Free Smugglers of Gor by John Norman Page B

narrow stone stairs, our nudity, the men about, and such, but, one supposes, our chaining, of one sort or another, must have had its purpose, or purposes; perhaps it was intended to be mnemonic or advisory, or perhaps instructive, to leave us in no doubt that we were slaves, and only that, or, perhaps, it was merely because men enjoyed seeing us that way, so vulnerable and helpless in such impediments, impediments of their choice. I suppose I should have resented my nudity, and such constraints, and being exposed to frequent, open, public, appraisive scrutiny, as the men might wish, as the animals we now knew ourselves to be, and, sometimes, being forced to take food and water on all fours, from pans, not permitted to use one’s hands and such, but I found it, somehow, this helplessness, this subjection to complete, uncompromised masculine domination appropriate for me, fitting, reassuring, and thrilling. Here, as I had not on Earth, I felt myself a woman, and, for the first time, radically and basically female, far beyond anything I had experienced on Earth. Here, in a way, I had learned what I was, basically, and naturally. No longer needed I pretend to be something else, some sort of imitation man, a pseudoman, or a facsimile man, or something advised to be manlike, or a creature to which sex should be unimportant or irrelevant, or a neuter of some sort, or, worse, a nothing, something meaningless, no more than a societally contrived artifact. I was now what I was, myself, and wholly so, though I was ankle-deep in straw, nude, on another world. Doubtless this had something to do not simply with my needs, and the unhappiness I had known on Earth, but, too, with the men of this world, dominant, powerful, virile men, who would see me as a woman, and slave, and treat me as such, men so natural, so astonishing and mighty, that before them I knew myself a slave, and could be but a slave.
    Women came and went in this place, some introduced, some removed. Sometimes men in rich robes, muchly different from the simple tunics of the guards, came to review us. Notes were taken, and lists made. I strove, desperately, as I had in the training house, to improve my Gorean. It would be the language of my masters. I had felt the monitory switch frequently enough in the house, from my branded, collared instructresses, when I erred in grammar, or ventured a poorly chosen or inept word. Here, in the basement, or dungeon, it was much easier; here my mistakes brought only amusement, ridicule, or contempt. I bartered portions of my rations for instructions. Several times, a few of us would be aligned, and examined, our feet widely spread, our hands clasped at the back of our neck, or at the back of our head. This was done with me, twice. Sometimes a slave was taken to the side, and made use of, in the straw. Some of us spoke Gorean natively, for we were not all outworlders, cattle brought from the slave world. These often wheedled the guards for information, calling up from the bottom of the stairs, for we were not permitted on the stairs, save to be entered into the place or removed from it. We learned little, I fear. We did know we were near the water. We could hear it, outside. After a time, I could follow much of the Gorean about me. It seemed that this building, which I took to be large, judging from the size of the basement, or dungeon, was some sort of depot, from which supplies, and such, at least currently, would be taken north. So much had been gathered from chance remarks overheard. It was apparently not clear even to the guards what lay to the north. I began to dream in Gorean.
    I often thought of the man whom I had first seen in the store, before whom, for the first time, I had felt myself viewed as what I had secretly taken myself to be, a slave.
    I could not forget him, of all the others.
    I recalled him from the warehouse, when he had turned me to my back before him. Nude, and helpless, bound, lying at his feet, I had looked up at