Dancer of Gor

"There are drugs, too," he said, "which are pertinent to such matters." "Yes, Master," I said. I had not known that. I had known that. I had known about the other sorts of things. They had been graphically illustrated to us in the house of my training. Some had to do with skin blotching and nipple erection. One simple test had been with five of us, one of us, not known to Ulrick, to take a ring and hide it. By holding her hands and looking into her eyes it had almost immediately determined the "guilty girl." He had then, merely by holding her arm, had her guide him, involuntarily, to where she had hidden the ring. These things were done primarily by acute observation and differential muscle tensions, indexed to the girl" s knowledge and inward states. The meaning of the lessons, however, had been clear. If our slavery did not go through us, so to speak, if it was not complete, we could not conceal that from the masters. Our choice then, in effect, was to be complete slaves, whole slaves, total slaves, or die. I, and I think, my entire class, interestingly, had rejoiced in this knowledge. We knew we were slaves in our hearts, as we had learned in our training, and we wanted to be slaves. The knowledge then that we would be unable to conceal any inauthenticity is our slavery from the masters, even if we wished to do so, was a liberating insight. It imposed a welcome, healthful psychological consistency upon us. It deprived us of even the last excuse which our pride or vanity might have left to us not to be perfect in our bondage. To be sure, sometimes a master encourages open defiance or rebellion on the part of a girl, he then enjoying forcing her to serve, and perfectly, so obviously, so visibly, against her will. Too, sometimes, he is amused to indulge a girl" s «secret» recalcitrance, well aware of her games, her transparent reservations, her supposedly so carefully guarded and secret resistance, letting her think it is unknown, even unsuspected. When he tires of this sport, however, he reveals to her, to her horror, that she had been all this time as open to him as a book. She can then make the decision of the slave girl, to be a true slave, a full slave, or die.

"Look into my eyes," he said.

I did so. It was not easy.

«Yes,» he said, "you are a slave."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Even though you might regret your bondage, or rage against it, from time to time," he said, "yet, in your heart, you now you are a slave."

"Yes, Master," I said, frightened.

"You were a slave even on Earth," he said."But a secret slave," I whispered. "Here," he said, "your slavery is patent."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"What was wrong with you, at the end of your sale?" he asked. "You seemed suddenly so awkward, so clumsy, almost as though you were paralyzed." "I do not know," I said. "Perhaps I realized, suddenly, what was being done with me, that I was being sold."

"But a slave must expect to be sold," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He looked down at me.

"I was frightened, Master," I said.

"Are you frightened now?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said. This was the first time I had been in his presence, to my knowledge, since my sale in Market of Semris. I kept my eyes from meeting his. I could see the vast, hairy chest, crossed by the two belts. The large, drooping mustache suggested a casual, almost indolent power. The scar at the side of his face had been wrought, I supposed, by some primitive device or weapon, perhaps even, though it seemed hard to believe for a female of Earth, in combat. From my point of view, he seemed clearly a barbarian. He would think nothing of owning women. To be sure, from his point of view, it was I, though a refined female of Earth, who, on this world, counted as being the "barbarian." He had been coming back from some place called Torcadino, or near Torcadino, where he had gone, either there, or in its vicinity, to purchase cheap girls for his tavern. I gathered that women, for some reason, were cheap in that vicinity. He had stopped at Market of Semris on his way back to Brundisium, boarding his girls overnight at the house of Teibar. He had stopped in that evening at the sales barn. There he had purchased me. He had not, as far as I knew, made any other purchases here.

"Good," he said. "It is well for a slave to fear her master."

"Yes, Master," I said. I kept my head down. What he said was rue, of course. It was indeed well for a slave to fear her master. The master can do what he wished to her. He has absolute and total power over her.

I watched his fingers move idly on the butt of the whip and on its single, thick blade, coiled back, twice, against the butt.