"Follow me," I said.
"Get up, Turgus," said Ayari, holding to his neck rope. Turgus, unsteadily, staggered to his feet.
I started up the stairs, Kisu a step behind me. Then came Ayari and Turgus. Behind them, single file, their hands tied behind them, came five slave girls. Tende was first, for she was first girl. Then came Janice and Alice, and then the blond girl and, lastly, the slender-legged, dark-haired girl. I had, some days ago, removed the gag from the blond-haired girl. The formerly proud leader of the talunas was now well tutored in docility and deference, and already she was showing early signs of emergent growth in vitality and sensuousness. Too, she was becoming happy. Her gag, no longer necessary on her as an instructional or disciplinary device, was that which now packed the pretty face of the dark-haired girl, she who had been her second in command, who now brought up the rear of the coffle.
51
Bila Huruma
"Like this?" asked the blond girl of Janice.
"Crouch down further," said Janice. "Take the tether in both hands, one above and one below your left thigh. Hold the tether tightly against your left thigh. Feel it there. Now move your hips like this."
"Like this?" asked the blond girl.
"Yes," said Janice.
I watched the blond girl. How flushed and excited was her face, how free of tension and tightness, how free of anxiety and stress. There is an incredible, effusive release of energy and happiness when a woman stops fighting herself. It requires an inordinate amount of energy, of course, to maintain the stern rigidities of self-suppression and constriction. Self-denial, self-torture, pretense, hypocrisy and conformance to external, alien standards must exact their inevitable costs. Their damage and toll is torn not only from the heart, but from the tissues of the body as well. The laws are implacable, the consequences inexorable. The equations of misery are registered not only in the conscious annals of pain but, too, are tallied no less in the very chemistry of the body. The human being is the only animal we know who tortures itself. It need not do so. Yet how few human beings understand that, and how few believe it, truly.
"Should this not be done, really, with a chain?" asked the blond girl.
"I have done it myself only with a tether," said Janice. "A chain, however, might be nice."
"Surely this drilling in the stone at my feet," said the blond, "was for a chain."
"Probably," said Janice.
The blond stopped, and straightened up. She was covered with sweat. "If I learn to do this well," she asked, "do you think my master might permit me a garment?"
Janice shrugged. "If your performance merits it, and if you are sufficiently pleasing to him in all ways, he might deign to throw you a rag to cover your prettiness."
"I will try to be pleasing to him," said the blond.
"See that you do," said Janice, "but remember that he is my master before he is yours."
"Yes, Mistress," said the blond. The two new slaves addressed our older girls as 'Mistress. Kisu and I thought that would be useful in keeping order among them. In any training situation, of course, it is common for the girl being trained to address a female trainer, whether the trainer is bond or free, as 'Mistress. Strict discipline is essential in slave instruction.
"You are not really much larger than I," said Janice.
"No, Mistress," said the blond. The blond was about five and a half feet tall, and would have weighed, I conjecture, about twenty-nine stone, Gorean, about one hundred and sixteen pounds.
"Now sit down and cross your ankles," said Janice. "Loop the tether about them, as though they were bound. When I give the signal, unloop the tether as though it were unbound. Rise then, and stretch, as a slave girl, before your master."
"Yes, Mistress," said the blond.
I smiled to myself. Never when she was on Earth, I conjectured, had Janice thought that she would one day be giving instruction in, of all things, the arts of pleasing a man. Earth women, it is well known, are above such things, unless perhaps they are brought naked to Gor and placed in steel collars. They then, quickly enough, become desperately eager to learn the delightful and sensuous arts. This makes sense. Their lives depend on it.
"Not bad," said Janice.
"You will teach me things to do with my mouth and tongue, won't you?" begged the blond.
"Perhaps," said Janice, "if you gather wood for me, and wash clothing for me, with the exception of that of my master."
"I will, I will," said the blond. Girls seek eagerly to learn from one another.
"That is enough," said Kisu. He pulled apart Turgus and the dark-haired girl. They were still gagged, and had their hands tied behind them. Kisu then crossed and bound the ankles of each.
I looked about the great room. It was perhaps two hundred feet in width and depth, with tall columns. It was filled with great blocks of stone, which had fallen, perhaps centuries ago, from the roof. The walls were still, generally, intact. The floor, save where it was cluttered, was generally smooth, save for certain drillings, through which chain might be passed. Some chains, little more than fragile collections of rust, ready to crumble at a touch, lay about. The room was reached by a broad flight of stairs. And, in the rear of the room, there was another broad flight of stairs, leading upward to another landing and walk. On the walls, which circled about, still largely standing, there were dim mosaics. The chamber had apparently, long ago, been used in the enslavement and training of women, doubtless taken in the raids and wars of those who had built these mighty halls. Some of the mosaics showed the clothing of miserable captives being taken from them; others showed them being tied and whipped, doubtless to introduce them quickly and mercifully to the concept of being under discipline; others showed them being marked by hot irons and placed in collars; others showed them kneeling, head down, in submission, before their masters; others showed them being danced before their masters; others showed them serving the intimate pleasures of their masters.
We had chosen this room in which to camp, because of the girls. They had been thrilled with the mosaics. Almost fainting they had begged to dance and be used. Women learn from example. If one presents them only with masculine images, presented in approval contexts, they will often attempt dutifully to conform to these alien models. If one, on the other hand, permits them to be aware of genuine female images, presented within contexts of honesty, openness and permissibility, it is natural for them to feel deep biological affinities for what is portrayed. For what it is worth women tend on the whole to be unsuccessful in conforming to masculine images, and tend to take gracefully and naturally to feminine images, toward which they seem to have genetic predispositions. Perhaps that is because that is what they really are, not men but women. Sex is not superficial. Not one cell in the body of a woman is the same as that in the body of a man.
I saw Tende in the arms of Kisu. He had not tied her at night since we had seen the forces of the river peoples pass the island on which we had hidden, those forces of incredible numbers which had doubtless wiped out Bila Huruma, his flotilla and his battalions of askaris.
I approached the blond and she knelt, swiftly, head down.
I had her stand and lashed her wrists behind her back. She was already tethered.
"Lie down," I told her. She lay down on the stone floor.
"Are you going to tie me?" asked Alice.
I tied her hands behind her back. Then I tied her neck to the neck of the dark-haired girl, using the collie strap. "Lie down," I told her. She lay down.