Daughter of Gor by Olga Turlovna (Part Five)

Daughter of Gor

By Olga Turlovna

18 - I witness a third woman being collared

The two men are almost out of earshot when I resolve to act.

“Master, please,” I call out desperately. “Tell the Ubar I beg for slavery.”

Time seems to freeze. I’ve said it. It’s out there, the words hanging in the air.

A woman has addressed a man “Master”. That is sufficient in most places on Gor to earn the speaker of the title a collar.

The guard doesn’t even look back, but Kwesi turns round and winks at me once.

Their departure leaves me alone in the cage of water. If my muscles cramp again I’m in real trouble with no-one left to help me. I only hope the rest I enjoyed in Kwesi’s arms will be enough to keep my body functioning.

The sun climbs into the sky with grinding slowness. I begin to fear than no-one will return, and I truly will die in this trap.

Then I see two men approaching over the path from the compound, dressed in the tunics of warriors. I feel relief, but also dread of what is to come.

I do not recognise their faces.

“Is there a free woman here who wishes to be enslaved?” one of them asks, looking around at the horizon as if he can’t see me.

“That is I, Masters, down here,” I reply humbly from down at the water level.

They feign to notice me then.

One man crouches down on the jetty, reaching down to the padlock securing the trap-door lid of my cage.

When he opens it, I duck with relief under the sets of bars to emerge into the space.

“Hold up your wrists, woman,” one of the men orders me.

I comply, extending my hands up to him in supplication.

He reaches down to me, something steel in each hand. Warm metal closes tightly around my cold wet wrists. I recognise these objects – slave shackles.

It turns out that the short chain linking the two bracelets makes a convenient handle to lift me from the water. The man does this in one swift motion, Aurore’s weight not being difficult for him to handle.

Water streams from my naked body.

It’s only once he’s dumped me on the jetty I realise how weak I’ve grown. I can’t stand up. Two of the men have to take an arm each, and drag me along the short path towards the compound.

I try to part my chained wrists, and confirm that I can’t.

With my feet trailing behind me in the dirt I enter the fortifications for my second time.

Despite the tropical heat, the braziers spaced around the compound have been lit, giving off the same stinging smoke that makes the place look like the aftermath of a barrage.

I am hauled as far as the wharf in front of Kurtz’ hut, where yesterday we were judged.

There, one of the bracelets is temporarily unlocked, but only so my guard can thread it through a heavy iron ring sunk into the rough wood of the jetty and refasten it.

The two men walk away silently, and in this fashion I am left, my wrists chained to the deck.

I had been expecting the slaver to be summoned immediately, but of course this is not how Gorean society works. I am merely a nameless woman who has begged for slavery. I must wait for the men to conclude their business before they will attend to me.

It is not a dignified position in which to spend time.

I am feeling less weak, but I can’t stand up with my hands locked down at the mooring ring. At first, when I try to get upright, I end up crouching with my head low and my bare rump thrust into the air.

Then I lie on my side for a while, but the wood of the dock is hard and uncomfortable. In addition, when lying down there is no position where I do not feel self-conscious of Aurore’s body shape. Either I lie on my front and the curves of my rump are presented; or I lie on my back and the compound has a pleasing view of my breasts; or I lie on my side and accent the womanly line of my hips and waist.

Eventually I realise I can sandwich the mooring ring between my thighs, and wait in a kneeling position, with my knees together and my heels tucked under my buttocks.

This means that my chained hands are in my lap, but at least I am comfortable and I don’t look downright obscene. The chain between my thighs presses against my genitals, also offering temporary protection.

I see that my presence on the jetty has not gone unnoticed. Some of the men are loitering, finding tasks nearby the wharf as they gather like scavengers around weak prey.

I keep my head down. One of these men is likely to deflower me by the end of the day. I don’t want to look at them and think about which one I’d prefer.

The wait I endure there is long enough that the approach of the most likely candidate, the head slaver, Chiron, comes as something of a relief to me. At his belt I see hangs an open collar that is waiting.

To his side and just behind him comes Udumi, walking with that delightful catwalk stride that is her challenge to men.

This is the first time I have seen her with any clothing, although it is only a slave camisk, barely reaching to her thighs. The material is very thin, lighter than the fabric on the northern camisk I saw worn by Tala. It is suitable for the jungle.

“I hear there is a woman who wishes to be a slave after all,” Chiron says, more for the entertainment of the onlookers than for me.

“Yes Master,” I say, looking down at his feet, “It is I.”

“What is your name, free woman?”

I grind my teeth. As if he doesn’t know by now.

“I am Lady Aurore of the Sardar, Master.”

Chiron considers me before speaking.

“Once you wear this collar, you become property, owned. You cannot unmake your choice.”

“And yet I beg for the collar, Master,” I say firmly.

He studies me for a moment, as if deciding whether I’m worth the effort, and then he leans over me, blocking the sun as he reaches to his belt.

“Your offer is acceptable,” he says.

The steel band closes around my neck and I hear a click as it locks shut.

I have been collared. Aurore is wearing a slave collar.

It feels heavy. I am very aware of it. The metal is warm against my skin – perhaps it has been lying in the tropical sun. Instinct drives me to reach up and touch it, but my wrists are trapped down at my thighs.

“What is your name, slave?” he asks.

“I have none, but what you give me, Master.”

It is the correct reply.

“I chose the name Aurore for you,” he says.

He looks around the crowd, and there is almost a chuckle as we know what the next question will be.

“Does anyone wish to master this woman?”

“I want her,” a male voice says immediately.

“I will sport with you for her,” another man says.

Four or five others declare their interest. I can’t help note that more men want me than the other women captured with me.

“None of you can have her unless you best me. I claim her for myself,” Chiron eventually says, one the others have had their chance to speak. “She will be second in my chain after Udumi.”

I’d expected this, but my spirits sink anyway. Unless someone fights and defeats him, I will be Chiron’s girl and will shortly begin paying for my insult.

And then another man speaks, the same voice from the darkened hut.

“Do you know the significance of the name Aurore to Goreans, slave?” a deep voice asks.

It is a sound that pulls at something deep within me. I automatically look up and almost see him, a silhouette of a huge bald headed man.

“It comes from the word ‘aurora’, after the aurora that is seen in the night sky, near the poles of the planet. To the superstitious, the aurora is an omen of evil changes. So that name is appropriate to you, who come to us as the catalyst of doom.”

I don’t know how to reply to this, so I don’t.

“You must be my slave, woman of ill omen,” the voice says.

Chiron speaks before I can express an opinion on this.

“I want her, Ubar. I have served you with loyalty for many years,” he says to Kurtz. “Do not let this doom you speak of begin over a mere slave. Give her to me.”

There is a slight movement from inside the hut.

“You must do as you think necessary, Chiron. But as I said before, until you are ready to challenge me, she mine.”

On an insignificant jetty in an alien world, the jungle air has become thick with tension.

From my memories of being a man I understand this behaviour. We are more likely to feud over women than anything else. Friend will fight friend over their desire for a girl. This might be the moment when these two warriors clash.

But as when I arrived lashed to the ship, the explosion of violence does not happen.

“Mark her as mine,” Kurtz orders, ending the debate.

Udumi ducks into his hut, and emerges seconds later. She ties a strip of purple ribbon to my collar, and I understand the meaning of the symbol.

I am marked as Kurtz’ personal slave. Me, and only me, apparently. Our eyes meet briefly as her fingers fumble at my neck. Udumi does not look pleased that I’ve been awarded this honour.

“What do you wish done with your slave, Ubar?” Chiron asks rather curtly.

“Train her until she is the best of them all,” is Kurtz reply. “A slave suitable for an Ubar. I will send for her when I see fit.”

He turns away then, a shadow disappearing into the deeper shadows. This man is my owner, but he dismisses me without even looking at me properly. But he does call back one order.

“She is not to be touched sexually, at least for now.”

There is a notable grumble of disappointment from the crowd when he orders me not to be touched.

Numbly I look around. That’s that. Lady Aurore is now Aurore the slave, Aurore the kajira.

I am released from the dock-ring, but only to have my wrists resecured in the bracelets, and in this manner I walk away from my owner to begin my new life stunned by the enormity of what has begun.

19 - In which Aurore begins learning of the pens

“What is your purpose?” Udumi asks me harshly, almost spitting in my face as she leans down towards me.

I am unsure how to answer. Perhaps she alluding to my mission?

From out of Udumi’s sight, along the line of kneeling women, Nessa is silently trying to mouth the solution to me, but I can’t make out her words.

There is a white hot pain in a stripe across my breasts as I am struck with Udumi’s whip.

I cry out. Blessed Priest Kings, that hurts – she got me right across my nipple.

“What is your purpose?” Udumi asks Jaya instead, as if my failure to answer was utterly contemptible, and eager to avoid the same fate as me, Jaya immediately blurts out:

“To please men.”

Her expression stony, Udumi moves along the line to Nessa.

“What are you?” Udumi asks.

“A slave girl,” Nessa answers promptly.

The next question I am asked - what is the most important quality in a slave girl - defeats me again. This time the lash is across my back.

Since our class began, I am the only one to have been struck. I am only a day behind the other recent captures, but I am made to feel every ahn of my missing experience. Aurore is at the bottom of the class.

The other women have been clothed, in camisks of the light material similar to the one worn by Udumi, whereas I have been naked all morning, reinforcing my status as the new-girl.

The place where I kneel with these others is called the pens. It is a demeaning title for my new home, naming it after a place suitable only for the storage of animals.

The pens back onto the huge and incomplete outer wall of the compound, made from tarred trees, so they comprise one side of my prison. The other pen walls are made of mud and straw – the construction material used for most buildings in this region.

It might not be as secure as the tree trunks, but there is no escape from this place.

Chiron, or Master Chiron as I must think of him, was exultant as he marched me across here from the jetty.

“I’m going to break you,” he said, dragging me using his fist knotted in my long hair. “I might not be able to rape you, but I can still break you. You’re going to wish you died in that cage.”

He was jubilant. Udumi, in contrast, seemed hugely aggrieved that I’d accepted the collar, rather than drowning.

“I cannot be expected to train this girl,” she complained to Chiron. “She is wild, one of those where beating does not teach fear, but makes them meaner.”

“I will learn fear, Mistress,” I said humbly.

This answer is still not sufficient.

“Even if she does obey, she is all long arms and legs,” Udumi continued. “How is such a girl to be taught to be graceful?”

“At the moment she is gangly and does not move well,” Chiron agrees, “but she has potential as a pleasure slave.”

Udumi inspected me thoroughly then, inspecting my teeth; pinching the slim feminine muscles in my arms and shaking her head; and even intimately lifting my breasts to feel their weight and firmness.

“Why not have her sold straight away?” Udumi pressed. “She is only bright enough to be a kettle girl, or perhaps one who pleases men in the baths of a city. These roles do not require training or finesse.”

Silently kneeling with my head down, I accept these critical appraisals.

I am already familiar with this treatment of new recruits in the army, where it is known as beasting. Always the newcomer is informed they are beyond hope, and deficient in every way.

By applying this treatment the instructor starts the process of breaking down the former personality of the individual, ready to rebuild them into a more suitable form. It also begins to bond the individual to the other new recruits, in a similar fashion to a sorority hazing.

Both beasting and hazing are crude and transparent techniques, but effective.

The best way to respond to this treatment is not to respond, but let the trainer do as they will and get it over with as quickly as possible.

“Show me nadu,” Udumi demands to Nessa, and remaining in her kneeling position my friend spreads her thighs wide, flaunting her sex in the position of a pleasure slave.

I risk looking around. This might be my home for many months.

The few windows in the pens are small, set high out of reach and they are barred. Outside it is raining again.

Except for the empty room assigned for training, the pens are little more than a storage area for female goods. There is a dormitory room we are locked at night. There is a place for keeping the accessories of slaves – camisks, silks, whips, restraints and the like.

And that is all.

Food and drink is kept outside of this building, so we cannot eat unsupervised. The diet of slaves is strictly controlled.

When the sun is directly overhead we are permitted a brief rest, I take the opportunity to talk to Nessa.

“How are you doing?” I ask her gently.

She looks pale and tired, although her eyes are no longer tear streaked.

“I was taken, I am no longer white silk,” she admits to me in a defeated voice. “Last night my master taught me much about my slavery.”

I put my hands to her upper arms and hold her tenderly to me.

“My free companion will not want me now,” she says mournfully. “He will not ally his family with a slave girl who has been so well used.”

“Are the other women the same?” I ask.

Nessa nods, reaching up and fingers the ribbon of purple silk.

“You are the only virgin remaining among our group, Aurore. Warriors outnumber slaves here, so all are taken as companions in the furs. Perhaps you have been fortunate in your Master, although they say he is a cruel man.”

Udumi has been out of my mind for a moment, but our embrace has not gone unnoticed.

“Do not touch each other,” she says harshly, crossing over to us. “It is forbidden.”

We break apart our hold.

“Kneel,” we are commanded, and I receive a lash for hugging Nessa, and another across my back because the way I knelt was lacking in grace.

Udumi’s whip is a single strand slave training whip, and like Chiron’s larger multi-strand version it is designed to hurt rather than harm. I am already becoming familiar with it.

Nessa is also struck twice – once as punishment for the physical contact, and once to remind her she is a slave. At the second lash, she cries out.

Udumi is a hard taskmaster.

Everything I have been doing is unsatisfactory for her. The way I sit; the way I kneel; particularly the way I walk; the way I eat; the way I drink; where I place my arms and hands; and the way I hold my head.

Apparently I am the worst kajira that was ever seen on Gor, and I will be lucky if a man ever wants to pay a few copper tarns for me.

In the classroom I count thirty women in the collar, but there are perhaps as many again resident in the pens. These others are more experienced slaves, who have completed training and spend more of the day in menial domestic chores needed to keep the compound functioning.

Only a half-dozen of my classmates are from the raid on the barge, so the rest of the women in this room must be captives of earlier forays.

I am part of an ethnic minority, being a white skinned northern woman. Most of the slaves are girls from the local tribes. Some of them do not even speak Gorean very well, preferring Ushindi or Ukungu, the languages of the jungle peoples.

Udumi uses her whip on these women every time they speak in their native tongues. Seeing this, I predict that soon, Gorean will become their preferred language.

The rest of the morning passes with this repetition of questions and movements. Guessing its deeper purpose is not difficult. It is like a form of cult brainwashing. I know that by the time I have repeated the answer that I exist “to please men” so often it becomes instinctive, it will grow harder to resist accepting that truly I do only exist for that purpose.

At one point I am removed from my classes by Chiron and taken to a room where I am examined by one of the physicians’ caste.

Samples of my blood are taken and a record is made of my fingerprints. It will go on permanent record somewhere that I am a slave. Measurements are made of my proportions, and details such as my eye and hair colour are noted.

Then the medical becomes more intimate. An embarrassing and uncomfortable procedure confirms that I am a virgin. My attention is diverted, as a trick to once again surprise my erogenous zones with the whip, and my reactions are noted.

“Exceptionally responsive, this one,” the physician comments with professional interest. “She is as tense as a bow string.”

I am still blushing when I am returned to my classes.

The afternoon is devoted to some of the more practical skills required of a slave girl. I learn how to warm the Gorean alcoholic beverage, paga, to serve it at the most satisfactory temperature, and how to clean an animal carcass to extract the cuts of meat.

In my previous life I had to forage for game, so I am not squeamish about animal flesh and I find this lesson useful as a survival skill, losing myself in concentration.

However Jaya protests for a fraction too long about touching the cold clammy entrails, and she is beaten severely, until she’s helplessly lying on her side in a foetal ball, begging Udumi for mercy.

Her flogging takes so long and is so vicious, I think for a moment that Udumi intends to beat Jaya to death as an example to the rest of us.

That is the last time anyone hesitates to complete one of her tasks on my first day.

This same meat is then cooked ready for the enjoyment of the men this evening, but rather than being given the chance to try this delicacy ourselves, at the end of the day most of the women are only offered a bowl of slave gruel.

The three women who were captured with me, Nessa, Jaya, and Colleen, are denied even this nourishment. They are each to serve their master this night, and they will only eat what he gifts them from his hand.

Hungry slave girls are known to be more eager to please.

Left behind, once night falls I am shown to a straw mattress in a section of the building that resembles a hostel dormitory.

It is quiet in here – most of the girls being out for the night in duties of service to men. The few that remain have masters who do not wish for company every night, or masters that are away on the business of the compound.

It is also very dark, without the need for oil lamps that are kept burning to illuminate other nocturnal activities. The only light comes from the moons of Gor, shining in through a high window.

I lie on my side, my knees drawn up and my hands sandwiched protectively between my thighs. My breasts are squashed between my upper arms, and the absence of the once-familiar genitals between my legs is very apparent.

I am much aware of being female.

A rule of the pens is that all the women have to sleep naked. Nocturnal clothing is one thing provided only at the discretion of the master whose bed you share.

Thus I am surrounded by other women, all naked, like me. It is impossible not to feel myself as the same as these female slaves. I can hear whispered conversations between friends in the semi-darkness, but no-one wants to talk to the Ubar’s slave.

My only ally in the pens has been Nessa, and she is in the furs of her master. I feel lonely. Last night I rested back in the arms of Kwesi. It was preferable to lying on this hard mat.

In the privacy the night gives me, I reach up to my throat. There it is, my slave’s collar. I’ve been constantly conscious of its presence and wanted to touch it all day, but it would have been obvious to anyone watching me.

The steel still feels heavy. My fingers rub its outer surface and I feel a loop, such as might be used to attach leashes or chains, and the indentations of writing. The pads on my fingers brush past the small knotted piece of purple ribbon.

I don’t know what the engraving says, but it is unlikely that the collar has been personalised to me. It will likely give simply the name of my owner, Kurtz, or declare that I am the property of his men.

I am nothing but a slave. This collar connects me to the untold forgotten millions of women, through the thousands of years of Gorean history. They too will have fingered their collar as they tried to accept their place as slaves.

Around one tenth of the Gorean population live in slavery at any one time, but of those who wear the collar almost ninety-five percent are female. Almost one in every five women across Gor are enslaved, or will be at some point in their lives.

Each one of them is collared as a means of marking them as slave. Collars can be made of rope, leather, wood, or even precious metals or jewels, and they can be made to control behaviour through

strangulation, but the simple bands of steel are the most common. There are thousands of similar slave collars out there on Gor, but this one is around my neck.

I move my fingers around the circumference, tracing for the small opening where the key might unlock it.

Any Gorean would see me in this collar and immediately understand its meaning. I am property, owned, below human status, an animal.

The person who owns a slave may do anything they wish with their property. Gor recognises no crimes against slaves, not even murder.

There is nowhere I can run to on this world where people will treat me with respect and kindness, while I display this collar around my throat. I will only be fleeing into submission before another owner. I have accepted slavery, and therefore I do not deserve any mercy.

I look up to the barred window high above me, where moonlight shines, wondering how many other women are waiting in confinement right now.

In the darkness of my pen, I hear a moan. It is a sound of longing almost to the point of the desperation being painful.

“Be silent, slave!” another female voice hisses.

Does the moaning woman wish to be free, or is she in the throes of “slave need”? I had always believed that to be a mythical state. Priest Kings help me if I get to a state where I sound like her.

However, a lack of sex is not likely to be a long term issue for me. I know the effect Aurore’s body can have on men, because I was once a man myself. I, for example, would have been desperate to touch a girl such as her.

How long will they keep their hands from me?

I finger the thin piece of purple ribbon knotted round the unforgiving ring of steel. This small decoration has saved my virginity. I would be in Chiron’s furs right now, were I not wearing this token.

Such power, a piece of ribbon can have. My sisters in the collar are being taken, while I lie here alone on my side.

I don’t know how Nessa can stand it. She must be exhausted.

A yawn escapes me at that very moment. When was the last time I slept properly? It must have been nearly two days ago, the previous night to the attack on the barge.

Tiredness begins to take me then, as if I’ve permitted myself to release the feeling.

Last time I slept I was a proud free woman of Gor, albeit in the arms of Kwesi. Only a month ago I slept as a warrior, with a nude slave draped atop me. Tonight I am the naked slave, naked except for a steel collar that I cannot remove.

This should be too momentous a night to sleep to sleep – I have become kajira. I can see the feminine curve of Aurore’s pale hip in the halflight, and I can feel her silken thighs brush against each other if I raise my knee.

I should also be too uncomfortable to sleep - my mat is not well padded, and sharp points of straw penetrate the coarse fabric, but I am exhausted and I eagerly seize the chance escape this barbaric world.

20 - I have a night-time conversation, after all.

I awaken abruptly, not knowing where I am, or how much time has elapsed since I fell asleep.

It would seem I am in a room, barely lit by light from a high, barred window. Around me are the figures of sleeping people. I realise they are nude women. I’m in a room full of naked women.

I try to inhale with surprise, and realise I cannot breath.

Someone grips my head tightly, using their hand knotted in my hair. Their arm is around my neck, and my throat presses into the crook of this attacker’s elbow.

It’s a slim arm – it must be another girl.

Her body is clamped intimately against my back. Her leg is around my waist, pinning me in a wresting hold.

It would be erotic, were she not attempting to strangle me.

I panic and struggle, trying to call out for help from one of these nude sleepers, but I can’t exhale enough to make a single sound.

“Be silent, and be still,” the girl’s voice whispers.

It sounds like Udumi. I am in the slave pens of Kurtz’ compound, and Udumi is trying to kill me.

I continue to struggle. Stars begin to appear before my eyes.

As I start to lose consciousness strength fails me and I am forced to relax. I am expecting the end – she is going to kill me and I won’t even discover why, but the oblivion will be a blessed relief.

Then my assailant releases the tension on my neck enough for me to draw in a big gulp of air.

“Try to scream, and you die,” she whispers.

The grip relaxes further, enough for me to answer.

“I choose not to scream,” I whisper back quickly.

“Wise decision” she replies.

As reality returns to me, I understand what she must be doing. She wants a private conversation, which is almost impossible in the close packed environment of the pens. Slaves are allowed no secrets.

“There was no need to attack me,” I grumble.

“You and me are going to have a talk,” Udumi says rapidly, ignoring me. “I want to know what the deal is with you. You are the only slave the Ubar has made his own since the raid on the landing site. I want to know what makes you different to the others. Beautiful women have come and gone, and he has chosen none for himself.”

“He’s sat there in his hut being miserable, out of everyone’s way, and things here have gone on just fine without him. Everyone was happy.”

“Then Aurore arrives with her perfect body, tied to second prow, and he calls you the catalyst of doom, an omen of evil. Chiron and the Master risk fighting, because of you. What makes you so special?”

I need more allies in this place. I resolve to sacrifice a little of the truth to Udumi, in order to hide my deepest secret.

“I am sent by the Priest Kings,” I say, Aurore’s whisper sounding high and nervous to my ears. “It appears I was betrayed and the Ubar knows this.”

The grip of her thigh around me relaxes a little.

“They have sent other women,” Udumi says, “Mina, Carla, but he has not taken the same interest. Why are you worth rocking the boat?”

I don’t want to tell her it is because I was once a man.

“Perhaps it is because I came from Urth, and he has interest in a barbarian woman?” I say, and then realise she might be one of the lower caste women that do not know of our world. “Have you heard of Urth?” I question.

Her breasts move against my back. I have amused Udumi with my ignorance, and she laughs, but it is a bitter, cynical humour.

“Have I heard of Urth? You’re talking to an L.A. girl, bitch,” she says, surprising me by switching language to speak in American English.

“I’d assumed you were local,” I admit.

“Because I’m black?” she says, aggressive. “You think the slavers wouldn’t want black women from Earth?”

“You don’t have the accent of a barbarian,” is all I can say, using the term that Goreans use to describe all women taken from Urth.

“You are only the second Urth woman to pass through here,” she speculates, a little mollified. “I have risen to first-girl here, and you arrive with the same will and the body of a passion slave. It might be possible he has an interest in understanding why barbarian women look like Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.”

I must seize on her theory.

Kurtz treatment of me at the docks suggested I have been betrayed in every way, and he knows I was once a man. I will be viewed as a freak if this information is allowed to spread. My best strategy is to appear ignorant, and go along with Udumi’s own conclusions.

“But would he really risk violence with a long-held friend over that?” I whisper.

“You do not know him, Udumi says ruefully. “He acts always as he considers an Ubar must, with no regard to the consequences. His sense of duty will kill us all. The Ubar would destroy the whole compound if he thought it was necessary to meet some greater objective.”

At least I have moved the conversation away from why Kurtz is so interested in me.

“You’re not jealous?” I ask, “That the Ubar has chosen me?”

Udumi laughs again, but it is not kind this time.

“Before he sank into whatever depression ails him, I saw him order captive girls bound and thrown to the thalarion in the lake, because they failed to please him. He took women only for temporary pleasure, you see, never showing interest in a personal slave.”

“The Ubar has not laid with a woman since he went into retreat, but if he is emerging from his illness, he may return to his former ways. Unless you’re very good at engaging his interest, you have the shortest life expectancy of any girl in the camp.”

She pauses.

“I’m sorry, Aurore. My master, Chiron, is known as the woman-breaker, but at least he is rational. I would rather be serving him than the mad Ubar.”

“And Master Chiron is not pleased with your behaviour at the docks. He will deliver some chastisement, and your next few days will not be pleasant,” she warns. “Further reason that none will be jealous of you, Aurore.”

My spirits falls with each sentence she speaks. At times like this, a soldier relies on occupation, focussing on his mission. I must find out what intelligence I can.

“How long has Kurtz been unwell?” I ask.

“I was taken when Kurtz first seized this place, and he also captured the bear-creatures whose heads are on the front gate. They were kept in the building outside the compound, where the male slaves are housed.”

“Kurtz went to visit them often. One day he returned from a visit in rage like I have never seen before. In his fury he had beheaded the animals, and it was after their heads were put on the gates that he retreated to his hut.”

This is very interesting. First, I have learnt that Kurtz is certainly not allied to the Kurii. The opposite seems to be the case. Secondly, no-one but him seems to realise that the Kurii were sentient beings.

I think the situation between Udumi and myself is diffusing, but it turns out I’m not off the hook.

“So, agent of the Priest Kings... There’s something else we need to reach an understanding about,” she continues. “I’ve not forgotten you said a night with me would be something special. I’ve seen the way you looked at me. Are you a lesbian or something?”

“Bi,” I answer automatically.

Why did I say that? Why not “lesbian”?

“I would advise you not to tell any of the native Gorean women that you are bisexual. Their culture raises them to desire those with masculine qualities, so it is very rare on this world for people to favour their own sex.”

“It will make it more difficult for you to make friends, and you need friends. You will suffer much at the hands of the men, and you are resented by the other women because you have not been used.”

“So I won’t tell anyone,” Udumi concludes, “but try anything on with me and I’ll kick your ass.”

We are silent for a moment as I reflect on this.

The wrestler’s hold on me has relaxed completely now. I try not to think about her as a lesbian woman might, but it’s not easy when she’s spooning me.

“Thank you for your kind advice to me,” I eventually whisper in a grateful voice. “Why are you being so nice now when you were hard on me during the day?”

“I am still a slave here,” Udumi says, the toughness returning to her voice. “The master ordered me to train you until you’re the best slave here, and that’s what I must do. I will be harder on you than the others, because you must be the best. I don’t want to end up being the one thrown into the lake.”

“But when the door is locked for the night,” she continues, “we are both just women, and we can look out for each other.”

I’m surprised she’s so thoughtful, so deep. This is the girl who instigated the burning of many male slaves.

Udumi’s role in the raid on the barge has always troubled me and I am about to question her about it, but she suddenly releases her hold on me and scrambles to her feet.

She must have a sixth sense, because a second later there is the sound of the door to our room unlocking. It swings open to admit Chiron, he who is her master and the man who manages the slaves.

His face is illuminated by a small oil lamp, the light of which gleams of Udumi’s dark skin.

“Why are you not at your sleeping place?” he demands.

“I needed to use the straw,” she replies glibly.

He looks unconvinced, but gruffly says, “Be on with you,” and Udumi pads across to the heap of cut reeds in the far corner where we are permitted to relieve ourselves.

Chiron walks around the room then, holding the light over one girl and then the next, crouching down close enough as if he’s trying to inhale their scent.

I’m not sure what he’s looking for – seeing the reflection of many open eyes in the dormitory I can see that most here have been awakened by the disturbance, but they just look up passively.

When my turn comes I fold one arm over my breasts and use my other hand to hide my sex, in the manner of women ashamed of their nakedness.

He looms over me, lingering longer than some of the others, almost close enough to kiss me, but to my relief he moves on.

Seemingly at random he selects one girl, holding her upper arm, and after whispering something to her, she scrambles to her feet.

The slave follows Chiron from the room, walking a few paces behind with her head lowered.

As he closes the door, we are once more in darkness. Women were silent in his presence, but once we’re alone they exhale with palpable relief. It seems no-one wanted to be chosen.

The sound of the lock trapping us in hear is barely audible, but I hear it all the same.

21 - In which I learn that life as a slave is not unlike service in the army.

Once the first day of our lives as slaves has grown to a week in servitude and then weeks, the initial terror we women suffered during our capture and collaring settles to a more routine level of misery.

In Kurtz’ compound, the training routine for female slaves repeats the same daily pattern as I experienced in my first day, where the morning is occupied with what I call our “brainwashing”, and the afternoon is devoted to learning physical and domestic tasks.

Men outnumber women in the compound, so the former being lazy beasts, as soon as the females are able the menial chores are handed to us.

These humdrum tasks include cleaning, the washing of clothes, sewing, and preparing of food. I learn from observation of the more experienced slaves working that as time progresses in the compound execution of these chores will take more of my day, and less will be spend under teaching.

I am not unhappy with this likelihood. The chores are in fact welcome, as they permit me some freedom of movement about the compound, without having to earn release from the pens through nocturnal service on my back.

My lot has also improved with the allocation of clothing. On my second day as a slave I was granted one of the light camisks, so rather than being the only one nude I was in the same uniform as the other girls.

Mine is similar in design to the one I saw worn by Tala so long ago in the Sardar, but it is made from a lighter fabric than Tala’s, more suitable for wear in the tropics.

My camisk is formed from a rectangle, with a hole to be slipped over the head, similar in fashion to a poncho. The garment is then tied tightly at my slim waist with a length of coarse rope.

Once in place on my body it barely reaches to my thighs, as Tala’s did. Another similarity is that it is not wide enough to wrap around me completely and cover my sides, so in profile I appear as almost nude.

The garment plunges deeply at my neckline to flaunt the swell of what little of my cleavage is not already visible from the side, and it is also scooped out low at my back.

I am aware I look very beautiful in this garment.

I found it shamefully revealing when I first tried such a scanty thing, but even that was too much coverage to please the men. Chiron insisted on the lower hem being raised even further, to flaunt more bare female leg.

Nonetheless, it is a great improvement on being naked so I don it with pleasure in the mornings. After a couple of days in the camisk, I felt less self-conscious of the constant watching eyes of the men.

In defence of the particular taste of the men of Kurtz, I should interject that am grateful for being given a camisk at all, as it is not typical slave garb in the tropics. Jungle kajirae typically wear short strips of rep cloth, tied about the hips, and they have to go bare-breasted.

I think it has survived as the fashion in this compound because the warriors of Kurtz are from the Northern latitudes, and they are sentimental men, showing themselves capable of some nostalgia in fashions that remind them of home.

I feel no particular yearning to be elsewhere. Unlike the other women I have no former life to return to now. The anniversary soon passes where Aurore has been longer as a female slave than she was as a free woman, so for Aurore if not Aurius, the compound has become my most settled home.

As long as I avoid my greatest fear – enduring rape from Kurtz and his men, and a fate of sexual servitude to this group of warriors, things are bearable.

I continue to be protected by the judgement of Kurtz on me, imposed on that day when I was collared on the dock side. I do not understand his motivation for this – I have heard enough examples of his brutality that I know he is not a merciful man, and we hardly began our connection on a good enough basis to engender his kindness.

Whatever his reasons, it is impossible not to feel some sense of obligation towards my master, that elusive voice in isolation in his modest hut.

My master said he would send for me when he saw fit.

Weeks soon turn to months without that event occurring, and I don’t ever glimpse him outside his hovel, so I concentrate diligently on my training, learning what is known as “slave paces”, and await his summons.

Often I catch myself fingering the ribbon at my collar and staring towards his doorway, but apart from the guard posted outside there is no sign of life.

Meanwhile my mission to the Priest Kings has not been forgotten – indeed I feel the need to cling to some remnant of my male persona, so as a means of retaining the soldier’s mentality I continue to gather what intelligence and information are made available to me.

No attempt is made to confine us by day, but the reason is not out of trust, but because it is unnecessary. One side of the compound fronts onto the dangerous waters of the lake, and in the other three directions there is only a short distance to the impassable and treacherous swampland.

There is nowhere to run, so we can go almost where we wish. The ships are guarded, which are the only possible means of exit, and we are forbidden access to the building a short distance from the compound that houses the male captives.

Other than that, I have more access to the outside world than I did as a free woman.

The one regulation I have just mentioned - that on visiting the male slaves, is to prevent us attempting to free the men and start a slaves’ revolt, but is also for our own safety. Udumi tells us that early into the camp’s history a female slave went to deliver the male captives some wine, passed too close to one of the men, and was held there until the morning being much used.

She learned to her cost that the absence of female intimacy had been a more serious depravation for those men than a lack of alcohol.

My efforts at espionage mean that except for the layout within the building of the male slaves, I soon form a detailed mental map of Kurtz small empire.

Inside the compound I learn the locations of the buildings, including the storage warehouses; the armoury; the sleeping areas for the warriors; the large structure used for social eating and communal gatherings; the kitchens; the workshops used by the smiths and leatherworkers, and the modest hut occupied by my master.

I learn the function of the braziers emitting acrid smoke I had earlier observed. The dense cloud is repellent to the biting insects that infest the jungle, and it seems to work. Since arriving at the compound I have been relatively unscathed by insect attack.

Sexual assault I have also been spared, as well as rape, but in this matter I am unique. With men outnumbering women there is a tolerance of a man grabbing and handling a passing kajira, whether she has a master or not, and the caresses that follows these temporary captures are often intimate.

It is worth recording that in this respect a difference I have noticed between the behaviour of the women newer to their collar, and the older hands.

The new girls try to avoid the attacks if possible, finding them humiliating violations, whereas the more experienced seem to not only enjoy the touch of a warrior, but actively seek opportunities to get in a man’s range.

Observing the women, I concluded there are two reasons for the behaviour. Firstly there are evolutionary advantages to the approach adopted by the experienced slaves. Being in the good favour of multiple males increases the chances of the woman receiving protection if threatened, and she may also receive gifts such as food in exchange for her physical contact.

These situations of sexual bartering by the more vulnerable females are not unknown on Urth, in places such as women’s prisons, so it is not surprising they occur on Gor where we are captives.

The second reason for longer term slaves seeking the gropings is more disturbing to me, as it is a spell cast on the women that I too have begun to fall under. It is a very simple reason. After a while here, we crave anyone’s touch.

On my first day, Udumi rebuked me for hugging Nessa. I later learned that female slaves are forbidden any physical contact with each other. Not even a friendly, chaste, embrace is allowed.

Acts of self-pleasuring are very strictly prohibited. Occasionally the slaver, Chiron, will check our pens at night. This explains the inspection of women I witnessed on my first night. A girl that has aroused herself has a particular scent that can be detected by someone passing close to her.

I am told that any girls caught relieving their own sexual needs without male involvement are flogged in front of the whole compound. The humiliation of being publically identified as a slut is said to be worse than the physical pain.

It is a clever tactic by our masters, this restriction of our sexual release. The captive women will begin to desire any form of the comfort that comes with physical contact.

In the army, the tactics used by my trainers were meant to shape me both mentally and physically for the tasks required of a soldier.

When training slaves great effort is also put into the psychological elements of shaping the female mind into one satisfactory to the trainer except in the situation of slavery, the training is not to turn us into killers, but to encourage beauty and passion.

Thus our morning sessions are intended to sexualise us, making us constantly aware that we are women and that women are different from men; making us aware of our own beauty; of the men around us; and of our rightful place as their slaves.

The undoubted eroticism of some of our activities maintains women in a state of arousal for hours at a time, desires which we are then cruelly forbidden to sate.

I am no more immune to this slow enforced growth of frustration than the other captives in the pens. At times I can feel Aurore’s perfect body tingle with desire to be caressed.

For example, after the ahn we spent discussing the best ways to use one’s mouth to provoke desire, even I would have been willing to accept a warrior’s touch easing the aching emptiness between my legs.

Men, it turns out, are not the only ones that need to get laid once in a while.

Let’s make clear I am not saying that I am discovering that it is woman’s true nature to be a slave, and she should be a sexual plaything to men. My morality is still that of an Urth male. This admission of my building desire is no more than that – unsatisfied sexual frustration. All the same, the growing desire is like woodworm burrowing into my mind. And I reached that mental state after only a few weeks. How might I be after many, many months of this?

The physical tasks I perform also remind me of army service, being as carefully structured to train as the mental exercises. Each movement I make is repeated to perfection, until my body has its own memory and walks or kneels gracefully without conscious thought.

Every job I’m assigned has function, such as cleaning soiled straw from areas of the pens, but it also teaches me of my insignificance. Once I was nothing compared to the devouring entity that was the army. Now I am still nothing.

Merciless suffering is another inevitable pillar of army life. In the communal space of the compound is the whipping post. Nessa is flogged into unconsciousness on her third day for stealing a pasty from the kitchen area.

She was so weak with hunger she was hallucinating tarns in the sky.

Women are sometimes lashed for no reason other than to remind them that they are slaves, or we are even tied to the whipping post and then released unharmed after a frightening time anticipating the flogging.

But this is unusual - beatings are only occasionally given without any justification. When I am lashed, it is usually because as my teachers and my conditioning insidiously tells me – “I have deserved it”.

I am a very poor slave girl, so they tell me, and I am punished so frequently that I am in almost permanently sore somewhere on my vulnerable flesh, but my tolerance to the tortures is slowly increasing.

As expected Chiron has been my chief nemesis for punishment. He has beaten me severely several times, using the multi-stranded Gorean slave whip, the one designed to be agonisingly painful but leave no permanent marks that reduce the victim’s value.

It is these whippings make me feel most slave. I cannot help but fear them, and by extension fear Chiron, or punishment from any of the men.

When I was transformed I had expected that my masculine emotional control would remain, but it didn’t take long for Chiron to show me that Aurore can be made to cry.

I can admit that I fear him.

Therefore as much as I can I keep out of Chiron’s sight, and when that is not possible I try with true diligence to please him, losing all thought of my former self in my devotion to completion of my tasks.

I can’t escape him in my dreams though, and sometimes I wake screaming from nightmares where he looms over me with the whip. These I fear will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Our days are ones of ignoble suffering, but despite all the pain and indignities, in the pens we learn to be grateful that we are females and that we are desired enough to be slaves. Gor is a barbaric world, and we see examples of how the treatment of women is lenient compared to the treatment of men.

One of the male captives from our party, a bowman responsible for guarding the barge, was reluctant to labour on the construction of the fortifications after being bitten by a thalarion from the swamps, and before the whole camp he was put to the sword as an example to the others.

Occasionally the silence of the night is abruptly broken by the sound of a man screaming in agony. Then I put my hands over my ears and try not to imagine what kind of torture might make a human male emit such a noise.

Friendship between people of either gender grows through shared suffering and helps one endure the unendurable. Nessa has remained the person to whom I feel closest. It is she that I seek in my moments of leisure.

If I had still been a guy, I’d have tried my best to get Nessa on a date, but I know as Aurore, other people will be gifted with the chances of physical intimacy with her.

She does not speak much of her nights serving her master, but midway through our second week he is away overnight, carrying out some duty for the Ubar, and I can see his absence pains her.

“You like him, despite everything he does to you?” I ask her curiously.

The smile she flashes is guilty, but is not quite the sad, broken look she gave me after her first night in collar.

“There are worse masters a girl could have,” she admits. “I would not now wish to be taken from him, and given to one of the others.”

The reply makes me despondent, somehow. Perhaps because her affection is not directed towards me, and perhaps I fear that she is succumbing, like so many others seem to, to the effect that Gor seems to have on women.

I feel strangely dejected as I like up in the queue for my bowl of slave gruel. Like I’m the one being left behind, rather than the lucky one.

But then something finally happens. The girl whose turn it is to dish out gruel to the queue of hungry women shakes her head, refusing to give me any food. She points me across to Udumi, who I ask for explanation.

“Tonight, you will serve your master,” Udumi says.

My first emotion is pleasure at this news. My mission might be complete and I can get on my way. But I also start to feel fearful. I glance down at the body the Priest Kings created for me and see Aurore’s breasts straining against the tight camisk, and her long bare legs made to wrap round a man in the throes of pleasure.

This might be the night I experience sex as a woman. Something tightens in my belly – part dread, part hope.

I pull at the tunic and notice that a stain from the cleaning I’ve been doing today soils my garment.

“This camisk is dirty, Mistress,” I say addressing Udumi with the respectful title as we always must. “Permission to go and fetch a clean one before I report to the Ubar.”

Udumi shakes her head, and she smiles mischievously.

“Your outfit for tonight has already been selected for you, daughter of the Sardar.”