by John Norman
"It is my belief," she said, "that you are an honorable man."
I regarded her.
"No no," she said. "You are an honorable man, an honorable man!"
I did not respond to her. It is hard to know about such things. Many subtleties are involved. Sometimes the way of honor is clear; at other times it is not. But one seeks her.
"You have had your way with me," she said, "well and lengthily, and have thus, many fold, had your vengeance upon me."
I looked at her.
"So your honor has now been satisfied," she said.
"I see," I said.
"So now," she said, "as a man of honor, you will return me to my estates, and free me."
I smiled.
"No, no," she said. "You are a man of honor, clearly a man of honor!"
"You are clever," I said.
"I do not understand," she said.
"It is interesting," I said, musingly. "At one time I could be easily manipulated by the words of a woman, led about, and made a fool of. How they twisted me, and turned me. I recall that time. It is done with."
"I do not understand," she said.
"Your game is over with," I said. "It amused me to permit you to play it."
"I do not understand," she faltered.
"Do you truly think to manipulate me with words, to turn me aside with puffs of sound?" I asked. "Do you think to tell me my direction, which is your direction? Do you want me to guide my life by your compass, one aligned with a foreign star, one alien to my own?"
I think that on Gor I had learned to think in terms of realities and not words. Too, no man is likely to be ruled by a woman who has once seen one in her place, at his feet.
That changes many things.
"Please," she said, "—Captor."
I looked sternly upon her.
"—Master," she said.
"Why do you prate of honor, and such?" I asked. "Such things are not involved here.
She regarded me, apprehensively. She turned to her side, facing me, and drew up her legs, defensively. She squirmed a little. Her wrists were bound behind her. She was very beautiful, and mine, mine by Gorean capture rights, to do with as I pleased.
Clearly, though she was free, I was to her as Master. I had accepted, and to some extent encouraged, but not demanded, this deferentiality of address in her. I thought it well for her to accustom herself to calling free men Master. It was my hope that this would make her transition to the collar a little easier. Also it did not displease me to be so addressed by my former mistress. One of the pleasures of the mastery, of course, is to be so addressed, and properly, by a lovely slave, to whom you are, of course, master.
"Are you not aware that you have been bared, and bound, and leashed," I asked.
"I am well aware of that," she said.
"Then consider the matter," I said.
"What of your honor," she cried. "What of your honor?"
"Honor does not enter into this," I said.
I thought of Earth, and honor. How neglected, how disdained, how scorned was honor there. How seldom recollected it was. And yet, I thought, there are some men on Earth who would remain true to it, who would forever clasp the shreds of its banner to their bosom. But, too, I suspected the honor of Earth, so neglected and maligned, so forsaken and ridiculed, might not be the same as the honor of Gor. No, I thought. They are different. The honor of Gor, I suspected, was a harsher honor, one more demanding and less compromising. It was a sense of honor less germane to the accountant and merchant than to the peasant or warrior, less germane to the lamb than to the lion. Such things can differ, from culture to culture.
She looked at me, in consternation.
"If it did," I said, "what do you think would be your Gorean fate?"
She stiffened, and turned pale.
When a woman has abused and insulted a man, and treated him badly, it is a common Gorean moral view that such a woman should be stripped, and put to use, and then sold into slavery.
"Free me!" she cried.
"No," I told her.
"Think of your honor!" she said.
"My honor, if it exists," I said, "is now that of Gor."
"No!" she wept. "Not Gorean honor—not in you—not the honor of Gor!"
"Yes," said I, "that of Gor."
"You are of Earth," she said, "of Earth!"
"No more," I said.
"You cannot be serious about selling me," she said. "It is madness!"
"No madness is involved," I said. "You will be an object in a simple business transaction."
"No!" she wept.
But, being Gorean, she should surely realize that no more would be involved than in selling a verr or tarsk.
"You cannot sell me," she said, "not after last night! I served you well! How you used me! How I served! Did I not earn my freedom? You did that to me, and I, after yielding all, and finding myself yours as I was, so helpless, so ravished, after all I gave you, after all you took from me, you will sell me—sell me?"
She regarded me, in disbelief.
"Yes," I said.
"No, no!" she cried.
"If I learned anything last night," I said, "it is that the collar is right for you, that you belong in it."
"No!" she said.
"But even if it were not right for you," I said, "I would still put you in it."
"No!" she said. "No!"
"You are going to be sold to the collar," I said.
"No!" she cried, "no, no!"
"You should be proud," I said. "You have the makings of a superb slave, and, my dear Lady Florence, though this is irrelevant to my decision, you will never find your happiness outside of the collar."
Tears sprang into her eyes.
"It is true," I said.
"You are not of Earth!" she said. "You are Gorean, Gorean!"
"I was of Earth," I said. "I do not know what I am now."
"You cannot sell me, after all I have done for you last night!" she wept. "I have behaved as a full slave to you!"
I pulled her again to me, by the leash. She moaned. Then I turned her to her back, and put my hand under her chin, forcing her head back.
"As a full slave?" I asked.
"As a full slave," she said.
I kissed her, on the lips. Then I lifted my head. "And you will do so again," I whispered.
"I must," she said, throwing her head to the side in anguish. "I must! I must! You hold my leash!"
* * * *
She writhed in my arms, squirming and moaning. Then I held my left hand behind the small of her back and touched her well and fully with my right hand. The tether was on her throat. Her hands were bound behind her back. She lifted her body to me piteously.
"You will make some master a hot slave," I said.
"I am leashed," she said. "I must obey!"
"Your condition is that of a slave," I said. "It is a thing far beyond leashes and collars."
"Do not stop touching me!" she begged. She thrust herself, rearing, up against me.
"You are superb, Lady Florence," I said.
"I want—I want—" she whispered, terrified.
"Yes?" I said.
"I want to scream myself a submitted slave!" she wept.
"Do so," I told her.
"I am a slave!" she sobbed. "I admit it!" she sobbed. "I am a slave!" she cried out. "I am a slave, a slave!" Then she shuddered and shook in my arms, and I could scarcely hold her, and then she was crying, and sobbing joyfully. I continued to hold her, and kiss her, and then, as she was so beautiful, I entered her and, in fierce silence, exulted within her. "Thank you, Master," she whispered, and I then continued to hold her. "I am a slave, aren't I?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "I have always feared so," she said. "In itself it is nothing to fear," I said. "Fear rather the actual state of bondage, and those who will be your masters."
"I do fear it, and them," she said. "But should not a true slave, like myself, be placed in actual bondage, and have a master? Otherwise she could not
be truly fulfilled."
"On the world which I once knew, one called Earth," I said, "it is common to deny the fulfillment of slaves. Laws, even, are sometimes opposed to their fulfillment."
"Cruel laws," she said.
"The Gorean world, in many ways, is cruel," I said, "but its cruelties are unhypocritical and open. They are honest and comprehensible. They are not pernicious and insidious. It would not occur to a Gorean to deny a slave her collar. She would not be forced to thwart and frustrate her deepest biological dispositions and sentiments, her desire to be, fully, a male's female."
"I am a slave," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I want to be a slave," she said, "but I am terrified to be a slave."
"As well you might be," I said.
"What can a master do to me?" she asked.
"Anything," I said.
"I am afraid," she whispered.
"As well you might be," I said.
Suddenly she scrambled from my side, miserably, scattering leaves and dirt about. She backed away, frightened, to the end of her tether. She struggled against it, her head down. She struggled to free her wrists, futilely. She was very beautiful as she tried to free herself. She could not do so.
"I do not want to be a slave!" she cried.
"By tomorrow night," I told her, "you will have felt the iron and will wear the collar."
"I do not want to be a slave!" she cried.
"The decision is not yours," I said.
"I do not want to be a slave," she wept. She fell on her knees at my side. "Free me," she begged. "Free me!"
"Try to be pleasing to your masters," I said. "Perhaps then you will be permitted to live."
She looked at me, aghast.
"Now lick and kiss me," I told her. "It is dawn, and we must soon be on our way."
"Yes, Master," she said.
33
We will Enter the Camp of Tenalion;
The Leash
"There!" I said. "That is it!" I indicated to her, in the shallow valley between the two sloping hills, some half pasang from the southern road, the blue and yellow canvas of the distant tents. Too, we could see cages, and palisaded pens, and slave wagons. In the late morning we had asked directions from a surly, armed fellow herding two trussed women, a stick bound behind the back of their necks. We had seen a tarnsman, too, flying in this direction, four girls tied at his saddle rings. We stood at the top of the hill, in the grass, in the shade of some Ka-la-na trees, the yellow wine trees of Gor. "It is the camp of Tenalion," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I took the leash and wrapped it about her throat, tucking it in.
"Will you not take me into the camp immediately?" she asked.
"Are you so eager to be branded?" I asked.
"They will brand me, won't they," she said, "as though I might be any girl."
"You are any girl," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"We will rest here for a time," I said. "There are grapes here. Feed me."
I lay down on one elbow and watched her picking the grapes with her teeth. Then she came and knelt humbly beside me and, one by one, from her mouth, as I fed, placed the grapes in my mouth.
"Bring me water," I told her.
She went to a nearby stream and, lying beside it on her belly, in the gravel, took water in her mouth. She then returned to me and, as she knelt above me, I took the water from her mouth.
She straightened up, kneeling. "Were you not afraid I would try to escape?" she asked.
"No," I said.
She looked down at me. "There is no escape for me," she said.
I then took her and flung her, twisting her, on her back in the grass beneath me. "It is true," I told her. "There is no escape for you."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I watched you bring me food and drink," I said. "You did well. I think you are learning swiftly."
"You have taught me much," she said.
"We are near the camp of Tenalion," I said. "Do you not now wish, again, to beg me piteously for your freedom?"
"No, Master," she said. "I now beg piteously only to be permitted to please you."
I later lifted my lips and hands from her body.
"Am I pleasing?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
I then stood, unsteadily for a moment. I picked up the steel of Orgus, in its sheath, and looped it over my shoulder. She knelt in the grass, in the position of the pleasure slave, as she could, her hands bound behind her.
"Do you think I will make a good slave, Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "I think you will make a superb slave, Lady Florence."
"Do you think I will bring a good price?" she asked.
"You are raw, and untrained," I said.
"Do you think I will bring a good price?" she asked.
"You are a free woman," I said. "You are quite beautiful. Too, your hair is auburn."
"Do you think I will bring a good price?" she asked.
"That is a slave's question," I said.
She tossed her head, irritably.
"Yes," I said, "I think you will bring a fine price."
"Yes," she said, bitterly, "because men of Vonda, spurned suitors, will pay high for me."
I laughed at her.
"Master?" she asked.
"Look at yourself," I said. "Do you truly think only a spurned suitor could find you of interest?"
"I do not know," she stammered.
"You are superb slave meat, Lady Florence," I said.
"Slave meat!" she said.
"Men seeing you will want you in their collar," I said. "They will pay much to take you from the block. As a free woman you are extremely beautiful. As a slave you will be a thousand times more beautiful."
"I will try to please my masters," she whispered. "Master," she said.
"Yes?" I said.
"They will content me, sometimes, will they not?"
"If it pleases them," I said.
"I would be so much at their mercy," she whispered.
"Yes," I said.
She looked up at me, a strange light in her eyes. "That is how I want it," she said.
"That is how it will be," I said.
"I want to be a female—at their mercy—hopelessly and totally at their mercy," she said.
"You will be," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. "Yes, Master!"
"On your feet, Lady Florence," I said. "It is time to go to the camp of Tenalion."
I went to the crest of the hill and stood among the trees. I could see the camp in the distance, with the blue and yellow canvas, the cages, pens and wagons. I could see a warrior, with a spear, leading a woman in. Her robes of concealment had been torn away to her waist. Her hands were bound behind her. A leash was on her throat. The girl was now standing beside me. "Follow me," I said, starting down the slope.
"Master!" she called.
"Yes," I said, turning about, to look upon her.
"Have you not forgotten something?" she asked.
"What?" I asked.
"My leash," she said.
"Come here," I said. She stepped down the slope carefully, to stand before me.
"Do you wish to be led in on a leash?" I asked.
"Am I not to be a slave girl?" she asked.
I smiled, and unwrapped the leash from her throat. "Yes," I said. I then conducted her down the slope, leading the captive beauty, the Lady Florence, on her leash, towards the camp.
34
We Enter the Camp of Tenalion;
I Sell the Lady Florence;
I Must now Search for the Slave Beverly Henderson
We entered the camp of Tenalion.
There were some slave girls, in brief tunics, and collars, loose in the camp, performing various duties. They looked at the Lady Florence as I brought her in. They assessed her candidly, as a new girl. We passed between guards. I saw their admiring glances. This heartened me. They were slaver
s' men. They would have their pick of most of the girls in the camp, except for virgins. "This way," I told the Lady Florence, heading toward the center of the camp, where the assessment platform would be. "Yes, Master," she said. I heard the ringing of a metal-worker's hammer on metal, where simple straps of iron were being curved about the necks of beauties, their heads and hair over the anvil, these serving as temporary collars. I smelled branding fires. I heard the sound of a girl being lashed. I saw girls in cages and, in places, I saw them, stripped, and crowded together, through the interstices of palings. "Which way is the assessment platform?" I asked a man. "That way," he said. I heard the scream of a girl some yards to my left, who was being branded. "I'm frightened," said the Lady Florence. I took up some of the slack in the leash, until I dragged her about a yard behind me. I saw two warriors, one of Ar and one of Cos, enemy cities. They were talking about something or other. The camp of Tenalion was truce ground. At the feet of each, their heads down, stripped save for bonds of black leather, there knelt a girl. "Into the slave wagon," said a man, herding a set of girls in throat coffle. In another place I saw another slave wagon, the girls sitting in it facing one another. About their ankles were close-fitting ankle rings, joined by a short length of chain. The chains had been slipped beneath a long metal bar, set parallel to the wagon bed. A slaver's man then lifted the bar some two inches and dropped it in place, locking it in its socket. Another man was pulling down the canvas over the square frame mounted over the wagon. It would be buckled in place. This protects the merchandise from the sun and weather. Another slave wagon, empty, its canvas high on its frame, was entering the camp. "Take her to the whipping post," said a man to another slaver's man, who was holding a girl by the arm, her wrists tethered before her body. "I did not mean to be displeasing!" she wept. "Please, do not have me whipped, Master! It was such a little thing! It was such a little thing!" "You were momentarily hesitant in responding to a command," said the man. The miserable slave moaned. I turned to the Lady Florence. "Do you understand?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she said. She shuddered, and looked after the miserable slave, being conducted to the whipping post. The slave's obedience, you must understand, is to be unquestioning and instantaneous. Not even the least imperfection is acceptable in the service of a slave. Clearly in the case of the errant girl the whip was fully justified, though, of course, one needs no justification to whip a slave. They are slaves. Perhaps the errant girl was new to her collar. Perhaps she did not yet understand that it was truly on her. This misunderstanding, of course, is easily dispelled at a whipping post. Many mistakes, misapprehensions, and such, are understood, clarified, and rectified in that place. Women, incidentally, are highly intelligent and they train well; they learn quickly under the whip. I expected the young slave would be soon much improved, having considerably profited from the lessons of the leather.