Blood Brothers of Gor (7 page)

The girl regarded him, frightened, as he, intent, did this work.

He then stood up.

She knelt at his feet, looking up at him, frightened, her knees now again pressed closely together.

Two men, with kaiila quirts, now stood behind the girl. She was not aware of their presence.

I then realized what the men, doubtless, had in mind.

I smiled.

"Oh!" cried the girl, frightened, dismayed, as Cancega suddenly, with his foot, forced her knees widely apart. She did not dare close them. She now, for the first time in the afternoon, knelt as a slave.

Then, suddenly, the two men with the kaiila quirts struck her across the back and, before she could do more than cry out, she was, too, pulled to her feet and forward, on the two tethers.

She then stood, held by the tethers, wildly, before the pole.

Cancga pointed to the pole.

She looked at him, bewildered. Then the quirts, again, struck her, and she cried out in pain.

Cancega again pointed to the pole.

Winyela then put her head down and took the ple in her small hands, and kissed it, humbly.

"Yes," said Cancega, encouraging her. "Yes."

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Again Winyela kissed the pole.

"Yes," said Cancega.

Winyela then heard the rattles behind her, giving her her rhythm. These rattles were then joined by the fifing of whistles, shrill and high, formed from the wing bones of the taloned Herlit. A small drum, too, then began to sound. Its more accented beats, approached subtly but predictably, instructed the helpless, lovely dancer as to the placement and timing of the more dramatic of her demonstrations and motions.

"It is the Kaiila," chanted the men.

Winyela danced. There was dust upon her hair and on her body. On her cheeks were the three bars of grease that marked her as the property of the Kaiila. Grease, too, had been smeared liberally upon her body. No longer was she a shining beauty. She was now only a filthy slave, an ingnoble animal, something of no account, something worthless, obviously, but nonetheless permitted, in the kindness of the Kaiila, a woman of another people, to attempt to please the pole.

I smiled.

Was this not suitable? Was this not appropriate for her, a slave?

Winyela, kissing the pole, and caressing it, and moving about it, and rubbing her body against it, under the directions of Cancega, and guided sometimes by the tethers on her neck, continued to dance.

I whistled softly to myself.

"Ah," said Cuwingnaka.

"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.

"I think the pole will be pleased," I said.

"I think a rock would be pleased," said Cuwignaka.

"I agree," I said.

Winyela, by the neck tethers, was pulled against the pole. She seized it, and writhed against it, and licked at it.

"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.

"It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka.

A transofrmation seemed suddenly to come over Winyela. This was evinced in her dance.

"She is arouse," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

She began, then, helplessly, to dance her servitude, her submission, her slavery. The dance, then, came helplessly for the depths of her. The tethers pulled her back from the pole

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and she reached forth for it. She struggled to reach it, writhing. Bit by bit she was permitted to near it, and then she embraced it. She climed, then, upon the pole. There her dance, on her knees, her belly and back, squirming and clutching, continued.

I looked to Canka. He was a few yards away, astride his kaiila. He rode bareback. This is common in short rides about the village, or in going out to check kaiila. The prestige of the saddle, and its dressiness, is not required in local errands or short jaunts. Similarly, in such trips its inconvenience may be dispensed with. He watched Winyela dance. His dark eyes shone. He knew he was her master.

Winyela now knelt on the pole and bent backwards, until her hair fell about the wood, and then she slipped her legs down about the pole behind her head. She reared helplessly on the pole, and writhed upon it, almost as though she might have been chained to it, and then, she turned about and lay on the pole, on her stomach, her thighs gripping it, her hands pushing her body up, and away from the pole, and then, suddenly, moving down about the trunk, bringing her head and shoulders down. Her red hair hung about the smooth, white wood. Her lips, again and again, pressed down upon it, in helpless kisses.

"She is quite good, the slave," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

"She has not been trained to do this, has she?" asked Cuwignaka.

"Not to my knowledge," I said. It seemed to me rather unlikely that debutantes from high society would be trained to perform the supplication and passion dances of slave girls.

"It is instinctual in a woman," said Cuwignaka.

"I think so," I said. It seemed to me not unlikely, for many reasons, having to do with sexual selection, in particular, that such behaviors were, at least in broad outlines, genetically coded. Behaviors can be selected for, of course, and tendencies to behaviors, as well as such things as the color of hair and eyes. This is evident from the data of ethology. A woman's acquisition of the skills of erotic dance, incidentally, like those of a child's linguistic skills, follows an unusually sharp learning curve. This suggests that the rudiments of such dance, or the readiness for it, like the capacity, at least, for the rapid and efficient acquisition of language, is genetically coded. Sex, and human nature, may not be irrelevant to biology.

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"Superb," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

Winyela, helplessly, piteously, danced her obeisance to the great pole, and, in this, to her masters, and to men.

"Look," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said "Yes!"

I well understood, now, why free women could not be permitted to see such a dance. It was the dance of a slave. How horrified, how scandalized, they would have been. Better that they not even know such things could exist. Such dances, that such tihngs could be, are doubtless best kept as the secrets of masters and slaves. Too, how furious, how outraged, they would be, to see how beautiful, how exciting and desirable another woman could be, a thousand times more beautiful, exciting and desirable than themselves, and one who has naught but a slave. But then how could any free woman compete with a slave, one who is truly mastered and owned?

I watched Winyela dance.

It was easy to see how free women could be almost insanely jealous of slaves, and how they could hate them so, so inordinately and deeply. Too, it was little wonder that slaves, helpless in their collars, so feared and dreaded free women.

"The slave dances well," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

In her dance, of course, Winyela was understood to be dancing not only her personal slavery, which she surely was, but, from the point of view of the Kaiila, in the symboism of the dance, in the medicine of the dance, that the women of enemies were fit to be no more than the slaves of the Kaiila. I did not doubt but what the Fleer and the Yellow Knives, and other peoples, too, might have similar ceremonies, in which, in one way or another, a similar profession might take place, there being danced or enacted also by a woman of another group, perhaps even, in those cases, by a maiden of the Kaiila. I, myself, saw the symbolism of the dance, and, I think, so, too, did Winyela, in a pattern far deeper than that of an ethnocentric idiosyncrasy. I saw the symbolism as being in accord with what is certainly one of the deepest and most pervasive themes of organic nature, that of dominance and submission. In the dance, as I chose to understand it, Winyela danced the glory of life and the natural order; in it she danced her submission to the might of men and the fulfillment of her own femaleness; in it she danced her desire to

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be owned, to feel passion, to give of herself, unstintingly, to surrender herself, rejoicing, to service and love.

"It is the Kaiila!" shouted the men.

"It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka.

Winyela was dragged back, toward the bottom of the pole, on its tripods. There she was knelt down. The two men holding her neck tethers slipped the rawhide, between their first and the girl's neck, under their feet, the man on her left under his right foot. But already Winyela, of her own accord, breathing deeply from the exertions of her dance, and trembling, had put her head to the dirt, humbly, before the pole. Then the tension on the two tethers was increased, the rawhide on her neck being drawn tight under the feet of her keepers. I do not think winyela desired to rise her head. But now, of course, she could not have done so had she wished. It was held in place. I think this is the way she would have wanted it. This is what she would have chosen, to be owned, to serve, to be deprived of choice.

The men about slapped their thighs and grunted their approval. The music stopped. The tethers were removed from Winyela's neck. She then, tentatively, lifted her head. It seemed now she was forgotten. Her garments and jewelry, rolled in a bundle, were tied in what would be the lower fork of the pole. Two other objects, on long thongs, which were wrapped about the higher fork, were placed in the higher fork. Later, when the pole was set in the enclosure of the dance, the tongs would be unwrapped and the two objects would hang beside the pole. Both were of leather. One was an image of a kailiauk. The other was an image of a man. The image of the man had an exaggerated phallus, thrust forth and nearly as long as an arm, of a sort common in primitive art. I was reminded by these things of the midicine of the pole, and of the great forthcoming dance, projected to take place about it. The medicine of the pole and dance had intimately to do, obviously, with such things as hunting, fertility and manhood. To the red savages the medicine world is very real.

"You may get up," said Cuwignaka to Winyela. She was looking about herself, bewildered, apparently forgotten. She rose up and went to the side of Canka, astride his kaiila, her master. Men were lowering the medicing pole to the ground and breaking apart the tripods. Ropes had been put on the pole. Then, preceded by Cancega, with his medicine wand,

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uttering formulas, followed by his two seconds, with thier rattles, the pole, pulled on its ropes, being drawn by several kaiila, was dragged toward the camp.

"You were very beautiful, Winyela," said Canka.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

He put down his hand and drew her up, before him, both her legs to the left side, to the back of the Kaiila. He then held he rin place, before him. He wore only his breechclout, moccasins and knife.

"I am so dirty," she said. "Surely you will not want me to touch your body."

But he held her to him, possesively. One arm was about her shoulders, the other beneath her thighs. She looked small in his arms, on the kaiila.

"I am so ashamed," she said, "how I must have looked, how I acted."

I remembered that she was from Earth, with its foolish, irrational negativistic conditionings, largely a heritage from the teachings of celibate lunatics. How pernicious can be the infected, poisonous heirlooms of madmen.

"In your dance," said Canka, "you were not ashamed."

"No," she said. "It was almost as thought I were another. I was sensuous, brazen, bold and free."

"Free?" asked Canka, smiling.

"Surely Master knows that of all women it is only a total slave who can be truly free."

Canka smiled. In one sense, of course, the slave has no freedom whatsoever. She has no rights, and is totally and absolutely owned. In another sense, of course, she is the most free of women.

"I am not truly ashamed," said the girl.

"I know," said Canka.

"Rather, I am shamelessly proud and happy," she said.

"Good," said Canka. "That is how it should be."

"I am only a slave," she said.

"That is true," said Canka.

"It is your collar which is on my neck, Master," she said.

"Yes," said Canka.

"I am your slave," she said.

"Yes," said Canka.

"I love you, Master," she said. "Do you care for me, perhaps, just a little?"

"Perhaps," said Canka.

She nestled back, in his arms.

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"What are you going to do with me now, Master?" she asked.

"I am going to take you to my lodge," said Canka. "There I will use you, many times."