|
 Love, Various TopicsHere are relevant references from the Books where Love is mentioned in relation to various topics. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban Click a heading to jump down to that listing. Main Headings Adored Adoring Affection Affectionately Ardor Art of Love Bred for Love Chains of Love City of Love Compassion Countries of Love Crowd Love Cuddly Love Animal Enemy of Love Eyes of Love Faint with Love Fattened Up for Love Feasts of Love Flames of Love Human Beings Infatuation Jokingly Kiss of Lovers Lamp of Love Lands of Love Love Animal Love Asking Permission to Speak Love Beast Love Belonging to Masters Love Blossoms Love Bow Love Bundle Love Calling Men Master Love Captive Love Chains Love Conquest Love Cradle Love Curves Love Dance Love Feast Love Flesh Love Flute Love Furs Love It When You Are Strong With Me Love Kneeling Love Master Love Meat Love Moans Love Movements Love Noises Love Objects Love Oils Love Potion Love Prey Love Prize Love Scenes Love Servant Love Silks Love Slave Love Songs of Slaves Love Starved Love the Grandeur of War Love Them Enough To Let Them Go Love Trained Love War Love What Men Can Do Love Whimpers Love Working Beside Master Loved Ones Loveless Lover Lovesick Loving Lovingly Make Love Movements of Love Pangs of Love Priest-Kings Prisoners of Love Protests of Love Song of Love Spider People Spite Symbol of Love Talenders Trained to Love Unloved Whip Love Wines of Love Youthful Love
The crowd, each time he fought, went mad with pleasure, thrilling to each ringing stroke of steel, and I suspected that that man most adored in Ar was the huge, mysterious Murmillius, superb and gallant, a man whose very city was unknown. I looked up at him, as a meaningless slave to her adored master.
but by the time Murmillius had turned before the iron gate to face them they were on their feet crying his name, cheering him wildly, for he had spurned them; the will of the vast multitude in that huge stadium had been nothing to him, and the crowd, their will rejected, roared his praises, adoring him; When she, frightened, tenderly, timidly lifts her eyes to him, if he should deign to smile upon her, the girl then, in gratitude and joy, at last permitted to relate to another human being, often falls to her knees before him, an adoring slave. The girl, one among thousands less fortunate, had encountered a male, surely, too, one among thousands, who could be, and was, to her and for her, her absolute and natural master, the ideal and perfect male for her, dominant and uncompromising, who could, and would, demand and get her full, yielding sexuality, which a woman can give only to a man who owns her totally, before whom, and to whom, she can be only an adoring slave. Who would want a free woman if one could have a naked, vulnerable, defenseless, adoring slave at one's feet? She tenderly and lovingly, and humbly, kissed and licked the switch for a few moments, and then looked up adoringly, at her master, hoping that he would be pleased. I wanted to kneel before him, and look up at him, adoringly, and beg to press my lips submissively and gratefully to his whip.
He gave Elizabeth's head a rough, affectionate shake. "Mistresses sometimes have different relationships to their serving slaves, or friends, than they do to others," said Ligurious. "It is well known that great crimes can be committed by individuals who are, to others, kindly and affectionate." Quite near to him, as he worked, knelt Tula. She tried to put her cheek against his left thigh. He brushed her away. Properly handled, women become as subservient and affectionate as dogs. They all desire to be totally prisoners of love, and they will never be fully content until they become so. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" said the woman. "Jeffrey, you are such a dear!" She then gave him a quick, affectionate kiss on the left cheek. "You are a darling!" she said. And sometimes it is a narrow margin which separates them from a ravishing and a lashing, from an affectionate, indulgent caress and the impatient, punitive sting of a switch. She became ever more affectionate, ever more eager to please. Sometimes sleen can be not only affectionate, but possessive. I had treated her as little more than a mirror in whose reflection I might admire myself, I had pitied her, and treated her with condescension, the only true friend I had ever known, forgiving and uncritical, selfless, sweetly affectionate, patient with my vanity, tolerant of my superficiality, caring for me as I was, not expecting me to change, not wanting me to be different.
I slapped the bird affectionately. "Thank you, Ubar of the Skies," I said. I slapped his beak affectionately and, digging among his neck feathers with my fingers, scratched out some of the lice, about the size of marbles, that infest wild tarns. Kamchak thrust his fist affectionately into the hair of Aphris of Turia and twisted her head to him. I slapped the beak of the bird affectionately. "I shall see you shortly," said I, "Ubar of the Skies." He rubbed his nose affectionately on the side of her face, patted her on the head and turned away. Alice put her cheek to my thigh. I then felt her lips at my thigh, as she kissed me. I put my hand in her hair, and, roughly, affectionately, shook her head. Before that time, as a stalwart, handsome lad, be had been affectionately known as Ihdazicaka, or One-Who-Counts-Himself-Rich. Plenius then stood up. "You make excellent bait, Ina," he said. He then gave her head a shake, much as one might roughly fondle a sleen. Normally she would have responded warmly, affectionately, to such a caress, deeply appreciative, even joyful, to receive even so small a token of a male's favor, but now, I think, she was afraid. I did not know what produced this change in the pit master. Some days ago I had, as I had intended, confessed my trickery with the free woman. I had bellied, cowering, at his feet. But he had only crouched down beside me, and put his great hand on my head, and shaken it a little, almost affectionately. "So, now," he said, "you know you are in Treve?" The peasant smiled, and put his great hands affectionately on Gito's small shoulders. He then rose, turned about, and, soundlessly, left. "Yes," said Cabot. "And often I have not taken meat from the camp. A kind word, a hand knotted in the fur, affectionately, and shaken, is as effective, and seems more savored, I learn, than even roast tarsk." He then put a great paw in my hair, and shook my head, affectionately, as one might the head of domestic sleen. He approached Axel as usual, and, affectionately, rubbed his bloodied muzzle and fangs against Axel's thigh. I felt his hand, roughly, but affectionately, in my hair, as one might hold an animal.
She trained with almost piteous ardor. "And here," said Ute, "lest the ardor of the men become too strong, this!" The girls laughed. She took a white, silken ribbon and wrapped it five times about the collar, not tying it. I had been marked white silk. I had freed them of the neck tether, and they had worked tirelessly, and with ardor. They had worked as might have free persons. It had not been necessary to use the whip, stolen from the guard, on them. I could not protect myself from the fierce ardor to which I must submit. Then again I cried out, lost in my slave's love of him, my master. "I see that you are trembling with military ardor," said Chino. This seemed to me a good position. I thought it possible that any guards who might have the duty of supervising our exit from the city, or perhaps the duties of inspecting or searching us, might, given the numbers involved, be somewhat lax or a bit less diligent in their efforts by the time we reached them, and we were not so far back that, the guards perhaps perking up, the end of the group in sight, we might find ourselves the target of some burst of compensatory ardor. I heard a whip being removed from the wall. I lay there, trembling. I grasped the chains, above the manacles. I did not want to be lashed! But the whip was thrust to my lips. Eagerly, lifting my head, I licked and kissed the whip. I did not want it used on me. My ardor in this matter, and this explicit expression of my understanding of what I was, a slave, may, I suspect, have mollified him to some extent, for he then, delicately, gently, tested me. The sudden, tense, almost hysterical ardor of her denial spoke of truths, and needs, and depths within her of the existence of which she must be only too keenly aware, and yet truths, depths and needs which, for some reason or another, she seemed almost tragically desperate to conceal and deny, perhaps mostly from herself. I saw that he wanted to leap to his feet and seize her. I did not think he would be able to get her even as far as one of the small alcove tents within the enclosure. More likely, she would be flung to the dirt and publicly ravished, before the fire, even where she had danced. She might then, in a moment, bruised in his ardor, gasping in her collar, be dragged to an alcove, and forced again and again to serve, until dawn, until at last she might lie soft against him, by his thigh, in her collar, having served to quench for a time the flames of so mighty a lust, one which she, as a slave, had aroused and which she, as a slave, must satisfy. This consideration, I noted, dampened the ardor of the newcomers. The men of this world, with all their barbaric animal heat, with all their ardor, and power and mastery, loved and desired women, and relished them, and prized them. Here on this world, where men seemed so proud, so untamed, so unbroken, so free, so mighty, so hot-blooded, on this world seemingly so primitive, so splendid and barbaric, on this world of leather, and silk and iron, not of plastics and synthetic fibers, of heat and love, not tepidity and hypocrisy, of ardor and skill, not of boredom and gadgetry, on this world where men had mastered monsters and seemed ready, at a word, to adjudicate disputes with edged weapons, I knelt before a dais, naked and collared, as a barbarian slave girl. "He cannot so want me," she whispered. "His passion, his desire, his ardor, are such," I said. There was his breath, his tongue, his touch. He could play the body of a slave, producing a rapture of sensations, much as the master of the czehar or kalika can play his lovely instrument, drawing forth its laughter and tears, its moans and cries, its pensive contemplations, its incitements and ardors, its valleys and mountains, its depths and its ecstasies. "The path of Tiskias is the path that led to the Kur's discovery," said Rupert. "Too, Tiskias failed to subdue or control the ardor and greed of his hirelings, and surrendered the Kur's gold to them. Such things are unlikely to be overlooked by our large friend."
Some of them do not even understand fully the training the girl receives. They think commonly only in gross terms, such as her being trained in the dances of various cities, and in the arts of love, as practiced in various cities.
Earth women have been bred for love and beauty; it is unfortunate that they are educated for frustration.
Although I did not think that Phoebe, who was a highly intelligent girl, would be likely to attempt an escape, even if she were not bound to Marcus by chains a thousand times stronger than those of iron, the chains of love, she might be stolen.
"Consider our trade," said Samos. "Would it not be trebled if we were accounted, among Gorean cities, a city of love, of peace?"
Had I won my freedom? Was it thus in the Amusements of Tharna? Or had the fierce, proud Tatrix now recognized the cruelty of the Amusements? Had that heart hidden in those cold, glistening robes of unfeeling gold at last relented, shown itself to be susceptible of compassion? This was more than I had counted on, and I had to resist an urge to comfort her, to tell her that I would not hurt her, that she was safe, but, mindful of Linna and Andreas, and the poor wretches in the Amusements, I restrained my compassion. I wondered on the fate of Aphris of Turia. Kamchak, I knew, however, cared little for the slave, and would not be much concerned; yet her fate concerned me, and I hoped that she might live, that her beauty if not compassion or justice might have won her life for her, be it only as a Paravaci wagon slave; and then, too, I wondered again on the fate of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the lovely young New York secretary, so cruelly and so far removed from her own world; and then, exhausted, I lay down on the boards of Kamchak's looted wagon and fell asleep. The boy, Fish, was looking on the girl, Vina, not without compassion. He lifted the blanket. In that instant I felt suffused with joy for I felt then that he would, in his kindness, cover me, protecting me from the eyes of his men; perhaps, too, he had been moved by my plight; perhaps he was now sorry for how cruelly he had treated me; perhaps now he would try to make amends; perhaps now I had stirred pity and compassion in his harsh breast; perhaps, too, he was moved now by my love for him and, overwhelmed with gratitude, and tenderness, at the value and immensity of this gift, might be moved to regard me, too, with affection, with love, in turn. Within the hood, I smiled. Slaves, as is well known, are on the whole far more loving and compassionate than free women. That is probably because they are so much more female than the free woman. There is a time, of course, to show a woman kindliness, compassion, and understanding, and then a time to put her to her knees and remind her that she is only a slave. Would he have the courage, the will, the determination, the kindness, the compassion, I wondered, to put her at his feet, keep her there without the least compromise, and fulfill her? Perhaps, even more foolishly, she would attempt to conceal from him what she was, and use his sympathy or compassion to manipulate him, to bend him to her will. Were they beasts? But beasts had feelings. It was said they were immune, like knives, to compassion. Theft is rare on Gor, and so, too, is ambition masked as compassion. One may silence slaves by going amongst them with a whip, but, compassionately, it had not been done. What hope had they for safety, understanding, and compassion, and happiness, save from males who would relish their beauty and master it, uncompromisingly, putting it to the purposes for which the slaves knew it had been formed by nature. In the last days, thanks to the compassion and generosity of my gracious lord, Lord Yamada, you have been permitted to trade some goods for food." "Lord Yamada is kind, forgiving, and compassionate," said Tyrtaios. I was sure I could count on her to be compassionate and understanding. These interests and skills, such as they were, on Paula's part, were some of the reasons I tended to feel compassion for her. "Mercy, Mistress!" I begged. "I beg mercy, sweet, compassionate, beautiful, noble Mistress!" Then, a moment later, it seemed she had acknowledged my claim, and wished little of me but compassion and silence.
Who, I wondered, has plumbed the depths of feelings' oceans or has successfully mapped the countries of love?
"It will be amusing," said he, "to see you stumbling about on the sand, sword in hand, thrashing here and there, trying to find your foes. The crowd will love it. It provides comic relief between the serious bouts and the animal fights to follow. It is also a time for patrons to stretch, buy their pastries, relieve themselves and such."
Such legs, I knew, were splendid for this form of dance, in which, from time to time, the woman becomes a writhing, cuddly love animal, made for a man's hands and arms.
"Too, sometimes," she said, "being a slave I feel very free and happy." "Perhaps that has something to do with the repudiation and abandonment of egoism, the enemy of love," I speculated.
Too, I had little doubt there were thousands of fellows about who thought that their companion or slave was the most beautiful woman on all Gor, for any woman, even ones whose appearance might frighten tharlarion, may appear beautiful when seen through the eyes of love.
To be sure, the master who is harder to please gets more from his girl than the master who is easy to please, but, nonetheless, I think kindness is not out of place upon occasion toward a bond girl. Indeed, in a certain context a kind word can almost cause such a wench, collared and at your mercy, to faint with love.
She lay at his side, humbly. How helplessly was she his slave! I thought she would be luscious, when fattened up, for love.
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.
A slave may desire her master, long for him, want more than anything to surrender herself wholly and unquestioningly to him, ache for him with all the flames of love, yearn to submit herself to him as no more than a negligible, meaningless, helpless, loving beast, be willing to die for him, but, too, she may well fear him, for the whip is his, and he is master.
"The human being," he said, "is a chaos of cruelties and nobilities, of hatreds and of loves, of resentments and respects, of envies and admirations. He contains within himself, in his ferments, much that is base and much that is worthy. These are old truths, but few men truly understand them."
"He loves her, too, I think," he said. "I think so, too, Master," I said. "Do you love her?" "No," he said. "That infatuation was an illness. I am cured now. I retain, however, of course, a fondness for her as might anyone for a pleasing slave." A clever, beautiful young woman, she was well aware of his hapless infatuation, just as she was in the case of a number of other males of no interest or importance to her, whom she scarcely deigned to notice. Presumably she did this because she thought him a typical, diffident man of Earth, one easily manipulated, one easily dominated. Too, of course, she was well aware of his infatuation, and this would add a delicious, exploitable nuance to the relationship, and put him muchly in her power. If it were not absurd, so out of the question, biologically, and such, one might have thought some sort of infatuation, even love, was involved. Apprised she should have a male colleague to aid in dissembling her true status and role on Gor, she had enlisted Gregory Smith, well aware, from small incidents, of his remote, hopeless, infatuation with her. Did you know that he wanted to buy you, to own you and punish you, but Ho-Tosk, seeing his infatuation, is holding out for a higher price?
His eyes were clear, and blue, direct and honest. He was fairly complected. His hair, lamentably perhaps, though some of us loved him for it, was red, but not merely red, it was rather a tangled, blazing affront to the proprieties of the well-groomed academician.
She had stood there, not daring to approach. Then my captor had indicated that she might enter his presence. Radiantly, joyously, she fled to him, and knelt before him, putting her head to his feet. His shield and spear, and helmet, he handed to another. At a word from him, then, she leapt to her feet and he took her in his arms, as though he might own her, and she kissed him, too, as though she might be owned. Never had I seen human beings kiss like that. It seemed a deeply sensuous complementarity that shook me to the core. It was the kiss of lovers, but more than the kiss of lovers. It was the kiss of a lover who is owned and of one who owns his lover.
Outside on the bridges I hear the cry of the Lighter of Lanterns. "Light your lamps," he calls. "Light the lamps of love." It is toward evening now, and the lamps of love are lit in many of the windows of the cylinders of Tharna. When a master wishes to make use of a slave girl he tells her to light the lamp of love which she obediently does, placing it in the window of his chamber that they may not be disturbed. Then with his own hand he throws upon the stone floor of his chamber luxurious love furs, perhaps from the larl itself, and commands her to them. "Light the lamp of love," I said. An Ahn later, perhaps a bit more than an Ahn before dawn, the oil in the lamp of love had burned low. Raised as she had been, in the sequestered quarters of high-born women in the palace of Tyros in Kasra, I supposed it was perhaps the first time that the lips of a man had touched hers. Doubtless she had expected to receive that kiss standing in the swirling love silks of the Free Companion, beneath golden love lamps, beside the couch of the Ubar of Cos; but it was not in the white, marbled palace of the Ubar of Cos that that kiss was to take place; and it was not to be received as a Ubara from the lips of a Ubar; that kiss was to take place in Port Kar, in the holding of her enemies, under barbaric torchlight, before the table of her master; and she was not to wear the love silks of a Free Companion and Ubara but the brief, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave, and a collar that proclaimed her slave girl; and the lips would be those of a slave which touched hers, those themselves of a slave. A similar sort of thing is done sometimes when a master brings home a new girl to a house which is completely empty, if necessary, by prearrangement, and new to her, and orders her to enter alone. "Warm wine," he tells her. "Light the lamp of love. Spread furs. Crawl naked into them, and await me." But still others, I supposed, might return quietly to their compartments, to be greeted there by their kneeling slave, to be feasted by her and then, later, in the light of the lamp of love, to recollect, and cherish her, in the furs. There is the foolishly outraged and defiant nudity of the stripped free woman, in her capture noose, who does not yet know how she appears to men and what will be done with her; there is her trembling nudity when she lies upon her belly in a hunting camp, awaiting her shackling; there is the nudity of the exposition cages, in which one must move and pose for potential bidders; there is the exposure on the slave block itself, as one is auctioned; there is the sweaty nudity of work, as when she scrubs tiles on her hands and knees in her master's compartments; there is the nudity of the slave bathing her master; there is the nudity of the slave in the morning, kneeling before the master, waiting to learn if she may clothe herself; there is the beautiful warmth of a loving slave, nude and collared, serving wine in the light of a lamp of love; there is the nudity of the enflamed slave, aroused in her dance, who will beg for her master's touch; there is the nudity of the women of the enemy serving at the feast of the victors, a nudity that celebrates the prowess of the conquerors and proclaims the fate of fair spoils of war. In many of the windows she could see that lamps were lit, the tiny, softly glowing lamps of love. But, now, even well away from the slave ring, when he returns from his labors and she welcomes him, kneeling, looking up at him, to his domicile, when she serves his supper or wine, when he observes her polishing his leather, when he orders her to light the lamp of love, has there not been something different about him, perhaps a slightly different light in his eyes? She wondered if, one day, he might purchase a lamp of love, and love furs. Perhaps, someday, who knew, she might, if she served long enough, and deferentially enough, with sufficient perfection, be permitted sometimes the dignity of the surface of the couch, though still chained by neck or ankle, first kneeling beside it, kissing its furs, and then being permitted to ascend to its surface and then, kneeling at its foot, head downward, rendering obeisance there, before being commanded, or positioned, and swept into ecstasies to be known only by chained, ravished slaves. But, now, even well away from the slave ring, when he returns from his labors and she welcomes him, kneeling, looking up at him, to his domicile, when she serves his supper or wine, when he observes her polishing his leather, when he orders her to light the lamp of love, has there not been something different about him, perhaps a slightly different light in his eyes? She belongs to the master, and few masters fail, in the light of a love lamp, to relish her least expression, her tiniest movement, her smallest cry.
"You have not yet even begun to get in touch with your femaleness," I said. "You will discover that it is a wonderful thing, that it is deep and marvelous, and, I think, fathomless. A voyage of discovery lies before you, through lands of love and untold sensuous wonders. A great adventure lies before you, filled with life and meaning. In this adventure you will find your fulfillment, as what you truly are, a female, not as something else, not as something different."
"Your legs are short," said the stranger. "Forgive me, Master," I said. "It is not a criticism," he said. "Thank you, Master," I said. Such legs, I knew, were splendid for this form of dance, in which, from time to time, the woman becomes a writhing, cuddly love animal, made for a man's hands and arms.
Many times, she knew, one must even ask permission to speak. One, after all, was slave. Having to ask permission to speak, when it seemed such permission was likely to be required, thrilled Ellen. She loved having to ask permission to speak. . Few things brought more clearly home to her her bondage, that she was a mere slave, owned, and subject to the domination of masters. She loved this power of men over her, this very clear insignia of her servitude, this standing evidence that she was helplessly subject to the mastery, that she belonged to men. She might be denied speech; she could be silenced at a word. How different from free women, she thought, certainly those of Earth, and, doubtless, those, as well, of this world! But she loved this token of her condition. How well it reminded her that she was what she wished to be, slave.
"Do not forget yourself," he said. "You are not a free woman. You are an animal, a branded domestic animal, a meaningless work and love beast, purchasable, a thing to be set to labors, a passion toy, a sexual plaything, something to be exploited at the master's will, for his pleasure." Trachinos had with him a slave, as well, Mina who had once been the Lady Persinna of Ar. She was now his love beast. "Let us relieve this poor love beast of the cruel impediments fastened so closely about her ankles." "One does not kill slaves," I said. "One puts them to use. They are better utilized as work beasts and love beasts, collared, chained beasts at one's feet, from whom one derives enormities of gratification, immensities of inordinate pleasure."
Interestingly, whereas it is seems clear that masters, or many masters, enjoy chaining their slaves, what may be less clear, or more surprising, is that many slaves, indeed most, welcome their chaining; they are grateful for it; what an honor it does them; what a compliment it pays them; they have been found worthy of being chained; they love belonging to their masters, and, accordingly, rejoice at, and revel in, their chaining, which is proclamatory of his ownership of them.
It would be a great triumph in Tyros, to bring the great Marlenus, naked, in the chains of a slave, branded, before their council. Doubtless they would first bring him so through the streets, between jeering throngs, chained to the back of a tharlarion wagon, white-silk maidens of Tyros dancing beside him, casting love blossoms upon him. Marlenus would doubtless make great holiday in Tyros.
He thrust her two wrists, before her body, into the ring he had cut from the Kur. He then tied them inside, and to, the ring. He then, from his belt, took a long length of binding fiber and, doubling it, looped it, securing it at its center to the ring, leaving two long ends. He then threw her, on her back, over the body, head down, of the fallen Kur. He took the two loose ends of the binding fiber and, taking them under the body of the fallen Kur, dragged her wrists, elbows bent, over and above her head; he then, bending her knees, tied one of the loose ends about her left ankle, and the other about her right. It was the Gorean love bow.
That much, surely, at least, could be said for it. I conjectured what she might look like, stark naked, save for chains, perhaps, holding her as a tight love bundle, for a master's pleasure, at a ring, and the locked, steel slave collar that belonged on her neck. I regarded her crawling, on her hands and knees, or on her stomach, sometimes lifting her body; sometimes she would look back over her shoulder, perhaps as though in fear or even, it seemed, sometimes, challenging him to recognize her; sometimes she would approach him, crawling, head down, sometimes head up, or turned demurely to the side; then she would be again sitting, or kneeling, or lying, extending her limbs, displaying them, drawing them back, flexing them; sometimes she recoiled or contracted, as though into herself, drawing attention to herself, to her smallness and vulnerability, her curves, as a helpless, compact, delicious love bundle; In four or five years I had no doubt she would constitute an extraordinarily luscious love bundle helplessly responding in a master's arms. I conjectured what she might look like, stark naked, save for chains, perhaps, holding her as a tight love bundle, for a master's pleasure, at a ring, and the locked, steel slave collar that belonged on her neck. Then she put herself to the dirt before him in what, had she been a dancer, and on a different surface, might have been termed "floor movements," such things as turnings and twistings, rollings and crawlings, sometimes on her hands and knees, sometimes on her stomach; sometimes, too, she would be kneeling, sitting, or lying, or half sitting, half lying, or half kneeling, half lying; I saw her on her back and stomach, sometimes lifting her body; I noted, too, she was excellent on her side, one and the other, both facing him, and away, in her movements; I regarded her crawling, on her hands and knees, or on her stomach, sometimes lifting her body; sometimes she would look back over her shoulder, perhaps as though in fear or even, it seemed, sometimes, challenging him to recognize her; sometimes she would approach him, crawling, head down, sometimes head up, or turned demurely to the side; then she would be again sitting, or kneeling, or lying, extending her limbs, displaying them, drawing them back, flexing them; sometimes she recoiled or contracted, as though into herself, drawing attention to herself, to her smallness and vulnerability, her curves, as a helpless, compact, delicious love bundle; In spite of her youth she was well formed. In four or five years I had no doubt she would constitute an extraordinarily luscious love bundle helplessly responding in a master's arms. We want it to suggest that you will be helpless and pleasant at the end of chain, or attractive, bound helplessly, a nicely tethered love bundle, in the furs.
"I said," she whispered, softly, frightened, "I - I love calling men 'Master'." "That is because you are a slave," said Cabot. "Yes, Master," she said. "Too, it is fitting," said Cabot, "that you call them Master, for they are your masters." "Yes, Master," she said.
I slowly, carefully, piled a plate high with rolls, eggs and fried vulo strips. It had probably been a long time since the Lady Yanina had eaten. She had been in the care of the brigands. She was probably quite hungry. I could always watch her feedings later, giving attention to their possible effect on her figure. That would be if I decided, later, to turn her into a love captive, or, if it pleased me, a thousand times lower, nay, a thousand thousand times lower, nay, even uncountably times lower, nay, not even on the same scale, a slave.
"Master well knows how to use a slave," I gasped. "Will he not be merciful with me?" What does he want of me? I am only a slave! Must he drive me mad with passion?" "Be silent," he grumbled. I twisted helplessly in the love chains. I jerked helplessly against them, the rings cutting into my ankles, pulling against my wrists. There are many varieties of such chains. These were simple and had been earlier taken from the wagon box of the slave wagon, the lid of which forms the wagoner's bench, part of the loot which my master had divided between himself and Mirus. Each consisted of a wrist ring and an ankle ring, joined by about ten inches of chain. My left wrist had been attached to my left ankle, my right wrist to my right ankle. I was on my back. A chain was also on my neck. It fastened me to a nearby tree, a yard or so from our blankets. "Are you chained?" he asked. "Of course, Master," I said. I wore his love chains, and the chain on my neck fastening me to the nearby tree. "Whose chains are they?" he asked. "Yours, of course, Master," I said. "It is past midnight," he said. "Ah!" I said. When the recovery period pertinent to the collar of Ionicus had expired, I had been in the power of Teibar of Ar. Indeed, I had been literally wearing his chains. The legalities of simple slave claim, based on active proprietorship, had now superseded, with respect to that collar, the rights contestable by the sword under which I had hitherto been held, those of sword claim. "Perhaps I will put love chains on you again," he said. "You serve well in them." "Thank you, Master," I said. It was indeed my hope that he would do so again, and, indeed, put me in many different bonds, which, in their various ways, for various reasons, both physical and psychological, influence and condition the responses of the female. He then removed the love chains from me, and tossed them to the side, among his things. He then, too, freed the neck chain from the tree, and then, in a moment, from my neck as well. He tossed the chain to the side, so that it lay with the love chains, among his things. He then lay back on the blankets, with his hands under his head. He looked up, at the moons. I knelt beside him.
"Yes, Master," I said, "I am your conquest." It was true. Dina, the Earth girl, she who had once been Judy Thornton, a lovely college student and poetess, was now the enslaved love conquest of Clitus Vitellius of Ar.
"Yes, Master," she said. I liked it, too. It reveals, well, the roundness of her belly and, low at the hips, the beginning of subtle love curves.
"Then I will show you a love dance," she said happily, "a dance I learned in the Walled Gardens of Ar." accordingly, even girls who will be free companions, and never slaves, learn the preparation and serving of exotic dishes, the arts of walking, and standing and being beautiful, the care of a man's equipment, the love dances of their city, and so on. The girl looked at him gratefully and she, with the others, rose to her feet and to the astounding barbarity of the music performed the savage love dances of the Kassars, the Paravaci, the Kataii, the Tuchuks. These arrangements irritated me somewhat, for customarily the chain dance, the whip dance, the love dance of the newly collared slave girl, the brand dance, and so on, are performed openly by firelight in the evening, for the delight of any who care to watch. I turned to the musicians. "Do you know," asked, I, "the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?" I turned to the musicians. "Do you know," asked, I, "the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?" "Port Kar's?" asked the leader of the musicians. "Yes," I said. "Of course," said he. I had purchased more than marking and collars at the smithy. "On your feet," boomed Thurnock to Thura, and she leaped frightened to her feet, standing ankle deep in the thick pile rug. At a gesture from Clitus, Ula, too, leaped to her feet. I put ankle rings on Midice, and then slave bracelets. And tore from her the bit of silk she wore. She looked at me with terror, lifted her to her feet, and stood before her. "Play," I told the musicians. The Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl has many variations, in the different cities of Gor, but its common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master. The institution of female slavery on Gor is doubtless thousands of years old; accordingly it is natural that there should be great complexity and refinement in such a delicious art form as slave dance. There are even, it might be mentioned, hate dances and rebellion dances, but most dances, as might be expected, are display dances, or need dances, or love and submission dances; even the hate and rebellion dances, of course, conclude, inevitably, with the ultimate surrender of the girl to her master as a love slave. Though doubtless Melpomene was untrained and lacked the thousand precisions and controls, the brilliancies and techniques, of the trained dancer, she was not unattractive on the tiles. She strove to please and dance well. I have little doubt but what the disposition to, and the fundamentals of, slave dance are instinctual in a woman. No other explanation seems compatible with the readiness with which they can acquire such dance. Many of the expressions, the gestures and movements of the body, of course, are clearly reminiscent of those of need and desire, of love and submission. The Sa-eela is one of the most moving, deeply rhythmic and erotic of the slave dances of Gor. It belongs, generally, to a genre of dances commonly known as the Lure Dances of the Love-Starved Slave Girl.
She had been sold in Ar on the Day of the Love Feast and had been purchased by an agent of my father. On the other hand, the single greatest period for the sale of slaves is the five days of the Fifth Passage Hand, coming late in summer, called jointly the Love Feast. Many houses would doubtless have put them up for sale in En'Kara but Cernus, as I had heard, was saving them for the Love Feast, which occupies the five days of the fifth passage hand, falling late in the summer. There was a variety of reasons why he was postponing their sale. The most obvious was that good prices are commanded on the Love Feast. In postponing the sales until the Love Feast, of course, there would be time to complete, at least substantially, the training of a large number of barbarian girls. Also, as Cernus doubtless intended, the delay would give his delicately seeded rumors, pertaining to the desirability of barbarians, time to circulate, time to stimulate the imagination and inflame the curiosity of potential buyers. I gather his planning must have been successful, for sales generally in Ar during the first two months of the New Year were down somewhat from seasonal norms, as though Ar's gold for slaves was being held somewhat, in anticipation of the Love Feast. The girls had finished their training during the Twelfth Passage Hand. Little then remained for them except to review their lessons, eat and sleep well, and be in prime condition for their sale in the late summer, during the Fifth Passage Hand, on the Love Feast. The date of the Kajuralia, however, differs. Many cities celebrate it on the last day of the Twelfth Passage Hand, the day before the beginning of the Waiting Hand; in Ar, however, and certain other cities, it is celebrated on the last day of the fifth month, which is the day preceding the Love Feast. His plan was a simple one, but ingenious. The plan was to arrange to have the girls purchased by an agent of Priest-Kings on the Love Feast, which began tomorrow, an agent who would have the resources to outbid any conceivable competition. She spun about. "The Waiting Cells!" she cried. "Yes," said Ho-Tu, "you will be sold tomorrow on the Love Feast." The sale of Elizabeth Cardwell, Virginia Kent and Phyllis Robertson, with that of Cernus' other trained barbarians, did not take place on the first night of the Love Feast, though they had been transported to the cages of the Curulean early in the first day. The Love Feast, incidentally, as I may have mentioned, occupies the full five days of the Fifth Passage Hand, occurring late in summer. It is also a time of great feasting, of races and games. Cernus, sensing the temper and curiosity of the crowds, had determined to make them wait for his surprise delights, over a hundred of them, whose supposed qualities of beauty and skill, enhanced by the mysterious aura of barbaric origin, had been for months the object of ever more eager rumors and excited speculations. Many were the furious Gorean slave girls who found themselves, early in the Love Feast, forced to ascend the block, while buyers were still waiting, before the larger quantities of gold would be spent, to be sold for prices less than they might otherwise have won for themselves under the conditions of a more normal market. The evening of the fourth day of the Love Feast is usually taken as its climax from the point of view of slave sales. The fifth day, special races and games are celebrated, regarded by many Goreans as the fitting consummation of the holidays. These games are among the most heavily attended and important of the year. It was on the evening of the fourth day of the Love Feast that Cernus decided to bring Elizabeth Cardwell, Virginia Kent and Phyllis Robertson, with his other barbarian slave girls kidnapped from Earth, before the buyers, not only of Ar but of all the cities of known, civilized Gor. Lana, whom Ho-Tu, who held considerable power in the House of Cernus, had decided to sell at the Love Feast, so arrived at the Curulean. This was the evening of the fourth day of the Love Feast, the climax of the feast insofar as the sales of slaves was concerned; this was the night Cernus would put his barbarian beauties on the block; tomorrow would be the concluding races and games, wild, dizzying hours in the Stadium of Tarns and that of Blades, bringing the Love Feast to its frenzied conclusion; it was tomorrow, in the Stadium of Blades, that Cernus had informed me I would die. I had seen that many of the seats in the higher tiers, those not reserved, had already been filled with citizens, many of whom were doubtless prospective buyers. This was surprising because the hour was still early; I supposed the crowd this night would be unusually large, even for the fourth night of the Love Feast; The Ubar's Race is the final and climactic race of the Love Feast. The races now stood even between the Steels and the Yellows. The Ubar's Race would decide the honors of the day, and of the Love Feast and, for most practical purposes, the season. "It was clear months ago that Cernus would attempt to market the girls, among other barbarians, on the Love Feast in the Curulean." Hup grinned. "Therefore, that Vella, and the others, because with her, not fall into the wrong hands, it was resolved to purchase them." And his hundred village girls, bought for only two gold pieces a girl, could well stand to make him rich, if they could be brought to Ar before the Love Feast. Slavers remain active all year on Gor, but the peak seasons for slaving are the spring and early summer. This has to do with such matters as the weather, and the major markets associated with certain feasts and holidays, for example, the Love Feast in Ar, which occurs in the late summer, occupying the full five days of the Fifth Passage Hand.
"Why do you limit his rations of love flesh?" asked Tenalion. "It is my will," said the Lady Florence angrily, defensively. "I see," said Tenalion. He smiled. He looked at the Lady Florence as though he had stripped her. "Oh, I let him have a snack of love flesh upon occasion," she said, "if it suits my whim." My face was expressionless. I had not had a woman since I had had Telitsia in the training barn, the morning before she had been sold. "Indeed," laughed the Lady Florence, "I might let him have one tonight." There was laughter. "Jason," said the Lady Florence, "may I introduce one of my slaves to you, a new one. I call her Melpomene." "Yes, Mistress," I said. I regarded Melpomene. She was visibly trembling. "Do you remember Jason, Melpomene?" asked the Lady Florence, sweetly. "Yes, Mistress," whispered Melpomene. "Do you think she would make a suitable snack of love flesh for a fighting slave, Jason?" asked the Lady Florence. "Yes, Mistress," I said.
Many of them would have been much pleased had Hci, such a splendid warrior, deigned to pay them court. But no longer did Hci come to sit cross-legged outside their lodges, playing the love flute, to lure them forth under the Gorean moons. "If you wish to court Iwoso," said Bloketu, "you may come to the lodge tonight and sit outside, cross-legged, playing the love flute. I will then decide whether or not I will permit my maiden to leave the lodge." "Cotanka," said he, "of the Wismahi." As is often the case with the names of the red savages they do not translate simply and directly into a different language. The expression 'cotanka' usually designates a fife or flute, but it may also be used more broadly to refer to any wind instrument whatsoever. Given the cultural milieu involved and the narrower understanding of that expression within that milieu perhaps the best translation, supplying connotations familiar to the red savages, might be 'Love Flute'. Two hunters I saw returning, friends; one was Cotanka, "Love Flute," of the Wismahi, and the other was Wayuhahaka, "One-Who-Possesses-Much," who had elected to remain with the Isbu.
When a master wishes to make use of a slave girl he tells her to light the lamp of love which she obediently does, placing it in the window of his chamber that they may not be disturbed. Then with his own hand he throws upon the stone floor of his chamber luxurious love furs, perhaps from the larl itself, and commands her to them. The alcove, with its enclosing, curved walls, was only about four feet high and five feet wide. It was lit by one small lamp set in a niche in the wall. It was lined with red silk, and floored with love furs and cushions, the furs being better than some six to eight inches deep. I kicked the love furs halfway across the room and sat down on the edge of the stone couch. Elizabeth had gathered up the love furs which I had kicked across the room and had spread them at the foot of the couch. Now, as though suddenly weary, she reclined on them looked at me, and yawned. "You have been up all night," she said, "you must be tired." "Yes," I said, reclining on the love furs. I observed Phyllis Robertson performing the belt dance, on love furs spread between the tables, under the eyes of the Warriors of Cernus and the members of his staff. Near the chests of raiment and such were several folded mats and sets of love furs. Then the slave girls about the table began to go wild, throwing things and where possible pouring liquids on the heads of the guards and members of the staff, who, leaping up, seized them when they could catch them, kissing them, holding them, making them cry out with delight. And more than one was thrown to the love furs under the slave rings at the wall. I myself threw down, in one corner, near a slave ring, the Furs of Love. "Sleep, Midice," I said, covering her with the love furs. "Master?" she asked. "Rest," I said, "Sleep." "I have pleased you?" she asked. "Yes," I told her, "you have pleased me." Then I touched her head, moving back some of the dark hair. "Now sleep," said I, "now sleep, lovely Midice." She snuggled down in the love furs. I knew that none of the slaves would have fled. They would not have been able to. The alarm had come in the night, and, at night, in a Gorean household, it is common for the slaves to be confined; certainly in my house, as a wise precaution, I kept my slaves well secured; even Midice, when she had snuggled against me in the love furs, when I had finished with her, was always chained by the right ankle to the slave ring set in the bottom of my couch. He unbound my wrists from the shield. He thrust me from its surface. I rolled to my side, on the bridge. I lay quietly on the bridge, in his collar. "It is getting late," he said. "I must get you to the love furs." "Yes, Master," I said. At his indication I spread the love furs. I did not spread them upon the couch but at its foot. I was slave. Only a small lamp burned in the compartment. "Pamela," cried the Lady Florence, "bring love furs!" "Yes, Mistress," she said. "Tenalion," said the Lady Florence. "May I trouble you to shackle my little Melpomene by the ring?" "Of course, Lady Florence," said Tenalion. He smiled. The Lady Florence and Melpomene were of quite similar height and weight. The Lady Florence might have been an eighth of a hort taller. Melpomene rose to her feet and stood by the ring, head down, while Pamela spread the love furs on the tiles between the tables. While she stood there Tenalion snapped an ankle ring on her left ankle. It had a chain loop. He then took the length of chain he had used before and snapped one end of it about the chain loop on her ankle ring. The other end of it he snapped about the slave ring set in the tiles. The lovely slave then stood there, shackled in place. "You remember, Jason," said the Lady Florence, "when after your victory over Kaibar, of the stables of Shandu, I ordered that you not be given a woman." "Yes, Mistress," I said. "But I told Kenneth," she said, "that I would later find a slut for you, and that I had a slut in mind." "I remember, Mistress," I said. "This is the slut," said the Lady Florence, indicating Melpomene. "Yes, Mistress," I said. Melpomene stood at the edge of the love furs. She looked down at them. "To the furs, Slave," I told her. Melpomene looked up at me, frightened. With the back of my hand I struck her to the furs. She looked up at me from the furs where she half lay, half knelt. There was blood at her mouth. "When you are ordered to the furs, move swiftly," I said. "Yes, Master," she said. The two women, the Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene, gasped with pleasure. I sensed that they wished that it had been they, and not Melpomene, who had been struck to the furs for their raping. "I see that you well know how to handle a slave girl, Jason," she said. I shrugged. I looked at the Mistress. I thought that she herself might make some man an excellent slave. "Melpomene," said the Lady Florence to her new slave, who was now kneeling on the love furs, "when you were a free woman and dared to steal my silk slave for your pleasure, did you kiss him?" "Of course not, Mistress," she said. "I was a free woman. I would not put my lips to the body of a slave." "Recline on the love furs, Jason," said the Lady Florence. I did so, dropping aside the half tunic I wore. The Lady Leta and the Lady Perimene drew in their breath with pleasure. The guests then rose to their feet. I crouched beside Melpomene. She lay on her back, on the love furs. She was panting; her nipples were delicately rigid; her skin, from the dilation of capillaries, was a patchwork of red and white. The collar was obdurate on her throat. She reached to touch my hand. I permitted it, though she was a slave. I then threw thick love furs at the foot of the couch. She heard them. I lifted the chains there and put them on top of the furs. 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. Open, enraptured, joyful, she writhes moaning and crying out on the furs of love, a conquered slave, a fulfilled woman. How small and soft she was, and how beautiful, lying in my arms, on the furs of love, at the foot of my couch, in the soft light of the ravishment lamp. About her throat, over the slender, identificatory collar, a heavy, thick iron collar had been locked, with a heavy chain, leading to the stout loop of the slave ring, some eight inches in width, fixed in the foot of the couch. "I am so happy, my Master," she said. "I am so happy." Her first taking had been on the floor of the bedroom, she still locked in the body chain. I had then relieved her of its restraint, that the evening might properly begin. With her own hands I had forced her to spread the furs of love and light the ravishment lamp. I had then had her kneel at the foot of the couch, and had chained her by the neck to the slave ring. I had then had her kiss the whip. I had then again taken her. I looked down at her, curled on the love furs, so small and curvaceous, in the heavy collar, chained by the neck to the slave ring, asleep. The light of morning was in the room, filtering through the shutters. It was warm and bright outside. We had slept late. I had been downstairs to get some food. I could hear birds in the garden. I kicked her in the side. "Awaken," I said. "Oh!" she said, moving with the chain on her neck. "Position," I said. Swiftly she assumed the position of the pleasure slave, on the love furs, head up, back straight, kneeling back on her heels, her hands on her thighs. "You kicked me," she said. I cuffed her, backhanded, striking her from her position to her side on the love furs. She looked up at me from the furs, her eyes wide, blood at her mouth. Then she resumed the position of the pleasure slave. I lay now on love furs, at the foot of his couch. He had put a chain on my neck. "Oh!" I cried, thrown to my stomach on the love furs. Then my legs were thrust apart. Then as I gasped and clutched at the furs, almost before I could move, from behind, handled like the slave I was, I was pinioned, held and entered. She could imagine her at his feet, at the foot of his couch on the love furs, attached to the slave ring there, naked, cringing, not knowing if she was to be whipped or caressed, as a slave, taking the whip cast before her in her small hands and, looking up, trying to read the mood of her master, fearfully, tenderly, hopefully licking and kissing it. She wondered if, one day, he might purchase a lamp of love, and love furs. Perhaps, someday, who knew, she might, if she served long enough, and deferentially enough, with sufficient perfection, be permitted sometimes the dignity of the surface of the couch, though still chained by neck or ankle, first kneeling beside it, kissing its furs, and then being permitted to ascend to its surface and then, kneeling at its foot, head downward, rendering obeisance there, before being commanded, or positioned, and swept into ecstasies to be known only by chained, ravished slaves. It is common for the slave to be slept at the foot of the master's couch, chained there to a slave ring. But in such a situation she is likely to have at least a mat and, commonly, deep, luxurious furs on which to recline. Indeed, the slave is often put to service on such furs, which are commonly spoken of as "love furs." I looked at the large coil of rope to the side. "To be sure," said the tarnsman, "it is scarcely the furs of love, spread on the floor at the foot of a master's couch." I looked at the large coil of rope to the side. "To be sure," said the tarnsman, "it is scarcely the furs of love, spread on the floor at the foot of a master's couch." Do they long to be owned, and thrown naked, with a jangle of chain, to the furs of love?
"I love it when you are strong with me," said Peggy. She lay beside me, on her elbow, the chain dangling from her collar. "You are a woman," I said. "I despise weak men," she said. "I respect only men who will treat me as a woman, and do with me what they please. I know I am a woman. I want to be treated as one. How can I take my place in the order of nature if men will not treat me as they wish? That is what I want, to be treated, even with insolence, as men wish. Only then can I know them as my master, and yield to them in my fullness."
"You would choose," I asked, "to kneel in the position of the pleasure slave, that position of female degradation and debasement, imposed on certain females by men, of utter female vulnerability, helplessness and beauty?" "Yes, Master," she said. "Considering the nature of my bondage it is suitable for me. It is, considering the sort of slave I am, fitting and proper for me." "You like it," I said. "I am comfortable in it," she said, evasively. "You like it," I said. "Yes, Master," she said. "I find it deeply exciting and thrilling. I love kneeling in it." "You are proud to kneel in it," I said, startled. "Yes," she said. She feels comfortable and secure on her knees. As a slave, she knows she belongs on her knees. But, too, mastered, she wants to kneel, and loves doing so. I would have loved to kneel beside his thigh, that master first seen on a far world, and so express my slave's devotion, hoping not to be cuffed away, to the side.
All of these women, I suspected, had been in the Semnium before, in one fashion or another, or for one purpose or another, if only to meet friends or to examine and admire the interior appointments and mosaics. It is, after all, one of Torcadino's great buildings. But doubtless none of them had ever before been here in their present capacity, casual love meat set forth for the delectation of passers-by, or even of the idle or curious.
Most of the alcoves, however, like the major lengths of the tunnel, were quite dark. Some were doubtless empty. I hoped so, for I might have need of them. On the other hand many of the alcoves which were in total darkness were not empty. From within many I could hear, as I moved past, the small sounds of chains, sometimes pathetic sounds, responding doubtless to the restricted, helpless movements of small, fair limbs on which they were locked, and the soft love moans of used slaves. Many of these women were doubtless forbidden to speak. They found themselves responding in the darkness to unseen masters merely as helpless, anonymous love objects.
She had not been taught the tether dance, one of the most beautiful of the slave dances of Gor, but she improvised well. Indeed, it was hard to believe that she had not had training. I am inclined to believe that the need dances and display dances of the human female may be, at least in their rudiments, instinctual. I suspect there is a genetic disposition in the woman toward this type of behavior and that certain of the movements, closely associated with luring behavior and love movements, may also be genetically based.
"He may be something of a boor, but he seems to caress well," I said. The girl was now gasping with love noises.
Many of these women were doubtless forbidden to speak. They found themselves responding in the darkness to unseen masters merely as helpless, anonymous love objects.
On the other hand the smell of their sweat and fear, and the precipitated odors of their hot love oils, indicative of their helpless arousal, were more than sufficient to excite the brutes who took them in their arms.
The next performance, following on the heels of the first, was a love-potion farce, a form of farce with many variations. In this one the principal characters were the Golden Courtesan, Chino, the Merchant and the Pedant. The Merchant was played by the harassed, paunchy-looking fellow I had seen earlier. The Pedant, this time, was depicted not as a member of the Scribes but as a member of the Physicians. In brief, the Merchant, intending to visit the Golden Courtesan, sends Chino for a love potion. Chino, of course, obtains not a love potion but a powerful laxative from the Physician. The Merchant takes the potion and visits the Golden Courtesan, with Chino in attendance. Predictably, the Merchant must continually interrupt his initial advances which, of course, are bumbling and clumsy, and not much to the liking of the courtesan, to rush hastily to the side of the stage where, conveniently, may be found a great pot. Chino, meanwhile, exaggeratedly, in these interstices, is assuring the courtesan of the merchant's prowess as a lover. He is so successful that the courtesan soon begins to pant and call the merchant, who, eagerly, rushes back, only in a moment, unfortunately, to be forced to beat a new retreat to the pot. Chino then again begins to reassure the confused, uncertain courtesan. Soon he is demonstrating, even, with caresses and kisses, all in the name of the merchant, just how skillful the merchant would be. The courtesan becomes more and more helpless and excited. Meanwhile the Physician comes by to check up on the efficacy of his potion. His conversation with the merchant provides ample opportunity for double-entendres and talking at cross-purposes. The physician, in departing, puzzled that the potion has not yet taken effect, assures the merchant, sitting on the great pot, that he should allow it a little more time, that doubtless he will soon feel its effects. The merchant, however, convinced that this is not his day, now hobbles home, clutching the great pot. Chino grins and shrugs. He then leaps upon the Golden Courtesan. The time, after all, has been paid for.
Woman is the natural love prey of man. She is natural quarry. She is complete only when caught, only when brought to the joy of her capture and conquest. It was not strange that the proud, intelligent women of the forest, and elsewhere, chose war with men, rather than admit the meaning of his strength and swiftness, the meaning of their own weakness and beauty. Set a woman to run down a man and she cannot do so. Set a man to run down a woman and he will be successful. Nature has not destined her to escape him. It has destined her to be his capture and love.
Women, on this barbaric world, are often regarded, unfortunately, as little more than love prizes, the fruits of conquest and seizure. "And I doubt," I said, "that either the soldiers or the beasts, having come this far, and sustained such losses, are much interested in the taking of prisoners." To be sure, beyond such considerations, there was little to do in the Barrens with prisoners, unless they were females, who might then be reduced as love prizes to suitable, helpless slaveries.
It seems the flute player is often on stage and accompanies performers about, pointing up speeches, supplying background music and such. This is accepted as Gorean theatrical convention, it seems, much as background music is accepted in Twentieth Century films, even in such unlikely locations as city streets, airplanes, life rafts and deserts. Various "modes" are supposed, as well, to elicit and express various emotions, some being appropriate for love scenes, others for battle scenes, etc.
Raised as she had been, in the sequestered quarters of high-born women in the palace of Tyros in Kasra, I supposed it was perhaps the first time that the lips of a man had touched hers. Doubtless she had expected to receive that kiss standing in the swirling love silks of the Free Companion, beneath golden love lamps, beside the couch of the Ubar of Cos; but it was not in the white, marbled palace of the Ubar of Cos that that kiss was to take place; and it was not to be received as a Ubara from the lips of a Ubar; that kiss was to take place in Port Kar, in the holding of her enemies, under barbaric torchlight, before the table of her master; and she was not to wear the love silks of a Free Companion and Ubara but the brief, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave, and a collar that proclaimed her slave girl; and the lips would be those of a slave which touched hers, those themselves of a slave. I was pleased, of course, despite its brevity, to have been accorded a tunic. I knew I might not have received that much. Too, I knew, somewhat to my chagrin, that it could be ordered from me with so little as a snapping of fingers. I did try again to feel a bit indignant at the tunic, for a moment or two, it being all I wore, and so brief, and little more than a rag, but, to be honest, I was much pleased with it. Yes, I was pleased to wear such things. They set me off well. I knew that men found me exciting in them. I did not object to this. I was a woman. Too, if it must be known, such garments excited me, too. I loved to wear them.
"I cannot dance," she said. "And I do not know the love songs of slaves." "What is the title of the eighteenth love song of Dina, the slave poetess?" he asked. "I do not know, Master," she said. "Do you know anything?" he asked. "Very little, Master," she said.
The tile dance is commonly performed on red tiles, usually beneath the slave ring of the master's couch. The girl performs the dance on her back, her stomach and sides. Usually her neck is chained to the slave ring. The dance signifies the restlessness, the misery, of a love-starved slave girl.
I motioned eagerly for Lady Claudia to climb the rubble, that we two, together, might stand in that opening and regard the grandeur of war. "Do you see how it is, that men can love it?" I asked.
On Earth weaklings who wish to rid themselves of women sometimes take refuge in the comforting rationalization that they "love them enough to let them go." That position, whatever may be its moral or psychological merits, does not represent a typical Gorean response, at least where slaves are concerned. Most Goreans would regard it as absurd to let a woman go for whom one truly cared. One shows caring by keeping. And, if necessary, by fighting. What woman, I wondered, could not see through such cant? Most women, it seemed to me, would prefer a man who cared enough for her to keep her, one who was willing, even, to fight for her, rather than one who was willing to "let her go."
"I know nothing!" she said, in alarm. "I have not been love-trained!" "You have served well in quick usages," he said. "We will see later how you do when put to service for Ahn at a time." "I know nothing!" she said, in alarm. "I have not been love-trained!" "I will train you to my tastes," he said.
"She seemed much different than the other Tuchuk women," I said. Kamchak laughed, the colored scars wrinkling on his broad face. "Of course," said Kamchak, "she has been raised to be fit prize in the games of Love War." "Be patient, Tarl Cabot," said Kamchak, beside me on his kaiila. "In the spring there will be the games of Love War and I will go to Turia, and you may then, if you wish, accompany me." "Good," I said. I would wait. It seemed, upon reflection, the best thing to do. The mystery of the message collar, intriguing as it might be, was of secondary importance. For the time I put it from my mind. My main interests, my primary objective, surely lay not in distant Turia, but with the wagons. I wondered on what Kamchak had called the games of Love War, said to take place on the Plains of a Thousand Stakes. I supposed, in time, that I would learn of this. "After the games of Love War," said Kamchak, "the omens will be taken." There were perhaps negotiations to be conducted, perhaps having to do with what were called the games of Love War, or perhaps having to do with trade. She, and others like her, had been encouraged and spoiled from childhood in all their whims, unlike most other Tuchuk women, that they might be fit prizes, Kamchak had told me, in the games of Love War. Then, later in the evening, when I was drunker on Paga than I should have permitted myself to become, I heard them discuss details which could only have pertained to what Kamchak had called the games of Love War, details having to do with specifications of time, weapons and judges, and such. Then I heard the sentence, "If she is to participate, you must deliver the golden sphere." "Yes!" cried Aphris of Turia. "If you will meet Kamras, Champion of Turia, I Aphris of Turia will stand at the stake in Love War!" Kamchak looked at her. "I will fight," he said. There was a silence in the room. I saw Saphrar nod his head. "Wily Tuchuk," I heard him mutter. Yes, I said to myself, wily Tuchuk. Kamchak had, by means of the very pride of Aphris of Turia, of Kamras, and the offended Turians, brought the girl by her own will to the stake of Love War. It was something he would not buy with the golden sphere from Saphrar the merchant; it was something he was clearly capable of arranging, with Tuchuk cunning, by himself. I supposed, naturally, however, that Saphrar, guardian of Aphris of Turia, would not permit this to occur. "All right," said Saphrar, his eyes cast down, as though making a decision against his better judgment, "I will permit my ward, the Lady Aphris of Turia, to stand at the stake in Love War." Now the excitement of the throng seemed mostly to course among the warriors of the Wagon Peoples as they rose in their stirrups to see better the swaying, approaching palanquins, each reputedly bearing a gem of great beauty, a fit prize in the savage contests of Love War. The institution of Love War is an ancient one among the Turians and the Wagon Peoples, according to the Year Keepers antedating even the Omen Year. The games of Love War, of course, are celebrated every spring between, so to speak, the city and the plains, whereas the Omen Year occurs only ever tenth year. The games of Love War, in themselves, do not constitute a gathering of the Wagon Peoples, for normally the herds and the free women of the peoples do not approach one another at these times; only certain delegations of warriors, usually about two hundred from a people, are sent in the spring to the Plains of a Thousand Stakes. The theoretical justification of the games of Love War, from the Turian point of view, is that they provide an excellent arena in which to demonstrate the fierceness and prowess of Turian warriors, thus perhaps intimidating or, at the very least, encouraging the often overbold warriors of the Wagon Peoples to be wary of Turian steel. The secret justification, I suspect, however, is that the Turian warrior is fond of meeting the enemy and acquiring his women, particularly should they be striking little beasts, like Hereena of the First Wagon, as untamed and savage as they are beautiful; it is regarded as a great sport among Turian warriors to collar such a wench and force her to exchange riding leather for the bells and silks of a perfumed slave girl. It might also be mentioned that the Turian warrior, in his opinion, too seldom encounters the warrior of the Wagon Peoples, who tends to be a frustrating, swift and elusive foe, striking with great rapidity and withdrawing with goods and captives almost before it is understood what has occurred. I once asked Kamchak if the Wagon Peoples had a justification for the games of Love War. "Yes," he had said. And he had then pointed to Dina and Tenchika, clad Kajir, who were at that time busy in the wagon. "That is the justification," said Kamchak. And he had then laughed and pounded his knee. It was only then that it had occurred to me that both girls might have been acquired in the games; as a matter of fact, however, I later learned that only Tenchika had been so acquired; Dina had first felt the thongs of a master beside the burning wagons of a caravan in which she had purchased passage. Now, looking on the approaching palanquins, I supposed that so once, in veil and silks, had ridden the lovely Tenchika, and so, too, as far as I knew, might have ridden the lovely Dina, had she not fallen earlier and otherwise to the chains of Kassar warriors. I wondered how many of the proud beauties of Turia would this night tearfully serve barbarian masters; and how many of the wild, leather-clad girls of the Wagons, like Hereena, would find themselves this night naught but bangled, silken slaves locked behind the high walls of distant, lofty Turia. As I knew, not just any girl, any more than just any warrior, could participate in the games of Love War. Only the most beautiful were eligible, and only the most beautiful of these could be chosen. A girl might propose herself to stand, as had Aphris of Turia, but this would not guarantee that she would be chosen, for the criteria of Love War are exacting and, as much as possible, objectively applied. Only the most beautiful of the most beautiful could stand in this harsh sport. This year, as it turned out, the Wagon Peoples had done exceedingly well in the games of Love War, - a bit of news we picked up with the Paga - and about seventy percent of the Turian maidens had been led slave from the stakes to which they had been manacled. The little wench from Port Kar, whom Kamchak and I had seen in the slave wagon when we had bought Paga the night before the games of Love War, was this night to perform the chain dance. I recalled that he might have, had it not been for me, even purchased the girl. She had surely taken his eye and, I shall admit, mine as well. He took it and whipped it out. It was a worn, stained Turian camisk, doubtless one that had been worn by one of the Turian maidens acquired in Love War. I searched among the wagons long before I found, sitting cross-legged beneath a wagon, wrapped in a worn bosk robe, his weapons at hand folded in leather, the young man whose name was Harold, the blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow who had been so victimized by Hereena, she of the First Wagon, who had fallen spoils to Turia in the games of Love War. I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champion of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the games of Love War.
"Oh!" she wept, clutching me, squirming, helplessly pressing her imbonded flesh against mine. "Yes! No, don't let me go!" she cried. "Don't spurn me, I beg you. Hold me! Hold me! Please!" Her creamy flesh was hot. She was covered with sweat. Even her long blond hair, cut somewhat shorter now, half covering her face, was wet. Her body, broken out and mottled, was like a map, one recollective of my attentions. It was covered with an intense, irregular geography of scarlet patches, the capillaries near the surface of the skin swelled with blood, the red color suffusing upward as though from a light within her, as though fires raged within her, just beneath her exposed, yielding, eager softness, witnessing her excitement and arousal. She clutched me, helplessly. "What you can do to me!" she cried. "What men can do to me! I love it. I love it! Please, Master, do not stop!" She threw back her head, her lips parted, her eyes closed. "Ohh!" she gasped. "Yes! Ohhh! Yes! Yes! Oh! Oh! Yes, Master! Yes, Master! Continue, I beg you, with all my heart! I plead with you not to stop! Oh, Master! Yes, Master! Yes, Master!" I heard the sound of the chain on her ankle. "Oh, Master! Yes, Master!" she said.
Once more were heard the love whimpers of the thonged female, who had been displeasing, begging to be released that she might lick the thighs of her master.
"I love working beside you, pulling with you, Master," she said. "I, myself," I said, "would prefer for this work to be done by four or five slave girls, naked, and under whips."
As we fought, the men of Ar, fighting brilliantly for their city, their honor and loved ones, pushed back the men of Pa-Kur again and again, but from the interior of the cylinder swarmed more men of the Assassin. "They are coming out here!" cried a voice, a man in the crowd of the poor, a peasant, turning about, seeing us. But many of those in the crowd were clasping loved ones, and friends, as they escaped from the other door. "I am considering my report," said the officer to the merchant. "It seems that some good fellows of Cos, esteemed mercenaries; in the service of her Ubar, with all good will and innocence, entered this shop, to purchase wares for loved ones, and were treacherously set upon by assailants, some twenty in number." "I have no money, no wealth, I have no family, no loved ones, nothing, you can get no ransom for me! I mean nothing to anyone! I am a mature, middle-aged, woman. You can have no interest in me. It is not as though I were young and lovely! What can you want of me? There is nothing I can do for you!" I wish to return her to her family, one incidentally of wealth and standing, that she be returned to the bosom of loved ones and sheltered within the protection of her Home Stone. Surely you wish the beautiful Adraste to be returned to the happiness and security of her loved ones in Besnit?
Smile at a man of Earth and he will be grateful; pretend to be willing to please a man of Earth and he will do anything for you. You may then use them, such needful weaklings, to rise in the million strata of your intricate society, to climb, to ingratiate and insinuate yourself swiftly, expertly, into the high, warm, comfortable, luxurious places in your busy, impersonal, complex, loveless, anxious world.
Who or what are the Priest-Kings that they should so determine the lives of others, that they should rule a planet, terrorize the cities of a world, commit men to the Flame Death, tear lovers from each other's arms? In the distance, perhaps some forty pasangs away, I saw a set of ridges, lofty and steep, rearing out of a broad, yellow meadow of talenders, a delicate, yellow-petaled flower, often woven into garlands by Gorean maidens. In their own quarters, unveiled Gorean women, with their family or lovers, might fix talenders in their hair. Yes, I knew that the power of the Priest-Kings rumored even to extend to the control of gravity - could lay waste cities, scatter populations, separate friends, tear lovers from one another's arms, bring hideous death to whomsoever it might choose. It was a most ancient creature on which I gazed, the Mother of the Nest. It was hard to imagine her, uncounted generations ago, with wings of gold in the open air, in the blue sky of Gor, glistening and turning with her lover borne on the high, glorious, swift winds of this distant, savage world. How golden she would have been. The Gorean slave girl, if nothing else, is commonly no stranger to love. She is not permitted to be. She is at man's beck and call and, accordingly, willingly or not, will be taught love. If necessary she will learn it under the whip, writhing in chains. The Gorean slave girl, in my opinion, is the most desirable of women. What man, I wonder, fully aroused, does not wish to own his woman. What woman, I wonder, fully aroused, helpless, does not wish to be owned. What woman, I wonder, fully aroused, helpless, is not, in fact, in the arms of her lover, owned. The men of Torvaldsland are rovers and fighters, and sometimes they turn their prows to the open sea with no thought in mind other than seeing what might lie beyond the gleaming horizon. In their own legends they think of themselves as poets, and lovers and warriors. At a word from him, then, she leapt to her feet and he took her in his arms, as though he might own her, and she kissed him, too, as though she might be owned. Never had I seen human beings kiss like that. It seemed a deeply sensuous complementarity that shook me to the core. It was the kiss of lovers, but more than the kiss of lovers. It was the kiss of a lover who is owned and of one who owns his lover. The effect of the slave wine endures several cycles, or moons; it may be counteracted by another drink, a smooth, sweet beverage, which frees the girl's body for the act of the male slave, or, in unusual cases, should she be freed, to the act of the lover; even among free lovers, I have heard, the man, in the fullness of his heat, often laughs at the woman's illusion of freedom and seizes her to him as a slave; The fourth girl, who had once worn the denim pants and beige flannel shirt, extended her chained hands to the crowd. "Buy me, Master!" she cried out. "Buy me for your lover and slave. I am beautiful. I will serve you well!" But women sing as well as men. Sometimes they sing of feasting clothes, and lovers, and their skill in quartering tabuk. "No song," I said, "can catch the sky, No song can encompass the mountains. Songs do not catch the world. They are beside the world, like lovers, telling it how beautiful it is." I then took forth a long, linear face veil; it was red; it was an intimacy veil; any given layer of this veil is quite diaphanous; its opacity is a function of the number of times it is wrapped about the face; a free woman, entertaining an anxious lover, might detain him for days, each night permitting him a less obscure glimpse of her features, until the shattering moment when she perhaps permits him to gaze upon her unclothed face. "I am a woman, Master," she said. "I am feminine." "Perhaps, Master," she said. "But even if she is not so fortunate as to be owned by such a man, there is a gratification for her in being made to kneel and obey, and, willlessly, serve, a gratification connected with the fulfillment of her nature as lover and slave, and connected, too, with the knowledge that she is now at last in her place in nature, and will be kept there." Similarly, there is little, I suspect, which transpires between slaves which is not known to masters. It is usually only a question as to whether the masters wish to take action or not. This hypothesis is further confirmed by the fact that the Sleen, in trading with Grunt, Grunt making use of booties acquired from the Yellow Knives, offered him, in effect, the package containing both the Hobarts and their lovers. I saw two lovers riding by, the woman behind the man, on his kaiila. Their names were Witantanka and Akamda. Some women desire occasionally, or at least once, to be whipped by the man they love. This has to do, it seems, with deep psychological feelings, feelings probably connected with the woman's desire to submit and fulfill her biological destiny, this perhaps being a manifestation, within the human species, of the dominance/submission ratios endemic in nature. This involves, of course, an intense sentient interaction with the lover. Intense emotions, sensations and feelings are involved. In this situation the woman, who desires to surrender and yield, understands that she is now at the mercy of the lover, and is helpless under his will. It gives her an opportunity, too, of course, to show the lover that she, in her love, and in the intensity of her feelings, offers herself up to him. I have mentioned that masks are commonly worn in serious drama and sophisticated comedy, such as it is; I might also mention that they are not worn in most of the minor forms, such as mime or story dance, unless called for by the plot, as in the case of brigands, and so on; farce, on the other hand, represents an interesting case for in it some characters commonly wear masks and others do not; the Comic Father, the Pedant, usually depicting a member of the Scribes, and the Timid Captain, for example, are usually masked, whereas the young lovers, the Golden Courtesan, the Desirable Heiress, and others, are not. Some roles, those of saucy free maids, comic servants, and such, may or may not be masked, depending on the troupe. As you may have gathered many of the characters in Gorean comedy and in the minor forms are, for the most part, stock characters. Again and again one meets pompous merchants, swaggering soldiers, fortune tellers, parasites, peasants and slaves. In two booths the threshold curtains were partly open. In one I saw a slave, naked, writhing slowly in chains before a man, his hands upon her. In another I saw a slave and her lover-master of the moment in one another's arms, half off the large, soft cushion on which the slave, customarily, kneeling, in obeisance, greets the booth's entrant. "Hurry to me, Bosk of Port Kar!" she cried. "I desire your touch! I desire to serve you! I beg to please you! I plead to please you! Take pity on me! Do not torture me so! Do not make me wait longer! Hurry to me, Bosk of Port Kar, my lover, my master!" "Do you think you are a free woman," he asked, "bargaining for the life of her lover, willing to surrender all her fortune that he might live, willing perhaps even to strip herself and make herself my slave, to serve me thenceforth with all perfections, if I will but spare him?" There is an indefinability and preciousness about her, a mystique which informs her, an exceeding of what is seen, a nature and wondrous mystery, like that of a companion and lover, a creature and friend. "Is Saphronicus your lover?" I asked. "No," she said. "Who initiates these relationships?" I asked. "It is a well-written note," I said. "Thank you, Master," she said. She herself, as it had turned out, had written the note, it compliant, of course, with my directives and objectives. Marcus and I had struggled with the note for a time and then, for all practical purposes, had given it up. Lavinia had then composed it. It was sensitive, lyrical, tender, poignant and touching, the desperate, pleading letter of a highly intelligent, profoundly feminine, extremely vulnerable, extremely needful woman hopelessly in love, one eager to abandon herself and to surrender all to the lover. The free woman might very well, of course, not appear precisely at the seventh Ahn. She might prefer to let her putative lover wait, perhaps torturing himself with anxieties and doubts as to her intent to appear at all. "You learned the lessons of the pens well," he said. "Thank you, Master," I said. Slaves must be superb lovers. If they are not, they may be whipped. "Please be merciful!" she begged. "If I am to see him, give me clothing to wear! Do not let me appear before him like this!" "Was he a lover?" asked the young man. "No!" she cried. "Of course not!" Was it not like the foolish, ignorant male who, finding his female lover suddenly, impulsively, on her knees before him, looking up lovingly, rendering him the homage and obeisance her nature yearns to give, sweatingly, embarrassedly hurries her, scolding, to her feet, admonishing her, in effect, to act more like a man. A free companion would presumably not show herself naked to her lover, for such would not comport with her dignity. She is, after all, free. Too, he might then see her as a slave, think of her as a slave, and treat her as such. No free woman, surely, would wish to risk that. But perhaps some free companions did dare, in the privacy of their own compartments, to show themselves naked to their lovers. So pity the poor free woman who would yield herself as a slave to her lover and does not do so, for her enmeshment in the chains of pride. And scorn the foolish free man who cannot recognize and accept, and rejoice in, the slave in a woman. She grappled with her feelings. Had women felt this way, in a thousand years, she wondered, or two thousand, perhaps in Baghdad, Damascus or Byzantium, in Athens or Rome, in Thebes or Corinth, in Gaul or Britain, or in the German forests, or in Persia or Egypt, or in Nineveh or Babylon, or in the great muddy river valleys, or in horse-haunted grasslands, the dominion of bowmen, or in clustered huts where metal was new or in fire-illuminated caves where flint was patiently shaped? What would it be, she wondered, to struggle in the thongs of a prehistoric lover. "I thought he would take you from me, that you were lovers," said Grendel. "No," said Cabot. And untold millions of women fantasize themselves helpless in the chains of masters, fearing the whips of their owners, and millions, as well, are the slaves of their lovers, as they wish to be, though they dare not acknowledge this truth even to the unsuspecting lover. "Perhaps I will one day explain it to you," said Cabot. "But this is neither the time nor place. I will tell you, however, that our conjoint presence in that small receptacle was no accident. We were matched." "Matched?" "Yes, by a vast intelligence, one beyond our grasp." "How matched?" she asked. "As lovers?" "As beasts entrapped by the will of others, placed together for their purposes, not ours." "Beasts?" "Biologically paired," he said. "As lovers, Master?" "Of a sort," he said. Too, Cecily and I had been matched to one another, as tormentingly attracted lovers, by the wisdom, cruelty, and science of Priest-Kings. She is not an object, but a fellow, a colleague, a friend, a companion, a lover, one with whom one shares an endeavor or an adventure, one to whom one entrusts oneself. "Perhaps they think I am a runaway free woman," I said, "a free lover, concealing herself as a slave?" "This Lara," I said, "after her freeing, may have had several lovers, amongst them perhaps Kron, of Tharna."Warriors of Gor Book 37 Page 368
"She is an enamored, lovesick slave!" laughed a man, suddenly.
Yet this road, for all the loving craft of the Caste of Builders which had been lavished upon it, was only an unpretentious, subsidiary road, hardly wide enough for two carts to pass. Too, the passage was devoid of ornament, lacking the mosaics and tapestries with which the beauty-loving Goreans below the mountains are wont to glorify the places of their own habitation. "Why did she not remain on Gor?" I asked. "It frightened her," said Misk, "and your father asked that she be allowed to return to Earth, for loving her he wished her to be happy and also perhaps he wanted you to know something of his old world." My business was with the Wagon Peoples, not the Turians, said to be indolent and luxury-loving; but I wonder at this charge, for Turia has stood for generations on the plains claimed by the fierce Wagon Peoples. Elizabeth Cardwell, the young secretary who so long before had found herself inexplicably thrust into intrigues and circumstances beyond her comprehension on the plains of Gor. Whatever she might have been before, a clock number, a set of records in a personnel file, an unimportant employee, with her salary and benefits, under the obligation to please and impress other employees, scarcely more important than herself, she was now alive, and free in her emotions though her flesh might be subject to chains; she was now vital, passionate, loving, mine; I wondered if there were other girls of Earth in whom such a transformation might be wrought, others who might, not fully understanding, long for a man and a world - a world in which they must find and be themselves, for no other choice would be theirs, a world in which they might run and breath and laugh and be swift and loving and prized and in their hearts at last open and free - though paradoxically perhaps, for a time, or until the man should choose otherwise, wearing the collar of a slave girl. We fell to kissing and touching and loving, and after some she whispered, eyes bright, "Ah Kuurus, you well know how to use a wench." I held the sweet, loving, uncollared thing in my arms. She had forgiven me! I loved her! Ute, only of the leather workers, was the kindest, most generous, most loving girl I had ever known. Then one day we had done little but speak to one another, at great length, with much gentleness and intimacy, and in the night, after our lovings, had spoken together, long, lying before the fire. I remembered her as I had seen her, in the swamp forest, south of Ar, with Nar the spider, and in the Ka-la-na grove, where I had freed her from the chains of a slave, only to put mine upon her; and in the caravan of Mintar, of the Merchants, in her collar, mine, and slave tunic, with Kazrak, my sword brother; and her dancing in my tent; and she upon the lofty cylinder of justice, in Ar, threatened with impalement, and as she had been, beautiful and loving, in the hours of our Free Companionship in Ko-ro-ba, before I had awakened again, stiff, bewildered, in the mountains of New Hampshire. I had never forgotten her. How grateful she would have been, the loving, high-born beauty, in my arms, when I had brought her glorious and safe from shameful bondage, her former captors now stripped and at our feet in the chains of slaves. Perhaps, if it had pleased me, I would have given her Verna, as her personal serving slave, a souvenir of her ordeal in the forest and the glorious triumph which culminated that ordeal. I wondered at women. It seems that they, in reality, care for tender, loving men, who treat them with great consideration and solicitude. She had been a proud outlaw woman, fierce, resenting men, hostile toward them. Marlenus had touched her. She was feminine, utterly feminine, unlocked, opened, a conquered, helpless, loving slave. The loving mother is a type favored by evolution. No man can be blamed for not wishing to make his life miserable. Accordingly, statistically, he tends to select out women who are intelligent, loving and beautiful. I know of no group of women as joyful, as spontaneous, as loving and vital, as healthy and beautiful, as excited, as free in their delights and emotions, as Gorean slave girls; There would be no time for them, no time for seeing, or feeling, or touching, or loving or finding out what it might be to be alive. Who would care to risk his life for a free woman, who, stripped, might prove disappointing, when, for less risk, he could get his capture loop on a known quantity, a girl who has quite probably been trained like an animal to deliciously satisfy the passions of a man, a girl who, responsive, helpless under his touch, his hands and mouth igniting her slave reflexes, will beg and strive to be a loving and obedient joy to him. I knew that the metal collar of a female slave, that obdurate circlet of steel, locked, which she could not remove, so contrasting with her softness, so proclaiming its vulnerability and rightlessness, often transformed even an inhibited, hostile, cold wench, hating men, into an abandoned, yielding, man-vulnerable, passionate slave girl, loving to lie helpless at the mercy of their touch, that of masters. men chose for mating women who pleased them, and women who pleased them were not the ugly, the gross, the belligerent and stupid, but the intelligent, loving, desirable and beautiful; it is from such intricate workings of nature that has come the intelligent, beautiful, sensitive woman, the feminine woman, with full complement of normal feminine hormones, who longs in her heart to lie lovingly, obediently, excitedly in the arms of a strong man, his woman; beyond this, one might note that dominance and submission are genetically pervasive in the animal kingdom; Then, suddenly, as I was to hand it to him, I boldly, again, lifted the goblet's side to my lips. Holding it in both hands, I kissed it again, lovingly, delicately, fully, lingeringly, my eyes closed. I clutched him, loving him. Much service did he get from his girl that night. he who had, in his tenting, again and again, at length, reduced me to a panting, surrendered object of his pleasure, a vanquished, loving slave girl. I looked at him with loving eyes. They return to their masters, for there is nowhere else to go; also a girl who is well mastered will often undergo great privations and hardships to return to the brute whom she cannot help loving with every slave inch of her. My heart leaped. I applied myself as subtly and marvelously as I could, touching his leg variously, bringing my mouth slowly, biting and loving, to the side of his knee. Again, suddenly, I felt myself helpless and owned by them, loving and helpless to their least touch and command. "I shall have her instructed in long lovings at my leisure," said Bosk to me. "Obviously she is an ignorant slave." Where no others have desired to live the Innuit, sociable and loving, have found their bleak refuge. "Some men may prefer neurotic, frustrated, rigid, imitative, conforming free women, mouthing the correct slogans and adopting the correct views on all matters, and eager to slander all who disagree with her, but other men, perhaps naive types, would just as soon own an intelligent, beautiful, reflective, loving slave, a girl who thinks for herself, but must nonetheless obey him, regardless of her will, in all things. Let her serve naked and loving, bangled, perfumed, made-up, on the multicolored tiles of some southern domicile. "Are their not plenitudes of such women on your world," I asked, "beautiful and desirable who, loving and helpless, beg to serve and please?" "You are not now on Earth," I told her. "Here no one will chide you for being lovely and sensuous. Here you need not feel guilty for being loving and feminine." The men of Gor, like beasts and loving gods, subject the women they own to their total mastery. "Are you loving and obedient, Slave?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she said. "I will be the most loving and lowly slave a man could ask," she wept. "Please, let me try to earn my life!" "It will make me so loving and helpless," she said. "Yes," I said. She was an excellent slave, and would doubtless know many loves, until she, a superb love slave, might at last find herself fallen helplessly and totally into the absolute power of such a man as she had never dreamed might exist, he who to her, in the personal and intricate chemistry of couples, would be her ideal master, one powerful, and uncompromising and strict, one capable of seeing that she served well, one capable of whipping her, if need be, but yet one loving and tender, one who would be to her the perfect love master. "It will not be necessary to strike me again, Master," she said. "I will be docile, and obedient and loving." "I have watched you, Jason," said Kenneth. "The collar does not belong on your throat. You are not a woman, born to lie licking and loving at a man's feet. In you there is the stuff of masters." "Yes," she said, "the joy of being owned by a man, of being in his power, completely, of being fully his, and of totally loving and serving him." "I want a master," she said. "I want to be everything, and do everything, for him. I want to give him all of me, holding nothing back. I want to be nothing to him, only his owned slave, totally loving and serving him." The analogy, incidentally, between the dog of the man of Earth and the slave girl of the Gorean male is a quite close one. Of course, the analogy is not perfect. It is, for example, far more delicious to own a slave girl than a dog. To be perfectly candid, however, the slave girl is a lovely, vulnerable, highly sensitive organism; the rational master commonly, unless she chooses to be troublesome, handles her with delicacy and affection; if she is displeasing, of course, even in small ways, she must expect to be shown little or no mercy; on the other hand, if she is obedient and loving, her life is likely to be a joy almost incomprehensible to the neurotic, masculinized, egotistical women of Earth. She lifted her head. "Did you make me love you that night, or were you only such that I could not help loving you. It does not matter, for I loved you then, and love you now, with the total helplessness of a slave's love for her master. You are my Master, and I am your slave, and I love you." Furthermore, the slave knows that when the master arrives at the furs, she is to be waiting there for him, vulnerable and soft, eager, luscious and loving, his. "I will try to be a good slave," she said, "humble, docile, loving and obedient." Later, of course, as she grows in her slavery, as she realizes that her deepest and most profound nature may not only be revealed, but must be revealed, that it is not only permissible to reveal her womanhood, but that it must be revealed, and fully, she, in accord with this liberation, undergoes a marvelous transformation; she tends to become vital and sensuous, and loving, and happy. "You are a slave," I said. "Be loving, obedient and pleasing, fully." "I shall try," she said. Perhaps it is too obvious to mention but a point served by this original use of the couch is to break down the new slave's fear of the couch and encourage her to see it in a favorable light, indeed, as a place of relative safety, comfort and favor. In a possibly hostile environment she desires its protection and significance. She wishes to be upon it. Later, of course, for nobler reasons, she will presumably come to view it with even greater eagerness and affection. On it she will be permitted to serve her master and on it, in turn, she will come to know his touch, as a loving, yielding slave. She would not know, it seemed, the joys of being run, naked, a rope on her neck, a slave, at the flanks of a master's kaiila, the pleasures of, tremblingly, loving and serving, knowing that he whom one loves and serves owns one, fully, the fulfillments of finding oneself, uncompromisingly and irrevocably, in one's place in the order of nature, lovingly, at one's master's feet. "Waniyanpi are supposed to be loving, accommodating and pleasing," said Pumpkin. 'Waniyanpi' is a Kaiila expression. It means "tame cattle." "And is Radish loving, accommodating and pleasing?" I asked. "What is a 'good woman,'" I asked, "one who is natural, spontaneous, feminine and loving, or one who conforms to certain cultural stereotypes, the results, usually, of attempts on the part of aggressive mental cases to impose their maladies, from which they seem unable to escape, on others?" How natural, then, it is, that the truly loving man will concern himself not with her distortions and perversions, ultimately barren, but with her emotional and sensuous truths, ancient and deep within her, with what might be called her biological and natural fulfillment. He then lowered the naked, collared slave, so beautiful, so vulnerable, so helpless, so tremulous, so eager, so ready, so loving, to the grass. "I am so happy!" she said. "I am so happy!" Most men, at least of Gor, permit her to achieve this self-fulfillment; some of them, within certain latitudes of discipline, even permit her to proceed largely at her own pace, gradually coming to understand, incontrovertibly, that she, loving and obedient, has always been a slave to the core. I would be put through processes of enslavement, and rites of submission, the outcome of which, no matter what might be my nature, motivations or dispositions, would be to make clear to me my condition, that I was, whatever I was, scheming woman or loving female, his slave, and totally. If he had flaws as a regent presumably they might be due to his lack of information, or perhaps to a certain unwarranted optimism, or untutored innocence or naivety. Such things are not uncommon among idealists, so tender and thoughtful, so loving and trusting, prisoners of verbalisms, dazzled by inventions and dreams, projecting their own benevolence unto the larl and the forests, skeptical of reality, construing the world in the metaphor of the flower. I considered her softness and beauty, and her helpless, loving responsiveness in my arms. "Yes," I said. "You are a man's slave." "Slaves," I said, "are generally quite open, and loving about their bodies. They tend to understand themselves, and their nature, and love it." "I am not a modern woman," I said. "I have never, in my heart, been a modern woman. In my heart I am a primitive woman, one who has been bred upon from the time of caves, an ancient woman, a medieval woman, a Nineteenth-century woman, a natural woman, a needful, loving woman. I was as alien, and sorrowful, and lost, and miserable, in my world as you were!" "Why do you think I am a modern woman, in some sense you despise," I asked, "because I can speak clearly, because I can think, because I have read a book? Do you not think that true women, loving, needful women, can do these things? Do you not think that what you can love, they, too, can love?" How ridiculous! But, if so, it was easier to understand how she might hate us so, for our very existence, and that of women like us, natural, loving women, subservient in the order of nature to masters; Men are sometimes fools, I think, putting too much store, at least at first, by such superficialities. One need not be beautiful, I was sure, to be a loving, slave treasure. I did not want men who were like me, I wanted men who were like men, men in whose arms, ravished, loving, crying out, overwhelmed, mastered, I could be myself, and find myself. I would strive to show him that the "modern woman" was gone, and that in her place was now his bitch, his legal property, his woman, his woman in all ways, helpless and loving beyond loving. I would love and serve him forever, forever and forever, no more than a dog at his feet, but living in the light of his presence, a loving, panting bitch, loving him forever, loving him forever with a love beyond love! I did know that I was beautiful, and even if I were not as beautiful as she, I was desperately needful, willing and loving. I was only a slave! But thus I could be as free, and piteous, and begging, and lewd, and loving, and sexual as I wished! To some extent I was ashamed and chagrined, for had I not once been a free woman of Earth, but mostly I was very pleased, and grateful, and loving. "Yes, Master!" I wept, loving and ravished, helpless and yielding, a slave, in his hands. "She is a small, curvy slut." I recalled the girl at the fourth ring. She was sweetly thighed with a marvelous love cradle, made for a man's loving. A transformation had soon become visible in her, over the next two or three days, in her entire body and personality. The hardness, the selfishness, the nastiness, the smallness, the pettiness, the meanness which had so characterized her began to melt away. In its place she was becoming soft and feminine, delicate and attentive, eager to please and serve, and loving. Yet I knew they often labored on such rags in such a way as to show an inch here, and conceal an inch there, in such a way that a masterpiece of sensitivity, vulnerability and provocation was achieved. By such means and many others do the luscious, loving, collared little brutes save themselves many a beating and drive their masters half mad with passion and desire. "'I bare my breasts before you. Make me a slave,' 'I surrender to you, naked. Spare me. I beg bondage,' 'I have endeavored to conceal my true nature from men, that I am a slave. Visit justice upon me,' 'I have stripped myself before you. Let me live, that I may serve you as the most abject and loving of slaves,' and such sayings," I said. "How such women shame women such as I, who are weak and needful, and loving," said Lady Claudia. Within the hood, I smiled. Slaves, as is well known, are on the whole far more loving and compassionate than free women. That is probably because they are so much more female than the free woman. To the Gorean mariner, as to many who have followed the ways of the sea, learning her, fearing her, loving her, the ship is more than an engineered structure of iron and wood. "Similarly," I said, "the nature of women, what they truly are, most deeply within themselves, apart from, and beneath, the gross, accumulated encrustations of artificialities and conventions, which must be peeled away, to reveal the true woman, naked and loving, is important." Oars were inboard, stowed. Oarsmen and sailors now, save for a watch, weapons and sea bags over their shoulders, entering upon their leaves, and other fellows, their service now discharged, passed down the gangplank. Reunions were common and often demonstrative, those with relatives and friends, those of companions, those of masters with eager, scantily clad, loving slaves. When a girl fears she may be out of favor with her master, she sometimes kneels before him and begs, "Bell me." In this simple request, asking to be belled, the slave puts herself in her place, at the feet of her master, reconfirms to him her humble and loving acceptance of her bondage, reassures him of her desire to please, and gives promise of slave delights so exciting and intimate that they can be known only among masters and their women. She looked well in her collar, and I had little doubt that, under proper discipline, she would be grateful, loving and hot in it. Your entire self would become more loving, more sexual, more sensitive, more delicate and feminine. You would find yourself, too, more relaxed, yet, too, more alive, more eager, more vital, such things connected, simply enough, with your depth fulfillments as a woman." "As a slave!" she said. "Yes," I said. "That is what a woman is, most deeply, most lovingly, a slave." She shuddered. And so it was that he had determined to reduce and humiliate her, and make her suffer, but with each cuffing, with each command, with each kick, with each blow of the whip, she became only the more his, and the more loving. She was not in the position of the helplessly loving female slave at the feet of a beloved master who regarded her with indifference as merely another of his women, or was even cold to her, perhaps disdaining her as a trivial, meaningless possession. "Be the most abject and loving of slaves," I said. "Crawl at his feet. Weep for his mercy. Beg to serve him in the most intimate modalities of the slave girl." "Some women," I said, "think that the joys of bondage are primarily those of submission and selfless service, the loving and the unstinted giving, the surrendering to the master, the being wholly his, but now you see that there are additional feelings as well." She is devoted, and loving, and it is hardly ever necessary to whip her now." I wanted to be outside, where I could see, and, yes, be seen, where I could actively and visibly be what I was, serving and loving. Better a steel collar in the street than one of gold in the garden! Once, in training, I had had to lavish loving kisses on a discarded sandal. There is the foolishly outraged and defiant nudity of the stripped free woman, in her capture noose, who does not yet know how she appears to men and what will be done with her; there is her trembling nudity when she lies upon her belly in a hunting camp, awaiting her shackling; there is the nudity of the exposition cages, in which one must move and pose for potential bidders; there is the exposure on the slave block itself, as one is auctioned; there is the sweaty nudity of work, as when she scrubs tiles on her hands and knees in her master's compartments; there is the nudity of the slave bathing her master; there is the nudity of the slave in the morning, kneeling before the master, waiting to learn if she may clothe herself; there is the beautiful warmth of a loving slave, nude and collared, serving wine in the light of a lamp of love; there is the nudity of the enflamed slave, aroused in her dance, who will beg for her master's touch; there is the nudity of the women of the enemy serving at the feast of the victors, a nudity that celebrates the prowess of the conquerors and proclaims the fate of fair spoils of war. No one but a frustrated free woman would denounce, or punish, a girl for loving her collar. And I did not tell her this but, commonly, aside from considerations of prudence, the slave wants to listen. Most slaves soon become loving slaves and it is one of the happienesses of the loving slave to have the master speak to her. And who is more important to her than her master? We want the master to be kind and loving, but also to keep us under a strict, perfect discipline, even to the whip. We wish there to be no mistake about the matter that we are slaves, fully, nor any doubt about to whom we belong. In Gorean there is an expression which would rather literally translate as "display slave," and it seems that that is much the same idea, namely, that the woman's value is seen to lie more in the ranges of a decoration, an appointment, an appurtenance, or such things, than in herself, than in the heats, services, devotions, and loves of a whole woman, a living, breathing, loving, passionate, needful female. I think then that I should mention, perhaps, particular given the fact that an earlier paragraph might be misconstrued, and that the frightening condition it references might be understood as being typical of a given form of relationship, that there is a lovelier, warmer, more beautiful, benign sense, of "finding security on a chain." It is one familiar to thousands of loving slaves. "It is well known to me that you are a slave - legally," he said. "I can see your collar, the brand." "It is more than that," I wept. "I am a slave inwardly, in my need, and in my love, and in my nature! It is what I am! Despise me for it, if you wish! I am a natural slave, a rightful slave, and here, on this world, in my collar, I have found myself at last! Hate me! Hold me in contempt! But I am a slave, and I love being a slave! I love it! I love it! Do not try to force me to be what you want me to be! Rather accept me for what I want to be, and am! - one who knows she belongs at the feet of men! - and desires to be at the feet of men! - their slave! - their loving slave!" "How I have fought my weakness, my loving you!" he exclaimed. "I put you from me. I avoided you. I held you in contempt. I abused you. I kept you at a distance. I treated you with coldness and cruelty! But each instant I was fighting myself, wanting to seize you, to sweep you into my arms, to crush you to me!" He spun about, in fury. "And in hating you, and loving you," he said, "I sensed the role you had to play, and the dangers which might attend upon it. I knew that those in the house, of those of Cos, might be among the very few who could recognize you again. I can understand, she thought, how the same woman might be one man's wife and another's conquered, mastered, loving slave. Let such husbands, such weaklings, cry out in misery, she thought, learning that their pampered, bored, spoiled, troublesome, nagging wife is another man's kneeling licking, begging slave. Another, at the mere snapping of fingers or an imperious gesture, receives from she whom he has never taken the time or interest to truly know, she whom he has never questioned as to her depths and needs, she to whom he has never intimately and truly spoken, she whom he has never attempted to understand, but has insisted upon seeing only from a distance, through the distorting prisms of convention, frequent, delicious, loving, abject services, services of which he has feared even to dream. He will then keep me as the slave he wants and as the slave I long to be, worthless but helplessly his, helplessly devoted, helplessly loving. I want to be a wonderful slave to him! I want to be the most wonderful and loving slave on all Gor! How improper, how terrible, how wicked to be alive, and needful and loving! To men such as these, the mighty, untamed, unreduced men of Gor, what can women be but prey and quarry? What can we be before such men but intimidated, dominated slaves, but eager, yielding, responsive, supplicatory slaves? Such men are true men, men as nature intended them to be, and before them, accordingly, what can a female be but a true woman, as nature intended her to be, a begging, aroused, loving slave? To be sure, the female slave is the most sexual, loving, vulnerable, helpless and feminine of all women, but such things are not confined to those whose lovely throats are clasped securely within the circlet of bondage. She belonged at the feet of a master, serving, loving and obedient. Your sexual fulfillment comes not from him alone or from yourself alone, but from the complementarities of nature, the male and female, the man and woman, the master and the slave, he who commands and she who, conquered, surrendered and loving, obliged to please, subject to discipline, serves, serves gratefully, zealously, lovingly, with every fiber of her owned being. He touched the side of her collar with the fingertips of his right hand, a gesture which, to her surprise, seemed almost loving. Suppose two women, one a free woman, the other a slave, both stripped. Both are commanded to belly, and lick and kiss a man's feet. The free woman, one supposes, will experience humiliation, shame, and such, and, in performing this simple, lovely act, may feel degraded, and so on. It is not unusual, of course, that the free woman, as she is a woman, will feel there is an appropriateness in her performing this act, and may actually, in a way, find her sensations, which she would pretend to deplore, delicious. In any event, she is doubtless on her way to the collar. Now a slave, performing the same act, and doubtless with much greater skill, is likely to feel grateful and loving. The slave is herself - fully herself - liberated, loving, one, complete, whole and profound. She hoped they did not bring Gorean women to Earth, particularly slave girls, for that would be much like bringing lovely, warm-blooded, delicate creatures, vulnerable, natural and loving, to a wasteland, an arctic locale inimical to passion, a desert hostile to love. "Yes, Master," she said. "But even if I were a free woman the love I feel for you would make me your helpless slave! But I am not free, but am a true slave, and belong in the totality of my being to my master! There can be no greater love than the love of a loving slave!" But with you, on the same chain, perhaps prized even more highly than you, their collars locked as securely as yours, their chains clasping as perfectly, their bodies as bared, may be other women, they selected as carefully as you, quiet, gentle, loving, needful, natural women, women less removed initially from their sex than you, women who disdained to strive to be facsimile males, such monstrous transmogrifications of human reality, those to whom grotesque propagandas could not speak, those who could never bring themselves to believe the catechisms of negativity, horror and hatred, those who had no difficulty in detecting the unsatisfying special nature and hollowness, the idiosyncratic party-serving nature of diverse bromides and slogans, the lies that others would impose upon them, but who knew themselves female, even from the beginning, despite all the propaganda and conditioning, female radically and profoundly, those who even on Earth have longed to fulfill their femaleness in the service of men, men who will understand them and treasure them, but will nonetheless give them the domination they crave, who will supply the masculine to their feminine, the yang to their yin, who will see to it that they are, as they desire to be, let it be stated explicitly, mastered, wholly, and beautifully, and uncompromisingly mastered. "If you could stop me from loving you," said Grendel, "you would have succeeded, long ago." "Of the helpless, loving slave, needing and wanting men, desiring to please and serve them, moaning and ecstatic in their arms, and the independent free woman, with her frigidity and pride, who is most likely to replicate her genes?" "I do not think I understood it then, at least fully, at least in full consciousness," she said, "but now its meaning is quite clear. Its meaning is that we are women, and exist to be desired and sought, and that we wish, and wish desperately, despite what we might claim, to be desired and sought, and that we exist to be beautiful, and loving, for men, and that we exist to please and serve men, that we are the complementary sex to theirs, and each sex is to be a perfection to the other, and take its meaning from the other, and only as utterly different are the sexes united in the wondrous and precious perfection of wholeness, and this is what brings us to the feet of men, hopeful and submissive, to be accepted, if only we fully understood our meaning, and ourselves, as their slaves." Does she wonder what it would be to be a whole female, loving her sex, and rejoicing in it? My own feeling is that it is best to have one slave, so that she will strive to be so loving, so pleasing, so hot, so needful, that the master will feel no desire for another. In such things we find not only a loving confession of femininity, but its unapologetic petition and expression. It is not wrong for a woman to reveal her deepest heart and needs. The relationship between a male master and a female slave is often intimate and loving, though she is never permitted to forget she is only a slave. Even the most loving and kindest of masters will enforce a perfect discipline on his chattel, which reassures her, and to which she is helplessly responsive, sexually and psychologically. It is an excellent, and beautiful, moment when a woman realizes that that is what she is, a slave. She is then whole within herself, content, and loving. "Are you white silk or red silk?" "White, white, white!" she said, continuing with her kisses, then licking at the shoulder of her master, thereby confessing herself the more his loving, begging beast. The stranger looked down on the slave, and she shrank small before him. I sensed then that his memory swept him back to Ar, and that, for a moment, he saw before him not a loving, eager, precious possession, who might be sought even at the World's End, but a traitress and fugitive, one vain and treacherous, one who, when free, had betrayed her Home Stone, abused power, and turned even on her supposed friend, whom she had honored as her Ubara. I was brought here as most from my world, as animals for your markets, selected for qualities and attributes of interest to strong men, qualities and attributes for which strong men, historically, even on my old world, will bid and pay, those qualities and attributes so despised in us, and yet coveted, I think, by your free women, beauty, desirability, weakness, vulnerability, femininity, a readiness and longing for submission, an inevitability to become, in a man's hands, the helpless, begging prisoner of our own passion, a desire to love and serve, to give all, to belong unstintingly and wholly, to be a sort of woman, meaningless and worthless, a man's subdued, yielding, grateful, loving slave! Are the miseries of a free woman so superior to the joys of a mastered, loving slave? A slave may desire her master, long for him, want more than anything to surrender herself wholly and unquestioningly to him, ache for him with all the flames of love, yearn to submit herself to him as no more than a negligible, meaningless, helpless, loving beast, be willing to die for him, but, too, she may well fear him, for the whip is his, and he is master. I wondered if I were capable of loving. I wanted to be only his helpless, loving slave! I had heard that Panther Girls, subdued and taught their collars, made excellent slaves, grateful, devoted, loving, obedient, and passionate. And I remembered how Donna had knelt beside Genserich and licked his thigh, beautiful, loving, obedient beast that she was. Certainly it is pleasant to have a loving slave at one's feet. This evening Lord Yamada bestowed on her all the attention, interest, friendliness, and kindness of a loving father. Obviously she was furious at this humiliation, but she remained on her knees. How different she was from the impassioned, eager, tender, vulnerable loving slave who wants so much to be on her knees, and knows she belongs there, before her beloved master. Accordingly, given the nature of men, life began to form itself again in the ancient patterns of coming and going, farming and hunting, fishing and gathering, gaining and losing, accumulating and squandering, building and destroying, planning and plotting, loving and hating. "You are hurting me, Paula!" I said. "I am your friend. Your dear, loving friend! Let me go. Ai! Ai! Please, stop! Please, stop!" Convinced of her slavery, she is then likely to go contentedly about her business, that of loving and serving her master. How vulnerable, and yet loving, I felt. How fortunate I had been, one such as I, so light and frivolous, so smug and pretentious, so trivial and unworthy, to be befriended by one such as she, so deep and loving. Have we not been bred to find our joy in bondage, in loving and belonging; have we not been bred to be slaves? "Well," he said, "foolish, naive kajira, know that she is far more worth being your friend than you think, that she is no icon of idiocy, but a living, breathing, feeling creature, a living, loving animal, profoundly and deeply human. "It seemed that all my work, the planning and expense, and all my anxiety and suffering, and all my hopes and dreams of rescuing the former Lady Felitia Thaliana of Besnit and returning her to her waiting and loving family, had gone for naught. Adraste, as we may call her, had slipped away. You are doubtless distressed and sympathetic, but, frightened, and uncertain; you manage well to conceal your feelings." "I have her still," he said. "In her belly there is a flaming slave, devoted, loving, and needful." "Many women find love in the collar," I said. "Forgive us, Lady," said Myron, "but we must ascertain your identity, unmistakably, before we can welcome you publicly to Jad, and celebrate your escape from harrowing distress and your late, safe arrival amongst loving friends and loyal allies." "You have not been fully pleasing," said her master. "I am going to feed you to the beasts." At that point, two of the beasts, growling, their eyes like flaming copper in the light of the moons, emerged from the cave. Della, terrified, instantly threw herself to her knees before her master, begging his mercy and forgiveness, pleading for her life. He said nothing, but turned about and returned to the city, Della hurrying behind him, heeling him. After that, it is said that Della became an obedient, dutiful, and loving slave. "Consider, Jurors, with your free and open minds, my client was little more than a simple, naive child, little more than a simple, naive girl, totally ignorant of statecraft, lovingly sheltered and protected within the Central Cylinder, when, in the crisis resulting from the unexplained absence of her loving father, Marlenus, she was unwittingly drawn into political intrigues far beyond her ken. I held the whip before her. "Kiss it, and lick it," I said, "humbly, lengthily, submissively, lovingly." "You are not a free woman," I said. "You need not fight your bondage. You may yield to it, honestly, humbly, lovingly, and rejoicingly."
Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, once of Earth, once rich, once spoiled, and cruel and selfish, now only a conquered Gorean slave girl, lay intimately, lovingly, in the arms of her absolute master. I leaped to my feet. He seized me in his arms, and, on the summit of the knoll, held me long, lovingly, in his arms. "Yes my Jarl," she said. Then she put her cheek, to our surprise, to the side of his leg, and lowering her head, holding his boot, kissed it. It was very delicately, and lovingly, done. men chose for mating women who pleased them, and women who pleased them were not the ugly, the gross, the belligerent and stupid, but the intelligent, loving, desirable and beautiful; it is from such intricate workings of nature that has come the intelligent, beautiful, sensitive woman, the feminine woman, with full complement of normal feminine hormones, who longs in her heart to lie lovingly, obediently, excitedly in the arms of a strong man, his woman; beyond this, one might note that dominance and submission are genetically pervasive in the animal kingdom; further, I found myself longing, though I did not admit this to myself at the time, to lie lovingly in their arms, theirs. "I will not do dishonor to Thandar of Ti," she said. "I will serve him, not known to him, lovingly, as only what I am, a lowly paga slave." "I wait lovingly and eagerly to serve you." "His domination was ruthless?" I asked. "Yes," she smiled, "lovingly ruthless." "I, too," she said, "am only a slave, lovingly and helplessly a slave." "Do you think you will forget it?" I asked. "No," she said, "I will never forget it. I will remember it, lovingly, always." I felt her small hands, lovingly, timidly, touching me about the shoulders and chest. Then again we sat down. The girl, nude and collared, curled lovingly on its side near him, its hand touching his knee. "You enjoy kissing the whip, don't you?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she said. "You know well what its lash can do to your softness, do you not?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she smiled. "And yet you kiss it lovingly," I said. "Yes, my Master," she said. I held her in my arms, looking down into her eyes. She looked up at me, lovingly. She, head down, pressed the heavy metal goblet deep into her lower abdomen, and then she lifted it to her lips and, holding it with both hands, kissed it lingeringly and lovingly. "You, yourself," I said, "the girl, herself, eager to please, imaginative and intelligent, monitoring her own performances and feelings, striving lovingly to improve and refine them. You yourself will be largely responsible for making yourself the superb slave you will become." "I see," I said. "Powers in the sense of capacities and permissions." "Yes," she said. "Slave girls, for example, can, and must, do things and perform acts, superbly, lovingly and unquestioningly, which would be forbidden to free women, or unthinkable for them. In a matter of days, I suspected, it might be difficult to tell one, licking and kissing at one's feet, warmly, lovingly and gratefully, from a more normal slave. The girl looked up at me, lovingly. Again I kissed her. "Oh!" she said. It is good for the people of a Tatrix to be able to look lovingly and reverently upon her. She then returned to where he stood on the sand, talking with men, and, crouching down, or kneeling or standing, as was most efficient at the time, lovingly, kissing him meanwhile, softly and timidly, wiped his body clean of sand and sweat with her long hair. "Take it in your hands, Tiffany," it said, "and kiss it." I took the heavy ring in my hands, lifted it, and kissed it. I then put it back gently, lovingly, against the couch. "I will obey lovingly and with total perfection, Masters," averred the woman from within the box. "I beg only to be permitted to be fully and totally pleasing to my Masters!" "Gradually, serving him helplessly, then lovingly in these fashions, I became more and more aroused," she said. "Then, finally, after the polishing of the leather, I could stand it no longer. I threw myself to my belly before him, juicing like a larma." She lifted her head to him, lovingly, pleadingly. I saw that the diet and exercise had shaped her excitingly. "Use the sponge well," he said. "Remember that it must not only clean but caress, and do not forget, in this service, to fondle and kiss the master, humbly and lovingly." Kiss my feet again, High Girl," she said. I did so. "More deferentially and lovingly," she said. Most women, prior to their marriage, do not truly know the man they are marrying. They will come to know him, truly only in living with him, his. It is natural, then, that a woman should enter into such a relation with a certain amount trepidation. How much more so, then, must this be the case with the female slave, whose new master, one who will have total power over her, is likely to be a total stranger, a fellow whom she has probably never even seen before her sale. Is he going to enfold her lovingly in his arms, and master her, or cherish her as a treasure, or is he going to feed her to sleen? A few moments later I knelt, lovingly, at the side of the curule chair. I licked at his knee, slowly, lovingly. Then I looked up at him. I laughed, and continued my work, lovingly. She looked at him, frightened, lovingly. Accordingly she knows that they, so sweet and soft, so delicious and marvelous, so wonderful and exciting, will, like the rest of her, without a second thought, be submitted to attentions appropriate to her status. For example, they may be lovingly handled, and kissed and caressed by the master however and as long as he pleases. "You can do better than that," I said. "Better. Very good. Now, with your tongue. Come now. That's better, much better. Excellent. Now, again, kiss it. More lingeringly, more lovingly. Splendid." I then drew the whip back. "Yes," I said. "Good. Now put your head down and lick and kiss my feet." "I am a free woman!" she said. "You are a woman," I said. "Now, softly, lingeringly and lovingly. Good." "How do you wish to be taken?" "I am new to my chains," she said. "Gently, lovingly, please." Surely no real woman, hostile, unloving, demanding, shrill and frustrated, zealous in her conformance to stereotypes, attempting desperately to find satisfaction in such things, would wear such a garment. I had wanted to kneel before them, lovingly and worshipfully, and yield them my total submission. New slaves are often treated with great harshness. It helps them learn quickly that they are slaves. Later, when the girl is well trained and her services become perfections she may be treated more leniently, even lovingly, like a dog. For example, we would not think it strange if a fellow of Earth, once in a while, drew forth his coin or stamp collection and spent some time lovingly pouring over it, scrutinizing and inspecting its items, and such. Sometimes in my dance I made use of the chain, sometimes pretending, to the music, to fight it, a fight which I had to lose, or not to understand it, looking to the men then, as though they might explain its meaning to me; they did, with raucous cries; sometimes I used it to caress me, with the soft, lovely chain caresses of bondage, to which I, whimpering, responded; sometimes I seemed to confine myself variously, seemingly sometimes more strictly, more helplessly, more mercilessly, with it; sometimes I kissed it and caressed it, gratefully and lovingly, expressing therein the welling up within me of my joy at finding myself at last in my rightful place in nature; there is much that one can do with a chain. I looked at him, wildly. He had asked me this in Argentum, before I had deceived him, before he had carried me, trustingly, lovingly, in his arms, back into the alleyway. They would let me he the slave I was, lovingly and helplessly. I loved them for it! I kissed the master eagerly. He bent over me and removed the chains. Swiftly, tears in my eyes, I knelt before him. I then, unbidden, contritely, timidly, lovingly, kneeling before him, kissed him, serving him with all the sweetness, delicacy and perfections I could. I then swallowed, and looked up at him, hoping to find some particle of forgiveness or kindness in his eyes. "She wore her collar and chain lovingly and well, most beautifully," she said. "She obeyed Liadne from the first, immediately, spontaneously, intuitively, naturally, with timidity, and perfection. It was as though she intuitively understood authority and her own rightful subjection to it. Though this new girl, like the rest of us, save Liadne, was free, I think I had seldom seen a woman, so early in captivity, so ready, so ripe, for the truths of the collar." After her whipping, reassured of the strength of her master, and that she will be kept in her place, where she belongs, and wishes to be, she curls gratefully, lovingly, at his feet, eager to serve in all ways, his to command. Then, to the delight of the audience, she reached forth and, holding the fellow's leg, and pressing herself against it, kissed him humbly, timidly, lovingly, about the thigh. "Of course in my belly," she said, "I felt the appeal of bondage. I was intrigued by thoughts of it, and lured by them. Often did I linger lovingly upon such thoughts. Often was I fascinated to consider how it might be with me if I should become a slave, be owned and have no options but to obey." Is it the hunter's mate, clad in her skins, kept, and cuffed and obedient, cowering lovingly at her master's feet, his in the sense of rain and stones? She now, kneeling before him, close to him, had her arms lovingly about his legs, her head down, shaking as though with sobs. "You will kiss, and lick, the whip," he said, "lovingly, lingeringly." I leaned forward a little, and reached out with my lips for the whip. In ecstasy, I kissed it. I kissed it lovingly and lingeringly. It is not that important thing here was the fetching of the sandals themselves. Not at all. Nor was it even that my nature was such as to put me helplessly, lovingly, and appropriately at a man's feet. In such a humble act I acknowledged, and honored, not only the maleness of a given individual, of a given master, but, in a sense, all maleness, and the might of the mastery, and expressed, lovingly, in joy and tenderness, my femaleness. I touched his own cloak. I felt it lovingly. How warm it would be. I looked up at him. I would love to have it wrapped about me, I naked within it. It would be almost as though I were within his bonds. There were the gentle kisses, some prolonged, some as light and quick as the shiftings of sunlight and shadow among stirring leaves, some as bright and unexpected as the pattering of momentary, shimmering drops of rain, some as tender as the falling of the petal of a flower, and the other kisses, the swirling, begging, meaningful kisses, the kisses almost beside themselves, uncontrollable, and the petitionary kisses, reluctant to draw away from the shaft; and there were the movements of the tongue, the tiny dartings, the teasings, the supplications, the tastings, the long, and the short, and the circular caresses, the placatory caresses, the caresses of yearning, and begging and total submission; and she moved her hair about the whip, and thrust the side of her face lovingly against it, rubbing against it, and then looked up, tears in her eyes, at her master. Was it not like the foolish, ignorant male who, finding his female lover suddenly, impulsively, on her knees before him, looking up lovingly, rendering him the homage and obeisance her nature yearns to give, sweatingly, embarrassedly hurries her, scolding, to her feet, admonishing her, in effect, to act more like a man. "Lift your head," he said. The slave obeyed, and found a whip before her lips. Obediently, unbidden, she licked and kissed the whip, for some moments, deferentially, submissively, timidly, lovingly, until it was withdrawn. She wanted to cry out that she loved him and she wanted to be his slave, but she could not speak. Surely she would never see him again, he for whose collar she longed to beg, he at whose feet she craved to kneel, he before whom she desired to fling herself, kissing his feet, he whose whip she longed to lick lovingly, obediently, he whose sandals she wished to bring to him in her teeth, on all fours, he to whom she desired to be the most abject and devoted of love slaves. But in others of those compartments, Ellen supposed, there would be not free companions but slaves, and masters. In such places she supposed the slaves lovingly served the masters. . In the master/slave relationship the master owns the slave, and thus will have everything from her, and at the time, and in the place, and precisely in the way he pleases. And the slave, lovingly, would not have it otherwise. For years before her branding and collaring she had sensed that she was a natural slave and had surreptitiously dreamed, while trying to deny such dreams, of meeting a master who would enslave her and whom she might thereafter lovingly serve. He looked at Ellen. She, on her belly, licked and kissed, deferentially, lovingly, at the hand that fed her, and then, eyes shining, lifting her face and opening her mouth, she delicately, gratefully, accepted another tiny piece of meat. She thrust her right cheek to the side of his knee, lovingly, fervently. She had not, of course, offered wine to the men as she might have, in private, to her master, kneeling naked before him, in her collar, touching the cup variously to her body, pressing it here and there against, moving it here and there against her beauty, feeling the steel rim firmly, unyieldingly, against her yielding softness, kissing it, placing it, kissing it, placing it, this commonly done at the belly, the waist, at each breast, and at each shoulder, and then, lifting her eyes, regarding him over the rim of the cup, kissing it again, one last time, lingeringly, lovingly, and then lifting it to him in two hands, her head deferentially down, between her extended arms. But then, too, suddenly, it seemed, her entire body began to be suffused, more so than ever before, this startling her, almost frightening her, with an incandescence of surrender, of helpless heat, of overwhelming love, of total, unmitigated submission, of a woman's desperate, frenzied need to put herself lovingly, helplessly, at the mercy of a master. How is it that she can lovingly kiss the chain that fastens her to her master's couch? "There are many ways to lick and kiss the whip," he said, "tenderly and lovingly, humbly and gratefully, lasciviously and avidly, pleadingly, needfully, supplicatingly." "Now," said Cecily, "lift the goblet to your lips, and, gazing over the rim at your master, kiss the goblet, tenderly, and lick it, lovingly, lingeringly, for he is your master, and he is permitting you, a mere slave, to serve him. Keep your eyes on your own master, slave!" She responds well to blindfolds, hoods, gags, ropes, straps, collars, slave bracelets, chains, and such. When I tied her hands behind her she put back her head in the hood, lovingly, and pressed against me. "You may both kiss, and lick, lovingly, deferentially," I said. "It is a great honor for a slave girl to do this, for he is a free man, and she is a mere slave." "Yes, Master," she said, kneeling beside me, placing her right cheek softly, lovingly, on my knee. I brushed aside her hair, and touched her collar, fingering it idly. The slave was lying near him, lovingly, on her side. But in time, they, too, lick and kiss the whip lovingly, for they, too, are women. She tenderly and lovingly, and humbly, kissed and licked the switch for a few moments, and then looked up adoringly, at her master, hoping that he would be pleased. "I have long hoped," she said, "to be noticed, to be acquired, to be picked, to be harvested, as slave fruit, to love and serve, to belong lovingly, selflessly, wholly to another. That was my dream. But I thought myself too plain, of too little interest." When Paula had finished her repast, she crawled to Drusus Andronicus, and lay lovingly beside him. Part of our circle, so to speak, the fire pit to one side, restfully crouching, as might Kurii, was Lord Grendel and, beside him, touching him, making tiny loving sounds from time to time, was Eve. As he did not remove the whip from before me, I moved my head to the side of the coil, and, eyes closed, pressed my check against it, lovingly. They will have nothing to live for, but to humbly and lovingly serve their mistress."
That night, that glorious night, was a night of flowers, torches, and Ka-la-na wine, and late, after sweet hours of love, we fell asleep in each other's arms. Each evening five lovely, long-haired, uncollared serving slaves would come to her cell, to bathe her and perfume her, to prepare her for love. I laughed again, and she laughed, and I permitted her to struggle until she had exhausted herself, and then, with lips and hands, and teeth and tongue, I touched her, until her body, caressed and loved, in all its loneliness and passion, yielded itself, moaning and crying out, to mine in our common ecstasy. And in the moments before she yielded, when I sensed her readiness, to her faint protest, then joy, I removed from her throat the slave collar that her yielding, our games ended, would be that of the free woman, glorious in the eager and willing, the joyous, bestowal of herself. "I love you," she said. "I love you, too," I said. "I love you, my Telima." "But sometime," she said, teasingly, "you must love me as a slave girl." "Women!" I cried, in exasperation. "Every woman," said Telima, "sometimes wishes to be, loved as a Ubara, and sometimes as a slave girl." We had begun to take long walks beyond the palisade, hand in hand. We had much spoken, and much loved, and much spoken. It was as though I might not have been his slave. It was then that I had begun to fear that he would sell me. "Come to me," said the first girl. "I will love you like you have never been loved before!" "I love you, Master," I said. "Be silent, Slave," he said, irritably. "Yes, Master," I said. He then touched me with sweetness, and tenderness, and I held him closely, but did not speak, lost in his touch, for I, a slave, had been forbidden to speak. He made gentle love to me then, which, I knew, might become abrupt or brutal as he chose. There were a thousand ways to have a slave girl and I did not doubt but what Clitus Vitellius was master of them all. How joyful I was. He was dominant over me. I was subject to him. I was his, completely without qualification. It is impossible for me to express my feelings. Perhaps this is why he had warned me to silence, that I might not try to speak, but would be content to feel what could not, in any language, be spoken. So I did not then try to speak, but, rather, contented myself with turning to the tasks of love. "Please, my Master," she said. "Make now to me a gentle love." "I will let you make love to me," she said to the driver, "if you will let me go." Some free women, incidentally, insist on making love in the dark, because of their modesty. "I will let you kiss me," she said. "I will even let you make love to me!" I looked down upon her. I was furious. She had been an insolent slave. "Let me be your employee," she said. "I am willing, even, to be your love employee! You do not need to pay me much. You do not need to pay me anything at all! I will work for nothing for you! Let me be your love servant! Sometimes I will even serve you as might a slave girl!" "They have taught us many things," she said. "What about intimate secrets of slave love-making?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. I was reminded of the girls at the training stakes in the pens of slavers, in the cities. One of the first things a girl is taught to do is to lick and kiss under duress. One of the next things she is taught to do, in her training chains in a furred alcove, is to make love instantly, at so little as the snapping of fingers, or the barking of a command. "My master was not pleased to pay so much," she said "When he took me to his lodge he was angry and beat me! Then he made lengthy love to me, and I was his." There was a moment of awkward silence. I hoped they were not disappointed. I did not want to fail to please them. I would have been willing to do anything. I would even have been willing to let them hold me in their arms, or kiss me. I would even have been willing to let them make love to me. I knew such things were common. Why should a girl not turn her charms to her own profit? I did not want them to lose interest in me. They paid well. "I am not one of those women who thinks her part in making love is finished when she lies, down," I said. I thrust her from me. She lay near me, shuddering, trying to comprehend what had been done to her. Being had as a collared slave is quite different, in all its modalities, and however it is done, to having polite love made to one as a respected free woman. "In advance," I said. Men are commonly disappointed in free women, and almost certainly if they have experienced the alternative. They are not slaves, trained in the giving of pleasure to men. Some free women believe that their role in lovemaking consists primarily in lying down. Should they become slaves the whip soon teaches them differently. The techniques of ethnic dance, as is perhaps no well-kept secret, because of the movements of the hips, the control of the muscles of the abdomen, and such, have delicious applications in the making of love. "Let me yield!" I begged. "Wait," he said. I did not want polite love. I wanted to know that I was in the hands of a man who was capable of being excited, and whom I excited, who found me truly marvelous, to whose fury of power I appeared whose fierce and voracious appetites I triggered. I wanted to be in the arms of a true man. I did not want to be possibly mistaken about whether I had been had or not. I did not want to be touched as though I might break. I did not wish to be in danger of drowsing off during the making of love. I wanted him to own and master me, and whip me if I was not pleasing. "I am ready!" I said. "I beg to submit, and as a slave!" "Not yet," he said. I began to weep with wanting to yield. He was not simply going to enjoy me, or pleasure himself with me. He was asserting the mastery upon me. I was not merely to be used even used as a mere slave, as it sometimes amuses Gorean masters to do with us. I was going to yield, and fully. I was not simply having love made to me. The experience was far more meaningful and devastating that simply that. I was being dominated, and mastered. I was to yield, and I had to, as a slave, totally! If one has a bath girl, of course, she does most of these things for one. Sometimes the services of a bath girl, including massage and love, in whatever modalities the customer may elect, come in the price of the bath, and, at other times, as here, at the Crooked Tarn, I gathered, at least normally, they are extra. "No," she said. "I am not a virgin. I have permitted men to make love to me twice, I assure you I can stand it." I smiled. "Would you prefer that I was a virgin?" she asked. "No," I said. Virgins presented special problems, particularly of a psychological nature. Also, their sexual responses usually required lengthening, deepening and honing. On the whole, I, like most Goreans, preferred opened women. And, of course, most women are opened. Virgins, for example, are almost never available in the slave markets. She looked down at me. "I assure you, I said, "there would have been little point in lying about the matter." "I suppose not," she said. "On the other hand," I said, "you would seem to be, for most practical purposes, having to do with the furs, a virgin." "No," she said, "twice I permitted men to make love to me." "They were lucky fellows," I said. "I never permitted either of them to do so again," she said. One of the great pleasures of making love to a slave is the uncompromising exploitation of her marvelous sexual sensitivities, her helplessnesses, they putting her so much in your power, enabling you to do with her as you please and obtain from her what you want. She may be brought up and down, as you please, at your will, at your mercy, and played like an instrument. She may, if you wish, be held short of her ecstasy, cruelly, if you desire, or, in a moment, with a touch, granted it. There are few sights so exciting and beautiful as a helplessly orgasmic slave crying out her submission and love. "My point," said he, "is that I have never made love to a free woman." "That is all right," I said. "I do not know how to make love to a free woman," he said. "Do not worry about it," I said. "There is commonly little worthy of that name which takes place with free women." "Oh?" he said. "Yes," I said. "They are too much concerned with their status, dignity, freedom and independence to be any good in the furs." "I warn you, female," said he, "I do not know how to make love to a free woman." "Use me then as a slave," she said. "With your permission?" he inquired. Most girls are eager to acquire such knowledge. Indeed, they often ply one another for secrets of love, makeup, costuming, perfuming, dance, and such, as each wishes to be as perfect for her master as it lies within her power to be. "Now," I said, "with your lips and tongue, as the most helplessly needful of all women, as a slave, make love to the belt of your master. In kissing it, tenderly, you express your gratitude that you, only a slave, have been permitted to touch a belonging of your master. Too, in this way, you express your devotion for the master, your reverence for him, perhaps unnoticed by the master, by tenderly and gratefully kissing even a belt, even a tunic or sandal, of the master. In licking it, slowly, you express yourself, and your bondage, that you submit yourself to him wholly, without reservation. In licking it slowly, and sensuously, you express your passion, and need, your desire, that you would serve him intimately, as the least of slaves, as the readiest of aroused, owned beasts." On Gor, Ahn may be spent in making love, mornings, nights, evenings, and afternoons. Many are the arts of love, harsh and gentle, fierce and tender, commanding and solicitous, and love's artists are patient and talented. Oh, he would carry me on tarnback to Ko-ro-ba, to be accepted and embraced in honor by his father. But after a night of love, I awakened to find myself alone, and abandoned, I, the daughter of Marlenus, the Ubar of Ubars!"
Certain areas of the house, however, I was not shown, presumably because I was a free woman, such as the lowest pens, the branding chamber, the discipline room, and the rooms where girls were taught to kiss and caress, and the movements of love. Certainly the swiftness and skill with which women attain significant levels of proficiency in the art form argues for the involvement of biological latencies. It is easy to speculate, in general terms, on such latencies having been selected for in a variety of ways, for example, in noting their affinity with movements of love and luring, their value in displaying the female, their capacity to stimulate the male, their utility in pleasing and placating men, and such. "There are various movements in slave dance," I said, "of the hips, the belly, and such, indeed, of the entire body, which are clearly akin to, and reminiscent of, the movements of love and need."
It was said that young men enamored of free women, perhaps having glimpsed an ankle, or a bit of throat or chin as the wind indiscreetly lifted a veil, sometimes sought out the girls in the paga taverns to lessen the pangs of love, to lessen their miseries.
There was no love in my heart for the Priest-Kings, those mysterious denizens of the Sardar Mountains, whoever or whatever they might be, but there was gratitude in my heart, either to them or to the strange forces that moved them. "Al-Ka and Ba-Ta," said Parp. "Do you think a Priest-King is incapable of love?" But I would not destroy the egg not only because it contained life but because it was important to my friend, whose name was Misk and is elsewhere spoken of; much of the life of that brave creature was devoted to the dream of a new life for Priest-Kings, a new stock, a new beginning; a readiness to relinquish his place in an old world to prepare a mansion for the new; to have and love a child, so to speak, for Misk, who is a Priest-King, neither male nor female, yet can love. The social bond of the Priest-Kings is Nest Trust. Yet, in spite of their different evolutionary background and physiology, they had learned the meaning of the word 'friend'; too, I knew, they understood, if only in their own way, love.
Quite near to him, as he worked, knelt Tula. She tried to put her cheek against his left thigh. He brushed her away. Properly handled, women become as subservient and affectionate as dogs. They all desire to be totally prisoners of love, and they will never be fully content until they become so.
"I have had the good fortune to be chosen for wall duty," said a youth to his fellow. "I myself volunteered for it," answered the other. "Such things are the least we can do," said the first. "By means of them Ar will become great," said the other. "Not all values are material," said the first. "By means of such things we shall visibly demonstrate our love of peace," said the second. "Without such things," said the first, "our protests of love and brotherhood would be empty."
Soon, pounding the time on the table with the butt of my spear, I was leading a raucous round of songs, mostly wild drinking songs, warrior songs, songs of the encampment and march, but too I taught them songs I had learned in the caravan of Mintar the Merchant, so long ago, when I had first loved Talena, songs of love, of loneliness, of the beauties of one's cities, and of the fields of Gor. Then she left his arms, to pick up the kalika in the corner of her quarters. Smiling at him she then returned to the center of the compartment and sat down, cross-legged, for the instrument is commonly played that way, and bent over it. Her fingers touched the six strings, a note at a time, and then a melody, of the caravans of Tor, a song of love. No free woman could have sung of chains and love, and the lash, and the glory of masters as she.
"Was it you who stole the Home Stone of Ar?" I paused, then, being confident the creature had no love for the men of Ar, answered affirmatively.
I struck angrily down at the ground with the hoe. Of course I made a poor she-bosk! It was not my fault I was not a female bosk, like so many of the lasses of peasant stock. Marla and Chanda and Donna and Slave Beads would have been no better! And I did not think Lehna or Eta would have been much better either! How I would have loved to have seen Marla try to pull the plow!
The heart to Goreans, as to certain of those of Earth, is understood as a symbol of love. The life of a slave girl, of course, is understood, too, as a life of love.
And then, in the slaver's tent, Lara, who had been Tatrix of Tharna, told me something of the strange history of her city. In the beginning Tharna had been much as other cities of Gor, in which women enjoyed too few rights. In those days it had been a portion of the Rites of Submission, as practiced in Tharna, to strip and bind the captive with yellow cords and place her on a scarlet rug, the yellow of the cord being symbolic of talenders, a flower often associated with feminine love and beauty, the scarlet of the rug being symbolic of blood, and perhaps of passion. Harold left the walk and stepped carefully to avoid trampling a patch of talenders, a delicate yellow flower, often associated in the Gorean mind with love and beauty. "And the flowers," said the girl, "are talenders. They are a beautiful flower. They are often associated with love."
The girl approaches the master naked and kneels, the bondage knot soft, curled, fallen at the side of her right cheek or before her right shoulder. Another device, common in Port Kar, is for the girl to kneel before the master and put her head down and lift her arms, offering him fruit, usually a larma, or a yellow Gorean peach, ripe and fresh. These devices, incidentally, may be used even by a slave girl who hates her master but whose body, trained to love, cannot endure the absence of the masculine caress.
History on Earth, long ago, had taken a turning away from the body, from nature, from the needs of men and women, from genetically linked psycho-biological realities; this turning away, ultimately and inevitably, had produced an unloved, exploited, polluted planet swarming with miserable populations of unhappy, petty, self-seeking, frustrated animals; the human being of Earth had no Home Stone; this turning away had never taken place on the planet Gor. As her body grew older, and began to dry, and wither, and tire, and began to regard her ever more reproachfully, and sadly, in the mirror, and she went through her change of life, which had been a terrible and troubling time for her, in her loneliness, and in her lack of love and children, she remained aloof, severe, unsexual, professional, virginal. She reveled in the freshness of the air and the beauty of the sky, and city. How different this was from the gray, crowded, unkempt, polluted, unloved, filthy, squalid city with she was most familiar from her former world. And she, in her turn, often nude at the slave ring, or before me, stripped, kneeling, hands braceleted behind her, had told me much of her world. It seemed to me a complex, but sorry world, one crowded and polluted, one of noise, fumes, and smoke, of pushing and shoving, one of haste with few places to go, or worth going, one without much love, and one, clearly, without Home Stones, if one can conceive of such a world. To me that seems strange, given the heartless, barbaric complexities of her world with its scramblings for wealth and power, the competitions to control the weaponry of states, that one may apply such ugly resources, under the pretense of legality, to the ends of one's own aggrandizement, a world of deceit, glitter, propaganda hypocrisy, falsity, greed, and cruelty, a world not loved, but threatened, by a thousand ignorances, neglects, lies, and poisons. "Earth must once have been like this," she said, "the freshness, the rain, the air, the flight of birds, the blue sky, the water, the food with taste." "One supposes so," I said. "What have our people done to our world?" she asked. "I do not know," I said. "Perhaps they have insufficiently loved it." To be sure, Goreans apprised of the Second Knowledge, those better informed, aware, for example, that Earth and Gor are planets orbiting a common star, tend to regard Earth as a barbarous planet. Who but barbarians would taint their food, poison their atmosphere, foul their rivers, lakes, and seas, and crowd, despoil, and disfigure a lovely, innocent world, their own? Have they no understanding, no love? "That world from which she has been removed," said the auctioneer, "is a world without a Home Stone." Several in the audience reacted in surprise. "It is a world which is not loved," said the auctioneer. "It is a world which is soiled, and neglected. "It must then be a sorry world," said a man. "True," said another. "How could it then be respected, treasured, loved, or cared for?" asked a man. Why should one waste a slave, even one as miserable and worthless as you, a shallow creature extracted from a desecrated, unloved world?
What do free women know of the weight of chains, and their sound, of the feel of one's limbs bound back, coarsely, with rough rope, of one's wrists thonged quickly, snugly, behind one's back, of the clasp of slave bracelets, of the feel of the floor on one's bared knees, of the feel of the whip to one's lips and tongue, as one performs whip-love before the master, rendering to a symbol of his mastery its due reverence and homage? What do free women know of the weight of chains, and their sound, of the feel of one's limbs bound back, coarsely, with rough rope, of one's wrists thonged quickly, snugly, behind one's back, of the clasp of slave bracelets, of the feel of the floor on one's bared knees, of the feel of the whip to one's lips and tongue, as one performs whip-love before the master, rendering to a symbol of his mastery its due reverence and homage?
"The companionship is gone," said Telima. "More than a year has passed," she pointed out, "and you have not, together, repledged it." "That is true," I admitted. By Gorean law the companionship, to be binding, must, together, be annually renewed, pledged afresh with the wines of love. "Wine, Master?" is a common expression. In it the slave usually offers the master not only drink, say, the wine in the cup, but also, implicitly, the wine of her love, body and beauty. "I could slip half of this into my purse," I said, "while you two are carrying on, as it is said, dizzy on the heights of desire, wandering on the roads of delight, lost in the forests of rapture, drunk on the wines of love, swimming about in one another's eyes, and such. Repulsive. Offensive!"
I looked toward the northern forests. It had been so many years. I recalled her, Talena. She had been a dream in my heart, a memory, an ideal of a youthful love, never forgotten, glowing still, always remembered. I remembered her as I had seen her, in the swamp forest, south of Ar, with Nar the spider, and in the Ka-la-na grove, where I had freed her from the chains of a slave, only to put mine upon her; and in the caravan of Mintar, of the Merchants, in her collar, mine, and slave tunic, with Kazrak, my sword brother; and her dancing in my tent; and she upon the lofty cylinder of justice, in Ar, threatened with impalement, and as she had been, beautiful and loving, in the hours of our Free Companionship in Ko-ro-ba, before I had awakened again, stiff, bewildered, in the mountains of New Hampshire. I had never forgotten her. I could not. |       
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