"Norman, John - Slave Girl of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

I now, naked and bound, carrying his shield, followed him who had been victorious.\par
I remembered his might, his insolence, his skill, his power. I admired the width of his shoulders as he walked before me. I remembered the simplicity and audacity with which, after his victory, he had examined me.\par
I now carried his shield. I walked behind him, and to the left. I suppose I should have minded. I knew, of course, that I was heeling him. I thought about it. Whereas it would have seemed unthinkable on Earth that a man could be so strong, so mighty, that a woman would walk at his heel, here, on this world, it seemed not so impossible or strange at all. There were men here strong enough to put women at their heel. I felt, briefly, profoundly stirred erotically, and, perhaps strangely, marvelously pleased to be a woman. I had never met such men as these, the former two, and he whom I now followed, mightiest among them, who would simply, unthinkingly, put a woman at their heel. I had never known such men. I had not dreamed such men could exist! I had never felt so feminine, so stirred, so alive and real, as in their presence! For the first time in my life I was pleased to be a woman.\par
Then I castigated myself for my terrible thoughts. Men and women I knew, as I had been taught, were identical. Biology, and a nature, the product of harsh, exacting thousands of generations of evolution, of time, and breeding and animal history, was unimportant. It must be ignored, and dismissed. It did not suggest the correct political conclusions. \par
I looked up at the three moons.\par
I did not know what to believe or how to live. But, as I followed the man, trekking through the glorious grass, under the bright, marvelous moons, carrying his shield, literally heeling him, as might have an animal, his captive, nude and bound, I felt, paradoxically, a fantastic sense, of freedom, of psychological liberation. I wanted to run to him and put my head against his shoulder.\par
\par
For hours we trekked the grass.\par
Sometimes I fell. He did not stop far me. I would struggle to my feet, staggering under the weight of the shield, and flee to catch up with him. But then I could go no further. My body was not readied for such treks. I was only a girl of Earth. I fell. My breath was short, my legs weak. I lay in the grass. I could not move my body. I lay on my side, the weight of the shield upon my shoulder. After a time I sensed him standing near me, looking down. I looked up at him. I tried to smile. \ldblquote I can go no further,\rdblquote I said. Surely he could see my exhaustion, my helplessness. I could not even move. I saw him loosen his belt. I struggled to my feet. He did not look pleased. He would have beaten me! He refastened his belt. He turned away. Again I followed him.\par
Toward morning we crossed more than one tiny stream. The water was very cold on my ankles and calves. Bordering these streams was brush, and some trees. The fields were broken now, with occasional trees, many of them flat-topped. In what I conjecture would have been an hour or so before dawn he stopped in a thicket of trees, near a small stream. He removed the pouch and bota from my neck, the shield from my back. I fell to the grass between the trees. I moved my wrists a bit, and lost consciousness. In what must have been a moment or two I was shaken awake. A handful of dried meat, cut in small pieces, was thrust in my mouth. Lying on my side I chewed and swallowed it. I had not realized how hungry I was. In a moment, he lifted me to a sitting position and, his left hand behind my back, supporting me, thrust the spike of the bota in my mouth. Eagerly then did I drink. He much watered me. I lay then again on my side. He lifted me in his arms, so lightly that it startled me, and carried me to a tree. As he tethered my right ankle to the tree I, bound as I was, overcome with exhaustion, fell asleep.\par
\par
It seemed to me that I was in my own bed. I stretched in the pleasant warmth.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
I watched him.\par
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.\par
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.\par
He then looked up at me.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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?\par
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.\par
How miserable I felt. On this world I had not yet even been allowed to feed myself!\par
When I had eaten some meat, he then gave me to drink, again from the bota.\par
He must learn I am an equal and a person, I resolved. I will show him this.\par
I broke the position to which he had commanded me. I sat upon the grass before him, my knees drawn up. I smiled. \ldblquote Sir,\rdblquote said I to him, \ldblquote 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.\rdblquote\par
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\rquote 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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
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.\par
He looked up at the sun.\par
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.\par
For more than two hours, I think, I knelt in position. He awakened.\par
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.\par
It was now in the early evening.\par
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.\par
I looked at him. Was I not to bear his burdens? Was I not to carry the pouch and bota? Was I not to bear his shield?\par
With a snap of his fingers and a movement of his hand he released me from position. Gratefully I moved my body. I stretched. I saw him watching me stretch, catlike. Reddening, I stopped. At a sharp word from him I continued to stretch, luxuriously, brazenly, and fully relished doing so. He watched me as I moved my body, and rubbed my legs, that their full circulation might be restored; they were stiff and cramped, as was the rest of my body, after the fixed position in which I had been kept, as that discipline sequent upon my cuffing. I was aware, though would scarcely admit it to myself, that my movements, as I stretched, and moved my hands upon my legs, were performed rather differently than they would have been had I been alone. I realized, though scarce would admit it to myself, that I was displaying myself as a female before him. He laughed. I blushed, and lay back, angry, on the grass. The body, kept overlong in any position, of course, even the most natural, becomes stiff and cramped. A girl, incidentally, in the position of the Gorean pleasure slave, but who is not being kept in the position as a discipline, in which case she remains rigid, is allowed much subtle latitude, which she exploits, without breaking the position. Sometimes, as she becomes animated, she rises a bit from her heels, sometimes her hands move on her thighs, her shoulders and belly move, her head moves, her eyes are live and vital, she speaks and laughs, and, radiantly, every inch, every bit, of her alive, converses lyrically and delightedly. Any girl knows that an interesting body is a moving body. Even within the apparent restraint of the position of the pleasure slave a girl\rquote s body can be a subtle, provocative melody of motion. The interplay between the restraint of the position and her animation gives the position incredible power and beauty. Yes, power. More than one master, I suspect, has been enslaved by the beauty who kneels before him. It is one of the excruciating delights of the mastery to expose oneself fully to, and yet skirt, the dangers of the girl\rquote s beauty, to keep oneself strong, to draw the absolute fullness of pleasure from her, and yet to resist her wiles, to get everything from her, and yet to keep her on her knees, completely.\par
I lay back on the grass.\par
Some girls fight one another with whips to obtain such a master.\par
I looked up at the sky. It was darker now, through the trees. The man in whose company I was, and in whose power I was, had left the thicket. I did not fear that he would not return. He had not been angry with me. Too, I had seen him look at me, and had heard him laugh.\par
On Earth, I had found boys of little interest, except for the admiration, which they had accorded me. I had held myself, though frequently dating, rather aloof. I did not much care to have boys put their mouths on me. I would brush them back, or thrust them away, appear offended, say \ldblquote No,\rdblquote firmly to them. They would apologize, stammer, redden. Perhaps I was angry? They were sorry, truly sorry. Perhaps I was angry? Would I forgive them? Could I even consider going out with them again? Perhaps. But what sort of girl did they think I was?\par
I lay in the grass, and smiled to myself.\par
I wondered at what sort of girl I was. There had begun to stir in me feelings which I had never felt before. Dimly I had begun to sense how it could be that a woman could give herself totally to a man.\par
I thought of the stranger. I laughed to myself. He was no boy. With boys I had always felt in command, but with the strange, mighty man in whose power I now was I knew I was not in command. He was in command, completely. At his slightest word I would leap to serve him. How furious, how jealous, would the boys have been had they seen how perfectly the haughty, beautiful girl they could not even interest or impress now responded swiftly, eagerly, even to the snapping of fingers of another, of a true man. How they would have hated and feared him! How they would have envied him his casual sovereignty over the beauty! How perfectly he controlled her, as they could not! They could not even please her. She feared only she could not please him.\par
I lay nude on the grass of that strange world, in which I found myself in the power of a man other than I dreamed men could be. I had been aloof, haughty, smug, too good for men. Now I feared only I might insufficiently please one man, him in whose power I was. Feelings stirred in me which I had not felt before. Dimly I had begun to understand how it could be that a woman could give herself, fully, to a male. But I wondered if I would have the opportunity to give myself. I might not be accorded this honor. On this world it seemed men took what they wanted. I might not, on this world, I knew, be extended the courtesy of delicately proffering my virginity as I saw fit, in accord with my will. I smiled. I would not be, I suspected, on this world permitted to choose upon whom I would bestow it. Perhaps, rather, I supposed, it would be I who would be chosen, and, regardless of my will, it would simply be taken from me.\par