“This is now my world,” cried out Ellen. “I am only a slave, but I am here, and now this world is mine, too! It is mine, too! You are mine, too, dear world, and I love you, though on you I am but a slave! But on such a world what could a woman such as I be but a slave? On such a world a woman such as I could be only, and am worthy to be only, a slave!” Ellen then knelt down, at the edge of the roof, knelt down in gratitude, before the world of Gor. “You are now my world,” she said. “You are beautiful. I love you. I rejoice to be here.” She put her hands on her collar, lifting it a little on her neck, almost as though offering it to the world on which she found herself. “Thank you, world, for existing. Help me to be a good slave!” She looked out over the buildings. “Oh, world,” she said, “understand me, and be kind. You are the world of which I have always dreamed! On you, beautiful world, let me fulfill the deepest and most wonderful, and most hidden, of my needs, those needs I was always forced to deny on Earth. Here I can be, and must be, the slave I have always longed to be. Oh, give me virile masters who will own me, powerful men whom I must fear, and whom I must obey instantly and with perfection, subject to them in all things, men who will take my womanhood in hand and see to it that it is fulfilled, to its fullest most helpless measure, men who will dominate me without mercy, who will exact ruthlessly and choicelessly from me all that I long to give!”
Ellen then rose up, and, standing, looked out over the panorama of the city and the hills and fields beyond.
She thought she saw a bird in the distance, and watched it for a moment. Yes, it was a bird, clearly. It was difficult to judge its distance. Something seemed awry with the perspective. She thought it must be some hundred, or two hundred, yards away, but, oddly, too, it seemed as though it might be as far away as the walls, perhaps even further. She was puzzled.
“Ellen!” called Laura, sharply.
“Yes!” said Ellen, and, turning about, she ran to the large wicker basket of laundry she had carried to the roof. It was back among the lines and flapping clothes. She reached into the basket and took out the small clothespin bag, lying on the damp laundry, and slung this over her right shoulder, so that its opening was at her left hip, so that she, being right-handed, might easily reach into it. Then, one by one, she began to lift up and shake out the washed, damp garments, and hang them on the line, fastening them there, carefully, with the lovely hand-carved clothespins, for Goreans are prone to lavish attention even on small things, spoons, knives, cooking prongs, and such, anything to make the world more beautiful. It would not do, of course, to allow a garment to fall to the surface of the cylinder. She felt like singing, but, in a collar, slave, was not certain that it would be permitted.
Many times, she knew, one must even ask permission to speak. One, after all, was slave. Having to ask permission to speak, when it seemed such permission was likely to be required, thrilled Ellen. She loved having to ask permission to speak. Few things brought more clearly home to her her bondage, that she was a mere slave, owned, and subject to the domination of masters. She loved this power of men over her, this very clear insignia of her servitude, this standing evidence that she was helplessly subject to the mastery, that she belonged to men. She might be denied speech; she could be silenced at a word. How different from free women, she thought, certainly those of Earth, and, doubtless, those, as well, of this world! But she loved this token of her condition. How well it reminded her that she was what she wished to be, slave.
How often on Earth she had entertained, however guiltily, the secret, fascinating, delicious thought of being owned, of being the helpless, rightless slave of a powerful, uncompromising master! How fearfully, and eagerly, she would have tried to please him, in all ways! She might have hoped for a caress. Certainly she did not wish to be whipped! And now she belonged to a category of females susceptible to such strictures, a category of females who might be bought and sold, bartered or bestowed, without thought, as the sleek, shapely beasts they were.
She was thrilled to be categorically subject to men, and this small thing, that she might speak only with permission, as few other things, especially as she was a woman, for we so desire to speak, and so delight to speak, spoke to her of the reality of her sometimes-resented, but fundamentally longed-for subjugation. How she resented at times being silenced, but how much more precious then was the opportunity to speak when it was seen fit to be granted. Too, interestingly, she found that being denied speech, being frustrated, and such, excited her sexually. Perhaps this was connected with male domination, which elicits female submissiveness, and an eager, petitionary, receptive readiness that can be almost painful. The sexes are not identical, and each becomes most itself when it refuses to betray or misrepresent itself to itself. Perhaps this has to do with nature, and its nature.
In any event, Ellen was not discontented in her collar. It belongs on me, she thought. And I love it! I belong in a collar! I love it! I love it!
She wished she knew some Gorean songs. Surely some masters would permit her to sing, if she were happy! Some masters, she supposed, would enjoy having their girls singing about their work. She hoped soon to serve a master, and that it would be Mirus. Some girls, she knew, were taught to sing, others to entertain with instruments such as the lute and lyre, and others, it seemed, many, were trained in the dances of slaves. Her own training, she understood, though it had seemed extensive to her, had been almost minimal, quite basic. She wondered if there were some special reason for this. “We will teach you a little,” had said one of her instructrices. “Hopefully you will then be able to survive at least the first night at a master’s slave ring.” Ellen wondered if Mirus, her master, would be pleased, if she were to dance before him as a slave. Had he wondered what she would look like, long ago, when she was his teacher, she wondered, if she were to so dance before him, barefoot, in a bit of swirling silk, in necklaces and coins, in armlets, with bracelets on her wrists and bangles on her ankles, to the flash of ringing zills, summoned, commanded, fearful, begging to please, his. Had she hinted at that, or her slaveness, when she had worn the two small bracelets? Perhaps, she thought. I would like to dance before masters, she thought. It is my hope that I would please them. But, alas, I cannot dance! I cannot even dance the social dances of Earth, let alone the dances of the displayed female slave. The sunlight was pleasant, the air was cool. She thought it must be early spring, assuming this world had a periodicity of seasons.
“Laura,” she said, “someone has hung up some of the things from my basket.”
“I did,” said Laura, irritably. “Perhaps I should not have done so. What if the work-master should come to the roof and find your work not even begun! How soon do you think you would come again to the roof? Or perhaps any of us? Perhaps you would enjoy being tied to the high ring and having your pretty little hide lashed? And the rest of us might be lashed as well, all of us!”