Gor - Witness Of Gor Part 44

How I had yielded to the beast!

But I saw no reproach in her eyes.

How grateful I was!

She must understand how helpless I was! Not only that I was a legal slave, but that I was, undeniably, in my body, my mind, my needs, a rightful slave, a full and natural slave.

It is what I am, I thought. I cannot help myself! Be kind to me!

But in her eyes there was not the least reproach. I was grateful for this, for resentment, pettiness, jealousy, and compet.i.tion are common among slaves. In a sense, are we not all rivals for the favor of masters? "May I speak, Mistress?" I whispered.

"Of course," she said.

"Do you know my name?" I whispered.

"Yes," she said. "It is on your collar." She might have just seen it.

She might have noted it, earlier even when the pit master, seemingly idly curious, before beating me, he not having concerned himself with the matter before, examined the collar. She could read then. I could not read. How low I was!

"It is a state collar, is it not?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Do not tell me my name," I said.

"No one then, truly, has told it to you yet?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Have no fear," she said. "I have no wish to be thrown to sleen."

A girl's name, you see, if one is permitted to her, is given to her by men. It is, thus, from men that she must first hear it spoken. If there should be some inadvertence or error in these matters, she will be given a new name, one she will hear first from masters. A girl, such as the brunette, who knew my name would be careful not to be the first to speak it to me. Afterwards, of course, it does not matter. The name is then as familiar and common as that of any animal.

"Cage her," said the pit master.

"On all fours," said the brunette.

I went to all fours, in my chains.

The brunette went to the small cage and opened the gate. She indicated the entrance. "Enter the cage,"

she said.

I crawled to the cage and entered it.

The gate was shut behind me.

I turned about, on my knees, inside. I put my head down, in the collar, when the pit master came to check the closure of the cage. Then he went back to the table.

I then lifted my head. I knelt there, behind the bars. The cage had a floor and ceiling of solid iron. The four sides, on the other hand, were open, save for the bars. The bars were stout and closely set They must have been an inch in diameter and some three inches apart. I put my face against them. I grasped two of them. There was a tiny clink of chain from the linkage on my wristlets, they touching the bars. I looked up at the brunette. One cannot begin to stand upright in such a cage, nor can one extend one's body fully within it. Within it one must kneel, or sit, or lie, one's body curled up.

"Mistress," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"Why am I here?"

"For the same reason as the rest of us," she said. "It is the will of men."

"But what am I to do?" I asked.

"What you are told," she said.

"Are there others here?" I asked.

"Others?"

"Men," I said.

"Yes," she said.

I regarded her, plaintatively.

"Guards," she said.

"Am I available to them?" I asked.

"At the discretion of the pit master," she said.

I briefly closed my eyes.

"But these are not their quarters. They do report here from time to time. Doubtless they will be pleased to learn of your addition to our number."

"That is what I am here for," I asked, "for the guards?"

"Your availability to them is incidental," she said. "The pits are, in effect, in this area, a prison, and one in which, for the most part, the lowest and most dangerous prisoners are kept."

I shuddered.

"There is little danger," she said, "if you watch your step."

I swallowed, hard.

"I do not know what will be your precise duties," she said, "but I would expect that you, as the rest of us, will be given some corridors, within which you will discharge a.s.signed tasks."

"Tasks?" I asked.

"Bringing food to the prisoners, replenis.h.i.+ng cisterns, emptying wastes buckets, carrying fresh straw, cleaning cells, that sort of thing. One cannot expect the guards to do that."

"No," I said.

"In many cities," she said, "such work is performed by free women of low caste, but here it is done by slaves. Do you know why?"

"No," I said.

"That a token be conveyed to the prisoners of the contempt in which they are held."

"I see," I said. I rather doubted that this token was likely to be interpreted by the prisoners in the same fas.h.i.+on that the judiciary of the city, or the free women of the city, whatever city this might be, had antic.i.p.ated. It was my guess that a male prisoner might more enjoy a glimpse of a slave than the lengthy scrutiny of a free woman. To be sure, it might be different if the free woman were a prisoner or criminal, sentenced to the prison for a time, to serve there, perhaps denied her veil, perhaps being forced to reveal her ankles or even calves to the prisoners. They might enjoy that. But I recalled the pleased howling and catcalls of the prisoners above, those I had pa.s.sed on my journey along the ledge. They had seemed vital and strong. I had felt myself relished, even to my terror. To be sure, I was not serving them. Also, there surely seemed a paradox here, for free men, outside of the prisons, and such, apparently delighted in being served by slaves, and the strongest and most powerful, it seemed, would have it no other way. It must be the principle of the thing then, I supposed, that in the prison it was imposed upon them, presumably as some sort of insult or disparagement, while in their freedom, on the other hand, it was something they would themselves relish and require.

"Too," she said, "you may upon occasion be used to torment and taunt them, that they may, in their misery and frustration, the better understand their helplessness."

"I see," I whispered.

"Their time in the pits," she said, "is not intended to be pleasant."

"I see," I said.

"It is a form of torture," she said.

"I understand," I said.

"In all things," she said, "remember to be pleasing to the pit master."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"For you may be given not only to the guards," she said, "but to the prisoners."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"They might tear you to pieces," she said. "Yes, Mistress," I said.

"I trust that you will rest well," she said. "Thank you, Mistress," I said.

"How is your back?" she asked.

"It hurts," I said.

"Mistress!" I said.

"Yes?" she said.

"The free woman said that my accent was terrible. Is it terrible?"

"How vain you are!" she smiled.

"Please," I said.

"Speak," she said.

"I am a barbarian," I said. "I come from a world I call "Earth." I and several others were brought here to be slaves. I do not know the city to which I was first brought, nor where I am now. I do not even know my name. I do know that I am a slave."

"You speak very well," she said.

"My accent is not terrible?" I asked.

"No," she said. "But it is at least at this point, a slave accent."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"But accents," she said, "do not matter, you must understand, whether or not you have one, or of whatever sort it might be. What matters is what you are, that you are a slave. Most slaves, you see, such as myself, do not have accents, or at least in any ordinary sense. But we are total slaves, I a.s.sure you, just as you are, and will remain, others things being the same, even should you be able, masters permitting it, to lose your accent."

"I understand," I said.

"Mistress," I said.

"Yes?" she said.

"Is the pit master truly human?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "He cannot help that he was born as he was."

I looked down.

"He is afraid to go to the surface," she said, "in spite of his intelligence, and his great strength, for there even children mock and ridicule him. It is better that he is here."

"He makes me sick to look upon him," I whispered.

"Then do not look upon him," she said.

"He must make you sick as well," I said.

"No," she said.

"Why do they call him "the Tarsk"?" I asked.

"I would suppose that would be obvious," she said. "What is a tarsk?" I asked.

"You have never seen one?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"It is a form of beast," she said. "To be sure, I do not think he really looks like a tarsk. I think they call him that not so much because he looks like a tarsk, really, as because, in some ways, in what they take to be his ugliness, he reminds them of a tarsk."

"He is hideous," I said.

"I am not sure of that," she said. "No, he is hideous, hideous!" I said.

"One grows used to him."