by John Norman
He then did know, of course, that I had been at the wall. Indeed, he had doubtless, perhaps to his amusement, seen me there. What power in the garden did this give him over me! But who such as he needed any further power over one such as I? Did not, if not he, then his kind, already possess absolute power over one such as I!
"You are not going to cry out, are you?" he asked.
I moved my head, wildly, not so much in negativity, as in helplessness, and frustration.
"I am known in the house," he assured me.
But that did not entitle him, surely, to enter the garden! To be with one of us, as he was!
"Very well," he said. He reached down, beside me, to my discarded silk, and folded it several times. It was so light that even with several folds, it was not bulky. These layers of silk, folded neatly into a flat rectangle, he thrust crosswise in my mouth. Partly now they were back, between my teeth, my teeth closed on them, and partly, in front, those folds, they protruded from my mouth. I could feel them, between my lips. They extended an inch or so beyond my lips.
"You may recline," he informed me.
I lay back, terrified.
Did he not know this was the garden? Did he not understand the danger?
"It is said," he remarked, "that one such as you might be hot."
Why had he phrased that in such a fashion? Those such as I might well be "hot"! That was not unusual. Indeed, we had better be, if we knew what was good for us! If we were not sufficiently hot, or sufficiently pleasing, we could expect to be whipped, or worse! We were not the sort of women who could use our favors, or the coolness of our responses, to achieve our own ends. Those weapons, if weapons they were, were no longer at our disposal. We had been disarmed. If wars were involved here, women such as I had clearly lost them. We had been defeated, utterly. We were now the helpless, obedient conquests of men. But, more importantly, we were, it seems, women like us, selected with various parameters in mind, such as intelligence, beauty, and heat. Then, too, we were placed in a situation where reservations, qualifications, inhibitions, compromises, and such, were simply not permitted. And our natural heats, which are in all of us, were brought forth, and encouraged, and even trained. They were fanned into flame, until we found ourselves their victims and prisoners, frequently, helplessly, profoundly, periodically, recurrently dependent upon men for their quenching. And in this place I had been muchly kept from satisfaction. I had often begged to be put forth for use, to lie chained between the tables for the use of guests, to be fastened even to a bench in the garden, my use a gratuity for those who worked there, or to be sent, gratefully, ecstatically, back-braceleted, a sheet over me, to the quarters of guards, but the one who was first amongst us, who seemed to hate me, for no reason I could understand, had, almost invariably, to my pain and my misery, to my suffering, denied me these things.
I looked back, wildly, frightened, to the height of the wall, above and behind me. I feared a guard might make his rounds, that he might see!
Then he who was with me touched me, gently.
I reared half up, helplessly, a wild cry stifled by the wet silk I clenched between my teeth. He placed his hand over my mouth. Then he removed it. I had been unable to help myself. I looked up at him, piteously, tears in my eyes. I lay back, but whimpered, pleadingly. I lifted my body to him, beggingly. I looked wildly up at him, half in astonishment, half in supplication.
He seemed pleased. "Yes," he said, rather as he had when he had noted the lovely mark, incised on my thigh. It would not come off, of course. It had been put there, in me, over a period of a few seconds, with a white-hot iron.
I tried, helplessly, to press my body against his hand.
What cared I now for my questions, what mattered it if I understood him or not, if I fathomed his presence here, or what he wanted, or even if his interest in me might, frighteningly, be more than that of one such as he who had, in a garden, encountered one such as I.
I whimpered piteously, begging him, looking up at him, my teeth clenched on the silk, my body lifted.
I writhed, touched.
Again I lifted my body, begging.
But I was not touched. Tears welled in my eyes. Surely I was not to be tortured!
I whimpered, pleadingly.
I knew what could be done with me. He must not torture me! He must not torture me!
I looked up at him. All was in his hands.
I sobbed gratefully, entered.
I clutched him. On my left ankle were golden bangles. On my left upper arm, there was a golden armlet. On my right wrist were two narrow golden bracelets. They made a tiny sound as I clutched him.
I did not think he would take long with me.
Surely he would know the dangers of the garden.
I clutched him. I held to him, fiercely, with all my small strength.
He would be soon done with me.
I was only a girl in a garden.
I held to him, fiercely.
I wanted to savor every sensation, every feeling, every tiny movement. I was grateful, such as I was, for whatever crumbs might be thrown to me.
I looked at him, pleadingly, over the sopped gag in my mouth.
My eyes begged him not to stop.
I wanted more, more! I could not help myself!
Then I suddenly feared he might cry out. Sometimes such men, in their joy, in their ecstasy, roar like beasts! His cry might bring down the guards upon us!
I looked at him, frightened, my teeth clenched on the silk. He must not cry out!
I shook my head, wildly.
But he paid me no heed. His eyes were fierce. I might have been nothing in his grip!
Then I began to feel my own helplessness.
I knew that I was but a moment from being again conquered.
How piteously I looked up at him, and how well, I am sure, he read my helplessness.
He paused.
I tried not to move.
I tried not to feel.
I looked at him.
He must not tell that I was near the wall! He must not tell that I was near the wall!
I had been quiet and obedient.
I had not cried out.
I had not called for guards.
Was I not pleasing him?
He must not tell that I had been by the wall!
What more could I do?
He must be quiet.
He must not make noise.
This place was not safe.
How long had we lain together?
Did he not know that we could be seen from the wall?
I feared that guards might see!
The rest period must be nearly over.
Others will be coming into the garden.
What if the one who was first amongst us should come to the garden?
What if we should be discovered?
But it was the helplessness which precedes the yielding.
All was in his hands.
I moaned.
I looked up at him.
He had brought me to the point where he could do with me what he wanted.
I was now his.
How it must amuse them, and please them, I thought, to have such power over us! But I clung to him in my helplessness. He could do with me what he wished. All was in his hands.
Oh, let him be merciful! Let him be merciful!
How they can wring from us our surrender!
Let him be kind! Oh, please, be kind! Please be kind!
He looked down at me, I fastened in his arms.
With my eyes I begged him, piteously.
I wondered suddenly if he had come to steal me, or one like me. To pluck a flower, to seize, and make away with, a luscious fruit of the garden? But such things are almost impossible to do. To be sure, sometimes a flower would disappear, but then so, too, usually, would have a guard, or member of the staff. That was dangerous, but possible. But he was not of the house, or of the staff, or the guards, I was sure of that. How, thusly, without the knowledge of th
e house, without the keys, the passwords, perhaps even friends within, could he hope to get me over the wall, or through the gate, past the guards? How could he even hope to ascend the wall himself, with the incurved knives at the summit? But he had said he was known in the house. Could that be true? If that were so, then I supposed that he might, quite unlike one such as I, simply take his leave. Perhaps, waiting, he had wandered into the garden, to pass the time. He might then have seen me by the wall, and, perhaps taken with my beauty, as some men were, decided, on a whim, to accost and enjoy me.
How hateful he was!
But now I was his.
Helplessly!
He had brought me to this point.
He could now do with me what he wanted.
But I knew in my heart that I had wanted him perhaps a thousand times more than he had wanted me.
He was a man of this world, and the sight of one can wrench out our insides.
We are made for such men.
He moved slightly.
I whimpered, begging.
I sensed whispers of the yielding, tiny whispers, becoming more insistent.
Already I was within the throes of the helplessness, that helplessness which precedes the yielding, which heralds its proximity, which warns of its imminence, that helplessness which sometimes seems to hold one fixed in place, where one, as though chained to a wall, knows that there is no escape, which sometimes seems to place one on a brink, bound hand and foot, in the utmost delicacy of balance, at the mercy of so little as the whisper of another's breath.
I bit on the silk.
He moved, slightly.
I whimpered, gratefully, eagerly.
I looked up at him.
No heed did he pay me.
I clutched him.
How could I be brought more closely to the yielding?
I wanted it!
My eyes begged it.
I thought I heard voices from the house. I groaned.
Was this some torture to which he was subjecting me?
It may as well have been, so helpless I was, so much at his mercy.
To be sure, I was nothing, only a girl in a garden.
I had, of course, in chains, and in ropes, learned what such as he could do to me, how they could bring me again and again, gently, surely, cruelly, as it might amuse them, to such a point, to such a delicate, exact point, to the very threshold of release, to the very edge of ecstasy, to where I was only the cry of a nerve away, begging, and then, if they wished, simply abandon me there, letting me try to cling there, in place, until, protesting, suffering, weeping I would slip back, only after a time, if it might again amuse them, sometimes with so little as a few deft touches, to be forced to begin again the same ascent. Considering such power held over us by men, it is perhaps clearer now why women such as I strive desperately to be pleasing. Not all instruments of torture are of iron; not all implements of discipline are of leather. An analogue may be noted, of course, between such torture and the treatment often inflicted upon the males of my old world by women of my old world, in pursuit of their own purposes. But such matters need not concern us here. Rather they lie between the women of my old world and the men, or males, of that world. Here, as you might suppose, such techniques are not at the disposal of women such as I. The prerogatives of such torture, if it is to be inflicted, lie not in our hands but in those of men. We have been vanquished. I would not have it otherwise.
I heard again the sounds of voices, from the house. The rest period must be over!
I looked wildly, frantically, at he in whose arms I was captive.
He looked down upon me.
It was as though I was helpless, chained to the wall, at his mercy. It was as though I were on the ledge, bound hand and foot.
He moved, slightly.
And then suddenly there was a different helplessness, one which seemed for an instant to recognize, and then flee in terror before what could not be stopped. And then it was as though it stood to the side in awe.
I clutched him!
It was the yielding, and that of one of my kind!
Again and again I wept and sobbed.
No longer did I then, in those moments, care for the danger, or whether I cried out, or if he cried out, or about the guards, or who might enter the garden! Nothing mattered, nothing was real but the feeling, the sensations, the moment!
I only then became aware of the might of him, too, as though molten, charged and flooding, within me.
I held to him.
He looked down at me.
My surrender, I gather, had been found satisfactory.
I did not want him to let me go, but, too, I was terrified now. We were in the garden!
I tried to pull back, a little bit. Did he not know the danger?
He pulled the wet silk from my mouth. He lifted it a little, to the side, and the folds fell out, and he dropped it to the grass, beside us.
I was helpless, of course, pinioned. And then, again, he had both his arms about me.
I could not now understand his expression, as he looked down upon me.
"In the house, where you first trained," he said, "did those there speak as I do?"
What had this to do with anything? Did he not understand the danger?
I could not move. I was helpless in his arms.
I wanted to flee, and yet, too, I wanted to remain there, held. He had had me, and now was interrogating me. What was his intent regarding me? How much at his mercy I was! Clearly his interest in me was more than a fancy of a moment, a whim in a garden. I was frightened. He had put me to his pleasure almost casually because I was there, a matter of convenience. But his primary interest in me, I was certain, went well beyond the gratification and entertainment, slyly stolen, he might derive from one of a garden's casually encountered, exquisitely figured, frightened, helplessly responsive flowers. I had been put to his pleasure almost as a matter of course. Now that he had done with me, he returned to his questions. Well then was I reminded of my own triviality and meaninglessness.
How helpless we are!
"They spoke the language," I said. Here when one spoke of "the language" it was well understood what language was meant. Of course, those where I was trained spoke "the language." They were not barbarians. It was I who was the barbarian.
"No," he said. "I mean their accents."
"They spoke the language differently," I said.
"Did you recognize their accents?" he asked.
"No," I said.
To be sure, I had heard such accents here and there, after having left the pens, and had heard them even, sometimes, though rarely, outside the wall, but I did not know what accents they might be. Indeed, I had heard a variety of diverse accents on this world.
My fears flooded back, again, upon me. What could be his interest in such matters?
"Turn your head from side to side," he said.
I obeyed, held, frightened.
"Your earrings are pretty," he said.
They were tiny, and of gold. They matched the bangles, the armlet, the bracelets.
"They contrast very nicely with the darkness of your hair," he said.
I looked up at him, pleadingly.
I did not understand him.
Of course he knew I was a pierced-ear girl, with all that that, on this world, implied. He would have known that before he had ordered me to disrobe.
He must release me!
No, he must continue to hold me, if only for a moment!
No, no, he must release me!
We were in the garden!
Did he not realize the danger?
"Were your ears pierced when you came to our world," he asked.
"No," I said.
"They were pierced in the pens?" he asked.
"No," I whispered.
There was, at the pens in which I was first trained, I had learned, an additional charge for that, as there would have been for the piercing of the septum, permitting the insertion of a nose ring.
"Not there!" I said.
He looked down at me.
"I do not know what you want," I wept. "I am not special," I protested. "I am not different from thousands of others."
He drew back a little, and surveyed me. "Do not underestimate yourself," he said. "You would bring a quite good price."
I regarded him, in anguish.
"But, essentially," he said, "what you say is true. You are, in your essentials, in what you are, no different from thousands of others."
"Please let me go!" I begged.
"But that would have been to have been expected," he said.
"Please," I begged.
He looked up.
"Please!" I begged, squirming, twisting.
"Ah!" he said, suddenly.
But I had not meant to excite him!
But then again I felt him surgent within me and found myself again, even as I heard approaching voices, put to his purposes.
I then clung again to him, sobbing, helpless.
Did he not know the danger?
He looked at me, suddenly, fiercely. "Are you Janice?" he asked.
"I am Gail!" I said. "Gail!"
"Have you ever been called Janice?" he asked.
"No!" I said.
"Are you lying?" he said.
"No!" I said.
"Do you know the penalties for one such as you who lies?" he asked.
"Yes!" I moaned.
"But you are not lying?"
"No!" I said.
"Do you know a girl, one of your sort, who is called 'Janice'?"
"No!" I wept. I had been told how I must respond to such questions, if they were asked.
"Have you ever been to the city of Treve?" he asked.
"No! No!" I said. I had been warned of the possibility of such questions. I had been instructed as to how to respond. To be sure, it had not seemed likely to me, nor, I think, to those who had instructed me, that I would ever find myself in a situation in which I might be expected to respond to such inquiries. How could such matters be of interest to anyone? Why should such information be regarded as sensitive, or confidential? These things made no sense to me. I understood nothing of them. Perhaps those who had instructed me were mad. I knew nothing of interest or importance to anyone. I was not important. I was not special. I was no different from thousands of others, save, perhaps, in being such that I might, in certain situations, bring a higher price than certain others.