Plunder of Gor (11 page)

“Good girl,” said a fellow, beside me.

“Watch her,” said a man. “She is hardly on her feet.”

“I will,” said the fellow beside me.

Some of us, I was sure, surely Paula, were already within that structure, walking, or carried.

Then I was at the opening, the door, the portal, the hatch, at the height of the ramp. I had the sense of the space before me, far, deep, the interior of the disklike object, the relatively low ceiling, some lights in the ceiling.

I shook my head. “No, no!” I said, and then I felt myself being steadied by a man's hand. “No, please,” I said. “No, please!” Then I felt myself being lifted, lightly, one arm behind the back of my knees, the other behind my back. “No,” I whimpered. I put my head back. I was being carried within. Everything seemed red, and it turned, slowly, and then, suddenly, it turned black.

I lay quietly.

I was afraid to open my eyes, and look about me.

I had the sense I lay on a closely woven straw mat.

Surely I was not on my bed, in the apartment. I pressed my eyelids closely together. I had the sense that there was metal on my neck. I put my hands to my neck, and felt the thick metal encirclement there, that close encirclement, perhaps two inches in height, and a half inch in thickness, within which my neck was clasped. I felt a heavy ring in the front, attached to the encirclement, and a chain was linked about that ring. I did not know where lay the other terminus of that chain. It took only a moment more to determine that I was absolutely naked.

Even the anklet had been removed from my left ankle.

I did not understand the meaning of this.

I lay quietly.

I felt a heavy, bootlike sandal nudge my right thigh.

“Kneel, bitch,” said a voice, “head down, head to the floor, in your appropriate collar and chain. I anticipated seeing you so. It pleases me.” I was sure I had heard that voice before.

In this moment, I could not help but apprise myself, to some extent, however inadequately, of my surroundings. I was kneeling on a closely woven straw mat, at the foot of a massive stone couch, covered with furs, in what appeared to be a large, plain, primitive room. The chain from my collar ring, about a yard long, ran to another ring, a heavy ring, which ring was fixed in the stone couch. I was thus naked, chained to the foot of a couch, kneeling, my head to the floor.

The air, even in the room, seemed wondrously clear. I could not recall having breathed such air. Perhaps I had not done so. I doubt that it was much more highly oxygenated than the air to which I was hitherto accustomed, air I had never hitherto questioned. But it was cleaner, fresher, less gray, less contaminated, I suppose. Too, I sensed something different, slightly so, something hard to place. I would learn this had to do with gravity. I supposed I weighed somewhat less here. I sensed I might move more easily, more freely here. Interestingly, in a few hours I would physically and psychologically adjust to such changes, and would behave, feel, and move here as unconsciously and naturally as I had before, on a different orb. I would learn the gravity of Gor, for it was on this world I now was, was less than that of Earth, the planet being somewhat smaller, though it would have more land surface than Earth, as it possessed only one mighty ocean, not two, that ocean being restless, turbulent, gleaming Thassa, the sea.

“Surely you understand that you are a slave,” he said.

I kept my head down. I was sure I knew the voice.

“You were annoying,” he said. “I decided you would be a slave. I thought it would amuse me to own you. For a time, of course. You are not worth keeping.”

I said nothing.

“Perhaps you surmised that your flanks might be of interest to a man. Consider the matter.”

I tried to deal with the tumult within me.

“Now, worthless bitch,” he said, “I have you as I desired. I have you as you ought to be, stark naked, kneeling at a man's feet, on his chain.”

I shook with emotion.

“Lift your head,” he said. “Yes,” he said, “it is I.”

It was he whom I had not seen since that afternoon in the office, late, toward closing time.

“Yes,” said he, “be afraid. Yes, tremble, pretty bitch. You are owned. You are now a slave.”

I looked away, terrified to meet his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, “a slave, a pot girl, a kettle-and-mat girl, perhaps not even a kettle-and-mat girl. Perhaps only a pot girl, one for the laundries, the kitchens, for turning a mill beam.”

I fought strange feelings within me. I was from a barbarian world, and this man was Gorean.

“Women such as you,” he said, “belong on your knees before men.”

There was a wildness within me. Could what he said be true? I felt strange sensations. I feared I was secretly thrilled, kneeling so. I had never before felt such feelings. Could I be in my place, my rightful place, kneeling before a man? Surely not!

“What do you want of me?” I whispered.

“Everything,” he said.

“Release me,” I said. “Return me to Earth.”

“Alas,” he said, “you are even more stupid than I feared.”

“I am not stupid,” I said.

“You are now a Gorean slave girl,” he said. “Rather than return you to Earth, you would be thrown to sleen.”

I recalled that Paula, in the apartment, had spoken of ‘sleen'. “What are sleen?” I said.

“Perhaps I will one day show you,” he said. “I do not think you would like to be cast into a pit of sleen. But sleen, at least, are quick. Perhaps leech plants would be preferable for you, to be cast naked and bound amongst them, and feel them swarm over you, fasten their tendrils and vines about you, and puncture you with their fangs, and draw out the blood, noisily, minim by minim.”

I shuddered.

“I am intelligent,” I stammered.

He sat on the foot of the bed, those heavily sandaled feet but a foot from me. “You are now a slave girl, a barbarian slave, on the planet Gor,” he said. “You exist for the pleasure and service of masters. You have learned, I trust, that all free men are to be addressed as ‘Master', all free women as ‘Mistress'. You may be bought and sold. As any other slave, you are subject to bonds and discipline. It is on your papers that you have been administered slave wine. Excellent. We would not wish you becoming pregnant, unless at the decision of your master. You belong, of course, to your master, as a possession, his in all things. It is up to him whether or not you will be clothed, and in what way, and to what extent. You must not expect us to speak English to you, as I am now doing. As a slave, you must learn the language of your masters, Gorean, and learn it as quickly and as well as you can. That will be to your advantage. Indeed, it may save your life. Its rudiments, of vocabulary and grammar, will be taught to you in your house of training, to which, in a day or two, I will remit you. It will not do to bring an ignorant girl to the block. You will also, in your house of training, receive a set of injections. These constitute what we refer to as the ‘stabilization serums'. Some centuries ago the caste of Physicians addressed itself to what is sometimes known as the drying and withering disease, what one might call in English, “ageing.” This was regarded on Gor not as an inevitability, as commonly on Earth, but as a medical issue, susceptible to treatment and, later, to prevention. The stabilization serums are complex and have, I am told, a number of special applications and variations. You need not, however, concern yourselves with these. You will receive the basic series, which, in effect, in most cases, assures pattern stability. I see you do not understand. To simplify matters, your body will remain much as it is as long as you live. You will, thus, retain, indefinitely, your youth and beauty, your beauty such as it is, of course. I see you are surprised. Do not be confused. You remain vulnerable and mortal. You are spared merely the miseries and degradations of age, only those. Yes, such things would doubtless be highly prized on your former world, doubtless to the extent of billions in various currencies, but here they are inexpensive and widely available. They are commonly administered to slaves, as well as free persons. Do not think this shows any special consideration to such as you, a despised slave. It is done on behalf of the free, that their slaves will retain their vitality, passion, youth, beauty, and health, this serving to keep them more attractive and appealing, which, of course, aside from a number of obvious advantages to the master, personal and aesthetic, has a number of economic consequences as well, as his goods will then, on the whole, keep their market value, their resale value, and such.”

Could it be true, what he said, I wondered. If so, what an inordinate gift I might receive, and yet it would not be a gift, truly, but merely something done in the interests of the free, that their properties, such as I, might remain more valuable!

I dared to meet his eyes. Then, frightened, I quickly lowered my eyes.

“Would you like to lick and kiss my feet,” he asked, “a suitable act of deference from one such as you?”

I shook my head negatively, timidly.

“You will be a good girl, will you not?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“‘Yes'?” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “I will be a good girl.”

“‘Yes'?” he said.

“Yes, I will be a good girl—Master,” I said.

“You may now beg to be beaten, if you are not pleasing,” he said.

I did not speak. I was afraid to speak.

“How stupid she is,” he said, wearily.

“I am not stupid,” I said, adding, “Master.”

He rose from the couch on which he had been sitting, and went to the wall to my left. From a peg there he removed an object, with a long leather handle, which might be grasped with two hands, and five broad, soft blades, which he shook free.

“I beg to be beaten if I am not pleasing,” I said.

“You will be,” he said.

“But I am a woman,” I said.

“But a slave,” he said.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“‘Yes, Master',” he said.

“Yes—Master,” I said.

“Turn about, and put your head to the floor,” he said, “and clasp your hands behind the back of your neck.”

“Master?” I said.

“Now,” he said.

I complied.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“We will get this over as quickly as possible,” he said.

“I am a virgin!” I said. “Ai!”

He was quick, and then he thrust me from him. I shuddered from the rude, callous, repetitive, brutal, plunging violence to which I had been briefly subjected. Then he crouched beside me. I whimpered. Then, a moment later, his hand was drawn across my lips and pushed into my mouth. I tasted secretions, and my own blood. I lay on my side, he now above me, now standing beside me.

“Perhaps you should have been more courteous, when a stranger entered your office,” he said.

I was silent, trying to realize what had been done to me.

“Should you not have been more courteous?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I whispered.

“I then envisaged,” he said, “having you in this way, and seeing you as you are now, so before me.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“I am,” he said, “of the caste of Slavers.”

“I did not know, Master,” I said.

He stepped away from me.

I knew, of course, that a slave is entitled to no consideration. Yet I think I had not understood that simple matter so well until now. I was an object, a beast. And I had been used as such.

My body shook.

Two strange, conflicting emotions warred within me. One was a violent rage at what had been done to me, a rage rife with shame, degradation, humiliation, frustration, and an acute sense of a lack of recourse, a sense of an utter helplessness, and the other, even stronger, was a sense of its fittingness. Was I not a slave? Was this not what could be done with me? Too, I had the terrifying sense that if he had been a little patient, taken his time, caressed me a little, put his teeth to me, spoke his mastery, I might have cried out, grateful, yielding. I had received the sense of what might be done with me, and what I might become. How horrifying if I might find myself a yielding, begging slave in the arms of her master! How could I think of myself then as other than a moaning, worthless, subdued, conquered, pleading kajira? I trusted he had no sense of this torment within me. I lay at his feet, naked, on his chain. Surely I must prove to him that I was not a slave, that I was proud, noble, and independent, not a woman who belonged at a man's feet, not a slave!

Without speaking, he left the room.

He had replaced the whip on the wall. This pleased me. I would learn, happily, that most Gorean masters are sparing with the whip. But it is always there. I did not know what it would feel like. It had not been used on me. I was not anxious to feel it. I determined to do much to avoid its stroke. Later, once I had felt it, I would be shudderingly, keenly, desperately anxious to avoid its stroke. It is designed to punish, to punish terribly, but not to mark. It is useful in the disciplining of slaves.

He returned a bit later, with some water, and two biscuits. He put a wastes bucket within reach.

He then left the room, again.

I resolved, after he had left, in the midst of conflicting emotions, despite my profound inclinations to the contrary, as I was beginning to sense what I might be, and perhaps had always been, to behave in a way which certain militant factions in my society, with their self-serving agendas, might approve. They did not know me, of course, but they apparently took for granted their right to impose their particular values and views on me, and millions of others, by a variety of means, including those of the state.

After a bit he returned to the room.

“Have you fed and relieved yourself?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You omitted the word ‘Master',” he said.