Players of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “But there is no hurry about such matters,” I said.

  “Beast!” she said.

  “Kneel here, facing the door,” I said. “And wait.”

  “You will return promptly,” she said.

  “I expect to be back by evening,” I said.

  “By evening!” she exclaimed.

  “Will it be necessary to kick your feet from under you, and strike you,” I asked, “as one might a slave whose compliance has been foolishly less than instantaneous?”

  She knelt, braceleted, hooded, in the narrow space between the two bunks, facing the door.

  “Which bunk is mine?” she asked.

  “Neither,” I said, “yours is the floor.”

  I slid a bowl against her leg. “You feel that?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “What is that for?”

  “Can you not guess?”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “If the wagon is soiled in the least,” I said, “I will not be pleased. You will be whipped, and it will be with your hair, as rag and brush, that the least sullying, stain or taint will be scrubbed away, thoroughly rinsed and cleansed.”

  “I cannot see,” she said. “I am hooded!”

  “That will make it more challenging,” I said.

  “I shall endeavor to be neat,” she said, angrily.

  “You are a free woman,” I said. “You may do as you wish.”

  “You are leaving,” she said.

  “I shall be back in some Ahn,” I said.

  “And how am I to greet you upon your return?” she asked.

  “On your knees, of course,” I said.

  “As a slave greeting her master!”

  “I see you are intelligent,” I said.

  She jerked at the slave bracelets, angrily. She squirmed, in fury, on her knees. I saw her head jerk in anger inside the improvised hooding. Then, suddenly, her demeanor changed. “Sir, noble sir,” she purred.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Fetch slave wine if you must,” she said. “But hurry. I am ready to pay for my lodging, to give you whatever rent you may exact.”

  “I shall be back in a few Ahn,” I said.

  “I see!” she snapped.

  “Then you will be put about your duties.”

  “My duties?”

  “As I suggested earlier, fetching water, gathering firewood, and such.”

  “There are slaves in the camp who can do that!” she said.

  “You will assist them,” I said.

  “It is not in such a way that I anticipated paying for my lodging,” she said.

  “You will pay for it in many ways,” I said. “Late tonight, after your chores are done, if I am not too weary, and after you have imbibed your slave wine, I shall subject you to a peremptory usage.”

  “Monster! Beast! Tarsk! Sleen!” she cried.

  I then left the wagon, padlocking it shut behind me. In a moment or so, retrieving the plate, I rejoined Boots near the fire. He was still eating. I am not clear whether this was a third breakfast, or a mere continuation of a somewhat prolonged second breakfast. In the case of Boots, such distinctions would occasionally prove difficult to draw. “The free woman has been fed,” I announced.

  “It is just as well,” said Boots. “It is nearly time for lunch.”

  Boots was given to such jocular hyperbole. It was actually several Ehn until lunch time.

  He gazed at Lady Telitsia. She wavered, slightly, and caught herself. I feared she might faint with hunger.

  “May I speak, Master?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She put her head down to the dirt. Her wrists were still tied before her body. “I beg food, Master,” she said.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “How long has it been since you have eaten?” inquired Boots.

  “Since dawn, yesterday,” she said, “when I, only a lowly slave, and the other woman, she noble and free, were fed in the brigands’ camp.”

  “You probably are hungry then,” said Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do you beg on your belly?” inquired Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, putting her bound wrists forward and lowering herself to her belly. She lifted her head. It was at Boots’s knee.

  “Speak,” said Boots.

  “I beg food,” she said.

  “Speak more clearly,” said Boots.

  “Lady Telitsia begs food at the hands of her master,” she said.

  “Turn to your side,” said Boots.

  She then lay on her left side. Boots then, delicately, carefully, bit by bit, by hand, fed her. After a time he let her kneel near him and then he continued, bit by bit, little by little, to feed her from his hand. She looked up at him, from the palm of his hand, which she had been licking. She looked up at him in gratitude. It was on him that her food depended. Boots then piled a plate with food and put it down before her. “Head down,” he cautioned her. “Do not use your hands.” She then put her head down and ate from the plate, not touching it with her hands. Finally she was even licking at the plate. She, like the free woman, the Lady Yanina, had been ravenous. Boots then took the plate from her. “Kneel there,” he said. She knelt immediately, obediently, where he had indicated, facing him. “Thank you, Master.” she said, “for feeding me.”

  “What do you think?” asked Boots.

  “A pretty slave,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she whispered, trembling.

  From her reaction I conjectured she was a virgin.

  “On your back!” said Boots. “Put your hands over your head! Throw your legs apart, widely!”

  “What do you think?” asked Boots.

  “She is clumsy,” I said, “but she is prompt and earnest.”

  “I cannot even use her in a girl tent now,” said Boots, gloomily. “They would demand their money back. She is desperately in need of training.”

  “I think she will learn quickly,” I said.

  “She will, or she will be regularly lashed,” said Boots.

  “You will prove to be an apt pupil, will you not, Lady Telitsia?” I asked.

  “I will struggle to learn!” she said. “I will do my best to please my masters!”

  “You will prove to be an apt pupil, will you not, Lady Telitsia?” I repeated.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Kneel,” said Boots.

  Swiftly she scrambled to her knees.

  Boots regarded her. “I suppose you will prove to be troublesome,” he mused, grimly.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Or you will fail to be fully pleasing, and it will be necessary to sell you for sleen feed,” he said.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “You have dared to beg food,” he said. “You grow bold. Doubtless next you will wish a scrap of blanket for the girl wagon, or next even, outrageous effrontery, a brief rag to conceal some bits of your beauty, at least provisionally, from the eyes of men.”

  “Let it be done with me as my master desires,” she said. “I am his slave.”

  “The slave’s response seems suitable,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” admitted Boots, grudgingly. “Lift your wrists,” he said to the girl.

  She did so, putting her head down, between her then-lifted arms. Boots removed the thongs from her wrists. “Put your hands on your thighs,” he said. He then regarded her, kneeling naked, frightened, before him, her hands on her thighs. Her knees were pressed closely together. This is a natural, defensive posture in a new female slave.

  “Perhaps, later,” said Boots, “when you have had more training, I will permit you to kneel with your knees spread.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “—Widely,” he added.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Are you not grateful?” inquired Boots.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.
“Thank you, Master.”

  The position was that of the pleasure slave. It symbolizes her vulnerability. It makes clear the sort of slave she is.

  “Now seek out Rowena, the blond slave,” said Boots. “I am using her now as first girl in the camp. She will put you about your duties.”

  “Yes, Master,” said the girl, rising.

  “Slave,” called Boots.

  “Yes, Master?” said the girl, turning, and dropping again to her knees, addressed by a free man.

  “On second thought,” said Boots, “go to my wagon, there. Enter it. Inside, facing the front of the wagon, kneel down, putting your head to the floor. I think I will begin your training.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and leaped up, hurrying to his wagon, to obey.

  “It seems we will not be leaving this camping area today,” I said.

  “Tomorrow will be soon enough,” said Boots.

  I had, of course, not anticipated that we would be moving so soon, perhaps not even tomorrow. Would you have moved today, if you just acquired a slave such as the former Lady Telitsia? Surely it would be preferable to begin her training, and familiarize her to some extent with what it is to be handled by masters.

  That would be far better than sitting on the wagon box of a theater wagon, urging on recalcitrant tharlarion, separated by several feet from such a slave, following, back-braceleted, chained by the neck to the back of the wagon.

  Boots then rose to his feet, belched, spit on his hands, wiped them on his tunic, and stalked slowly, ponderously, like a good-natured, rotund draft tharlarion, perhaps having eaten too much, toward his wagon.

  I summoned Rowena and the Bina to me.

  “Do not do a great deal of work this afternoon,” I said. “Leave much of it until evening.”

  The girls looked at me, and at one another, puzzled.

  “Yes, Master,” said Rowena.

  “Yes, Master,” said the Bina.

  They, as slaves, knew enough not to ask for an explanation of this seemingly peculiar command. To be sure, both, clearly, were curious as to its motivation. A Gorean saying has it that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, but, of course, kajirae, as any member of their wonderful, beautiful sex, are extremely, delightfully inquisitive creatures. Their curiosity is one of the things that makes women both dear and troublesome. A free woman might have asked for some explanation of the command, and with tenacity, and with impunity, but a slave, equally or more curious, would not be likely to do so, fearing to be put head down on her belly over a trunk or saddle. “Is curiosity becoming in a kajira?” inquires the master. “No, Master!” is the response. Then the switch falls smartly across her fundament. The question is usually repeated three times, each time receiving the same response, and followed by the same swift admonitory stroke. Punishments may, of course, be various, and more severe. Usually, of course, one simply reminds her that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira. As kajirae are usually quite intelligent a word to the wise is usually sufficient. If it is not, there is always the switch or, in serious cases, the lash. It is amusing to sense a slave trying to ferret out information, indirectly, with seemingly irrelevant remarks or observations, or such. Apparently, for some reason, ignorance of one thing or another can be very disturbing for a female, sometimes seemingly excruciatingly so. I suppose this is a tribute in its way to their intelligence, as well as to their charming nosiness or busybodiness. But let them be kept in ignorance. Do not assuage their excited female curiosity; rather, keep it tantalizingly unsatisfied. Indeed, is the light-hearted, nonchalant infliction of this exquisite torment on slaves not one of a master’s many pleasures? It is acceptable, of course. They are in collars.

  Later, that evening, I would return to my wagon. I would climb the stairs in a normal manner, certainly without stealth, and would make it a point to noisily remove the padlock from the door, and let it fall back against the side of the door, suspended on its short chain. I would wait a long moment before I opened the door. A slave, like a sleen, tends to recognize, and be alert to, the tiny sounds, his step and such, which might betoken the approach of her master. I could not, of course, expect that degree of awareness from a free woman.

  One expects very little of a free woman. One expects a great deal of a slave.

  To be sure, the Lady Yanina, as instructed, would greet me on her knees, as though she might be a slave welcoming her master. I had required that. Accordingly, if she were not in that posture when I opened the door, she would be whipped.

  In a moment or two I, too, had left the gray, smoldering ashes of the breakfast fire behind me.

  I would reconnoiter the neighborhood.

  Warriors do this, much as a matter of habit.

  Too, I wanted time to think, about Port Kar, about Priest-Kings, about a knife, about Brundisium.

  I would be back toward evening.

  I would then release the Lady Yanina from her constraints, and turn her over to Rowena and the Bina. Either would be as first girl to her, and both would be armed with switches. I thought this would be an excellent experience for a free woman, to be under the command of slaves, and, too, of course, it would be a pleasant experience for the slaves. Seldom would a slave have a free woman so at her mercy. Little love, as you might suppose, is lost between free women and slaves. An additional pleasure for me was that the Lady Yanina was no ordinary free woman, for example, one of low caste, accustomed to manual labors. She had probably never before, in all her life, dirtied her hands, fetched upon command, gathered wood, tended fires, cooked, aired blankets, made up bunks, washed and ironed, carried water, cleaned harness, or fed and scrubbed down tharlarion, such things.

  Meanwhile I would locate some slave wine in the camp.

  Among my things in the wagon, incidentally, was an article which I thought the Lady Yanina might recall, if reluctantly. I had brought it from her camp.

  It had a special meaning for me.

  And I could see that it would have one for her.

  After her labors of the evening I would have her precede me into the wagon.

  After all, a kettle-and-mat girl is not simply a kettle girl.

  The article I mentioned a moment ago was the light, colorful scarf which had signified the gift of her “favor” in Port Kar, that which had been used to identify me for her men, I, unwittingly, like a fool, wearing it, as a capture badge, about the carnival.

  Folded, in its length, held in place by a knotted string, it would make an excellent slave strip, tucked over the string in front, drawn back and behind, and put over the string in the back, the whole then being yanked snugly tight. This would be her garmenture in the wagon, when I permitted her garmenture. I would also have her wear it sometimes in the camp, making certain that the camp knew its significance. It would be unfair, surely, to confine that delicious intelligence merely to the Lady Yanina and myself. Soon, she would envy the camp slaves the relative modesty of their brief tunics. And soon, I expected, she would learn to beg prettily for the restoration of the sack gown for which she had hitherto expressed such disdain. I would probably permit this. She was, after all, a free woman.

  Many would be the trials, tasks and labors, of diverse sorts, to which the lovely Lady Yanina would be set.

  It is pleasant to teach obedience to a woman.

  When I was through with her the Lady Yanina would have learned to obey.

  Afterwards, at night, I would chain her by the neck to one of the two slave rings in the wagon, one at the foot of each bunk.

  It is pleasant to have a beautiful woman, naked, lying on the floor near you, chained to the slave ring at the foot of your couch.

  A slave would be best, but the Lady Yanina would do.

  11

  The Lady Yanina Is Included in the Act

  “You cannot do this to me!” cried the Lady Yanina.

  “Behold,” called Boots meaningfully to the crowd, “not a slave, but a free woman!”

  “Stop!” cried the Lady Yanina. “I
am free! Save me! Someone save me!”

  “Should we attempt to rescue her?” asked one stout youth of another.

  “Do not be silly,” said his fellow. “It is all part of the act.”

  “Of course,” agreed the first. “How stupid of me to fear otherwise.”

  “Help!” shrieked the Lady Yanina.

  I now fastened Lady Yanina’s left wrist in its place on the colorful red, trimmed-in-yellow, backboard. I had already buckled her right wrist in place.

  “Gather around, good friends, good people,” Boots encouraged the crowd. “Look closely upon her. Examine her!”

  The crowd, thus encouraged, pressed in about us.

  “See her throat,” cried Boots. “It is innocent of the collar! See her thighs! No brand is upon them!”

  The crowd pressed closely about, some of the men skeptically, roughly, examining Lady Yanina for slave marks. Certainly her costume, incredibly brief and brightly spangled, bared most of the common brand sites utilized by Gorean slavers in marking women.

  “Help!” cried the Lady Yanina. “Help!”

  “You are doing very well,” I congratulated her.

  “I am not acting!” she cried. “Help! Help!”

  One of the men pulled the top edge of her lower garment out and down a bit from her body, peering within. “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “She is not branded on the lower left abdomen,” he informed the crowd.

  I desisted from buckling her right ankle in its place on the backboard while a fellow checked the backs of her legs. She cried out in misery. “There is nothing here,” said the fellow. I then fastened her ankle in place.

  “Oh!” she cried. The fellow who had checked her lower left abdomen was now expanding his explorations to check her buttocks. “Stop!” she cried.

  “There are no brands here,” he said.

  “Interesting,” said a man.