Mariners of Gor

on one’s feet?

“Surely you have noticed,” I said, “that words from those languages, along with those of many other languages, are found in Gorean.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“She seems to me quite intelligent,” said the stranger.

“I expect so,” I said.

To be sure, high intelligence, sometimes quite high intelligence, was often found in barbarian kajirae, as masters preferred it in their slaves. Few men wanted a stupid slave. The intelligent slave is more likely to survive her training, and, once trained, is likely to sell for better prices. She is also likely to be considerably more sensitive to her condition, and is likely to be far more prompt in understanding what is expected of her, the devoted and zealous service of the interests, inclinations, and pleasures of her master, than a less intelligent woman. She tends, as well, to be more vulnerable, and more sexually responsive, than her simpler sister. How easy it is, in so soft, nicely curved, and vital a property, astonished, reveling in her newly discovered profound and radical femininity, which she is no longer permitted to suppress or deny, to ignite slave fires. How helpless she will be, now the property of men, once they flame in her belly. Once they burn, would she then trade her collar for a shallow deceit, the denial and falsification of her most profound reality, that of female, for the betrayal of nature, for the repudiation of her deepest self, for the inertnesses and tepidities of freedom? She has found herself, and is content. How secure she is now, having found herself at last to be what she has always wanted to be, and has always been. Is this not the life she has secretly dreamed of living, now put upon her, as securely as her collar, as securely as her chains? She is attentive to the master, for she fears his whip, but she is inventive, as well, for she desires to please him, and be found pleasing. It gives her joy to be found pleasing. As she learns Gorean, too, her high intelligence well serves her, for her master delights in her lyrical capacity to express herself, delights in learning of her feelings and thoughts, and delights in the joys of her intellectual companionship, though she may be chained naked at his slave ring. In bondage, many such women learn their beauty, their sex, their nature, their meaning, and their identity. They learn they are not men, but women, and are content, and whole.

“Intelligence is often associated with the intensity of slave fires,” said the stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

It is well known that the most intelligent slave is often the most helpless in a man’s arms. So often are conjoined intelligence, vitality, sensitivity, and imagination with uncontrollable, inevitable responsiveness. The more intelligent woman swiftly comprehends what is being done to her, recognizes her vulnerability as a female, that she is defenseless, powerless to resist the inescapable ecstasies to which she will be subjected, that she will be mastered, as a female in the order of nature, and will soon be a gasping, begging, pleading, yielding slave. Then, in her mind and heart, she surrenders, as she knows she will, and must, and wants, rejoicingly acknowledging herself as her master’s slave. She is now herself.

There are two sexes, and they are not the same.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Ai!” sobbed the slave, squirming.

“See?” said the proprietor.

It was clear to all.

“In your studies,” I said to the slave, “doubtless you learned of certain aspects of those worlds you described as different, distant, and exciting, those worlds in many respects quite different from that which you knew, worlds in many respects natural and beautiful.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps it was such things,” I said, “which attracted you to such worlds.”

“Doubtless, Master,” she said.

“Were you aware that in such worlds there were slaves?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“And that among these,” I said, “many would be female?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And did you ever imagine yourself as a female slave?”

“-Yes, Master.”

“You spoke of yourself as a ‘graduate student’,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Touch her,” said the stranger.

“Oh!” she cried.

“See her press herself against his hand,” said a fellow.

“Yes,” said another.

The slave pulled back, as she could. Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Do not be upset,” I said to her. “Being unable to help yourself, hoping to be touched, begging to be caressed, responding helplessly, is a sign of vitality, of health.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“And it will improve your price,” said a fellow.

“When you were engaged in your studies,” I said, “I would suppose you did not anticipate your fate, that you would one day find yourself a slave on a far world, one you had perhaps heard of, but had not realized existed.”

“I thought it was only in books,” she said.

“You think differently now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I find myself kneeling, naked and bound, collared, before masters, in a tavern in Brundisium. I think differently now.”

Many of my world, of course, did not accept the existence of her Earth, as another world. They thought it the name of a remote place on Gor, from which lovely barbarians, illiterate, somehow, unbelievably enough, not even capable of speaking the language, were harvested for the markets. Such goods, for example, must have some place of origin.

“Perhaps,” I said, “my lovely graduate student, as you call it, your current reality is not so different now from that which you occasionally imagined on Earth, when you thought of yourself as a slave in one or another of those different, ancient worlds.”

“No, Master,” she said, squirming, “but now it is real.”

I thought her quite beautiful.

But what woman is not, naked and bound?

“Master,” she said, “I think you understand me!”

“A little, perhaps,” I said.

How piteous she seemed!

“I have waited so long for one who might understand me!” she said, tears in her eyes. “You are the first who has done so, on this world!”

“He is privy to the second knowledge,” said the stranger. “See his robes. He is a Scribe.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “you would like a private master?”

She leaned forward. “Oh, yes, yes, Master!” she wept. “I want a private master, a private master!”

This is not unusual amongst slaves. It is a common dream of public slaves, tavern slaves, brothel slaves, the girls of the laundries, the public kitchens, the mills, and such, that they should have a private master. And, of course, the dream goes far beyond this, for usually the dream is to be the single slave of a private master, to be the only slave in her master’s household. For example, there is often much misery, much grief, even lamentation, in the pleasure garden of a rich man, who is assuredly a private master, where slaves may often constitute little more than another adornment, much as the colored grasses, the trimmed shrubberies, the beds of flowers, the exotic trees, the unusual fruits, to enhance the beauty of the garden. Perhaps no more than two or three preferred slaves are ever called to the slave ring of their master. Indeed, he may often bring in rent slaves from the party houses to sing and dance for him, and his guests, to play the kalika, to accompany with flute music the measuring of wine and the cutting of meat. Indeed, as the stocking and tending of such gardens is often managed by independent companies, staffed with professionals, he is likely to have several girls in his gardens whom he, personally, has