Gor - Nomads For Gor Part 40

"I am not sure," she said, "that I understand the meaning of that."

"It has nothing to do, I think," I said, "with what woman is actually slave or free, has little to do with the simplicity of chains or the collar, or the brand."

"Then what?" she asked.

"It means, I think," I said, "that only the woman who has utterly surrendered and can utterly surrender losing her- self in a man's touch can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then free."

Elizabeth smiled. "I do not accept that theory," she re- marked. "I am free now."

"I am not talking about chains and collars," I said.

"It is a silly theory," she said.

I looked down. "I suppose so," I said.

"I would have little respect for the woman," said Elizabeth Cardwell, "who could utterly surrender to a man."

"I thought not," I said.

Abdomen," said Elizabeth, "are persons surely as much as men and their equals."

"I think we are talking about different things," I said.

"Perhaps," she said.

"On our world," I said, "there is much talk of persons - and little of men and women and the men are taught that they must not be men and the women are taught that they must not be women."

"Nonsense," said Elizabeth. "That is nonsense"

'I do not speak of the words that are used, or how men of Barth would speak of these things," I said, "but of what is not spoken of what is implicit perhaps in what is said and taught.

"But what," I asked, "if the laws of nature and of human blood were more basic, more primitive and essential than the conventions and teachings of society what if these old secrets and truths, if truths they be, had been concealed or forgotten, or subverted to the requirements of a society con- ceived in terms of interchangeable labor units, each a.s.signed id functional, technical s.e.xless skills?"

"Really!" said Elizabeth.

"What do you think would be the result?" I asked.

"I'm sure I don't know," she said.

"Our Earth," I suggested.

'Women," said Miss Cardwell, "do not wish to submit to men, to be dominated, to be brutalized."

"We are speaking of different things," I said.

"Perhaps," she admitted.

"There is no freer nor higher nor more beautiful woman,"

I said, "than the Gorean Free Companion. Compare her with your average wife of Earth."

"The Tuchuk women," said Elizabeth, "have a miserable lot."

"Few of them," I said, "would be regarded in the cities as a Free Companion."

"I have never known a woman who was a Free Compan- ion," said Elizabeth.

I was silent, and sad, for I had known one such.

"You are perhaps right," I said, "but throughout the mam mats it seems that there is one whose nature it is to possess and one whose nature it is to be possessed."

"I am not accustomed to thinking of myself," smiled Eliza teeth, "as a mammal."

"What do you think of yourself as," I asked, "biologically?"

"Well," she smiled, "if you wish to put it that way."

I pounded the floor of the wagon and Elizabeth jumped.

"That," I said, "is the way it is!"

"Nonsense," said she.

"The Goreans recognize," I said, "that this truth is hard for women to understand, that they will reject it, that they will fear it and fight it."

"Because," said Elizabeth, "it is not true."

"You think," I said, "that I am saying that a woman is nothing that is not it, I am saying she is marvelous, but that she becomes truly herself and magnificent only after the surrenders of love."

'Silly!" said Elizabeth.

'That is why," I remarked, "that upon this barbaric world the woman who cannot surrender herself is upon occasion simply conquered."

-Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed merrily.

"Yes," I smiled, "her surrender is won often by a master who will be satisfied with no less."

"And what happens to these women afterwards?" asked Elizabeth.

"They may wear chains or they may not," I said, "but they are whole they are female."

'No man," said Elizabeth, "including you, my dear Tarl Cabot, could bring me to such a pa.s.s."

"The Gorean myths have it," I said, "that the woman longs for this ident.i.ty to be herself in being his if only for the moment of paradox in which she is slave and thus Freed."

"It is all very silly," said Elizabeth.

"It is further said that the woman longs for this to happen to her, but does not know it."

"That is the silliest of all!" laughed Elizabeth.

"Why," I asked, "did you earlier stand before me as a slave girl if you did not, for the moment, wish to be a slave?"

"It was a joker" she laughed. "A joker"

"Perhaps," I said.

She looked down, confused.

"And so," I said, "that is why I think Kamchak gave you She looked up, startled. "Why?" she asked.

"That in my arms you would learn the meaning of a slave collar, that you would learn the meaning of being a woman."

She looked at me, astonished, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"You see," I said, "he thought well of you. He was truly fond of his Little Barbarian."

I stood up and threw the wine bowl to the side of the room. It shattered against the wine chest.

I turned away.

She leaped to her feet. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"I am going to the public slave wagon," I said.

"But why?" she asked.

I looked at her frankly. "I want a woman," I said.

She looked at me. "I am a woman, Tart Cabot," she said.

I said nothing.

"Am I not as beautiful as the girls in the public slave wagon?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "you are.

"Then why do you not remain with me?"

"Tomorrow," I said, "I think there will be heavy fighting."

"I can please you as well as any girl in the slave wagon,"

she said.

"You are free," I told her.

"I will give you more," she said.

"Please, do not speak so, Elizabeth," I said.

She straightened herself. "I suppose," she said, "you have seen girls in slave markets, betrayed as I was by the touch of the whip."

I did not speak. It was true that I had seen this.

"You saw how I moved," she challenged. "Would it not have added a dozen gold pieces to my price?"

"Yes," I said, "it would have."

I approached her and gently held her by the waist, and looked down into her eyes.

"I love you, Tarl Cabot," she whispered. "Do not leave me."

"Do not love me," I said. "You know little of my life and what I must do."

"I do not care," she said, putting her head to my shoulder.

"I must leave," I said, "if only because you care for me. It would be cruel for me to remain."

"Have me, Tart Cabot," she said, "if not as a free woman as a slave."

"Beautiful Elizabeth," I said, "I can have you as neither."

"You will have me," she cried, "as one or the other!"

"No," I said gently. "No."

Suddenly she drew back in fury and struck me with the flat of her hand, a vicious slap, and then again and again, and again.

"No," I said.

Again she slapped me. My face burned. "I hate you," she said. "I hate your"

"No," I said.

"You know your codes, do you not?" she challenged. "The codes of the warrior of Gor?"

"Do not," I said.

Again she slapped me and my head leaped to the side, burning. "I hate you," she hissed.

And then, as I knew she would, she suddenly knelt before me, in fury, head down, arms extended, wrists crossed, sub"

milting as a Gorean female.

"Now," she said, looking up, her eyes blazing with anger, "You must either slay me or enslave me."

"You are free," I said sternly.