The grimy white ribbon which had identified me as “white-silk,” had been cut from my throat, before my head and neck had been laid across the anvil, for the hammering shut of the house collar. But then, when the house collar was in place, a smaller ribbon, also white, had been looped and knotted about the house collar. It, at least, was clean.
“It is only of rep cloth,” said one of the instructresses.
“Not of silk,” said another.
“She is too plain,” said one of them.
“No,” I said, “I am beautiful!”
“She will do,” said another.
I did not understand this. I knew myself to be extremely beautiful. But then, at that time, I did not understand the general high quality of Gorean kajirae. What gifts they are for men!
“Do not despair, Allison,” said one of the instructresses. “You will grow more sensuous, more beautiful, in your collar.”
“In my collar?” I said.
“Of course,” said one of the instructresses.
“The masters know what they are doing,” said another.
I had been permitted the name, Allison, but it had been made clear to me that it was now only a slave name. Somehow this seemed very meaningful to me, that ‘Allison’ was now a slave name.
As my progress in Gorean continued, and I became more adept in servile skills, being permitted to launder for the guards, and do some simple cooking for their mess, I was granted a tunic. Doubtless it had been worn by others before me, but, to me, it was inordinately precious. Certainly I would do much to keep it.
One of the first things I had done, when introduced into a training room, one walled with mirrors, was to hurry to the side, and examine my thigh.
“Vain slave!” laughed an instructress.
In the mirror one achieves a certain distance from the brand, and sees it rather as another might look upon it. In the mirror I saw a branded slave girl, and, a moment later, with a frisson of recognition, I realized the branded slave girl was I.
“It is a nice mark, Allison,” said one of the instructresses.
“Sometimes such things are bungled,” said another.
“Not by our iron master,” said another. I recalled that it was rumored that she was not unoften in his arms.
How frightful, I thought, to be badly branded. To be sure, such things seldom occurred. Most marking is done by members of the caste of Metal Workers. Most such shops will have a slaving iron, and it is often at hand, and, if not heated, ready to be thrust into the glowing coals of his forge. The Metal Workers, too, do most of the collar work, measuring, fitting, and such. Some free women are branded and collared within an Ahn of their taking.
I regarded the mark.
I recognized that it clearly enhanced my beauty, perhaps a thousandfold. The matter, however, was not purely aesthetic. I did not doubt that much more might have to do with its meaning, what it proclaimed about its bearer!
I examined the mark. It was small, fine, lovely, and tasteful, and telling in its meaning.
And it was on me.
“We have work to do, Allison,” said one of the instructresses.
“By nightfall,” said another, “you must learn to bathe a man, care for his leather, and kiss his feet.”
Could there really be more than one way to kiss a man’s feet, I wondered.
I would learn there was.
I looked into the mirror.
The slave, I knew, is the most seductive and desirable of women.
How can free women compete with her? The free man may find the free woman of interest, for example, in matters of family, position, power, and wealth, but is it not the despised, meaningless slave to whom he turns for pleasure?
Is it not the slave which his biological heritage demands?
I sensed the power of the slave.
Can we not drive men mad with pleasure?
I considered the brand. What jewel, what ring, what necklace, I wondered, has the free woman, to compete with that?
But consider the slave.
Consider her plight.
She is owned.
She well understands that she is property. The collar is hers, the whip is his. Is it any wonder she is concerned to be found pleasing?
Too, if she need not fear the competition of the free woman, she must fear that of other slaves. What if she is found lacking? Will she not be thrown into the market, and another purchased?
Are not animals such as she cheap?
“Keep me, Master!” she begs. But perhaps he is tired of her. Perhaps he now wants another. She has failed, failed to be such that he would never think of selling her. So back to the block with her!
She pleads, but she is slave, and he master.
I had wondered if it is not the slave which the male’s biological heritage demands. But, if this were so, I asked myself, it seems unlikely such a thing could exist in isolation, as some sort of biological anomaly. What then of the female, what then of the woman? Might there not be then, as well, something which is demanded there, or longed for there, by the woman, a consequence of her own biological heritage? If the male’s heritage demands the slave, might not the heritage of the woman demand, or long for, the master?
Are there not genetic insistencies which whisper about our hearts?
At this point in my training I thought mostly of the male, learning how to be appealing to him, learning how to please him, and such.
This is surely comprehensible.
I had felt the Gorean slave whip.
I did not, at the time, understandably enough, sense what might be done to the slave, what might be done with me.
I had needs, of course, but little more was involved, at first, than curiosity and uneasiness. When I was a girl I did not even comprehend, nor was I informed, as to the nature of the changes in my body, changes which were preparing me for men. Much of this, in the beginning, was little more than an unfocused restlessness. I felt stirrings within me into which I was not to inquire. It was not appropriate for a woman to do so. If they existed, they were to be, at best, sources of dismay and regret. Did not I, and my acquaintances, laud our superiority to such things, in effect competing with one another in our alleged frigidities? To be sure, at least from high school on, I was alarmed at intrusive thoughts, thoughts so unlike me, so improper for me, which I tried to dismiss, and, too, by incomprehensible dreams for which there could be no possible explanation, dreams in which I found myself in chains, dreams in which I found myself in the arms of masters. Certainly I was taught to suspect and fear certain embarrassing suspicions and promptings. Such were not suitable for one of my sex and class. These suspicions and promptings, such thoughts, were not only incompatible with my dignity and self-respect, but incompatible with the conventions and proprieties in terms of which my life was to be managed. Indeed, for years I had been taught to ignore my needs, to minimize them, to conceal them, to suppress them, even deny them. I must pretend to others that I was untroubled by such things, which were only to be found, if at all, in the lowest and most despicable of women. I feared I, in my discomforts and afflictions, might be unique amongst other young women of my acquaintance. Surely they were superior to such embarrassing weaknesses. Or were they lying to me, as I was lying to them?
From whence, to one of my intelligence, education, refinement, class, and breeding, could come such thoughts?
I thought of the history of a race.
Somewhere within me could there be a weeping slave, yearning for her master?
In any event, in my early weeks on Gor I was startled at the openness of my instructresses, eagerly discussing the attractions of the guards, the pleasures derived from their attentions, their joyful helplessness in the arms of one or another, their hopes, sometimes pathetic, of being summoned to this slave ring or that, their misery at being ignored, their plaintive agony if denied, for more than a day or two, a man’s touch.