Savages of Gor (34 page)

Grunt then sat down and began to talk with the other men, not the two still standing, as though nothing had happened, as though it had been only a bit of sport with two imbonded sluts, only an amusement for the entertainment of his guests.

One of the standing men pointed to Ulla, and said something. The other pointed to Lenna, and, too, said something.

"Oh?" asked Grunt, innocently.

I smiled to myself. It is hard for a man to subdue and bind a naked woman without wanting her. I thought Grunt would get an excellent price for the two beauties.

The red-haired girl, whimpering, was still lying beneath the red youth, clutched in his arms. She looked at me, frightened. He was again, eagerly, at her body. She had well succeeded, it seemed, as her master had desired, in arousing his interest. He had turned her about, roughly, curiously, this way and that, from time to time, caressing her and examining her, and making her please him. There was some blood at her mouth, where, once or twice, he had cuffed her. I saw her hands, half wanting to grasp him, half wanting to thrust him back. He was speaking to her in Dust Leg, slowly and clearly. "Yes, Master," she whimpered, in Gorean. "Yes, Master." It amused me that the youth, like so many individuals to whom only one language is familiar, so familiar that it seems that all humans must, in one way or another, be conversant with it, seemed to think that the girl must surely understand him if only he would speak slowly enough and with sufficient distinctness. Grunt, of course, might have helped her, but he was engaged in business. I, myself, though I had acquired a few words of Dust Leg, had little more idea, specifically, of what the youth was saying than the girl did. His tone of voice suggested that he was not commending her on her beauty, a pastime on which the masters are inclined to waste little time with their white slaves, but ordering her to do something. "Relax," I told the girl. "Let loose of yourself. Feel. Yield."

She looked at me, frightened.

"You are a slave," I told her. "Yield, and yield fully-and as a slave."

She then, gratefully, clutched the youth, and put her head back, rapturously sobbing and shuddering.

I then saw that my presence, interestingly, had had an inhibiting influence on her. She bad been on the brink of yielding, a nerve's width away, but had been fighting her feelings and herself, apparently shamed to yield as a slave to another man in my presence.

She cried out with pleasure, clutching the red youth.

"Winyela," said the Dust-Leg woman, scornfully.

Slave girls must yield, and fully, to any man. Their entire mental set, so to speak, in the furs, is oriented toward providing the master with marvelous pleasures, and, in their own case, to feel as richly and deeply as possible, and, in the end, in an uncompromised and delicious capitulation, submitting fully to their master, to obtain the surrender spasms of one who is merely a vanquished woman, naught but an owned and degraded slave. This is quite different from the mental set taken by the free woman to the furs, of course, with attendant deleterious consequences for the free woman, in so far as any woman could be called free who is not surrendered and owned. The free woman is expected to pervert her nature in the furs, behaving as a cultural identical rather than as what she is by nature, the servant and slave of her master. It is little wonder that the free woman, concerned with her putative identically, her status, her image, her dignity and pride, is often inhibited and sexually inert in the furs. The Goreans say that if one has never had a slave one has never had a woman. Similarly there is a secret saying, among Gorean men, that no female is a woman, who has not been made a slave. The free woman, often, fears to feel. The slave, on the other hand, fears not to feel, for she may then, in all likelihood, be punished. The same frigidity which may be accounted a virtue among free women, figuring in their vanity competitions, how well they can resist men, is commonly among slaves an occasion for the imposition of severe discipline; it can even constitute a capital offense. The degraded slave has little choice but to yield, and yield well. An interesting question arises as to whether a woman, permitted her own will in the matter, as a slave is not, can be forced to yield. There are two answers to this question, and the division between the answers is primarily a function of the time involved. Within a given amount of time, say, half of an Ahn, some women can resist some men. On the other hand, there will be some men whom they cannot resist and to whom, despite their will in the matter, they will find themselves uncontrollably yielding. Given a longer amount of time, however, any woman may be made to yield, whether she wishes to or not, by any man. Sometimes, after such a yielding, she is then collared. "Resistance is now no longer permitted," he tells her. "Yes, Master," she says. She now knows that she, as a slave, must open herself to feeling, and even seek it avidly, even knowing whence it leads, to the acknowledgment of the male as her master, and of her as his slave.

Behind me the red-haired girl was whimpering with pleasure in the arms of the red youth.

"Winyela," snorted the Dust-Leg woman, contemptuously.

"Four," I said, recalling her attention to our bargaining.

"Two," she said, eyeing the mirror.

"Four," I said.

"Three," she said, suddenly, beaming, the fine, strong teeth bright in her broad, reddish-brown face.

"Three," I agreed. I saw she wanted the mirror.

I gave her the mirror and she gave me the three beaded rectangles. She then rose up, well pleased, and took her leave. I folded up the blanket with the goods, and the beaded rectangles, within it. I had certainly not driven a difficult bargain. Grunt, two days ago, had received five such articles for a similar mirror. I should, I supposed, have set my original price higher.

I looked to my right and I saw the two red warriors tying beaded collars on the necks of Ulla and Lenna. Kailiauk robes lay on the grass. Earlier today Grunt had fashioned a travels for his pack kaiila. Such a device, the poles crossing over the withers of the kaiila, reduces the animal's speed but makes it possible for it to transport a heavier weight. Travels are common, particularly in the movements of camps, among he red savages. Travois, I suspected, would be heavily laden by the time Grunt was ready to return to Kailiauk.

I glanced to where the kaiila of the Dust Legs were located. The girl there, the dark-haired girl in the beaded collar, still knelt as she had been placed, at the paws of her master's kaiila. Her head was still down. She did not look up. She was under excellent discipline.

Between where the men sat and the coffle, a bit to the right, was the spread-out kailiauk robe under which Grunt had put Margaret, naked, her legs drawn up. She had been under the robe for hours. It would be hot under the robe, in the sun, and there would be insects in the grass. I grinned. I think she was learning her slavery. It was a clever trick on Grunt's part. Certainly the Dust- Legs who, like most red savages, are an inquisitive, observant folk, would be curious as to the precise nature of the goods which lay beneath that robe. Clearly it was a woman. Was Grunt trying to hide her?

I saw leather thongs put on the necks of Ulla and Lenna, the beaded collars thrust up to admit them. These thongs were then tied to the high pommels of the kaiila saddles. Such saddles are not uncommon among the red savages, though they are commonly used for visiting, trading and ceremonial journeys. The hunting and war the red savage commonly rides bareback. The thongs were some seven or eight feet in length and the red savages knelt Ulla and Lenna down, their bands still tied behind them by the forepaws of their kaiila.

One of the red savages was now walking over to the kailiauk robe beneath which lay Margaret.

The red youth now rose from the side of the red-haired girl, adjusting his breechclout. He then indicated that she should roll onto her stomach, which she did. He then slapped her twice, commending her. Her hands clutched at the grass. He then sauntered away.

I walked over to her. "It seems I have served my purpose," she whispered, angrily, in English.

"One of your purposes," I said, "for the time being." I spoke to her in English.

She rose to her hands and knees, and looked up at me. She put down her head, reddening. She looked up again, angrily, and then, again, put down her head, blushing. "Why did you make me yield?" she asked.

"You wanted to," I said. "And, besides, as a slave, you must yield."

She did not speak.

"Are you angry?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I heard you cry out, and whimper with pleasure," I said.

"It is true," she said. "I did want to yield. How terrible I must be."

"Such feelings," I said, "such desires to yield, are not only permitted of the slave, but required of her."

"Required?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "Do not confuse yourself with a free woman. You are quite different from her."

"And as a slave," she said, "I had to yield. I had no choice, did I?"

"No," I said. "The slave must yield, and fully."

"How can you respect me?" she asked.

"Assume the belly position, and kiss my feet, Slave," I said.

She did so.

"What now was your question?" I asked.

"How-how can you respect me?" she asked, half choking.

"I do not," I told her. "Do you know why?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I am a slave," she said.

"True," I said.

"How strong are the men of this world," she said, wonderingly. "How they own, and dominate us. How, before them, can we be anything but women?"

"Your question about respect was stupid," I said. "Perhaps you should be lashed."

"Please do not lash me, Master," she said.

I turned to leave. "Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Tonight," she said, "I beg to be taken from the coffle for your pleasure."

"Tonight," I said, "I think I may be more in the mood for Lois or Inez, or perhaps Priscilla. We shall see. And tonight, in the coffle, you will be bound, hand and foot. Perhaps that will teach you to ask stupid questions."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then went over to the kailiauk hide where one of the Dust Legs was standing. Grunt had joined him there. Grunt seemed reluctant to lift the hide.

"Hou," I said to the Dust Leg.

"Hou," said he to me.

"Ieska!" called one of the Dust Legs, rising to his feet, where the men had been sitting. This was another of the names by which Grunt was known in the Barrens. It literally is one who speaks well. Less literally, it is used as a general expression for an interpreter.

Grunt excused himself and went to see what the man wanted. He was the fellow who had been looking at the hatchet. The fellow was holding up three fingers, and then he pointed to the dark-haired girl kneeling by the kaiila.

In an instant she had been summoned, and she hurried to him, as she could, with her head down, following the sound of his voice. When she reached her master and Grunt her master put his hand under her chin and thrust up her head. She looked about, startled, wildly, now permitted to regard surroundings. She saw the other kaiila, the men, Grunt, myself, the girls in the coffle. Then she was stripped and knelt naked, before Grunt. He had her rise and turn slowly, her back arched, her hands behind the back of her head, before him. Then he again knelt her.

"Tarl," called Grunt to me. I went to him, and he tossed me his whip. "See if she whips well," he said.

The girl looked up at me, frightened.

"On your hands and knees," I told her.

She assumed this posture.

Much can be told of the responsiveness of a girl by how she moves beneath the whip.

I would give her three lashes. After all I was not whipping her, but testing her.

I would not strike her with my full strength, but, on the other hand, she must know clearly that she had been struck.

How else could the test prove significant?

She cried out, thrown to her belly by the first stroke. I then administered the second stroke. She cried out in misery and turned to her side, pulling up her legs. I then struck her a third time and she cried out again, sobbing, and pulled up her legs even more.

I thought she moved well beneath the whip. She obviously felt it, keenly.

"On your hands and knees," said Grunt. He then, as she shuddered, felt her, she recently impressed with the might of men over her, she freshly lashed.

"Good," said Grunt.

She became Grunt's for three hatchets. She was, after all, only a white female slave and they were fine hatchets.

"Ieska! Wopeton!" called the fellow by the kailiauk hide.

We left the dark-haired girl on the grass, where she had been lashed, and then purchased.

The Dust Leg requested that the kailiauk hide be thrown aside. Grunt, a shrewd fellow, appeared to demur, and, indeed, even invited the fellow to examine the other girls on the coffle. The fellow, however, scarcely cast a glance at them, but they shrank back, under even so cursory an examination, fearing to belong to a red master. He did look for a longer moment at the red-haired girl but Grunt said something to him, and he turned from her again to speculate on what might lie concealed beneath the kailiauk hide. Grunt apparently did not wish to release the red-haired girl in a common sale. He had, it seemed, another disposition in mind for her. I remembered he had speculated that he would get five hides of the yellow kailiauk for her. No, she had not been brought along, marched into the Barrens, as a mere beast of burden. He had something else in mind for her.