Norman Invasions (53 page)

They are special to the master. You know how fond men are of what they own, of their properties, their possessions, their toys!

Female slaves. Slave girls.

They are the truest, the most feminine, the most desirable of all women.

But, too, I wonder, Master, if you, a man, could possibly understand the warmth, the radiance, the emotional gratifications the slave derives from her condition. I wonder if you can understand the sensuous, redemptive, meaningful psychological milieu of her existence. Can you imagine the sensuousness of her life, even as she performs small, homely tasks? Can you comprehend the pervasive, profound, irresistible sexual stimulations of her reality, that she is branded, thusly marked as property; collared, thusly demonstrated as slave, the collar commonly bearing identificatory data, the name of the slave, the name of her master, and such; the mode of garmenture accorded to her, when she is permitted clothing, which tends to be brief, and sometimes exotically revealing; certainly she must be clearly, unmistakably distinguished from lofty, superior, exalted free women, whose sandals she is unworthy to tie; too, she must speak, move, kneel, lie, and such, with feminine grace, and so on. She must even wear chains in an aesthetic, graceful, attractive, stimulatory manner.

Did you know that we can be whipped for not being graceful, appealing, and beautiful in our chains?

And how exciting is the clink of the chains when she feels their weight, their obdurate, linked sturdiness, and knows herself perfectly secured, helpless within them, and comprehends their meaning, that she is slave, and at the mercy of the master!

And how exciting, too, is the glimpse of a simple slave tunic, or a swirling drape of diaphanous silk. How exciting the belled wrist or ankle! How exciting a metal anklet, a golden armlet, a silver bracelet, a cheap necklace of slave beads! How exciting a short length of soft cord, a bit of binding fiber, slave wristlets, slave cuffs, a leash, a coil of rope, lying nearby, which one knows may be wrapped again and again about one.

And how frightening the mere sight of the master's whip!

She knows its meaning, and obeys well.

The slave's sexual heat is commonly upon her, and seems to lurk always just below the surface. I have felt receptivity at almost the same instant that I am ordered to my knees.

They light in our bellies “slave fires.”

Your critical, nasty, petulant, troublesome Linda, once so arrogant, so haughty, so cold, so superior, is now changed, Master. She is now a fearful, obedient, docile,
amorous
slave!

Yet I remain a virgin, and, it seems, in a way a tortured virgin, for they, of late, have brought me to the very edge of release, and have then denied me the relief I cried out to obtain. Yes, I begged for the relief they denied me! Needfully, shamelessly! How cruel they are! How subtle, how skilled! Then I am often returned to the cage, my wrists tied apart to the bars, and my ankles, too, so that I must writhe there in need, on the steel, unfulfilled. How horrifying must this treatment be then to the “red silk” girl, when I, only a “white silk” girl, am brought by it to a such a pitch of excruciating discomfort. Often the girls are denied to the guards and staff for some days before their sale, that they will appear the more piteous and needful, and will beg on the block all the more pathetically, all the more desperately, for a master!

Master, I want a master! How strange that the Linda you knew, now a slave on a far world, a slave on whom the name “Linda” has been placed by masters, should crave a master, should weep and beg for one.

Yes, Master, I admit it, freely, openly, shamelessly. I want a master!

Who is Rask of Harfax?

A miserable, begging, heated slave,

Linda

En'Kara, Twenty-Second Day

Master:

Why do I despise and hate Holly? I do not know. I suppose I was jealous, as she was your mistress. I have wondered, sometimes, how she would look, as a slave. She is certainly a pretty little thing, with those blue eyes and blond hair. Perhaps you thought she was a natural blonde. What would she look like, collared, in a short, simple rep-cloth tunic, kneeling before a master? I think I am younger now than I was, or, at least, seem so. Perhaps it is the diet, the exercise, the serums. I think, now, I would be about the same age as Holly. Perhaps we are both now no more than meaningless “chits.” I wonder which of us you would prefer? I would compete with her, for your favor. Yes, she you knew as Linda would compete with her for your favor. And perhaps I could lick your whip more piteously, more lasciviously, more beggingly, than she. You could shift from one of us to the other, of course, as you pleased, as, say, you might tire of one of us or the other, or as you might merely, now and then, desire a change. The other you could send to the kitchen, or put weeping in her cage, or kennel.

A jealous slave,

Linda

En'Kara, Twenty-third Day

Master:

I have been informed by the keepers that I am “a worthless slave.”

It is undoubtedly true.

Certainly I was worthless, as I now understand, on Earth, when I thought myself so special, so estimable, so valuable, so precious, so superior. How well I fulfilled the stereotypes of my ideology, how far I was from my true, deeper self and my heart! Did you know I sometimes slept on the floor, at the foot of, or at the side of, my bed, pretending that a master had put me there, where I might be conveniently at hand, should he want me during the night?

But that was one of the least worthless things about me.

That was one of my few actions which might have been appropriate, and acceptable.

During the day I flourished my politics, my rage, so easy to feign, so useful in garnering attention, my grievances, my power, the law, hints, and threats. But at night I sometimes slept on the floor, at the foot of the bed, or beside it, where something told me I should be, where I belonged.

I wonder if my master, Rask of Harfax, whom I have never met, will one day let me share the surface of his couch. Could I be so esteemed? We are often, I understand, slept at the foot of the couch, chained by the neck or ankle to a slave ring.

It is fitting for us.

Men are dominant, and know how to treat us.

It is for such things that we love them.

I wonder, Master, if you could even recognize me now.

I wonder, if I were with a group of stripped, or tunicked, chained slaves, if you could pick me out. Could you walk amongst us, with a whip, and know which one was I? I think you could recognize me, that you could pick me out. I suspect I might be in some sense special to you. Too, I think that even on Earth, you, not unoften, in your thoughts, saw me as a slave. I suspect you thought of me, at least now and then, perhaps frequently, as stripped and chained, at your feet, yours.

Forgive me, Master. I should not have suggested that such thoughts might have been yours!

Surely not yours!

I have new information for you about Rask of Harfax. Although the keepers are enforcing my virginity, and denying me much, I have striven so hard to learn my lessons well, and to serve them in so many ways, that they are now more willing to speak to me. In sneaking specialties for them from the kitchen, and thereby risking a switching, in pouring their wine rather generously, in well serving their tables, in assiduously washing, ironing, and setting out their clothing, in sedulously sweeping, scrubbing, mopping, and dusting their quarters, in meticulously arranging their furs and setting forth the chains in which, alas, other girls will be clasped, in carefully cleaning their leather and accouterments, in diligently polishing their boots, even when I am not instructed to do so, I have become something of a favorite. I have learned that when a woman genuinely desires to please men, and strives to please them, and does please them, the response of men is likely to be rewarding, one of acceptance, of warmth, fondness, and regard, in my case, of course, regard only insofar as a slave can be held in regard. I think my keepers like me though, of course, I am sometimes treated with great harshness, and am humiliated and struck, perhaps that I be reminded that I am a slave. As though one were ever in any doubt about that!

Some men seem to like me.

I wonder if my master, Rask of Harfax, will like me. I hope that he will like me. If he does not he may sell me, or give me away, or do with me whatever he pleases, as I belong to him. He might throw me bound to fang plants, or leech plants, as they are called here. My left forearm was held near to one, and the flower turned slowly toward me as I watched, fascinated, and then it suddenly struck at me, with its two hollow thorns. The pods began to pump and suck and I screamed as the blood was being drawn into them, darkening the pods. Then the plant was slashed apart with a knife and I was allowed to pull my arm away, and, weeping and screaming, tear the thorns from my flesh. I fear the plants. I will try to be a good slave! He may even give me as feed to hunting animals, six-legged, aggressive, sinuous beasts, called sleen. I do not wish to be torn to pieces, alive, beneath their fangs. They are sometimes used to hunt slaves. Some in the house have been given my scent. So, even if it were not for the chains and bars, the great doors, the keepers with their thongs and whips, I would not try to escape. But, Master, and this is fearful to understand, and will perhaps horrify you, even apart from the security of the house, and the keepers, and the animals, there is no escape for the Gorean slave girl. Even outside the house, this house and others like it, even outside, in the cities, or in the fields, on the long roads, on the winding rivers, even when amongst desert tents or mountain huts, wherever, anywhere, even when she is muchly free, when she can come and go muchly as she pleases, for many are permitted such things, there is no escape for her. Branded, collared, distinctively clad, universally recognized as property, there is no place for her to go, no place to run. She is slave, that and nothing else, and not only in a house, or city, or such, but in a culture, in a society, in a world. The best she might hope for is to fall into the hands of a new master, perhaps far away, who, aware of her indiscretion, will be likely to hold her in a servitude a thousand times more grievous than that from which she fled. So you see, Master, there is no escape from our bondage. It is on us. We are truly in our collars.

Does this horrify you, that there is no escape for us?

Or does it please you, for you are a man?

I wonder if my master will make some allowances for me, at least at first, as I am only an Earthwoman. He will surely know that. If not, I will certainly tell him, if I am given permission to speak. I trust he will not hold me in the bondage of the “silent slave,” or, more frighteningly, in that of the abject “she-tarsk.” And so I hope he will make some allowances for me. As an Earth female. But I do not think he will. Gorean men tend to be impatient, and demanding, with enslaved women.

But when one's service is diligent, conscientious, humble, and as marvelously pleasing as one can make it, in the kitchen, in the household, in the furs, they tend to be contented. And why not? After all, what more can the master want?

Earthwomen, my keepers inform me, as I kneel branded, naked, and collared before them, make excellent slaves.

That is interesting, is it not?

Perhaps I will not always be “worthless.”

Too, it seems we have a reputation for love, and helpless passion. That seems so strange to me, for the women on Earth are praised for their modesty, aloofness, and inhibitions. This Puritanical conditioning, of course, is utilized by, and capitalized upon by, ideologues seeking power. How anxious become the ideologues when a woman finds a man attractive; let her not dare fall in love; let her not dare listen to the whisperings of the natural woman, kneeling outside the “pale of enlightenment.” Poor men! Smiling becomes leering; flirting becomes harassment; caressing becomes groping; following a woman around a corner to see more of her, because she is so beautiful, is “stalking,” and so on. Earth has become so loveless and sick. All is greed, all is power. How blind I was then, how superficial, how shallow, how narrow!

Must we compete in our frigidity? Is each to be colder, and harder to bring to heat, than the next? Must we be inert? What is the value of resisting our sex, of using it as a weapon, a dangling tease, to lure unwary males into positions in which we may frustrate, humiliate, threaten, and exploit them? We thrust torches into straw and scold the straw for burning.

But I think there is not really anything wrong with the women of Earth. I think it is only necessary for them to tread beyond that “pale of enlightenment,” and find the natural world, which is beautiful.

It is still there.

There is nothing really wrong with the women of Earth. They have just not yet found their collars.

Forgive this disquisition, Master. Such thoughts must, of course, sound strange to you, alien and foreign, you of my old world, Earth.

Perhaps, however, they explain to some extent why Goreans believe Earthwomen make excellent slaves. And why they do make excellent slaves. They have languished too long in a sexless desert. Here they find the rains of Gor, and the verdant fields of a natural world. Let them feel the life-giving rain and run naked through the soaked grass. Here, Master, if they are clasped in the chains of masters, they are at least freed from those of politics. Here they are given no choice but to reveal, under threat of punishment, the sexuality they were forced to deny on Earth; on Earth they hoped to meet men before whom they could be only submissive; here, on Gor, they find men before whom a woman can only be submissive; on Earth they scarcely dared dream of their conquest; here, on Gor, they are conquered; on Earth they toyed with the thought of meeting strong men, so few on Earth, so denounced, so forbidden, perhaps even, in bold, shameless fancy, of granting them favors; here, yielded, capitulated, subjugated, and vanquished, prostrate in capture thongs, they beg for the privilege of being spared, to be accepted as abject slaves.