Kajira of Gor Page 7

  I tried to struggle against these thoughts, but they forced themselves upon me.

  I could not help myself.

  Where was I, what insights was I now privy to, what strange emotions, and troubling uneasinesses, now raged in my body; what was going on within me; what had become of me?

  Something spoke within me which lay deeper than the encrustations of cultures.

  He gestures, I thought, and we yield; he commands, and we obey; he proves himself to us by our conquest and subjugation; he identifies himself, and his nature, and his right, by putting us to our knees; he certifies himself to us, to our joy, as men have always done, by taking from us the pretenses of our freedom; we find our fulfillment in our surrender, and submission. We wish to serve him choicelessly, as he will have it; it is he whom we desire to fear and love.

  Away with such thoughts I thought. They are too deep, too real! But what if one should think them, and what if one should live them!

  I did not know what to do, or think.

  How confusing and frightening that I found myself where I was, wherever it might be.

  In this place there were whips.

  And there was the girl, Susan.

  She wore a slave collar. A slave collar! It was locked on her neck. She could not remove it.

  I lay trembling on the great couch, in the posture that had been commanded of me, under the scrutiny of a male such as I had never guessed could exist.

  He looked down at me.

  I was much aroused. I whimpered. I expected him to rape me. I was even eager to be raped, anything to please him.

  I felt his hand take my ankle. I was so charged with sensation that I almost fainted at the touch. Then I became aware that his grip was like steel. Then I saw him take a string from about his neck. On this string there was a tiny key. Startled, I felt the key inserted in the lock on my anklet. Then the anklet was removed. I lay trembling on the bed.

  He stood there then, looking down at me, the anklet, string and key in his hand. I then realized, partly in relief, and, in a part of me, with disappointment, that I was not then, or at least not then, to be raped. I was not then to feel his strong hands on me, forcing me, as a woman, imperiously to his will.

  "May I speak?" I whispered.

  Somehow it seemed right, before such a man, to request this boon, to see if I might speak.

  "Yes," he said.

  His face was impassive. I realized, with a start, that he found nothing at all unusual in my having requested permission to speak. I gathered that he might have expected me to do so. Was I, then, the sort of woman who must should permission to speak?

  I supposed some women I knew might have been outraged that I had requested this permission. But perhaps if they had not asked such permission themselves they would have been beaten. In such a case I did not doubt but what they would be considerably more circumspect in the future.

  The lesson is not a difficult one to learn.

  "Speak," he said.

  "Who are you?" I asked. "Who is she? Where am I? What am I doing here? What do you want of me?"

  "I am Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus," he said. "She is unimportant. Her name is Susan. She is a slave."

  "No," I said. "I mean, who is Ligurious? Who are you? I have never heard of you."

  "You need know little more of me than that I am the first minister of Corcyrus," he said.

  I looked at him. He must have some connection, of course, with the men who had come to my apartment. He had a key for the anklet.

  "Where am I?" I asked.

  "In Corcyrus," he said.

  "But where is Corcyrus?" I begged. "I do not even know in what part of the world I am!"

  He looked at me, puzzled.

  The girl said something to him. He smiled.

  "Am I in Africa?" I asked. "Am I in Asia?"

  "Have you not noticed subtle differences in the gravity here," he asked, "from what you have been accustomed to? Have you not noticed that the air here seems somewhat different from that with which you have hitherto been familiar?"

  "I have seemed to notice such things," I said, "but I was drugged in my apartment. Obviously such sensations are delusory, merely the effects of that drug."

  "The drug," he said, "does not produce such effects."

  "What are you telling me?" I asked, frightened.

  "After a short while," he said, "you will no longer think of these things. You will not even notice them, or, at least, not consciously. You will have made your adjustments and accommodations. You will have become acclimated, so to speak. At most you may occasionally become aware that you are now experiencing a condition of splendid vitality and health."

  "What are you telling me?" I asked, frightened.

  "This is not Earth," he said. "This is another planet."

  I regarded him, disbelievingly.

  "Does this seem to be Earth to you?" he asked.

  "No," I whispered.

  "Does this seem to be a room of Earth to you?" he asked.

  "No," I said.

  "You have been brought here by spaceship," he said.

  I could not speak.

  "The technology involved is more sophisticated, more advanced, than that with which you are familiar," he said.

  "But you speak English," I said. "She speaks English!"

  "I have learned some English," he said. "She, however, speaks it natively." He turned to the girl. He said something to her.

  "I have been given permission to speak," she said. "I am from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mistress," she said.

  "She was brought to this world more than two years ago," he said.

  "My original name was Susan," she said. "My last name does not matter. When I became a slave, of course, my name was gone. Animals do not have names, except as their masters might choose to name them. The name 'Susan' was again put upon me, but now, of course, I have it only as a slave name."

  "Why was she brought here?" I asked.

  "For the usual reason for which an Earth female is brought here," he said.

  "What is that?" I asked.

  "To be a slave," he said.

  He then turned to the girl and said something. She nodded. He then turned again to me. "You may break position," he said.

  I rolled to my stomach, on the couch, clutching at it. I shuddered.

  I was not on Earth.

  "Why have I been brought here?" I asked. "To be a slave, to be branded, to wear a collar, to serve some man as though he might be my master."

  "He would be your master," said the man, very evenly, very quietly, very menacingly.

  I nodded, frightened. It was true, of course. If I were a slave then he who was my master would indeed be my master, and totally. I could be owned as completely, and easily, as Susan, or any other woman.

  "But I think you will be pleased to learn what we have in store for you," he said.

  "What?" I asked, turning to my side, pulling the robe down on my thighs.

  "In time," he said, "I think things will become clearer to you."

  "I see," I said.

  "Do you have any other questions?" he asked.

  I half rose up on the couch, my left leg under me, my palms on the surface of the couch. "Am I still a virgin?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  This pleased me. I would not have wished to have lost my virginity while unconscious. A girl would at least like to be aware of it when it happens. Too, I was pleased because I thought that the possession of my virginity might make me somehow more valuable. Perhaps I could use it somehow to improve my position in this world. Perhaps I could somehow use it as a prize which I might award for gain, or as a bargaining device in some negotiation in which I might be involved. Then I looked into the eyes of Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus. I shuddered. I realized then that my virginity, on this world, was nothing, and that it might simply be taken from me, rudely and peremptorily, whenever men might please.

  Ligurious then turned and left the room. As he had
left the room, though he had scarcely noticed her, Susan had knelt, with her head to the tiles. She now rose to her feet.

  "Earlier," I said, "your master, when beside the couch, said something to you. What was it?"

  "It is his desire," she said, "that you eat."

  I quickly left the couch and went to the small table, on which the tray reposed. I did not wish to displease Ligurious. He was the sort of man who was to be obeyed, immediately and perfectly.

  I loosened my robe and sat down, cross-legged, on the cushion before the table. I picked up a piece of the yellow bread.

  "Oh, no, Mistress," said the girl, putting out her hand. "That is how men sit. We are women. We kneel."

  "I will sit," I told her.

  "Mistress understands, surely," said the girl, in misery, "that I must make reports to Ligurious, my master."

  "I will kneel," I said.

  "That is much more lovely," said the girl, approvingly.

  I then began to eat, kneeling. This posture, to be sure, though I do not think I would have admitted it to the girl, did strike me as being much more feminine than that which I had earlier adopted. Certainly, at least, it made me feel much more feminine. I wondered if there was a certain rightness to women kneeling. Certainly we look beautiful, kneeling. The posture, too, at least if we are permitted to keep our knees closed, permits us a certain modest reserve with respect to our intimacies. Too, it is a position which one may assume easily and beautifully, and from which it is possible to rise with both beauty and grace. To be sure, the position does suggest not only beauty and grace but also submissiveness. This thought troubled me. But then I thought that if women should be submissive, then, whatever might be the truth in these matters, such postures would be appropriate and natural for them. In any event, the posture did make me feel delicately and exquisitely feminine. I was somewhat embarrassed, to be sure, by these feelings. Then it suddenly seemed absurd to me that I should be embarrassed, or should feel guilty or ashamed, about these feelings. I think I then realized, perhaps for the first time, fully, the power of the conditioning devices to which I had been subjected. How strange, and pernicious, I thought, that a woman should be made to feel guilty about being feminine, truly feminine, radically feminine! What a tribute this was to the effectiveness of contemporary conditioning techniques! In the world from which I came sexuality was not an ingredient but an accessory. Here, on the other hand, I suspected, men and women were not the same. Indeed, it seemed that here I would be expected to assume certain postures and attitudes, and genuinely feminine ones, perhaps merely because I was a woman. In this world it seemed that sexuality, and perhaps a deeply natural sexuality, was an ingredient, and not a mere accessory. It might lie at the very core of this world. An essential and ineradicable element in this world, culturally, appeared to be sexuality, with its basic distinctions between human beings, dividing them clearly into different sorts, into males and females. In a world such as this I realized that I might not only be permitted to express my natural, fundamental nature, but that I might be encouraged to do so. This was a world in which my femininity, whatever it was, and wherever it might lead, was not to be denied to me. I glanced at the whip on the wall. On this world, I suspected, I might even be given no choice but to be true to my sex, and fully. For a moment this made me angry. Surely I had a right to frustrate and deny my sex if I wished! If I was afraid to be a woman, truly and fundamentally, with all that it might entail, surely I should not be forced to become one! Yet I knew that in my heart I felt a sudden, marvelous surge of hope, a sense of possible liberation, that I might here, on this world, be freed, even if I were placed in a steel collar, to be what I truly was, not merely a human being, but the kind of human being I actually was, a human female, a woman.

  "Mistress' drink is cold," said the girl. "Let me have it reheated or fetch you a fresh one."

  "No," I said. "It is fine." I lifted the small, handleless bowl in two hands. I was excited that she had used the word "fetch." She was the sort of girl who might carry or fetch for Masters and Mistresses.

  "No, Mistress," said the girl. "You are a woman. Drink more delicately."

  I then sipped from the bowl.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said. "That is more feminine." I then realized, even more profoundly than before, how deeply sexuality must characterize and penetrate this culture. The differences between men and women were to be expressed even in their smallest behaviors. What a significant and real thing it is in this culture to be a man or a woman.

  "This is warmed chocolate," I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy.

  "Yes, Mistress," said the girl.

  "It is very good," I said.

  "Thank you, Mistress," she said.

  "Is it from Earth?" I asked.

  "Not directly," she said. "Many things here, of course, ultimately have an Earth origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on this world were grown were brought from Earth."

  "Do the trees grow near here?" I asked.

  "No, Mistress," she said. "We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics."

  I put the chocolate down. I began to bite at the yellow bread. It was fresh.

  "Perhaps Mistress should take smaller bites," she said.

  "Very well," I said. I then began to eat as she had suggested. I was a woman. I was not an adolescent boy. Again, even in so small a thing as this, I began to feel my femininity keenly. Too, again, I became very sensitive of the depth and pervasiveness of the sexuality which might characterize this world. Men and women did not even eat in the same way.

  "Exceptions can occur under certain circumstances, of course," said the girl. "Mistress might, for example, in the presence of a man she wishes to arouse, take a larger than normal bite from a fresh fruit, and look at the man over the fruit, letting juice, a tiny trickle of it, run at the side of her mouth."

  "But why would I wish to arouse a man?" I asked.

  The girl looked at me, puzzled. "Perhaps the needs of Mistress might be much upon her," she said. "Perhaps she might wish to be taken and overwhelmed in his arms, and forced to surrender to him."

  "I do not understand," I said, as though horrified.

  "That is because Mistress is free," she said.

  I had understood only too well, of course. But I was terrified to even think such thoughts.

  "Slaves, I suppose, occasionally have recourse to such devices," I said. I was eager to learn.

  "A device such as that with the fresh fruit," she said, "is more appropriate to a free woman. We do have at our disposal, as slaves, however, a number and variety of begging signals, such things as groveling and moaning, and bringing bonds to him in our teeth, wherewith we may endeavor to call our needs to his attention."

  "Begging signals?" I said.

  "We are at the complete mercy of our masters," she said.

  "Are the masters then kind to you?" I asked.

  "Sometimes they consent to content us," she said.

  "How horrifying to be a slave," I said.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said, putting her head down, smiling. I saw that, again, she was answering me in the fashion in which, doubtless, I wished to be answered, doubtless with deference to my dignity, status or freedom. Sorely then I envied her her collar. My feelings now began to alarm me. I decided that it would be safest to change the subject.

  "Where are the spaceships?" I asked.

  "Spaceships?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I do not know," she said. "I have never even seen one."

  "Oh," I said.

  "Has Mistress?" she asked.

  "No," I said. I gathered that Susan, like myself, had been brought to this world unconscious. We knew nothing, or almost nothing, of how we had come here.

  "The people of this world have very little evidence," she said, "that such things even exist. The only evidence they have, for the most part, is that of certa
in objects brought from Earth."

  "Objects?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "Usually girls, in chains."

  "You refer to them as 'objects'?" I asked, horrified.

  "Yes, Mistress," she said. "They are slaves."

  "I see," I said.

  "This world is, as Mistress will discover," said the girl, "on the whole a very primitive and barbaric place. Do not expect to see complex machines and spaceships."

  "Oh," I said.

  "I do not even think that such ships are housed on this world," she said. "I think they merely visit it, from elsewhere."

  "Surely men must come and go between here and Earth," I said.

  "Perhaps, Mistress," she said. "But I know nothing of it."

  "Have you no hope of returning to Earth?" I asked.

  "Look at me, Mistress," she smiled. "I am half naked. I am branded. I am collared. I do not think I was brought to this world to be returned to Earth."

  "But surely you wish to return to Earth," I said.

  "No, Mistress," she said.

  "But you are branded and collared," I said. "You are a slave!"

  "It is my lot, Mistress," she said. "I am not discontent."

  "But, why?" I asked.

  "There are true men here," she said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "A thousand times better a collar on Gor than freedom on Earth," she said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "That is because Mistress is not a slave," she said.

  "May I call you 'Susan'?" I asked.

  "Of course, Mistress," she said.

  "You need not call me 'Mistress,'" I said. "You may call me 'Tiffany.'"

  "No, please, Mistress!" said the girl, turning white. "Please, no!"

  "Very well," I said. I saw that she was under some strict and superb discipline.

  "At the very least," I said, "I want us to be friends."

  "No, Mistress, please," she said.

  "But you are a girl from Earth," I said. "You are an American. I am an American."

  "Please, no, Mistress," she begged.

  "You are from Cincinnati, Ohio, in America," I said.