Mercenaries of Gor coc-21

by John Norman

  "Please join me," I said.

  She knelt at the table, in the position of the free woman.

  "I spoke," she said, "for I was pleased to see that you had dismissed the slave."

  "She is only an Earth girl," I said.

  "So low?" she inquired.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I do wish they would put them in clothing," she said.

  "They do have their collars," I said.

  "True," she laughed.

  "Are you sure you could not accept a drink?" I asked.

  She seemed to consider the matter, and then, after giving it some thought, smiled. "All right," she said.

  "What would you like?" I asked.

  "Perhaps a tiny glass of ka-la-na," she said, "among friends."

  I looked to the left, Louise, as she had been bidden, was watching. I lifted my finger. The Earth girl then leapt up and hurried to the table. At the table she knelt.

  "A small bottle," I said, "of the Slave Gardens of Anesidemus." "I have heard that is a marvelous ka-la-na," said the free woman, her eyes alight.

  "So, too, have I," I said.

  "It is very expensive," said the woman.

  "Are you familiar with it?" I asked.

  "Oh," she said, lightly, "I have had it a few times."

  "Do you like it?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes!"

  "Fetch it," I said to Louise.

  "Yes, Master," she said, rising to her feet, and hurrying to the bar.

  "That is the slave whom you earlier dismissed, is it not?" she asked.

  "I think so," I said.

  "You hardly noticed," she said, pleased.

  I shrugged.

  "I am so pleased to meet a man such as you," she said.

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "One who understands the value of a free woman," she said.

  I supposed free women did have value. Slavers, for example, will pay for them. "So many men," she said, "are interested only in slaves."

  "Really," I asked.

  "Yes," she said. "There is no understanding it. I find it unaccountable." "I can see you are astounded," I said.

  "What can a man see in any of those sluts?" she asked.

  "A slave," I said.

  "Precisely," she said. "Disgusting!"

  "Some men like them," I said.

  "Is that what men really want?" she asked. "A woman who is totally theirs, one who is fully in their power, one who must strive desperately to serve them perfectly in all things, one who is absolutely and helplessly at their mercy, one who must lick and kiss at their least word?"

  "I am afraid there are some men who do not object to that," I admitted. "I am sure you find free women of some interest," she said.

  "Certainly I find them of interest," I said. The most interesting thing about them, of course, was that they could be seized and enslaved. After that they might become of real interest to a man. The female slave, of course, yours in her servitude, is ten thousand times more interesting than a free woman could ever dream of being. In any contest of desirability the free woman must always lose out to the slave, and if she does not seem to do so, then let her be enslaved, and see how she then, suddenly, in a moment, competing then with her former self, becomes ten thousand times more desirable than she ever was as a mere free female.

  "Master," said Louise, the nude, slender, red-haired Earth-girl slave, returning. She knelt near the table. She placed the small bottle of ka-la-na on the table, and two tiny cups.

  "She is a pretty little thing," said the free woman.

  I flicked my finger, dismissing the slave, not bothering to look at her. This pleased the free woman. I wondered how one of the usual, close-fitting Gorean slave collars would look on her own throat. Well, I thought. Such collars set off the beauty of a woman, the encircling steel, significatory of bondage, contrasting nicely with the softness of her throat, shoulders and breasts. "Yes, please," said the woman.

  I poured.

  "To you," she said, lifting her glass.

  "No," I said, "to you."

  "Thank you," she said. I saw that she was flattered by this. She glowed. Her breasts were very nice.

  We touched glasses. We drank.

  "Oh, it is marvelous ka-la-na," she purred. I gathered that she had never before had such ka-la-na. True, it might run the buyer as much as three copper tarsks, a price for which some women can be purchased.

  "I am pleased that you like it," I said.

  "I am Tutina, Lady of Ar," she said, warmly, intimately, leaning forward. "That is a lovely name," I said. To be sure, if I owned her, I thought I would shorten it to Tina. That is an excellent slave name. Indeed, I had owned slaves with that name.

  She basked in my praise.

  "I am called Tarl," I said.

  "Oh," she said, reprovingly, "that is such a fierce name."

  I shrugged.

  "It is a northern name, is it not?"

  "It is common in the north," I said, "particularly in Torvaldsland." "Men from Torvaldsland frighten me," she said. "They are so strong with women. You are not from Torvaldsland, are you?"

  "No," I said. To be sure, I had been in Torvaldsland, and I felt that I knew as much as any fellow there about what to do with a woman at his feet. But then any true master anywhere knows as much. Indeed, although the men of Torvaldsland are find and strong masters, they are generally rather direct and straightforward about what they are doing. In the south, in the cities, in my opinion, because of the richness in history and tradition, and the much greater cultural sophistication and complexity, a female is likely to find herself placed under a much stricter and more exacting bondage than in the north. To be sure, much depends on the girl and the master. Some girls thrive best with uncompromising barbarian masters who will put them on the oar or under the whip at the least sign of their being displeasing and others find that they did not truly understand helplessness and submission until they found their chain fastened to the couch ring of a gentleman.

  "That is reassuring, " she smiled. "Where are you from?"

  "From the northwest, near Thassa," I said. I saw no reason to tell her I was from Port Kar. She might then have become not feignedly, but actually, alarmed. Most of the fellows of Port Kar have something of the ruthless lust of pirates in their view of females, coupled with some knowledge, because of a popular form of commerce in the city, of sophisticated techniques of slave handling and management.

  "Where did you just come from?" she asked.

  "Torcadino," I said. "Oh," she said, disappointed.

  "What is wrong?" I asked.

  "You are not a refugee, are you?" she asked.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Then you might have had a difficult trip," she said.

  "I see," I said.

  "I do not believe things are as bad in Torcadino as they say," she said. "Oh?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "They are just trying to frighten us," I saw her eye on my purse.

  "I came in by fee cart," I said.

  "I see," she said. I saw she liked that information. I had thought she would. It suggested I had money.

  "Are you of the Merchants?" she asked.

  "I have sometimes bought and sold things," I told her. I saw that this pleased her. I did not tell her that many of the things I had bought and sold were much like herself.

  "May I call you Tarl? ' she asked.

  "Of course," I said. She was after all, a free woman. If she were to become a slave, of course, there would be no such liberty in such matters.

  I poured her more ka-la-na.

  She drank. She leaned forward, her elbows on the small table. Her breasts seemed to invite my touch. Her lips were warm and soft. "There was another reason," she said, "other than the splendid dismissal of a slut slave from your presence, why I came to your table."

  "Oh" I said.

  "I feel drawn to you," she said.

  "I understand," I said. I glanced at the fellow still slumped on the other table.
r />   "Tarl," she whispered.

  "Yes," I said. She knew her business, this woman. The sooner she was in a collar the better.

  "Yes," I said, softly, encouragingly. "Oh, no," she said, drawing back, suddenly, seeming to wipe a tear from her eye, "I must not say such things to you."

  "What?" I asked, kindly.

  "I must leave," she said. "I must hurry away now." She put her hands out, that I might gently take them in mine, holding her at the table, restraining her sweetly, in earnest, gentle persuasion, from departing. But I, curious to see what would happen, apparently did not notice this opportunity.

  She did not leave.

  "I just do not know what to do," she said, turning her head from side to side. "What is wrong?" I asked, seemingly concerned.

  "How terrible you must think me," she said, wiping away another tear, it seemed, from the corner of her eye.

  "Not at all," I said. I certainly did not think her terrible at all. Indeed, I thought she was luscious.

  "I have been too bold," she said. "I approached your table. I have spoken to you first. I have permitted you, a man I scarcely know, to buy me ka-la-na. I am so ashamed."

  "There is no need to be ashamed," I said.

  "But far worse," she said, "I revealed to you my feelings, I told you of my unspeakable loneliness. Are you lonely?"

  "Not particularly," I said. It is normally only free folks among free folks who are lonely, each so separate from the other. It is not easy for men to be lonely who have access to slaves. Similarly the slaves, so occupied, and of necessity so concerned to please the master, are seldom given the time for the indulgence of loneliness. Too, of course the incredible intimacy of the relationship, intellectual and emotional, as well as sexual, for the master to inquire into, and command forth, and is normally inclined to do so, her deepest thoughts and feelings, which must be bared to him, as much as her body, as well as command, even casually, her most intimate and delicious sexual performances, militates against loneliness.

  In slavery total intimacy is not only customary, but it can be made obligatory, under discipline. Masters like to know their girls. They want to know them with a depth, detail and intimacy that it would be quite inappropriate to expect of, or desire from, a prideful free companion, whose autonomy and privacy is protected by her lofty status. In a sense, the free woman is always, to one extent or another veiled. The slave, on the other hand, is not permitted veils. She is, so to speak, naked to the master, and fully.

  There is no doubt that slaves without private masters, or slaves in multiple-slave chains, arrangements, households, institutions, and such, may experience terrible loneliness. There is doubtless great loneliness, for example, in a rich man's pleasure gardens. Indeed, the presence of a lovely slave there might not even be known to the master, but only to her immediate keepers, and the master's agents, who may have purchased her, or accountants, who keep records of the master's properties and assets. Perhaps she must beg piteously to be called to the attention of the master. Some women in such a place, even those whose existence is known, or remembered, at least vaguely, might wait for months for a summons to the couch of the master, he perhaps selecting a ribbon with her name on it, from a rack of slave ribbons, and tossing it to an attendant, that she be brought in chains to this quarters that night, the ribbon on her collar. Too, it can doubtless be lonely in the house of a slaver, especially when the guards do not choose to amuse themselves with you, or have you perform for them, or, say, when you find yourself alone at night, perhaps a work slave, in the basement of a cylinder, chained in a cement kennel. "Oh," she said.

  "With you here," I said, "how could I be lonely?"

  "What a lovely thing to say," she said.

  I thought it has been pretty good myself. To be sure, it had required quick thinking.

  "But mostly," she said, as though tearfully, "I am distressed at the boldness with which I spoke before."

  "Boldness?" I asked.

  "When I admitted, as I should never have done," she said, "that I was drawn to you."

  " "Drawn to me'?" I inquired.

  "Yes," she said, lowering her eyes.

  "I understand," I said. "You were drawn to me because something within you seemed to sense, and delicately, that I might prove to be a sympathetic interlocutor, an understanding fellow with whom you might, assuaging therein to some extent your loneliness and pain, hold gentle and kindly converse."

  "It was more than that," she whispered, not looking up, as though she dared not raise her eyes.

  "Oh?" I asked.

  She looked up, as though distressed. "I felt drawn to you," she said, and then she lowered her head, as though in shame, "a€”as a female to a male."

  I said nothing.

  "Free women have needs, too," she whispered.

  "I do not doubt it," I said. At the moment, of course she had no real idea of what female needs could be. As with most free females they were doubtless far below the surface and seldom directly sensed. Their effect upon conscious life, because of her conditioning, would normally be felt in such transformed and eccentric modalities as anxiety, uneasiness, misery, discomfort, ill temper, imaginary complaints, frustration and loneliness. These things would be connected with her lack of feminine fulfillment, she not finding herself in her place, in her natural biological relationship, that of submissive to dominant, to the male of her species. These things, the result of her loss of sexual identity and fulfillment, too, often produced a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. Too, they sometimes produced an envy and resentment of men, whom she, perhaps with some justice, would blame for this lack of fulfillment. When one sex needs the other to fulfill it, and the other refuses, what is to be done? One way of striving for vengeance, of course, is to attempt, socially and politically, to bring about the debilitation and ruination of anatomical males, whether they be men or not. This, of course, might prove dangerous, for it might provoke an upsurge of nature, like a natural phenomenon, in which her order, artificialities then scorned and abolished, would be harshly restored.

  Another danger, and perhaps one more serious, is that a misdirected response would be provoked in which, say, angry males, perhaps unable to take direct action because of the numerous, carefully wrought political traps and snares trammeling them, would think themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to have no recourse but to engage in the undeniably masculine games of war, games which might destroy worlds, but, with them, perhaps, the walls within which they have permitted themselves to be imprisoned. It would be unfortunate, indeed, if the female, returned at last to her rightful chains, were to find herself kneeling in ashes.

  "You are kind not to scorn me for my needs," she said. She looks up at me. "Sometimes they are very strong."

  "I am sure of it," I said. She had as yet, of course, as a free woman, as I have mentioned, no real idea of what female needs could be. They were in her, as in all free women, muchly suppressed. She had no idea as to what they could be. Never had she confronted them wholly and directly. She was as yet alienated from the depth and richness of the extensive sexual tissues in her body; she did not understand how her entire skin, from her scalp to her toes, could awaken into life, startled and rejoicing, stimulated by the hot, surgent, wave-like irradiations emanating not only from her helpless, lovely exploited centralities, but as well from all the other sensitive curvatures and beauties of her, curvatures and beauties so much at a master's mercy; too, she could not even now begin to suspect the momentous emotional dimensions of bondage for the female, its entire, totalistic matrix, of what it was to be a slave, the nature of the slave's feelings, how she is affected by what she is, and what can be done to her, of what it is to be owned, absolutely, to be under uncompromising discipline, of what it is to know that you must, and will, under strict and uncompromising enforcements, give yourself up wholly to service and love, no alternatives permitted.

  "You are very kind to take pity on a woman," she said.

  "It is nothing," I said
. I speculated that her needs might be rather strong, as a matter of fact, for a free woman. Certainly her body suggested the influence of a rich abundance of female hormones. One does not get curves like that by being hormonally deficient. It might be interesting, I thought, to see what those needs might be like if permitted to develop fully under bondage. "When I spoke your name before," she said, "I hesitated."

  "I remember," I said.

  "It was so hard to speak," she said.

  "Yes?" I said.

  "May I speak?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I was thinking that I might perhaps let you see my body," she said, "that I might even permit you to touch it."

  "Yes," I said.

  "That I might tonight," she said, "as you have been so kind to me, and I am drawn to you, give you my body."

  "I am overwhelmingly impressed," I said. This seemed to me a suitable response, as she was a free woman. It is really difficult to know what to say when one hears something so stupid. If she were a slave, I would have enjoyed hearing her try to speak in that fashion, speaking of "giving her body" and for such-and-such a period. That would earn her a swift whipping. If one could speak in that fashion, of "mere bodies," so to speak, and it was not typically Gorean to do so, she would not in bondage be considering whether or not to bestow her body, and for how long, but rather she would discover that it was his for the master to take, whenever he wished, however he wished, and for as long as he wished, for it would then belong not to her but to him, or he could order her to bring it to him, his property, in whatever attitude or posture he might please. The slave, for example, does not ask if the master now wants the body of Gloria but, rather, does he want Gloria. In Gorean thought, and, indeed, Gorean law is explicit on this, what is owned is the whole slave. It is she who is owned, the whole woman, and uncompromisingly and totally.

  "How kind you are," she said, "to a woman met in such a place, one so poor she cannot afford sandals, a suitable gown, and proper veiling. Do you object that I am so revealingly clad, and am not properly veiled? Does it scandalize you?" "No," I said. "Doubtless it is an inevitable concession to the cruelties of poverty."

  "Yes," she lamented. "Perhaps you could try to think of me veiled," she suggested.