Mercenaries of Gor coc-21

by John Norman

  "I would suppose, sooner or later," I said, "that you would like to breathe. No breath, however, can enter your lungs until you have first cleared your mouth of the fluid in it. There is only one way for you to do that, in your present predicament. That is to swallow it. Perhaps your body will make the decision for you."

  She whimpered piteously in protest.

  "There is not really much point in holding your breath," I said. "The matter is one of inevitability."

  Another whimper.

  "You are very pretty," I informed her.

  Then wildly, tears plunging down her cheeks, she swallowed the liquid and, choking, gasping wildly for breath.

  "You may now unbelt the hands of the Lady Tutina," I said to Louise.

  "Yes, Master!" she said, hastening to do so.

  "Oh, no, Lady Tutina," I said, holding her hands now. "You would not want to do that."

  She jerked her hands, but could not remove them from my grasp. "I hate you!" she said. "I hate you!"

  "There is nothing to fear," I said, "unless there might have been something in the wine."

  "I hate you," she sobbed. She threw a wild look at the fellow slumped over the nearby table. He was still unconscious. She was clearly frightened. The dosage she had imbibed, assuming there might have been one in the drink, would doubtless have been one fit for a male. Accordingly, her own period of unconsciousness, given this possibility, might possibly last several Ahn, more than enough time to be carried to a cell in a praetor's holding area. She jerked her hands again, wildly, but I held them tightly.

  "I hate you!" she hissed.

  "Do not forget your loneliness, and your need for love," I said.

  "Sleen! Sleen!" she hissed. She again tried to free her hands, and again, of course, could not. How could she expect to do so, with her strength, only that of a female? But this time, even so, it seemed to me she had pulled less strongly than before. Even her small woman's strength seemed now less than it had been. Apparently there had indeed been something in the wine. It was beginning, it seemed, to take effect. She seemed suddenly unsteady.

  "What are you going to do with me?" she asked. "When you awaken," I said, "you will discover what has been done with you."

  "I love you," she said, suddenly. "Take me to your room. It was not necessary to drug me. I would have gone happily."

  "It is nice to hear that," I said.

  "I love you," she said. "You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?" I regarded her, not speaking.

  "I will serve you therea€”even as a slave!" she whispered. "Then you will let me go in the morning."

  I did not answer her.

  "What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

  I did not answer her.

  "You are going to take me to your room, aren't you?" she pleaded.

  "No," I said.

  "Then what are you going to do with me?" she asked.

  "I do not think I am going to do much of anything with you," I said.

  She looked at me, puzzled. She wavered.

  I glanced at the fellow slumped over the nearby table.

  "No!" she said. "No!"

  "It is a pretty ring," I said. I then removed it from her hand. I put the ring on the floor. She leaned back. I did not think she could get up. She watched as I crushed it beneath my heel.

  I glanced at Louise, who was kneeling to the side, frightened.

  I looked again to the Lady Tutina. She was now slipped to the floor, beside the table, on the tiles, unconscious.

  I took the unconscious Lady Tutina by the wrist and pulled her over a bit, onto a nearby met, to the left of a nearby table. It was the table, of course, across which the unconscious fellow lay slumped. There was a heavy slave ring there, too, fixed in the floor. It was near the head of the mat. The mat and ring, both, of course, were those appropriate to the fellow's table. There, she lying on the mat, I pulled down her now-beltless dress until it was about her knees. In doing this I retrieved his purse. I tied it about her neck. I then, with some binding fiber, cored with wire, from my wallet, bound her wrists tightly together and then tied them tightly to the ring.

  In tying the hands tightly to the ring it makes it harder for the female to get her teeth on the binding fiber. But of course, even if she should manage this, trying desperately, determinedly and elatedly, with wild hopes, to free herself, she would discover shortly, at least in this case, this discovery dashing these wild, absurd hopes, mocking all her efforts, and plunging her into despair, the fiber's stern wire coring. She was not tied there, in such a fashion, by a man, she would then learn, that she might escape. It seemed to me extremely unlikely that she would recover consciousness before the fellow. If that should however, somehow occur, she would still be found at his ring, awaiting his pleasure. I looked down upon her. She lay there then, on her belly, mostly stripped, her arms extended over her head, her head turned to the side, her wrists crossed and bound tightly together, lashed to the slave ring, his purse about her neck. I considered matters. I then pulled the mat from beneath her, and with my foot, thrust it to the side. She would lie naked on the tiles, I had decided. Such a woman was not worthy of a mat. I also kicked her belt over beside her. It was a small detail, but it, like herself, like all she was and all she would be, now lay at the disposal of the fellow slumped across the table.

  I then returned to my own table. Louise was still there, kneeling. I had not yet dismissed her.

  "Am I dismissed, Master?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  She gasped.

  "Are you any good on a mat?" I asked.

  "But you are Earth," she said. "And I am of Earth! I am from Earth! You are from Earth! We are both from Earth! You could not for a moment be thinkinga€”!" "Fetch a slave whip," I said.

  She uttered a cry of misery and regarded me in disbelief. Then she leaped to her feet and hurried away. In a moment she had returned and knelt before me. She put down her head, as she had doubtless been taught, in submission. She then, lifting and extending her arms, her head still humbly down between them, lifted her hands to me. The backs of the wrists faced me. This was rather as in several common submission ceremonies. With the backs of the hands in this position it is easier to pull them together and tie them. Indeed, in most of these submission ceremonies the wrists are presented already crossed to the male, sot that he may the more conveniently lash them together. Every Gorean woman, incidentally, a slave or free, is taught by the age of puberty how to render submission. Her life may depend on it. Now however, held in these small, lovely hands, her hands about ten inches apart on it, lifted to me, there was an object.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I bring you a slave whip, Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Use it on me," she said, "if I do not please you."

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "Louise," she said.

  "Again," I said.

  "Louise brings you a slave whip, Master," she said. "Use it on Louise, if she does not please you."

  "I will," I said.

  She shuddered.

  "And I might use it on you anyway," I said.

  "Of course, Master," she said. One owns slaves and commands them. One does what one likes with them. One does not bargain with them.

  "Go to the mat," I said.

  "I am of Earth!" she said.

  I shook out the blades of the whip.

  She hurried to the mat, to kneel upon it.

  I regarded her.

  She looked lovely, nude, deliciously curved, frightened, in the glinting collar, in the flickering reddish darkness.

  I folded back the blades of the whip and inserted them in their clip, near the butt end of the staff. By means of the hook at the end of the butt, I attached the whip to my belt. This action seemed to be greeted with relief on her part. Perhaps she thought, being of Earth, she would get off easily. Did she not know that she was now on Gor, and that a whip so easily placed on a belt may be as easily, and inde
ed, even more easily, removed from it?

  A girl cried out, nearby, moaning, sobbing, being well mastered.

  I looked about, for a loose chain. In a moment or two I had found one, near another slave ring. I looped it in my hand, and carried it to the ring near my mat. The key, the same key fitting both the padlock-type terminations of the chain, was in one of the locks. I crouched down beside Louise and looped one end of the chain about her neck, where I locked it snugly into place with one of the padlock-type terminations. The chain depended from her neck, between her breasts. I then looped the other end of the chain about the slave ring and, with the termination at that end, locked it there. She had about five feet of play between her neck and the slave ring. That is more than sufficient to allow a female to perform. Many men give her even less chain, some only six inches or so, such adjustments being made with different length chains, and also, often with the same chain, by loopings, doublings and such, secured by fastening the padlocklike terminations through various links. She put her fingers on the chain. She surreptitiously pulled it a little. It was on her.

  "Master?" she asked. I walked over to the wall and hung the key on a nail there, with other keys. That is where the key should have been in the first place. There it is out of the reach of all the slave rings. Too, in this way, it is easier to keep track of them, and a customer is less likely to inadvertently walk off with one. No chains hung there, incidentally. They were apparently, at least those usually there, in use, or like the one I had found, loose on the floor. I glanced around. The place seemed crowded. Ita and Tia were dancing, summoned forth by a hostess, before a customer. I recalled Louise dancing. She had done at least that very well, surely. I wondered if she, and Earth girl, going about her business on Earth, had ever suspected that she would one day be so dancing on Gor, as a nude, collared slave. I supposed not. I wondered what she would have thought if someone had suggested this to her. Doubtless she would of thought it absurd, or amusing. But then, a moment later, she might have felt the thick layers of the chemically treated cloth held firmly over her nose and mouth. Business seemed good this evening. Indeed, it seemed to be thriving. This Ludmilla, whoever she was, I conjectured, had something of a gold mine in this little establishment. Tonight's receipts, at any rate, would probably prove quite gratifying.

  I returned to the slave mat.

  "Master?" asked Louise.

  She looked up at me, the chain on her neck.

  I removed the whip from my belt, freeing the blades. I shook them loose.

  "I am from Earth!" she said.

  "Spread your knees," I said.

  Swiftly did the Earth girl comply.

  I looked down at her. She was incredibly lovely.

  "Surely you will treat me gently, and with respect," she said.

  "How do you lie on a mat, Earth girl?" I asked.

  "However a master pleases," she whispered.

  I gestured to the mat with the whip. Immediately she lay upon it.

  "Perhaps you can interest me," I said.

  "Please!" she said.

  "Move," I told her.

  She moved then, and turned, upon the mat, sometimes on her belly, sometimes on her back, sometimes on her side, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting, sometimes curled up, sometimes bending backwards, pausing every moment or so, for a moment or so, stock-still, posing, that I might feast my eyes upon her loveliness, revealing thusly for me her imbonded beauty in numerous and various attitudes. There were tears in her eyes. I saw that she had had some training. She was then breathing heavily.

  I let the loose whip blades brush her back. "Master?" she asked.

  "Is that all you show Gorean men?" I asked. "If so, I am surprised you have not yet been fed to sleen."

  "You are from Earth," she wept. "And so you, a slave, think to cheat me, and give me less?" I asked. "No," she said.

  "Do you dare, slave," I asked, "to think that you can behave toward me as a typical Earth female behaves toward a man of Earth?"

  "No," she said. "No!"

  "Do you think you can treat me as the typical females of Earth treat the men of Earth?" I asked.

  "No," she wept. "No!"

  "Have you ever felt the slave whip?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said, terrified.

  "Do you want to feel it again, now?" I asked.

  "No! Master!" she said.

  "Perform," I said.

  "Yes, Master!" she said.

  "Better," I said, "better. Remember you are no longer a woman of Earth now. More leg extension. That is behind you. You are now only a Gorean slave. Good. You are not even a person any longer. You are now only a lascivious animal that exists only for the pleasure of men. Only an animal. Do not forget it. But an incredibly desirable animal. Lift your hand more piteously. Good. The most desirable form of animal in existence, the female slave. That expression, improve it. Let it show that you beg a man for his touch. Do you beg a man for his touch?"

  "Yes," she cried, suddenly, "I do!"

  "Use the chain," I said. "It is on your neck. Use it! Use it in this mat dance." "Dance?" she wept.

  "Yes," I said, "You can consider it a dance. You can treat it as a dance. You are writhing for a master, pausing now and then to startle him with your beauty, on your chain. There is even music here. Feel it in your belly. Deep in your belly! Deeper! Yes! Yes!"

  "Take me!" she cried in English!" "I beg you to take me!"

  I took her in my arms, and kissed her. She was helplessly hot and open. "Oh, yes," she cried. "Now! Now! I beg it! I beg it!"

  "As a woman of Earth?" I asked.

  "No," she sobbed, "as what I am now, as a Gorean slave of her master!" Later I used her once more, this time on her belly, that she might not forget she was a slave, nor grow too proud. I then turned her to her back. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I am yours," she wept. "I want to live for you, and to serve you in all ways."

  I kissed her.

  "Buy me! she begged. "Buy me!"

  "I think you will one day, now that you have learned how to serve, find a fine, strong Gorean master," I said.

  "Then, I, an Earth woman, will belong to a Gorean," she said.

  "Yes," I said, "as do may others. And I think you will make him a splendid slave."

  "Yes," she whispered softly, "a slave."

  "You are a female of Earth," I said. "Such as you are fit only to wear the collars of such men."

  "I know," she said.

  "Aspire to nothing higher here," I said.

  "I do not," she said.

  "He would have you in no other way, of course," I said.

  "I know," she said.

  "Are you discontent?" I asked.

  "No," she said. "It is a thousand times better to be the slave of such a man than to be an Empress on Earth."

  I kissed her.

  "Nor would I wish to be had in any other way," she said.

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "Because," she said, "it is what I have now learned I am, a slave." I considered her softness and beauty, and her helpless, loving responsiveness in my arms. "Yes," I said. "You are a man's slave."

  "I do not dispute it," she said. "I learned it indubitably while finding myself helpless in your power. You have taught it to me, and the lesson can never be unlearned." I did not speak.

  "Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I think there are many slaves on Earth, only they have not yet found their masters. They do not yet wear their collars."

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "I think there are few men on Earth who can, or will, answer the cry of the slave in a woman."

  "Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

  "Why will they not do so?" she asked.

  "Perhaps it is too late for them to reclaim their manhood," I said. "Perhaps it is easier for them now, at this late date, their opportunities slipped away, surrendered to the enemies of manhood, to pretend to find it disgusting, or amusing."

  She sighed.


  "But here on Gor," I said, "have no such fears. Here, even for all their harshness, the cultures have not taken so unnatural, demeaning and debilitating a turn."

  "True," she said.

  "Here you will men such as you have only dreamed of on Earth," I said. "Yes," she said, softly.

  "Here you do not have to fear even initially that men will not answer the cry of the slave in you," I said. "You will probably not even have time for that. You will be too busy kneeling, and obeying."

  "True," she laughed, and kissed me. "Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "May I say something?" she asked.

  "Of course," I said. "But if I am not pleased with it I may beat you." "Of course," she laughed.

  "Do you recall that I expressed a wish that I be treated gently and with respect?" she asked.

  "Vaguely," I said.

  "I do not think you treated me too gently," she said.

  "Perhaps not," I said. She had been manhandled a bit, put where I wanted her, and so on, allowed to understand that she was an instrument of my pleasure.

  "And surely you did not treat me with respect," she said.

  "No," I said. "But then you are not the sort of woman who is to be treated with respect. You are a collared slave."

  "I wait for my master," she whispered.

  "I do not think, now, given the recent confirmation of these insights in you, you will have to wait long for your rightful chains, but, in the meantime, you will serve the customers in the Tunnels."

  "The customers!" she wept.

  "Yes," I said, and then I turned her over, putting her again on her belly on the mat.

  "Oh!" she said.

  "Yes, the customers," I said, "of whom I am one."

  "Yes, Master!" she said. "Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!"

  "Excellent," I said.

  I saw that her fingernails had scratched at the mat. I put my hand on the mat, near her face. The mat was damp there, from tears.

  "Master well knows how to use a slave," she said.

  "You yielded well," I said.

  "I cannot help myself," she said. "I am a slave."

  "And only that?" I asked.