Captive of Gor

by John Norman

  "She is a nice cutlet of slave meat, don't you think so, El-in-or?" asked the guard.

  "I would not be the best judge of that, Master," I said.

  But I expected that the sight of Inge on a block would have the masters reaching for their coins.

  How dared she stand so well! Did she not know she was of the scribes!

  Changes were being wrought in her.

  She was apparently becoming accustomed to her bondage, and was coming to understand herself as a slave, only that.

  How pleased I was that I managed to remain immune to such influences, impervious to such things!

  I supposed that Inge might be attractive to men, to some men.

  The guard opened the small door to the cage. "In you go," he said.

  I went to all fours and crawled through the opening.

  I hoped he would not do what he usually did with us, but he did.

  "Oh!" I said, again sped through the opening with a swift, good-natured, stinging slap.

  It was delivered on the left buttock. He was right handed.

  Inge laughed. I hated her!

  Then the gate was locked behind me.

  How humiliated was Elinor Brinton! I thought how amused would have been many I had known on Earth, particularly men, but women, too, to have seen me so entered into the cage, so treated, with so little respect.

  I thought the woman instructor in French, who had failed me in the course, and had had her grade changed, and who had resigned from the school on account of it, might have enjoyed that.

  Well, she, too, was a woman! To be sure, she was older, but she was also a woman. How would she fare, I wondered, stripped, with a mark on her thigh, submitted to men!

  I wondered if she would ever meet her master, and kneel before him.

  That night Ute and Inge asked Lana and I to help clean the cage, but we, as usual, refused. That was the work of lesser girls. Lana and I were more valuable than Ute and Inge, or so we thought. The three of us might have forced Lana to help, but then I would have had to work, too. I realized that if I joined with Lana, though I did not care for her, they could not force either of us to work. Since Ute and Inge were insistent that the cage be cleaned, this unpleasant task thus fell regularly on them. I liked a clean cage. I just did not wish to clean it. Lana and I, that night, thought them fools, and, satisfied with ourselves, went to sleep on the straw.

  I was pleased that I was exciting. I touched the nose ring. I resented it. In the morning I would have even more reason to resent it. I became drowsy. I was pleased that I was exciting, and was pleased, too, that the hated nose ring would be removed before we left Ko-ro-ba. I rolled over, closing my eyes. Ko-ro-ba, I thought, Ko-ro-ba. I was drowsy. We had approached the city in the early morning and Targo had permitted us to leave the wagons to look upon it, in the morning sun. The city, the sun reflecting on its walls and towers, was very beautiful. It is sometimes called The Towers of the Morning, and perhaps justifiably so. I rolled again to my other side, shutting my eyes. But there was little beauty in the pens, with their heavy blocks of stone and stout bars, and straw, and the smells. I then fell asleep, pleased that I was exciting, for I surely was, forgetting even the nose ring. As I fell asleep I thought that Ute and Inge were busying themselves in the cage, cleaning it.

  Ute was such a sweet, stupid little thing. And Inge, too.

  But, as it turned out, they did not clean the cage that night.

  * * * *

  "Awaken, Slaves!"

  I felt a sharp pain in my nose, excruciating.

  I was instantly awake. I heard Lana cry out with pain. I jerked my head and felt another sharp pain.

  "Keep your hands at your sides," commanded Ute.

  Lana and I had been thonged together by the nose rings. In our sleep it had been done. A thong had been passed through the two rings and then knotted. The knotted, double thong that fastened us together was only about a foot long. Lana and I faced one another. Ute's small fist was securely fastened on the thong.

  Lana tried to reach the thong. Ute twisted it. Lana squeaked with pain. I, too, cried out, for the same thong bound me. Then Lana, tears in her eyes, had her hands down at her sides, obediently. I did, too. We dared not move.

  "Ute!" I protested.

  She twisted the thong, and I cried out in misery.

  "Be silent, Slave," said Ute, pleasantly enough.

  I was silent, and so, too, was Lana.

  Ute jerked us to our feet and we wept with pain. Our hands, our clenched fists, remained at our sides.

  "Place your hands behind your backs," recommended Ute. Lana and I looked at one another.

  Ute gave the thong a twist.

  We cried out and did as we were told.

  Inge then came forward with two small thongs, probably wheedled from a guard.

  I felt my wrists tied behind my back. Then Lana's wrists were similarly secured.

  "Kneel, Slaves," said Ute.

  Lana and I looked at one another in fury. There was a sharp tug on the nose thong and the two of us, crying out, knelt before Ute and Inge.

  "The cage," said Ute, "needs cleaning." Her fist never left the thong. "You may call the guard," she said, "for brushes and water, and fresh straw."

  "Never!" said Lana.

  There was a sharp twist on the thong.

  "I'll call him," I cried. "Please! Please!"

  "Which of you chooses to work first?" asked Ute.

  Lana looked at me. "Let El-in-or," she said.

  "Let Lana," I said.

  "El-in-or will work first," said Ute.

  The guard brought fresh straw, and water in a leather bucket, and a heavily bristled brush.

  My hands were unbound and, on my hands and knees, I began to gather the soiled, stinking straw.

  "Be careful!" cried Lana. It had hurt me, too.

  Lana was left bound, and we were left thonged by the nose rings. It was clumsy work.

  I cleaned one half of the cage, taking out the used straw and scrubbing the plating. Ute would not let me shirk. I had to scrub my section of the plating twice. My knees hurt. At last my half of the cage was clean and I spread fresh straw there. Then I was rebound and Lana was unbound, and set to her work, cleaning the other half of the cage. On my hands and knees, wrists tied behind my back, my nose ring linked to Lana's by the thong, I followed her about, as she had me. At last her work was done. She, too, was forced to scrub her portion of the cage twice. Her wrists were then rebound. Ute then took us to the bars at the front of the cage and, unknotting the thong, passed it around two of the bars and reknotted it, over one of the crossbars, about two and a half feet above the floor plating. She then left us there.

  "Ute," I begged, "please let us go."

  "Please," wheedled Lana.

  We squirmed, but were secured.

  On the outside of the bars, slave girls, and guards, passed by, on their way to the morning feeding. They laughed at us. It was well known in the pens that we had shirked the cleaning of our cage. I was humiliated. Even Lana, then, did not seem so lofty and clever, kneeling bound by the bars, for the inspection of all, thonged to them by a nose ring.

  When the cage was unlocked, Ute and Inge went to breakfast. Lana and I remained behind.

  When Ute and Inge returned Lana and I had had enough of this misery.

  "Lana will work," promised Lana.

  "If you do not," warned Ute, "next time it will not go so easily with you."

  Lana nodded. She was strong, but she knew that in a slave cage, one is at the mercy of one's cage mates. Ute and Inge had demonstrated their power.

  "And you, El-in-or?" inquired Ute, pleasantly.

  I hated Ute!

  "El-in-or, too, will work," I said.

  "Good," said Ute. Then she kissed Lana and myself. "Let us now release these slaves," she said to Inge. Ute and Inge then freed us.

  "It is time to leave for the private pens, for morning training," said a guard, passing by.

  Lana and
I got to our feet and looked at Ute and Inge. We would not again shirk our work.

  * * * *

  One day slipped into another in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Four days after we had had our ears pierced the leather worker returned to the pens and removed the tiny threaded rods with the disks from our ears. Behind remained the tiny, almost invisible punctures in our ear lobes, ready for whatever jewelry a master might decide to fix in them. The nose rings would not be removed until the day before our departure from the pens. We were pierced-ear girls, among the most exciting of slaves.

  Day followed day, and round followed round of feedings, exercisings and training periods. One day seemed much like another, save that our lessons increased in length and complexity. I found it necessary now to apply my full attention and intelligence to master the increasingly subtle and intricate skills of the female slave. The slave mistress would switch me, and the others, when we failed. I noted the change and the improvement in the other girls. We were learning, we were increasing our skills. Even Inge! I watched her, in the training sand, dancing to hide drums, naked, in slave bracelets and jeweled dancing collar. She did not then appear to be of the blue-robed, studious scribes. She was only a naked, dancing slave girl, exciting, writhing in the sand, her body throbbing to the beat of a man's pleasure drums. I wondered if a scribe would buy her. I supposed if one did, she would pretend to be a shy girl, once of the scribes herself. But what if he should command her to perform? Would he not then be astonished to find what he had purchased, a girl suddenly forced to reveal herself as an eager, helplessly appetitious slave, one desperate to, and exquisitely trained to, please the senses of a master? I now saw Inge as a rival. But I resolved to best her. I could be even a more superb slave than she! Ute, of course, was incredible, superb. She would doubtless bring a high price. But I thought that I would bring a higher. It also interested me, even astonished me, to see the fervor and skill brought to her training by the refined Lady Rena of Lydius. She knew that she had already, in effect, been purchased, but she did not know who her master might be. Since her ears had been pierced she was terrified that she might not please him. She trained with almost piteous ardor. She had been a free woman; she was now a female slave, the ease of whose life and whose fortunes would now depend entirely on her capacity to be pleasing to those who might capture or purchase her, those who would own her. Lana and I, incidentally, were, by general admission, and the indications of our instructor, the finest of the slaves in our lot. Try as I would I could never best her. I hated her. But though I was not as good as Lana, I had little reason to be ashamed of my advances in the arts of the female slave. I was almost flawlessly superb. I would bring a high price. I was proud. In acknowledgment of my skills, perhaps, Lana began to take me into her confidence, and, though I hated her, I became her friend. We spent more time together, and I talked less with stupid Ute and skinny Inge. Lana and I were the best, the very best!

  I was much pleased.

  Subconsciously now, from day to day, as I now understand it, my body began to reveal me truly as a slave girl. I was no longer even aware of it. There are dozens of subtle movements, tiny things, almost indiscernible, but which one notices, almost without noticing, about the movements of a slave girl, things which, cumulatively, distinguish, and very obviously, her movements from those of a free woman.

  I now no longer moved as a free woman, even a beautiful one, of Earth. I now moved, and naturally, as what I was, uninhibited and shameless, taunting, catlike, insolent, a Gorean slave girl.

  Once, when I got to my feet in the cage and walked across the straw, Inge, who was kneeling nearby, said, unexpectedly, suddenly, "You are a slave, El-in-or!" I leaped at her and slapped her. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Slave!" she screamed. I seized her by the hair and kicked her. Then, scratching and cursing, we began to roll and fight in the straw. Lana laughed. Ute tried to separate us. "We are all slaves," she said. "Do not quarrel!" Suddenly it felt like the top of my head was being yanked off and I heard Inge scream with pain.

  A guard was now in the cage and had each of us, separated, bent over, held by the hair.

  Inge and I then did not move so much as a muscle.

  I was suddenly afraid that I would be beaten. I had been beaten only once, when first enslaved, by Lana, with straps, at the side of the slave wagon. Never had a man beaten me. I was terrified of having the full five-strap Gorean slave lash, wielded with the full strength of a man, used on me. I was too sensitive to pain. The other girls, common girls, might be beaten, but not I. It would hurt me too much. They could not understand how it would feel to me, how much it would hurt!

  "She started it!" I cried out.

  "She slapped me!" cried Inge. Inge was frightened, too. She was only of the scribes, and, too, feared the lash. But she would not have felt it as cruelly as I would have, for she was more common than I, less sensitive, less delicate.

  "She started it!" I cried. "She slapped me first!" Ute gasped.

  "Don't beat me," I wept. "She started it! She slapped me first!"

  "Liar!" screamed Inge.

  "Liar!" I screamed at her.

  Ute was looking at me with disappointment. Lana was laughing.

  "The guard was outside," said Lana. "He saw!"

  Held by the hair, bent over, my heart sank. I was a slave girl who had been caught in a lie. I trembled.

  But neither I, nor Inge, was beaten.

  The guard grinned.

  It had not surprised him, as it apparently had Ute, that I was a lying slave girl. He had, apparently, to my irritation, not expected anything else of me. I realized then how I was regarded in the pens.

  I was angry.

  Our hands were tied behind our backs. The guard, then, pulling me by the hair, dragged me to one side of the cage. He stood me there, facing the interior of the cage, and took my hair and knotted it about one of the crossbars of the cage, about a foot above my head. He then took Inge to the opposite side of the cage, put her standing against the wall of bars there, facing me, and similarly fastened her in place. She winced.

  The guard then left the cage, locking the gate behind him. "Sleep well, Slaves," he said.

  Lana rolled luxuriously on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she called.

  "Good-night, Wench," said he.

  He looked at Ute. Ute lay down on the straw. "Good-night, Master," she whispered.

  He nodded. Then he looked at me. "Good-night, Master," I said.

  When he looked at Inge, she, too, responded so.

  Then he left.

  Some hours later, some hours before dawn, Inge looked at me, hatred in her eyes. "You are a liar, El-in-or," she said.

  "You are a fool," I said.

  The next morning, when the guard unbound our hair from the crossbars, Inge and I collapsed to the steel plating that floored our cage. In our misery we scarcely noticed that he had unbound our wrists. I lay in the straw, my face pressed into it, feeling the obdurate steel beneath it.

  Then, after some time, I crawled to Inge. "I am sorry," I said, "Inge."

  Inge looked at me, her eyes hard. Her body, too, was in pain, from the miseries of the night.

  "Forgive me, Inge," I asked.

  Inge looked away.

  "El-in-or is sorry, Inge," said Ute.

  I was grateful to Ute.

  Inge did not look upon me.

  "El-in-or was weak," said Ute. "She was afraid."

  "El-in-or is a liar," said Inge. Then she looked at me, directly, with hatred. "El-in-or is a slave," said Inge.

  "We are all slaves," said Ute.

  Inge put her head down on her knees.

  Tears came to my eyes. Ute put her arms about me. "Do not weep, El-in-or," she said.

  I pulled away from Ute, suddenly angry. Ute went to her own portion of the cage.

  What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.

  I rolled over on my back in the straw and stared at the ceiling, more steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us.


  But, unlike Inge, I was a superb, and exciting, slave!

  I heard the sandals of the guard approaching, outside, on the grating before the tier of cages. I leapt to my feet and pressed against the bars.

  "Master!" I called.

  He stopped.

  I thrust my hand through the bars, toward him.

  He took a hard candy from his pouch, and held it, outside of my reach.

  I struggled to reach the candy. I could not. Then he handed it to me.

  "Thank you, Master," I said. I put the candy in my mouth. I had known his step. Few of the guards carried candies. I was pleased with myself. I did not think Inge would have succeeded in winning a candy from him.

  I sat in the straw and sucked the candy.

  "I forgive you, El-in-or," said Inge. Her voice sounded weary.

  I did not answer her, for I feared she might want to taste the candy, that it would be a trick on her part.

  I heard Lana approach. She thrust out her hand. "Give it to me," she said.

  "It's mine," I said.

  "Give it to Lana," said Lana. "I am first in the cage."

  She was stronger than I.

  I gave her the candy and she put it in her mouth.

  I crawled to Inge. "Do you really forgive me, Inge?" I asked.

  "Yes," said Inge.

  I crawled away from Inge, and lay down on my belly in the straw.

  What Inge had said was true. I was a slave.

  I rolled over on my back in the straw and again stared at the ceiling, that obdurate steel plating, the flooring of the cage in the tier above us. I lay there naked in the straw, feeling the steel plating beneath my back. Yes, I was a slave. "Yes," I said to myself, "you are a slave, Elinor." The panther girls taught you that, and the man in the hut. You are a natural slave. I lifted one knee. But you are a beautiful slave, and a clever slave, I told myself.

  I rolled onto my belly in the straw and picked up a bit of straw and poked at the floor with it.

  Odd, I thought, how Elinor Brinton, she who had been so rich, so elegant, so arrogant, she who had been of Park Avenue, she who had owned the Maserati, was now, on a distant world, only this, a common slave, naked, on her belly in straw, steel plating beneath it, behind heavy bars, caged, merchandise.