Guardsman of Gor (25 page)

In short we shall suppose that he discovers that he has purchased, as is often the case, not a mere slave, but a treasure. And she belongs to him! What a fortune, and joy, -to own such a woman! He will want to watch her, to observe her least movements, to know her smallest thoughts. He will want to talk with her, and listen to her, and know her with a depth and fullness far beyond anything that might be accorded to a mere' contractual partner. She is not merely a person who is living with him. She belongs to him, literally, and he prizes her. But he will take care to be strict with her. He will keep her in his collar; at night he may chain her at the foot of his couch. Her least insolence she knows may be rewarded with exact, swift punishment, such as the whip or close chains, nudity in the streets or public rental, or the deprivation of food. She understands clearly, and unmistakably, who is the master and who is the slave. She is happy.

How different are the relationships of the men of Earth

with women. On Gor I see, on the whole, contentment and love; on the Earth I see, on the whole, discontentment and misery. Who shall say which is best? Perhaps discontentment and misery are superior to contentment and love. Who knows? Goreans, however, we might note, whatever be the truth in these matters, have chosen contentment, and love. Let each choose, perhaps, that which is best for him.

"I shall, therefore, unless warned to silence, continue to speak," she said. She smiled wryly, and lifted her belled wrists from her thighs. "But I did not think, in the room of cosmetics, that I would be summoned before you, merely that you might hear me speak." She returned her hands, palms down, to her thighs. She lowered her head. "I thought that you might have other interests in me." She lifted her head. "I am ready for love, and with the abject helplessness of a slave," she said. "Will you not touch me, or caress me?"

I said nothing. But it pleased me mightily to know that the slave, the former Miss Henderson, was aroused before me. I remembered her from the restaurant, so long ago, in the candelight, in the svelte, off-the-shoulder, white-sheath dress, so chic and lovely, carrying the tiny, silver-beaded purse. She now knelt before me, a slave girl on Gor.

"Alas!" said the girl. "What a poor slave I must bet I have been made-up for love, and I have been scented and belled, and my master does not deign to so much as touch me. I trust that I am not fully displeasing to him."

I regarded the girl. In the restaurant her wrists and ankles had not been adorned. Here they wore heavy circlets of sensuous bells. In the restaurant she had worn golden pumps, with a golden wisp of straps. Here she was barefoot, as if befitting for a female slave.

"What does it mean, my Master," she suddenly cried, "that you have not used me? Does it mean that I am not pleasing to you? Does it mean that you are only playing with me, and are saving me for another? Please do not let that be, my Masterl" Then she put her head down, fearfully. "Forgive my outburst, my Master," she begged. "I am only a girl, and a slave." Then, again, she looked up. "You are not angry with me," she said. "Thank you, my Master." She tossed her head, the gesture, almost, of a free woman. "Doubtless you have had other women beg to grovel before you," she said. "Doubtless I am not the first. I wonder if you Masters scorn

us for our needs. Scorn us if you must. We cannot help ourselves. We are slaves!"

I continued, of course, to remain silent.

"Not once have I seen your face, my Master," she said. "Either, as at the feast of Policrates, or now, you have been masked, or, in your chambers, in the holding of Policrates, when you forced me to so thoroughly and intimately serve you, I must do so in the darkness of the blindfold. You know me well, for you have stripped me not only of my clothing, but of my inmost thoughts. And yet, of you, I know nothing. I do not know your name. I do not know your face. I have never even heard your voice. Not once have you even spoken to your slave. But I know that curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira. Forgive me, my Master."

I did not speak.

"If you wish," she said, "put me under your whip. You may then see if I writhe well."

I said nothing.

"It is my hope," she said, "that you will not have me chained in the basement again tonight. That you have let me appear before you indicates that perhaps I may now be permitted a kennel on an upper floor. It is cold in the basement, and dark there. And it is hard to find the bits of food on the floor. Too, there are urts there. And I scream in the darkness, frightened, hearing them. They take the food, often before I can find it. I am afraid to sleep there, so cold and chained. Sometimes, too, the urts run across my legs, or nibble at them. I scream then, and I am frightened. Please, my Master, if it pleases you, may I have a blanket and a kennel. As I am the most miserable and lowest of your slaves, let it be, if it pleases you, the smallest and meanest of your kennels. I do not care. Only I beg- a kennel. Forgive me, Master, if I am presumptuous. I want only to be pleasing to you."

I gave her no response, by voice, or expression or gesture. She would, thus, not know where it was that I would choose for her to spend the night.

"I shall wait to see, of course," she said, "what will be my Master's pleasure."

I fingered the slave whip, thoughtfully, hung by its handle loop on the arm of the curule chair.

"Forgive me, if I have displeased you, Master," she said, nervously. She eyed the whip. At my least whim she knew it

could be used upon her. No woman who has felt the whip, even so much as a single lash, scorns it. It is a most useful disciplinary device for women.

She put her head down, swiftly, to the deep piling of the carpet, her hands beside her head. "Yesterday," she said, "sent forth from the house as a Coin Girl, I made six tarsk bits for you, my Master. I hope that you are pleased." She lifted her head. "Perhaps that is why you have let me be admitted to your presence this evening," she said. I snapped my fingers, and indicated to her that she should resume the position of the pleasure slave which she did, immediately and beautifully. "Perhaps you may like to hear me speak of the matter," she said.

I smiled.

"I take it that your attitude is favorable, and that I may speak on this subject," she said. "I shall proceed to do so, fully cognizant that the lovely slave who serves as my keeper in this house has doubtless already made you a full report."

I nodded. It was true.

I gestured that- the girl should continue.

"Yesterday afternoon," she said, "locked in the chain collar of a Coin Girl, with the bell and coin box, on the leash of my keeper, I was conducted forth from the house. I thought that I was incredibly beautiful, and -must be repeatedly raped. I learned swiftly, as men passed me, that 'l must be only a common girl. This brutal intelligence dismayed me. It seemed that I, who had been so vain of my beauty, must now learn to strive to please men."

I smiled inwardly. To me, of course, the slave before me was the most beautiful woman on all Gor. I was sufficiently objective, of course, to recognize that in the common appraisals of slave flesh, and its gradings, and in the prices commonly commanded by such flesh in the markets, she would count as only being somewhat above average. That would doubtless be hard for her to accept, but it was true. On the other hand, that she, who was, after all, exquisite, was subjected to such casual negligence in the streets was largely of my doing. I had sent men ahead of her, requesting that she be spurned and ignored, that as a favor to Jason of Victoria, dozens of men, my friends and fellow citizens of Victoria, good-naturedly cooperated in this ruse. In the streets it was the merry jest of the day.

"No one wanted me," she said. "And I grew ever more desperate. I knelt before men. I licked at their feet. I bit at their tunics. I groveled before them on my belly, begging them to consent to touch me. But for my troubles I was only ignored, or kicked and thrust aside. Then I would feel the leash stinging against the back of my legs and my keeper would order me up, and ahead, to try harder, warning me of the displeasure of my master, should I return with an empty coin box. I grew ever more frantic. Ahn passed. Dusk came. No men would touch me. Then it grew dark. Still no man would touch me. They would not even strip me, under a street lamp, to see if I might be of interest to them. Then it was time to be returned to the house. I began to fear for my very life."

I continued to regard her. The slave was to be permitted to continue speaking.

"Then," she said, "late at night, on the Street of the Writhing Slave, I encountered one whom I had once known on Earth, one once called Jason Marshall. The irony of it! I scorned him. I held him in contempt. I despised him as a weakling from Earth, so different from the masters of women, from men such as you, my Master, but now I must needs try to please him, and as a slave and Coin Girl! I opened my tunic to him. I knelt before him. I bit at his tunic. I licked and kissed, piteously and submissively, at his feet and legs. I begged him to be interested in me. I pleaded. I groveled. I did all that I could before him, as a piteous and lascivious slave, one begging his least touch, one helplessly his, should he but pay his coin, only a girl at his feet, one begging to be had, one supplicating her rape on the stones o
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the 'street. He, however, of course, a true man of Earth, extending me much respect, and according me courtesy and gentleness, declined to rescue me from my plight. I was to be returned to a stern Gorean master as a failed slave. But even he seemed soon to understand the consequences to a girl of that. He then was ready to place, in effect, as a gift, a coin in my box. My keeper, of course, would have none of that. There must be no payment without services rendered. Further, it was made clear to him, and to me, that my body would be physically examined for the explicit signs of his victory. He must then have me, truly. To this he reluctantly consented."

She put her head down. I did not hurry her. I listened to

the sound of the torches in the hall. Then, with a small sound of bells, those on her close-fitting collar, she lifted her head.

"I expected to be handled as though by a weakling of Earth," she said. "But I was not," she said. "Instead I found myself in the arms of a man of Gor, for that was what he had become. Too, though he knew that I had once been of Earth, he did not handle me as a woman of Earth, with respect and dignity, as I expected, but rather as what I now am, a Gorean slut, an imbonded, rightless slave. I could not believe it." She put her head down. She shuddered. "I was used with the full authority of the Gorean master," she said.

Again I did not hurry her. Two or three Ehn passed, I think, before she again lifted her head. She was trembling. There were tears in her eyes. "You see, my Master," she said, "I had loved him, even on Earth, but, too, I had despised 'him, for he was too weak to satisfy my needs. On Gor, too, he had never had me, even though we had shared a domicile. I had never permitted it." She straightened her back, smiling. "How amusing that must sound to you. `I had not permitted it.' I, a natural slave, recognized by any slaver as such, had not permitted my rapel But remember, Master, that I was not then legally imbonded. How confused, and quaint and tragic, is a natural slave who has not yet been put in her collar!"

She paused and then, again, after a time, began to speak. "Later," she said, "courting slavery, for which I yearned in my heart, I went to the tavern of Hibron in Victoria, called the Pirate's Chain. I fell in there with one called Kliomenes, who was a lieutenant to the pirate Policrates. He got me drunk. Then, my senses reeling, I found myself, to the laughter of men and slaves, as I tried futilely to resist, being stripped and bound. I was carried to his galley. I was thrown to its deck, near the foot of the steps leading up to the height of the stem castle. My feet were tied to one ring and my neck to another. I lay there, cold and helpless, sick, exposed to their rude examinations. I could not even roll from where they had seen fit to put me. The oars were put outboard. I was taken to the holding of Policrates. There I was made a slave. There, at last, I was put in a proper collar.

"When the holding of Policrates fell his goods were divided among the victors. In the distribution of the goods I came to your house. It seems that at least a portion of your income is derived from the earnings of Coin Girls. In any event yesterday, I found myself put into the streets, under a keeper's

watch, to earn coins for you, my Master. It was there that I met he whom I had loved and despised, Jason of Victoria. Consider my feelings, Master. He had never had me, and now he must have me! Too, I was completely at his mercy as an exposed slave. I loved him. I was prepared to yield to him, as a woman of Earth. I was certain of his tenderness, his gentleness, his solicitude. But what did I discover! What was done to me! Conceive of my feelings! He handled and treated me as a slave girl, one who might be any slave!" She put down her head, her face in her hands, weeping.

"Six times he had me;" she wept, "six times, and he was merciless with me, casual and mercilessl Then, when he was finished with me, he sent me from him, banishing me from his sight, our dealings done, the coins in the box on my neck." She wiped her eyes, and then put her hands, palms down, on her thighs. Still she did not lift her head. I listened to the crackle of the torches.

"I could not believe what had occurred," she said. "I had thought that I might be everything to him, and that he would be grateful for my least smile, but I discovered that I was nothing to him, and that he took merely for granted the most intimate services that I could conceive of delivering to him, they being no more than his due from a rented girl. Then, as though I might be a total stranger, he sent me from him" She threw back her head, and sobbed. Then she again put her head down.

"Forgive me my feelings and emotions, my Master," she whispered, "but there is more in this than you can know. There is in this more than you have been told. But how can I, a slave, stripped and helpless before you, conceal these truths? Doubtless my very body speaks them." There was much in what she suggested. It is extremely difficult for a woman naked and kneeling before a man to lie. Body-language cues make this almost impossible. "Let me therefore explicitly speak these truths," she said, "and hope that thereby my life may be preserved."

I took the whip from where it hung by its handle loop on the arm of the curule chair and placed it, its blades folded back against its handle, across my lap.

She raised her head, looking at the whip. She trembled. "Must I speak?" she asked.

She saw my grip tighten on the whip.

"Of course I must speak!" she said. "Forgive me, Master." She looked down. "I submitted to him," she whispered, suddenly. "I submitted to Jason of Victoria. I yielded to him. I could not help myself l"

I smiled and she, looking up, saw me smile. She feared then that I might have misunderstood her. "No, my Master," she said, "I do not mean merely that I submitted to him as must any slave to any man to whom her master gives or rents her." She saw that I still smiled. "No, my Master," she whispered, "I do not mean either merely that he induced in me the spasm submissions of the bond girl, or that he enforced upon me the fullness of the humiliating, ecstatic slave orgasms, so far beyond anything attainable by the free woman, to which any free man may subject the slave in his arms. No, rather I mean something quite different. I mean that r yielded to him as I had never before yielded to any man, save yourself, my Master. As I had yielded to you, so, too, did he make me yield to him."

I stood up, as though angry. With the whip I gestured her to her belly on the soft, deeply piled carpet. She trembled, lying transversely on the carpeting near the edge of the dais, before the curule chair, her hands beside her head, her fingers clutching at the piling.
"He
conquered me, fully, and as a slave," she said. "I confess ill" I examined her form dispassionately, and found it not displeasing. I then, with deft touches of the whip, indicated that she should turn to her back and lie in a certain position. With the sound of slave bells she did so. She then lay on her back, before me. Her body and left leg lay on the dais. Her right leg, and her right arm and hand, were on the broad stair, leading to the height of the dais. Her hands were below her hips, both that to her left, and right, which was on the stair. The palms of both hands were turned upwards, exposed to me.