Mercenaries of Gor (49 page)

(pg. 348) "Oh, no," she said, drawing back, suddenly, seeming to wipe a tear from her eye, "I must not say such things to you."

"What?" I asked, kindly.

"I must leave," she said. "I must hurry away now." She put her hands out, that I might gently take them in mine, holding her at the table, restraining her sweetly, in earnest, gentle persuasion, from departing. But I, curious to see what would happen, apparently did not notice this opportunity.

She did not leave.

"I just do not know what to do," she said, turning her head from side to side.

"What is wrong?" I asked, seemingly concerned.

"How terrible you must think me," she said, wiping away another tear, it seemed, from the corner of her eye.

"Not at all," I said. I certainly did not think her terrible at all. Indeed, I thought she was luscious.

"I have been too bold," she said. "I approached your table. I have spoken to you first. I have permitted you, a man I scarcely know, to buy me ka-la-na. I am so ashamed."

"There is no need to be ashamed," I said.

"But far worse," she said, "I revealed to you my feelings, I told you of my unspeakable loneliness. Are you lonely?"

"Not particularly," I said. It is normally only free folks among free folks who are lonely, each so separate from the other. It is not easy for men to be lonely who have access to slaves. Similarly the slaves, so occupied, and of necessity so concerned to please the master, are seldom given the time for the indulgence of loneliness. Too, of course the incredible intimacy of the relationship, intellectual and emotional, as well as sexual, for the master to inquire into, and command forth, and is normally inclined to do so, her deepest thoughts and feelings, which must be bared to him, as much as her body, as well as command, even casually, her most intimate and delicious sexual performances, militates against loneliness.

In slavery total intimacy is not only customary, but it can be made obligatory, under discipline. Masters like to know their girls. They want to know them with a depth, detail and intimacy that it would be quite inappropriate to expect of, or (pg. 349) desire from, a prideful free companion, whose autonomy and privacy is protected by her lofty status. In a sense, the free woman is always, to one extent or another veiled. The slave, on the other hand, is not permitted veils. She is, so to speak, naked to the master, and fully.

There is no doubt that slaves without private masters, or slaves in multiple-slave chains, arrangements, households, institutions, and such, may experience terrible loneliness. There is doubtless great loneliness, for example, in a rich man's pleasure gardens. Indeed, the presence of a lovely slave there might not even be known to the master, but only to her immediate keepers, and the master's agents, who may have purchased her, or accountants, who keep records of the master's properties and assets. Perhaps she must beg piteously to be called to the attention of the master. Some women in such a place, even those whose existence is known, or remembered, at least vaguely, might wait for months for a summons to the couch of the master, he perhaps selecting a ribbon with her name on it, from a rack of slave ribbons, and tossing it to an attendant, that she be brought in chains to this quarters that night, the ribbon on her collar. Too, it can doubtless be lonely in the house of a slaver, especially when the guards do not choose to amuse themselves with you, or have you perform for them, or, say, when you find yourself alone at night, perhaps a work slave, in the basement of a cylinder, chained in a cement kennel.

"Oh," she said.

"With you here," I said, "how could I be lonely?"

"What a lovely thing to say," she said.

I thought it has been pretty good myself. To be sure, it had required quick thinking.

"But mostly," she said, as though tearfully, "I am distressed at the boldness with which I spoke before."

"Boldness?" I asked.

"When I admitted, as I should never have done," she said, "that I was drawn to you."

" 'Drawn to me'?" I inquired.

"Yes," she said, lowering her eyes.

"I understand," I said. "You were drawn to me because (pg. 350) something within you seemed to sense, and delicately, that I might prove to be a sympathetic interlocutor, an understanding fellow with whom you might, assuaging therein to some extent your loneliness and pain, hold gentle and kindly converse."

"It was more than that," she whispered, not looking up, as though she dared not raise her eyes.

"Oh?" I asked.

She looked up, as though distressed. "I felt drawn to you," she said, and then she lowered her head, as though in shame, "-as a female to a male."

I said nothing.

"Free women have needs, too," she whispered.

"I do not doubt it," I said. At the moment, of course she had no real idea of what female needs could be. As with most free females they were doubtless far below the surface and seldom directly sensed. Their effect upon conscious life, because of her conditioning, would normally be felt in such transformed and eccentric modalities as anxiety, uneasiness, misery, discomfort, ill temper, imaginary complaints, frustration and loneliness. These things would be connected with her lack of feminine fulfillment, she not finding herself in her place, in her natural biological relationship, that of submissive to dominant, to the male of her species. These things, the result of her loss of sexual identity and fulfillment, too, often produced a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. Too, they sometimes produced an envy and resentment of men, whom she, perhaps with some justice, would blame for this lack of fulfillment. When one sex needs the other to fulfill it, and the other refuses, what is to be done? One way of striving for vengeance, of course, is to attempt, socially and politically, to bring about the debilitation and ruination of anatomical males, whether they be men or not. This, of course, might prove dangerous, for it might provoke an upsurge of nature, like a natural phenomenon, in which her order, artificialities then scorned and abolished, would be harshly restored.

Another danger, and perhaps one more serious, is that a misdirected response would be provoked in which, say, angry (pg. 351) males, perhaps unable to take direct action because of the numerous, carefully wrought political traps and snares trammeling them, would think themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to have no recourse but to engage in the undeniably masculine games of war, games which might destroy worlds, but, with them, perhaps, the walls within which they have permitted themselves to be imprisoned. It would be unfortunate, indeed, if the female, returned at last to her rightful chains, were to find herself kneeling in ashes.

"You are kind not to scorn me for my needs," she said. She looks up at me. "Sometimes they are very strong."

"I am sure of it," I said. She had as yet, of course, as a free woman, as I have mentioned, no real idea of what female needs could be. They were in her, as in all free women, muchly suppressed. She had no idea as to what they could be. Never had she confronted them wholly and directly. She was as yet alienated from the depth and richness of the extensive sexual tissues in her body; she did not understand how her entire skin, from her scalp to her toes, could awaken into life, startled and rejoicing, stimulated by the hot, surgent, wave-like irradiations emanating not only from her helpless, lovely exploited centralities, but as well from all the other sensitive curvatures and beauties of her, curvatures and beauties so much at a master's mercy; too, she could not even now begin to suspect the momentous emotional dimensions of bondage for the female, its entire, totalistic matrix, of what it was to be a slave, the nature of the slave's feelings, how she is affected by what she is, and what can be done to her, of what it is to be owned, absolutely, to be under uncompromising discipline, of what it is to know that you must, and will, under strict and uncompromising enforcements, give yourself up wholly to service and love, no alternatives permitted.

"You are very kind to take pity on a woman," she said.

"It is nothing," I said. I speculated that her needs might be rather strong, as a matter of fact, for a free woman. Certainly her body suggested the influence of a rich abundance of female hormones. One does not get curves like that by being hormonally deficient. It might be interesting, I (pg. 352) thought, to see what those needs might be like if permitted to develop fully under bondage.

"When I spoke your name before," she said, "I hesitated."

"I remember," I said.

"It was so hard to speak," she said.

"Yes?" I said.

"May I speak?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I was thinking that I might perhaps let you see my body," she said, "that I might even permit you to touch it."

"Yes," I said.

"That I might tonight," she said, "as you have been so kind to me, and I am drawn to you, give you my body."

"I am overwhelmingly impressed," I said. This seemed to me a suitable response, as she was a free woman. It is really difficult to know what to say when one hears something so stupid. If she were a slave, I would have enjoyed hearing her try to speak in that fashion, speaking of "giving her body" and for such-and-such a period. That would earn her a swift whipping. If one could speak in that fashion, of "mere bodies," so to speak, and it was not typically Gorean to do so, she would not in bondage be considering whether or not to bestow her body, and for how long, but rather she would discover that it was his for the master to take, whenever he wished, however he wished, and for as long as he wished, for it would then belong not to her but to him, or he could order her to bring it to him, his property, in whatever attitude or posture he might please. The slave, for example, does not ask if the master now wants the body of Gloria but, rather, does he want Gloria. In Gorean thought, and, indeed, Gorean law is explicit on this, what is owned is the whole slave. It is she who is owned, the whole woman, and uncompromisingly and totally.

"How kind you are," she said, "to a woman met in such a place, one so poor she cannot afford sandals, a suitable gown, and proper veiling. Do you object that I am so revealingly clad, and am not properly veiled? Does it scandalize you?"

(pg. 353) "No," I said. "Doubtless it is an inevitable concession to the cruelties of poverty."

"Yes," she lamented. "Perhaps you could try to think of me veiled," she suggested.

"That is a thought," I said. That much, surely at least, could be said for it. I conjectured what she might look like, stark naked, save for chains, perhaps, holding her as a tight love bundle, for a master's pleasure, at a ring, and the locked, steel slave collar that belonged on her neck.

She looked at me, gratefully. In my imagination I tightened her chains a notch or two.

"Is it true that you are drawn to me?" I asked.

"Yes!" she whispered, daring to touch my hand.

"Then shall we leave this place," I asked, "and to venture to your domicile?"

She drew back. As I had anticipated, she would not find a suggestion of this sort acceptable. She would not want her address known. That might put her at the mercy of furious, outraged victims. Too, it could make it simple for guardsmen, acting on complaints, to bring her in for identification and questioning, these details doubtless, in her case, to be followed by a hearing and sentencing, an almost inevitable reduction to bondage and then perhaps, initially, while her disposition is being more carefully considered, a placement in the public slave gardens.

"Perhaps then my room?" I suggested. "It is nearby."

"Sir!" she said, reproachfully. As I had thought, this would not be satisfactory either. She would prefer to complete her work here, where apparently it was tolerated, with the stealth of a drug, rather than go to the expense of employing confederates outside or take the risk of being recognized by others who might be in the vicinity of the victim's environs. "What sort of girl do you think I am?"

"Forgive me," I said, earnestly. "I did not mean to offend you." She was skillful at this type of game, it seemed, to provoke a male response, and then to claim she had been misunderstood, and was offended, thus confusing the male, keeping him off balance, and, in general, thusly guaranteeing, with a glance or tear, that she would have things her own (pg. 354) way. She was, at least, manipulative in a feminine fashion. That I granted her. It said something for her femaleness. It is pleasant later, of course, to manipulate such women in a masculine fashion, by command and the whip.

"I knew I should not have come here," she sobbed, wiping away a tear, one at least in theory, from the corner of her eye. She made as though to rise but, as I did not restrain her, she remained where she was.

"I have been clumsy," I said.

"I do not really blame you," she sobbed. "What else could you think, meeting me here? Surely you must think me the same as these other, lower women."

"No, certainly not," I said. "You are quite different, obviously, from them."

"Thank you," she whispered.

I nodded. Of course she was quite different from them. That was obvious. She was not yet nude. She did not yet have a slave collar on her neck. She had not probably never yet, in her life, felt a slave whip.

"Perhaps you are wondering," she said, wiping away yet another supposed tear, "what I, a gentlewoman, of breeding and refinement, am doing in this place?"