, however, attractive. Needless to say, a slave is never bound so tightly or cruelly that she might be injured.

It would be stupid to damage her in such a way; as it would reduce her value. This does not mean, however, that she may not be bound tightly. It is useful for a slave to occasionally know herself absolutely helpless.

It would be not only the second woman who had profited from the experience of the first woman, but the first woman, as well. Given the next opportunity to beg water, I had no doubt she would do so as a needful, suitably deferent suppliant. Nor would she forget the word 'sir'.

To be sure, that expression of respect would doubtless soon be changed for another, one even more appropriate, and indeed, required, for what she was soon to be.

"I must leave now," said the broad-bodied girl to the free woman.

The free woman, on her chain, in her shackles, looked up at her.

Suddenly the broad-bodied girl kicked her in the side and then, biting on the apricot, holding it in her mouth, took the free woman by the hair with both hands and jerked her head back and forth. The free woman cried out in misery, in pain.

The broad-bodied girl then took the apricot from her mouth and bit into it again.

The free woman looked wildly to the dock worker, a few women from her, for protection, for redress. But he, it seemed, had noticed nothing. Masters do not much interfere in the squabbles of slaves, you see, and, for most practical purposes, it seems that this was at least the sort of category in which the free woman now found herself included. She seemed aghast, stunned. She began to shake. She seemed then small, and helpless. We often live in fear, of course, of the strongest girls amongst us. None of us would have dared to interfere, even if we had been so inclined. And the free woman had been insolent. Let her begin to learn her manners.

"Do you beg water?" asked the dock worker of a nearer woman. "I am to be addressed as 'sir'.”

"Yes, sir," said the woman.

She, too, had learned how to beg water.

"You," said the free woman, to one of the girls who had spoken kindly to her.

"Mistress?" asked the girl.

"Can such things be done to me?" she asked.

"Unless the masters prevent them," said the girl.

"I do not understand," said the free woman.

"Try to be pleasing to the masters," said the girl.

"Numbers," said the free woman, "have been inscribed on my body. What do they mean?”

"They are to be read by the pen masters," said the girl.

"What do they mean?" she asked.

"I suppose, Mistress," said the girl, "that they suggest an initial category for you, your possible disposition, and such.”

"'Category', 'disposition'?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress.”

"What are they?" she asked.

"I do not know the meaning of the numbers, Mistress," said the girl.

"You are stupid!" said the free woman.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Do you beg water?" asked the dock worker of a woman some four places before the free woman.

"Never, never!" she cried out.

He then went to the next woman in the line. "Do you beg water?" he asked. "I am to be addressed as 'sir'.”

"Yes, sir," she said.

He then watered her, and proceeded on to the next woman in line.

In a moment, however, she who had refused to beg for water looked wildly over her shoulder.

"But I am thirsty!" she cried.

Some people, it seemed, learn more slowly than others. I wondered if she were less intelligent than several of the others. On the other hand, perhaps she had been testing a limit, and had now discovered where it was.

He paid her no attention.

In a moment, she cried out, "Yes, I beg water! Please, sir' I beg water, sir! I beg water, sir!”

But he continued on his way.

"Please," she wept. "Please, sir!”

But he paid her no attention. Perhaps she might later obtain water from a trough in the pens. In any event, she would not now be watered. In this incident I suspected she had learned a valuable lesson. Also, she was now doubtless better informed than before as to the nature of her new life.

If nothing else, she had learned that she was not different from the others.

"What are you waiting here for?" asked the free woman, angrily. "Do you wish to hear me beg for water?”

"Yes, Mistress," said one of our number, she who had just been denounced as stupid, who was kneeling to the side. "We would like to hear you beg for water.”

"Slut!" hissed the free woman.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

"Go, all of you!" commanded the free woman.

"No, Mistress," smiled the girl.

It was a small enough vengeance, I supposed, for the insults which the free woman had recently addressed to us, for example, in the matter of the apricots.

It was not wholly for such a purpose, however, that I was waiting there.

The free woman pulled in frustration at the shackles which confined her hands behind her back.

The fellow with the water bag had now arrived at the free woman s position, and we slaves, those still there, backed away a little. Those of us who were not already kneeling, and I was one, now knelt. We were in the presence of a free male. The free woman, though her primary attention was on the man with the water bag. from the corner of her eye, took note of our action, it seemed apprehensively.

"Sir!" she said.

"Have you requested permission to speak?" he asked. "No, sir," she said.

"Then it seems you might consider doing so," he said. She looked up at him.

"May I speak?" she begged.

I supposed that this might be the first time in her life the free woman had ever begged permission to speak.

"You may, if you wish," he said, "speak two words." She looked up at him, puzzled.

"Do you beg water?" he said. "I am to be addressed as 'sir'.”

"Yes," she said, hesitantly, adding, "-sir!”

These were, I gathered, the two words which she was to be permitted.

Two of our number laughed. It seemed she had begged well.

He had the water bag slung over his shoulder. With his left hand, it gripped in her hair, he bent her head back. He regarded her for a moment, for she was very beautiful, and she uttered a tiny whimper of protest, well aware of the display of her beauty and his casual regard thereof.

Her long, lovely, blond hair fell behind her, even to her calves. He then with his right hand guided the spike of the water bag between her teeth. Gratefully, head back, she drank and sucked at the spike. It had been long, I conjectured, since she had had water. Water gushed from her mouth, some run-fling over her chin and down the outside of her throat, even under the steel collar with the front and back chain on her neck, to course down her body. He pulled the spike away from her, still holding her head back, though I think she, tears in her eyes, would fain have been permitted more.

She whimpered again, as he had not released her hair. She closed her eyes, perhaps that her eyes not meet his. "There are numbers written on my body," she said.

"Please tell me what they mean.”

"Have you requested permission to speak?" he asked.

"No, sir," she said.

"Perhaps you should consider doing so," he said.

"May I speak!" she begged. "May I speak!”

"No," he said.

He released her hair and she bent far over, sobbing, the better I assume to hide her body.

But his hand in her hair straightened her up again. She was to remain kneeling upright, it seemed. He released her hair. She kept her back straight, regarded.

Again her hands jerked futilely at the shackles. He then crouched down, beside her. She did not meet his eyes. There are many reasons for back-shackling, of course. The primary effects are custodial, psychological, utilitarian and aesthetic. The custodial effectiveness of the arrangement requires no comment.

The psychological aspect of impressing the captive's helplessness upon her has already been mentioned. She is, for example, in this arrangement, unable to feed herself in any normal manner or to fend away those who might wish to touch or examine her.

The utilitarian aspects of this arrangement are largely accounted for by the conveniences it affords the captor, for example, in facilitating examinations, inquiries, displays, leashings, chainings, and such. The aesthetic aspects, too, are obvious, for such ties, as is the case, for example, with the handsoverthe-head ties, have a tendency to call attention to, accentuate, and enhance certain aspects of a woman's beauty. Needless to say, these various aspects, and others, symbolic and otherwise, do not function independently of one another but tend, naturally enough, to function in such a manner that each deepens and strengthens the effects of the other. The dock worker, his examination completed, now rose to his feet, and went to the next woman in the coffle. "Do you beg water?" he said. "I am to be addressed as 'sir'.”

"Yes, sir," she said.

As the free man continued down the line we rose to our feet.

"Girl," said the free woman to one of our number.

"Yes?" answered the one addressed.

"I am sorry I called you "stupid,"" said the free woman.

"That is all right, girl," said the slave.

"Girl!" said the free woman.

"Certainly," said the slave. "Did you not see how you were looked at? You now, too, are only a "girl."“

"I am a free woman!" said the free woman.

The slave laughed. "Girl," she said, "girl!”

"I said that I was sorry," said the free woman. "I am hungry. Let me have part of one of your apricots!”

"Do you acknowledge that you are a girl?" asked the slave.

"-Yes," said the free woman.

"Do so," said the slave.

"I am a-a girl," said the free woman.

"A chained girl!" laughed another of the slaves.

"Yes," said the free woman. "I am a chained girl!”

"Only a chained girl?" said another of the slaves.

"Yes, yes," wept the free woman. "I am only a chained girl! I am only a chained girl! Now, please, please give me even a part of one of your apricots!”

"Why should we give anything so precious to one who is only a chained girl?" inquired one of the slaves.

The free woman cast her a glance of consternation.

"Command me," said the girl who had been first addressed by the free woman.

"Give me one of your apricots," said the free woman.

"No," said the girl.

"Please!" said the free woman.

"Beg your own," said the girl. She then turned away. I, and two others, then remained in the vicinity of the free woman.

"Please give me something to eat," said the free woman to the rest of us.

"You will be fed in the pens," said one of the girls.

"Probably some slave gruel," said another. The free woman looked at them wildly.

"She has very pretty hair," said the first of the two other girls.

"I wonder if they will have it sheared," said the other.

"Would they do that?" asked the free woman, anxiously.

"They might," said the first girl.

"But, why?" asked the free woman, aghast. I gathered she was, indeed, fond of her hair.

"To make a wig for a free woman," speculated one.