by John Norman
Uneasily I touched the collar on my neck. It read, I had been told, 'I am the property of the Lady Florence of Vonda.' I could not remove it, of course, for I was a slave and it had been locked on me. I looked down the avenue of the Central Cylinder, down which the troops had disappeared. I had heard, inadvertently from the Lady Melpomene, as I had stood at the stirrup of my mistress, that an uneasy situation existed currently between Ar and the Salerian Confederation. The Lady Melpomene had said she was leaving Ar that night. The Lady Florence, of course, if I were identified as her slave, would by my collar presumably be recognized as a citizeness of Vonda, one of the cities of the confederation. I did not think it would go easily with her if hostilities should break out openly and she be seized in Ar. Indeed, we might be sold from the same platform. I wondered what she might look like in a collar. I knew, of course, what she looked like naked, for I was her silk slave. Free women think as little of concealing their bodies before their silk slaves as the women of Earth would before their pet dogs. Too, of course, it would not be well to be a woman of Ar in Vonda, should hostilities break out. Immediate reduction to total slavery would surely be the least of what would be inflicted on such a woman. I thought it would be desirable, from my mistress' point of view, to leave Ar in the near future, and make her way to her house in the resort town of Venna. I began to be uneasy. It seemed to me that the sooner we departed from the walls of Ar the better it might be. My alarm, of course, was not simply on behalf of my mistress, but on my own behalf as well. Gorean men, I had learned, are not patient with silk slaves. I did not wish to risk crawling on my stomach, over stones, under whips, perhaps for pasangs, to the nearest slave market.
Some fifty yards away, in the street, another palanquin passed, borne by draft slaves, some lovely enslaved girls, in brief tunics, chained by the neck to a bar at its back. Their hands, too, were locked behind their backs in slave bracelets. Perhaps the display was a bit ostentatious, but I did not object. The girls were slim-thighed and sweetly breasted.
I looked down to the girl who, wrists bound, on the shortened neck-leash, sat at the slave ring in front of the shop of Philebus. It was later in the afternoon now, and it was hot. I was surprised to see, though I gave no sign of this, that she had been looking at me. She turned her head away. I continued to regard her. I think she was aware of this. She sat a bit more straightly against the wall, putting her head back. I thought again of the girls chained behind the palanquin I had just seen, and the girl before me now, at the ring, fastened there. How marvelous I thought to be on such a world, where such women might be owned. I was not displeased then to be on Gor. I regarded her ankles, her calves and thighs, the sweetness of her belly and breasts, her throat, her face, her hair.
"I am thirsty," she said.
"Kneel," I said.
"Never," she said.
I looked away.
"I am kneeling," she said.
I looked back at her. She was now kneeling.
"Slave!" said the male silk slave, fastened at the wall, at the next ring.
Somehow I had known the girl would kneel to me. It is difficult to say how I had known this. Indeed, perhaps I had not known it. Perhaps I had only expected it.
She was kneeling. She had obeyed.
I recalled our earlier exchange, in which she had told me that she was not for the likes of me, but for free men. "Do you yield well in their arms, Slave?" I had asked her. "I expect you yield well indeed, Slave," I had said to her. She had flushed crimson, and had sobbed. Our relationship was now quite different than it would have been, I sensed, had that exchange not taken place. In that exchange I had made it clear to her that she was a woman, and that, if she were to relate to me, she must do so as a woman. I would have it no other way. I had seen fit, by an act of my will, that of a male, to deny to her the convenient refuges of deceit, pretense and fraud. She now knelt at my feet. I had, by an imperious word, put her there.
She looked up at me. I saw that her eyes were angry. I saw, too, in her eyes that she knew she belonged at the feet of a man.
"I am very thirsty," she said.
"What of it?" I asked.
Her eyes flashed.
I looked away, out into the street.
"I am very thirsty," said the girl, after a time. "I am chained. Would you bring me water from the fountain, please?"
"You must pay me," I said.
The male silk slave at the next ring cried out with outrage.
"You must pay me," I said. "Do you understand?"
"Clearly," she said.
I went to the fountain and, from the lower bowl, scooped up a brimming, double handful of water which I carried, carefully, to the girl. I lifted it to her lips and she, kneeling, hands bound before her body, her neck on its chain leash fastened to the ring behind her, drank. My hands were in position, when she had drunk, to hold her head. She looked at me, frightened. "I know the feel of such hands," she said. "You are not a silk slave," she whispered.
"I," said the silk slave fastened at the next ring, "if I had been free, would have fetched you the water for nothing."
"I know your sort," said the girl. "You ask nothing, but you expect much." I thrust the girl back against the wall. I thrust my lips to her throat. "I prefer a man," gasped the girl, to the silk slave, "who takes command of a girl, and takes what he wants from her." Then she said to me, sucking in her breath, turning her head to the side, "And what do you want of me?" "Everything," I told her, "and more." "I feared so," she laughed. I thrust up her bound hands, to get them out of my way. I then understood why Goreans commonly bind the hands of women behind their back. Then her bound wrists, crossed, were behind the back of my neck, and her lips began to meet mine, eagerly. "Take me," she whispered, "—Master!"
"Stop!" cried the silk slave at the next ring. "Stop! I shall tell!"
"Take me, Master!" begged the girl. "Please take me!"
"Stop!" cried the silk slave. "Stop! I shall tell! I shall tell!"
I had been had numerous times on Gor by free women, usually chained or obedient to their commands, but I had not been permitted, myself, to take a woman, to hold her in my arms, owning her, and transform her into an obedient, squirming slave. Uncontrollable, wild, starved for the ownership of a woman, I thrust her back, brutally, against the wall. Then I dragged her, half lying, holding her helplessly, from the wall. Her head was up in the leash collar. "Oh," she cried, "oh!"
"Disgusting!" I heard from a free woman passing in the street.
"Animal!" I heard another woman say.
But these passers-by, and others, did not order us apart. We were slaves. Such scenes are not unknown on Gorean streets. They would attract little more attention than would the writhings of pet sleen. It is for such reasons that slave girls are sometimes sent from their houses locked in the iron belt. To be sure the slave girl is more likely to be attacked by young ruffians than male slaves, who are often closely supervised.
"Oh," moaned the girl in my arms. "Oh, Master."
"Please take me home, Publius, and touch me," I heard a woman, in robes of concealment, say to he who walked with her upon that street.
They hurried away.
I cried out with the glory of having her.
"Master!" she wept.
I withdrew from the girl, lifting her arms from about my neck, shuddering, gasping.
"You are ruthless, Master," she said. Then she reached out to me with her mouth, and kissed me, again and again, on the left forearm.
I stood up, and left her at my feet. I was breathing heavily.
"Wait until your Mistress comes," said the silk slave at the ring. "I shall tell her."
The girl, half sitting, half kneeling, her neck in the leash collar, her hands still bound before her, put her head against the wall. She was covered with sweat, and the smell of her pleasure. Her body was covered with deep crimson blotches. Demurely she smoothed down the hem of her tunic.
I turned about to look at the street. Some twenty yards a
way two palanquins, heading in opposite directions, were stopped. The men in them, facing one another, were talking, presumably greeting one another and passing the time of day with genial converse. The pace of life in a Gorean city, even a large city such as Ar, does not tend to be swift. Sometimes when there is an especially beautiful sky many people will close their shops and men will flock to the high bridges to watch.
"I shall tell," said the silk slave at the ring.
Behind the palanquins, as behind several of the others I had seen this day, were several chained girls, briefly tunicked and ribboned.
"Yes, I shall tell," said the silk slave.
One of the girls was looking at me. She was small, slender-legged and exquisite. She was collared. The short, loose silk she wore was hitched high, at her left hip. She was chained by the neck, in one of two eleven-girl coffles, between two other girls, each coffle chained separately to a bar at the back of the palanquin. Her hands, like those of the other girls, were fastened behind her back.
I shook with emotion. I had never realized she could be so beautiful.
She was looking at me.
Slowly, trembling, heart pounding, I moved toward her.
"Come back," called the silk slave. "Stay at the wall! I will tell! I will tell!"
I approached the girl. The masters did not notice, for they were in converse. Some servants, too, were speaking together, near the palanquins. Neither did they notice.
Then I stood before her. Her eyes were regarding me with horror. She stepped back, in the chain.
"I did not think I would ever see you again," I said.
She did not speak.
I looked at her fair, white throat; it was lovely and delicate; it wore, snugly, locked on it, the circlet of bondage.
"That girl," she said. "You raped her."
I stepped back from the girl, to look upon her. I could scarcely believe my eyes.
"Please," she said.
Objectively, I suppose, she was no more beautiful than thousands of other girls, but to me she was the most exciting woman I had ever seen.
"Please," she said.
I examined, with wonder and pleasure, the girl who stood before me, her small feet, bare, and trim ankles, her calves and thighs, the delicious curves of her body in the loose, scant silk, the loveliness of her slender throat, locked in its collar, the delicacy and beauty of her features, the loveliness of her eyes, sensitive and vulnerable, and the marvels of her dark hair, grown longer now, tied back with a silk ribbon.
"Please," she said, "do not look at me like that."
"Are you branded?" I asked.
She turned her left side from me. She pulled at the bracelets which fastened her hands behind her back.
"Oh, how beautiful it is," I said, having stepped to her left. There, her tunic had been hitched up to her hip, presumably the better to expose her beauty and the mark which identified it as merely that of an item of merchandise.
"You raped that girl," she said.
It was hard for me to take my eyes off the beauty. Her thigh, I had noted, bore the common Kajira mark of Gor. She, I understood, in spite of her beauty to me, was only a common Kajira.
"Are you not pleased to see me?" I asked. It seemed to me incredible that she should not be pleased to see me.
"You raped that girl," she said, angrily.
"Not really," I said. "She was paying for a drink of water which I had brought to her."
"Beast," she said.
I said nothing for a moment.
I looked at her. She was in the nearest coffle of eleven girls, one of two coffles fastened to the bar at the back of the palanquin. She was the tenth girl in her coffle. The coffle chain had its own collars, rounded and rather loose, which lay below the common collars of the girls; they could not, of course, be slipped. They were similar to what I have learned are called Turian collars.
"You are very beautiful," I said. I stood more closely to her.
She tossed her head. "Doubtless did you have me at a similar disadvantage," she said, "I would have been subjected to the same treatment."
I put my hands on her tunic. It had parted somewhat, apparently, in her walking, following the palanquin. Her hands fastened as they were, behind her, she could not draw the garment closed. Briefly I wanted to rip it down from her shoulders. She was woman enough to understand this. She shuddered. Then I drew it together more closely, that the loveliness of her small breasts might be the better concealed.
"You would strip and rape me on the street, if you could, wouldn't you?" she asked.
I wanted to take her in my arms. But I did not know, truly, she fastened as she was, how to do this. Secured as she was she could be taken in one's arms only as a captive or slave girl. That, of course, scarcely seemed proper in the context.
"Wouldn't you?" she asked.
"No," I said, "of course not."
"Oh," she said.
"You are not a Gorean girl," I said.
"That is true," she said.
I looked down at her. "You are looking quite well," I said. It was true. I had never seen her before looking so relaxed and beautiful. And yet she stood before me, helpless in chains. Slavery, of course, reduces tensions in a woman.
"You are looking well yourself," she said.
"I see that you are a display item," I said.
"Yes," she smiled.
"If I owned you, I would show you off, too," I said.
"Beast," she smiled.
"You are wearing a white ribbon," I said.
"So are you," she said.
"I am not white silk," I smiled.
"The ribbon is only to match my tunic," she said. "I am not truly white silk."
"Do you wish to speak in English?" I asked. "Would it be easier?"
She looked about, uneasily. The other girls were not paying us attention. "No," she said, continuing in Gorean. We had both spoken, naturally, in the language of our masters. Masters do not care to hear slaves speak in tongues they do not understand. The slave learns the language of the owner, and learns it well. Her Gorean was quite good. Mine, I thought, was better. Surprisingly, perhaps, we had spoken together in Gorean without really considering the matter. I do not think this was simply because we feared to irritate or offend passing Goreans, who tend to view languages other than their own as barbarous, or because slaves are expected to use a speech intelligible to their masters, but because, for most practical purposes, Gorean had become our language. I am sure, however, we could have conversed readily in English, had we so chosen. After a brief period of readjustment we would have become again at ease in it.
"I was white silk on Earth," she said.
"I did not know that," I said.
"It is scarcely the sort of thing a girl publicly discusses on Earth," she said.
"I suppose not," I said. Such information, of course, would be publicly brandished to buyers in a slave market. "Who first took you?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said. "I was hooded and thrown naked to keepers. I was raped and handed about, passed from brute to brute. They did with me what they pleased."
"I understand," I said. Her ravishing would have been thorough, accomplished by Gorean men. I looked at her. She was beautiful. I envied the brutes who had enjoyed her.
"I was then," she said, "though a girl of Earth, ready to be trained as a slave."
"Of course," I said. I did not press her on the nature of her training.
"I was trained in the House of Andronicus," she said, "and sold in Vonda."
"I, too, was in the House of Andronicus," I said. "I was later purchased by Tima, a slaver, mistress of the House of Tima. I was sold from the market of Tima. That is also in Vonda." I looked at her. "Were you naked, and auctioned?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "And you?"
"I, too," I said.
She shrugged. "We are only slaves," she said. I looked at her. I realized she had been trained to give pleasure to men. She was beautiful. She would do it well. Thi
s pleased me. I envied the lazy brute in the palanquin who owned her. I wished that I owned her. But, of course, I reminded myself, she was not a Gorean girl. She was of Earth.
"You there!" I heard. "What are you doing there?"
I backed quickly away from the girl. I turned. I saw one of the servants, near the side of the palanquin, with a whip, gesture me angrily away. Then he turned again to talk with his fellows.
"Who is your master?" I called to the girl.
She looked at me, frightened, and now stood very straight, facing the back of the palanquin.
"Fearful slave," I said, angrily. She was afraid to speak.
"To whom do you belong?" asked a blond girl, she who was last in the coffle line.
"My Mistress is the Lady Florence of Vonda," I said.
"You belong to a woman?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I do not believe it," she said.
"It is true," I said.
"You are a silk slave?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I was once free," she said. She shrugged her shoulders, moving her wrists in the bracelets.
"Now you serve men well," I said.
"Of course," she said.
"Who owns you?" I asked.
"Beware," she said. "Strabar is coming!"
"Stand where you are!" I heard.
I turned about. The servant, with his whip, approached me. He stopped some dozen feet or so from me. "Do not move," he said.
I stood still.
He turned to the girls. "Which of you wenches dared to speak to this slave?" he asked.
The girls were silent.
"It was this one, wasn't it?" he grinned, touching the small, exquisite, dark-haired girl with whom I had been engaged in converse with his whip. She shuddered.
"It was she whom I accosted," I said. "If there is blame here, it is mine, not hers."
"Bold slave," he smiled.
"We are of the world called Earth," I said to him. "We knew one another there."
"It is not permitted for you to speak to her," he said.