Smugglers of Gor

Chapter Three



I soon learned to call men ‘Master’ and, shortly thereafter, free women ‘Mistress’. The gulf between free and slave is profound and momentous, and such as I were brought, at least on the whole, to this unbelievably fresh and beautiful world, so bracing and green, as goods, no more than livestock, to be disposed of in markets. I was soon branded, that there would be no mistaking me, for what I was. How that simple mark transformed me! I was then different, radically so, from what I had been! And I knew myself so, and, yes, gratefully. Oh, I cried with pain, of course, helpless in the iron grip of the vise, my wrists fastened behind me, in the snug, unslippable metal bracelets, and sobbed, but, in my tears, did they know this, I sobbed, as well, with joy. At last it had been done to me. At last I was free! In a thousand dreams, had this not been done to me? Had I not, in a thousand dreams, been so marked, so designated, so proclaimed, so identified?

Am I terrible?

Perhaps, perhaps not.

Is it so strange that I, then humbled, then reduced, then subject to chains, the whip, the collar, was now free, at last free!

It was a freedom in which I had had no decision, but one forced upon me, and I would not have had it otherwise.

I was grateful to have been taken in hand, and simply treated as what I was, routinely, a female, only that, and gloriously so.

They would have of me what they wanted, and this was what I, too, wanted.

Since puberty I had sensed the radical difference between women and men, and had resented, but dared not rebel against, the lies, the pervasive, insisted-upon, venerated falsities with which I was regaled, and the pretentious, uncomfortable, alien roles which I was expected to assume.

I do not presume to speak for a sex, but I trust I may speak for an individual, myself. Doubtless women are quite different. One may wish for something which another does not. One may envy men, and another may find this emotion incomprehensible. One may hope to be served, and another to serve. One may hate, and another love. There are many things I have never understood, and how ignorant and stupid seem the ideologues, the tyrants, and fools, who see complexity in terms of conditioned, programmed simplicities. Who are the social engineers? Who appoints them? What shall be engineered? Who reviews their work? Need anything be engineered? Why should anything be engineered? Who will engineer a flower, or truth? Whose fingers draw the secret strings? How gross, narrow, and transparently self-serving, are so many manufactured values, principles, and injunctions. What are the credentials of a dictatorship which would review thought, circumscribe belief, and capture the coercive powers of a state in order to protect and propagate a favored orthodoxy? Yet, to be sure, such crimes are muchly precedent in the history of a world; they are perennially familiar to the troubled biography of a species. How many oppressions have been enforced, heresies persecuted, beliefs proscribed, truths denied, absurdities proclaimed! Behind the glistening veils may crouch an unnatural beast.

How naive I am, how unpolitical I am.

Why does the chain lure me? Why does the sight of the whip, and the knowledge that it may be used upon me, thrill me?

I wonder if my feelings are unique.

I do not think so.

How pathological the world from which I have been derived!

How many extend the hand of welcome, a knife clenched behind the back!

How is one to judge what brings about happiness, other than by the test of living, that of life consequences?

I wonder if I speak only for myself.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

But I will, at last, speak.

For years I have wanted to be at the feet of men, to kneel naked, collared, subservient and submitted, before them, to put my head down and lick and kiss their feet, to be bound at their pleasure, to squirm helplessly in their grasp, to serve them in all ways, instantly and unquestioningly, to be commanded, to be owned, to be mastered.

The mark is placed high on the left leg, on the thigh, just beneath the hip. I have also been fastened, from time to time, in a variety of collars. My mark is the cursive kef, the common kajira mark, worn by most slaves. It is sometimes called the staff and fronds, beauty subject to discipline. It is a lovely mark. It looks well on me, and on others. It is, of course, only one of many marks. It is natural that not every property should be marked identically. But it is recommended that each property be marked. That is prescribed in Merchant Law. In the training house, a heavy metal collar, of rounded iron, was hammered about my neck. That is temporary, but it has its effect on us. When I was once displeasing, foolishly, this was replaced with a heavy, iron, point collar, which was very unpleasant. I do not know why I was displeasing. Perhaps I thought it required of me, to comply with some image, alien to my deepest self, which, on my former world, I had been expected to project. Perhaps I was merely curious to see what might occur, if I failed to comply in some particular, if I might hazard some show of resistance or recalcitrance. Certainly I learned, quickly enough. Perhaps I merely wished to ascertain certain perimeters or limits, the length of a leash, so to speak. I speak metaphorically, but it is not unusual that we are leashed. Often we are promenaded publicly. Our masters are often proud of us, and enjoy showing us off. Would it not be the same with horses and dogs, animals of my former world? We must hold our head up, and walk well. Sometimes our hands are free. In any event, these boundaries, the length of a leash, and such, so to speak, were expeditiously brought to my attention. Interestingly, I was not chagrined by the consequences of my small experiment, but, rather, reassured, even heartened. And I was very grateful when I earned my first, more typical, collar, light, flat, and close-fitting. How relieved and proud I was, when, graduated from training, it was first locked on my neck. I knew myself, and I wanted it there. I knew I belonged in a collar. I had suspected that, even on my former world, Earth.