It seemed to me that I was in my own bed. I stretched in the pleasant warmth.
Then I awakened suddenly. I was in a thicket, on a strange world. It was warm, and the sun, high, filtered through the branches of the trees. I looked at my wrists. They were now unbound. Each wrist, deeply, wore the circular marks of the leather constraints which, earlier, had confined them. I rubbed my wrists. I looked about myself. My right ankle, by a short length of black leather, was tied to a small, white-barked tree. I rose to my hands and knees, my back to the tree. I was still naked. I then sat with my back against the tree, my legs drawn up, my chin on my knees, my hands about my knees. I watched the man, who was sitting, cross-legged, a few feet away. He was putting a thin coating of oil on the blade of his sword.
He did not look up at me. He seemed totally absorbed in his work. He must have sensed my awakening, my movements, but he did not look at me. I felt angry. I was not used to being ignored, particularly by a male. They had always been eager to be pleasing to me, to do anything I wanted.
I did not realize that on this world it was such as we who must be pleasing to them, who must comply eagerly with whatever their whim might decree.
I watched him.
He was a not unattractive man. I wondered if it would be possible to work out a meaningful relationship with him. He must learn, of course, to respect me as a woman.
He finished with the oil and blade. He wiped the blade with a cloth, leaving on it only a fine, evenly spread coating of oil. He replaced the cloth and the oil, which was in a small vial, in his pouch. He wiped his hands on the grass, and his tunic. He resheathed the sword.
He then looked up at me.
I smiled at him. I wanted to make friends with him. He slapped his right ankle, and pointed to it, and then beckoned me to approach him.
I bent to untie the dark leather which fastened me to the white tree. I first bent to remove the leather from my ankle. But a sharp word from him, and a gesture, indicated to me that I must first remove the tether from about the trunk of the small tree. Doubtless he thought me stupid. Did not any girl know that the last bond to be removed is that on her own body? But I was of Earth and knew nothing of such matters. I struggled, with my small, weak fingers, with the knots. I worked hard, frightened, sweating, that I might be taking too long. But he was patient. He knew the knots he had tied could not be easily undone by one such as I.
Then I approached him, and, with my left hand, handed him the supple tether. He replaced it in his pouch, and indicated that I should position myself before him and to his right. I knelt there, and smiled at him. He spoke sharply, harshly. Immediately I knelt in the position I had learned yesterday, which had been clearly and exactly taught to me, back on heels, back straight, hands on thighs, head, up, knees widely opened. He then looked at me, satisfied.
How could I make friends with him, kneeling so? How could I get him to respect me as a person, so desirably and beautifully positioned before him? How could I, so kneeling, so beautiful and small, so exposed and vulnerable, so helpless, so much his, get him to accept me as his equal?
I bent forward and took the piece of meat between my teeth from his hand. He did not allow me to touch it with my hands.
How miserable I felt. On this world I had not yet even been allowed to feed myself!
When I had eaten some meat, he then gave me to drink, again from the bota.
He must learn I am an equal and a person, I resolved. I will show him this.
I broke the position to which he had commanded me. I sat upon the grass before him, my knees drawn up. I smiled. "Sir," said I to him, "I know you cannot understand my language, nor I yours, but, still, perhaps, from my voice, or its tone, you may gather something of my feelings. You saved my life yesterday. You rescued me when I was in great danger. I am very grateful for this."
I thought my head would fly from my neck, with such swift savageness was I struck! The blow was open-handed, taking me on the left side of the face, but it must have been clearly audible for a hundred and fifty yards about; I rolled, stinging, crawling, for more than twenty feet; I threw up in the grass; I couldn't see; blackness, violent, velvet, plunging, deep, lights, stars, seemed to leap and contract and expand and explode in my head; again I shook my head; again I threw up in the grass; then I sank to the side on my stomach.
I heard a word, of command. I recognized it. I had heard it before. Swiftly then did I reassume the position which I had dared to break, and again I knelt, though this time in an agony of terror, before the strange, mighty man, legs spread, arms crossed, who stood before me.
Blood ran from my mouth; other blood I swallowed. My vision cleared; I could not believe the pounding of my heart. I had been cuffed. I knelt, terrified. At that time I did not realize how light had been my discipline considering the gravity of my offense. I had both spoken without permission, and broken position without permission. Most simply, I had been displeasing to a free man.
Had I known the world on which I knelt, how I would have rejoiced that I had not been lashed! As I later realized, allowances were being made for me which, had I been more familiar with the world on which I found myself, would not have been made. Later, such allowances would not be, and were not, made.
I knelt before the man. He stood before me, legs spread, arms crossed, looking down at me. Gone from me in that moment, with the blood that ran from my mouth, were my illusions. No longer did I deceive myself that I might be his equal. The farcicality of that illusion was now transparent to me. The pitifulness of that pretense vanished before the simple, incontrovertible biological reality which had been impressed upon me, in the light of his uncompromising masculine dominance which he, in health and power, chose to exercise over me, a female. How beautiful to men must be women, I thought, who are at their feet. I wondered, frightened, if it were at the feet of men, or at least at the feet of such men as this, that women belonged, if that might be the unperverted order of nature. The thought of dominance and submission, pervasive in the animal kingdom, universal among primates, ran through my head. Never before had I so clearly, and profoundly, understood the meaning of those words. I looked up at him. I was frightened. My world, I knew, had chosen to deny and subvert biology. This world, I gathered, had not. Before him I knelt terrified, his.
To my relief he turned from me. Yet I remained immobile, absolutely, fearing to move, as though frozen in that elegant and helpless position, so vulnerable and exposed, which later I learned was the position of the Gorean pleasure slave.
He looked up at the sun.
It was late afternoon. He lay down, to sleep. I did not break position. I had not been given permission. Perhaps he kept me in position to discipline me. I did not know. I was afraid to break position. I told myself, of course, that this was rational, that he might wake and discover me out of position, or that, perhaps, at times, he was not truly asleep, but was, through half-closed eyes, watching me, to see if I, in the slightest, moved. But in my heart I knew I had not broken position because he had not given me permission to do so, because he had not released me from his command. I was terribly afraid of him. I was afraid to break position. I was obeying him.
For more than two hours, I think, I knelt in position. He awakened.
He looked at me, but he did not release me from position. I remained as I was, in that position so symbolic of female subjugation.
It was now in the early evening.
He gathered up the pouch and bota, and slung them at his belt. He slung his sword, in its scabbard, over his shoulder. He donned his helmet. He lifted his shield and spear.