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slaves to Free WomenThese are relevant references from the Books where slaves to Free Women are mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban "Know you not," asked she, with sudden insolence and coldness, "that I am a free woman?" I said nothing. "Dare you aspire to a free woman?" she demanded. "No," I said. "Dare you aspire to your mistress, Slave?" she demanded. "No," I said, "no!" "Why not?" she demanded. "I am a slave," I said. "Only a slave." "That is true," she said. "You are only a slave." "Slave," she sneered. "Yes, Mistress," I whispered, and looked down. I could not meet her eyes, those of a free woman. Our training in the pens of Ko-ro-ba now began to move toward its conclusion. Our bodies, superbly trained, even those of Inge and Ute, now became unmistakably those of slave girls. We had had into our bodies mysteries of movements of which even we, for the most part, were no longer aware, subtle signals of appetite, of passion and of obedience to a masculine touch, movements which excited the fierce jealousy, the hatred, of free women, particularly ignorant free women, who feared, and perhaps rightly, that their men might leave them for the purchase or capture of such a prize. Most slave girls, incidentally, fear free women greatly. The true slave girl knows that she is owned. This makes a difference in how she performs many tasks. Her body, in almost all of its movements, will betray her bondage. It is difficult for a free woman to imitate the actions of a slave girl. She does not know truly what it is to be slave. She has never been taught. She has not been slave. Similarly it is difficult for a slave girl to imitate the actions of a free woman. Knowing that she is, in actuality, owned, it is very difficult for her to act as though she were free. She is frightened to do so. Sometimes slavers use these differences to separate the two categories of Gorean females. Sometimes, when a city is being sacked, high-born free women, fearful of falling into the hands of chieftains of the enemy, have themselves branded and collared, and don slave tunics, and mix with their own slave girls, to prevent their identity from being known. Such high-born women may, by a practiced eye, be detected among true slave girls. "Frigidity is a neurotic luxury," I told her. "It is allowed only to free woman, probably because no one cares that much about them. Indeed, frigidity is one of the titles and permissions implicated in the lofty status of a free woman. For many it is, in effect, their proudest possession. It distinguishes them from the lowly slave girl. It proves to themselves and others that they are free. Should they be enslaved, of course, it is, for better or for worse, taken from them, like their property and their clothing." "Not all free women are frigid," she said. "Of course not," I said, "but there is actually a scale, so to speak, in such matters. But just as some free women are insufficiently inert, or cold, to qualify, strictly, as frigid, perhaps to their chagrin, so none of them, I think, are sufficiently ignited to qualify in the ranges of "slave-girl hot," so to speak. A free woman's sexuality may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of inertness, or coolness; a slave girl's sexuality, on the other hand, may generally be thought of in terms of degrees of responsive passion, or heat. Some slave girls are hotter than others, of course, just as some free women are less cold than others, whether this pleases them or not. Whereas the free woman normally maintains a plateau of frigidity, however, the slave girl will usually increase in degrees of heat, this a function of her master, his strength, her training, and such. The slave girl grows in passion; the free woman languishes in her frigidity, congratulating herself on the starvation of her needs." "Do free women know what they are missing?" she asked. "I think, on some level, they do," I said. "Else the resentment and hatred they bear the slave girl would be inexplicable." "I see," she said. "Beware the free woman," I said. "Yes, Master," she said. "Is there no cure for a free woman's frigidity?" she asked. "Of course," I said. "Total enslavement?" she asked. "Yes," I said. She said nothing. "Every woman has a need to submit herself to a master," I said. "When she finds herself at the feet of her master her body will no longer permit her to be frigid. There is no longer any reason. She is now where nature places her, at his feet and in his power. She kisses his feet and, weeping, feeling the heat and oils between her lovely legs, cannot wait to be thrown to the furs." She did not speak. "But I do not speak here merely of the simplicities and negativities of a cure," I said. "I speak rather of the beginning of a career, a helpless, flowering biography of service, love and passion." "You speak of a woman being made a slave girl," she said. "Yes," I said. "I wonder if I will be pleasing to a master," she said. "Any slave girl," I said, "with the proper management, and master, can become a wonder of sexuality and love." "I think I will love being a slave girl," she said. I shrugged. What did it matter, what her feelings were? She was a slave. "No wonder the free women hate us so," she said. "Of course," I said. "You are everything that they desire to be and are not." She bit her lip. She looked at me. "Are free women permitted to watch us being sold?" "Of course," I said. "Why not? They are free." She looked at me, miserably. "Ah, yes," I said. "I see. It would be quite humiliating, one woman, a slave, being sold, while another woman, a free woman, observes." "Yes," she said. Then she stumbled against a free woman, who, in fury, screamed at her, and began to strike and kick at her. She fell to her knees, and put her head down. "Forgive me, Mistress!" she begged. "Forgive me!" The free woman, angrily, continued on her way. Lola fled to the Lady Gina and knelt before her, putting her head to the floor. Lola, I saw, was terrified to be in the presence of the free women. I realized then, as I had not before, something of the loathing and hatred with which the enslaved female is regarded by her free sisters. She did not, after all, wish to writhe beneath their whips, the lashed object of the fury and contempt of free women, jealous perhaps of the helplessness of the slave girl before men, her beauty and her collar. "Are you a pretty one?" I heard. A woman's voice had spoken. I looked up, through the perforations. "I can see very little of him," said another voice, also that of a woman. Two free women, veiled and in robes, stood near the slave box. They had market baskets on their arms. "Are you pretty?" I heard. "I do not know, Mistress," I said. She laughed. "For what market are you bound?" asked the other woman. "The market of Tima," I said. They looked at one another and laughed. "I'll bet you are a pretty one!" said one of the women. "My companion would not even let me have a pet like you," said the other. "Are you quite tame?" asked the first woman. "Yes, Mistress," I said. "He probably is," said the second woman. "The market of Tima is famous for her tamed slaves." I did not tell them that I came from a world in which almost all the males were perfectly tamed, indeed, a world in which males were supposed to pride themselves on their inoffensiveness and agreeability. "I do not trust Kajiri," said the first woman. "They can revert. Can you imagine how fearful that might be, if one turned on you?" The second one shuddered, but I thought with pleasure. "Yes," she said. "Consider your danger, and what they might make you do," said the first. "Yes," said the second. "They might treat you as though you were little better than a slave." "Or perhaps as only a slave," said the second. "How horrifying that would be," said the first. "Yes," said the second, but it seemed to me that she, beneath her robes and veil, shuddered again with pleasure. "But if the Mistress is strong," said the first, "what has she to fear?" "One who is stronger than she," said the second. "I am stronger than any man," said the first. "But what if you should meet your Master?" asked the second. The first one was silent then for a moment. Then she spoke. "I would love him and serve him, helplessly," she said. "Beautiful Mistresses," I said, "can you tell me in what city I am?" "Be silent, Slave," said the first woman. "Yes, Mistress," I said. "Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajirus," said the second. "Yes, Mistress," I said. "Forgive me, Mistresses." "Too," said I, "tie shut your tunic. Free women may soon be about. We must not scandalize them." Two children, however, one boy and one girl, did run and strike the slave. She started, and squirmed, on my shoulder under the blows. I did not admonish the children. First, it was nothing to me that they had struck her, for she was a slave. Secondly, they were free persons, and free persons on Gor may do much what they please. It is slaves who must be careful of their behavior, lest free persons find it displeasing. The boy who had struck her, I believe, had been in a fit of ill temper. I think he had just lost at stone toss. The girl, on the other hand, I think, had had far different motivations. She had not been involved in the game, but had only been watching it. Yet she had struck the slave by far the cruelest blow. Already she had learned, as a free woman, that female slaves are to be despised and beaten. The hatred of the free woman on Gor for the female slave is an interesting phenomenon. There are probably many reasons for this. Among them, however, would seem to be a jealousy of the female slave's desirability and beauty, a resentment of the interest of free men in imbonded women, and an envy of the slave girl's psychological and biological fulfillments, and emotional freedom and joy. Something of the same hatred and contempt tends to be felt by masculine women on Earth towards feminine women. Perhaps they hate what they are not, and perhaps cannot be. The Gorean slave girl, incidentally, can be terrorized by the mere thought that she might be sold to a free woman. I glanced at the girl who had struck the slave. She was comely. I wondered if she might one day fall slave. If so, she, too, in her turn, would surely learn to fear free women. The former Miss Henderson, of course, had been in this house before. This was, however, the first time she had been brought into it as a slave. The slave girl, of course, sees a house much differently than does a free woman. Most simply she sees it as a house, and knows it, as a house in which she is a slave, whereas the free woman sees it and knows it as a house in which she is free. The houses are, accordingly, experienced quite differently. The free woman looks into a slave kennel but she, presumably, has never occupied it, the helpless prisoner behind its bars; the free woman may see chains but she, presumably, has never worn them; she may see the whip but she, presumably, has never felt it. She sees the door, a device by means of which she gains access to her dwelling, but can it have the same meaning to her as to one who has been helplessly carried through it, as a slave? Similarly, the free woman passes through that door whenever she wishes. She does not give it a second thought. It is only a door. To the slave, on the other hand, it is the portal to her master's house. It is, thus, a significant border in her world. Commonly, if the master is home, and she is not under orders, as in, say, running an errand, or conducting regular business, such as shopping or gardening, she must, on her knees, beg his permission to leave the house, usually specifying her itinerary and when she expects to return. Similarly a free woman may look upon a wall and see there merely the side of a room, but the slave girl may see there an obdurate barrier, beyond which she cannot run, against which she could be thrown and stripped, a barrier at the foot of which, crouching in terror, she would have to await the pleasure of her master. The free woman may look upon the smooth tiles flooring a room but, presumably, she has never felt them on her naked flesh, on her belly, as she has kissed the feet of her master. Too, presumably, she will never have been beaten upon them, or forced, as a discipline, to clean them, prone, her hands bound behind her, a small brush held in her teeth. The free woman looks upon a stairwell. She sees a stairwell. The slave girl may also see a place where she, if her master wishes, may be conveniently tied to a railing and raped. Much sex between a master and his slave is spontaneous and casual, occurring whenever the master wishes, and not unoften when the slave begs for it. The sweetness of these sometimes sudden and transient ravishings, of course, does not replace the lengthy feasts of love of which the Gorean is fond; rather, they merely supplement them. They are, in their way, merely another attestation of the condition of the girl, that she is truly a slave and must be ready, at any time, and in any place, to serve her master's pleasure. The same girl who, fed by hand, is lengthily ravished over a period of Ahn, or even of a day or two, may, at another time, be merely told to stretch herself over a table. She will do so, immediately, unquestioningly. She is a slave. And how wondrously different does the bedroom of the male seem to the free woman than it does to the slave. She looks upon the couch of the male. She sees the slave ring at its foot. She sees the furs of love, rolled against the side of the wall. She sees the lamp. She sees, coiled beneath the slave ring, a chain; with a collar or shackles. She sees the whip. But these things, as she is free, mean little to her. Imagine, however, if you will, her emotions if she entered that room as a slave girl, stripped and rightless, bearing on her upper thigh, just under her hip, the mark of bondage, her throat clasped in the light, gleaming, close-fitting, locked circlet of a slave. How different, then, would that room seem to her! She is ordered to spread the furs of love. She does so, beneath the slave ring. She must light the lamp. She does so. She returns then to the furs of love, and kneels upon them. She is then fastened by her master to the slave ring. Perhaps this is merely done by a single ankle ring, on her left ankle, or perhaps both of her ankles are shackled, the length of chain running through the slave ring. If this is done, of course, the chaining is such that her ankles may be thrust widely, even painfully apart. Or perhaps the collar is locked upon her, with its dependent chain. She, then, feels the drag of the chain against her collar, and the chain, with its heavy links, between her bared breasts; she knows well that she is chained. Though the light of the lamp is soft and sensuous, it is quite adequate, by design, to illuminate her; she is under no delusion on this score; her tiniest movements and her subtlest expressions, she knows, will be fully visible to her master. This is as it should be; she is his slave. Some free women, incidentally, insist on making love in the dark, because of their modesty. If such a woman should be enslaved, however, she must learn to perform in full illumination, whether it be in the soft light of a common ravishment lamp or on a dock at midday. We shall now suppose that the girl is kneeling before her master, on the deep furs, in the position of the pleasure slave, in the soft light of the lamp, chained to the slave ring. Do you not think that she will find that room different than would the free woman? The master walks about her, whip in hand. She tries to hold herself as beautifully as she can, that he will be pleased. Perhaps she lowers her head, frightened, submissively. She feels the butt of his whip under her chin, lifting it up. She must hold her head properly. She sees the master shake out the blades of the whip. Is she to be whipped, or raped, or both? But he folds back the blades and holds the whip before her. She kisses it, fervently, in token of her slavery and submission. He then drops the whip to the side, but where it may easily be grasped, should he wish to do so. He then lifts the chain and throws it to the side, over her left shoulder. He then begins to caress her, with the full and possessive caresses of the master, sometimes even holding her in place with her left hand behind the small of her back. She begins to moan. Then, when he wishes, she is thrust on her back on the furs. "Please, be gentle, my Master," she begs. But he will, or will not, as it pleases him. She lies before him, a slave, his to do with as he pleases. It is little wonder, then, I think, that the female slave experiences the bedroom of the male in a manner quite different from that of the free woman. "A free woman!" suddenly exclaimed Glyco, startled. I smiled. From the kitchen there had emerged, in the robes of concealment, the figure of a woman. The men, save I, rose as one to their feet, for Gorean men commonly stand when a free woman enters a room. The voluptuous slave of Aemilianus swiftly knelt, making herself as small as possible, putting her head to the floor. The little dark-haired slave, too, swiftly knelt, also putting her head to the floor. Too, she shuddered, trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. Peggy and Florence, too, now had their heads to the floor. Slave girls, as I may have mentioned, fear free women, terribly. In the open-air markets, or in the outside displays, the girls, seeing me viewing them, had usually knelt, immediately, putting their heads down, exhibiting total deference and respect before a free woman. Some, seeing me looking at them, had actually thrown themselves, trembling, to their bellies. "They are afraid of you," Drusus Rencius had explained. "Why?" I had asked. "Because you are a free woman," he had said. "Oh," I had said. They must have had, I gathered, some of them at least, unfortunate experiences with free women. A male slave can be slain for touching a free woman. "Look at it this way," said the first girl. "If we did not wear collars we would not even know the touch of such men as Rutilius. Too, if we were not slaves and sent to their tents, we would not even know what to do. We would be only ignorant free women." "How I sometimes pity free women!" laughed the second girl. "They are so stupid!" "But fear them, Yitza," said the first girl, "for they are free and you are enslaved." "Of course," said the second girl, shuddering. "And remember that they hate you," said the first. "I know," said the second. One of the slave girls, one kneeling a few feet away, before us and to our right, at a table, one of those who was naked, save for her collar, laughed. Then she turned white with fear. She had laughed at a free woman. Samos turned to a guard and pointed at the offending slave. "Fifteen lashes," he said. The girl shook her head in misery. She whimpered with terror. These would be lashes, she knew, with a Gorean slave whip. It is an efficient instrument for disciplining women. "Oh!" cried Feiqa, suddenly stung by a stone, hurled by another woman. She then walked weeping, almost pressed against the side of the wagon. She could not even think of daring to object to such treatment, of course. In the hut of the free woman, last night, she had learned, unconditionally, that she was a slave. I wondered if the former rich young woman of Samnium had herself, in bygone days, accorded slaves similar treatment. I supposed so. It is not uncommon on the part of free women. Now, of course, as a slave herself, she would understand clearly what it was to be the one who is subjectable to such treatment. Perhaps free women would treat slaves somewhat differently if they understood that one day it might be they themselves whom they might find in the collar. In these attacks, of course, Feiqa was in no danger of being seriously injured, or disfigured or maimed. Accordingly, I did not take any official notice of them. Feiqa danced. The men cried out with pleasure, many of them joining in the song, and keeping time with their hands. I was incredibly proud of her. How joyful it is to own females and have absolute power over them! Seldom, indeed, I imagined, did the rude herders of the Alars have such a vision of imbonded loveliness in their camp, and in their arms. Such delicious females were not allowed in their camps, I gathered. The free women did not permit them. "Disgusting! Disguisting!" cried the free woman, Boabissia, in her leather and furs, having returned to the fire, and she rushed forward, a stout, thick, short, supple, single-bladed quirtlike whip in her hand. She began to lash Feiqa, who fell to her knees, howling with misery, a whipped slave. "We do not allow such as you in an Alar camp!" cried the free woman. Feiqa put her head down. Again the lash fell on her. I leaped to the free woman and tore the whip from her hand, hurling it angrily to the side. She looked at me, wildly, in fury, not believing I had dared to interfere. "What right have you to interfere?" she demanded. "The right of a man who is not pleased with your behavior, female," I said. "Female!" she cried, in fury. "Yes," I said. "A free woman is present," I said to Feiqa. Immediately she knelt. "Head to the ground," I whispered to her. Immediately she complied. "No, Master," said Phoebe. Although Marcus had spoken in irony, Phoebe's response was quite serious, and appropriately so. She did not even begin to put herself in the category of a free woman. An unbridgeable and, to the slave, terrifying chasm separates any free woman on Gor from a slave, such as Phoebe. From what I had seen of free females in the pens, to be sure, only two of them, in its more respectable areas, and from what I had gathered from remarks of guards, rough jokes, and such, they were a haughty, exquisite, frustrated, pampered, imperious lot. I had also been warned by more than one guard that I should watch my step with particular care among such creatures, as they enjoyed being incredibly cruel, petty and vindictive towards those such as I, who, doubtless for reasons of their own, they regarded with utter contempt and hatred. But how contemptuous, and how regal, they had appeared, and so beautifully robed and veiled! Many I was told, wore platforms of a sort on their feet, perhaps as much as eight to ten inches high, which would increase their apparent height, and, of course protect their slippers from being soiled, for example, in muddy streets, or, certainly, in the damp pens. The two I had seen, however, had been in "street slippers." I had briefly, once, inadvertently, met the eyes of one. It had happened in the pens when I had looked after the free women, as they had passed me. One, the first, had turned, and caught me with my head lifted. In that instant I saw her body stiffen with rage, and, over the colors of her veils, I saw her eyes were cold, and filled, with hatred. I trembled, and tried not to move. I was terrified. She came back and stood before me. I lay before her, prone and helpless, as what I was, a prostrated slave. I was nothing. She was mightiness, and beauty. I lay before her, miserably, trembling, helpless, hoping that she would not have me beaten. She remained standing before me, for some time. I dared not move. I scarcely dared to breathe. One of the guards attempted to distract her, calling her attention to a new model of a pleasure rack. But still she remained standing before me, looking down at me, I suppose. Then he said, "She is only an ignorant Earth slut." "But she is learning," said another. I was grateful to the guards. Had I not been so popular I wondered if they would have been as generous. I saw that they were trying to protect me. But I was frightened, too, that they might deem such protection necessary. What might she have done to me if she pleased? "Kneel," she snapped. I scrambled to my knees before her, less gracefully, I fear, than I might have, but I was frightened of her. I sensed in her great hatred, and contempt. "Split your knees," she said, fiercely, "more widely!" I complied, instantly. Tears ran down my cheeks. It is one thing to kneel so before a man, and quiet another before a woman. "She is an Earth slut?" said the woman. "Yes," she was told. "I would have thought so," she said. "They are all worthless, and stupid," she said. I dared not move. "Yes, she is from Earth," she said, musingly, acidly. "One can tell, of course. See how plain, and ugly she is. How lacking in grace and poise! The women of Earth as such inferior goods! What true man could possibly be interested in them? In the markets it is no wonder they are jokes. How lacking they are! Earth is such a thin, unlikely, impoverished soil for slaves. I shall never understand why they bother noosing these slaves. Once can harvest nothing there of interest, only pathetic mediocrities, at best, with good fortune, perhaps a girl of merely average attractiveness. Earth women are shabby stock, third-rate merchandise, inferior goods. At best such things could be only pot-and-kettle girls, low slaves, cleaning slaves, laundresses, and such. I do not see what men see in them. They cannot begin to compare to a Gorean woman. See, for example, this ignorant, presumptuous little slut, this meaningless little piece of slave suet trembling in her collar! I think she might well profit from a bout with the thongs of hot irons!" Then they were gone. I had had my first experience of the warfare between the free woman and the slave girl. I would not forget it. We, of course, do not address free men by their names but as "Master." Similarly, we address free women as "Mistress." Female slaves learn early on this world to fear free women who, for some reason, seem to bear them great malice and hatred. Free women were our enemies. They seldom neglected an opportunity to be cruel to us. We were so helpless. They were so imperiously grand in their freedom. We muchly feared them. It is seldom wise for a female slave to look directly into the eyes of a free woman. She had learned, incidentally, that she must address all free men as 'Master' and all free women, though she had not yet encountered one on this world, as 'Mistress'. She was uneasy at the thought of free women. How would they regard her, she only a slave? She then caught sight of Ellen, standing to the side, unobtrusively awaiting the command to clear. Ellen looked down, immediately. Something in her belly, which she did not entirely understand, made her apprehensive in the presence of a free woman. A free woman, in her status, in her loftiness and power, in her glory and might, was another form of being altogether, quite different from herself. Already, in her heart, she had begun to fear free women. They must be so proud, so wondrous, so lofty and formidable, she thought. But then she wondered if they could, truly, be so different from she. Did they not bear in every cell in their bodies, those billions of cells, the same genetic heritage, going back to thongs and caves? She suspected that perhaps they were not so different from her, really. Would they be so different from me, she wondered, if they were, too, as I, on their knees, naked and collared, owned, before an uncompromising, powerful, virile master. Ellen could hear, too, now and then, the clack of high, wooden, platformlike, cloglike footwear, such as is sometimes worn by free women, particularly of high caste, which lift the hems of their gowns a bit from the ground, and serve to protect delicately slippered or sandaled feet from dust and mud. Ellen did not look at them, for she feared free women, and, as most slave girls, avoided meeting their eyes directly, lest they be thought insolent and be punished. The Gorean slave girl is much at the mercy of free women, by whom she is likely to be resented and hated, and free women are not above petty exercises of power, ordering the slave to kneel, to serve her, to bare herself, to kiss her embroidered slippers, and such. Too, not unoften a tearful slave returns to her master with her tunic wadded in her mouth and the welts of a switch upon the backs of her thighs. The protection of the slave, of course, is the male. The better the slave pleases her master the more likely he is to intervene between her and free women. Many a blow, thus, has been prevented by the interposition of a free male between his slave and a free woman, to the fury of the frustrated free woman. This is as it should be, for a slave's whippings, should she be whipped, are most appropriately at the discretion of the master. "We must fear free women?" "Terribly," whispered Corinna. "I have known only one free woman," said the brunette slave, "the Lady Bina." "It is true she is free," said Corinna, "but she does not even count. She is unfamiliar with Gor. She has no real conception of the haughtiness and power of the Gorean free woman, in her pride, in her regalia, her robes and veils. We are nothing before them, only lowly, half-naked, shapely, collared beasts, who must kneel, and grovel, in terror at their sandals." To the free woman the slave girl is, at best, a despicable convenience. She is loathed, probably because of her interest to men. The cruelty of the free woman to the slave is legendary. It is quite different from the usual relationship between a male master and his slave. Gorean slave girls dread free women. She knelt in the position of the tower slave, not that of the pleasure slave, as there was a free woman present. It is an independent question, of course, as to whether or not the slave is inferior, or worthless, and such. There is obviously a sense in which the slave is inferior. She is, after all, a slave. Chasms separate her from the free woman, and so on. On the other hand, as we have suggested, far from feeling inferior, the slave is likely to feel, as a woman, far superior to her free sister. One is familiar with the haughtiness, the arrogance, the pride, of the typical free woman, defended by guardsmen, ringed by the walls of her city, well-veiled, well-robed, secure in her status, unassailable in station, ensconced in society's regard, but there is another pride, too, little spoken of, which is, perhaps surprisingly, that of the slave. Even when she kneels before the free woman, in her mockery of a garment, fastened in a collar, her lovely hair in the dirt before the free woman's slippers, she knows herself special, and prized, in a way the free woman is not. She realizes that she, amongst many women, is the one who has been found "slave desirable," the one whom men will put in a collar, the one who will wear a collar. She revels in the fact that she has been found worthy of being owned. She is proud to be owned. This is a mark of quality, a badge of excellence. She is a prize amongst women, so desirable that men will be satisfied with nothing less than owning her. She is that desirable. She knows that she is the most coveted, the most lusted-for, the most delectable, exciting, and sought of women, the female slave. How could she not feel superior, in her sex, as a female, to the free woman in her vain, shallow trappings of dignity and station? Many have been free women, and they know the grief, the sorrow, the frustration, the misery, and loneliness, so often concealed within those cumbersome, ornate robes. The free woman often hates the slave; the slave, often, feels not only fear of, but also pity for, the free woman. So one might then contrast two prides, that of the scornful free woman, richly robed, elevated in society, switch in hand, and that of the timid, frightened creature, perhaps in a rag, a collared animal, who kneels before her. The free woman has pride in her status, the slave in her sex, in her holistic fulfilled womanhood. To be sure, the slave is well advised to conceal her vanity in the presence of a free woman. "You are no longer permitted to be ashamed of your body," he said. "Yes, Master," I said. "It is acceptable," he said. "Thank you, Master," I said. "It has been seen fit to be collared," he said. "Yes, Master," I said. "So be proud," he said. "Yes, Master," I said. "Besides," he said, "it is no longer your business." "Master?" I asked. "It is no longer yours," he said. "It belongs to your master. You must display it as your masters will have it, beautifully, shamelessly, brazenly, proudly, excitingly, vulnerably." "Yes, Master," I said. "And even if in the presence of free women," he said, "though it means the lash." "Yes Master," I wept. "Show them what it is to be a woman," he said. Meeting the eyes of a free woman, uncommanded, I am told, is likely to result in the stroke of a switch, which many of them carry with them. Slave girls are commonly quite vain. Not vain as are free women, arrogant in their freedom and smug in their supposed beauty, whom slave girls commonly look down on, though fear terribly, but vain as slaves. There is a Gorean expression, "slave beautiful," or "beautiful enough to be a slave." Even a free woman so described feigning her outrage, would, I suspect, be secretly pleased with such an assessment. What woman would not wish to be 'slave beautiful' or 'beautiful enough to be a slave'? "I think it is clear," I said, "that you understand little of these things. You know nothing of Gorean free women. You have never trembled before one. You have never prostrated yourself before one, hoping not to be lashed. You are less valued than the dust beneath the sandals of such a one. She is a thousand times above you, you, a mere slave. Indeed, you are different forms of being, which may not even be compared. You would learn to beg, even to be permitted to kiss the hem of her robe on your belly. The Gorean free woman is exalted, proud, noble, and powerful. She possesses a Home Stone." "The men will now discuss serious matters," said our first girl, Selena, "the affairs of the day, trade, crops, jurisprudence, markets, ambitions, intrigues, politics, subjects empty-headed free women would find boring. What do they care for but robes, veils, entertainments, perfumes, and gossip?" Slaves fear free women, terribly. Certainly I feared them, terribly. I, a slave, was so different from them! The men, whose pleasure objects we were, were our only protection from them. "How do you like the Robes of Concealment?" he asked. "It can be death to a slave who is not a serving slave to touch them," I said, "and it can be death to any slave who dares to wear them." Sometimes a free woman's slaves, obedient to the orders of conquering men, will seize, strip, and bind their mistress, and throw her to the feet of the victors, for the collar and iron. "Perhaps you should be sold to a free woman," I said. This show of genuine emotion pleased me. The female slave is commonly a creature of deep feelings, a creature of profound emotionality. This makes her vulnerable in a thousand ways. I supposed she feared that I, displeased, might purchase her, and then sell her to a free woman. "It seems you have had some interactions with a free woman or women," I said. "Please do not sell me to one, Master," she said. "Why not?" I asked. "They hate us," she said, "for our collars, and tunics, for our not being displeasing to look upon, for our being the properties of men." When the palanquins had passed, Lais was noticeably relieved. "The curtains were drawn," I said. "They did not even see you." "Why do they hate us so?" she asked. "Perhaps you should ask one," I said. Lais turned white. "I will not order you to do so," I said. She smiled, gratefully. The slaves took care to avoid the free women, often crossing to the other side of the street, and keeping their heads down. Kajirae much fear free women. |
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