Swordsmen of Gor

literally stripped. Some new slaves must be whipped from the house, to embark upon an errand, so terrified they are at the scantiness of the garmenture in which they have been placed. Certainly it is a change from the stiff, heavy, ornate, cumbersome robes of concealment, and the multitudinous hoods and veils, of the high cities.

I wondered what Saru would look like in armlets and anklets, in bangles, belled and necklaced, perhaps in a swirl of diaphanous, scarlet dancing silk.

I was sure she might please the senses of a man, perhaps even those of a shogun.

I suspected that it was for such a purpose, ultimately, that she had been brought to Gor.

The Ashigaru approaching from the central camp were now closer.

Saru, on her hands ands knees before Pertinax, cast a glance toward the approaching torches. I sensed she was desperate, and had no idea when she might, again, if ever, have a moment with him. I recalled how she had wanted him to call upon her in the stable, and recalled that he had not chosen to do so. I was sure that she, now well knowing herself a slave, wanted to nestle, collared, subdued, submitted, obedient, in his arms. I suspected she had dreamed of him, even long ago, on Earth. She had selected him, as I recalled, to accompany her to Gor. Too, I had no doubt he had found her excruciatingly attractive, even on Earth, even as a free woman. It was not difficult then to conjecture that he would now find her a thousand times more attractive, and in a thousand ways, now that she was a female slave.

“What are you doing!” he cried, in anger.

Saru was on her belly before him, her hands on his ankles, her lips pressed to his feet, weeping, covering them with piteous kisses.

Pertinax drew back, in fury.

She lifted her head to him. “I want you as my master!” she sobbed. “Be my master!”

“You do not know what you are saying!” he exclaimed. “What is wrong with you? You are of Earth! You are a woman of Earth! Where is your pride, your dignity! Be ashamed of yourself. Shame! Shame! Get up! Get up! You make me sick! You are disgusting! Disgusting!”

She put her head down to the dirt, crying.

“She is not a free woman,” I said to Pertinax. “Do not address her as such.”

“Can you not accept her femininity,” asked Tajima, “her needs, her womanhood, her helplessness, her defenselessness, her desire to submit?”

“Do not impose your values upon her,” I said. “Do you want her to lie? She is a woman. Why can you not accept her for what she is, not what you feel she should be? Are you only interested in women who have adopted, who have yielded to, who have succumbed to, the masculine values prescribed for them by an odious, inhuman, unnatural, self-alienating culture?”

Pertinax regarded me angrily.

“She is not a man, even if you demand it of her,” I said. “Let her be what she is, a woman, and a slave.”

“Let him alone,” said Tajima. “He understands nothing of these things. Let him belittle and shame her, humiliate and scorn her, if it pleases him. Is it not amusing, an exercise in power, though one somewhat cruel? Let him see to it that she is distraught, confused, uncertain, and miserable. She is only a slave, after all. Is this not a pleasant, gratifying torture to which he may subject her? Let him strive to deny her to herself, if he wishes. Let him demand such a denial of her. Let him disrupt and divide her. Let him torture her, as he will. Let him attempt to estrange her from her deepest being and needs, if it pleases him. He is, after all, Master, and she is merely slave. Let him strive then, by tearing and torture, to remake her, in an alien image, in his own image, to force her to discard and surrender herself, and hide herself behind a wall on which he would prefer to look.”

I supposed that the former Miss Wentworth, for years on Earth, had longed for what she felt was missing in her life, for the precious, incredible womanhood which she had only recently found, on Gor, and she was now, it seemed, to be shamed and punished for discovering on an alien world what had eluded her for so long on her native sphere.

“She is scum,” said Pertinax.

“Yes, Master,” wept the slave, at his feet.

“Slut! Slut!” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“But surely,” I said, “you find this slut, this bit of scum, of some interest. I suspect you would not mind owning it.”

“‘Owning’!” cried Pertinax.

“Precisely,” I said, “owning.”

“She is worthless,” he exclaimed.

“She was worthless on Earth,” I said. “She is not worthless in a collar. She would go for a price, perhaps better than a silver tarsk.”

“Worthless!” he insisted.

“Doubtless worthless as a female slave is worthless,” I said, “but some men find them of interest.”

“Worthless!” he sobbed.

“But pretty,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, angrily.

“And on Gor,” I said, “you can buy such things.”

“I think you want her, my dear Pertinax,” said Tajima, “and as what she is, and should be, a slave.”

“Is that not what you have always wanted,” I asked, “from the first moment you laid eyes on her, her as a slave?”

“I think your desire was so fierce,” said Tajima.

“Was it not?” I asked.

“She belongs to Lord Nishida,” he said, angrily.

“Yes,” said Tajima, “and she was selected with care, in compliance with a very special order, one requisitioning a particular sort of slave, one worthy of a being a suitable gift for a shogun.”

“More is involved in these matters,” I said to Pertinax, “than intelligence, a lovely figure, a particular coloring of hair and eyes, and such.”

“What?” asked Pertinax, uneasily.

“Dispositions, needs, and latencies,” I said. “Slavers are alert to such things.”

“I do not understand,” said Pertinax.

“They can read the language of the body and eyes, and voice,” I said, “in general, and in given contexts, and situations, sometimes even contrived stimulus situations.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Perhaps the woman hears the word ‘slave’ or ‘collar’ spoken in her vicinity, seemingly innocently, seemingly inadvertently, it having supposedly nothing to do with her. But someone notes her subtlest response, the slightest alertness, or fear, or hesitation, or such. Perhaps a kajira on Earth, owned by a slaver, briefly, so briefly, by design, arranges a scarf or such and, for an instant, the other woman glimpses a collar. What is her reaction? Is it such as to suggest that she, too, belongs in a collar and, perhaps in her fantasies, has had one about her neck, snapped shut, locked? Perhaps the kajira sees the woman’s awareness, and smiles shyly, even apologetically, before adjusting the scarf, and hurrying away, leaving the woman standing there, astonished, unsteady. Is the glance of the kajira, radiant in her bondage, a hint, or an encouragement, or reassurance? Perhaps she hopes that the other woman, whom she instantly likes, will be found suitable, will qualify for the chains of a slave. Does that glance not say to the woman, however briefly, “I am happy. Are you my sister?” A slaver, of course, perhaps from over a newspaper, or one standing nearby, perhaps on a subway, clinging to a support, or one apparently merely waiting in a corridor or doorway, notes the woman’s reaction. Does it say, in effect, “I, too, belong in a collar. I wish I knew such a man, a man such as you know, lovely sister, one strong enough to put me in a collar. I am a woman. I belong in a collar. I want one!” Too, of course, there are such obvious things as the natural feminine grace of the woman, the width of her love cradle, the betraying movements of her body within her garmenture, the noted movements of her thighs, and such.”

“The Ashigaru are here,” said Tajima.

“Wait, a moment,” I said to them.