Kajira of Gor (9 page)

an ingredient, and not a mere accessory. It might lie at the very core of this

world. An essential and ineradicable ele-red to be sexuality, with its basic

distinctions between human beings, dividing them clearly into different sorts,

into males and females. In a world such as this I realized that I might not only

be permitted to express my natural, fundamental nature, but that I might be

encouraged to do so. This was a world in which my femininity, whatever it was,

and wherever it might lead, was not to be denied to me. I glanced at the whip on

the wall. On this world, I suspected, I might even be given no choice but to be

true to my sex, and fully. For a moment this made me angry.

Surely I had a right to frustrate and deny my sex if I wished. If I was afraid

to be a woman, truly and fundamentally, with all that it might entail, surely I

should not be forced to become one! Yet I knew that in my heart I felt a sudden,

marvelous surge of hope, a sense of possible liberation, that I might here, on

this world, be freed, even if I were placed in a steel collar, to be what I

truly was, not merely a human being, but the kind of human being I actually was,

a human female, a woman.

“Mistress’ drink is cold,” said the girl. “Let me have it reheated or fetch you

a fresh one.”

“No,” I said. “It is fine.” I lifted the small, handleless bowl

he had used the word in two hands. I was excited that she had said “fetch.” She

was the sort of girl who might carry or fetch for a Master or a Mistress.

“Mistress,” said the girl. “You are a woman. Drink more delicately.”

I drank from the bowl.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “That is more feminine.” I then realized, even more

profoundly than before, bow deeply sexuality must characterize and penetrate

this culture. The differences between men and women were to be expressed even in

their smallest behaviors. What a significant and real thing it is in this

culture to be a man or a woman.

“This is warmed chocolate,” I said, pleased. It was very rich and creamy.

“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

“It is very good,” I said.

“Thank you, Mistress,” she said.

“Is it from Earth?” I asked.

“Not directly,” she said. “Many things here, of course, ultimately have an Earth

origin. It is not improbable that the beans from which the first cacao trees on

this world were grown were brought from Earth.”

“Do the trees grow near here?” I asked.

“No, Mistress,” she said. “We obtain the beans, from which the chocolate is

made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics.”

I put the chocolate down. I began to bite at the yellow bread. It was fresh.

“Perhaps Mistress should take smaller bites,” she said.

“Very well,” I said. I then began to eat as she had suggested. I was a woman. I

was not an adolescent boy. Again, even in so small a thing as this, I began to

feel my femininity keenly. Too, again, I became very sensitive of the depth and

pervasiveness of the sexuality which might characterize this world. Men and

women did not even eat in the same way.

“Exceptions can occur under certain circumstances, of course,” said the girl.

“Mistress might, for example, in the presence of a man she wishes to arouse,

take a larger than normal bite from a fresh fruit, and look at the man over the

fruit, letting juice, a tiny trickle of it, run at the side of her mouth.”

“But why would I wish to arouse a man?” I asked.

The girl looked at me, puzzled. “Perhaps the needs of Mistress might be much

upon her,” she said. “Perhaps she might wish to be taken and overwhelmed in his

arms, and forced to surrender to him.”

“I do not understand,” I said, as though horrified.

“That is because Mistress is free,” she said.

I had understood only too well, of course. But I was terrified to even think

such thoughts.

“Slaves, I suppose, occasionally have recourse to such devices,” I said. I was

eager to learn.

“A device such as that with the fresh fruit,” she said, “is more appropriate to

a free woman. We do have at our disposal, as slaves, however, a number and

variety of begging signals, such things as groveling and moaning, and bringing

bonds to him in our teeth, wherewith we may endeavor to call our needs to his

attention.”

“Begging signals?” I said.

“We are at the complete mercy of our masters,” she said.

“Are the masters then kind to you?” I asked.

“Sometimes they consent to content us,” she said.

“How horrifying to be a slave,” I said.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said, putting her head down, smiling. I saw that, again,

she was answering me in the fashion in which, doubtless, I wished to be

answered, doubtless with deference to my dignity, status or freedom. Sorely then

I envied her her collar. My feelings now began to alarm me. I decided that it

would be safest to change the subject.

“Where are the spaceships?” I asked.

“Spaceships?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I do not know,” she said. “I have never even seen one.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Has Mistress?” she asked.

“No,” I said. I gathered that Susan, like myself, had been brought to this world

unconscious. We knew nothing, or almost nothing, of how we had come here.

“The people of this world have very little evidence,” she said, “that such

things even exist. The only evidence they have, for the most part, is that of

certain objects brought from Earth.”

“Objects?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Usually girls, in chains.”

“You refer to them as ‘objects’?” I asked, horrified.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said. “They are slaves.”

“I see,” I said.

“This world is, as Mistress will discover,” said the girl, “on the whole a very

primitive and barbaric place. Do not expect to see complex machines and

spaceships.”

“Oh,” I said.

understand something of the discipline under which slaves might be held. I

wondered what it would be like to be under such discipline. I shuddered.

“Does Mistress enjoy her breakfast?” asked the girl.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” she said.

“Susan,” I said.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said.

“This seems to be a very sexual world,” I said.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said.

“Are women safe here?” I asked.

“No, Mistress,” she said. “Not really.”

“You said earlier,” I said, “that I was very beautiful.” She had seen me naked.

“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

“Do you think that men here, on this world, might find me of interest?”

“Do you mean really of interest,” she asked- “as a female slave?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will Mistress open her robe?” she asked.

I did so.

“Will Mistress please stand and remove her robe, and let it dangle from one

hand, and turn, slowly, before me?”

I did so. I waited, inspected.

“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl.

I nearly fainted in fear, terrified, but not a little thrilled by this insight.

“Mistress would look well being sold from a block,” she said.

Hastily, frightened, I pulled the robe on again, and belted it tightly.

“But I think Mistress has little to fear,” she said.

I regarded her. In the girl’s view, in some respects at least, as I had just

learned, I was not unsuitable for slavery.

“Why?” I asked.

“You are well guarded,” she said. “Your quarters, even, are in the palace of

Corcyrus.”

“This is the palace? There are guards about?” I asked.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said.

“I am frightened by your master,” I said.

“l, too, am frightened by him,” she said.

“No doubt our fears are quite silly,” I said.

“No, Mistress,” she said.

“No?” I asked.

“No, Mistress,” she said. “Our fears are fully justified. They are quite

appropriate.”

“Do you think he wants me?” I asked. I was terrified of Ligurious.

“I do not think so,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“If he wanted you,” she said, “by now you would have been branded. By now you

would be in his collar. By now you would have been chained naked at the foot of

his couch.

By now you would have felt his whip. By now you would have learned to beg to

serve him.”

“Oh,” I said.

“It is not that he does not recognize your beauty,” she said.

“That any man could see at a glance.”

“Oh,” I said, somewhat mollified. I would have been outraged, or something in me

would have been outraged, if I had not been thought worth a chain. I was sure I

could prove to a man that I was worthy of a chain.

“His interest in you, merely, does not appear to be in that way,” she said.

“Too, of course, he has many beautiful women, and is a busy man.”

“Many beautiful women?” I asked.

“Slaves,” she said.

“More than you?” I asked.

“I am only one of his girls,” she laughed, “and I am surely one of the least

beautiful.”

“How many slaves does he have?” I asked.

“He is an ambitious and abstemious man,” she said. “He worked long hours in the

service of the state. He has little time for the meaningless charms of slaves.”

“How many slaves does lie have?” I asked.

“Fifty,” she said.

I gasped.

“Perhaps Mistress would like to finish her breakfast,” said the girl.

I knelt down before the small table, as I had been taught. I was trembling.

Here, as I had just learned, one man might own as many as fifty women.

“Mistress is not eating,” said the girl.

“I am not hungry,” I said.

“Am I to report to my master, Ligurious,” asked the girl, “that Mistress did not

finish her breakfast?”

“No,” I said. “No!”

“Every bit of it, please, Mistress,” said the girl.

I nodded. I ate. I felt like a slave.

Then I had finished.

“Excellent, Mistress,” said the girl. “I shall now dress Mistress. I will teach

her the proper garments, and their adjustments, and the veils, and their

fastenings. Then it will be time for her lessons.”

“Lessons?” I asked, frightened.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said.

“What, sort of lessons?” I asked, apprehensively.

“Lessons in language,” she said. “Lessons in our habits and customs. Lessons in

the details of the governance of Corcyrus.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Tiffany Collins” I said.

“No, Mistress,” she said.

I looked at her, puzzled.

“Put that identity behind you,” she said. “Regard it as being gone, as much as

if you were a slave. Prepare to begin anew.

“But, how?” I asked. “What am I to do? Who am I to be?”

“That much I know,” smiled the girl. “I know your new identity. My master has

told me.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“From this moment on,” said the girl, “accustom yourself to thinking of yourself

as Sheila, Tatrix, of Corcyrus.”

“Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus?” I said.

“Yes,” said the girl.

“What is a Tatrix?” I asked.

“A female ruler,” she said.

I looked at her, disbelievingly.

“It is a great honor for me,” said the girl, “to serve the Tatrix of Corcyrus.”

I trembled, kneeling behind the small table. The brief robe of yellow silk did

not seem much to wear. I was afraid of the world on which I found myself.

“Who are you?” asked the girl.

“Sheila?” I said. “Tatrix of Corcyrus?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please say it, Mistress. Who are you?”

“I am Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus,” I whispered.

“That is correct, Mistress,” said the girl.

“I do not understand,” I said. “I do not understand anything! I do not even know

the name of the world on which I find myself.”

“It is called Gor,” she said.

4
     
A Night in Corcyrus

I awakened, sometime late at night. I had been dreaming in Gorean, the language

spoken in Corcyrus, and, I had learned, in much of this world.

Jt

Several weeks had passed since I had been brought here. In this time I had been

immersed, for hours, for Ahn, a day in studies and trainings pertinent to my new

environment. I was still muchly imperfect in many things, but there was little

doubt in my mind, nor I think in that of my numerous teachers, that I had made

considerable progress.

I lay nude, late at night, on the great couch. The night was warm.

Supposedly I was Sheila, the Tatrix of this city, Corcyrus.

I could still feel the effects of the wine I had had for supper. I do not think

that it was an ordinary wine. I think that it was an unusual wine in some

respects, or, perhaps, that it had been drugged.

I had had a strange dream, mixed in with other dreams. It was difficult to sort

these things out.

In the past few days, gradually, I had been entered into the public life of

Corcyrus, primarily in small things such as granting audiences, usually with

foreigners, and making brief public appearances. Always, in these things,

Ligurious, happily, unobtrusively, was at my side. Often, had it not been for

his suggestions, I would not have known what to do or say. I Had even, the day

before yesterday, held court, though, to be sure, the cases were minor.

“Let the churl be stripped,” I had said, imperiously, “and a sign be put about

his neck, proclaiming him a fraud. Then let him be marched naked, before the