Free Slave Girl of Gor by John Norman

me, which I had been bearing for him. One does not approach a camp, even one's own, unarmed. One does not know what may have transpired in one's absence.
    He had left me alone, kneeling, while he had scouted the camp. Shortly thereafter he had returned, and gestured for me to rise and follow him.
    He approached the camp singing, and striking his spear blade on his shield.
    Call words were exchanged.
    Royally was he greeted by the men of the camp, who rushed forth to welcome him, men among whom I gathered he was chieftain. They shouted, and clasped him, striking him upon the back and laughing. I stood back, frightened of such men. Then a long-legged dream of a girl, Eta, had stood, timidly, near the entrance to the camp, where thorn brush had been wedged aside, during the daylight hours. She had stood there, not daring to approach. Then my captor had indicated that she might enter his presence. Radiantly, joyously, she fled to him, and knelt before him, putting her head to his feet. His shield and spear, and helmet, he handed to another. At a word from him, then, she leapt to her feet and he took her in his arms, as though he might own her, and she kissed him, too, as though she might be owned. Never had I seen human beings kiss like that. It seemed a deeply sensuous complementarity that shook me to the core. It was the kiss of lovers, but more than the kiss of lovers. It was the kiss of a lover who is owned and of one who owns his lover.
    Then he laughed, and thrust her to one side. Then all turned to regard me.
    How I wished that he had held me and kissed me as he did her. How jealous I was. Then, suddenly, realizing the eyes of all upon me, I was frightened.
    The men, and the girl, stood about me. I stood straight. They moved about me. I reddened, assessed. Comments were exchanged. I sensed myself being discussed with open frankness, as might have been an animal. Some of the comments, I sensed, were less than completely flattering. Some, I sensed, were clearly disparaging. Most cruelly I resented the laughter. At that time I had not been brought by strict diet and enforced exercise to optimum measurement. Perhaps, too, at that time, I was not standing as well as I might have. I was standing straight, but perhaps too stiffly, too immobilely, not subtly in movement, in my breathing, the movements of my shoulders, the tiny movements of my head, almost imperceptible, but contributing to the impression of a profoundly alive body, one richly latent with the promise of incredible responsiveness. But mostly I suspect I was found wanting in subtle psychological dimensions, available to the acute observer as a consequence of almost subliminal cues. These matters are conveyed by subtleties of facial expression and physical demeanor. I was a girl raised in a culture predicated on the denial of primate biological realities, a girl from a world in which hypothetically cogent animals denied, denounced and hysterically strove to suppress their own animality, a world in whose social insanity even sexuality had now come to be politically suspect. Most simply, as a normal girl of my world, I had been negatively conditioned with respect to men and sex. In the last few years, an accretion to this form of conditioning, I had been taught that men were my equals, and that men and women were the same. If this were so why then did I feel so small and slight among the Gorean men, and tremble when they put their hands upon me? Among the men of Earth, thoughtful, and cute and kind, I had not felt small and slight, nor did I tremble when they put their hands upon me; I had felt only irritation, and would push them away; I did not dare to push away a Gorean man; I might have been put under discipline; further, I found myself longing, though I did not admit this to myself at the time, to lie lovingly in their arms, theirs. I think the major reason I so failed to impress the men at the camp of my captor was because at that time I had not yet been taught to