Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  "How did you find me?" I asked.

  "As an unprotected female on Gor, particularly a beautiful one, there was little doubt that the first male you encountered would make you his slave."

  I looked down, irritated.

  "I went to Laura," he said. "It is the largest city in the area. I expected that it would be there that you would be put up for sale."

  "And you would have bought me?" I said.

  "Yes," he said. "Simple." He smiled. "But, unfortunately for us, your capture was effected by slavers, and they wished to take you south for a better price. Accordingly we used panther girls, Verna and her band, to acquire you." He smiled again. "It was, incidentally, much less expensive."

  I looked at him in irritation.

  "You cost only one hundred arrow points."

  I shook with anger.

  "That bothers you, doesn't it?" he asked.

  "No," I said.

  "It would bother only a natural slave girl," he said.

  I looked down, shaking with fury. I was not a slave. I was not a slave!

  I sat there in the belted, red-silk lounging robe, with the high brocade collar enclosing my throat. I drew again on the cigarette. I was not a slave!

  "How did you know that I was in Targo's compound?" I asked.

  "Doubtless," said he, "I would have investigated, and found you there, but, earlier, I saw you in Laura. You were in coffle, throat-leashed, fetching supplies, with other slaves."

  I looked down in irritation.

  "You carry wine beautifully," he commented.

  "I am not a slave," I told him.

  "Surely you recollect that there is a brand on your thigh," he said. "I saw it, but moments ago."

  "It means nothing," I said.

  "On this world," he said, "its meaning is quite clear, that you are a slave. And what you may not understand, my dear, is that its meaning is quite clear on Earth, as well, for those capable of understanding it. It marked you even on Earth as a Gorean slave. Yes, my dear, you were legally a Gorean slave, after the affixing of that brand, even on Earth."

  "No," I said.

  "But yes, my dear," he said.

  I did not tell him, of course, but I had felt, on some level, even on Earth, that I had been somehow transformed by that mark, that it had made me, somehow, radically different from what I had been. I recognized it, of course, as a brand. Even on Earth, even as I had fled, it had made me feel like a slave. I had then, on some level, felt myself a slave, known myself a slave. I had just not yet met those who might understand this new reality, and claim me. I felt myself then a slave, knew myself a slave, but one who had not yet met her master.

  I trembled.

  "I see," he said, "that you understand that what I have said is true."

  "I am free," I told him.

  "I see," he said.

  I remembered now that once, in Laura, I had seen a man, garbed in black. I had thought that he might have been watching us. But I had not been sure. I now realized that it had been he.

  "And so," I said, "you found me."

  "I confirmed your identity at the compound," said he, "during the performance of the mountebank, and, of course, surveyed the entire area and planned, in effect, the raid of the panther girls."

  "It was your good fortune," I told him, haughtily, "that I was not caged that night."

  He smiled. "I had spoken with Targo and the guards," he said, "and knew the celebrations planned for the evening. Further, I had even spoken with the guards, ostensibly jesting with them, as to their choices for the evening. I knew even at which wagon you would serve."

  "You are thorough," I said.

  "One must be," he said.

  "And so I am here," I said. I lowered the cigarette. "What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

  "Perhaps feed you to the beast," he said.

  I stiffened. It was true that he could do that, if he wished.

  I drew again on the cigarette. "What are you going to do with me?" I asked.

  "In some respects," said he, "it was your good fortune to fall in with a slaver."

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "Yes," said he. "Doubtless you have not yet served fully as a slave girl."

  I looked at him with apprehension.

  "You will doubtless find it an interesting experience," he said, "to serve, not as a free woman, but as a slave girl, fully, for a master who will exact his full dues and more, from his property."

  "Please," I said.

  "Few Earthwomen," he said, "have that exquisite pleasure."

  "Please," I said. "Do not speak to me so."

  "Smoke your cigarette," he said, kindly.

  I drew on the cigarette.

  "Have you never been curious," he asked, "what it would be like, to be forced to yield yourself, utterly, to a master?"

  "I hate men," I told him.

  "Superb," he said.

  I looked at him with irritation.

  "You might be interested to know," he said, "that all indications are that you will be a fantastic pleasure slave for a master."

  "I hate men!" I cried.

  "Excellent," he commented.

  I looked at him with fury.

  I drew again on the cigarette. "What do you want with me?" I asked.

  Suddenly the beast made a noise. It was a rumble, a growl. I stiffened, and turned.

  It had lifted its head. Its wide, pointed ears lifted. It was listening.

  The man, and I, watched the beast, I, frightened, he, alert, cautious.

  His eyes seemed to meet those of the beast, and the beast seemed to look at him. Then it had lifted its lips away from its teeth, and looked away, its ears still lifted. It growled again.

  "It is a sleen outside," said the man.

  I trembled.

  "When I was brought here," I said, "twice the band caught the scent of a sleen."

  The man looked at me. "It was stalking you," he said, "you, and the others."

  "Perhaps there were different sleen," I whispered.

  "Perhaps," he said.

  The beast now crouched on the straw, its nostrils wide in the leathery snout, its eyes bright and black, the ears lifted.

  "It is close," said the man. He looked at me. "Sometimes the sleen will follow a quarry for pasangs, before making its strike, lurking, approaching, withdrawing, then at last, when satisfied, attacking from the darkness."

  The beast growled menacingly.

  To my horror I heard a snuffling behind the door, and then a whining, a scratching.

  The man smiled. "It is the sleen," he said.

  I looked at him.

  "Do not be frightened," he said. "We are safe in the hut."

  I heard a scratching, as of heavy claws, at the door.

  The small hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  "The door is stout," said the man. "We are safe within."

  I looked to the boards, shuttered across the window. It was a small window, not more than a foot in diameter.

  "The sleen was probably following the band," he said. "The trail led here."

  "Why doesn't he follow the panther girls?" I whispered.

  "He might have," said the man, "but he did not." He gestured with his head to the beast. "Also, he may smell the beast. Sleen are sometimes curious, and not infrequently resentful of the intrusion of strange animals into what they choose to regard as their territory."

  There was an angry whine behind the door. This was answered by a throaty snarl from the collared beast within.

  "Why doesn't he go away?" I asked.

  "He may smell the beast," said the man.

  I took another draw on the cigarette.

  "Or," said the man, "he may smell food within."

  "Food?" I asked.

  "Yes," said he.

  "What food?" I asked.

  "Us," said he.

  My hand shook with the cigarette, spilling ashes.

  "We are safe within," he said.

  "Don't you have weapons,
powerful weapons," I asked, "with which you might kill it?"

  The man smiled. "It is unwise to carry weapons of power on the surface of Gor," he said.

  I did not understand this.

  "But," he smiled, "we are safe within."

  I hoped that he was right.

  "You are lovely in your robe," he said.

  "Thank you," I said.

  I could no longer hear the sleen now.

  I ground out the cigarette on the table, and looked at him, coolly. "I was not brought to Gor, was I," I asked, "to be a simple female slave, simply to be given, or sold, to a master?"

  "I told you," he reminded me, "that at the age of seventeen you were marked for abduction. In any event, you would have been brought to Gor as a female slave."

  "But in my case," I pressed, "there were, were there not, additional considerations?"

  "Have you learned to crawl and beg yet?" he asked.

  "Certainly not!" I snapped. "Never! Never! I am a free woman. A free woman does not crawl and beg! She is not so abased, and low!"

  "You have not yet learned then to grovel, and plead for the least touch of a master?"

  "No!" I said. "Certainly not!"

  But I dared not let him suspect how his questions stirred me. I had begun to sense, in the coffle, on the sales chain, in the girl cage, how bondage might enflame the sexuality of a woman. I was terrified of this. I rejected it, I repudiated it, within, almost hysterically. And well I did so, for I had begun to suspect what it might be to be so needful, so helpless, so vulnerable, what it might be to desire with all one's being, submitted in the complementarities of nature, to love and serve a master, and even if one feared the master, or hated him, what it might be to be so helplessly enflamed, so heated, so needful as to be desperate for his least smile, his smallest caress, the weight of his chains.

  Here men were masters, absolute and legal masters, at least of such women as I.

  "I see," he said.

  "I gather then," I said, "that although I might in any event have been brought to this world as a female slave, that there were, in my case, additional considerations."

  "Yes," he said.

  I leaned back. I suddenly felt sharp, and cool. There was something they needed of me. I now could bargain. I now could negotiate. I might yet be able to arrange for my return to Earth. I must be clever. I must be shrewd. I had power.

  "Would you like to discuss business with me?" I asked.

  "You are very beautiful in your robe," he said.

  "Thank you," I said. I felt a certain sense of triumph now.

  "Would you like another cigarette?" he asked.

  I did not want one.

  "Yes, thank you," I said.

  He gave me another cigarette, and I took it. He closed the small, flat golden cigarette box and struck a small match. I leaned forward, and he bent forward to light the cigarette. The flame from the match was but an inch short of the cigarette. He looked at me. "You are prepared to negotiate?" he asked.

  I smiled at him. "Perhaps," I said.

  He brought the match toward the cigarette, and I bent forward for the light.

  The match dropped.

  I looked at him, startled.

  Suddenly, with fury, he, with his full strength, slapped me across the side of the face, literally knocking me from the bench and against the wall.

  Instantly he was on me and tore the robe from my body. Then, insolently, brutally, he threw me on my belly in the dirt. He knelt across my body and I felt my hands jerked behind my body. With the binding fiber he had earlier removed, he lashed them with ferocious cruelty behind my body. Then he sprang to his feet and kicked me in the side. Terrified, in pain, I rolled to my side, looking up at him in horror. He bent down and seized me by the hair and the left arm and thrust me toward the beast.

  "Feed!" he cried.

  I screamed, thrust toward the wide, fanged jaws of the beast.

  He jerked me back, cruelly, on my knees, and I saw the jaws snapping at me, saw the curved teeth, the hideous tongue and eyes. Again and again the jaws snapped at me, once grazing my body, as I was held just outside the perimeter of the beast's chain. It pulled against the chain and collar, trying to reach me.

  Then, angrily, the man threw me backward in the dirt, across the room, on my side.

  "Do not feed!" he cried to the beast.

  Then, from a hook on the wall, he took a large piece of meat, bosk meat, and threw it to the animal.

  It began tearing at it with its fangs and claws. It could have been my body.

  The man approached me.

  I lay on my side in the dirt, naked and bound, looking up at him in horror. In his hand he held an uplifted slave whip.

  "You told me you were free," he said.

  "No! No!" I cried. "I am a slave! A slave!"

  "A hundred arrow points is too much for such a slave," he said.

  Terrified, I struggled to my knees and put my head down, to his feet.

  "Kiss my feet," said he, "Slave."

  I did so.

  "The proud Miss Brinton," he said.

  I trembled at his feet.

  He stepped back, to the other side of the hut.

  He stood there, and regarded me with contempt.

  "You may beg use," he informed me.

  I regarded him with horror.

  "Perhaps I shall feed you to the beast," he said.

  I shook my head, and began to approach him, on my knees, my hands bound behind me.

  "On your belly," he said.

  I then went to my belly, and crawled to him. When I reached him I kissed his feet.

  "Beg," he said.

  "I beg!" I cried. "I beg! I beg!"

  "And what do you beg?" he said.

  "I beg use, Master," I whispered.

  "Speak loudly, clearly," he said.

  "I beg use, Master," I said.

  "And do you beg a slave girl's use?" he inquired.

  "Yes, Master," I said, "I beg a slave girl's use."

  "It seems," said he, "that you have now learned to crawl and beg."

  "Yes, Master," I said.

  "Do you plead for my least touch?" he asked.

  "Yes, Master!" I said.

  "You look well on your belly, Miss Brinton," said he, "groveling and pleading for the least touch of a master."

  I did not speak.

  I was very conscious of my bonds, of my hands tied behind my back, of how I lay prostrate in the dirt, before him.

  It seemed I could feel the tiny grains, the grit, of the dirt floor on my body.

  "Shall I use you?" he asked.

  "Master may do as he pleases," I said.

  "I shall not use you," he said.

  I was startled. I was shocked. I had not expected this, not expected to be rejected. I felt disturbed, troubled, shamed, humiliated. Surely the men of Earth would have given almost anything for a mere glimpse of me disrobed, let alone for the unbelievable ecstasy of taking me in their arms!

  "Am I not beautiful enough, Master?" I asked.

  "You are passable for a slave girl," said he, "but, at this time, it is not clear whether or not your virginity has value."

  Of what value, I wondered, is the virginity of a slave girl?

  Of what value is the virginity of a horse, or of a dog or cat, or pig?

  That I was a virgin, of course, that I was "white silk," was public knowledge. Shortly after I had come into his keeping, Targo himself, as my master, had, to my horror, delicately, made that determination. Too, I did not doubt but what my original captors would have made a similar determination, perhaps after I had been anesthetized, before my branding, or before I had awakened, after my futile attempt at escape, and found myself bound and neck-roped in my own bed.

  I lay before him, shamed, rejected.

  "Are you prepared to negotiate?" he asked.

  I put my lips again to his feet.

  I kissed his feet, the straps of his sandals, fervently, fearfully.

 
My hair fell across his sandals.

  On my lips, as I continued to kiss him, I could feel the dampness from where I had been kissing him, again and again. On the sandal straps there were little stains, tiny dampnesses, where my lips had rendered their pathetic, desperate obeisance to a master.

  "Command me," I begged.

  He stepped away from me.

  Again he made the swift, almost ferocious, imperious gesture, that to assume position, of the Gorean master.

  I struggled to my knees.

  I knelt fearfully before him.

  I knelt in the position of the tower slave, that of the girl whose applications are primarily domestic. I thought this best, for my use, though I had begged for it, had, to my surprise, my chagrin, my humiliation, been rejected. So I dared not kneel now with the fearful presumption of the pleasure slave, that of a girl whose very kneeling position makes clear that she is expected to be of interest to men. I dared not do that. Perhaps he might keep me, at least for a time, I thought, to clean and launder for him, to cook and sew. I did not dare to kneel before him, after my rejection, as a pleasure slave.

  But his eyes, as he looked upon me, were not pleasant.

  "Forgive me, Master," I said.

  I spread my knees widely, and then, seeing his eyes, even more widely.

  How exposed this position makes a woman feel, how vulnerable, and yet, too, how it arouses her!

  How cruel he was!

  Tears sprang to my eyes.

  He had me kneel before him as a pleasure slave!

  Though he had scorned my use I must kneel before him in that position, that of the pleasure slave! How well he knew how to handle a slave! How well he knew how to handle Elinor Brinton!

  I lowered my head, shamed.

  "You have not been pleasing," he said.

  "Forgive me, Master," I said.

  "Have you ever been whipped?" he asked.

  "Only with a handful of straps," I said.

  "Perhaps," said he, "you should feel the caress, the kiss, of the five-stranded Gorean slave whip."

  "Forgive me, Master," I said.

  I knew there was such a whip in the hut. I had seen it. I had no desire to feel it.

  He went to the side of the room.

  I lifted my head.