by John Norman
"You could always, I suppose, put a bell and coin box about my neck and send me into the streets," she said.
"It is a thought," I admitted.
She made an angry noise, and we continued on, toward the river front.
"Have you a job?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"You must get one," she said.
"I expect that would be advisable," I said. I supposed I might work as an oarsman or a dock worker. I was strong. It no longer seemed a good way to make money by challenging fellows in the taverns. One might respond with a knife or sword. Tonight my life had been saved by a dissolute fellow, a man called Callimachus, perhaps from Port Cos, farther west on the river, a derelict. Had it not been for him I would doubtless have been slain by the pirate, Kliomenes.
"We will need the money," she said.
I said nothing.
"You may call me 'Beverly'," she said.
"What about 'Veminia'?" I asked. The veminium is a small, lovely Gorean flower, softly petaled and blue.
"That is a slave name," she said. "That is what I was called in the house of Oneander of Ar."
"Most Goreans," I said, "would regard 'Beverly' as a slave name."
"What of 'Jason'?" she asked, angrily.
"I am sorry to disappoint you," I said, "but that is a not uncommon name on Gor, particularly, as I understand it, west on the river, and on the islands of Cos and Tyros."
"Oh," she said.
"Too," I said, "it is commonly regarded as the name of a free man."
"Oh," she said.
"Unlike 'Beverly'," I said.
"I see," she said, acidly.
"Beverly," I added.
"The name 'Beverly' may be worn as a free name, as well as a slave name," she said. "I shall wear it as a free name."
"Very well," I said.
"We shall have to make careful arrangements to govern our sharing common lodgings," she said.
"Of course," I said.
"I shall bathe first," she said.
"There is a small copper tub," I said.
"And each of us shall do his own share of the cooking, the cleaning, and the housework," she said. "Each will have full responsibility for his own portions of these labors."
"I am to work the day," I said, "and then, do half the work of the room or lodgings?"
"Do not expect me to perform menial labors for you," she said. "I am a free woman. I shall take care of my things. And you shall take care of yours."
"I see," I said.
"I trust your room is not in this dismal structure," she said, looking up at a swinging lantern hanging over an inn's threshold.
"Yes," I said.
"We shall have to do better than this," she said. I looked down at her. I considered tearing the sheet from her. I wondered what she would look like with a bell and coin box on her neck. Then I reminded myself that she was a free woman, and that she was from the planet Earth, my old planet. She was not a Gorean girl, but something nobler and finer, an Earth woman.
"You did not even pay a full silver tarsk for me," she said, looking up at me, angrily. "There were girls who were sold for as much as two or three silver tarsks."
"They were very beautiful women," I said, "and some were of high caste, two were exquisitely trained pleasure slaves."
"Surely I was worth more than any of them," she said, petulantly.
"Are you angry?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I am worth much more than ninety-eight copper tarsks."
"I am not sure you are worth ninety-eight copper tarsks," I said.
She cried out with anger.
"If you had been worth a silver tarsk in a Gorean market," I told her, "you would have brought a silver tarsk in a Gorean market."
"You are hateful!" she said.
"You are not a silver-tarsk girl," I told her.
"Hateful!" she said.
"I do not think you are worth two copper tarsks," I said.
"Beast!" she said. "Beast!"
"Remember," I told her, "you have no Home Stone."
"What are you telling me," she asked, "that I keep a civil tongue in my head?"
"It would not hurt," I told her.
"Oh, yes!" she said. "I know! I have no Home Stone! You might just tear the sheet from me. You might just throw me down in the threshold, on the stones, under the lantern, and rape me, and re-enslave me!"
"I could!" I said, angrily.
"You would not dare," she said.
"Do not tempt me," I said, in fury.
"You are too weak to treat me as a woman, and a slave!" she said.
I seized her by the upper arms, under the sheet, and shook her, violently. "Oh," she cried, "please, Master, be gentle!" Then she looked at me, frightened.
"The word 'Master' came easily from your lips," I said.
Quickly she pulled the sheet back about her. She looked down.
"Forgive me," I said. "I'm sorry. I behaved like a cad."
"Am I in danger, Jason?" she asked.
"No," I said, "of course not."
She looked up. "I am a woman of Earth," she said, "not a Gorean girl."
"I am well aware of that," I said. "I am really very sorry."
"I know that you will not treat me with power, and strength," she said.
"Forgive me," I said. "I had become angry."
"You are a man of Earth," she said, "and are decent and kind. You are tender and gentle. You are accommodating and wish to be pleasing. Remember that women have nothing to fear from men such as you. Keep that clearly in mind."
"Forgive me," I said. "I am very sorry."
"In the future," she said, "keep your hands off me."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I am a person," she said.
"Of course," I said. "I'm sorry."
"I am not a pleasure toy," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry." How grievously I had insulted Miss Henderson!
"Tonight," she said, "when I was being displayed before Gorean buyers, did you see me move in certain ways, and cry out in certain ways?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"Put such things from your mind," she said. "The auctioneer, the beast, caught me off guard. His action took me by surprise. He did not permit me to be myself. I am stronger than that, as you will learn. It was like another girl, a slave girl, who moved like that, and cried out like that. Have no fear. The delicious pleasures which may have been suggested by her movements or cries will not be yours."
"I see," I said.
"I am not a licking and kissing pleasure girl, one who can scarcely control herself and fears the whip."
"I see," I said.
"I shall endeavor to see that I am fully worthy of your respect, and of my own respect, as a free woman."
"I understand," I said.
"Let us go inside now," she said. "The room must be properly partitioned."
"Are you not grateful that I rescued you from bondage?" I asked.
"I am extremely grateful," she said. "You have no idea how wonderful it is to be free. It is just what every woman wants."
"You have not much expressed your gratitude," I said.
"And how do you, a man, suggest that I express it?" she asked, acidly.
I looked down, reddening.
"I am not a slave, Jason," she said. "I am a free woman."
"I understand," I said.
"Is that why you bought me," she asked, "that I, a weak, silly woman, overwhelmed with gratitude, would grant you my favors?"
I did not raise my head.
"Favors which you were too weak to obtain in any other way?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"But do not think I am not grateful," she said. "I shall teach you how to be a true man, solicitous and tender, and that sort of thing."
"I see," I said.
"Do not touch me!" she said.
I drew back. "Permit me to kiss you," I said. She was so beautiful.
"No," she sai
d. "I am not a pleasure object."
"I'm sorry," I said. Again I had insulted Miss Henderson. It seemed I could do nothing right with her.
"But I am grateful," she said. "You may give me a small kiss, a quick kiss."
I touched her cheek with my lips, kissing her.
"It is enough!" she said. My hands had tightened on her arms, under the sheet. "You are very strong, Jason," she said. I had lifted her to her toes and, holding her, pressed her back against the door to the inn. She looked at me, frightened. I saw her lovely cherry lips, the small, fine white teeth behind them. I considered administering to her the kiss of the master to the female slave. "No!" she said.
I held her, my own hands trembling, power in my body.
"I am a woman of Earth," she said. "You are a man of Earth!"
I held her.
"Do not rape me, Jason," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. I put her down.
"Beg my forgiveness!" she said.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry!"
"Never look at me again like that, with such lust and power," she said. "I am a woman of Earth!"
"Forgive me," I said.
"I see it will not be easy to teach you to be a true man," she said.
I shrugged, angrily.
"But I think you will learn, Jason," she said. "You are a man of Earth."
"Perhaps," I said.
"We must now go inside," she said. "The room must be properly partitioned."
"Please let me kiss you," I said.
"It has been a trying day for me," she said. "I am weary. Surely you must understand."
"Please," I said.
"After what happened a moment ago," she said, "I do not think I will permit you to kiss me again for a very long time, if ever."
"Perhaps you will permit me to kiss you from time to time," I suggested, "just to keep me performing properly."
"Perhaps," she said, angrily. "We shall see."
"Please, Beverly," I said.
"No," she said.
"Please," I said.
"I am weary," she said. "And I have a headache."
"Let us remain here but a moment longer," I said.
"It is growing chilly here," she said. "And I do not feel well."
"Please," I said.
"Do not be insensitive, Jason," she said. "I have told you that I have a headache."
"I did not mean to be insensitive," I said. "Forgive me." I wondered what she would look like naked, tied at a slave ring, being lashed.
"We must go in now," she said. "In the morning you must rise early. You must buy me clothing and go to the market. You must then find work."
"Yes, Beverly," I said.
I held the door open for her and she preceded me inside. The innkeeper looked up from behind his counter, puzzled that a woman such as she was not heeling me.
I indicated the stairs, and she preceded me up the stairs.
"We shall certainly have to find better lodgings than these, and soon," she said.
"Yes, Beverly," I said.
The stairs were dark, save for small, trembling yellow pools of light, cast from flickering tharlarion-oil lamps.
I considered her ankle as she ascended the stairs before me. It had not looked bad in the shackle at the market. Too, I recalled the moment in the taxi cab, long ago, before I had lost consciousness. She had been lying on the back seat of the cab, her legs drawn up. I had seen her ankle then, too. I recalled thinking then, too, that it would have looked well in slave steel.
11
Peggy
"I will use the one in that alcove," I said to Tasdron, flinging down a tarsk bit on the stained counter.
"She is yours," said Tasdron, wiping a paga goblet with a large, soft cloth.
I strode across the floor of the tavern of Tasdron and entered the alcove. The blond girl knelt there, nude, against the back wall of smooth, rounded red tiles.
I turned about and buckled shut the heavy curtains of the alcove, and then again faced her.
Her wrists, by several narrow loops of red leather, on each wrist, were tied to iron rings on each side of her body, a little below the level of her shoulders. The former customer had left her tied in this fashion, not bothering to release her. I was just as well pleased. I wished to interrogate her. She knelt on red furs. The light was from a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp in the alcove. Tasdron's collar was on her throat.
"Master?" she asked, pressing back against the rounded, red tiles.
"Do you recall me?" I asked. "Do you recall I was the fellow who challenged in this tavern, and who was threatened by Kliomenes, the pirate, the fellow who was saved, happily, by one called Callimachus."
"Yes, Master," she said. "I was here. I remember. He is Callimachus, of Port Cos."
"He was once of the warriors?" I asked.
"It is thought so," she said. "So it is said among the girls."
"Have you seen me before?" I asked.
"It does not seem possible, Master," she said. "I am only a slave."
"It seemed to me, before," I said, "that you reacted to me as though you might once have seen me, as though I might be somehow familiar to you."
"It is true," she said. "It seemed to me that, somehow, I had seen you before. Yet I do not see how, actually, that could be. I am only a miserable slave."
"Were you always a slave?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I was once free."
"On Gor?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. She smiled. "I am afraid that women such as I are slaves on Gor."
"Where were you free?" I asked.
"On a far world," she said.
"Where slaves are not enslaved?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she smiled.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Peggy," she said, "if it pleases Master."
"That is an Earth-girl name," I said. "Are you from the planet Earth?"
"Yes, Master," she said, "but please do not whip me. It is not my fault that Earth is my planet of origin. I will try to be pleasing to you."
"Earth girls make excellent slaves," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"Do you speak the Earth language, English?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I, too, speak English," I said. "Let us converse in that tongue."
"Yes, Master," she said, in English.
"What was your Earth name?" I asked.
"Peggy," she said. "Peggy Baxter."
"Where did you work?" I asked.
"In a city called New York," she said, "as a hat-check girl, at a restaurant."
"Yes!" I said. "That is it!"
"Master?" she asked, frightened.
"I had thought I had seen you," I said. "It was there."
"There?" she asked.
"You wore black, low-cut shoes, with high heels, without strap or ties," I said.
"Pumps," she said.
"You wore black-net stockings or panty hose," I said. "You wore a black miniskirt, and a long-sleeved, smooth, white silk blouse, open at the throat. You had a black ribbon for your hair."
"Panty hose," she said. "But they were taken from me."
I nodded. Gorean men seldom permit a slave shielding for her warm intimacies.
"Apparently I was not the only one who saw you there," I said. "Some other, or others," I said, "must have seen you as well, and adjudged you worthy to be brought to Gor as a slave girl."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I commend their judgment, and taste," I said.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"How is it that you were originally captured on Earth?" I asked.
"After work, late," she said, "I left the restaurant. A cab was nearby. I thought myself fortunate. I entered the cab. It was a specially designed capture vehicle. I found myself helplessly sealed within it. Gas entered my mobile prison. I lost consciousness. I did not recover consciousness until I found myself chained in a girl-dungeon on Gor.
I awakened to the whip and the hands of a brute upon me. I swiftly learned I was a slave."
"I think that I myself, and a friend," I said, "were captured by the same cab, the same devices." I recalled that the cab driver, in the garage, had said that he had another pickup to make that night. His next pickup, doubtless, had been the lovely, long-legged Miss Baxter.
"Did you get off work at two A.M.?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "How did you know?"
"I heard the pickup of someone referred to who got off work at two A.M.," I said.
"Doubtless it was I," she said, shuddering.
"I think so," I said.
"Master speaks English fluently," she said, apprehensively. Her hands twisted in the straps.
"Were you brought to the House of Andronicus, in Vonda?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "where I was given rudimentary slave training and learned a smattering of Gorean. I was sold in Vonda to a taverner in Tancred's Landing. Tasdron saw me there and fancied me. He bought me and brought me here, where I now wear his collar." She looked at me. "Is Master a slaver?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"How is it that Master speaks English?" she asked.
"It is my native tongue," I said. "I was brought to Gor, rather accidentally, as a slave. I became free."
"Master is cruel to tease a miserable slave," said the girl.
"How am I teasing you?" I asked, puzzled.
She laughed. "Do not expect me to believe that Master is a man of Earth," she said. "I am not a fool."
"I am from the planet Earth," I said.
"You are cruel to a miserable slave," she said.
"Why do you not believe I am from Earth?" I asked, puzzled.
"You are not pathetic and weak," she said. "And your eyes, they look at me, and see me as a female slave."
I smiled. Indeed, she was beautiful.
"The men of Gor," she said, "are strong. They are not weak and divided against themselves. They are not tortured. They are integrated and coherent, and proud. They see themselves in the order of nature. They see females as females, as slaves, and themselves as men, as masters. If we do not please them they punish us, or slay us. We quickly learn our place in the order of things. Only where there are true men can there be true women."
"But you are a naked and collared slave," I said, "bound in a paga tavern."
"I am a woman," she smiled, "something that I never was, truly, on Earth."
"I see," I said.