In her subjection she feels most woman, most helplessly, most completely, most rightfully woman. She desires no choice. She rejoices to be put under his power.”
I recalled a hundred slaves, a thousand slaves, on the streets of Ar, Jad, Brundisium, Temos, such places. I recalled the swaying hips of slave dancers, the proffering of paga, the extended hands of girls on the shelf, begging to be purchased.
“I want to be a slave,” she said, “and love being a slave. I am a slave. I desire to be what I am. How can I be happy otherwise? To be sure, I am terrified, too, to be a slave. For I know what may be done with me, and how I may be treated. But I am content in a collar, for it is that in which I belong.”
“You are destined to be a particular sort of slave,” I said.
“I gather,” she said, “-the pleasure slave.”
“Like the others,” I said.
“Even when I fastened myself in my own collar, as a ruse, as a disguise, long ago, in Ar,” she said, “I felt sexual, alarmingly, troublesomely, disturbingly so. Master can well imagine then what it is to be fastened in that of another, one I cannot remove. My body, in its collar, is alive, and sexual. It tells me I am a woman, a slave, and a sexual being, a woman not her own but one who belongs to another, as a verr or tarsk might belong to another, one at the mercy of the master who may treat her as he wishes, and whom she must strive to please. Even white-silk, I can begin to sense something of what may become of me, how I will be transformed, how helpless I will be in the throes of passion, how I will be so much at a man’s mercy, and will beg and cry out in need.”
I had occasionally heard, even on the street outside a tavern’s door, a girl cry out in relief and gratitude, the sound carrying from behind the leather curtain of an alcove itself.
“So, I gather,” I said, “you love being subject to the whip.”
“Yes,” she said, “being subject to it. I do not want to feel it, of course, and will strive to keep it on its peg. But, knowing that it will be used on me, if I am not pleasing, thrills me. It reminds me that I am a slave, and must obey, and strive to please. It informs me that consequences will attend any laxity or slovenliness on my part, any imperfection in my service, any dissatisfaction on the part of my master. Is it not the symbol of the mastery? Does it not tell me I am an animal, that I am owned, and a slave? Perhaps my master will often have me kiss the whip, that I may thusly be reminded of my bondage.”
“It seems,” I said, “that you might enjoy being a pleasure slave.”
“Better that than a tower slave, a laundress, a loom slave, a cooking slave,” she said.
“You are a lascivious little beast?” I said.
“The pleasure slave in her master’s arms,” she said, “is the happiest, the most joyful, the truest of women.”
“Or writhing in his bonds, his thongs, his chains,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
A woman’s helplessness, as is well known, is sexually stimulatory, sometimes almost unendurably so.
“It is my hope that my master will be kind to me,” she said.
“He may,” I said, “if he wishes, for amusement, bring you patiently to the brink of a yearned-for relief, one for which you are pathetically, beggingly desperate, and then abandon you, leaving you alone to thrash in helpless frustration.”
“Surely not!” she said.
“You are a slave,” I said.
“Master!” she protested.
“Perhaps you might beg prettily,” I said.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said. “Piteously, desperately!”
“He might be kind,” I said. “Who knows?”
“I will try to be a good slave,” she said.
“Do not think,” I said, “because you are a pleasure slave, you will escape the common duties of slaves, cleaning, dusting, scrubbing, running errands, bargaining in the market, entertaining, cooking, sewing, laundering, polishing, perhaps spinning and weaving, such things.”
“I was the Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said.
“No matter,” I said.
“No matter?” she said.
“No,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“Who sees?” I asked.
“Alcinoe sees,” she said, “Master.”
“And at the end of the day,” I said, “you may expect to be chained at your master’s slave ring.”
“Surely I would be permitted on his couch,” she said.
“Such honor,” I said, “for a slave?”
“Master?”
“Do you think you would be a free companion?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Expect to be chained to his slave ring, on the floor, at the foot of his couch.”
“Chained?” she said.
“As any other animal,” I said.
“Master?”
“By the neck or the left ankle,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“If you are fortunate,” I said, “you might be permitted a mat and blanket.”
“So little?” she said.
“To be sure,” I said, “you might have to earn them.”
“Earn them?” she said. “How?”
“How do you think?” I asked.
“I see,” she said.
“It is yours to serve and please your master.”
“I would hope to do so,” she said.
“Do you think you can kneel and belly, and crawl, and lick and kiss, and beg, and thrash and writhe?” I asked.
“A slave must obey,” she said.
“A slave such as you,” I said, “will not be able to help herself.”
“Master?”
“She will beg to do so,” I said.
“It is my hope that I will not be displeasing to my master,” she said.
“You will heat, sweat, and mottle like fire, and juice like a fountain.”
“I already sense such feelings in me,” she said.
“You will be conquered, wholly,” I said.
“I want that!” she whispered.
“It does not matter, one way or the other,” I said.
“I understand,” she said.
“You are willing, then, to be the most contemptible, the most hated and scorned by free women, the lowest, and most degraded of slaves, the pleasure slave?”
“Yes,” she said, “more than anything. That is the slavery that is right for me!”
“For the former Lady Flavia of Ar?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “That is the slavery she wants, the slavery fitting for her, the slavery her collar begs for!”
I regarded her form and face.
“Have no fear,” I said, “that is the form of slavery which will be imposed on you.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Interestingly, almost every girl from the barbarian lands brought to the markets of Gor was brought as a
