“You are no longer on the Steel World,” I said. “Here is a planet, with openness. You are not now encircled with curving walls of steel. Perhaps you think things will be different for you here.”
“Doubtless in some respects,” she said.
“Essentially?”
“I do not know,” she said.
“They will not be,” I said. “This is Gor.”
“I wear a collar,” she said.
“Precisely,” I said.
“Collar!” I snapped.
Instantly she faced me, holding her hands slightly behind her, and lifted her chin.
She had received, I saw, some training in the Pleasure Cylinder. This would have occurred before she had been claimed.
It was appropriate, of course, that she should have been apprised of such things, or several such things, even before her claiming.
In such a way, in so simple a manner, may be precluded various instructions with the leather.
In this position the collar may be conveniently read.
I held the collar with two hands.
“What does the collar say?” I asked.
“I cannot read,” she said. “I am told it says ‘I am the property of Tarl Cabot.’”
“That is correct,” I informed her. “Who am I?”
“Tarl Cabot,” she said.
“Then whose property are you?” I asked.
“Yours,” she said, “— Master.”
“You are a slave,” I said.
“Am I?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Even here?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you wish to be freed?” I asked.
“There is nowhere to go,” she said. “I could not live.”
“Do you wish to be freed?” I repeated.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I beg not to be made to speak,” she said.
“You are clad as a slave,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
She wore a Gorean slave tunic.
It was a brief, gray shipping tunic, from the ship of Peisistratus. It had a number inscribed on the upper left side, “27.” This number, as others, had been correlated with the numbers of a set of chaining rings, number 1 with ring 1, and so on. She with others of her sort had thus been chained in an orderly fashion, serially, in one of the ship’s corridors. By means of the numbers a girl, if removed from her chaining ring, can be returned to the same ring. Order, discipline, and precision are important in the closed environment of a ship. I had removed her from her ring several times during the voyage. The Lady Bina, on the other hand, had been accorded quarters, as she had insisted, in the cabin of Peisistratus himself, the captain, who then, with her guard, Grendel, had bunked with his men. It must not be thought surprising that the Lady Bina had been deferred to, for she was a free woman.
The girl before me was fetching in the shipping tunic, but that was not surprising as such tunics, even such as hers, a shipping tunic, are not designed to conceal the charms of their occupant.
The Gorean slave tunic, incidentally, is a form of garment with several purposes. In its revealing brevity and lightness it well marks the difference between the slave and the free woman, a difference of great consequence on Gor. From the point of view of the free woman it supposedly humiliates and degrades the slave, reminding her of her worthlessness, and that she can be bought and sold, that she is no more than a domestic animal, an article of goods, and such. The slave, on the other hand, as she grows accustomed to her status, and its remarkable value in the eyes of men, tends to revel in its enhancement of her charms, a pleasure which is likely to be seriously begrudged her by the more heavily clad free woman. Few women, of course, object to being found appealing, even excruciatingly desirable, by males. Do not even free women sometimes inadvertently disarrange their veils? So, many slaves, at least in the absence of free women, before whom they are likely to grovel and cower, and wisely, to avoid being beaten, luxuriate and rejoice in their beauty and its display. A slave tunic, you see, leaves little to the imagination. Other advantages, too, adhere to such garments. For example, as they commonly lack a nether closure, with the exception of the Turian camisk, the slave is constantly, implicitly, advised of her delicious vulnerability as a property, and reminded of one of her major concerns, which is to please the master, instantly and without question, to the best of her ability, in any way he may wish. The slave, on her part, too, cannot help but find such garments arousing. In their way they serve to ignite and stoke the slave fires in her lovely belly. It is no wonder slaves often find themselves at the feet of their master, kneeling, and begging. Too, such garments are supposed to make it difficult to conceal weapons. There is no place in such a garment, for example, for a dagger. To be sure, it can be a capital offense for a slave to touch a weapon without a free person’s permission, so there is little danger of the slave’s attempting to conceal a weapon in the first place. But the garment, too, makes it difficult, or impossible, to conceal a roll, a purloined larma, or such. When the slave shops, if she is permitted to use her hands, and is not sent out back-braceleted with a coin sack tied about her neck, she commonly holds the coins clenched in her fist, or, not unoften, either, holds them in her mouth. Such garments are cheap, too, of course, and require little cloth. Too, many are designed with a disrobing loop, by means of which the garment may be easily removed, to be swept from her, or dropped, to fall about her ankles, depending on the garment. The loop is usually at the left shoulder, as most masters are right-handed.
She turned away from me.
“We are now out of the Steel World,” she said.
“So?” I said.
“You freed Ramar,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Will you not now free me?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Do not be absurd. You are not a sleen. You are nothing, only a human female.”
“And one who belongs in a collar?”
“Obviously,” I said.
“In your collar?”
“In a collar,” I said, “whomsoever’s it might be.”
“In any man’s?” she said.
“In some man’s,” I said.
“Yours?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, “but in some man’s collar.”
“I belong in a collar?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I gather,” she said, “that female slavery exists on this world?”
“That is true,” I said, “and male slavery, as well.”
“But most slaves are female, are they not?”
“Yes,” I said. “Slavery is a misfortune for the male, for the male, or most males, are naturally free, and master, but bondage is apt for the female.”
“Females are not the same as males?” she said.
“No,” I said. “They are quite different, profoundly, radically different.”
“The male is to own, and the female is to be owned?”
“The female, as a female,” I said, “can find her total fulfillment only in bondage, only at the feet of a powerful male, who will see her and treat her as the property she wishes to be, and nature intended her to be.”
“I see,” she said.
“It does not matter whether you do or not,” I said.
“I am in a collar.”