Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  The beast looked at me, and yawned. I saw the two rows of white fangs. Then, sleepily, it began to nibble at the fur of its right paw, grooming it.

  I saw that the chain was short, that it would not reach even to the center of the room.

  "Do not be afraid," again said the voice.

  I took a breath, with difficulty.

  Across the room, his back to me, bending over a shallow pan of water, with a towel about his neck, was a small man. He turned to face me. His face was still the painted clown's face, but he had put aside his silly robes, the tufted hat. He wore a common Gorean male house tunic, rough and brown, with leggings, such as are sometimes worn by woodsmen, who work in brush.

  "Good evening," he said.

  I shuddered. I did not move.

  His voice seemed different now, no longer the voice of the comical mountebank. Too, somehow the voice seemed familiar to me, but I could not recall if, or where, I had once heard it. I knew only that I was terribly frightened.

  He turned again to the pan of water on the table and began to wash the paint from his face.

  I could not take my eyes from the beast.

  It regarded me, sleepily, and returned to the grooming of its paw.

  It seemed incredibly huge, even more so in the small hut than earlier outside of Targo's compound. It was like a glistening, somnolent boulder of fur, alive, hundreds of pounds in weight. The eyes were large, black, round, the snout wide, two-nostriled and leathery. I shuddered at its mouth, and fangs, the upper two protruding downwards at the sides of its jaws. Its lips were wet from the saliva from its long, dark tongue, which, with its teeth, it was using to groom the fur on its right paw. The strike of those jaws could, with one wrenching twist, have torn away the shoulder of a man.

  I trembled, terrified, my back pressed against the rough boards.

  Elinor Brinton trembled, terrified, naked and bound, her back pressed against the rough boards, a cowering slave girl.

  The man finished with his washing. He put aside the towel. He turned about.

  I gasped.

  "Good evening, Miss Brinton," he said.

  And he had spoken in English.

  "You!" I cried.

  "Hello, Cookie," he said.

  "You!" I whispered. It was the smaller man, one of those who had originally captured me, and had bound me on my own bed, in my penthouse. It was he who had entered the syringe in my right side, in the back, between my waist and hip, drugging me. It was he who had touched me intimately, who had been warned away from me by the larger man. It was he who had taken my matches and cigarettes, who had leaned over me, and had blown smoke, as I had lain nude before him, bound and gagged, into my face.

  It was he who had so insulted me, telling me I would learn to crawl and beg!

  His ferret eyes regarded me, looking me over.

  "You're a pretty little cookie," he said.

  I could not speak.

  "Kajira!" he snapped in Gorean. Every muscle in my body tensed.

  He suddenly snapped his fingers and, in the swift double gesture of a Gorean master, pointed to a place on the dirt floor before him, almost simultaneously turning his hand, spreading his first and index fingers, pointing downwards.

  I fled to him and knelt before him, my knees in the dirt, in the position of the pleasure slave, my head down, trembling.

  That is how I had been taught to kneel.

  It was Targo's intention to sell me as a pleasure slave. That decision had alarmed me, but, too, it had appealed to my vanity, and I do not think I would have cared to have been sold as anything less. I was that attractive. Inge, too, interestingly, was to be marketed as a pleasure slave. I thought that she might best have been marketed as an instructress in calligraphy. There is no accounting for tastes, I supposed. Ute, of course, was a born pleasure slave. I wondered if I, too, so to speak, was a born pleasure slave.

  I now, commonly, knelt immediately, naturally, appropriately, gracefully, pleasurably, not thinking about it, in the position of the pleasure slave, but I did not do so now, for I was terrified. It was all I could do to avoid clenching my knees together, as though that pathetic little gesture would provide any defense against the forceful, dividing, booted sandal of a master.

  "It is interesting," he mused, "the effect of slavery on a woman."

  "Yes, Master," I whispered.

  "Excellent," he said.

  "The proud, arrogant, rich Miss Brinton," he remarked, speaking in English.

  "No, Master," I whispered, in English.

  "Are you not Miss Brinton?" he asked.

  "Yes," I whispered, "I am Elinor Brinton."

  "What is she?" he asked.

  "Only a Gorean slave," I said.

  "I never thought to have you at my feet," he said.

  "No, Master," I whispered.

  "It is not unpleasant," he said.

  "No, Master," I whispered.

  He went to a side of the room and picked up a small bench, which he brought forward and set before me. He then sat on this bench and, for some time, regarded me. I did not move.

  Then he rose from the bench and went again to the side of the room, where there was a pile of cut logs. He took one and put it on the fire at the side of the room, in a shallow, rimmed, stone hearth. There was a shower of sparks. Smoke found its way upward through a rudely fitted stone venting.

  I was tense, frightened. I did not move. He returned and sat again before me.

  Then he said, "Stand."

  Immediately I leaped to my feet.

  Slave girls do not dally in their compliance.

  "Turn," he said.

  I did so.

  "You turn well, as a female slave," he said.

  "Thank you, Master," I whispered. I had been shown how to turn before a man.

  To my surprise, he unbound my wrists. My hands were numb. I could scarcely move my fingers.

  He sat on the bench, and I stood before him. I rubbed my wrists and moved my fingers, trying to restore their circulation.

  He did not speak to me.

  I stood before him for a long time.

  It can be frightening to stand so, not spoken to, waiting, naked, a female slave, before a man.

  "Step back," he said.

  Terrified, because it brought me nearer the beast, I did so, trembling.

  "Attack!" he shouted in Gorean to the beast.

  It howled and lunged for me, jaws snapping, great black, furred arms grasping.

  I screamed hysterically and found myself in the corner of the room, screaming, wedged in the corner, on my knees, my hands in front of me, scratching at the boards with my fingernails, weeping, screaming and weeping.

  "Do not be afraid," he said.

  I screamed and screamed.

  "Do not be afraid," he repeated.

  "What do you want with me!" I cried. "What do you want with me!" I shuddered, and shook with tears, and fear. "What do you want with me?" I begged. "What do you want with me?"

  "Miss Brinton," he said, kindly.

  I tried to breathe.

  "Goreans are barbarians," he said. "They have compromised your modesty." His voice was solicitous, apologetic, concerned, kindly.

  Numbly I turned to face him.

  He stood near the bench. In his arms he held a red-silk, full-length, belted lounging robe, with a high, throat-enclosing, figured, brocade collar.

  "Please," he invited.

  I approached him numbly, and turned. He held the robe for me, as might have an escort. He helped me slip it on.

  "It's mine," I whispered. I remembered the robe.

  "It was yours," he said.

  I looked at him. What he said was true. I could own nothing. It was rather I who was owned.

  I belted the robe.

  "You are lovely," he commented.

  I fastened the high, figured, brocade collar about my throat.

  I regarded him, once again my own woman.

  "Yes," he said, "you are very lovely, Miss Br
inton."

  I watched him as he went again to the side of the room, and brought forward a small table, and another small bench. He gestured that I should join him at the table.

  He seated me.

  I sat at the table, and watched him as he threw another log on the fire. Again there was a shower of sparks, and the smoke climbing upward through the venting.

  The beast now lay curled in its place, on straw. Its eyes were closed, but it did not seem to be asleep. It would move occasionally, or yawn or change its position.

  "Cigarette?" asked the man.

  I looked at him. "Yes," I whispered.

  He produced two cigarettes from a flat, golden case. They were my brand. With a small match, he lit my cigarette for me, and then his. He threw the match into the fire.

  I fumbled with the cigarette. My hand shook.

  "Are you nervous?" he asked.

  "Return me to Earth!" I whispered.

  "Are you not puzzled as to why you were brought to this world?" he asked.

  "Please!" I begged.

  He regarded me.

  "I will pay you anything," I whispered.

  "Money?" he asked.

  "Yes!" I said. "Yes!"

  "Money is unimportant," he said.

  I looked anguished.

  "But perhaps you have something else to offer?" he said.

  "Jewelry? Diamonds? Gold?" I asked.

  "Perhaps something else," he said.

  "But what," I asked, "what possibly?"

  "Perhaps you can speculate," he said.

  "No!" I said.

  "Not that?" he asked.

  "Yes, that," I said, in misery.

  "I thought you would," he said.

  He smiled.

  "Very well," I said, icily, regarding him with contempt.

  I reached to the collar of the robe.

  "No," he smiled.

  "What?" I asked.

  "No," he said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "That is not enough," he said.

  "That is not enough?" I asked.

  "Certainly not," he said.

  "I am not enough?" I asked.

  "Certainly not," he said.

  I was furious.

  I could not conceive of this, that the bestowal of my favors, those of Elinor Brinton, would be insufficient to purchase anything which it might be within the power of a man to give.

  It was incomprehensible. She had been rejected!

  This made no sense!

  I had once been offered, on Earth, a hundred dollars, for a single kiss. I had toyed with the idea of granting it, not for the hundred dollars, of course, but for piquant frisson involved, the tingling, flattering little thrill of such a transaction, me, Elinor Brinton, selling a kiss, the surprising, unexpected, naughty adventure of it, of pretending, for a moment, that I was such a woman, one who might do such a thing, a mere slut, perhaps a "call girl," or such, doubtless one much in demand, doubtless the most beautiful in the city, or, better, perhaps a beautiful, sophisticated, unfaithful noblewoman, whom monarchs might beseech to be their mistress, the sort of woman whom men sought and for whose favors they might bankrupt kingdoms. But I did not grant the favor, of course. One of my kisses, I told myself, that of Elinor Brinton, was worth more. Indeed, they were not for sale. Besides I did not kiss men. I hated men, their spineless compliance, and stupidity. I used my beauty to tease and torment them. Let them suffer! So I chilled the fellow with a look of utter disdain, turned about, and left him behind me. "Please, Miss Brinton," he called out plaintively, "don't be angry. I apologize! It was only a joke, a joke!"

  He was never able to meet my eyes again.

  To be sure, had he seen me nude in Targo's girl cage, clutching the bars, an imprisoned slave, it might have been different. Then, doubtless, I, reduced to a slave girl, would not have been able to meet his eyes. And he might have bought me. And then I would have been his.

  Again I regarded the small man.

  He was smiling.

  "But it is pleasant," he said, "to see Elinor Brinton put herself on the market."

  I reddened.

  "It seems she has her price," he said, "—as all women."

  "No!" I said.

  "In any event," he said, "it is now perfectly clear what you are."

  "You are hateful," I said.

  "And I had thought that that was what you were," he said. "And I see now that I was right."

  "You are hateful," I said, "hateful!"

  On Earth I had always had my way with men.

  But here, on this world, Gor, it was not so!

  To be sure, on this world it was the case that men apparently had their pick of beautiful, helplessly arousable slaves, and for as little as a meaningless coin. I had learned much from Ute and Inge. I had heard of the paga taverns, the rent booths, the brothel restaurants, and of the streets, in which one might find coin girls, their coin box on a chain locked about their neck, and mat girls on their master's leashes. I recalled the dancing slave I had glimpsed in the paga tavern in Laura. Inge had told me that a modest coin would buy her use, and that the common paga slaves came with the price of a drink.

  "Animal," I said.

  "Technically," said he, "it is you who are the animal. You are a slave, and a slave does not own herself. She is owned. Her favors are not hers to bestow but a master's to command. She must, at so little as the least word or gesture, provide subtle, lengthy and complex delights, gratifications and pleasures to a master, rendering him services in her bondage of which a free woman could not even conceive."

  "I am not a slave," I said.

  "Smoke your cigarette," he said.

  I drew on the cigarette.

  "Were you startled the morning you awakened and found yourself branded?" he inquired.

  "Yes," I whispered. My hand inadvertently touched the mark on my thigh, under my robe.

  "Perhaps you are curious as to how it was done?"

  "Yes," I whispered.

  "The device," said he, "is not much larger than this." He indicated the small, flat box of cigarettes. "A handle, containing the heating element, is fixed into the back of the marking surface. It switches on and off, much like a common flashlight." He smiled at me. "It generates a flesh-searing heat in five seconds."

  "I felt nothing," I said.

  "You were fully anesthetized," he said.

  "Oh," I said.

  "I personally think a girl should be fully conscious when being branded," he said.

  I looked down.

  "The psychological impact is more satisfactory," he said.

  I could say nothing.

  "Salve was applied to the wound. It healed quickly and cleanly. You went to bed a free woman." He looked at me, unpleasantly. "You awakened a Kajira."

  "The collar?" I asked.

  "You were lying unconscious before the mirror," he said. "We re-entered your apartment by means of the terrace." He smiled. "It is not hard to collar a girl."

  I recalled the collar had been later removed at the location referred to as point P, before the black ship had fled the earth, through the gray skies of that August dawn.

  The man who had removed the collar had said that doubtless I would have another.

  I shoved the cigarette irritably down on the table, breaking it, grinding it out.

  I knew that I could be collared, when it pleased a man to do so.

  "May I have another cigarette?" I asked.

  "Of course," he said, and, solicitously, as I bent forward, he lit me another.

  I drew on the fresh cigarette. "Do you often bring women to this world as slaves?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, "and sometimes men, too, if it should serve our purposes."

  "I see," I said.

  I was irritated.

  I remembered the two men thrusting me into the narrow, transparent slave capsule, in its rack, its lid being screwed shut. I remembered my pressing my hands against its sides, the beginning of the flight from Earth
, the sedating gases.

  I had indeed been brought to this world as a slave.

  We smoked together for some time without speaking.

  I remembered awakening, lying in a Gorean field, some hundred yards or so from the black wreckage of the slavers' ship. I remembered, too, that on Earth, at the location called point P, before I had boarded the ship, a heavy steel anklet, doubtless an identification device of some sort, had been locked on my left ankle. When I had awakened in the field, it had been gone.

  I looked at him. "Why was I brought to this world?" I asked.

  "We bring many women to this world," he remarked, "because they are beautiful, and it pleases us to make them slaves."

  I regarded him.

  "Also, of course," he said, "they are valuable. They may be distributed or sold, as we please, to further our ends or increase our profits."

  "Was I brought to this world as such a girl?" I asked.

  "It may interest you to know," he said, "that you were marked for abduction at the age of seventeen. In the intervening five years we watched you carefully, maturing into a spoiled, rich, highly intelligent, arrogant young woman, exactly the sort that, under whip and collar, becomes a most exquisite slave."

  I drew on the cigarette, in fury.

  "So I was simply brought to Gor to be a female slave?" I asked.

  "Let us say," he remarked, carefully, "you would have been brought to Gor as a female slave, regardless."

  "Regardless?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "I do not understand," I said.

  "We lost you briefly," he said. His eyes clouded. "The ship crashed," he explained.

  "I see," I said.

  The ship, of course, rather obviously, had not simply crashed. It seemed clear that it had been the object of an effective, devastating attack, quite possibly by the silverish ship which had later landed, that from which the unusual men, and the tall, golden creature had emerged.

  "After the crash," he said, "we detected the approach of an enemy craft. We abandoned our ship and scattered, fleeing with our cargo."

  "But," said I, "was I not part of your—your cargo?"

  His eyes narrowed. I could tell he would choose his words carefully.

  "We have enemies," he said. "We did not wish you to fall into their hands. We feared pursuit. We removed your identification anklet and hid you in the grass, some distance from the ship. Then, with the other girls, we fled, intending to rendezvous later, if possible, and return for you. There was, however, no pursuit. The enemy was apparently content only to destroy the ship. When we returned there was little more than a crater. You, of course, were gone."