Witness of Gor (35 page)

"Yes," said the man.

Dorna then leaned down, confidentially to him, and whispered something.

He smiled.

She then hurried down the stairs and, going behind me, seized my hair and held it up over my head, knotted securely in her grip. with both hands. I winced. She turned my head to the right and held it back, exposing the left side of my head to the chair.

She then, retaining her grip on my hair with her right hand, with her left, with the tips of her fingers, her palm up, indicated, and lifted slightly, the lobe of my left ear. It was almost as though she might be a slaver, or a slaver's man, calling attention to some feature which might be of interest to a buyer. I did not understand what she was doing. "Pretty?" she asked.

"Yes," said the man in the chair. Then she returned both hands to my hair and, still holding it up, over my head, twisted my head to the left, and back, thus exposing now the right side of my head to the chair. She kept her left hand in my hair, and I whimpered, at the tightness of her grip, and then displayed, in the fashion she had earlier, the right side of my head, indicating, and lifting, slightly, the lobe of my right ear. "Pretty?" she asked, again. "Yes,”

said the man in the chair.

She returned both hands to my hair and held my head back, forcibly, cruelly, before the dais.

"Let her ears be pierced!" she cried.

I heard cries of protest, of dismay, from several of the men about.

She held my head back, painfully, as she had before.

"Let her ears be pierced!" she cried.

"Yes!" suddenly said one of the men, almost inaudibly.

"She is very pretty," said a man.

"Why not?" suggested another.

"Can you imagine what she would look like, thusly?" said another.

"Excellent," said another man.

"She is only from Earth," said another.

"Yes," said another.

"Let her ears be pierced!" urged another.

"Yes!" said another, eagerly.

There was a silence.

"Yes," smiled the man in the chair, musingly, looking down upon me, with such a look of power, of possessiveness, of mastery and desire, that even held as I was I almost fainted. "Yes,”

he said musingly, "let her ears be pierced.”

"Excellent!" cried Dorna, releasing my hair and stepping away from me, looking down at me with triumph.

"Excellent," said more than one man. I heard the striking of shoulders behind me. It is done with the flat of the hand, the left shoulder with the right hand.

I understood very little of this. I had not had my ears pierced on Earth, but I had considered it from time to time. I had not had the courage to do so. I suppose I regarded it as too barbaric, too sensuous. After all, I was not then owned. Such an act, too, it seemed to me, would be to make too public certain secrets of one. It would have seemed to me, in effect, to acknowledge one's inner realities, to call attention to what lay within one, to proclaim one's inner self publicly, to offer oneself for bondage, to beg, in a way, the collar. I certainly had no objection to having my ears pierced. Did this mean that I was so obviously a slave? I assumed, of course, they had in mind some natural sort of piercing, and not some grotesque mutilation. But I did not think that was involved here. The men of this world, with all their barbaric animal heat, with all their ardor, and power and mastery, loved and desired women, and relished them, and prized them. The last thing they would want to do would be to decrease the beauty or value of a woman. Even their strictest and most severe devices of punishment and discipline were designed with the protection of such features in mind. Indeed, if anything, these men insisted on the women making themselves, and keeping themselves, as desirable, attractive and beautiful as possible. That is the way they want us and, if necessary, even to the imposition of punishments and disciplines, that is the way they will see to it that we remain. To be sure, I was so poor a woman of Earth that I did not mind being desirable and beautiful. Indeed, I was eager to be such that I would bring a high price on a slave block.

Indeed, as I am a slave, even on Earth I had wanted to be such, desirable and beautiful, and such as would bring a good price from lustful, bidding masters. But what distressed me now was the sense I gathered of the response of the men to the suggestion that my ears be pierced. I realized now, only too clearly, that this primitive, barbaric, homely little detail, seemingly so tiny in itself, the piercing of the ears, making possible the affixing of certain forms of ornaments, seemed, for some reason, quite momentous to them. I gathered that once my ears were pierced there would then be, at least from their point of view, something quite different about me.

"Come here," said the man in the chair. I regarded him, but he was looking at Dorna.

"Master?" she said.

He pointed to the floor of the dais, before the chair.

Frightened, she hurried there, and knelt before him. He drew her more closely to him, she still kneeling, and he bent forward. He took her head in his hands and brushed back her hair.

"Master," she said, uncertainly. He turned her head to one side, and then to the other.

"Pretty," he said.

"No!" she said. "No!”

He turned to one of the men to the side. "Let her ears be pierced," he said.

"No!" cried Dorna. "No!" She leaped to her feet and turned about, fleeing stumbling down the steps of the dais and then, at its foot, half bent over, turned about, facing the man in the chair.

"No!" she cried. "No!”

He regarded her.

"No, please, no!" she said. She did not seem so haughty then, so arrogant, so imperious, so hard. She seemed then only what she was, a female, in the hands of men.

He did not speak, but continued to regard her.

She then drew herself up, proudly, as though she might be other than what she was.

"Never!" she said. "Never!”

"Perhaps," he said, "you would prefer to go to the ring." She took a step backward, aghast.

"I am Dorna," she said.

"That may be changed," he said.

"I am a high slave!" she protested.

"That, too, may be changed," he said.

"No!" she said.

"Does Dorna want to go to the ring?" he asked.

"No!" she said, shuddering.

"What?" he inquired.

"Dorna does not want to go to the ring," she whispered.

"You seemed to find it amusing when the Earth slave was at the ring,”

he said.

"Be kind," she begged.

"But then she is only an Earth slave," said the man.

"Yes! Yes!" said Dorna.

"But you would doubtless wriggle at the ring, as well as she," he said.

I did not want to meet the eyes of any of them. I was frightened, kneeling before the dais.

Dorna and I were the only two women on the terrace. We were both slaves.

"Please, no, Master!" said Dorna. I noted she called him "Master.”

"Perhaps you would enjoy being at the ring, and then being publicly utilized, as was she,”

said the man in the chair.

"No, Master!" cried Dorna.

"Your silk can be taken from you," said the man in the chair.

"Please, no, Master!" she said.

"Perhaps it could be given to the Earth slave.”

"No, Master, please!" said Dorna. She cast me a wild glance. I saw she was genuinely frightened.

"The Earth girl might be made a high slave and you a low slave," he said.

"Please, no, Master!" she said.

"The word 'Master' sounds well on your tongue," he said.

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Thank you, Master!”

"I think you do not use it frequently enough," he said.

"Forgive me, Master!" she said. "I will try to improve my behavior, Master!”

"Does Dorna want to keep her silk?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

He regarded her.

"Dorna wants to keep her silk!" she cried. She clutched the silk about her, desperately.

"But perhaps I have a better idea," he mused.

"Master!" she asked.

"Perhaps you should be returned to Tharna in chains," he said.

At this Dorna turned white and flung herself to her knees at the foot of the dais.

"Oh, no, Master!" she cried.

"They might enjoy seeing you again," he said.

She began to weep and tremble. She looked small, and piteous, and female, at the foot of the dais.

"Look up," he said.

She did, through wild tears.

"They might enjoy having you again within their walls," he mused.

"No," she sobbed.

"I wonder what it might be, after the procession through the streets, you naked, in chains, on a chain neck-tether, conducted through the jeering crowds, goaded by spear points, hastened by whips, and after the public humiliations, would it be torture and the spear? Presumably not, as that is too simple. Too, that is too honorable. And you are now merely bond. Perhaps then you might be nailed to the great gate or to the public boards. It can take days to die in such a fashion. There is little bleeding. Or, more quickly, you might be cast to sleen, or fed to starving urts, or be flung to the fangs of dry, thirsting leech plants.”

"No," she whispered. "Please, no.”

"You might be spared," he said. "You might be enclosed in a cage, suspended in the piazza.

Others might then learn from your fate a lesson. You might be put in a dozen chains and flung into the deepest dungeon in the city. Perhaps then, eventually, you would be forgotten, save perhaps by a warden and some urts. You might even be kept chained in the public tarsk pens, in the mud, for years, there to compete naked, mocked by all, for your swill.”

She put her head down, trembling.

"To be sure," said he, "as you are only a slave, it might be amusing for them to keep you chained to a ring in the lowest brothel in the city, your use free to any and all.”

"Lift your head," he said, sharply.

She looked up. Tears streamed down her face.

"Your face is bared," he said.

She sobbed.

"The faces of slaves should be bared," he said, "that their tiniest expressions may be read.”

Again she wept.

"No longer," said he, "can you hide behind a mask of silver, or gold.”

"No, Master," she wept.

"Your face is bared," he said, "as is fitting for the face of a slave.”

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But there is another possibility," he mused, "an interesting one, one other than merely returning you in chains to Tharna.”

"Master?" she asked, frightened.

"You could be returned to he from whom you were stolen," he said.

"No!" she screamed, in terror. "No! No!" She suddenly, wildly, crawled up the steps of the dais, and flung herself to her belly before the man in the chair. She pressed her lips again and again to his feet, fervently, in terror, covering them with frantic kisses. "No," she begged.

"Please, no, Master!”

"Do you not know how to kiss a man's feet?" he inquired.

She sobbed, and then delicately, humbly, softly, submissively, devotedly, with much care, with great attentiveness, with exquisite sensuousness, with her tongue as well as lips, addressed her ministrations to his feet and sandals.

"Better," said he.

I was frightened at the terror exhibited by the slave. The mere thought of being returned to some former master, from whom, I gathered, she had been stolen, was apparently more dreadful to her, more fearful to her, than the assemblage of fates which had just been outlined before her, those possibly consequent upon her being returned to Tharna, some city into the power of which, it seemed, she would be ill-advised to fall.

"I would think you might enjoy being returned to your former master,”

said the man in the chair, "he who first captured you, and put the collar on you.”

"No! No!" she said.

"He is rumored to be one of the finest swordsmen in the world," said the man.

She sobbed, and continued to kiss his feet.

"Did he not slay a retinue of one hundred men before he reached the curtains of your palanquin, to tear them aside?”

She did not raise her head, but trembled.

"It was he who first removed the mask from you," he said.

"Yes," she whispered, shuddering.

"And did you not, even as a free woman, kneel in the dust beside the palanquin, your mask taken from you, and kiss and lick the blood from his sword?”

"Yes," she said.

"I wonder that he was interested in you," said the man.

"Master?" she asked, lifting her head a little.