“I am not, Master,” I said. “Is it true you bought me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“May I inquire for what sum?”
“You vain she-tarsk,” he said.
“Master Axel paid a gold tarsk for Asperiche,” I said. “Perhaps you were as keen to buy Laura.”
“Do not flatter yourself,” he said.
“What did you pay?” I asked.
“The standard Pani price for changing the collar of a camp slave,” he said. “Two silver tarsks.”
“There was no bidding or negotiation?” I said.
“No,” he said. “They assumed, of course, that I would participate in the voyage. Otherwise they would not have sold you, and, I suppose, would have slain me.”
“That is more than forty-eight copper tarsks,” I said.
“More than four times as much,” he said, “as Brundisium counts tarsks.” I knew there were considerable differences in coinages from city to city. Gorean polities are fiercely independent, and many are substantially isolated from the others. That is why money changers commonly rely on scales, at least for gold and silver. For example, in some cities there are eight tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk, and in others, such as Brundisium, a major commercial port, a hundred tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk. These divisions, it seems, might facilitate subtle distinctions in pricing and trading.
“What would I go for on the open market?” I asked.
“It would depend on the market, and season, and the supply, and such,” he said. “There is no simple answer to that. But I would suppose, in an average market, you might go for two and a half silver tarsks.”
“So much?” I said.
“Possibly,” he said.
“It seems then,” I said, “that I have become more beautiful.”
“Women do, in the collar,” he said.
“And how high might you have gone if the bidding were close, and fierce?”
“That is my business,” he said.
“As high as a gold tarsk?” I asked.
“Do you think me weak?” he asked.
“Not at all,” I said.
“I could have bought you in Brundisium,” he said. “I might have kept you for myself, even before Brundisium.”
“But you did not,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Why did you not do so?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“What had happened?” he asked. “What had you done to me?”
“Nothing, Master!” I said.
“Was there some spell in this, some drug?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“Why was it that I wanted you so?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said.
“To be sure,” he said, “I thought you would look well in ropes, and a collar. Else you, a confused Earth slut, knowing nothing of your place, and your nature, would not have been brought to Gor. You should have been left to pine and languish in your shallow, tepid world, left, if anything, to the timid, polite, fumbling attentions of psychologically emasculated pseudomales, conditioned from infancy to disown their own nature, and deny their own blood, the creatures of a pathological world where nature and truth are against the law, against laws brought into being by those who would deny both truth and nature.”
“It is a great honor,” I said, “for a woman of my world, such a world, to be adjudged worthy of a Gorean collar.”
“‘Worthy’?” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“Do you think you, a woman of your world, any woman of your world, is worthy to be the slave of a Gorean male?”
“No, Master,” I said. “We, the women of my world, so taught and conditioned, so shallow and trivialized, are not even worthy to be the slaves of Gorean males.”
“Still,” he said, “you look well on the block, and in chains.”
“It is our hope that our masters will be pleased with us,” I said.
“One does not need a worthy slave,” he said, “only a beautiful slave, however unworthy, from whom we will require much work and from whom we will derive much pleasure.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“It is common, of course, for a man to desire a slave,” he said.
“And for a slave to desire a master,” I said.
“You know I followed you from Brundisium,” he said.
“On the dock at Shipcamp,” I said, “seeing you, I had hoped for as much.”
“‘Hoped’?” he said.
“I wanted you as my master,” I said, “from the first moment I fled from you.”
“Liar!” he said.
“No, Master!” I said.
“I do not understand these things,” he said angrily, his fist clenched. “Am I a fool, a joke, a weakling, a traitor to codes?” He looked down at me, and I was frightened. Why was he angry, so angry? I feared his fury? What had I done? Did this have to do with him, or with me, or both? How dark was his visage, how twisted his frown!
“You are a mere slave,” he said, “a mere slave!”
“Yes, Master,” I said, uncertainly.
“You are worthless,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“No different from countless others,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said, frightened.
“And yet,” he said, “how I have fought the wanting of you!”
“Master?” I said.
“How I tried to drive the thought of you from my mind! What storms of hate and denial I invoked to banish you from my heart! Was not the thought of you, or your image, in the corners of darkened rooms, in clouds, everywhere, in rain, in shimmering leaves, in high, green, bending grass? What had you done to me, you, merely another meaningless Earth female, branded and collared, brought to our markets? Yet I would own you! I was driven to own you, and be your master! What tides and currents bore me to seek you out! Do you think I can forgive you what you have done to me, you only a slave and I a free man! So I have followed you, and I have pursued you, from a far world, from Brundisium, even into the dark, green, trackless terrors of the northern forests, to get a chain on you, to get you to my feet, as mine! Can you wonder why I hate you so, hate you for what you have done to me, for what you have made me?”
“On the great ship,” I said, “I have heard there are two major holds for housing the public slaves, the Venna hold and the Kasra hold.”
“So?” he said.
“In which hold would I have been housed?” I asked.
“The Kasra hold is on a lower deck,” he said. “The better slaves are housed on the next deck, the Venna deck, in the Venna hold. Asperiche, were she a public slave, would have been housed in the Venna hold, and you in the Kasra hold.”
“I see,” I said.
“Does it make no difference to you,” he asked, “what you have made me, what you have done to me?”
“Naturally I am concerned,” I said. “You hold the whip.”
“What power,” he said, angrily, “lies in that small, soft, curved body of yours, in an ankle, a shoulder, the movement of a hand, a lifting of the head, a glance, the soft, brightness of eyes, the tremor of a lip.”
“A slave cannot help what she is,” I said.
“Is it nothing to you,” he asked, “that you have wrenched my heart, that you have tormented my nights and distressed my days, that you have half torn me out of myself with desire?”
“A slave does not object to being wanted,” I said.
“What power you have!” he cried, angrily.
“I have no power,” I said. “I am before you, on my knees.”
He howled with rage, and seized up his pack, and from it, to my alarm, drew forth a whip. He hurled it from him, perhaps fifty or more feet. “Fetch it,” he said, “as a whip is fetched!”
I crawled to the whip on all fours, and put down my head, and took the long handle, it is made to be held in two hands, just behind the blades, in my teeth, turned about, and returned to him, on all fours, and lifted my head to him, the whip between my teeth.
When he had taken the whip from me, I knelt, in position, back on heels, back straight, belly in, shoulders back, head up, hands down, palms down, on my thighs, my knees spread, as befitted the sort of slave I had learned I was.
“I think,” I said, lifting my head to him, “Master cares for a slave.”
He lifted the whip, and I feared he would strike me. His hand wavered, with anger, and then he lowered it. His scowl was fierce. I had not meant to anger him. I had not meant to insult, or demean, him. Was it so unthinkable that a free man might care for a slave? Was he to be ridiculed by his peers, and scorned by free women? If a man might care for a sleen or kaiila, why not for a female slave? But no, I thought, the female slave is different. She is to be despised, scorned, and held in contempt, for she is a female slave.
He thrust the whip roughly to my lips.
I was frightened.
Surely that was not the action of one who might care for a slave. How foolish had been my remark. Did I not know I was a female slave?
“Have you not been trained?” he asked.
I began to attend to the whip, kissing and licking it. I did this softly, slowly, tenderly, carefully, humbly, deferentially, and, I fear, seductively.
When he drew back the whip, I leaned back, and waited, in position.
If a girl does not do this well, she must expect to be whipped.
To my relief, he replaced the tool of discipline, unopened and unapplied, back in his pack.
The ritual of kissing the whip can be a lovely ritual. In it, one acknowledges one’s submission, one’s subjection to the mastery. It can be very beautiful. The whip itself, of course, is a symbol of the mastery. As the whip, however, had been so rudely put to my lips I had no difficulty in gathering that my supposition that a master might care for a slave had borne little resemblance to reality. Indeed, that action had been more an expression of annoyance, or contempt, an indication that a master might disapprove of, and fail to tolerate, an unwarranted presumptuousness on the part of a property, a mere beast.
I should have known better.
“Do you think a slave is to be cared for?” he asked.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“A slave,” he said, “is to be dominated, mastered, used, worked, and put to one’s pleasure, until she weeps and screams with need.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You should be whipped,” he said.
“Lash me then,” I said, “that I may the better know myself yours.”
“I have said things I did not wish to say, but had to say,” he said. “I have spoken truths which have alarmed and shamed me. I have acknowledged a mighty wanting of you, fierce as the tides of Thassa, and as irresistible and inalterable, that I have fought to free myself from this inexplicable, terrible wanting, and have failed to do so. My intentions vanished like smoke, my resolve collapsed. I must have you. I would not rest until you were mine. I must own you. And you, stupid Earth slut, dare to speak of caring? Rather, tremble, and speak of owning, mastering, and possessing, yes, possessing, as any object, article, or animal may be possessed. For that is what you are, and only that, an object, article, and animal, and that is what you will be, that, and only that, in my collar! Yes, you are desired, you are wanted, but you are desired, and wanted, as what you are, a slave, a worthless, meaningless slave!”
“Yes, Master,” I said. I saw that he would be my master. But what slave would want it otherwise?
“Do you wish to be a free woman?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said. “I am a slave. It is what I want to be.”
“That is unfortunate,” he said. “If you wished to be a free woman, it would be pleasant to keep you as the most abject of slaves.”
“I think, Master,” I said, “that such a woman would soon beg to be kept as your slave, and fear only that you might sell her.”
“It is interesting,” he said, “the effect of a collar on a woman.”
“We belong in it,” I said.
“I hate you,” he said.
“I will try to please you,” I said.
“I will own you as few slaves have been owned,” he said.
“And it is thus that I would be owned,” I said.
“I have waited long,” he said, “that you would be mine.”
“And I,” I said, “that I would be yours.”
“We shall trek,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He turned about, and suddenly stiffened. His head was up. I looked, too. He shaded his eyes. I did not see it immediately. Then I saw it. It was a dot in the sky, in the distance. “Into the brush,” he said, curtly. I rose to my feet, and hurried into the brush to the side, from which, earlier, Master Axel had emerged. My master seized up his pack, and, in a moment, had joined me. We crouched down.
“He is probably back scouting,” he said, “looking for stragglers, deserters.”
“Perhaps only to see if the ship is followed?” I said.
“Remain motionless,” he said.
I regretted that my tunic was white. How much better would have been the skins of Panther Women which would have blended with the background, the branches, the shadows, and foliage.
He removed his dagger from its sheath, and held it, lightly, by the tip of the blade.
“Do not move,” he said.
I had seen men playing near the dock, hurling knives into an upright plank or post. A tiny circle is drawn on the target, and the winner is he whose blade comes closest to the center of that circle.
Some Ihn later we saw the shadow of the giant saddlebird pass.
“He is gone,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Upriver, circling Shipcamp, the ruins of the dock, of the stockade, who knows.”
“Would it not be best for us to be on our way?” I said.
“Not yet,” he said.
“He is on tarnback,” I said. “He could not follow us in the forest.”
“If he detects us,” he said. “He could report our existence, our approximate location.”
“Do you think he will land?” I asked.
“I do not think so,” he said. “Stragglers, deserters, fugitives would be dangerous men.”
“He may land,” I said.
“It would be for the best if he does not,” he said.
“You would kill him?” I said.
“Or he us,” he said.
“I am afraid,” I said.
“Let him be afraid,” he said.
“Where is he?” I asked, again.
“I do not know,” he said.
Four Ehn or so passed.
I looked up, frightened.
“Do not move!” he said.
There was a blast of wind which shook the brush about us. The great bird had descended, not yards from us, on the beach.