by John Norman
I moaned.
“What is your concern with her?” he asked.
“We are both, ultimately, women,” I said, “who must fear and serve men.”
“It is not my fault,” said Hassan, “that you are both, ultimately, of the slave sex.”
“No, Master,” I said.
“You are a pretty slave,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Are you going to be absolutely compliant and fully pleasing?” he asked.
“I will be absolutely compliant,” I said, “and I will attempt to be fully pleasing.”
“Good,” he said.
“Am I to be hurt, then?” I asked.
“It will be done with you as I please,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“It is interesting,” he said. “Earlier you seemed warm and ready. You were weak and almost panting. I could smell you. Now you seem cold, and tight.”
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“Do you juice well?” he asked.
“Usually, Master,” I said.
“Perhaps I can warm you,” he said. He then began to touch me. I dared not resist that touch, and I was helpless under it.
“Have you ever seen the Tatrix of Corcyrus, Master?” I asked, beginning to twist under his hands.
“No,” he said.
“Ohhh!” I said. His touch was now reminding me, clearly, that I was in a collar.
“I think you are going to juice,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes!”
“I have received detailed descriptions of her, of course,” he said. “For example, it might be interesting to you to know that you, apparently, at least in general outlines, resemble her.” He drew back from me, regarding me. “It is interesting,” he said. “You would probably resemble her rather closely.”
“Master?” I asked.
“There is the same eye color and hair color, and general coloring,” he said. “Too, your figure would seem to be quite similar to what hers was conjectured to be, and you would certainly seem to be quite similar to her in general size, with respect to height and weight. Too, there would seem to be a similarity in such things as conjectured wrist, ankle and collar sizes.”
“You seem to have been furnished with rather complete descriptions,” I said. I was surprised that he had been furnished with estimations of wrist, ankle and collar sizes. One does not usually think in terms of such things where free women are concerned. On the other hand, such measurements, I supposed, are pertinent to any woman. An experienced slaver, incidentally, can usually tell a woman’s wrist, ankle and collar sizes almost at a glance. I took a number-two ankle ring and a number-two wrist ring. I took a ten-hort collar. These are common and standard sizes. The most commonly worn wrist and ankle rings are the twos and threes. The most common collar sizes are the ten-, eleven-, and twelve-hort sizes.
“Yes,” he said. “And you seem to fit these descriptions rather well.”
“Perhaps I am she,” I suggested.
“Perhaps,” he said. He then again bent over me. I turned my head to the side. I felt his hands on me.
“How do you know I am not she?” I said. “Oh, Oh!”
“It does not seem likely that she is a squirming slave,” he said.
“Oh!” I cried. “But you have never seen her,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“How, then, will you know her?” I asked.
“I will not know,” he said. “The sleen will know.”
“Master?” I asked. I tried to hold myself tense. I tried not to feel.
“In Corcyrus,” he said, “I was furnished with clothing which she had worn. It is with me, even in Ar now, as are my men and the sleen. The hunt begins tomorrow.”
“But Ar is a great city,” I said. “It must contain, surely, more than a million people.” It must contain then, older and newer, some more faded, some fresher, millions of trails. Surely it would be impossible to pick out single trails from among such eroded, collapsed and jumbled strata of scent.
“It is true that it will not be easy,” said Hassan.
“She may not even be in Ar,” I said.
“She is here,” he said, his hands then again on my body, forcing me to feel.
“Please be gentle, Master!” I begged.
Then, suddenly, he was gentle with me. I leaped gratefully under his touch. Then again he was strong with me, reminding me that I was owned.
Then I reared helplessly to him, at his mercy.
“How are you going to yield to me?” he asked.
“However Master wishes,” I cried.
“Do not try to resist me further,” he said. “I do not like it.”
“No, Master!” I said.
“Feel,” he said. “Feel, deeply.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. Then I began to feel, and feel deeply, as a helpless, commanded slave. I felt him beginning to turn me inside out with sensation. I began to moan and whimper. Then I could no longer even think of resisting him. I sobbed, and begged for his penetration.
“Your resemblance to the Tatrix of Corcyrus is interesting,” he said.
“I beg to receive you, Master!” I wept.
“Quite interesting,” he said.
“You have done this to me,” I wept. “You have conquered me. Now claim me. I beg to be claimed! Have me, own me, claim me, make me yours. I beg to be made yours, Master!”
“It is uncanny,” he said, “the same eye color, the same hair color, the general coloring, all the other things.”
“You will never find her,” I cried out, angrily, through gritted teeth.
“It will not be easy,” said Hassan, condescending to enter me, as I held out my arms eagerly to him, “but I will find her.”
I then held him to me, desperately. I scarcely dared move. I was a surrendered slave. I sensed myself on the brink of a submission orgasm such as I had never suspected existed.
“Resist me now!” he said.
“I cannot!” I sobbed. “You have brought me too far! You know you have brought me too far! You know that resistance is now impossible!”
“Struggle to resist,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I sobbed. Then, with various rhythms and depths, he began to subject me to the torture of the withheld submission. “Please,” I begged him. “Please!”
“Very well,” he said, after a time, and I cried out, yielding to Hassan, the Slave Hunter.
Afterwards he had me clean him, with my lips and tongue, and I, naively, did so, not understanding what he intended. Then I was startled by his vitality. Then I found myself again had. They had taught me nothing of that in school. Then Hassan finished with me, drew his tunic again about himself and returned to conversation with Eito. I crept away and retrieved my slave silk. I then lay down on my side at the side of the room, my knees drawn up, the bit of slave silk clutched to me.
I was half in shock. I felt small and helpless, and had. I had been devastated by Hassan, the Slave Hunter. Never before, and particularly the second time, had I yielded so helplessly, so slavishly, to a man. Never before had I been taught so thoroughly, so incontrovertibly, that men are the masters. Yet never before, too, had my femaleness felt so deeply real. Conquered and taught, informed and grateful, I lay there; I found myself rejoicing in my femininity; I found myself treasuring my womanhood; how glad, how very glad I was, that I was a woman.
The feast was now finishing and most of the guests, including Hassan, the guest of honor, had gone home.
“Are you all right, Tiffany?” asked the floor manager, the feast master.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He was a kind man. He did not make me serve further.
I lay there, resting, and recovering from the emotional consequences of Hassan’s uses of me. I gradually began to feel a surprising elation. I had been in the very arms of the man who sought Sheila, the Tatrix of Corcyrus, and he had not recognize
d me. Even Drusus Rencius, perhaps, or Miles of Argentum, too, men who had actually seen me, I thought, might not recognize me now. Perhaps even little Susan would not recognize the lofty Sheila, the Tatrix of Corcyrus, in the collared, branded, trained, lascivious pleasure slut, Tiffany, a girl of Feast Slaves, of the Enterprises of Aemilianus, the Plaza of Tarns.
I was safe.
I did not fear the sleen of Hassan. They could never find me in Ar.
I was safe.
Chapter 30 - SHEILA, THE TATRIX OF CORCYRUS
“Why are you fearful?” asked Claudia.
“They are coming this way,” said Crystal.
“They were supposed to have left the city a week ago!” I cried. “Apparently they did not do so,” said Tupa.
“There is a crowd with them,” said Claudia, excited. “Let us join them, and see where they go!”
“No!” I said. “No!”
Claudia looked at me, puzzled. We were on, the Street of Hermadius, off the Plaza of Tarns. We all wore draped, sleeveless white tunics. These tunics, though brief, were rather modest in appearance. To look at us you might not have known that we were feast slaves. We were barefoot. Our collars were in plain sight. In his good taste, Aemilianus did not require us to wear advertising on our backs.
“What is wrong with you?” asked Claudia.
“Nothing!” I said. I looked back up the street. The crowd indeed, as Crystal had observed, seemed to be coming this way. They had turned into this street from the plaza itself.
I looked down at the street. It seemed dirty. This was not usual for Ar. Usually, once a week, the streets are swept and washed down. This is usually the responsibility of those whose buildings face the street, the larger avenues, squares and plazas, and such, being cleaned by state slaves. Two days ago the smaller streets, such as the Street of Hermadius should have been cleaned. Slave girls, who often go barefoot tend to be very much aware of this sort of thing. I saw slave girl, in a brief, brown tunic, standing near a wall, outside of a shop. She did not seem to be going anywhere and was not chained there. I thought, then, she might belong to the owner of the shop. Perhaps she had just emerged from the shop. She was shading her eyes, and looking down the street.
Probably she had heard the crowd in the distance, and had come out to see what might be afoot.
“Mistress,” I said to her, to flatter her.
“Yes, High Girl,” she said.
“I am not a high girl,” I said.
“You wear a high girl’s tunic,” she said.
I swiftly knelt before her. “Are you owned by the shopkeeper here?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” she said.
I looked back at the crowd, some two or three blocks away, approaching.
“Answer me a question, Mistress,” I begged.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Please,” I said.
“Kiss my feet, High Girl,” she said.
I did so.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Two nights ago,” I said, “one would have expected these streets to be cleaned. Were they?”
“Is this important to you, to know this?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Kiss my feet again, High Girl,” she said.
I did so.
“More deferentially and lovingly,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. Then I looked up at her.
“No,” she said. “We received commands from the Central Cylinder itself, from the very palace itself, not to do so. Even the great squares were not washed down this week.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” I said. I leaped to my feet, sick.
Claudia, Crystal and Tupa were looking down the street. The crowd was now only about a block away. In the front of the crowd, their snouts down to the ground, almost on the paving stones themselves, were two gigantic gray sleen. Their ears were laid back against their heads. Each was being restrained by two men, a stout chain leash in the hands of each man. Even so the sleen, in their eagerness, were almost dragging their keepers. Behind the sleen, huge and menacing, his chest bared, a long, coiled whip in his right hand, was Hassan, the Slave Hunter. With him were some armed men, probably his. With them, too, were some officers of Ar. With them I saw, too, one uniform of Argentum. Behind these all, eager and excited, pressing about, spilling forward about the sides, some running and pushing, was the crowd. I fled away, down the street.
“Tiffany!” I heard Claudia call, from behind me. I ran.
I turned from the Street of Hermadius into Silver Street and ran from there to the avenue of the Central Cylinder. Then I was running along the western edge of the concourse, under the trees. I leaned against a wall, gasping.
“Do not loiter here, Girl,” said a man.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said, bowing my head and backing away, then turning and hurrying a few yards further down the avenue.
I came to a fountain, one of many on the avenue. It had two bowls, an upper bowl and a lower one, closer to the walking level, the water from the upper bowl spilling over into the lower. Free persons might drink from, or draw water from, the upper bowl. The lower bowl was for animals and slaves. Sweating and breathing heavily I put myself to all fours by the fountain and, bending down my head, lapped at the water.
Then, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I stood up. I saw sleen, and those with them, turning onto the avenue of the Central Cylinder.
I cried out with misery, and again fled.
***
I looked wildly about.
I saw no signs now of the crowd and the animals.
I stood at the northwestern corner of the Teiban Sul Market, at the intersection of Teiban and Clive. I had come West from the avenue of the Central Cylinder on Clive.
I looked back up Clive. I saw no signs of the crowd and animals. I began to breathe more easily.
By now, surely, they would have been coming west on Clive. They must have lost my trail.
“Suls, Turpah, Vangis!” I heard a woman call, sifting amidst baskets, hawking her produce.
I had gone to the avenue of the Central Cylinder and had kept to busy streets in the hope that the sleen would lose my scent, it being mingled with that of so many others.
Now it seemed I had been successful.
Then, from some two hundred yards away, I heard the shrill, excited squeal of one of the animals. I looked wildly south, down the Boulevard of Teiban. The sleen, and those with them, had come west on Venaticus. As Clive borders the Teiban Market on the north, so Venaticus borders it on the south. To my horror, I saw the sleen, and the crowd, turning right, north on Teiban. They were proceeding toward me. I did not understand this. Why had they not come down Clive? Then, suddenly, sick, I remembered that I had, two days ago, taken Venaticus west to Teiban. It must be that trail, two days old, that they were following. I swiftly fled west, continuing on Clive. In a few minutes I had come to Clive and Hermadius. It was on Hermadius, less than an Ahn ago, that I had first seen the sleen.
I continued west on Clive, and turned left, south, on Emerald. This street, like Hermadius, leads to the Plaza of Tarns. But I was not seeking the Plaza of Tarns and the agency. I turned right, off Emerald, when I came to Tarn Gate Street. This is the street which leads directly between Ar’s west gate, called the Tarn Gate, and the Plaza of Tarns.
When I came to the west gate I knelt before a citizen. “Master,” I said, “may I accompany you through the gate?”
“No,” he said.
I rose to my feet, and looked behind me.
Then I approached the gate more closely. The security here seemed unusually strict today. I did not understand this. Wagons were being inspected even to the point of prying up the lids of boxes and slitting open sacks. I saw a slave girl who was hooded stopped and unhooded, and examined carefully. Then she was rehooded and, on her leash, in the company of a master, allowed to proceed. I walked boldly, nonchalantly, toward the gate.
Then I
was stopped, crossed spears before me. “Forgive me, Master,” I said, bowing my head, and quickly moving back, then turning away.
A few yards from the gate I stopped and turned again, and looked at it. Tears sprang into my eyes.
I then fled north for a few blocks on the Wall Road, and then turned right, east, to make my way back to Emerald. I saw no sign of the sleen or the crowd on Emerald. In this fashion I had doubled back on my trail. I hoped this might confuse the sleen. I continued to walk north on Emerald. The streets, I noticed, everywhere, had apparently not been swept down and washed. That injunction against their cleaning had apparently not been confined to a given, district. It seemed to have been citywide in its scope.
I was bewildered, and confused and miserable. I did not know if I had eluded the sleen or not. I did not know what to do. I was afraid to return to the agency and afraid not to return to it. My trails would presumably be particularly rich and numerous in that vicinity.
Certainly I left that building in the morning and returned to it in the evening. On the other hand, if I did not return to it, I did not know, then, what I should do. I could not leave the city and, if I remained within it, it seemed obvious that I must be apprehended, if not by the sleen then by free citizens, probably guardsmen. I did not think it would be difficult for them to do so. I would stand out. I was garbed as what I was, a slave, and my collar, which I could not remove, clearly identified me.
Indeed, as soon as it became dark I would become suspect as a runaway slave. Slave girls, with the exception of coin girls, lure girls for taverns, and such, are generally not permitted to walk unaccompanied about the streets of a city after dark. I did not have the common garb of such slaves, such as the bell and coin box chained about my neck, of the coin girl, or the tavern silk, with its advertising, of a tavern’s lure girl. My absence from my kennel would presumably be reported by midnight, the twentieth hour of the Gorean day. By morning guardsmen would be alerted to be on the lookout for me.
How, too, could I live in the city? I might try to live by begging and scavenging garbage for a time as do those vagrant free women sometimes called she-urts, but I, being collared, could never pass for one. The she-urts often wear tunics almost as short as those of slaves. This is supposedly to make it easier for them to flee from guardsmen. On the other hand the guardsmen usually ignore them. Sometimes they will catch one and bind her helplessly, just to let her know that she can be caught, if men wish. These she-urts have their gangs and territories. I had little doubt but what they might set upon me and bind me, and turn me over to guardsmen, hoping for some small reward. I, being a slave, could hope for no mercy from them. They would hate and despise me. As low as they might be they were a thousand times higher than I. They were free women. Once or twice a year, particularly when there are complaints, or they are becoming nuisances, many of them will be rounded up and taken before a praetor. Their sentence is almost invariably slavery.