Marauders of Gor

I saw the young, broad-shouldered thrall, who had been standing to one side, go to the slender blond girl. He lifted her to her feet.

"I see, Thyri," said he, "that you are now a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword."

"Wulfstan," she said.

"I am called Tarsk here," he said.

He fingered the collar on her throat. "The proud Thyri," he said, "a bond-maid!" He smiled. "You refused my suit," said he. "Do you recall?"

She said nothing.

"You were too good for me," he said. He laughed. "Now," said he, "doubtless you would crawl on your belly to any man who would free you."

She looked at him angrily.

"Would you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Wulfstan," she said. "I would!"

"I hate you, Tarl Red Hair," she said.

I reached out to touch her. She shrank back in fury.

"Would you please untie me?" she asked.

I did not wish to sleep alone. I wondered if the fires in Olga which, earlier, had burned so deeply, so hotly, could be truly out. I wondered if they might be rekindled.

I slipped. kneeling, behind her. I heard her body move against the post.

I pushed her collar up, under her chin, and, with two fingers of my right hand and two fingers of my left, rubbed the sides of her throat.

"Please untie me," she whispered.

Her hands writhed in the bonds; her body pressed against the post; her left cheek was at the right side of the post.

My hands lowered themselves on her body. And then, her hands tied about the post, we both kneeling, I caressed her. She tried to resist, in fury, but I was patient. At last I heard her sob. "You are master," she said, "Tarl Red Hair." I kissed her on the back of the right shoulder. She put back her head. "Take me to your furs," she begged. I untied her hands from the post, taking, too, the rope from her belly, by which Ottar had fastened her to his belt, but left the rope on her right wrist, its free end in my hand, to lead her. But I needed not lead. She followed eagerly, trying to press her lips to my left shoulder.

Before my sleeping area, my rude couch, my furs, I stopped. I stood behind her.

She stood very still, facing the couch, at its foot. She was a bond-maid. She was property. She was owned. "Force me," she whispered. Bond-maids know they are chattel, and relish being treated as such. Deep in the belly, too, of every female is a desire, more ancient than the caves, to be forced to yield to the ruthless domination of a magnificent, uncompromising male, a master; deep within them they all wish to submit, vulnerably and completely, nude, to such a beast. This is completely clear in their fantasies; Earth culture, of course, gives little scope to these blood needs of the beauties of our race; accordingly, these needs, frustrated, tend to express themselves in neurosis, hysteria and hostility. Technology and social structures, following their own dynamics, integral to their development and expansion, have left behind the pitiful, rational creatures who are their builders and their victims. We have built our own cage, and defend it against those who would shatter its locks.

"How shameful!" said the free woman, sternly.

The slave girls groveled at her feet. Slave girls fear free women muchly. It is almost as if there were some unspoken war between them, almost as if they might be mortal enemies. In such a war, or such an enmity, of course, the slave girl is completely at the mercy of the free person; she is only slave. One of the great fears of a slave girl is that she will be sold to a woman. Free women treat their female slaves with incredible hatred and cruelty. Why this is I do not know. Some say it is because they, the free women, envy the girls their collars and wish that they, too, were collared, and at the complete mercy of masters.

Free women view the platform with stern disapproval; on it, female beauty is displayed for the inspection of men; this, for some reason, outrages them; perhaps they are furious because they cannot display their own beauty, or that they are not themselves as beautiful as women found fit, by lusty men with discerning eyes, for slavery; it is difficult to know what the truth is in such matters; these matters are further complicated, particularly in the north, by the conviction among free women that free women are above such things as sex, and that only low and loose girls, and slaves, are interested in such matters; free women of the north regard themselves as superior to sex; many are frigid, at least until carried off and collared; they often insist that, even when they have faces and figures that drive men wild, that it is their mind on which he must concentrate his attentions; some free men, to their misery, and the perhaps surprising irritation of the female, attempt to comply with this imperative; they are fools enough to believe what such women claim is the truth about themselves; they should listen instead to the dreams and fantasies of women, and recall, for their instruction, the responses of a free woman, once collared, squirming in the chains of a bond-maid. These teach us truths which many women dare not speak and which, by others, are denied, interestingly, with an almost psychologically revealing hysteria and vehemence. "No woman," it is said, "knows truly what she is until she has worn the collar." Some free women apparently fear sex because it lowers the woman. This is quite correct. In few, if any, human relationships is there perfect equality. The subtle tensions of dominance and submission, universal in the animal world, remain ineradicably in our blood; they may be thwarted and frustrated, but, thwarted and frustrated, they will remain. It is the nature of the male, among the mammals, to dominate, that of the female to submit. The fact that humans have minds does not cancel the truths of the blood, but permits their enrichment and enhancement, their expression in physical and psychological ecstacies far beyond the reach of simpler organisms; the female slave submits to her master in a thousand dimensions, in each of which she is his slave, in each of which he dominates her.

"Shameful!" cried the free woman.

Whereas fear inhibits sexual performance in a male, rendering it impossible, because neutralizing aggression, essential in male power, fear in a woman, some fear, not terror, can interestingly, improve her responsiveness, perhaps by facilitating her abject submission, which can then lead to multiple orgasms.

That night on the Torvaldsberg we did not freeze.

We huddled on a ledge, between rocks, sheltered from the wind, shivering with cold, miserable, listening for Kurii.

But they did not approach.

We had chosen out ledge well.

Twice rocks rained down to the ledge, but we were protected by an overhang.

"Would you like to hear me sing?" asked Ivar.

"Yes," I said, "it might drive the Kurii away."

Undeterred by my sarcasm, brilliant though it was, Ivar broke into song. He knew, it seemed, a great many songs.

No more rocks rained down to the ledge.

"Song, you see," said Ivar, "soothes even Kurii."

"More likely," I said, "they have withdrawn from earshot."

"You jest delightfully," acknowleged the Forkbeard, "I had not thought it in you."

"Yes," I admitted.

"Protect me!" I heard. A female threw herself to my feet, putting her head to my ankle. "Protect me!" she wept. I looked down. She lifted her face, terrified, tear-stained. She had dark hair, dark eyes. I saw the iron collar, dark, on her white throat. It was Leah, the Canadian girl. With my foot I thrust her, weeping, to one side. There was men's work to do.

Sullius Maximus had been one of the five Ubars of Port Kar, whose reigns, dividing the city, had been terminated when the Council of Captains, under the leadership of Samos, First Captain of Port Kar, had assumed the sovereignty. The others had been Chung, Nigel, Eteocles, and Henrius Sevarius.