Kajira of Gor Read online

  "I see," I said. It was a part of her ensemble.

  "And the flowers," said the girl, "are talenders. They are a beautiful flower. They are often associated with love."

  "They are very pretty," I said.

  "Some free women do not approve of slaves being permitted to wear talenders," she said, "or being permitted to have representations of them, like these, on their frocks. Yet slaves do often wear them, the masters permitting it, and they are not an uncommon motif, the masters seeing to it, on their garments."

  "Why do free women object?" I asked.

  "They feel that a slave, who must love whomever she is commanded to love, can know nothing of love."

  "Oh," I said.

  "But I have been both free and slave," she said, "and, forgive me, Mistress, but I think that it is only a slave, in her vulnerability and helplessness, who can know what love truly is."

  "You must love upon command?" I asked, horrified.

  "We must do as we are told," she said. "We are slaves."

  I shuddered at the thought of the helplessness of the slave.

  "We may hope, of course," she said, "that we come into the power of true masters."

  "Does this ever happen?" I asked.

  "Often, Mistress," she said.

  "Often?" I said.

  "There is no dearth of true masters here," she said.

  I wondered in what sort of place I might be that there might here be no dearth of true masters. In all my life, hitherto, I did not think I had ever met a man, or knowingly met a man, who was a true master. The nearest I had come, I felt, were the men I had encountered before being brought to this place, those who had treated me as though I might be nothing, and had incarcerated me in the straps and iron box. Sometimes they had made me so weak I had felt like begging them to rape or have me. I had the horrifying thought that perhaps I existed for such men.

  "How degrading and debasing to be a slave!" I cried.

  "Yes, Mistress," said the girl, putting down her head. I thought she smiled. She had told me, I suspected, what I had wanted to hear, what I had expected to hear.

  "Slavery is illegal!" I cried.

  "Not here, Mistress," she said.

  I stepped back.

  "Where Mistress comes from," said the girl, "it is not illegal to own animals, is it?"

  "No," I said. "Of course not."

  "It is the same here," she said. "And the slave is an animal."

  "You are an animal—legally?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Horrifying!" I cried.

  "Biologically, of course," she said, "we are all animals. Thus, in a sense, we might all be owned. It thus becomes a question as to which among these animals own and which are owned, which, so to speak, count as persons, or have standing, before the law, and which do not, which are, so to speak, the citizens or persons, and which are the animals."

  "It is wrong to own human beings," I said.

  "Is it wrong to own other animals?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Then why is it wrong to own human beings?" she asked.

  "I do not know," I said.

  "It would seem inconsistent," she said, "to suggest that it is only certain sorts of animals which may be owned, and not others."

  "Human beings are different," I said.

  The girl shrugged. "So, too, are tarsks and verr," she said.

  I did not know those sorts of animals.

  "Human beings can talk and think!" I said.

  "Why should that make a difference?" she asked. "If anything, the possession of such properties would make a human being an even more valuable possession than a tarsk or verr."

  "Where I come from it is wrong to own human beings but it is all right for other animals to be owned."

  "If other animals made the laws where you come from," she said, "perhaps it would be wrong there to own them and right to own human beings."

  "Perhaps!" I said, angrily.

  "Forgive me, Mistress," said the girl. "I did not mean to displease you."

  "It is wrong to own human beings!" I said.

  "Can Mistress prove that?" she asked.

  "No!" I said, angrily.

  "How does Mistress know it?" she asked.

  "It is self-evident!" I said. I knew, of course, that I was so sure of this only because I had been taught, uncritically, to believe it.

  "If self-evidence is involved here," she said, "it is surely self-evident that it is not wrong to own human beings. In most cultures, traditions and civilizations with which I am familiar, the right to own human beings was never questioned. To them the rectitude of the institution of slavery was self-evident."

  "Slavery is wrong because it can involve pain and hardship," I said.

  "Work, too," she said, "can involve pain and hardship. Is work, thus, wrong?"

  "No," I said.

  She shrugged.

  "Slavery is wrong," I said, "because slaves may not like it."

  "Many people may not like many things," she said, "which does not make those things wrong. Too, it has never been regarded as a necessary condition for the rectitude of slavery that slaves approved of their condition."

  "That is true," I said.

  "See?" she asked.

  "How could someone approve of slavery," I asked, "or regard it as right, if he himself did not wish to be a slave?"

  "In a sense," she said, "one might approve of many things, and recognize their justifiability, without thereby wishing to become implicated personally in them. One might approve of medicine, say, without wishing to be a physician. One might approve of mathematics without desiring to become a mathematician, and so on."

  "Of course," I said, irritably.

  "It might be done in various ways," she said. "One might, for example, regard a society in which the institution of slavery, with its various advantages and consequences, was ingredient as a better society than one in which it did not exist. This, then, would be its justification. In such a way, then, he might approve of slavery as an institution without wishing necessarily to become a slave himself. In moral consistency, of course, in approving of the institution, he would seem to accept at least the theoretical risk of his own enslavement. This risk he would presumably regard as being a portion of the price he is willing to pay for the benefits of living in this type of society, which he regards, usually by far, as being a society superior to its alternatives. Another form of justification occurs when one believes that slavery is right and fit for certain human beings but not for others. This position presupposes that not all human beings are alike. In this point of view, the individual approves of slavery for those who should be slaves and disapproves of it, or at least is likely to regret it somewhat, in the case of those who should not be slaves. He is perfectly consistent in this, for he believes that if he himself should be a natural slave, then it would be right, too, for him to be enslaved. This seems somewhat more sensible than the categorical denial, unsubstantiated, that slavery is not right for any human being. Much would seem to depend on the nature of the particular human being."

  "Slavery denies freedom!" I cried.

  "Your assertion seems to presuppose the desirability of universal freedom," she said. "That may be part of what is at issue."

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "Is there more happiness in a society in which all are free," she asked, "than in one in which some are not free?"

  "I do not know," I said. The thought of miserable, competitive, crowded, frustrated, hostile populations crossed my mind.

  "Mistress?" she asked.

  "I do not know!" I said.

  "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

  "Slavery denies freedom!" I reiterated.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said.

  "It denies freedom!" I said.

  "It denies some freedoms, and precious ones," said the girl. "But, too, it makes others possible, and they, too, are precious."

  "People simply cannot be owned!" I said, angrily.
/>   "I am owned," she said.

  I did not speak. I was frightened.

  "My Master is Ligurious, of the city of Corcyrus," she said.

  "Slavery is illegal," I said, lamely.

  "Not here," she said.

  "People cannot be owned," I whispered, desperately, horrified.

  "Here," she said, "in point of fact, aside from all questions of legality or moral propriety, or the lack thereof, putting all such questions aside for the moment, for they are actually irrelevant to the facts, people are, I assure you, owned."

  "People are in fact owned?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "And fully."

  "Then, truly," I said, "there are slaves here. There are slaves in this place."

  "Yes," she said. "And generally."

  Again I did not understand the meaning of "generally." She spoke almost as though we might not be on Earth, somewhere on Earth.

  My heart was beating rapidly. I put my hand to my bosom. I looked about the room, frightened. It was like no other room I had ever been in. It did not seem that it would be in England or America. I did not know where I was. I did not even know on what continent I might be. I looked at the girl. I was in the presence of a slave, a woman who was owned. Her master was Ligurious, of this city, said to be Corcyrus. I looked to the barred window, to the soft expanses of that great, barbaric couch, to the chain at its foot, to the rings fixed in it, and elsewhere, to the whip on its hook, to the door which I could not lock on my side. I was again terribly conscious of my nudity, my vulnerability.

  "Susan," I said.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said.

  "Am I a slave?" I asked.

  "No, Mistress," said the girl.

  I almost fainted with relief. The room, for a moment, seemed to swirl about me. I was unspeakably pleased to discover that I was not a slave, and then, suddenly, unaccountably, I felt an inexplicable anguish. I realized, suddenly, shaken, that there was something within me that wanted to be owned. I looked at the girl. She was owned! In that instant I envied her her collar.

  "I am a slave!" I said, angrily. "Look at me! Do you doubt that I am a slave? I am wearing only an anklet and perfume!"

  "Mistress is not marked. Mistress is not collared," said the girl.

  "I am a slave!" I said. I wondered, when I said this, if I was only insisting that I was a slave, that I must be a slave, because of such things as the barred window and the anklet, or if I was speaking what lay in my heart.

  "Mistress is free," said the girl.

  "I cannot be free," I said.

  "If Mistress is not free," she said, "who is Mistress' master?"

  "I do not know," I said, frightened. I wondered if I did belong to someone and simply did not yet know it.

  "I know Mistress is free," said the girl.

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  "Ligurious, my master, has told me," she said.

  "But I am naked," I said.

  "Mistress had not yet dressed," she said. She then went to the sliding doors at the side of the room, and moved them aside. Thus were revealed the habiliments of what was apparently an extensive and resplendent wardrobe.

  She brought forth a lovely, brief, lined, sashed, shimmering yellow-silk robe and, holding it up, displayed it for me.

  I was much taken by it, but it seemed almost excitingly sensuous.

  "Have you nothing simpler, nothing plainer, nothing coarser?" I asked.

  "Something more masculine?" asked the girl.

  "Yes," I said, uncertainly. I had not really thought of it exactly like that, or not consciously, but it now seemed to me as if that might be right.

  "Does Mistress wish to dress like a man?" she asked.

  "No," I said, "I suppose not. Not really."

  "I can try to find a man's clothing for Mistress if she wishes," said the girl.

  "No," I said. "No." It was not really that I wanted to wear a man's clothing, literally. It was only that I thought that it might be better to wear a more mannish type of clothing. After all, had I not been taught that I was, for most practical purposes, the same as a man, and not something deeply and radically different? Too, such garb has its defensive purposes. Is it not useful, for example, in helping a girl to keep men from seeing her as what she is, a woman?

  "Mistress," said the girl, helping me on with the silken robe. I belted the yellow-silk sash. The hem of the robe came high on the thighs. I looked at myself, startled, in the mirror. In such a garment, lovely, clinging, short, closely belted, there was no doubt that I was a woman.

  "Mistress is beautiful!" said the girl.

  "Thank you," I said. I turned, back and forth, looking at myself in the mirror.

  I adjusted the belt, making it a little tighter. The girl smiled.

  "Are such garments typical of this place?" I asked.

  "Does Mistress mean," asked the girl, "that here sexual differences are clearly marked by clothing, that here sexual differences are important and not blurred, that men and women dress differently here?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Yes," she said. "The answer is 'Yes,' Mistress."

  "Sexuality is important here, then?" I said.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said. "Here sexuality is deeply and fundamentally important, and here women are not men, and men are not women. The sexes are quite different, and here each is true to itself."

  "Oh," I said.

  "By means of different garbs, then," she said, "it is natural that these important and fundamental differences be marked, the garbs of men being appropriate to their nature, for example, to their size and strength, and those of women to their nature, for example, to their softness and beauty."

  "I see," I said. I was a bit frightened. In this place, I gathered, the fact that I was a woman was not irrelevant to what I was. That I was a woman was, I gathered, at least in this place, something fundamentally important about me. This fact would be made clear about me even by the clothing which I wore. I glanced at the wardrobe. Deceit and subterfuge, I suspected, were not in those fabrics. They were such, I suspected, as would mark me as a woman and even proclaim me as such. How would I fare in such a place, I wondered, where it might be difficult to conceal or deny my sex. How terrified I was at the thought that I might have to be true to my sex, that I might have little choice here but to be what I was, a woman, and wholly. I looked in the mirror. That is what I am here, I thought, a woman.

  There was a sudden, loud knock at the door.

  I cried out, startled. The girl turned white, and then, facing the door, immediately dropped to her knees. She cried out something, frightened. The door opened.

  A large man stood framed in the doorway. He seemed agile and strong. He glanced about. His eyes seemed piercing. He had broad shoulders and long arms. His hair was cut rather short, and was brown, flecked with gray. He wore a white tunic, trimmed in red. He looked at me and I almost fainted. It was something in his eyes. I knew I had never seen a man like this before. There was something different about him, from all other men I had seen. It was almost as though a lion had taken human form.

  "It is Ligurious, my Master," said the girl, her head now down to the floor, the palms of her hands on the tiles.

  I swallowed hard, and then tried, desperately, to meet the man's gaze. I must show him that I was a true person.

  "Get on the bed," he said. His voice had an accent. I could not place it.

  I fled to the bed and crept obediently upon it.

  He came to the edge of the bed and looked down at me. I half lay, half crouched on the bed. I was very conscious of the shortness of the robe I wore.

  He said something to Susan and she sprang up and came to the edge of the bed. He said something else to her. I did not understand the language, or even recognize it.

  "He says he thinks you will prove quite suitable," she said to me, in English.

  "For what?" I begged.

  "I do not know, Mistress," she said.

  "Get on your back," he said.


  Immediately, obediently, I lay supine before him.

  "Raise your right knee, and extend your left leg," he said, "palms of your hands at your sides, facing upward."

  I immediately assumed this position. I felt very vulnerable, particularly, interestingly, as the palms of my hands were exposed. I began to breathe deeply. I was terrified. I also realized, suddenly, that I was very aroused, sexually, obeying him.

  The man glanced to the side. He said something to the girl. "He notes that you have not touched your breakfast," she said.

  I moaned. I hoped that he was not displeased. It had been safe to displease the men I had hitherto known, or most of them. They might be displeased with impunity. I was afraid, however, to displease this man. I did not think he would accept being displeased. He, I was sure, would simply punish me, and well. He might even kill me.

  Susan had showed me a whip, literally a whip. Here such things existed. Here, doubtless, they were occasionally used. Clearly, I had gathered, it could be used upon her, at my discretion, or whim. Similarly, I was a woman. I gathered that such a device might be used upon me as well. And I had little doubt that the magnificent, beastlike male before whom I lay exhibited and supine would not think twice before applying that device as he might wish, or saw fit. I gathered that I now found myself in a place, wherever it was, where women might be subject to such things. I found this frightening, but also thrilling, inordinately thrilling, for it spoke to me of unquestioned and categorical masculine domination. Somehow I knew that I had longed for this, and needed it. Its absence from my life, I now realized, had long been keenly, if obscurely, confusedly, felt. How far this place seemed to me from the culture with which I was familiar, and yet how close was this place to my dreams. Something deep, and ancient, in the relation of male and female, then spoke to me. What woman's sexual responses are not aroused most profoundly by the vigorous, commanding, aggressive, uncompromising dominant male? What woman does not sense in him he whose role it is to rule? Better to kneel at the feet of one such man than manipulate a thousand indoctrinated, pusillanimous cowards. Better to sleep at the slave ring, naked and chained, of such a man than share a weakling's couch.