by John Norman
Whereas I wanted him, more than anything, to like me, to care for me, if only a little, I realized, too, only too well, the terrible dangers implicit in this for me.
Sometimes he would hold me in his arms, and gaze into my eyes, with such intentness and tenderness, with so soft a light in his eyes, that I, my head lifted, would be overjoyed, my love flooding forth to him, but then, frightened, I would put my head down, against his shoulder, in my collar.
In what tumult, how troubled, were my feelings!
I wanted him to care for me, more than anything, but I was afraid that he might begin to do so.
Often I could read his expressions and see there, in his eyes, in the sternness of a visage, the curl of a lip, that he would fight within himself so despicable a weakness.
Rask of Treve was struggling with himself, castigating himself, denouncing himself, I think, fighting not to care for me, a mere slave.
But I fear, despite himself, he had begun to care, and perhaps more than care, for his El-in-or.
But I was, of course, only his slave.
Oh, when his need was upon him he would sometimes use me as the meaningless slave girl I was, just another wench from his chain, use me with harsh authority, sometimes even making me suffer under his domination, that is true.
One could not deny that.
At such times he treated me as was appropriate, for I wore a collar.
There was little then of tenderness and intimacy!
And I wanted that, that powerful, magnificent domination, for I was a slave.
On Earth I had been unpleasant, petulant, and irritable, the common symptoms of the woman who has not been mastered. Then, on Gor, I had found masters; I had been stripped, and knelt, and collared, and fulfilled. I here, without option, choiceless, must set myself to obey men, and please them to the best of my ability.
Here my unpleasantness, my petulance, my irritability were gone. The lash did not permit them.
I was happy.
But how could he care for me? I was so hopelessly slave!
In my belly "slave fires" now raged, ignited in me by my master.
I found I was now the victim, the prisoner, of "slave needs." I now understood how girls could weep and scratch at the walls of their kennels, how they could squirm, moaning, shackled in their pens, how they could press their face and flesh against the cruel bars that confined them in their tiny cages, moistening the obdurate, grasped steel with their tears.
How can a free woman even understand this?
But I do not envy free women. I pity them.
Slave needs were now frequently upon me, profoundly, irresistibly. They now arose in me with the regularity and power of tides, carrying me, willing or not, upon them. In their grasp I found myself, Elinor Brinton, no more than an aroused, needful slave.
On Earth millions of women live empty, unrewarding lives. They are sexually deprived, denied their femininity's right to be so powerfully desired, so lusted for, that they are taken in hand and made slaves. Many I am sure would, in a slaver's eye, be deemed worthy of collaring. But how few, I fear, will know the collar, the master. I sometimes thought of many of the girls I had known on Earth, whose names I will omit, lest somehow, sometime, somewhere, they read these pages, who would surely look well, stripped and collared, kneeling before masters, their knees perforce widely spread, their tiny, lovely wrists confined behind them, in tightly fitting slave bracelets. How would they look in slave silk? How well would they wear a tunic, or camisk? Many were the frustrations of the women of Earth. But the slaves of Gor have their frustrations, too. As we kneel piteously, and needful, before our masters, we hope that they will show us mercy, and caress us.
At such times, I suspect, those times when my slave needs were much upon me, there was then little in me of sweetness, delicacy, tenderness and intimacy, not then, not as I was then; I was then, perhaps to the amusement of my master, pleadingly, piteously helpless, the prisoner of needs and passions I could hope neither to withstand nor control. At such times I could not engage him in tender discourse; rather, I would crawl to him, a needful slave, weeping, and beg him for chains and cords, even the whip; I must know myself uncompromisingly owned; how perdurable and encompassing, how totalistic, is the sexuality of the female slave! It suffuses her entire life and being. Even performing small, homely tasks for a master, such as polishing his leather, laundering and ironing his tunics, cleaning his domicile, bringing him his sandals, crawling, in her teeth, can be sexually stimulating to her; she licks humbly the confining loops of leather on her wrists; she humbly lifts her wrists, loving the weight on them of his chains, and puts the links to her lips, kissing them in gratitude, loving he who has found her, rather than others, worthy of them; and when she is bound for the pleasure of the master she lifts her body to him, already poised on the brink of surrender; will he administer, in his kindness, the touch for which she begs? And later, hours later, will he enfold her in his arms and, pleased with the responses of the helpless slave, put her wholly to his pleasure?
At his feet, at such times, though he might rightfully hold me in contempt, I could not help myself but, every fiber in my body afflicting me, torturing me, burning with helpless desire and need, shamelessly grovel for a smile, a touch, a kind word, a caress; this he had done to me, I was so much his slave; many was the time I crawled to him, the whip in my teeth, that he might beat me, or caress me, as he pleased; I was his needful slave, so much so! So he might despise me, but I could not help it that I had become a slave! And I did not wish to help it. For better or for worse, that is what I was.
Surely I was unworthy to be loved, being such a slave, but it is what I am.
Kneeling, groveling, kissing, licking, begging to serve, looked down upon and despised, I felt more secure with him. I knew he was used to having such women at his feet, begging, needful slaves. Surely they posed no threat to him. And I was such a woman, obviously, in the fullness of my bondage, but I was terrified that, too, I might become more, something in addition, a different sort of slave, one who encapsulates the most degraded of slaves, of course, but is also one who is allowed not only to serve, but also, with his permission, to speak to the master, and to know him, the sort of slave whose very name I would not dare speak in his presence.
Sometimes I strove to distract him from seeing me as more than just another girl in his collar.
I feared to be special.
He must continue to see me as no more than a simple, unimportant, though perhaps attractive, barbarian, no more than a lovely, nicely figured, collared Earth girl.
I loved him, I did not want to be sold.
Do not sell me, Master, I thought. I love you. Please do not sell me, Master!
How could one love a girl in a collar? How could one love a groveling, needful slave?
But I feared he might come to care for me.
Accordingly, I sometimes, to my agony, tried to destroy in him those very feelings which I most dearly hoped he might, however unwillingly, entertain for a lowly slave.
Sometimes, then, despite the depth of my love for him, the aching of my needs, and the peril of the pretense, I would present myself to him as though I might now be a contemptuous, cold, hating, untamed girl, truly, who must, if he saw fit, and deigned to do so, be conquered, and thus I would provoke him yet again to my utter conquest. And well, and categorically, sometimes to my initial dismay, was I again conquered. He would take every shred of dignity or pride from me, as though a slave girl might be permitted either, and turn me into a thrashing, begging, maddened animal, a woman in heat, the lowest sort of female, a slab of worthless, helpless, writhing, enflamed, kicking slave meat. Surely now I could not be special. Surely now I might be the lowest of paga slaves, furnished with the price of a drink in her master's establishment, clinging to a customer, begging, in her need. "Do you respect me?" I asked. "No," he said. "I do not want your respect," I said, "I want your touch." "Perhaps, then," said he, "I should deny it to you." "No, Master," I b
egged. "Please, no, Master!" And in her shame, writhing to his least touch, the once selfish, self-centered, haughty, spoiled Elinor Brinton, again conquered, found her joy, and glory, and then she again accepted herself as what she was, a slave girl, and in this acceptance, she lost all shame, and yielded fully to the ecstasies enforced upon her, and which she, under pain of death, as a slave, was not permitted to resist.
This was truly she, her honest reality as a slave.
Surely then he could see that she was no different from others, the girls locked in the work shed, the girls in the tents, squirming on their chains, all eager to be called to his tent.
"Do you think, hot, little slave girl," he asked, "a master cannot see through your pretenses?"
My pathetic charades were obvious to my master. He could read his El-in-or easily. She was open to him. She was his slave.
"I love you, my master," I wept. "I love you. I love you. I love you, my master!"
"Can an Earth girl love?" he asked.
"Yes, Master!" I cried. "Yes, Master! I do love you! I love you. I love you, my master!"
But, too, despite my fears, sometimes we would love tenderly, and at sweet length.
He wanted this.
But I feared, more and more now, day by day, despite my great love for him, to become more to him than his mere property, more than his simple possession, more than his simple recreation and plaything, more than merely another meaningless Sa-Fora, a "daughter of the chain," more than merely another meaningless Kajira, a slave girl.
It was in these times that I was most afraid.
Could he, so mighty a warrior, the master of many women, permit himself to care for me, a slave?
I was not even of Gor.
I did not doubt, of course, but what Rask of Treve would keep me in a collar. He saw that I belonged in one.
I did.
But I think he feared I might become to him a certain sort of slave, a special sort of slave, one to whose status I would not dare to aspire, one whose name I dare not even speak.
And for such a slave, I am sure, there was no place in the war camp of Rask of Treve.
Sometimes we were master and common slave, and sometimes we were something else, that I dare not speak, but I feared now, much, that he would sell me. For what place could there be for this other thing in the war camp of Rask of Treve?
But mostly we sported and pleasured, hiding from ourselves this other thing, both of us perhaps not wishing to speak it. In one week I had even begged him to place in my nose the tiny golden ring of a Tuchuk slave girl, and in that week I had served him as such, clad even in the Kalmak, Chatka and Curla, my hair bound back with the red Koora. In another week I had, the nose ring removed, served him as a Torian girl, and in another as a simple wench of Laura, and in another as an exquisite pleasure slave of Ar.
Then one day we had done little but speak to one another, at great length, with much gentleness and intimacy, and in the night, after our lovings, had spoken together, long, lying before the fire. He had held me, sadly. I had known then that he would sell me.
In the morning, after I had returned to the shed, he again summoned me to his tent.
"Kneel," he had said.
I did so, his slave.
"I am tired of you," he told me, suddenly, angrily.
I put down my head.
"I am going to sell you," he said.
"I know," I said, "Master."
"Leave, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
I did not weep until I returned to the shed.
* * * *
I felt the knots on my wrists being checked, and I winced, as they were tightened. Then my throat, by the straps, was drawn back tighter against the wicker, and this bond, too, was tightened. The other girls, too, winced in protest, some crying out.
I had asked one thing of Rask of Treve, before, stripped, I had entered the tarn basket.
"Free Ute," I had asked him.
He had looked at me strangely. Then he had said, "I will."
Ute, freed, might then do what she wished. She might go to Rarir, or Teletus, I supposed. But I knew that she would seek out one named Barus, of the leather workers, whose name she had often moaned in her sleep. I did not even know his city.
"Into the basket," had said the man who would fly the tarn.
"Yes, Master," I had said to him. I was no longer the slave of Rask of Treve. I now belonged to this stranger, to whom I, and the others, had submitted ourselves. It was he, now, who held absolute power over my life and body. There was now a fresh, but locked, steel collar on my throat.
The man now was checking the knots at the lid of the basket. It was tight. Our ankles were bound together at the center of the basket; our wrists were bound behind our backs, to the wicker; our throats were independently secured, the knots outside, keeping us in place. He had finished his lunch. We were stripped, helpless slave girls, his. I had been sold for nine pieces of gold.
The man mounted to the saddle of the tarn. The tarn screamed and began to beat its wings. Then the basket jerked forward, on its leather runners, and skidded across the clearing, and then, swung below the tarn.
I was on my way to the market.
* * * *
I was sold from the great block of the Curulean, in Ar, for twelve pieces of gold, purchased by the master of a paga tavern, who thought his patrons might enjoy amusing themselves with me, a girl who wore penalty brands.
I served for months in the paga tavern. Among those I served were guards, formerly from the caravan of Targo. They were kind to me. One was the fellow whom I had fought, by the fire, but to whom I must now completely yield. Another was the guard who had escorted me to the house of the physician, whom I had once provoked. Another was the one who had caught me, when I had fled from the hut in the forest, and returned me to Targo. And there, too, were others, even he who had driven the slave wagon in which I had been often confined; even he who had first harnessed me to the tongue of Targo's one wagon, when I had first been captured by him. After serving them completely I would press them with questions of Targo, and the other guards, and their slaves. They told me much. Targo had recovered many girls, and was now rich. He was intending another trip northward, though not to do business with Haakon of Skjern. The men I served, Targo's men, and others, who might have me for the price of a cup of paga, I gave much pleasure, and from them, too, I received much pleasure. But none of them were Rask of Treve. That master had won the heart of the slave girl who was Elinor Brinton. She could not forget him.
Then one night I heard, "I will buy her," and I stood transfixed with fear. I could scarcely pour the paga into his cup. The bells on my ankles and wrists rustled. I felt his hand on the bit of diaphanous yellow silk I wore in the tavern. "I will buy her," he said. It was the small man, who had touched me intimately when I had lain bound in my own bed on Earth, the small man who had threatened me in the hut in the northern forests, who had been the mountebank, the master, I had thought, of the strange beast, the terrible beast. It was the man who had wanted me to poison someone, I knew not who.
His hand was now locked on my wrist. I had not escaped him. "I will buy her," he said. "I will buy her."
* * * *
The small man bought me for fourteen pieces of gold. I was taken, on tarnback, braceleted and hooded, to the city of Port Kar, in the delta of the mighty Vosk.
In a warehouse, near the piers, I knelt, head down, at their feet.
"I will not serve you," I said.
The small man was there, and the beast, squatting, shaggy, regarding me, and, too, to my surprise, Haakon of Skjern.
"I have felt the iron," I said. "I have felt the whip. I will not kill for you. You may kill me, but I will not kill for you."
They did not beat me, nor threaten me.
They lifted me by the arm, and dragged me to a side room.
I screamed. There, his wrists bound by ropes to rings, stood a bloodied man, head down, stripped to the wais
t.
"Eleven men died," said Haakon of Skjern, "but we have him."
The man lifted his head, and shook it, clearing his vision. "El-in-or?" he said.
"Master!" I wept.
I pressed myself to him.
He regarded them. Then he said to me, "I am of Treve. Do not stain my honor."
By the hair I was dragged from the presence of Rask of Treve, and his head, again, fell forward on his chest.
The door closed.
"In time," said the small man, "you will receive a packet of poison."
I nodded, numbly. Rask of Treve must not die! He must not die!
"You will be placed in the house of Bosk, a merchant of Port Kar," he said. "You will be placed in the kitchen of that house, and you will be used to serve his table."
"I can't," I wept. "I cannot kill!"
"Then Rask of Treve dies," said the small man. Haakon of Skjern laughed.
The small man held up a tiny packet. "This," he said, "is the poison, a powder prepared from the venom of the ost."
I shuddered. Death by ost venom is among the most hideous of deaths.
I wondered how it was that they could so hate this man, he called Bosk of Port Kar.
"You will comply?" asked the small man.
I nodded my head.
* * * *
"Wine, El-in-or!" cried Tellius, master of the kitchen of Bosk of Port Kar. "Take wine to the table!"
Numbly, shaking, I took the vessel of wine. I went to the door of the kitchen, and went through the hallway, and stopped before the back entrance to the hall.
It had not been as hard as I had feared to be entered into the house.
I was sold, for fifteen pieces of gold, to the house of Samos, a slaver of Port Kar. Samos himself was abroad upon Thassa, in ventures of piracy and enslavement, and it was through a subordinate that I was purchased. Tellius, the kitchen master of the house of Bosk, drunken, in a dicing match, in a paga tavern of Port Kar, had learned that there was an interesting girl, newly brought to the house of Samos, one who had been trained in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, one who wore the brand of Treve. It was also said that she was beautiful.
Tellius, who would, upon occasion, need new girls in the kitchen, as others were given away or sold, was intrigued. I suspect he seldom had the opportunity to chain trained pleasure slaves to the wall of his kitchen after the completion of the evening's work.