Free Slave Girl of Gor by John Norman Page A

come alive as a woman. I did not yet know what men were like, or what they could do to me. I did not then know how they in their power could wrench out my insides and bring me to my knees before them. I had not learned their manhood; accordingly I had not yet learned my womanhood. Sexually, I was, like most girls of Earth, negativistic and inert.
    Only on Gor, in the presence of my captor, had I, at times, begun to suspect that there was an incredible, glorious world of experience, not forbidden on this planet, to which my nature as a female fully entitled me, could I but dare to be myself. But my fear was groundless. I needed not dare. I needed not decide to become myself. Gorean men do not tolerate pretense and hypocrisy in a girl such as I was to be. Against my will, I would be forced to be what I was.
    Much did my captor's men jest with him on the deficiencies of his prize. Laughing, did he strike and kick at them. And the girl, taking his arm, smiling, kissing at him, pulled him away from me. They turned, the entire party, and went into the camp, leaving me outside. I stood aside, alone. I was furious. I had, in effect, been spurned, rejected. Nothing in my experience had prepared me for this treatment. I felt the gravel of the canyon under my feet, the sunlight reflected from the walls. My fists were clenched. Who did these barbarians think they were? I was the most beautiful girl in the junior class at an elite girls' college on Earth, perhaps in the college as a whole. The only exception might perhaps have been the beautiful senior in anthropology, Elicia Nevins. We had been great rivals. But she had only been an anthropology major, whereas I was an English major, and a poetess. But then I recalled the beautiful, intelligent-seeming, hot-eyed slut in the brown rag. In a world where there might be such women, I realized, gasping, Judy Thornton's beauty and even that of an Elicia Nevins would not be particularly outstanding. As I would later learn, the value placed on girls such as we were, a Judy Thornton or an Elicia Nevins, girls of our quality, would commonly be a tiny sack of copper corns, a few more, a few less.
    I went inside the brush wall, and knelt down. I wanted to be protected and fed. I would do what they wished to pay for my lodging. Behind me, the thorn brush, so thick and high, by means of hooked poles, was pulled into place, closing me in the camp with the men, and the girl.
     
    I had now been in the camp for two days. Angrily I tended the brazier, on my knees, fanning the coals. Sparks scattered about. My body was stung by them. I used a squarish piece of stiff leather to fan the coals. From the brazier, protruding, was the handle of an iron.
    Many were the menial tasks which I was forced to perform in and about the camp.
    I was not pleased.
    I had been forced to build fires and help cook the food. I had been forced to help serve the food, and to pour wine and paga for the men, as though I might be a servant. I had been forced to help put food away afterwards, and clean goblets and utensils, and clear away the litter and debris of the feeding. I had been forced to sew rent garments, and once, not satisfied with a seam, Eta had had me rip out the thread and perform the entire task again, doing it well. To my humiliation, too, I was taught to wash clothing on rocks, pounding and rinsing, on my knees, at the edge of the tiny stream which moved through the camp. Outside the camp I was set to picking berries and gathering armloads of wood. Outside the camp I would be accompanied by one of my captor's men. On Earth, I had enjoyed a rather elevated socioeconomic status. In my home we had always had, as long as I could remember, both a maid and a cook. From the age of fifteen I had enjoyed giving them orders, as an equal, but not quite. I was not the sort of girl who was accustomed to perform menial tasks, or be of service to others. That was for women of a rather different class, one beneath mine. But here,