by John Norman
"I am still free, truly, you know," she said.
"Yes," I said, "legally."
"I am furious," she said, "that you have leashed me." She kissed me.
"Why?" I asked.
"I am free," she said, "and it is so degrading. It is almost as though I were a slave girl."
"Yes, it is, is it not?" I said.
"I suppose it was necessary to leash me," she said, "as a matter of prisoner security."
"I do not think it was necessary," I said, "but it was convenient."
"Convenient!" she cried. "You leashed me because it was convenient!" She struggled up to one elbow beside me, the tether on her throat.
"Yes," I said, "but, too, there was another reason."
"What was that?" she asked.
"Because you are pretty in a leash, Lady Florence," I said.
She looked at me, not speaking.
Shortly after dark, while we were still trekking, I had put her to her back, untied her hands, then put her on her stomach, tying her hands again behind her back. I had then put her on her back again and unwrapped the long strap from her throat. I had then, holding the coiled strap about two feet from her throat, jerked it twice, that she could feel the pull against the back of her neck. She had looked up at me. "Not bad," I said. She had gasped. Then, loosening the coils, giving her some slack, I had pulled her to her feet. She had looked at me, her eyes wide. "I am leashed," she had whispered, disbelievingly. Then I had turned about and pulled her after me. In a moment she was hurrying behind me, hands bound, on the leash. Twice, that she might rest, we had stopped. Each time she had knelt quite close to me. The second time she had looked up at me, piteously, the tether on her throat, and kissed me on the thigh. It is interesting, the effect that a device such as a leash can have on a woman. The common Gorean leash, incidentally, unlike the simple strap I was using, has a lock snap and closes either about a collar or a collar ring. It might be mentioned that there are also such devices as wrist leashes and ankle leashes.
"What are you thinking?" I asked her.
"I was thinking," she said, "that you were once my silk slave."
I did not speak.
"If you were an understanding, refined sort," she said, "and I more fully free, I might beg to attempt to earn my freedom, by the performance of intimate services for you."
"But I am not such a sort," I said.
"No," she smiled, "you are not."
"Nor are you so fully free," I said.
"No," she said. "I fear I am no longer so fully free."
"You would peddle your favors, bargain with your beauty?" I said.
"With what else have I to bargain?" she asked. "What else have I to sell?"
"You would do commerce with your body?"
"Certainly," she said.
"How then are you different from a whore?" I asked.
"Free women always bargain with their favors, with their hand, with their bodies," she said.
"How then are any of you different from whores?" I asked.
"Beast!" she said.
"All of you belong in collars," I said.
"Beast!" she wept.
"But it is the master," I said, "who will reap the favors of the slave, or distribute them as he pleases. It is he who will obtain whatever profit might accrue from his properties."
"It seems," she said, "that I am helpless, that I am unable even to bargain with my services."
"Any such services which you might perform," I said, "are already mine to command."
"That is true," she said.
"I command them," I said.
"That I might earn my freedom?" she asked.
"No," I said, "that you might, through sedulous practice, improve your skills as a slave."
"I am not a slave," she said.
"You will behave as one," I said.
She looked at me, angrily.
"Will you not?" I asked.
"Never!" she exclaimed, suddenly.
I thought that perhaps it was time to teach the Lady Florence of Vonda something of slave needs.
It was a lesson she could well use.
She was, after all, a woman of Gor, not of Earth. She was not, for example, a Beverly Henderson.
"Never?" I asked.
"Never!" she averred.
"Position!" I snapped.
Instantly she went to position. She did not wish to be whipped.
"Interesting," I said.
"Brute! Beast!" she said.
"Your knees," I said. "They can be more widely spread."
"Beast!" she wept, but spread her knees more widely.
"More," I said.
She uttered an exclamation of rage, but complied.
She looked well in the position of the pleasure slave. The thought passed my mind that she belonged in it.
"That is what it is to kneel before a man," I said.
"As a man's property, and toy!" she said.
"As his animal, and slave," I added.
She knelt before me, naked, her hands bound behind her back, a leash on her neck—in the position of the pleasure slave, the lowliest and most exciting of women.
I was not displeased.
I regarded her.
There she was, before me, naked, kneeling, tethered, leashed, as stripped, and helpless, as the most meaningless of slaves, my former mistress, the lofty, wealthy, imperious, beautiful Lady Florence of Vonda.
It would be remiss on my part if I did not mention that I looked upon her with considerable pleasure.
She was a beautiful woman, and mine by capture rights, mine—on Gor.
"Release me from this position!" she demanded.
I did not respond to her.
She did not dare to break position.
She squirmed a little, piteously.
"This position makes me terribly uneasy," she said. "It makes me feel—helpless—and vulnerable, terribly vulnerable."
"That is one of its purposes," I told her.
"Please!" she protested.
"It is also terribly arousing to a female, as I understand it," I said.
"Yes!" she said, piteously, squirming.
"Is it not?" I asked.
"Yes! Yes!" she said.
I smiled.
"What have you done to me?" she said.
"Is it not obvious?" I said.
"Please," she said.
Whereas it was doubtless true that the position of the pleasure slave in itself was terribly arousing to a woman, there was much more involved here. As some may not be familiar with the subtleties involved, it may be helpful to mention some of them. First, the female finds herself in a kneeling position, which is significant in itself. She is thus in, and knows herself in, in the depth of her belly, a position indicative of obeisance, helplessness, and submission. Too, that this position is assumed before a male, who is dominant by nature, is additionally significant. She, in it, senses its delicious rightfulness. But in this position, too, before the male, further, her knees are spread, by his will, she willing or not, invitingly. Thus is attention called to, and thus is blatantly bespoken, her feminine vulnerability. This advertises to him, acknowledges to him, and, indeed, culturally proclaims before him, that she is his, wholly and helplessly. She is open before him, completely, her most delicate sensitivities revealed, publicly bared, irrecoverably and candidly exposed; she may not defend herself; she is at his sexual mercy. And so, before him, she thusly kneels. Her most delicious intimacies, unguarded, unshielded, secure behind no gate, now made manifest, are no longer hers to control; they are now at another's command and convenience; they are now, immediately and unquestioningly, at another's beck and call. All is accessible to him. She is helpless before him. But so much, I suppose, would be obvious to any woman, of any culture. But then suppose, too, that it is realized, as a Gorean woman would realize it, that the position in which she finds herself is literally a slave position, and, moreover, that it is the position of a particular form of slave, a particularly remar
kable and interesting form of slave, the despicable and much-sought-after pleasure slave, a slave whose primary function in life is to please a master, and provide him with inordinate pleasure.
But it is not just the position, but the entire milieu involved, as well, culturally, socially, psychologically, physically, and so on. Too, there is the helplessness and restraint of her hands, in this case bound closely behind her back, the tether on her neck, holding her in place, as a domestic animal, and so on. All of these things speak on a thousand levels to the woman. Woman in her heart, you see, knows that she is the property of man, and the suitable slave of a master. Her dreams, her fantasies, her very sense of her life and being, make this clear to her. How she must strive to maintain pretenses to the contrary; how she must struggle to deny and hate; how she must wildly flee what she only too clearly understands to be the insistent, ill-disguised, whispering secrets of herself. Does she not understand she will never find herself until she is on her knees before a man; does she not understand for what nature has designed her; does she not understand that she, in her beauty, is his, indeed, that she was born to be his, born for the collar of a master?
"I think I shall now tether you for the night," I said.
"No!" she said. "No! No!"
"No?" I asked.
"Caress me!" she said. "I beg to be caressed!"
"In what manner? I inquired.
"As a slave!"
"I thought you would not behave as a slave," I said,
"What you have done to me!" she cried. "Well you know, you brute, that in your arms I cannot help myself!"
"I see," I said.
"In your arms," she said, "I am no better than a slave!"
I smiled to myself. I wondered what her helplessness would be were she truly in a collar.
"Hesitate not," she said. "I am in desperate need!" She looked at me, wildly. "What is wrong?" she said. "Why do you dally? What is wrong?"
"I shall consider whether or not I choose to satisfy you," I said.
"But I am a woman!" she cried.
"Yes," I said. "And I shall decide whether or not you will be satisfied."
She regarded me with disbelief, with horror.
"No!" she whispered.
I regarded the Lady Florence of Vonda, now reduced to a helpless, squirming wench.
"Please," she said. "Please!"
I wondered how often she, as a free woman, had tortured men, with a glance, with nearness, with the flash of a silken ankle, descending gracefully from a palanquin, with the tiny artful, disarrangement of a veil. I did not doubt but what she, as many free women, had delighted in these petty exercises of power, these torments, these teasings and spurious, vacuous flirtations, these malicious, gratuitous, amusing little tauntings. I wondered if she would have dared such provocations if she had understood the tumult and chaos she had wrought in the blood of strong, angry men.
"Please," she whimpered.
Is it any wonder that men put women in collars, and command them?
I busied myself about the small camp. "Do not break position," I warned her.
It is not uncommon to use the enflamed needs of an aroused slave to control her. To be sure, the Lady Florence was only a free woman. But it was not difficult to conjecture what might be her increasing sexual vulnerability, her profound sexual helplessness, if she were to find herself truly enslaved.
"Please, please," she whimpered. "Please—Master!"
I strode angrily to her and took her by the hair, and flung her back, to her back on the grass.
"Yes!" she wept. "Thank you, Master! Thank you, Master!"
* * * *
She pressed her bound flesh against me, piteously, gratefully. I felt her small, soft tongue at my neck, and shoulder.
"Please," she whispered, "when my needs are again upon me, do not deprive me of your touch. Do not make me so suffer, and wait."
"I will do as I please," I told her. Then I thrust her away. She then lay on her back, in the grass, her small, bound hands in the small of her back. She looked up piteously at the three moons of Gor. She moaned. She suddenly struck her heels down into the grass, in frustration. She turned, thrashing, from one side to the other. Then again she lay on her back, looking up at the moons.
She had been taught, I think, a valuable lesson.
How vulnerable she would be, I thought, if masters were to ignite slave fires in her belly, which would then frequently and acutely rage there, in all their indifferent, implacable, inexorable ferocity.
How helpless she would be then!
I recalled how Telitsia, and the others, would pull at their chains, and weep, and beg to be touched.
It is no wonder, I thought, that kajirae are marvels of duty and service for their masters. They will compete and strive for a caress. But it must be admitted that masters seldom hurry with their slaves. Nor is there any reason they should; they are not free women, inert and ignorant, jealous of their freedom, determined to retain their personal sovereignty under any and all conditions, women occasionally, one supposes bravely and nobly, submitting to, resignedly enduring, the boredoms of perfunctory congress. Rather they are slaves, and will be well ravished, and when the master is through with them they will have no illusions of freedom or sovereignty; they will know that they are truly in their collars. And they are grateful to the master that he has deigned to quench within them for a time the belly fires of the female thrall, which smolder within them even when not blazing, those fires which inform them of their bondage more even than the metal on their neck, the iron on an ankle, the lovely mark burned into their sweet thigh. And they will not have it otherwise; a contented slave would not trade her collar for a kingdom. She knows what she is, and it is what she wants to be.
Again I heard the Lady Florence of Vonda moan, this time softly to herself, and I heard the catch of a sob in her throat.
How different she is, I thought, from a Beverly Henderson.
Then I went to sleep.
* * * *
"Come here," I said. I held the leash.
"You hold my leash. I obey," she said.
When she was but inches from me, I pulled her by the leash even more closely to me. Her lips were then but the breadth of fingers from mine.
"Are you still intent upon taking me to the camp of Tenalion?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
We had been some days afoot.
I estimated we would have at least another day or two's trek before we reached that destination.
"Was I not pleasing to you last night?" she asked.
"You were," I said.
"Yet you will still take me to the camp of Tenalion?"
"Yes," I said.
"Can I sway you from this purpose?"
"No."
"You are adamant?"
"Yes."
"Do not lead me in on a leash," she said.
"It is common to take a girl to and from a market on a leash," I said.
"But Tenalion has known me as a free woman," she said.
"You will soon be known to him only as a lovely slave," I said.
"Not on the leash, please," she wept.
"On the leash," I told her.
"My will means nothing?" she asked.
"Nothing," I told her.
She sobbed then, and I threw her beneath me.
"Do not sell me!" she begged.
"Be silent, lovely slave," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
* * * *
"Tomorrow," she whispered to me, confidently, "I know what you are going to do."
"What is that?" I inquired.
"We will start back, for my estates," she said, "and you will free me."
"I do not understand," I said.
"You have well humbled your former mistress," she said.
I said nothing.
"You have had me moaning and writhing in your arms, helpless, beside myself with passion."
"Perhaps," I said.
To be sure,
the passion signs of orgasmic submission had been unmistakable and plentiful in her lovely body. These cannot be feigned, and they invariably betray the beauty, deny them though she might wish at a later time.
"Is that not what you desired?" she asked.
Again I was silent.
"You did it to me," she said. "I could not help myself. You took me from myself. You caressed me into submission, as though I might have been a mere slave! You caressed me yours!"
"Certainly you have learned to juice and squirm, and kick and buck, nicely," I said.
"Brute," she said.
"And you now do so after little more than a touch," I said. "It is interesting to speculate on what might be your responsiveness in a collar."
"You are a beast," she whispered.
"But that will become clear in time," I said.
"You jest," she said. She laughed, uncertainly.
I did not, of course, join in her uneasy merriment.
"After what you have done to me," she said, "and after all the pleasure you have derived from me, how you have reaped my fields and picked my fruit, surely your honor is satisfied."
"Honor?" I said.
"It is not necessary to sell me," she said.
"No, I do not think it is necessary to sell you," I said.
"That is it!" she exclaimed. "You see!"
"But it is my intention to do so."
"No!" she said.
"Do you think you can prevent it?" I asked.
I looked upon her stripped, bound body, too casually, I suppose. But I was already beginning to see it as that of a slave.
My regard, I noted, did little to put my prisoner at ease. Perhaps she had seen men in markets so regard slaves. How frightened it made her, to be so looked upon.
"You would never, truly, sell me to the collar," she said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"You are a man of Earth," she said.
"Once," I said.
"Men of Earth," she said, "do not buy and sell women."
"They did so for thousands of years," I said.
"But not now!" she said.
"Some do," I said. "And given certain cultural developments it is not impossible that the practice may become again wide-spread. Indeed, a brief hiatus in that matter may be viewed, a century or so from now, as no more than an interesting historical anomaly."