Almost at the same time, the voice which had so tormented me, that small, insistent, inward voice, somehow within me, again spoke. “Foolish slave,” it said, “do you not know slaves are not permitted to lie?”
I remembered reading, in the confiscated books, that there were penalties for such failures and faults in a slave.
Then I looked about, in terror.
I remembered that I had been marked.
Had I been less than fully pleasing?
I feared so.
Hopefully no one had heard me, hopefully no one would know!
Scarcely had my cry ceased to ring within the stones when the bolt was thrown back, and the guard entered.
He put his hand tightly, painfully, in my hair, and forced my head down, to his hip. Then I was dragged, stumbling, from the chamber. I remembered, from the books, something of what was being done to me. I was being conducted somewhere, where I did not know, in the helpless, shameful, leading position commonly used with a female slave. “Forgive me,” I cried. “Please do not hurt me, Master!” How easily those words escaped me. Might they not have escaped the lips of a frightened slave? And how naturally I had addressed a free man as “Master!” I recalled, from the party, that all free males were to be addressed as “Master,” and all free females as “Mistress!”
I was taken to a side chamber. One of my hands was freed from the bracelets, and then both hands were fastened together again, but before me. I was placed before a dangling rope. I looked up. It was threaded through a heavy metal ring over my head. Most of the rope was on the other side of the ring. It ran to the opposite wall, where it was looped, loosely, about a large hook. The end of the rope near me was fastened about the chain of the bracelets.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
A moment later I felt my braceleted wrists being pulled upward, toward the ring. The guard hauled on the rope until I was stretched, and I could just feel the stones of the flooring with the tips of my toes. He then secured the rope, fastening it about the hook on the opposite wall, holding me in position. I was well extended. What position could this be? He then tied together my ankles, and fastened them to a ring on the floor.
Why was I fastened in this way?
What could he intend?
I feared I knew.
“Please,” I said. “Forgive me! I will try to be a good slave!”
Had I not been marked?
He was behind me. I sensed he had something in his hand, perhaps retrieved from a peg on the wall.
“Forgive me, Master,” I wept. “Please, Master!”
I had never been struck in my life, until the party, when I had been subjected to the lashing of Nora’s angry switch.
I would have done almost anything to escape that switching. I remembered, in the pain, blind with misery, acknowledging her Mistress, and myself slave.
She, my enemy, and rival, being acknowledged Mistress! And I no more than a groveling, frightened, beaten slave at her feet! What a triumph that must have been for her, to see her despised rival, in beauty, in popularity, cringing at her feet, belled, collared, half naked, weeping, a slave with no option but to endure the displeasure of her Mistress!
That beating had been unpleasant, to be sure. And I could well understand how a slave will dread the switch, and do much to escape it.
Surely I would do so!
I had no wish to feel it again!
I tried to turn, to look behind me. I could not well see what he had in his hand. “What are you going to do, Master?” I asked, frightened.
Then I was put under the slave whip of Gor.
I am sure the beating was light, and intended to be more informative than anything else, but, still, I had, for the first time in my life, felt the flexible, broad-bladed, five-stranded Gorean slave lash, designed specifically for the discipline of female slaves, a lash designed to punish but not to mark.
Released from the rope, and my ankles freed from the ring, I sank to the floor. I was scarcely aware that my hands were once more being fastened behind my back. I lay there, my body afire, a whipped chattel, a slave.
I could not believe the pain.
I now knew the penalties which might attach to a slave’s lapses.
I would now strive to be a good slave, a pleasing slave.
I now knew I could be whipped, and would be whipped, if I were not pleasing.
I would do my best to be pleasing.
I could see the boot-like sandals of the guard, near me.
How small, vulnerable, dependent, and weak then seemed my sex. How different we were from men!
How obviously, if they chose, they were the masters!
And here, on this world, they had so chosen.
I struggled to my feet, sobbing, and hysterical, looked about, past the guard, and ran to the opened door of the small chamber, and, barefoot, ran down the hall. I was not striving to escape. I came to the opened door of the rounded room and stumbled through it, and knelt in the center of the room, trembling, my back aching, with my head down to the stones.
In a few minutes I was joined by the guard.
“Your training will begin in the morning,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“You may thank me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
I now knew I was a slave. It had been well taught to me. My only hope, now, was not to permit myself to be mastered. To be sure, I would have masters, as I was a slave. But it is one thing to be a slave, and have masters, and it is another, I thought, to be mastered.
I must never permit myself to be mastered, I thought.
And yet, as I knelt there, I knew I wanted to be mastered.
Yes, Allison, I thought, you want a master.
Since puberty you have wanted a master.
And now I suspected, a slave, I might be easily mastered.
You know, Allison, I said to myself, you may have many masters, and be mastered by any or all of them, as they might please.
Yes, Allison, I thought, you will doubtless be mastered many times. Then I thought to myself, you are no longer “Allison,” slave, for slaves have no names but at the pleasure of their masters. You are now nameless. It is masters who will name you, as any property, or beast, if they please, and as they please.
My training will not be detailed. Interestingly, it lasted only a few days. One learns the kisses and caresses, the kneelings, the manner of tying sandals, of dressing and bathing masters, and such, but most attention was devoted, interestingly, to the acquisition of Gorean, and a number of servile skills, such as cooking, sewing, cleaning, laundering, and such. The point of Gorean, I suppose, was to provide a barbarian slave with enough linguistic skill to make her survival more likely. It was not hard for me, and I suppose for other female barbarians, to adapt myself to Gorean. I do not think there was anything surprising or anomalous in this, for the linguistic skills of women, for whatever reason, tend to be considerable. Is not language the art, and joy, of women? To be sure, the intensity of the instruction, and the immersion in the speech world of Gor were doubtless relevant. Perhaps of importance, as well, was the natural way it was taught. I learned it much as a child learns his native language, in the beginning by ostension, and then by metaphor, correction, refinement, and intuition. Even throughout human history on Earth, women, I realized, as I now, must strive to learn the languages of conquerors and masters. It seems not unlikely then that the women who most swiftly and successfully learned the languages of their captors and masters, and were then most successful in pleasing and placating them, would be those most likely to survive
