Magicians of Gor (79 page)

“Of course,” I said.

“I want her,” he said.

“Subject to what limits?” I asked.

“To no limits,” he said.

“Then it seems you want her wholly,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “wholly.”

There is only one way to have a woman wholly,” I said, “and that is for her to

be your slave, for you to own her.”

(pg. 465) “Please, please Master!” wept Lavinia, looking up at Milo. “Please,

Master!”

“Do with her what you wish,” I said. “But she is a slave. It is the only thing

which will truly fulfill her. It is the only thing which will make her truly

happy.”

“I do not know what to do?” he said.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“I want to own her!” he cried, angrily. “I want to own every inch of her, every

particle of her, every bit of her, totally, every hair on her head, every mark

on her body, all of her, all of her! I want to own her, completely!”

“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” said Lavinia.

“It is what you want, and it is what she wants, too,” I said.

“You understand,” said he to Lavinia, “that if I make this decision, it is

made.”

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“Once it is made, it is made,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“And that is acceptable to you?” he asked.

“She is a slave,” I said. “It makes no difference whether it is acceptable to

her or not. You are the master.”

He looked down at Lavinia.

“He is right, of course, Master,” she said. “My wishes are nothing, as they are

only the wishes of a slave. My will is nothing, as it is only the will of a

slave. I am at your mercy, totally. I am in your power, completely.”

“Aii!” he said, understanding this.

“Master?” she asked.

“You are my slave,” he announced, accepting her.

“I love you, Master!” she wept, putting her head against his thigh.

“I own you,” he said, softly, wonderingly.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Truly,” he said.

“Yes, my master!” she said.

“It is one thing to own a woman,” I said, “and it is another to have her within

the bonds of an excellent mastery.”

“Undoubtedly,” he said.

“I do not think you have had much experience at this sort of thing,” I said.

“No,” he admitted. “I haven’t.”

“Perhaps you, slave girl,” I said to Lavinia, “can teach him something about the

handling of slaves.”

“Of course, Master,” she smiled.

“You must make certain that you get everything you want (pg. 466) from her,” I

said, “and then, if you wish, more, even a thousand times more.”

“Aii!” he said.

“All is your due,” I said. “She is a slave.”

“How can I believe such happiness?” he asked.

“Do not yield to the temptation of being weak with her,” I cautioned him. “She

loves you, but she must also fear you. She must know that, you are not to be

trifled with. She must know herself to be always within your discipline.”

“I understand,” he said.

“And as she is female,” I said, “she may occasionally, curious, foolishly,

particularly at first, wish to test the strength of your will, to discover, if

you like, the boundaries of her condition.”

“Master!” protested Lavinia.

“It is then up to you to teach her what they are, promptly, decisively,

unmistakably.”

“I understand,” he said.

“She wants to know, so to speak, the length of her chain, the location of the

walls of her cell. Too, she wants to be reassured of your strength. She wants to

know that you are her master, truly, in the fullness of reality. Having learned

this, she need not be so foolish in the future. She will have discovered that

stone is hard and that fire burns. Thenceforth she will be in her place, pleased

and content.”

“The whip, tell him of the whip, Master!” said Lavinia.

“It is a symbol of authority, and an instrument of discipline,” I said. “The

slave is subject to it. Some masters think it is useful to occasionally use it

on a slave, if only to remind her that she is a slave.”

“How could anything so beautiful be touched with the leather?” he asked.

“That we learn to obey, and who is master!” laughed Lavinia.

“Buy a whip,” I advised him.

“Yes, Master,” said Lavinia.

“You wish me to buy a whip?” asked Milo of the slave.

“Yes, Master!” she said.

“But, why?” he asked.

“So I well know that I must obey, and be pleasing!” she said.

“I see,” he said.

“And that you will have a convenient implement at hand for enforcing my

discipline,” she said.

“A whip, of course, is not absolutely necessary,” I said. “There are many other

means of enforcing discipline.”

(pg. 467) “True,” said Lavinia.

“But there is much to be said for the whip,” I said. “It is perhaps the

simplest, most practical device for such purposes. It is also traditional. Also,

of course, it has symbolic value.”

Lavinia, on her knees, looked up at Milo, her master. “Yes, Master!” she said.

“You truly think I should get a whip?” asked Milo. I was pleased that he had

addressed this question to me, and not to Lavinia. He was beginning, I noted, to

get a sense of the mastery. The decision in such matters lay among free men, not

with slaves. Lavinia looked up at, smiling. She, too, to her delight, recognized

that she had been left out of the matter. Milo was learning, quickly, how to

relate to her, namely, as her master. She was a slave. Such decisions would be

made by others. She would not participate in them, but, as was appropriate for a

slave, simply abide by their consequences.

“Certainly,” I said.

He pondered the matter.

“And,” I said, glancing down at Lavinia, “if she is not pleasing, use it on her,

literally, and well.”

He swallowed, hard.

She put down her head, shyly.

“She is a slave,” I said, “not a free companion, who may not be touched, to whom

nothing may be done, even if she turns your life into a torture, even if she

drives you mad, even if she intends to destroy you, hort by hort.”

“She is so beautiful,” he said. “It is hard to think of touching her with the

whip.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “it is the most beautiful who are the most in need of a

whipping.”

“May I speak?” asked Lavinia.

“Yes,” said Milo.

“Too, Master,” said Lavinia. “I love you, so I want you, sometime, or sometimes,

to whip me.”

He regarded her, puzzled.

“I want to know I am your slave,” she said.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Teach me that you are my master.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“It has to do with being subject to the master,” I said, “with being truly his.”

“Interesting,” said Milo.

“For a female,” I said, “I would recommend the wide-bladed, five stranded whip.”

(pg. 468) Lavinia looked up, startled. She had not anticipated, it seemed, that

whip. Doubtless she already regretted her recent tolerances and enthusiasms. If

it were to be to that particular implement that she was to be subject, matters,

it seemed, were to be viewed suddenly in a quite different perspective. On Gor,

slave girls live in terror of that whip. It is designed for the female slave, to

correct her behavior with great effectiveness while not leaving lasting traces,

which might reduce her value.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked Lavinia.

“I will try to be pleasing to my master,” she said.

“I am sure of it,” I said.

“It seems she knows that whip,” he said.

“She has at least heard of it,” I said. “With it on your wall, I have little

doubt she will prove to be a most excellent slave, particularly if she has once

felt it. It is an excellent tool. You can buy one for as little as one or two

copper tarsks.”

“You are going to come into some money,” I said.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“You are well advised to leave Ar,” I said.

“Undoubtedly,” he said.

“For this,” I said, “you should have money.”

“But alas,” smiled Milo,” I have no money.”

“Here,” I said, “are ten pieces of gold.” I counted them out, into Milo’s hand.

He looked at me, disbelievingly. I had already given fifteen pieces to Tolnar

and Venlisius each. They had upheld the laws of Ar and preserved their honor.

They would also file the papers, and several certified copies of them, in

various places, and, by courier, with certain other parties, official and

unofficial, in various cities. It would be next to impossible, for, say,

Seremides, to recover them all. I retained my copies, of course. Both Tolnar and

Venlisius, with my concurrence, thought it wise to remove both themselves and

their families from Ar. Fifteen gold pieces each was a fortune. It would enable

them to relocate with ease and reestablish themselves much as they might wish,

wherever they might wish. At the time Boots Tarsk-Bit had obtained the Home

Stone of Ar’s Station I had had something like ninety gold pieces left from the

one hundred gold pieces I had obtained in the north. I had given Boots half of

these, forty-five gold pieces, and had retained the other forty-five. I had then

given fifteen each to Tolnar and Venlisius. I had now given ten to Milo, and had

retained five. Five pieces of gold, in its way, incidentally, is also a fortune

on Gor. One could live, for example, in many cities, (pg. 469) though not in

contemporary Ar, with its press on housing and shortages of food, for years on

such resources.*”

*Although it is not my policy to include Cabot’s marginal notes, jottings, etc.,

which are often informal, and apparently written at different times, in the text

of his accounts, I think it would not be amiss to hypothesize certain

approximate equivalencies here. To be sure, much seems to depend on the city and

the particular weights involved. For example, a ‘double tarn’ is twice the

weight of a ‘tarn.’ It seems there are usually eight tarsk bits in a copper

tarsk, and that these are the result of cutting a circular coin in half, and

then the halves in half, and then each of these halves in half. An analogy would

be the practice of cutting the round, flat Gorean loaves of sa-tarna bread into

eight pieces. There are apparently something like one hundred copper tarsks in a

silver tarsk in many cities. Similarly, something like ten silver tarsks would

apparently be equivalent, depending on weights, etc., to one gold piece, say, a

singer ‘tarn.’ Accordingly, on this approach, the equivalents, very

approximately, and probably only for certain cities, would be eight tarsk bits

to a copper tarsk; one hundred copper tarsks to a silver tarsk; and ten silver

tarsks to a gold piece, a single tarn. On this approach there would be,

literally, 8,000 tarsk bits in a single gold piece. –J.N.

“Permit me,” said Milo, “to return one of these gold pieces to you.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You paid a tarsk bit for me,” he smiled. “Thus I would not wish you to lose

money on the arrangement.”

“He learns honor, and generosity, quickly,” I said to Lavinia.

“He is my master,” she said.

I showed the coin to Marcus. “You see,” I said to him, “I have made a

considerable profit.”

“You should be of the merchants,” he assured me.

The new slave, she in the bracelets and shackles, lying on her side, chained by

the neck, to the ring, near the couch, made a tiny sound.

I put the gold piece back in my wallet.

“You should leave,” said Marcus to Milo.

“But a moment,” I said.

I looked down at the new slave, whom I had decided to call ‘Talena’, which slave

name was also entered on her papers, in the first endorsement, as her first

slave name pertinent to these papers, and by means of which she could always be

referred to in courts of law as, say, the slave who on such and such a date was

known by the name ‘Talena.’ This did not preclude her name being changed, of

course, now or later, by myself, or others. Slaves, as other animals, may be

named, or renamed, as the masters please. Indeed, if the master wishes, they

need not be named at all. She made another small sound, like a tiny moan of

protest. She stirred, a little. I saw her hands twist a little, behind her, her

wrists locked in the bracelets.

(pg. 470) I went to the table at the side of the couch and lifted up the

decanter of wine. I then stood near the slave and poured the wine out, upon her.

She jerked under the thin, chill stream, awakening, discovering herself chained.

“Who dares!” she cried.

I handed the decanter to Marcus, who put it to the side.

“You!” she cried, lying on her side, turning her head, looking up at me. “Is it

truly you?”

“On your knees, slave girl,” I said, lifting her to her knees.

“It is you!” she cried, wildly, now kneeling.

“Your name is ‘Talena’,” I said. “That is the name I have put on you.”

“Sleen!” she said. She could not rise to her feet, as she was back-braceleted,

with her ankles shackled closely to her wrists.

“Lavinia,” I said. “Come here, and kneel beside the new slave.”

Lavinia obeyed, but with obvious uneasiness.

“She-sleen!” cried the new slave.

Lavinia kept her eyes straight ahead.

“Sleen!” cried the slave, Talena, to Milo.

“I was a seduction slave,” he said to her. “I obeyed my master.”