Silverkin Women (aka An Ode to Gor)

Okay - One more repost...this one brings out a bit of Pangold's family and character for your reading pleasure.

All that Pangold Silverkin learned about women he learned from his father and his father's father.  Marshall Silverkin used to tell his sons a moral tale that he had first heard from his father -- of the difference bewteen women and Silverkin women.  Pangold remembered his father relishing the retelling of this particular tale.  During the long nights of their adventure, Pangold has often though of this story as he carefully considers the features of his new female companions.

Women, the Belcher was notorious for saying, are creatures of equal dignity and equal strength with all men.  Women suffer from the same pains as men and women are capable of the same deceits as men.  And they were to be treated with the same respect or the same disdain according to the same standards as men.  Women are creatures you want fighting at your side in an ambush or securing your rescue from kidnappers.  But these are not the kind of creatures you marry.

The kind of woman a Silverkin male ought to marry, said the Belcher to Marshall, and Marshall to Pangold, is the kind that has little more in her head than an easy devotion for all things of her husband.  She is the kind of woman who barely thinks for herself but feels guilty for not being worthy of her husband, no matter what his real character or what he really deserves.  These women -- for a wide variety of reasons -- find the sum total of their personal satisfaction in pleasing their master.  These are women who return to him like a moth to flame no matter how often it gets burnt, and still never dream of placing blame for the pain.  The kind of woman you married, if you were a Silverkin man, was hardly a woman at all; she would have to be a Silverkin woman.  

Silverkin women will take any abuse and tolerate any indiscretion.  Silverkin women always experience their husband's actions, choices, and opinions as more amture and more considered than their own.  And Silverkin women never feel good about themselves without feeling they have made their husbands feel good.  And that is why Silverkin women are the only women to marry.

These women are out there, the Belcher said to his sons, and his sons said to theirs.  Finding them is the ultimate goal in any young male Silverkin's life.  But you must look for them carefully, though, as there are many pretenders and imitators.  All women will give you the feeling they want to please you during courtship, pronounced the Belcher.  But there are clues that will help you find the real Sillverkin women from the mere pretenders.  it is better to go without altogether than to be possessed by a woman who is not a Silverkin woman.  For Silverkin women are born, not made.  At least not made by Silverkin men.  And this is all important.  He who is happiest, sang the Belcher, is he who can tell the difference between a real Silverkin woman and a woman of the wrong stock.

A real Silverkin woman often has no hobbies or private joys.  Although she does not necessarily know it, she is waiting for a master to come along and the vaccuum in her interests.  She does not know it yet, but she is waiting to begin existing always and only for him.

A real Silverkin woman often degrades or humiliates herself often without prompting.  In his presence she seeks to demonstrate to him the depths of her willingenss to give her self to him.  In her mind, the less she is, the more he can become.

A real Silverkin woman does not trust her words to completely express her mind, and often feels compelled to acts of physical servitude in an effort to more completely communicate her desire for him.  She sees the use of words as the province of men, and she understands the strength and confidence it gives to men to have her silent in their presence.

And, above all the Belcher stressed, a Silverkin woman experiences her body as a tool for his pleasure, and she looks on his use of it the way the caretaker of lighthouse or tavern might look upon the use of those facilities they've been charged with preseving.

Silverkin women do not make good friends and they do not make for advisors and counsellors.  But that is not what the Belcher used to preach and school his sons to want in a wife, unless they wanted ceaseless strife and needless sacrifice their life long.  According to the Belcher, the woman to wed is the woman who not only acts the part of the slave, but loves her slavery and sees herself entirely within it.

What is important Silverkin men is that they are not responsible for creating Silverkin women.  They just happen to be clever enough to know that they exist out there to be discovered, like rare strands of wheat growing in the wild, waiting to be plucked.  So what could possibly be wrong with making the choice to marry a slave who freely chooses her slavery?

That Pangold did once think he had found his Silverkin woman is a tale for another time.  But today he continues his search.  And almost without exception he has not seen anything remotely like a Silverkin woman since the party left Saxony.