Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  Appanius went to the back, to complete the papers.

  The slave looked up at me while the retainers removed his chains, and the

  identificatory slave bracelet, of silver, which he had worn on his left wrist.

  The retainer also gathered up his clothing, the golden sandals, the purple

  tunic, the robe, with the hood. Such things I had not purchased. I had, however,

  anticipated such things, and had brought, among several other things, some

  suitable garments with me, from the insula of Torbon.

  “To whom do you belong?” I asked.

  “To you, Master,” he said.

  “Remain on your knees, slave,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  Lavinia looked wildly at me, and then at the slave. And he looked at her, and at

  me. They both knew that they were now of the same household. They both knew that

  they not belonged to the same master.

  In a few moments Appanius and I had concluded our business. The papers had been

  signed, and witnessed.

  Appanius, returned to the front room, looked down at the male slave. “Do you

  wish to beg the forgiveness of your former master for what you have done?” he

  asked.

  “No, Master,” said the slave. “Not for what I have done.”

  “I see,” said Appanius.

  “But I beg your forgiveness, if I have hurt you,” he said. “That was not my

  intention.”

  “As I have not been hurt,” said Appanius, “no forgiveness is necessary.”

  “Yes, Master,” said the slave.

  “I see that you are at last learning deference,” said Appanius.

  “Yes, Master,” said the slave. “Thank you, Master.”

  (pg. 431) Appanius then turned toward Lavinia. “You are a pretty slut,” he said.

  She threw herself to her belly before him, in terror. She looked well there, on

  the tiles, naked, the collar on her neck.

  Appanius, then, with a swirl of his robes, exited. He was followed by two of his

  retainers. The other two lingered, momentarily. Among them was the first

  retainer. “We have spoken among ourselves, the four of us,” he said. “We will

  give you a silver tarsk for Milo.”

  “You are very generous,” I said. “That is a considerable profit for me.”

  “You accept?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “There are free women in Ar,” I said, “who would pay a thousand pieces of gold

  for him.”

  The two retainers exchanged glances. It seemed I knew more of this fellow then

  they had understood.

  “Could you have afforded that much, Lavinia?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” she said. “I could not have afforded that much.”

  “Position,” I snapped.

  Instantly Lavinia rose from her belly to her knees, placing herself in a

  position common among Gorean pleasure slaves, kneeling back on heels, back

  straight, head up, palms down on thighs, knees spread.

  The male slave, gasped, seeing how beautiful she was, and how she obeyed.

  Perhaps then he sensed something of the pleasures of the mastery, what it can be

  to own a woman.

  “Do you dare to look at a female slave?” I asked him.

  “Forgive me, Master!” he said, lowering his head. Much had it doubtless cost him

  to avert his eyes from the beauty.

  “What of ten thousand pieces of gold?” asked the first retainer.

  “You have so much?” I asked.

  “I think we can raise it, forming a company to do so,” he said.

  “I do not think you could raise it in Ar today,” I said. “Perhaps a year ago, or

  two years ago.”

  “We have in mind contacting men in several cities,” he said, “even in Tyros and

  Cos.”

  “So much money would pay the mercenaries of Cos for a year,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I do not know.”

  “Not even Talena, in a golden collar, would bring so much,” I said.

  (pg. 432) “But she is a female,” he said.

  Actually I thought Talena might bring that much, not as a common slave, of

  course, but perhaps in some situation of great dignity, as, say, a stripped,

  chained Ubara, being bid on in a private sale, perhaps by the agents of Chenbar,

  the Sea Sleen, Ubar of Tyros, and Lurius of Jad, Ubar of Cos. It was my

  intention, of course, to see to it that she would become such that it would be

  unfitting for her to be accorded this dignity.

  “That is your price then?” asked the other retainer.

  “He is not for sale,” I said.

  “I see,” said the first retainer.

  “You will not get more,” said the other.

  “I do not expect to,” I said.

  “Appanius would not sell him either,” said the first retainer to the other.

  “But he did,” I reminded him, “for a tarsk bit.”

  The two retainers then, angrily, left. They left in the same fashion as had

  Appanius, and the other two, by the front entrance.

  “What time do you think it is?” I asked Marcus.

  “It is surely past the sixth Ahn,” he said. The fifth Ahn marks the midpoint of

  the morning, betwixt the Gorean midnight and noon, as the fifteenth Ahn marks

  the midpoint of the evening, between noon and midnight. There are twenty Ahn in

  the Gorean day, as time is figured in the high cities. These Ahn, in the high

  cities, are of equal length. In certain cities, interestingly, the length of the

  Ahn depends on the time of year. In these cities, there are ten Ahn in the day,

  and ten Ahn in the night, and, as the days are longer in the summer and shorter

  in the winter, so, too, are the Ahn. Correspondingly, of course, the Ahn are

  shorter in the summer night, and longer in the winter night. The day as a whole,

  of course, including both day Ahn and night Ahn, comes out to the same overall

  length as it would in one of the high cities.

  I looked down at the male slave.

  “You do not look well,” I said.

  “I am sick, Master,” he said.

  He had taken a splendid drubbing, to be sure.

  “Do you think that what has occurred here this morning is unaccountable?” I

  asked.

  “Master?” he asked.

  “That this is all a matter of chance, and unexpected?” I asked.

  “I do not understand, Master,” he said.

  “It is not,” I informed him. “You have been acquired as the result of a plan.”

  (pg. 433) He looked at me, startled.

  “You have been seduced,” I said, “that you would be brought into circumstances

  of great compromise, circumstances the outcome of which would be to bring you to

  your present condition, as my slave.”

  “Aii,” he wept.

  “The female slave, of course,” I said, “was acting under my orders.”

  He looked at Lavinia.

  “Have you received permission to look at her?” I asked.
r />   Quickly he averted his eyes.

  “You may look at her,” I informed him.

  He turned to Lavinia, stricken.

  “May I speak?” he begged.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you not care for me?” he asked the slave.

  “She had not received permission to speak,” I informed him.

  Lavinia looked at me, pleadingly, her lower lip trembling. I would permit her to

  speak later.

  “She is pretty, isn’t she?’ I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” he said, in misery.

  “She is a seduction slave,” I said.

  Lavinia sobbed, and shook her head. A tear coursed down her cheek.

  “Are you not, Lavinia?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she sobbed.

  “You should not object to this,” I informed the male slave.

  “You yourself, often enough, if I am not mistaken, have acted in the role of the

  seduction slave. Surely it is only fair that the tables have now been turned,

  and that it is you, so to speak, who now finds himself in the net.”

  He could not take his eyes from Lavinia.

  “She acted under your orders?” he said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  He moaned.

  “And is there not a rich joke her,” I asked, “for, as I understand it, it was

  you who, as a seduction slave, were responsible for first bringing her pretty

  little neck into the collar. It is not only fitting then that it be she, now a

  slave, whom I used for your acquisition?”

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  “Doubtless she finds her triumph rich and amusing,” I said.

  “Please, Master, may I speak?” begged Lavinia.

  “No,” I said.

  She sobbed.

  (pg. 434) “You did your work well, pretty little seduction slave,” I said to

  her.

  “Please, Master!” she begged.

  “No,” I said.

  “I had hoped you cared for me,” he said.

  She threw back her head in anguish.

  “I had hoped you cared for me,” he said. “I had never forgotten you!”

  She looked wildly at him.

  “You seemed so tender, so real, so helpless!” he said.

  “Surely, as one who has had, as I understand it, experience on the stage,” I

  said, “you can understand such things.”

  “She was responsive!” he said.

  “She had better have been,” I said. “Indeed, slave girls are trained to helpless

  responsiveness. They can juice, for example, in a matter of Ihn.”

  “She responded!” he said.

  “She is a slave,” I said. “She has strong and recurrent needs. Indeed, she is

  the prisoner, and victim, of such needs. Why should she not have utilized you to

  temporarily satisfy them?”

  “Please, Master,” wept Lavinia.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well did you trick me,” he said to the girl.

  She regarded him with anguish.

  “I do not blame you,” he said. “You must do as your master commands.”

  I smiled to myself, despite my remarks to the male slave, had little doubt of

  the genuineness of Lavinia’s words, her protestation, and such. The authenticity

  of a slave’s words and responses, of course, are attested to by numerous bodily

  ones, many of which are unaware of, and cannot control. A master who is alert to

  these can then determine, particularly over a period of time, whether or not the

  slave’s words, feelings and responses are genuine or not. The alternatives

  accorded to the Gorean slave girl are, in effect, to become an authentic slave,

  or die. Interestingly this understanding, particularly on the part of a woman

  who has been the victim of an antibiological conditioning program, as some Earth

  females, can be received as a liberating and joyful revelation, permitting them

  then in good conscience to yield at least, as they have long wished, to their

  femininity. Most women, of course, including most Earth females brought to Gor,

  as slaves, for that is the usual reason for which one is brought to Gor, do not

  need anything of this sort. Most are so joyful to find themselves on a natural

  world where their beauty, their dispositions and feelings (pg. 435) are

  meaningful, that they can hardly wait to fulfill their depth nature, to be at

  last the women they are in their hearts, and bellies, and have always desired to

  be.

  “She is not hard to take,” I said.

  “No, Master,” he said.

  “And if you had to be seduced,” I said, “surely you must not object to my using

  her for the purpose.”

  “No, Master,” he said.

  “Indeed,” I said, “perhaps you commend my perception, and generosity.”

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  “Now,” I said, “you both belong to me.”

  They looked wildly at one another.

  “And I expect, seduction slave,” I said to the girl, “that he will be good for

  your discipline. If you are not pleasing, perhaps I will throw you to him.”

  “Yes, Master!” she said. “Chain me, and throw me to him. Let me be his to do

  with as he pleases!”

  The male slave gasped, staggered with the thought of such power over the beauty.

  “But then, on the other hand,” I said, “I do not know if I would permit

  dalliance among my slaves.”

  He could not but drink in the beauty of Lavinia.

  “Look away from her,” I commanded.

  With a moan he averted his eyes.

  “To be sure, I might upon occasion,” I said, “let you look upon one another,

  each chained to an opposite wall, or perhaps I might even allow you each enough

  chain to approach, but not touch, one another. Too, of course, I might have you

  chained helplessly and then have her dance naked, in her own chains, before you,

  thence to be dismissed to her kennel.”

  He hung down his head, in misery.

  “No,” I said to Lavinia, reading her anguished expression. She put her palms

  down, again, on her thighs. Tears were upon her cheeks and breasts.

  “You noted when you saw her this morning, of course,” I said, “that she was not

  in seeming state garb.”

  “Of course, Master,” he said.

  “Nor in a collar, to be sure, one she could not remove, seemingly one of the

  state.”

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  “Did this excite your curiosity?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” he said. “As this was the morning of the putative assignation, I

  supposed it might be a disguise prescribed by her Mistress, that the curious, if

  they saw her in this (pg. 436) neighborhood, would not be likely to link her

  with the Central Cylinder.”

  “That was an intelligent conjecture on your part,” I said.

  “And doubtless one on which Master counted,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It d
id excite me,” he said, “to see her not in the drab state garb, but in the

  tunic she wore, with the disrobing loop.”

  “Did she drop the tunic well?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” he said. “She is a superb seduction slave.”

  Lavinia sobbed.

  The male slave looked up at me. “I am an actor,” he said. “Master does not

  appear to be of the theater.”

  “No,” I said. “I am not of the theater.”

  “I do not understand why master has brought these things about,” he said, “why

  he has brought me into his possession. Of what possible use can I be to master?”

  “Perhaps I could sell you to the quarries, or into the fields,” I said. “Perhaps

  I could take you to the Vosk, or the coast, and sell you to a captain. You might

  look well, chained to the bench of a galley.”

  “I do not think it was for such purposes that master purchased me,” he said.

  “You think you are valuable?” I asked.

  “Surely master thinks so,” he said. “I heard master himself conjecture that

  there were free women in Ar who would pay a thousand pieces of golf for me.”

  “And there are perhaps men,” I said, “who would pay fifteen hundred.”

  “Yes, Master,” he said, putting his head down, and clenching his fists. Then he

  looked up. “But master did not sell me, not offer me for sale,” he said.

  “But surely I have been purchased on speculation,” he said, “for resale?”

  “Do not concern yourself with the matter,” I said.

  “Does master intend to keep me long in his possession?” he asked.

  “Do not concern yourself with the matter,” I said.

  He looked at me.

  “Curiosity is not becoming in a kajirus,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” he said. This was a play, of course, on the common Gorean saying

  that curiosity is not becoming in a female slave, or kajira. One of the traces

  of Earth influence on Gorean, incidentally, in this case, an influence from

  Latin, occurs in the singular and plural endings of certain expressions. (pg.

  437) For example, ‘kajirus’ is a common expression in Gorean for a male slave as

  is ‘kajira’ for a female slave. The plural for slaves considered together, both

  male and female, or for more than one male slave is ‘kajiri’. The plural for