Plunder of Gor (34 page)

He then unbuckled the curtain, and took from the girl, a paga girl, a large tray, containing two bowls, a trencher, and a bottle. This he placed on the floor of the alcove, while the girl, her head lowered, backed away. He then rebuckled the leather curtain. I gathered that this business had been included amongst the arrangements he had made with the proprietor.

“As I recall,” he said, “you were very much hungry.”

“Very much so,” I said, “Master.”

Of the two bowls on the tray, one contained gruel, and the other, I conjectured, water. I did not know the contents of the bottle, but, I supposed, it would contain either ka-la-na or paga, most likely paga. As it was bottled, it was presumably not vat paga, but some selection from a more reserved, or private, stock, doubtless more expensive. The contents of the trencher still steamed. It was amply laden, with strips of roast bosk, suls hot with butter, a salad of tur-pah and nuts, slices of tospit, and two large wedges of fresh bread. Naturally I regarded these treasures with unfeigned interest. To the side were a flat spatulalike spoon, and a pointed stick, a northern analog to the Turian eating, or dining, prong.

“It seems,” I said, “Master dines well.”

He looked at me, narrowly.

He broke off a piece of the bread and held it out to me. I leaned forward, eagerly, and stretched out my hands, but then, wary, I drew back, quickly.

He smiled.

I looked at him, angrily.

“I dare not feed,” I said. “Master has not yet fed or begun to feed.”

“See,” he said, “you are not stupid, or not altogether stupid.”

“Thank you,” I said, “Master.”

“You look well in a collar,” he said.

“I am pleased that Master is pleased,” I said.

What a monster he was! It had been a test. I dared not conjecture what might have occurred had I failed such a test, so simple a test! He was a monster, and I was in his power, and I knew that I could not resist his touch, even had I been permitted to attempt to do so.

“I see I have again amused Master,” I said.

“You are insolent,” he said. “That is not permitted.”

“I am from Earth,” I said.

“Earth is now behind you,” he said. “You are now of Gor.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

That was true.

“A Gorean animal,” he said.

“Master?” I said.

“A slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

In Gorean law the slave is an animal. I was a domestic animal, a slave.

“You were worthless on Earth,” he said, “utterly worthless, but now, here at least, you have some value, a modicum of value, the pittance that would take you off a slave block.”

“May I partake of the contents of the trencher?” I asked.

“You are presumptuous,” he said.

I regarded the heaped trencher, avidly. “Surely there is more there than Master requires,” I said.

“Can it be,” he said, “that after months on Gor, you still do not know what you are?”

I knew well what I was, and wanted to be. But, as much as I knew I was a slave, and wanted to be such, as much as I was helplessly drawn to this Gorean brute, as much as I wanted to belong to him, as much as I wanted to be his property, as much as a brush, a buckle, a comb, a sandal, I was furious with him, as well. Had he not claimed I was not worth keeping, had he not sold me, had he not rid himself of me?

Looking at me, he put the bit of bread he had pretended to offer me in his mouth, and finished it.

“I am very hungry,” I said. “And Master has begun to feed.”

“But has not yet finished,” he said.

I knelt back, and waited, for several Ehn, until Kurik had finished with the contents of the trencher. He then finished his dinner with several swigs from the bottle, the contents of which proved to be, judging by the apparent fire of its taste, and the apparently satisfactory burning in his mouth, some special paga. He then recorked the bottle, put it aside, and looked at me.

“Master is finished,” I said, archly.

He rose up, went to the wall to my right, as I knelt, and removed the slave whip from its peg.

He shook out the five broad blades. It is designed to punish, and terribly, but not to mark. One does not wish to lower the value of merchandise.

“I merely observed that Master was finished,” I said, frightened.

He looked down at me, both hands on the handle of the whip. I had never felt the Gorean slave whip, even in training, and had no wish to do so, certainly not now, and in this situation.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said. As is well-known what is said, however innocent the words might seem in themselves, may be said in a way, or a tone, or with an expression, that transforms and parts the veil of benignity, that moves it to the side, and conveys a message of quite dissimilar import.

He replaced the whip on its peg, to my relief, and then sat down, cross-legged, before the leather curtain, his back to it, the tray at hand.

“Approach, slave,” he said.

I crawled to him on all fours.

“You are hungry?” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He then took me by the hair, and forced my head down, holding it over the bowl of gruel, now little more than cold mush.

“Please, no,” I whispered.

My face was then thrust down into the bowl, deeply. I shut my eyes, the gruel was all about my face, to my ears and hair. I could not breathe. I feared I might drown, so held.

“Feed, slave,” he said.

I moved my head, as I could, to clear mush to the sides, to open up crevices and passages into which air might penetrate, and began to bite and swill at the mush, desperately, filling my mouth, and struggling to swallow down great gluts, as best I could, again and again. Then he wiped the inside of the bowl with my face, and bade me, with my tongue, to waste no gruel. Then, still holding me by the hair, he thrust my head down into the other bowl, that of water, and, my hands on the floor, on either side of the bowl, I drank, lapping the water, as I could, being shown the beast, and slave, that I was.

After a time, he released my hair, and sat back, watching me, while I continued to drink.

When I had drunk my fill, I lifted my head from the bowl.

“Position,” he said.

He then, as I knelt, reached to a cloth to the side, of the sort that might serve diversely, as a bond, as a gag, as a blindfold, and dampened the cloth in the bit of water remaining in the bowl, and then, as I kept the palms of my hands down, on my thighs, in position, he gently dabbed my face dry and clean, removing the water and the residue of gruel.

Despite the rudeness, and the commanding brutality, of Kurik, of Victoria, in the manner in which it had occurred, I had been fed and watered. I was grateful that this had been done. I felt stronger, and refreshed.

Then the realities of my situation once again became evident, acutely so. I knelt before this brute, alone with him, in a Gorean alcove, wholly in his power, stark naked, a collar on my neck, his to do with as he wished, a slave.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

“What I wish,” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

How alive my body was! How I wanted him to touch me!

“I am considering the matter,” he said. “What do you suggest?”

“It is for Master to decide,” I said.

I realized, suddenly, that I had turned my hands on my thighs, so that the palms were no longer down on my thighs, but up, displaying the small expanse of the nerve-ready, sensitive, vulnerable tissue of the palms to the master. It is a slave's begging gesture. Quickly, reddening, shamed, I turned the palms of my hands down, again, quickly, on my thighs. I trusted he had not noticed this inadvertent self-betrayal of my needs. He smiled. He had seen! I hated him! Before him, before this master, I had betrayed my slave needs!

“What do you think I will do with you?” he asked.

“I am a slave,” I said.

“I am aware of that,” he said.

I regarded him.

I wanted to loop the bondage knot in my hair, but I did not dare remove my hands from my thighs. As I was right handed, I would commonly put the knot at my right shoulder.

“Do you beg for attention,” he asked.

“Do not make me beg,” I said.

“You seem ready,” he said.

“Do not make me beg,” I said.

There, before him, kneeling on the furs, in the half-lit alcove, in the soft, warm light of the small tharlarion-oil lamp, a collar on my neck, which I could not remove, I knew the ecstasy of being wholly dominated by a male. I rejoiced in my sex. Can men, I wondered, understand such desire? I had never felt so ready, so intensely female.

At that moment there was, from beyond the leather curtain, the sudden skirl of a flute, the swift strumming of a kalika, and the pounding of the tabor.

“A dancer!” he said, pleased. “The Slave Whip is a proper, fine tavern. It can buy the best!”

“Master!” I said.

But he seized my wrists and forced me back, against the wall, at the back of the alcove. A moment later manacles were snapped on my wrists, and my wrists were fastened back, to the wall, on either side of my body. Then my ankles were seized, and I was pulled forward, and was supine, and then my ankles, in his grip, were parted, widely, and shackled to rings on the floor. I reared half up, in protest. I jerked futilely at the chains. I could not bring my hands before my body, nor could I close my legs.

“Now,” he said, turning about, reaching for the curtain straps, “I will see what a real woman is like.”

“Master,” I begged. “Please, Master!”

But he had unbuckled the curtain, departed, and yanked it shut behind him. I caught the briefest glimpse of tanned legs in the sand, each ankle ringed with slave bells, and a swirling skirt of scarlet dancing silk. I heard the jangle of jewelry, and the sudden, bright flash of finger cymbals. I heard men crying out, and pounding paga goblets on the tables.

I wept in misery, pulling against the chains, twisting and turning, and then, my desperate efforts mocked by obdurate, clasping steel, I lay back in the furs, in helpless frustration, a slave, chained in place.

It seemed forever that the slave danced, but it was doubtless no more at a time than a handful of Ehn, perhaps no more than three or four. Four times the music stopped, and I waited for the return of Kurik, of Victoria, but it would begin again, perhaps with another slave, certainly with another tempo, another mood, another exhibition of how marvelously beautiful and desirable a human female can be, another exhibition of why they should be possessed, owned, collared, and mastered.

I rehearsed a hundred greetings, criticisms, comments, witty remarks, and clever observations, for when I should be rejoined by Kurik, of Victoria, that he might realize how little his absence concerned me, that his neglect of me was scarcely noticed, if at all, and perhaps had even been welcomed, surely that I had not been perturbed, that his callous abandonment of me had caused me no distress, that to it, and to such things, and to him, I was completely indifferent.

Eventually he reentered the alcove, and, turning about, rebuckled shut the leather curtain. Then again he sat opposite me, cross-legged.

He looked at me.

I pulled a little at the chains. I could not bring my hands before my body. I could not close my legs, for they were widely separated.

He regarded the helpless expanse of slave spread before him.

“I beg attention,” I said. “I beg attention, Master.”

Many times then, that evening, the next morning, and the next afternoon, did Kurik of Victoria pleasure himself with me.

The first time, when my limbs were still chained apart, and I could not bring my arms before my body nor close my legs, he drove me wild, bit by bit, touch by touch, with expectation, with passion, and need. Then, as I writhed in the chains, and lifted my body piteously to him, that he would allow me the succession of explosions the foundations for which, and the readiness for which, he had so patiently and skillfully prepared, to whose brink he had brought me, he desisted in his work.

I regarded him, eyes wide, aghast, disbelievingly. “Master!” I cried, in misery. “Please, Master!”

He sat back, regarding me in the chains.

I shook them, helplessly, pulling against them. “Please!” I wept. “Please!”

He reviewed me, amused, satisfied.

“Relief!” I begged. “It needs but a touch, a touch! Please! Relief, relief, Master!”

“Perhaps you remember the office,” he said, “on the dismal, polluted, spoiled world of Earth, when you were short with me.”

“Mercy, have mercy, Master!” I cried. “Have mercy on a poor, miserable, meaningless slave!”

“Perhaps you beg?” he inquired.

“I beg!” I cried. “I beg! I beg!”

He then bestowed upon me a single, deft touch.

“Yes, oh, yes, yes!” I wept, gratefully, yielding as the slave I had been made, as the slave I was.

On Gor, Ahn may be spent in making love, mornings, nights, evenings, and afternoons. Many are the arts of love, harsh and gentle, fierce and tender, commanding and solicitous, and love's artists are patient and talented. Kurik of Victoria knew well the handling of helpless slaves, their caressing and owning, their grasping and stroking, their conquest and fulfillment. There was his breath, his tongue, his touch. He could play the body of a slave, producing a rapture of sensations, much as the master of the czehar or kalika can play his lovely instrument, drawing forth its laughter and tears, its moans and cries, its pensive contemplations, its incitements and ardors, its valleys and mountains, its depths and its ecstasies.

Never was I off a chain, though commonly it was only a shackle on my left ankle. Did he fear I would attempt to escape him? It would have required chains to draw me from his side. I strove to please him, and in many ways, many of which were conventionally forbidden to the free woman, for they were regarded as incompatible with her status and dignity, for I had been much instructed in the house of my training. Even those who are not expected to be pleasure slaves, even pot girls, and kettle-and-mat girls, must know how to please a master, and as the slave they are. Domestic tasks, too, I had been instructed in, to some extent, cooking, cleaning, sewing, and such, tasks that I would once, as a free woman, have regarded as beneath me, for a slave is many things to a master, tasks that I now loved as they would help me, in their humble way, to better serve a master, but there is no doubt that the central point of my training, its predominant emphasis, had been oriented to the central purpose of the slave, which is to please the master, and as the slave she is.