by John Norman
I shook and shuddered beneath the attentions of the slave girls. I pulled against the chains. I could not free myself. I writhed and twisted in the chains, helpless before my enemy, being aroused for his amusement.
"Please him, Beverly," he said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I looked at her. I remembered her from the restaurant, long ago, the svelte, off-the-shoulder, white, satin-sheath gown, the candlelight, the beaded purse. I saw her lower her head, the dark hair falling upon my body. I saw the close-fitting steel collar on her throat. Then I felt her lips upon me.
"Oh," I said. "Aiii!" And I cried out with humiliation, and shame, and with rage, and pleasure and joy.
I looked at Beverly. I knew her from Earth. She was to me the most exquisitely beautiful and sexually exciting girl I had ever seen. On Earth I had never kissed her. On Earth I had scarcely dared to touch her hand. Here, on Gor, she was a slave. Here, on Gor, unquestioningly, commanded by her master, she had pleasured me, and well. I had learned on Gor, in the secrecy of a chamber in the holding of Policrates, when posing as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, that she was a true slave. I wished that I had known that on Earth. It might have made quite a difference in our relationship. She drew back her head, angrily. I regretted only that it was not I who owned her. "I hate you," she whispered. Yes, she was a true slave. I determined that she would one day wear my collar, that one day it would not be Policrates, but I, who would own her. I remembered the wench from the restaurant. Yes, it would be pleasant to have her at my feet, on this barbaric world, collared and branded, as a helpless Gorean slave girl.
"Take him, and chain him to the windlass," said Policrates. "And let us hope, for his sake, that the courier of Ragnar Voskjard is not harmed."
The girls drew back from me, and stood to one side. Two men began to unfasten the manacles at my wrists. "You pleasured him well," said the red-haired girl to Beverly. "Yes," said Bikkie. Actually she had done so too swiftly. I would instruct her in the proper pleasurings of a master, when I owned her. "It is humiliating to be forced to give pleasures to a man of Earth," said Beverly. "He seems strong and handsome," said the red-haired girl. "I do not think I would mind being his slave," said Bikkie. "You do not know him as I do," said Beverly. "I despise him. He is a weakling, and a man of Earth. We are the rightful properties only of men such as those of Gor."
My hands were manacled behind my back. The shackles on my ankles were then removed, and I was dragged to my feet.
Policrates was talking with Kliomenes.
"You received pleasure from what you did, did you not?" asked the red-haired girl.
"The only pleasure I received," said Beverly, "was in being obedient to my master's command."
"You received pleasure beyond that," said Bikkie. "I saw."
"No!" said Beverly.
"You swallowed, did you not?" asked the red-haired girl.
"I had to," said Beverly. "I am a slave girl."
"You are so low," laughed the red-haired girl, "that you could receive pleasure from even a man of Earth!"
"No!" said Beverly.
"We saw!" laughed Bikkie.
"No!" said Beverly.
"Even if he is from Earth," said the red-haired girl, "he is handsome and strong."
"I think," said Bikkie, "too, that there might be a master in him."
"Not in him," sneered Beverly. "If he owned you, the first thing he would do would be to free you."
"Free us?" laughed the red-haired girl.
"Free us?" asked another of the girls, amused, touching her collar.
"What man does not want a beautiful slave?" asked Tais.
"He must indeed be stupid, or a total fool," said another girl.
"Men are the masters, and we are the slaves," said another girl, "does he not know that?"
"He knows nothing," said Beverly, tossing her head.
"I do not believe you," said Bikkie.
"He once freed me," said Beverly.
"If he owned me," said Bikkie, "he would not free me. He might give me away, or sell me, but he would not free me."
"Why?" asked Beverly, angrily.
"I am too desirable to free," said Bikkie.
Beverly, with a cry of anger, drew back her hand to slap at Bikkie, but another girl seized her hand, that she could not do so. "Do not fight, Slave Girls," said one of the men about. "Yes, Master," said several of the girls.
"Master," said Bikkie, approaching me. "If you owned me, would you free me?"
"No," I said.
"May I ask why not, Master," she inquired.
"Surely," I said.
"Why not, Master?" she asked.
I looked at Beverly, but spoke to Bikkie. "Because you are too desirable to free," I told her.
Beverly looked at me in fury, and Bikkie turned to her in triumph. "See?" asked Bikkie. "There are slaves, and slaves, it seems!"
"So it seems," said Beverly. I smiled inwardly. Should she come again into my power let her try to break the chains in which I would put her.
"Have you ever been mastered, Beverly?" asked the red-haired girl.
"Of course. Many men have mastered me," said Beverly. "I am a slave girl."
"To me," said Bikkie, "you seemed a true slave girl, fully, only when you had emerged from the chambers of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard."
Beverly smiled. "It was he who first fully mastered me," she said. "He was fully dominant over me. He was overwhelming, and I nothing, only an amorous, compliant, frightened slave in his arms. I had not known such a man could exist. He made me weep myself his, it seemed a hundred times, in his arms. That night I was devastated, and taught my collar. It was in that night that I first truly learned my womanhood, and my slavery."
"I see that you have never forgotten him," said one of the girls.
"No," she said.
"Do you love him?" asked the red-haired girl.
"Yes," she said. I was pleased that she had said this. To be sure, I had made her yield, as the slave she was.
"Perhaps sometime you will be his," said one of the girls, softly.
"He did not try to buy me, nor did he ask Policrates to give me to him," said Beverly. "To him I am only another female slave, a meaningless slut, doubtless already forgotten, with whom he pleasured himself one night in a strange holding."
"It is sometimes hard to be a slave," said one of the girls.
"We are all slaves," said another girl.
"The masters are all, and we are nothing," said another.
"Yes," said another.
"I will take our fleet east on the river," said Policrates to Kliomenes. "That will discourage interference from towns east on the river."
"Yes, Captain," said Kliomenes.
Policrates then turned about and regarded me. "Do not look for pretty slaves in the chamber of the windlass," he said.
I was silent.
"Oh, Beverly," said Policrates.
"Yes, Master," said the girl, hurrying forward and falling to her knees before him.
"Earlier," said he, "you hesitated, if only briefly, in carrying out a command."
"Forgive me, Master," she begged, turning white.
"Leading position," he said.
Sobbing, she rose to her feet, and put her head down, at what would be the height of a man's waist, her legs flexed. A guard walked over and fastened his hand in her hair. "Have her whipped," said Policrates. "Yes, Captain," said the man. He then left the chamber, pulling the girl, sobbing, at his side. I was pleased to see that Policrates was a strict master. The girl was, of course, guilty. She had clearly hesitated in carrying out a command. How can a girl expect such laxities to go unnoticed, or unpunished?
Policrates then nodded to the men who held me. "Take him away," he said.
I was then dragged from the room.
31
The Chamber of the Windlass;
I Begin to Put my Plan into Effect
"Cease your lying!" cried the pirate. "Put your bac
k into it!"
"Yes, Captain," I said to him, though surely he was not a captain.
The whip cracked across my back.
I, sweating, chained, pressed my bare feet against the flat, wooden slats nailed on the large, raised wooden disk, the treading platform, some five feet above the floor, encircling the windlass. I could hear the chain turning on its winding axle below the level of the platform. The gate is raised by muscle power, abetted by two heavy, drumlike weights which partially balance its weight, transmitted to the windlass by means of metal windlass poles, or bars, these being used to rotate the windlass. The gate, which is heavier than the drumlike weights, has a gravity descent. In lowering the gate the windlass, under the control of its workers, serves primarily as a brake, sufficing to regulate the speed of its descent. The principles and gearing of the windlass, which is an upright windlass, are analogous, of course, to those of the capstan.
I pressed against the heavy metal pole, or bar, almost five inches in diameter, fixed now, like a spoke, in the shaft of the windlass. My neck, in its collar, by a chain, was fastened to this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some eighteen inches of play for my feet. I had some twenty-four inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner security and the degree of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.
"Push!" cried the pirate.
Again the whip struck across my back. I thrust again against the bar. The whip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and there were cries of pain, and the sounds of men moving in chains. There were five large poles, or bars, set in the windlass. At each, five men, chained as I was, labored. These poles may be inserted into the windlass and, if one wishes, removed from it. When inserted into the windlass they are normally locked within it, as they were now, by a pin-and-lock device. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserted within the windlass or not. When moving about, the pin-and-lock device opened, the men will carry the pole with them. When the pole is on the ground, and not lifted, one can rise no higher, of course, than on one's knees, with one's head deferentially lowered.
"Push, push! Move!" called the pirate.
The lash struck amongst us.
As the windlass turned slowly, creaking, we heard, too, overhead and to the side, the movement and swinging of the great drumlike counterweights on their chains. Without these counterweights we could not have moved the sea gate.
I again felt the lash, as did the others, too. The pirate walked about us.
It is dim, and musty, in the chamber of the windlass. It can be hot during the day. My hands slipped on the bar. Then I had it again. Too, at night, it can be extremely cold. There was a smell of wastes in the chamber. Perhaps it would have been less unpleasant if our captors had permitted us clothing.
"Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike us again. The weights were now in motion.
There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass, save, I suppose, eating and drinking, and dreams. There is a shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice daily. Too, at the wall, we would be thrown crusts of bread, and scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of pirates, our captors. Then, at night, chained, cold, when we would fall asleep, we would have our dreams. These dreams would usually be of slave girls, soft and warm, luscious, licking and kissing in our arms. Then we would awaken, to the straw, to the cold, to the stones, to the damp, cold, heavy iron of our chains. There were no pretty slave girls in the chamber of the windlass, as Policrates had told me. But we had our dreams. One girl, more than any others, appeared in my own dreams, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, though she now appeared generally in my dreams not as the lovely, free Earth girl, Miss Henderson, but, under a variety of names, as a Gorean slave girl. When, in my dreams I would encounter a slave girl, perhaps suddenly turning to greet me; perhaps in a market, imploring me to buy her; perhaps on a rounded slave block, I with a purse of gold in hand, having ready the means with which to buy her; perhaps an escaped slave, pilfering in my compartments, then turning, then knowing herself caught; perhaps being pulled from a slave sack I had bought on speculation; perhaps drawn by the hair from the tent of an enemy; perhaps chained in the darkness, and then illuminated; it would generally, almost always, suddenly, somehow, seem she. "My Master!" she would say, knowing herself mine, acknowledging herself mine, kneeling before me. One dream I had had several times. We were having dinner in the restaurant, as we had had long ago. She was wearing the white, off-the-shoulder dress. She had the beaded purse. In the candlelight she was very beautiful. We finished the dinner, and our coffee, and I had paid the check. "Now take off your clothes," I told her. "I am going to make you a slave girl." "You cannot do that," she told me. "You are mistaken," I told her. "How can I be mistaken?" she asked. "It is very simple," I said. "You do not know the nature of men." "This is a public place," she said. "That is all right," I told her. She turned to a man at a nearby table. "He intends to make me a slave," she said to him. "That is all right," said the man. "You are a slave." "Strip now, and do not dally longer, Woman," I told her. Then, in my dream, slowly and gracefully, the clothing, put aside, seeming to float from her, Miss Henderson, standing beside the table, on the carpet of the restaurant, stripped herself. I then unbound her hair, so that it fell loosely, almost floating, about her shoulders. No one in the restaurant paid us the least attention. I then removed a black leather cord from my pocket and bound her small wrists behind her back. The ends of the cord were long, and fell to the level of the back of her knees. "Precede me now from the restaurant," I told her. "I wish to see how you move." She made her way between the tables. On the way out we passed the two women whom we had seen long ago in the restaurant. "My Master has tied me," she said to them, "Yes," said the larger of the two women. "Yes," said the smaller of the two women. As we approached the door of the restaurant we passed, on our left, the hat-check counter. "Excellent slave meat," said the blond hat-check girl, Peggy, behind the counter. "You, too," I told her, "are excellent slave meat." "My Master has not yet claimed me," she said. "Be patient," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. At the door to the restaurant we stopped. "On the other side of this door, at this moment," I told her, "is another world. It is called Gor. It is quite different from your old world. If you cross this threshold now, you will be in that world. Do you understand?" "Yes, Jason," she said. "And in that world," I told her, "you will be, legally and completely a slave." "Yes, Jason," she said. I then opened the door. Beyond that door lay not the bricks, the gutters, the dingy air, the hurrying of traffic, the triviality and misery, which had previously lain outside it, but now, as the door opened, we saw open fields, vast and green, and a sky that was gloriously blue, studded with scudding clouds. The air was gloriously fresh, pure and clean. She stepped across the dark, stained, flat board that marked the threshold of the restaurant, out onto the grass, into the sunlight and wind. "You have crossed the threshold into the world of Gor," I told her. She turned to face me. "Yes, Master," she said. I turned and closed the door, the dark, heavy door, with the rectangular panes of glass set in it, with the curtains behind the glass. As the door closed, it, and the restaurant, and its world vanished. I turned to face the girl. We were alone in the field, in the sunlight. "It is time to begin to accustom you to your slavery," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. "On your back, Slave," I told her. "Yes, my Master," she said.
"Do not slack, you Sleen," said the pirate, snapping his whip. "Work! Work!"
We had, in the last few days, many times raised and lowered the sea gate. I speculated that these activities were largely connected with the coming and going of scout ships, and supply ships and fitting vessels. Then, yesterday, the gate had been open for some four Ahn. I speculated that the fleet of Policrates was now abroad. In his own hall, when h
is girls had finished with me, making me yield in his presence, his enemy, for the amusement of himself and his men, I had heard him, as he had spoken to Kliomenes, declare an intention to move his fleet east. Now, I gathered, he had done so. Doubtless this was to discourage the formation of an alliance among the eastern towns, and to prevent ships being sent to stop or delay Ragnar Voskjard at the chain west of Port Cos.
"Keep moving," called the pirate. Again the whip cracked.
As I made my way about the windlass, treading the slatted, circular platform, with my fellow prisoners, thrusting against the metal pole, I saw, chained to the wall, and at one side, behind the water trough cut in the stone, their necks still fastened to their own poles, two other sets of prisoners. There are thus, in reserve, additional chained crews for the work of the windlass. Too, as was clear, no one at the windlass was indispensable. This comprehension doubtless played its role in keeping order amongst us. We knew that any one of us could be cut from his chains at the merest whim of our jailer.
"Hold!" called the pirate. We stopped, the gate lifted. He engaged the holding pawl. The gate would not now slip. The weights, overhead and to one side, swung on their chains. We reversed our position at the poles, stepping under them and then standing, turning the chain swivels, to which the chains on our collars were attached. We were now in position to brake the gate, in its lowering. I, then, like several of the others, the holding pawl now engaged, put my head down on the bar, resting. It is not easy to raise the gate. Outside I supposed that one or more ships, river galleys, might be gracefully entering or leaving the lakelike courtyard of the holding of Policrates. The signal to raise or lower the gate is given by a guard on the wall, at the west gate tower, one of two towers flanking the sea gate. It is a voice signal. Accordingly its authenticity is seldom in doubt. Anyone, of course, might strike on a bar or blow on a trumpet. The windlass apparatus was within the west gate tower.
It felt good to rest.
Yesterday the gate had been open for some four Ahn. I conjectured the fleet had left. Too, it seemed likely to me that Policrates would have accompanied the fleet. Indeed, in his hall, I had gathered, from what I had heard, that the fleet was to set forth under his personal command. The work afoot, thus, was doubtless too serious to be left now to subordinates. Kliomenes, I suspected, would then have been left in charge of the holding. That, at any rate, was my hope.