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said. "Please, please, forgive me, Master!"
"Oh! she cried, in pain, once more well lashed.
Her head was down. Tears were upon the tiles.
"What shall I do with you?" I asked.
"I am your slave," she said. "You may do with me whatever you wish"
"That is known to me," I said
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Why were you insolent?" I asked.
"It is difficult to speak in this position," she said.
"Speak," I said.
"When I saw that it was you, and remembering you from before, I sought to
exploit your weakness, and conquer you. There is some gratification in this
for a woman, for she is then a little bit like a man, a master, which she
knows in her heart she is not. Too, it pleases her to torture weak men,
men too weak to put her in the chains she longs to wear. But these
gratifications, ultimately, are shallow and empty, and we, in our hearts, know
that. Each sex has its place, and neither will be happy until it occupies that
place. The place of man is master; the place of woman is slave. Gorean men, of
course, do not see fit to tolerate our nonsense. They put us promptly in our
places. They make us slaves. Had you not been from Earth, I would not have
dared to behave as I did. Seeing you, remembering you from before, it did not
even occur to me that I might be kneeling before one who had become, truly, a
Gorean male. I wish that I had understood that, clearly. I could have saved
myself much pain. Women engage in battles which they yearn to lose. We wish to
be overwhelmed and conquered. That is why we fight. If we do not protest and
fight, of what value to a man, we ask ourselves, will be our conquest?
But, of course, I should not have fought you. I am only a slave girl, a girl
already collared and conquered. I am not a free woman. It was presumptuous of
me to indulge myself in the vanities of a free woman. I am a slave. I should
have submitted myself to you, immediately and fully. Forgive me, Master. It is
my hope that you will permit me to live."
I regarded her. She was pretty, in my collar, and on all fours.
"May I explain my behavior further, Master?" she asked. "It may make you
regard me less harshly."
"Do so," I said.
"I want to be a slave," she said. "I feared you would free me. It was thus
that I challenged you. It was thus that I tried to incite you to my conquest.
It was thus that I tried to make you angry, that you might make me your slave,
and keep me as such, uncompromisingly."
"That was not necessary," I said.
"I am now well aware of that, Master," she said. "I did not know it at the
time, however."
I said nothing.
"My behavior, however foolish it might have been, was motivated by a desire to
be kept in bondage," she whispered. "Perhaps now you will think more
understandingly, more pityingly, of your girl."
"So you desire to be a slave?" I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "fervently."
"And you are a slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "completely."
"Do you think that you are free, or that you have any rights whatsoever?" I
asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I know that such delusions are not permitted to a
Gorean slave girl."
"Do you not fear your bondage?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "and sometimes we fear it terribly, the uncertainty
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and the terrors of it, knowing that men can do with us what they please, but
these things heighten our experience, adding zest and spice to it, making it
more meaningful, and, too, without them, we know that we would not truly be in
bondage, which is the condition for which we yearn."
"So you accept the miseries and terrors of bondage?" I asked.
"Willingly, and gladly, Master," she said, "and did we not do so then
unwillingly and tremblingly must we accept them, for we are slaves."
"Do you like being a slave?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You are worthless, aren't you?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "except in so far as I might have some small value as
a man's slave. I
do not know my current market value."
I, too, did not know her current market value. Such things can shift from day
to day. They are subject to considerable variance, being functions of many
factors, such as the girl herelf, her intelligence, and training and beauty,
the money in the economy, the conditions of supply and demand, and even the
market in which she is sold and the time of year that she is put upon the
block.
A girl who is sold in a prestige market and, in the afternoon before her sale,
placed with other lovely inmates within the chromed, ornate bars of an
exhibition cage, has moved and posed upon the instructions of prospective
bidders, is almost certain to bring a higher price than another girl, who by
the hair, is pulled from a crowded, wooden, bolted cage and thrown upon a
sales platform, or who, say, is sold from one of the cement, public viewing
shelves of a common street market. Too, generally girls bring higher prices in
the spring. I have little doubt that there is some intensification of the
slaving done on Earth at a certain time of year, that the captured girls may
be brought to the spring markets. Many Earth-girl slaves, on Gor, comparing
notes, discover that they were sold in the spring. The more intelligent among
them realize that this is not likely to have been a coincidence.
They then have a deeper and more active appreciation of the intelligence,
methodicality and organization of the men who saw fit to bring them to Gor.
Suddenly, angrily, I lashed her with the whip. She shuddered, struck. "Do you
like that?" I
asked.
"No, Master," she said, "but I love it that you can do it to me, and will, if
I am not pleasing to you."
I walked around, before her. "Worthless little trollop," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Are you conquered?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I am conquered."
'Totally?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "totally."
"Can a man respect such a conquered woman?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "But perhaps I might have the interest of the
conquered slave for him."
I crouched down before her. She was still on all fours.
"You are a poor slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Yet," I said, lifting her chin with the whip, "you are pretty."
"In a trivial and servile way," she smiled.
"Yes," I said. "And, too," I said, "you have good slave reflexes."
"Which you have not seen fit to exploit, my Master," she whispered.
"I wonder if I should sell you," I said.
"Please do not sell me, Master," she said.
"I will if it pleases me," I said.
"Of course, my Master," she said.
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I lowered the whip, and, crouching before her, continued to regard her.
"Is Master truly thinking of selling me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. She had displeased me this evening. Too, I thought I saw her
this evening more objectively than ever before I had seen her. I saw her now
as little more than a pretty triviality.
"I would bring so low a price," she whispered, "that perhaps Master might keep
me."
I stood up, whip in hand. I looked down upon her, on all fours before me.
There was something in what she said. She would probably not bring a high
price. Perhaps she might as well be kept, at least for the time. There did not
seem much point, at least at the moment, in sending her to a market. Too, she
was pretty, if only in a trivial, servile way. Too, she had good slave
reflexes. Surely
I could find uses for her around the house.
"Master?" she asked.
I walked around, behind her.
"Master?" she asked, frightened. She knew she might now be unexpectedly
lashed.
"I shall keep you, at least for the time," I said, "to see if you work out."
"I shall endeavor to work out, Master," she cried, joyfully. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]