Prize of Gor (70 page)

“It is time to emerge from the pool, to apply the oils!” called the attendant, and Ellen, in her turn, with the others, clambered from the pool, and went to the spread towels and vials, and pebbles.

Chapter 22

BEASTS

“Wine, Master?” inquired Ellen, and, as the goblet was lifted to her, the man sitting cross-legged on the ground, in converse with others, he not even glancing at her, she filled the goblet.

“Wine, girl!” called another, and Ellen hurried to him, threading her way amongst the men, the fires and torches, and replenished his goblet.

She carried the wine in a red-figured pitcher, refilled by dipping as needed, and frequently, from a large vat of red ka-la-na on a wooden stand.

The music of czehars, flutes, and kalikas, from scattered bands of musicians, swirled throughout the gigantic festival camp, spread over pasangs. There was the pounding of tabors, too, speaking of excitement and the rousings of blood. Goreans do not eschew emotion; eagerness, zeal, warmth, heat and passion are common with them; they tend to be vehement, hearty, cordial, enthusiastic, ardent, impetuous; they are quick to anger, quick to forget, quick to laugh; they do not pretend to subscribe to obvious falsehoods; they value truth over hypocrisy; they have not yet learned to dishonor honor; to live among such folk is to be emotionally free; they live closer, perhaps, to their bodies than some others.

“Wine!” called a man, and Ellen made her way to him, as swiftly as was compatible with the crowd.

She moved with the grace and loveliness that was now hers, that of the female slave. She was stripped, and wore not so much as a collar, but her hair, grown longer now, and slave lovely, fell about her. On her left breast, inscribed there with a marker, in soft grease, was a lot number, the number 117.

“Wine!” called a voice, a woman’s voice.

The woman, clad in the Robes of Concealment, sat on a stool near one of the fires. The light glinted off a necklace, and sparkled, reflected in jewels sewn onto her robes and veils.

The body of the sitting woman seemed stiff, and severe. Something in its mien suggested disapproval, anger, hostility and envy. Free women hate slave girls. They try to make them ashamed of their femininity, condition, beauty and passion.

Ellen, standing, prepared to pour wine for the free woman.

“Do you not know enough to kneel before a free person, girl?” inquired the free woman.

Quickly Ellen went to her knees.

The woman regarded Ellen for some time, the eyes cold over the veil, not offering her the goblet for her attentions.

“You are naked,” said the woman.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen.

“How meaningless and contemptible are slaves,” said the woman.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen. But Ellen thought to herself, but men seem to like us, and you, proud free woman, beneath all your robes and veils, you are as naked as I!

“You are young,” said the woman.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Ellen.

“Do you know the duties of a woman’s serving slave?” she asked.

“No, Mistress.”

“But you could be taught.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“117,” said the woman, leaning closer, reading the number on Ellen’s breast. “Perhaps I shall bid on you. Would you like to be a woman’s serving slave?”

“The wishes and desires of a slave, Mistress,” said Ellen, “are of no consequence.”

“You are a clever little slut,” said the woman.

Ellen put down her head.

The woman then extended her small goblet to Ellen and Ellen, gratefully, on her knees, filled it.

“I can see that you are for men,” said the woman.

Ellen was silent.

“Doubtless they find you of interest,” she said.

“Some, it seems, Mistress,” said Ellen.

“I wonder why.”

“I do not know, Mistress,” said Ellen. Could the woman really be ignorant of the toolings of time, and how nature had designed such as they, she and the free woman, for the handling and embrace, and service and pleasure of masters?

“What could they possibly see in one such as you?”

“I do not know, Mistress.” Could she really be ignorant that such as they answered to a thousand needs, that such as they in countless capturings and matings were bred to kneel and please?

“You are, of course, a slave?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“They seem to like that.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I despise slaves.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“You are beautiful,” she said, appraisingly.

“Thank you Mistress,” said Ellen. “But I am sure that Mistress is far more beautiful.”

“Of course,” said the woman, “for my beauty is the unparalleled beauty of a free woman, with which the beauty of a slave cannot begin to compare, beside which the beauty of a slave is nothing.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“You are no more than a tasta, a meaningless confection!” she said suddenly, angrily.

“Yes, Mistress.”

“A whip licker and sandal-bringer for brutes, a servile pet and pleasure object for lustful beasts!”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“I wonder then what they can possibly see in one such as you?”

“I do not know, Mistress.” Could the woman be candid? Could she be unaware of the effect of a slave on the blood of men? Had she not seen the eyes of men following them in the streets? Could she be unaware of the markets and biddings, the seekings and huntings, the pursuits, the raids and wars, the careful and calculated efforts to bring just such women as they, she, and doubtless the free woman, too, appropriately and helplessly, into collars and chains?

Men desire to possess us, thought Ellen, and that is, too, what we desire, to be possessed by them.

“How stupid men are,” said the woman.

“They are the masters,” said Ellen.

“They are not my masters,” said the woman.

“No, Mistress.”

“Yes,” she said, regarding Ellen, “— you are for men.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“What else would you be good for?”

Ellen put down her head.

“Nothing, Mistress.”

She had now learned that men were her masters. She now wanted to love and serve them, and perhaps beg for a caress. She could not, now, never, willingly go back to the emptiness, the disutility, the absurdity, the barrenness, of her former life, with its mockeries of truth, and its spurious freedoms. The man was free, the master; his was a genuine freedom; but the freedom for the woman, her genuine freedom, was quite different; it was to belong to him, to be owned and mastered, to be his slave.

The woman waved her hand in dismissal. “Go! Get out of my sight, you disgusting little slut!”

Ellen leapt up and hurried away a few yards. She then looked back. There were few free women in the camp. The woman must indeed be bold, thought Ellen; perhaps she was wealthy, and well protected. If Ellen were a free woman, she did not think that she would have come to such a camp, unless she was prepared to risk her freedom. Ellen wondered if the woman was courting the collar. She wondered if the woman’s icy hauteur might not melt under the blows of man’s whip. Frigidity, and inertness, she knew were not accepted in a female slave.

But Ellen knew she must now hurry back to the vat of ka-la-na, for her vessel was nearly empty.

She paused for a moment to look back once more at the free woman. The woman had lifted her veil with her left hand, just a little, to drink from the goblet. Ellen could see the impression of the upper rim of the goblet through the veil. Lower-class women sometimes drink through the veil, and their veils, subsequently, may be severally stained. Ellen saw that the woman’s body was very straight as she drank. As the veil was lifted somewhat, as she drank, one could see a bit of her throat, white and lovely, where a collar might be nicely locked. Her ankles could be seen, above her slippered feet, as the robes were lifted a bit, seemingly having been inadvertently disarranged as she sat. Her legs were turned to one side, and placed side by side, apparently demurely closed beneath her robes. Slave girls, when permitted tunics and permitted to sit, as on a log, a rock, a shelf, commonly sit thusly. This is not only congenial to a certain modesty, but men find it provocative. Ellen wondered if the woman had seen slaves sit in that fashion. She had now lowered the veil, and was chatting with some of the men sitting about cross-legged, near the fire. Watching her, some yards from the firelight, were two tall, darkly robed men. Their robes were cut in the pattern of Cos. Ellen doubted that the woman was aware of them. At the sash of one of them there was a narrow, coiled rope of black braided leather.

Surely I must warn her, thought Ellen, cruel and imperious as she is, of the danger in which she lies! Surely, as I, too, am a woman, I must warn her, that she not risk falling into the miserable fate, the helpless and terrible fate, in which I find myself implicated, that of a slave!

Then Ellen laughed to herself. She loved being a slave. It was her joy, her meaning and fulfillment. She would be nothing else. She would not barter her bondage for all the world.

On Gor, with all the suffering and joy, the misery and delight, the beauty and peril, the marvels and danger, she had come fully alive, far more than she had understood possible on her former world.

But she is doubtless different, thought Ellen. She is doubtless a free woman, not merely a slave not yet owned.

What is it to you, if she is put in a collar, Ellen asked herself. Let her be humbled! Let her learn to kneel before a man and shrink down in terror, his. Let her serve!

She must know what she is doing, thought Ellen. She is Gorean. She cannot be ignorant. She must know the dangers of this camp for free women, a festival camp where hundreds of slaves are to serve, and be danced, and vended!

No, thought Ellen, I must warn her.

“Wine!” called a man.

“I must fetch more, Master!” cried Ellen, and, turning about, seemed to hurry toward the vat of ka-la-na, that the vessel of her service might be replenished. But, in a moment, she had turned aside, and back, determined to kneel before the free woman and, risking the blows of masters, and risking punishment for speaking without permission, warn the cruel, harsh mistress of the risks she might be running.

Soon Ellen had returned to the fire near which the free woman had been sitting. The stool on which she had been sitting was overturned. The goblet from which she had drunk lay in the dirt near the fire. There was a bit of stain, of reddish mud, near the goblet, where wine had spilled. There were some marks, scuffings, perhaps the sign of a struggle, near the overturned stool.

“Masters?” inquired Ellen, her eyes wide.

“You have seen nothing, slave girl,” said one of the men.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, and, turning about, made her way to the ka-la-na vat, to fill once more her pitcher.

As she made her way back to the vat she skirted about a dancing circle near one of the fires. Some of the slaves already, to the music of the czehars and other instruments, which was clearly audible everywhere in the camp, danced.

Ellen was pleased that the slaves danced.

Doubtless the free woman was all right. Doubtless, even now, she was returning to Brundisium. Ellen hoped that that was true, and hoped, too, that it was not true. She was haughty, she thought. Strip her, Masters, and put her to your feet. Let the brand and collar be hers!

How beautiful the slaves are, she thought.

See them dance before masters!

Goreans believe that slave dance lurks in every woman’s belly. Ellen, however, thought that this was surely unlikely.

Did they not know that dancers might train, and hone their skills, for years, gaining greater and greater control over their body, adding dances to their repertoire, becoming more and more adept at this sensuous, delicious, intricate art form?

To be sure, she supposed, there was a basic, biological sense in which “slave dance,” or something certainly akin to it, did indeed lurk in every woman’s belly. Perhaps that is what the Goreans, in their typically straightforward and natural way, recognized. Or perhaps they literally meant
slave dance
. She supposed that that was possible. She wondered if it could be true. Certainly, embedded in the mysteries of the female genome, lurking within the uncanny, exciting secrets of the human female’s behavioral genetics, bred into her, are the impulses and sensitivities of what are known as display behaviors. In her academic work it was imperative that she deny such things, or dismiss them as unenlightened social artifacts, but, even then, she knew them to be pervasive amongst mammals, and, indeed, in one form or another, universal in human cultures. In the interests of advancing a particular political agenda she had had to deny large numbers of the most obvious facts of ethology, biology and anthropology. That went without saying. Ideology and politics were to take priority over such embarrassments as truth and fact; reality was inconvenient; clearly it had not been formed with orthodoxy in mind; nature denied would, of course, exact her vengeance; causes would continue to have their effects; rationality would be sacrificed, intellectual suicide for a rational animal, happiness would be lost, minds would be stunted, miseries multiplied, lives shortened. Obviously display behaviors existed, and in countless types, and in countless varieties within types. And certainly amongst human females there was a disposition to attempt to present themselves to advantage before an attractive male. Even she had found it hard to deny that. Certainly she had noted her ideological colleagues preening and flirting when a powerful male was in the vicinity, not one of their suitably indoctrinated, conditioned, filleted male-feminist colleagues. And now, suppose there was a natural society, in which nature was not denied, but, rather, with all the refinements of an advanced civilization, respected, fulfilled, enhanced and celebrated. In such a society, one might expect, accordingly, the pervasive dominance/submission ratios of nature to be recognized by, and reflected within, customs, laws, social arrangements, institutions, and such. In such a society one would certainly expect to find female bondage and the male mastery. And in such a free, natural society, it is only to be expected that female display behaviors, of all women, but particularly of those in bondage, would be refined and elaborated, and would become openly and gloriously expressive. In such a society then, in what countless ways might a woman, any woman, but particularly one in a collar, be expected to present herself before a male? Would the female not desire to appear in certain ways, to move in certain ways? Presumably, yes. And certainly one of the most devastatingly, self-enhancing, exciting ways for a female to be before a male is to be before him in the dance. And certainly in erotic, display dance. There is little doubt then that these desires, and associated movements, provocative and luring, of the hips and pelvis, or the dispositions thereto, are in some way genetically coded, such that, in a given stimulus situation, recourse will be naturally had to them, and it will seem quite natural and appropriate to perform these behaviors. It is quite likely that, in the history of the human species, thousands of women have begged for their lives by dancing naked before severe captors, and that the case even in historical times, before Chaldeans and Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians, Greeks and Romans, Goths, Mongols, Crusaders, Turks, and others. And the most provocative and erotic of dances, of course, is slave dance. Accordingly then its power and beauty is sought avidly by women desiring to be pleasing to men, to masters. And certainly, if the woman is theirs, it is exactly the sort of thing that would be expected of them, and required of them, by their lords and masters. And so, Ellen thought, perhaps there is a sense in which slave dance does lurk in the belly of every woman, a basic biological, genetic sense. Certainly such a disposition, as with many others, such as the desire to belong, to be found pleasing, to love and serve, would contribute to success in matters of gene replication. And these genes would then be transmitted to future generations, assisting in the shaping of a species. Had primitive women been feminists the human race would have been extinct thousands of years ago; it is the ideology of death. It can survive only as a cannibalistic excrescence on the biological givens of reality, as the modality of a self-seeking, parasitical, politically active minority. Generalized, it would falsify and degrade human life, destroy the gene pool, and lead to the termination of the human race. But, of course, primitive men would not have permitted that pretentious indulgence on the part of primitive women. Dragged by the hair to the back of the cave they would have been reminded of their sex. It is a common belief on Gor that all free females desire in their secret hearts to be the slaves of masters; there is a saying, in every free female there lurks a slave, a slave awaiting her liberation, her freedom, her collar.