Gor.
'Master,' said the first girl. The blond-haired barbarian, her wrists tied behind her, tethered to the same post, sat nearby, angrily, in the dirt.
'Yes?' I said.
'I crawl to the end of my tether, where I kneel before you,' she said.
'Yes?' I said.
She put down her head. 'I beg your touch,' she said.
I heard the blond-haired barbarian, near her, gasp in indignation.
I could hear the sounds of pleasure, from Kisu and Tende, at the side of the hut.
The kneeling girl lifted her head, regarding me. 'I beg your touch,' she said. 'My need is much on me.'
Again I heard the blond-haired barbarian gasp, but this time in amazement. She could not believe that she had heard a woman admit to sexual desire. Did the other slut not know that this was something that no woman must do! Was it not sufficiently horrifying even to experience sexual desire, without admitting the fact?
'Slave!' chided the blond-haired barbarian. 'Slave! Slave!'
'Yes, slave,' said the first girl to her. 'Please. Master,' she said to me.
I went near to her, but not so near that she could touch me. 'Please,' she begged.
'You are a barbarian,' I said to her.
'I am now a Gorean slave girl,' she said.
'Are you not from a world called Earth?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'How long have you been on Gor?' I asked.
'More than five years,' she said.
'How did you come to Gor?' I asked.
'I do not know,' she said. 'I went to sleep one night in my own room on my own world. I awakened, perhaps days later, chained in a Gorean market.'
I nodded. Gorean slavers usually keep their lovely prizes drugged enroute between worlds.
'What is your name?' I asked.
'Whatever Master wishes,' she said.
'It is true,' I said.
She smiled at me. 'I have been owned by many men,' she said. 'I have had many names.'
'What was your barbarian name?' I inquired.
'Alice,' she said. 'Alice Barnes.'
'That is two names, is it not?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said. ''Alice' was my first name. 'Barnes' was my second name.'
''Alice',' I said, 'is a slave name.'
'So I have learned on this world,' she said. 'On my old world, however, it may also function as the name of a free woman.'
'Interesting,' I said.
She smiled. Feminine first names of Earth are often used on Gor as slave names. Sometimes they are even given to slave girls of Gorean origin. They tend to excite masters, and often improve a girl's price. The origin of the custom is probably a simple one. Most girls brought to Gor are brought as slaves. It is thus natural that their original names be regarded as the names of slaves. Many Goreans, even those educated to the second knowledge, that afforded the higher castes, find it hard to believe that the delicious Earth women who show up in their markets could possibly have been free on their native world. They are just too obviously marvelous slave meat. 'If they were free, they should not have been,' say many Goreans. 'At any rate,' they add, 'they are now in the collar where they belong, and they will stay there!' It is true, incidentally, that a girl of Earth origin is almost never freed on Gor. They are on the whole just too wonderful, too desirable, to free. Perhaps one would have to be insane to free such a woman. Would it not be madness to let such beauties, kneeling before you, out of your collar? A Gorean saying, of the second knowledge, has it that a steel collar locked on the throat of an Earth woman is perfect. If you should be a female, and are reading this, and should be so unfortunate as to be taken to Gor as a slave, do not hope for freedom; rather learn your lessons swiftly and well, and resign yourself to the service of masters; fight your collar, if you wish, but in the end it will do you no good; you are slave.
'I name you 'Alice',' I said.
'Thank you, Master,' she said.
'You wear the name now as a slave name,' I said.
'I know,' she said.
'Do you like it,' I asked, 'now wearing your old name, but now afresh, put upon you as a degraded slave name?'
'I love it,' she said. 'It is delicious. It makes me quiver with desire.'
She strained at the tether, trying to reach me.
'It is said,' I said, 'that the women of Earth are natural slaves.'
'It is true,' she whispered.
'It is also said they are the lowest and most miserable of slaves, and are to be used as such.'
'It is true, Master,' she said. She looked down. 'That has been well taught to me on Gor,' she said. She looked up. 'Please take me in your arms,' she said. 'I am an Earth woman who has been made a Gorean slave girl. You need not respect me as you might a Gorean woman and I am further only a slave. Do not respect me!'
'I do not,' I told her.
'Thank you, Master,' she said.
'I am an imbonded Earth woman,' she said. 'I am among the lowest and most miserable of slaves. Take me in your arms, I beg you, and treat me as such.'
I took her in my arms.
'So use me that I fear that I may die, Master,' she begged.
I thrust my lips to her throat, and she put her head back.
'Slave! Slave!' chided the blond-haired barbarian.
'Yes, slave!' wept the girl in my arms. I lowered her to the dirt. I stayed with her a long time. I did not, however, bother to untie her hands. I would only have had to retie them later.
The blond-haired barbarian turned away, bitterly. She lay on her side in the dirt. I heard her cry. Her small fists, behind her, were clenched in frustration.
I thought that, in a few days, it might well be she who would crawl kneeling to the end of her tether, her bound wrists extended behind her, the line taut to some slave post, and beg, perhaps weeping, the touch of a master.
It was late when Ayari returned to the hut.
The girls were asleep. Tende, when Kisu had finished with her, had been returned to her place. She now, too, like the other girls, lay sleeping in the dirt, her wrists tied behind her, tethered to the slave post.
'Did you learn more?' I asked.
'Others,' said he, 'than your Shaba and his followers have passed here. I learned this, finally, from the chief, and two of his men, with whom I spoke.'
'They were reluctant to speak?' asked Kisu.
'Quite so,' said Ayari. 'They were frightened, even to speak of what they saw.'
'What was it?' I asked.
'Things,' said he.
'What sort of things?' I asked.
'They would not say,' mid Ayari. 'They were too frightened.' He looked at me. 'But I fear that it is not we alone who seek your Shaba.'
'Others pursue as well?' asked Kisu.
'I think so,' said Ayari.
'Interesting,' I said. I lay down beside the fire. 'Let us get rest now,' I said. 'We must be on our way early in the morning.'
