Gorean Book Quote Requests

Well girl, it seems there are more references to mirrors than I remembered.

Aside from other mirrors like signal mirrors and one-way mirrors used to observe others in secret, there are many references to girls looking at themselves in mirrors.

I have not even included all of the last type. However, I hope I have included the quote you are looking for.

In any event, I wish you well,
Fogaban

Elizabeth had now finished her wine. She had arisen and rinsed out the bowl and replaced it. She was now kneeling at the back of the wagon and had untied the Koora and shaken her hair loose. She was looking at herself in the mirror, holding her head this way and that. I was amused. She was seeing how the nose ring might be displayed to most advantage. Then she began to comb her long dark hair, kneeling very straight as would a Gorean girl. Kamchak had never permitted her to cut her hair. Now that she was free I supposed she would soon shorten it. I would regret that. I have always found long hair beautiful on a woman.

I watched her combing her hair. Then she had put the comb aside and had retied the Koora, binding back her hair. Now she was again studying her image in the bronze mirror, moving her head slightly.

Suddenly I thought I understood Kamchak! He had indeed been fond of the girl!

"Elizabeth," I said.

"Yes," she said, putting the mirror down.

"I think I know why Kamchak gave you to me - aside from the fact that I suppose he thought I could use a pretty wench about the wagon."

She smiled.

"I am glad he did," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

She smiled. She looked into the mirror. "Of course," she said, "who else would have been fool enough to free me?"

"Of course," I admitted. I said nothing for a time.

The girl put down the mirror. "Why do you think he did?" she asked, facing me, curious.

"On Gor," I said, "the myths have it that only the woman who has been an utter slave can be truly free."

"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 herself in a man's touch - can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then free."
Nomads of Gor     Book 4     Pages 288 - 289

Q: What are you?

A: I am a slave girl.

Q: What is a slave girl?

A: A girl who is owned.

Q: Why do you wear a brand?

A: To show that I am owned.

Q: Why do you wear a collar?

A: That men may know who owns me.

Q: What does a slave girl want more than anything?

A: To please men.

Q: What are you?

A: I am a slave girl.

Q: What do you want more than anything?

A: To please men.

There is, beyond these, an entire set of questions and answers, some of them considerably more detailed, and involving standard responses to simple questions pertaining to such matters as history and psychology.

The truly sinister aspect of even this portion of the girls' training did not become evident to me, or to Elizabeth, until the entire next week was spent again before the mirror, seeing themselves as slave girls, and repeating, aloud, these questions and answers, as though putting them to themselves; as though, with Flaminius gone, it was they themselves, the girls, who were putting these questions to themselves, and responding with almost hypnotic automatism; it was probably easiest on Elizabeth, who knew that she was playing a part, that she would be, sooner or later, carried to safety, but even Elizabeth, more than once, awakened with a cry in the night, clutching me, whimpering, "No, no, no." The sixth week of the training was spent, as several of the former, before the mirror, but this time repeating over and over, aloud, "I love being a slave girl. I love being a slave girl." At last, after this cruel and almost interminable repetition, utilizing simple psychological principles, intended to brand into the girls' psyche the identity of a Pleasure Slave, the girls began the period of exercises, many of which would, for certain periods of the day, be carried through the next months.
Assassin of Gor     Book 5     Pages 197 - 198

There, again I gasped, and again the room seemed to reel about me. On the mirror, which I had not noticed before, there was another mark. It had been drawn in my most scarlet lipstick on the surface of the mirror. It was more than a foot high, but it was the same mark that I wore on my thigh, that same graceful, cursive mark.

Disbelievingly, I looked at myself in the mirror. I touched again the mark on my thigh. I looked again at the red mark drawn in lipstick on the surface of the mirror. I beheld myself.

I knew almost nothing of these things, but there was no mistaking the lovely, deep, incised mark on my thigh.

Everything went black, and I collapsed to the rug before the mirror. I fainted.

I had been branded.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 6

I looked across the room. My heart almost stopped. There I saw in the shadows, in the dim light in the room from the city outside, a girl. She was nude. She held something before her. About her throat there was a band of steel. On her thigh a mark.

"No!" we cried together.

I gasped, my head swam. Sick, I turned away from my reflection in the full-length mirror across the room.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 16

In the bathroom I examined the mark on my thigh. It infuriated me. But, as I regarded it, in fury, I could not help but be taken by its cursive, graceful insolence. I clenched my fists. The arrogance, that it had been placed on my body! The arrogance, the arrogance! It marked me. But beautifully. I regarded myself in the mirror. I regarded the mark. There was no doubt about it. That mark, somehow, insolently, incredibly enhanced my beauty. I was furious.

Also, incomprehensibly I found that I was curious about the touch of a man. I had never much cared for men. I put the thought angrily from me. I was Elinor Brinton!

Irritably I examined the steel band at my throat. I could not read the inscription on the band, of course. I could not even recognize the alphabet. Indeed, perhaps it was only a cursive design. But something in the spacing and the formation of the figures told me it was not. The lock was small, but heavy. The band fit snugly.

As I looked in the mirror the thought passed through my mind that it, too, like the mark, was not unattractive. It accentuated my softness. And I could not remove it. For an instant I felt helpless, owned, a captive, the property of others. The brief fantasy passed through my mind of myself, in such a band, marked as I was, naked in the arms of a barbarian. I shuddered, frightened. Never before had I felt such a feeling.

I looked away from the mirror.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 22

My throat had been encircled with slave steel, and I had been taught its meaning. I recalled, long ago, how, in a motel on Earth, I had regarded myself naked, branded, collared, in a mirror, and had wondered, frightened, what it would be like to lie in the arms of a barbarian, helpless, so stripped, so marked. I now knew! I cried out, and tore a handful of grass from the knoll.
Captive of Gor     Book 7     Page 339

She went and fetched a mirror from the cave; it was a large one, and permitted me to see myself. I gasped at the slave girl betrayed in the mirror. I looked at Eta in horror. I had not seen myself before as a slave. I was shocked, and startled. I had not known I could appear such. I could not believe it was me. No, it could not be me! I looked back at the mirror. How beautiful she was, that lovely slave. Could it be I? I looked at Eta. She nodded, and smiled. I looked again at the mirror. I had not known I could be so beautiful! Then I was afraid, for I suspected what such beauty might mean on the world on which I found myself. What man would not simply put a chain on it, or collar it? I stood before the mirror, stunned, looking at the slave girl.

Then Eta, to my surprise, with the point of her scissors, ripped the tiny garment a bit under my right breast, that a bit of skin might show, and again at my left hip, a larger rip. These were done in such a way as to make them appear natural, inadvertent rents in the garment. She then, with the point of the scissors, at two points, ripped the hem she had earlier sewn out a bit, that in these two places it might appear the threads had broken; the hem then, in these two places, was irregular on my legs. She then, at another place, cut into the hem, ripping it, and unraveled and tore it a bit, as though it had naturally frayed; some stray threads hung upon my thigh. These were the touches which, to my horror and delight, made the garment of the slave rag exquisitely perfect. I looked at the lovely slave in the mirror. I wondered if the men knew, or suspected, the female cunning that went into the making of a slave rag. She was arming me with beauty. With what else might a slave girl be armed? Eta kissed me, and I kissed her. The ingenuity and care lavished upon the slave rag, seemingly such a pathetic accident of a garment, is a careful secret well kept among slave girls. If the master does not know why the smallest movement of his girl, clad in what he thought was a mere discipline rag, almost drives him out of his wits with pleasure, that is all right. The masters, as we girls sometimes tell one another, do not have to know everything.

I looked at the girl in the mirror. I approached more closely. I lifted the hem of the garment at the left thigh. I almost fainted with the delicate perfection of the brand. It was still red, rough, raw, deep, unhealed, but the form was clearly imprinted, unmistakably, deeply, and beautifully imprinted. On my thigh I wore one of the most beautiful brands, the dina, the slave flower. I tore the garment there, at the left hip, that as I moved, the brand might be glimpsed. Then I knelt before the mirror. Boldly I assumed slave position. I threw my knees apart. I rested my hands on my thighs. I regarded myself in the mirror. I saw a kneeling slave girl there. There was no doubt about it. She was a slave girl. How incredibly beautiful was that poor, lovely slave. She wore a brand. She wore a slave rag. She lacked only a steel collar. That lack, I supposed, could be simply supplied. It is nothing to put a collar on a girl's neck. I lifted my hair up; I lifted my chin, watching in the mirror. I conjectured what a steel collar would look like, fastened on my neck. I did not think I would mind one. It might be rather attractive. Eta's was, terribly so. I hoped, of course, that I might be able to choose whose collar I would wear. But, shuddering, I realized that a girl does not choose whose collar she will wear; rather it is the man who chooses; it is he, and he alone, who places the collar. Suddenly I sensed the misery of being a slave. I might belong to any man! I might belong to any man who might carry me off, or pay my price. I might be abducted or bought, or bestowed or lost in gambling I was only an article of property, helpless and beautiful, without control over, no more than a dog or pig, into whose hands I might come. Tears sprang to my eyes. Surely my master would not sell me! Every bit of me would constantly try to please him. I did not want to be sold! What a miserable, beautiful girl I saw in the mirror, the poor slave! How sorry I felt for that beauty. But what man would be so foolish as to sell such a beauty? Or, even to share her with another? Surely such a man would keep such a beauty for himself alone, not sharing her with others. I wiped the tears from my eyes. I studied the girl in the mirror. How beautiful in her bondage she was. I brushed my hair back and, lifting my chin, turned my head. I had seen earrings in the jewelry in the cave, exotic loops, twists of wire and golden pendants; I imagined them upon me, hanging at my cheeks, adornments suitable for me, a barbarian slave girl. My ears had not been pierced but I had little doubt that this operation, if my master wished, would be promptly accomplished upon me. I considered cosmetics and perfumes, such as I had encountered in the cave. And behold, in my imagination, the girl in the mirror was so bedecked. I had seen bracelets, anklets, chains and necklaces, intricately wrought and beautiful, in the cave. I extended my arms and wrists, and one of my legs, considering how they might appear, ponderous with such barbaric glory. But the girl in the mirror wore only a slave rag. I then considered how I might appear, so made up, so perfumed, so adorned, but now in a snatch of brief silk, yellow or scarlet, clinging, diaphanous, fit for a man's pleasure girl.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Pages 78 - 80

I looked at the girl in the mirror. I remembered the words of Thurnus. "You belong at the feet of men," he had said. I looked at the girl in the mirror. Her ankle was belled. She was beautiful. She was a collared, silked, perfumed slave. She was very beautiful. I had no doubt she belonged at the feet of men. She was a slave girl. She was I.
Slave Girl of Gor     Book 11     Pages 261 - 262

She looked at herself, kneeling, in the mirror.

"The earrings are beautiful," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. She brushed her hair back with her two hands and, turning her head from side to side, her finger tips at her ears, again regarded herself. She had the vanity of a lovely slave.

"What do you see in the mirror?" I asked.

"A slave girl," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"A girl to be bought and sold, and abused for a master's pleasure."

"Of course," I said.

"I may not be beautiful," she said, "but I am delicate and lovely, am I not?"

"Yes," I said, "you are."

"Could you truly bring yourself to put me beneath your heavy and uncompromising will?" she asked.

"Certainly," I said.

"You could, and you will, won't you?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Could you whip me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It is a strange feeling, being a slave," she said.

"You will grow used to it, Slave Girl," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I went to her, behind her, standing there, before the mirror.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"A slave girl," she said, "at the feet of her master."

I put my hand in her hair, and turned her head, from side to side. Then I stopped.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"A slave girl, at the feet of her master," she said, "his hand in her hair, commanding her, making her do what he wishes."

I then, with my hand in her hair, turned her to the side and bent back her body, exposing, as she knelt there, helpless, the lovely slave bow of her beauty.

"What do you see?" I asked.

"A displayed slave," she said. I did not release her. Suddenly she said, "No! Oh, no!"

I waited for a full moment, holding her helplessly there, letting her see well whatever it might be that she saw. And then I released her. She knelt there, terrified, shuddering, before the mirror.

"What did you see?" I asked.

"It is hard to explain," she said, shuddering. "Suddenly, for a fearful moment, I saw myself as incredibly beautiful, as beautiful as I might someday be, but the beauty was not the cool and formal beauty of a free woman, something I can understand, but the hot, sensuous, helpless beauty of an owned slave, and I was the slave! And, too, for a moment I thought I understood how such a woman might look to a man. It was so frightening! How we must fear that they might simply seize us and tear us to pieces in their lust! Then suddenly I understood the brand and collar, the whip, the chain! Of course they would brand us, marking us as their own. Of course they would put us in steel collars, which we could not remove! Of course they could chain us to their walls and slave rings! Of course they would use the whip unhesitantly upon us if we were in the least displeasing!"

She knelt before the mirror, shuddering. "Perhaps now," I said, "you understand, in some small particular, what it is for a woman to be attractive to a man."
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Pages 198 - 200

I watched her, and marveled. It is interesting to note that such movements, those of slave dances, despite the inhibitions of rigid cultures, may occur in a girl's sleep, and may even occur, almost spontaneously, when she, nude, alone, passes before a mirror in her bedroom. How shocked she may be to suddenly see her body move as that of a slave. Could it have been she who so moved? Later, perhaps to her surprise, she finds herself standing before the mirror. She is naked, and alone. Then, perhaps scarcely understanding what is occurring within her, she sees the girl in the mirror has begun to dance. The movements are not dissimilar perhaps to those of women who, thousands of years ago, danced in firelit caves before their masters. Then, knowing well that it is she herself who is the dancer, she dances brazenly, boldly, before the mirror. Well does she present her bared beauty before it in the movements, the attitudes and postures of the female slave. Then perhaps she falls to the rug, scratching at it, pressing her belly to it. "I want a Master," she whispers.
Explorers of Gor     Book 13     Page 362

I walked back to the center of the room, near the great couch. I looked at the bars. Then I went to the long mirror behind the vanity. I looked at myself, in the mirror, in the dim moonlight, filtered into the room. She is rather pretty, I thought. She may be pretty enough, even, to be a slave. Susan, I recalled, had thought it possible that a man, some men at least, might find her of interest, really of interest, of sufficient interest to be worth putting in bondage. I wondered if she could please a man. Perhaps if she tried very hard to be pleasing some man, in his kindness, might find her acceptable. I turned before the mirror, studying the girl that I was thusly displaying. Yes, I thought, it is not impossible that she might be considered worthy of a collar. "Mistress would look well being sold from a block," Susan had said. "Are you free, Tiffany?" I asked the image in the mirror. "Yes," I told myself. "I am free." I turned my left thigh to the mirror, I lifted my chin. I studied the girl in the mirror. I wondered what she would like, with a brand, with a collar. "You see, Tiffany," I said. "You are not branded. You are not collared."

I looked at the girl in the mirror. I wondered who I was, what I was.

"I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus!" I said.

But the girl in the mirror did not appear to be a Tatrix. She appeared, clearly, to be something else.

I forced from my mind the memory of the slaves I had seen earlier, the girls in the street, in their one-piece, skimpy garments, heads down, kneeling, chained together by the neck, the girls in the market, in their chains, stark naked, kneeling, too, their heads down to the warm cement, being publicly displayed for sale.

"What are you?" I asked. "Do you not dare speak? Then show me. Show me!"

Slowly, numbly, frightened, I turned about and went to the foot of the great couch. I knelt there, and, putting my head down, tenderly lifted up, in two hands, a length of the chain that lay coiled there. I kissed it. "No!" I cried out to myself, replacing the chain. But then I rose up and, timidly, softly, went to the wall where the whip hung. I removed the whip from its hook and knelt down with it. I wrapped its blades back about the handle. Then, humbly, my head down, submissively, near the point where the five long, soft blades join the staff, holding it in both hands, I kissed it. "No!" I wept, in protest. Then I replaced the whip on its hook. I went then again to the mirror. The vanity was low enough, meant to be used by a kneeling woman, and I was back far enough, that I could see myself on the tiles, completely. I saw the girl in the mirror kneel down. "No," I said. I saw her kneel back on her heels. I saw her straighten her back, and lift her chin, and put her hands on her thighs. "No!" I said. I saw her spread her knees. "No," I said. "No! No!" I had seen girls in the palace do that, for example, when a free man had entered a room. Sometimes, too, in identically this same position, they would keep their heads submissively lowered, until given permission to raise them. This variation, and similar variations, depend on the specific discipline to which a given girl is subjected. The head is usually kept raised; this precludes the necessity of a specific command to lift the head; in the head-lifted position she has no choice but to bare her facial beauty to the viewer; too, her least expression may be read; too, of course, she can see who is in the room with her and is thus better able, even from the first instant, to discern his moods, anticipate his needs, and respond to his commands.

I leaped to my feet, furious with the girl in the mirror. She lied! She lied! I fled to the wardrobe. I flung back the sliding doors. I am Tatrix! I tore my yellow robe, that of brief silk, from its carved hanger. I put it on me, swiftly, angrily, belting it, tightly.
Kajira of Gor     Book 19     Pages 82 - 84

The girl in the mirror looked startled, and then pouting, and angry.

"Is it not true?" I challenged her.

"Yes!" she sobbed. "It is true!"

"Are you not rather burdensomely garbed?" I asked.

She drew off the tiny bit of silk.

I watched her in the mirror.

"You may dance," I told her.

She looked at me, defiantly.

"You want to dance," I told her. "Dance."

I then, in the candlelight, on the rug, before the mirror, silently, to no music but what was in my own heart, danced. I danced my need, my anguish, my frustration, my misery, my loneliness.

"Now," I said, "dance, if you dare, as what you are!"

I then, startled, saw her, myself, in the mirror. "Who are you?" I asked. "Who taught you to move like that? Where did you come from? Can you be truly Doreen? You are not Doreen as I have seen her before. Are you I? Are we the same? Surely that cannot be I! No one showed you such a dance! Has there been such a dance lurking in you all this time? Can we be the same? Surely that cannot be! Surely I must stop! You are the Doreen I must conceal, the Doreen Whom I must, whatever be the cost or anguish, never permit to be seen, or even suspected! You are the Doreen I must deny. You are the Doreen I must hide! Yet you are my true self. I know that! It is my true self then that I must deny, and hide!"

I watched her.

"You bitch!" I chided her. "You brazen bitch! You meaningless, brazen little bitch!"

I watched. How shameless, how meaningless, how terrible, how worthless she was, that girl in the mirror, that writhing, astounding, uncontrollably sensuous little bitch!

She continued to dance.

I saw that she was worthless indeed, worth less than the dirt beneath the feet of gods, but that, too, in her way, she possessed incredible riches and power, in her beauty and femaleness, and in her dance. In the sense in which a free person was priceless, she was worthless, but, too, in her way, I could see that she would have value, value as a pair of boots might have value or a dog. She was the sort of person who would have a finite, measurable value. She was the sort of woman on whom a fair price could be put.

I collapsed to the rug, naked. I felt its coarse nap on my thigh and side. I clutched my arms about myself. I drew my legs up. I was terrified. I wept. I could not understand what I had done, and seen. The girl in the mirror was now gone. We were now one. I trembled.

I lay there for better than an hour, I think, in the flickering shadows, naked, on the rug. I listened to the sounds from outside, mostly those of traffic. Eventually the tiny candle burned out.