The Common Denominator

“You seem tired, my Master,” the girl Joy intimated; concerned.
She was beautifully selfless at that moment and I loved her for it. I know there is some measure of jealousy. How could there not be? My chain has grown from three to seven girls in a matter of hands. The lines of demarcation from personal collar, to House collar to Boarding House collar are blurred. The common denominator, of course, is that they are all my women. There is a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with that.
I have told them of the life of a yellow silk tavern girl. I have been to the city of Port Kar, Jewel of the Gleaming Thassa, and frequented her taverns. Nowhere I can fathom is the life of a yellow silk harder. Many of them do not receive training. It is not worth the nominal investment to train them. They will serve, both from the menu and as the menu, and if found displeasing they will be killed; tossed into the canal to feed the urts. Another woman will take her place within a matter of ehn, often given the garment that was just snatched from the girl still thrashing and screaming in the fetid water, being feasted upon by vermin.
It breaks my heart, if truth must be told, but that is the life of a slave. Taken of course to the nth extreme, but nonetheless that is the life of a slave.
Any one of my girls could be purchased or even stolen and spirited off by tarn back or hooded and transported amongst others in a girl-pile by wagon or Vosk raft to Port Kar. There they might be beaten with a snake whip or worse, left with scars and cuts from imbedded glass shards about their lovely thighs as initiation. They would be put to work with a rude shove between their shoulders, nothing less than perfection expected. I picture Kawena, so completely clueless, andshudder to think about her screaming out the ‘safe words’ of her deviant, barbarian past to an unconcerned pirate. She spoke with a certain wonder and pride about how exhilarating it was to be handled by a skilled practioner of bondage as if her submission was a game. I was mean to her last night; berating. She earns money faster than a tight-fisted Turian Merchant and believes that earns her time to be brought along slowly. She could not be more wrong. She is not a free woman and she never will be. I cannot afford to give her that luxury.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Nirah. I have beaten all of them, including their mistress; not Nirah. Born here, she aches to be whipped, to be shown her place. She is not looking for a thrill, just reassurance that I know what she is. That is thrilling to a woman, I suppose. To be acknowledged. I am well aware of what she is. She would endure a great deal of pain to be assured of that. Admittedly, as a man, it triggers a response in me; her willingness, her abject eagerness. Part of my evolutionary makeup compels me to do just that, reassure her with the whip. These things are beyond intelligence and reasoning. I have warned her against begging for the whip. She invites danger. Controlled though I may be, instinct can be a perilous thing. Where a man of earth is ashamed of his instinct, cowed by popular opinion, discouraged from listening to his heart, Gorean men suffer no such crutch. We loathe to reason away nature, rationalize away nurture. That is the path to perversion. The world is not fair. ‘Fair’ and ‘equity’ are mere concepts of man, not mandates of nature.
“I am the whip,” I have told slave women.
It is a way of informing them that they are not beaten by the whip. They are beaten by me. I can and will do this whenever necessary and, over and above, whenever I like. A fellow drives a nail in the wall and hangs his whip by the handle not to instill fear of the implement. He does so to remind them that they are never exempt from obedience, beauty and discipline. They are reminded of the firm hand, the potentially crushing grip they serve under with every passing glance, whether he is present or not.
Having said all of this and, in my heart, knowing it to be true, I would rather not beat any of them.