Dancer of Gor

"I knew it even on Earth," I whispered to him. Indeed, I had even wondered, strangely, at times, I supposed, if I might not have been a slave in former lives, in other eras, perhaps in the Ancient World or in the Medieval Middle East, in times more in tune with the true matters of human beings, natures as they really were, in themselves, and not as they might be when denied, thwarted, twisted and perverted by ideological insanities. And, at times, recollecting, or seeming to recollect, such times and places, and their naturalness, and rightness, and their fulfillments and ecstasies. I, lonely and yearning, seemingly an exile in the sexual deserts of my own world and time, had wept. But regardless of the truth or falsity of such things, and regardless of the explanations or reasons for the things which lay so deep within me, whether they were recollective or merely the irrepressible fruits of genetic truths, so anomalous in my own time, so uncharacteristic of everything I had been taught. I had known they had lain within me. That was incontrovertible. I knew that I, who was then Doreen Williamson, had been born for the collar. I had never expected then, however, to wear it. I had never even suspected there was such a world as Gor where, as my capture master Teibar, had put it, "women such as I were bought and sold."

"Of course," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What was you master like on Earth?" he asked.

"I did not have a master on Earth," I said.

"You, a woman like you, so obviously a natural slave, did not have a master?" he asked, interested.

"No, Master," I said.

"You were not a legal slave on Earth?" he asked.

"No, Master," I smiled. "I did not become a legal slave until I was brought to Gor."

"Surely the men of Earth are somewhat imperceptive," he said. "Some of them, perhaps, Master," I smiled.

"Here," he said, "we have made good their oversight."

"That is true," I smiled.

He looked down, into my eyes. "You should have been a legal slave on Earth," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I supposed that was true. But then, too, I supposed that many women on Earth should be made slaves. Certainly I had known many women who might have profited, and considerably, in one way or another, from bondage. Certainly I had sometimes speculated what one or another of them might have looked like, as a slave. Also, of course, I had often considered what I myself might have looked like, as a slave. It was for such a reason, I suppose, at least in part, as well as for the stimulation and truth, and fittingness, of it, that I had made the tiny garment of red silk I had had on Earth.

"But doubtless," he said, "even if you somehow managed to escape the collar on your own world, to be caught and rightfully wear it here, women such as you are almost universally held in bondage on Earth."

"No, Master," I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I do not know, Master," I said.

"Certainly they should be," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, humbly. It was true.

"Here," he said, "they would wear their collars."

"Yes, Master," I said. I did not doubt that that was true. Here, on Gor, women such as I, surely, would be swiftly sorted out, taken in hand, prepared for sale, and sold.

"But, at least, you were a collar now, as you should," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"You are now, at last, a legal slave."

"Yes, Master," I said, frightened. I was now, truly, here on this world, as I might have been in Ur, or Sumer, or Babylon, or Assyria, or Chaldea, or Egypt, or Greece, or Rome, or Persia, or Barbary, a legal slave, a slave held in full legality.

"Does it frighten you," he asked, "to find that you are a legal slave?" "Sometimes," I said.

"Does it terrify you?" he asked.

"Sometimes," I said.

"That makes no difference, of course," he said.

"I know," I said.

"You are a slave," he said, "whether you like it or not. That is simply what you are, that and only that. you are absolutely helpless to alter or change your condition in any way, as much as a vulo or a tarsk."

"I know," I said.

I felt his hands on my hips.

Sometimes I was terrified by the collar on my neck, knowing its meaning, knowing that it, like my brand, marked me slave, knowing how it put me at the mercy of masters, knowing that anything could be done to me.

His grip was bold. He was a master. I was a slave.

I tried to press my belly against him. His hands prevented this.

"You belong in a collar," he said.

"I know! I know!" I whispered.

"You are a superb collar-slut," he whispered.

"Tupita is your favorite," I whispered, frightened.

"No," he said.

"Who then?" I gasped, his grip tight on me, but holding me from him. "Doreen," he whispered.

"No!" I whispered.

"Are you afraid of Tupita?" he asked. "She is only a slave."

"I, too, am only a slave," I said, "and she is first girl!"

"She is losing her grip on the girls," he said. "She may not be first girl for long."