Rogue of Gor

by John Norman

  "The bath is finished, Master," said the girl, standing before me.

  I jerked loose the yellow cord from her hair. I then, with the cord, tied her wrists behind her back. I thought it well that she should feel herself tied.

  I then threw thick love furs at the foot of the couch. She heard them. I lifted the chains there and put them on top of the furs.

  I then conducted her to a place at the foot of the couch. She stood there on the furs. Often slave girls are not permitted on the couch. They are used at its foot. I took the steel collar, the rounded, narrow metal loop, with its lock, which she had brought with her into the room. I snapped it about her throat. It fitted closely.

  "I am now a collared female," she said. I walked away from her, and placed the key among my things.

  I returned to her, then, and looked at her. Gorean men truly look at women, and they know themselves looked at, truly.

  "My brand," she said, "is the common Kajira mark. I hope it pleases Master." I regarded it, the staff and fronds, delicate and incisive, beauty subject to discipline.

  Quickly I snapped my fingers, sharply. She knelt immediately on the furs, among the chains. She knew well where she knelt. She knelt back on her heels, spreading her knees.

  I then sat on the edge of the couch, at its bottom, the palms of my hands resting on its furs, and looked upon her.

  I wanted to howl with pleasure.

  Beverly Henderson, naked and bound, knelt before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.

  "Master?" she asked.

  I noted that she had assumed the position spontaneously. That interested me.

  "Master?" she inquired.

  I knew that come what may I must have her, and have her well. If she were not sent forth in the morning, perhaps bruised and sobbing, as a well-ravished slave, the men of the holding of Policrates, and its master himself, would grow thoughtful. My failure to subject her uncompromisingly to the predations of my mastery would be certain to generate suspicion. The true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, I knew, would be expected to handle women well.

  She pulled at the loops of braided yellow cord which held her well.

  "Master has not deigned to speak to me," she said. "Am I to be whipped? Am I not pleasing?"

  I did not, of course, as was my intent, respond to her.

  "Is Master not going to rape me?" she asked. "Did Master not select me out from the other girls for his pleasure?"

  She squirmed, miserably, before me.

  "Perhaps I am not pretty enough now for Master," she said, "now that he has seen me closely. I know that I am not as beautiful as many of the girls. I know that they say that I am not a good slave, and that I am not well broken as yet to my collar, but I will try to please you well."

  It interested me to hear her speak. She spoke as might have a slave. Did she not know she was from Earth?

  "I cannot dance," she said. "And I do not know the love songs of slaves."

  I said nothing.

  "They have not taught me to dance," she whimpered, "nor have I been permitted to learn the desire songs of heated slaves."

  I said nothing.

  "What does Master want of me?" she asked, piteously.

  I did not respond to her.

  "I acknowledge you as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard," she said. "I acknowledge you as a great and important man. And I acknowledge myself as only a miserable slave. It is a great honor for me that you have selected me out, from the others, to be sent to your chambers this night, to serve you." She looked toward me, piteously, though she could see nothing in the dark confines of the blindfold. "I will try to be worthy of your choice," she said. "I will try to please you."

  Again I did not respond to her.

  "I am frightened!" she said. "Obviously I must not be pleasing to you. Then whip me, and call for another girl!"

  I did not move.

  "But you are not at this moment whipping me," she said, "nor calling for another girl. Now I am truly frightened, for I know that, somehow, now, you must find me pleasing, or of interest. But I am terrified that a man such as you might find me pleasing, or of interest. What will he do to me? Oh, please, Master, speak to me! Let me tell, if only by the tone of your voice, what are your intentions with respect to me! Oh, I am so helpless! I am so helpless!"

  I regarded her, and the steel collar on her throat, placed there by my own hand.

  "I am so helpless," she wept.

  Then she tossed her head, and smiled. "You have me at something of a disadvantage, Master," she laughed, "for whereas you may see, I am blindfolded, and whereas you are free, I am kneeling collared, nude and bound." Her lower lip suddenly trembled. "Please, speak to me, Master," she begged.

  She was very beautiful.

  She squirmed in the loops of yellow cord holding her wrists behind her back.

  "I understand," she said, "why I must be blindfolded, that you have doubtless here, in the privacy of your own chambers, removed your mask. I am not to be permitted to see the face of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, no more than others, even though I am only a lowly slave. Who knows through what sales or changings of hands a girl who is mere property such as I might pass? You cannot risk that I might, someday, somewhere, if only by inadvertence, perhaps by a startled cry or gesture, or a too-eager licking at your feet, compromise your secret."

  I was interested that she had spoken, and naturally, of the licking of feet. That sort of thing is common in a slave girl. Did she not know she was from Earth?

  "But you cannot even speak to me, Master?" she begged. "Ah!" she said. "That you do not speak to me must also be intended to conceal your identity! You would not wish me to be able to recognize even your voice!" She trembled. "Or is it, rather," she asked, "that I am so low a slave that you do not concern yourself even to speak to me?"

  I smiled. Whereas the frightened, deferential slave had not recognized me sitting regally with Policrates and Kliomenes in the feasting hall, in the robes and mask of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, I did not doubt but what she might quickly recognize my voice.

  "I have it, Master," she said, happily. "If you do not speak to help protect your identity, touch me once upon the left shoulder. If you do not speak because you regard me as only a contemptible slave, unworthy to be spoken to, touch me once upon the left arm."

  She lifted her body, tensing to see where she might be touched.

  "Please, Master!" she begged.

  But I did not move.

  She then knelt back, on her heels. "I see, Master," she said, miserably. "Not even that is to be made known to me." She shuddered. "Do you not know how terrifying it is to be in a room, blindfolded, with one who does not speak to you? Ah, perhaps you do!" She smiled. "You well know how to treat a slave, Master," she said.

  I was interested to note that she spoke of herself, naturally, as a slave.

  "But yet," she said, "you are permitting me to speak. You have not struck me to silence, nor put a block of wood in my mouth, or gagged me. I may gather, then, that at least until I feel your blow, or the lash of your whip, that you wish to hear me speak. But why would this be? What could I, a mere slave, have to say that might interest you?"

  She pulled at the cord loops. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  "How am I different from the other girls?" she asked herself, aloud, thinking.

  "Of course!" she said, suddenly, delightedly. "Now I have it! I am the only Earth girl in the holding! They told you I was from Earth, didn't they! You are not familiar with Earth girls. That intrigued you! They must have told you. You did not take me in your hands and force open my mouth, to look for bits of metal in my teeth. I do not think my accent betrayed me, for there are many barbarian accents on Gor, and I speak Gorean excellently."

  I smiled, the vain little thing, but it was true that she did speak a liquid, fluent Gorean. Her linguistic skills in this respect, and I have unusual aptitude in such matters, approached my own.

  "That my masters call me 'Beverly'," she sai
d, "would not in itself tell you that I was from Earth. Not unoften Gorean girls, particularly if they are to be consigned to a low slavery, are given such names. Perhaps, then, you might have seen the tiny scarring high on my left arm. It is called a 'vaccination mark.'"

  I smiled. Such marks, and fillings in the teeth, are used by slavers as almost infallible signs of Earth origin. And woe to the girl who has them, for she is almost certainly then to be marked out for heavier chains and more ruthless treatment.

  "But, on the whole," she said, "I think it most likely that you were merely told that I was from Earth. This, then, you found of interest. You decided, then, that it was to be I who would come to your chambers this evening. Did you wish merely to see if we, being lower, were juicier puddings than our Gorean sisters, or, beyond this, as a matter of curiosity, did you wish to learn something of our nature?"

  It amused me that Miss Henderson had used the graphic Gorean expression that she had, an expression almost always applied to a slave, a hot and helpless lay. From my own experience I did not think Earth girls were juicier puddings, so to speak, than Gorean girls, nor, really, that Gorean girls tended to be juicier puddings than Earth girls. It is true, of course, that the slave tends to be a far juicier pudding, so to speak, than the free woman of either world. Some Earth girls are marvelous in the furs, and some Gorean girls are. Much depends on the individual girl. This is to be expected, of course, for all Gorean girls, as far as I know, have ultimately an Earth origin. I think it is true, however, that an Earth girl may sometimes have an extra dimension of lovely, yielding slavishness in her, which is perhaps natural, considering the sexual desert from which she has been rescued. She can remember her loneliness and frustration, how she, a slave, languished in a world where she could find no masters. Such women, in time, find themselves overwhelmed in gratitude for the collar. For the first time, in spite of the world from which they come, they are forced to become true women. Thus they find fulfillment, and joy. To the Gorean free woman the joys of the slave girl, though they may be despised and disparaged, are at least culturally not unknown, and are the envy of such free women. To the Earth woman, on the other hand, who finds herself in the collar of a Gorean master, such joys come as a revelation. Only in her wildest and most secret dreams had she dared even to suspect their existence. Then she finds herself a slave girl.

  "I think," said Miss Henderson, "that it is your intention to try me, to try me out, to sample an Earth girl, to see if we might be of interest, but as of yet, in spite of my helplessness before you, you have not done so. Further, you have permitted me to speak. I gather, thus, that you will use me when it pleases you and, in the meantime, that I, though only a slave, am to speak before you." She smiled. "I shall do so, Master."

  It was natural for her to think that I, whom she believed to be Gorean, would be interested to hear of her world, and of the nature of the female slaves taken from it. Earth slave girls are controversial on Gor, though I think they are now more accepted than formerly. Some men have a taste for Earth females. Other men will not even own them. A not uncommon task for an Earth female on Gor is to attempt to secure the affections of a Gorean master who regards her as nothing and despises her. For months, through assiduous application, through attentiveness and study, through a selfless love and service, such a woman may labor to convince the brute who owns her that she is worthy to wear his collar. Then perhaps one day he looks down upon her kneeling before him. His hand touches the side of her head. Was it a gentle gesture? She takes his hand and presses her lips, sobbing, fervently to it. He takes her by the arms and presses her back, gently, to the tiles, a love slave. When he is finished with her he takes his whip and orders her to her knees. Perhaps he strikes her, perhaps he puts the whip to her mouth, and she kisses it. Well then does she know she is still a slave. He turns away. She, kneeling, her head down, smiles shyly, happily.

  "My name was Beverly Henderson," she said, "and I am from a world called Earth. Doubtless you have heard something of it. I assure you that it exists. I was captured there by slavers and brought to Gor, that I might wear a collar and learn to serve true men—such as you, Master, who are so strong that you have stripped me, and bound me and put me at your feet, your slave." She smiled. "No man of Earth," she said, "is strong enough to do that."

  I smiled.

  "The women of Earth," she said, "are starved for strong men. I cannot tell you the restlessness, the misery and frustration they feel. The men of Earth are not true men. Perhaps once they were, long ago, but that is now history. Now they are weak and ineffectual. Manhood among them is measured by its lack. No longer are they capable of true manhood."

  I doubted what she said, but, surely, I had no intention of explicitly gainsaying her. I thought it best to let her speak.

  "Females," she said, "are the natural property of men such as Goreans, not of men such as those of Earth. It is men such as Goreans, and not men such as those of Earth, who recognize the meaning of our beauty and simply take us, and make us serve them. But I have bathed Master and now kneel naked and bound before him. I tell him nothing."

  She squirmed in the close confines of the loops of braided yellow cord. They held her well.

  "I was taken to the House of Andronicus, in Vonda," she said. "There, with other girls from Earth, more than fifty of us, I was branded. I remember one of the girls, pulled sobbing and in pain from the rack, crying out, joyfully, "I am a slave girl!" How startling, and strange, seemed her cry. Yet I, too, later, after I had screamed and sobbed, and had been pulled, my thigh stinging from the iron, from the rack, and found myself alone, chained on the straw by the damp wall, was filled with strange emotions. Though I could scarcely admit it to myself I knew, with wild, strange feelings, that I was glad that I, too, had been branded. "You were born for the brand," I whispered to myself, "and now, incomprehensibly, wonderfully, on this strange world, it has at last been put upon you. In your pain, rejoice, Slave Girl. You are now publicly marked, clearly and incontrovertibly, as what in your secret heart you have always been. Serve your masters well, Slave Girl."

  I sat on the couch. My fists were clenched. Did she not know she was from Earth!

  "Most of us, of course, including myself, dared not yet admit we were pleased with our brands. We lamented together, pretending to bemoan the misery of our plights. Our masters, of course, did not give us a great deal of time to indulge our self-pity. We must be prepared for markets. We were then separated and sent to different training rooms. There I was forced to kneel, and was put in a house collar. I was then chained at a ring and given my first whipping. Thus did I learn what the lash might feel like upon me, and that I was under discipline. My slave reflexes were tested and found, as is the case with most Earth females, initially inert. Held on my knees, my head held back, my nose pinched shut, my mouth forced open, slave wine was poured down my throat. I must needs swallow. I was then hooded and men were called in, who abused me, as it pleased them. Then, a day later, still hooded, I was returned to the central dungeon."

  She paused. "I have not been struck," she said. "Therefore I gather that I have Master's permission to continue."

  "How beautiful you are," breathed a girl in the dungeon to me, when I had been unhooded. "How beautiful you are," I whispered, seeing her. "Were you whipped?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "I, too," she said, head down. I looked about the dungeon, at the girls there. How soft, and beautiful they were, in their collars. The collar, as Master well knows, considerably enhances the beauty of a woman. "Were you raped?" asked the girl, a lovely blonde. "Yes," I said. "They used me well." "I, too," she said. "I enjoyed my rape," said a redhead, collared, in an ankle ring, and chain, lying near us in the straw. "Slave!" hissed another girl to her. "Yes, slave," smiled the redhead. My intimacies sprang aflame when I heard her words. How bold she was! I myself would not have dared to admit such a thing to another woman! What might she think of me? I had not even, scarcely, dared to admit to myself, or recall, that in the arms of the fifth man m
y body had clasped his, and my arms, and I had, in the darkness of the hood, a moaning slave, subdued, cried out with pleasure. Then, too soon, they had been finished with me. That night I had lain in the darkness of the hood, hungry, recollecting the sensations they had induced in me. Now, though I could scarcely admit this to myself, I feared, and feared correctly, that the first fires of a slave's passion had been ignited within me. I had known that I was a slave, and a true slave, before they had touched me, but I had not known, until they took me in their arms, how helpless and low a slave I could be."

  I could scarcely believe my ears. It seemed that Miss Henderson, without thought, before me, was confessing herself a slave. She was from Earth!

  "What is to be done with us?" asked one of the girls. "I think we are to be readied for markets," said another girl. There was then a beating on the bars of the dungeon and we knelt. A man entered, with a whip. Our training began."