Witness of Gor Read Online Free Page B

may be quite different here.
    And my speculations, as I would soon learn, would prove correct, profoundly correct.
    It would be a world quite different from that with which I was familiar.
    Then the man moved away.
    But another, in a short time, paused near me.
    I was much aware of him, but, of course, I kept my head down. He was, it seemed, like the other, large and strong. I found his presence disturbing, as I had found that of the other.
    The culture here, though quite different from my own, I thought, seems all of a piece. Things seem to fit, the nature of my incarceration, the simplicity of things, the architecture, the mode of dress, the iron on my wrists and ankles.
    I kept my head down.
    What place was this? How had I come here? Surely I did not belong here!
    But then I trembled. Perhaps, I thought, the thought terrifying me, this is where I belong. Perhaps I was not where I belonged before. Perhaps this is exactly where I belong.
    The fellow beside me moved away.
    The last door had now apparently been opened. I heard no more of them being opened.
    I lifted my head the tiniest bit. I saw small ankles before me, joined by chain, as mine were. I was only one in a line. It was then, I conjectured, as I had suspected.
    I was here as a result of selections, based upon some criterion or other. The matter was objective, not personal. It was not that I had offended someone and that my plight had been accordingly engineered for someone's amusement, or that it constituted perhaps, in its way, some sweet tidbit of revenge, one perhaps of many such, the subjects of which, left here, might later be dismissed from mind, and, in time, forgotten. No, the matter was impersonal. My position here was not a consequence of who I was, but, rather, of something else, perhaps of what I was The primary reason I was here was, I supposed, because I was of a certain sort, or kind. But what sort, or kind, could that be? I did not know. I looked at the ankles before me, and the anklets, so close about them. Some of the links of chain between the anklets rested on the stones. I supposed that the metal on my own ankles though I had not seen it in the light, was the same, or similar. Certainly there would be no reason for it to be different. No, there was nothing unique or special about me, or, at least, nothing any more unique or special than characterized the others in the line. It extended before me and, doubtless, behind me. How many were in it I did not know. There had been several doors opening and closing. Perhaps, I conjectured, there might be fifty of us in this line. There were several in front of me, and doubtless several, given the doors opening and closing, behind me. I thought I might be about two thirds of the way back in the line. Those before me and behind me, as nearly as I could tell, from the languages which had been addressed to them, did not speak my language, or, indeed, one another's language. Our placement in line, I suspected, might not be a matter of chance. I did not think that we had a language in common, as yet.
    I heard the tread of those heavy sandals approaching. I put down my head, even lower. Then they passed.
    I, and doubtless the others, had been forbidden to look upon our captors. This was very unsettling to me. I wondered why this was. Yet I was, also, afraid to look upon them. I did not know what I would see. Why do they not wish us to look upon them, I wondered. Can their aspect be so terrible, or hideous, I wondered. Perhaps they are disfigured, I thought. Perhaps they are not truly human, I feared. Perhaps they are animals! Or, perhaps, to them, I am an animal! I did not want to be eaten! But I did not think they were animals. And I doubted that I would have been brought here to be eaten. Certainly I had not been fattened. Rather, given the meager diet to which I had been subjected, my figure had been excellently trimmed. This suggested an entirely different theory as to what might be one of my major values