Slave Girl Of Gor

There is perhaps little to be said for the Gorean world, but in it men and women are alive.

It is a world which I would not willingly surrender.

It is a very different world from mine; in its way, I suppose it is worse; in its way, I know it is better.

It is its own place, not another's. It is honest and real. In it there is good air.

"Who is your master, little vulo?" asked Tup Ladletender of me.

"My master is Thurnus," I said, "caste leader in Tabuk's Ford, of the caste of peasants, one who makes fields fruitful and is, too, a trainer of sleen." I was proud of Thurnus, who owned me. A peasant who is actively engaged in agricultural pursuits is spoken of as one who makes fields fruitful. Sometimes this expression is applied, too, to peasants who are not actively engaged in such pursuits, as an honorific appelation. Whereas caste membership is commonly co

"What is your name, little vulo?" asked Tup Ladletender of me.

"My master has been pleased to call me 'Dina, " I said.

"If your master has been pleased to call you 'Dina, " said Ladletender, "then you are Dina."

"Oh, yes, Master!" I said, quickly. I had not meant to imply that my name might not be 'Dina. Melina was glaring at me. "I am Dina," I said swiftly, "only Dina, the girl of my master." Those four letters, in Gorean, as in English, were my complete and only designation. Such matters lie entirely within the determination of the Master.

"Pretty Dina," said Ladletender.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"Do you want her?" asked Melina.

"She has rough hands," said Ladletender. He pulled my small hands, bound, out from the post, and rubbed his thumbs into my palms. I shuddered. "You have rough hands, Dina," he said.

"I am a peasant's girl, Master," I said. My hands were rough from digging, and washing, and holding tools.

I felt his thumbs rotating slowly in my palms. They pressed in. I thrust myself against the post, eyes closed.

"With lotions," said he, "they may be softened, so that they would be fit to caress men."

"Yes, Master," I said. I shuddered to think what his thumbs might have felt like in my palms, had my palms been slave-girl soft.

"Make an offer for the little she-sleen," said Melina.

Ladletender touched my neck, and put his finger inside the rope collar, and pulled it Out a hit from my neck. "You wear a rope collar," he said. "It must be rough and unpleasant."

"What pleases my Master," I said, "pleases me."

"Do you lie to a free man?" he asked.

"Oh, no, Master!" I cried. To be sure, the rope collar was unpleasant, and for that reason I did not like it, but, on the other hand, I, a slave, was naturally desperately eager to please Thurnus, who was my master. It was his will to which mine must conform. It was he whom I must please, fully. There was thus a sense in which what pleased Thurnus pleased me. I was pleased to please him. Did I not please him I might be summarily slain. I was pleased to please him. To please the master is what most pleases the girl.

"She is trying to be pleasing," said Melina. "Would you not like her naked in your furs? She can be purchased cheaply."

"How cheaply?" he asked.

"Cheaply," she said.

"Does Thurnus know you are selling her off?" he asked.

"It does not matter what Thurnus knows," said Melina. "I am free and companion to Thurnus. I may do what I wish."

"Would you like, pretty Dina," said Ladletender, fingering my neck, "to have a pretty steel collar, perhaps enameled?"

I have never owned a collar," I said.

"Nor would you then," pointed out Ladletender.

"Yes, Master," I said, humbled.

It was not I who would own a collar, but I, collared, who would be owned. The collar, like myself, would belong to the master. It would be his collar. I would not own it. I would only wear it.

"This rope is rough and coarse," said Ladletender, fingering the rope collar. "Would you not like a smooth steel collar, one slender and gleaming, or perhaps ornamented and cu

"Whatever pleases the master," I said. I knew that a steel collar did immeasurably enhance the beauty of a girl. I had much envied Eta her collar, though it had been plain. I had seen few collars on Gor, but I had learned from Eta that there was great variety among them. They ranged from simple bands of iron, hammered about a girl's throat, her head held down on an anvil, to bejeweled, wondrously wrought, close-locking circlets befitting the preferred slave of a Ubar; such collars, whether worn by a kitchen slave or the prize beauty of a Ubar, had two things in common; they ca