"They will send squads after them," said a man, "a squad to a man."
"Probably they should leave the city," I said.
"Why?" asked a man.
"They will be suspect," I said.
"There are warriors and guardsmen in the city," said a man, "who are not veterans of the delta."
"That is true," I said. Also, of course, it was not only in the delta that blood had been shed.
"Ah," said Marcus, glancing over toward the fountain, "here comes the insolent little slut now."
"She does not look so insolent now," said a fellow.
The girl, her hands still bound behind her, her head down, her hair about her face, shuddering, scarcely able to walk, her upper left arm in the grip of a fellow, by means of which grip she was being muchly supported, was being conducted into our presence.
Freed of his grip she immediately knelt, and in proper position.
"You may untie her," I said.
He jerked loose the thong from her wrists. Whereas it had confined her with perfection, she had not been able, of course, to reach either of the ends by means of which the knot could be expeditiously undone.
"To all fours," said her keeper.
Immediately she went to all fours.
"Describe a circle, of some five paces in diameter, on all fours, as you are now," said her keeper, "and return to this place."
I watched her.
In this way was she well displayed, and in the attitude of the she-quadruped.
She was then again before us, on all fours, head down.
"On all fours," remarked a fellow.
"In such a posture she does not seem as insolent," said another.
"She is not," said another.
"No," said another.
"A fitting posture for the little she-sleen," said a man.
"Yes," said a man.
"Look up," I said to the girl.
She looked up, through her hair.
"Have you learned to drink from the lower bowl?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"You may lower your head," I said.
She put her head down, gratefully.
"You are not a little she-sleen, are you?" I said.
"No, Master," she said.
"You are more of a little vulo, are you not?" I said.
"Yes, Master, now, Master," she said.
"What do you want to do, more than anything?" I asked.
"To please men," she said.
"What man?" I asked.
"Any man, Master," she said.
"I think she may be permitted to live," I said.
"I think so," said a fellow.
"Yes," said another.
She began to tremble. I did not think her arms and legs would support her.
"You may break position," I informed her.
Immediately she went to her belly before me, and reached to my ankle, and put her lips over my left sandal, pressing her lips to it.
"Do you think you will see your friends again?" I asked.
"I hope so, Master," she said.
"And how do you think they will find you?" I asked.
"They will find me a slave," she said.
"And how do you think you will find them?" I asked.
"I do not know, Master," she said.
"I think you will also find them slaves," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Do you still think that it might be well for the men of Ar to be put to the sword?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "It is rather that women such as I should be put to the sword of their manhood."
"Even if it should make them proud and powerful, and great?" I asked.
"It is hard for this humble slave to believe that her use, and the use of such as she, the use of meaningless chattels, should have so great a consequence, but, if it be so, then surely that would be an additional joy to me, and to my sisters in bondage."
"Even should it inevitably plunge you deeper and more irrevocably into your servitude, ensuring that it will become even more uncompromising and absolute?"
"Yes, Master," she said. "I now wish to live for the chain, the whip, and love."
I looked down at her.
"I beg you to buy me!" she suddenly wept.
"You beg to be purchased," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I beg it!"
"Interesting," I said.
"Surely it is permissible for me to so beg. Indeed, it is fitting for me, as I am a slave."
"And it is just today, I gather," I said, "that you have learned this, that you are a slave."
"No, Master," she said. "I have known it for years, in my most secret heart. It is only that it is today, on this day, that I first admitted it to myself. It is only today that I ceased to lie to myself, that I ceased to be at war with myself. It is only today, today, that I ceased to pretend to be something which I knew I was not. It is only today that I have admitted to myself, honestly and openly, what I am."
"Bring her tunic," I said to a fellow.
He picked up what was left of it.
She looked up from my feet, frightened. "Surely you will keep me, or buy me!" she said.
"No," I said.
"But it is to you, or to one such as you that I must belong!" she wept.
I did not speak.
"Nature has designed my body, my mind, my dispositions, my needs, my beauty, if it be beauty, with one such as you in mind!"
I did not speak.
"It is for such as you that women such as I exist!" she wept.
I did not speak.
"Without one such as you," she wept, "I cannot obtain my happiness, my completion, my fulfillment!"
I remained silent.
"I am at your feet," she wept, "branded, collared, legally enslaved! I am without recourse and absolutely helpless! Take pity on me! Surely you will not deny me the fulfillments of my condition!"
"Kneel," I said. "You will return to your master."
She screamed in misery. "Woe!" she wept. "This is my punishment, more grievous than the leather!"
"But he is kind, noble, liberated and enlightened," I reminded her.
"Woe!" she wept. "Woe!"
"Be the most abject and loving of slaves," I said. "Crawl at his feet. Weep for his mercy. Beg to serve him in the most intimate modalities of the slave girl."
"But he would lift me from my knees and chide me for my needs," she said. "He wants me to act like a man! I think he may want to relate a man, truly, but is afraid to do so. So he wants me to pretend to be one, or be like one. I do not know. I think he is afraid of a true woman, and what she is like. Perhaps he fears he is not man enough to satisfy her in the full spectrum of her needs, in her subtlety, depth and complexity. I do not know! Perhaps he is only weak, perhaps he is one of only infrequently active and diminutive drives. Perhaps he is emotionally shallow, unready to sound the depths of oceans, to measure the heights of a hundred skies. Perhaps it is all very simple. Perhaps he only lacks health, or virility, through no fault of his own. I do not know! Whatever it is, please do not send me back to him!"
"You will relate to him differently than you ever have before," I said. "Utterly differently. You will now be to him a true and perfect slave girl. You will be docile, dutiful and hardworking. You will serve, and be eager to serve, in all things. You will present yourself before him as a female slave, and truly and completely as such, and wholly at his mercy. You will crawl to him, the whip in your teeth. Surely he will understand this. You will petition to serve his pleasure, you will beg to squirm for him, and as the insignificant and meaningless slut, a mere slave, you now are."
She looked at me, clutching the remains of her tunic before her.
"I shall do as you say, Master," she said.
"And you may discover he is not the weakling you think," I said. "And you may find he will take the whip from your teeth and perhaps stand over you and howl with pleasure, sensing the joy of the mastery. You may even be
struck with it, as he takes control of you, for the first time. Yes, you may even be put under the lash, that he punish you for what you have denied him before, and that he confirm upon you, and you be instructed in, and fully, the new relationship in which you stand to him."
"But what if he is weak?" she begged.
"Continue to serve him, in the fullness of your slavery, begging him for the least of his kisses, the most casual of his caresses."
"Yes, Master," she said, tears in her eyes.
"Even such small attentions, as you will discover, now that you have become sensitized to your slavery, will be precious to you."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I did not doubt but what she would soon be feeling the fullness of her needs, now that they were in the process of being liberated. In the pens it is not unusual for girls to bleed at the fingernails, from scratching at the walls of their kennels, or to bruise their lovely bodies against the bars of their cages, trying to reach out to a guard, if only to touch his sleeve. Sometimes a girl is deprived of attention for days before her sale, that she will show well on the block, that her body and person, easily readable by experienced Gorean men, will make evident her keen discomfort and acute distress, her sexual misery, and thus her readiness for, her eagerness for, her desperation for, a master’s touch, that her body and person will, in effect, on the block, constitute for her merchandisers a helpless, piteous plea of need.
Perhaps this is cruel but it is good business, and it must be recalled that she is only a slave.
Too, occasionally on the block a more virginal or pretendedly aloof slave is surprised with what is known as the "whip caress." Their response to this unexpected caress often gives the instantaneous and embarrassing lie to pretensions to frigidity, and such. Suddenly, to her dismay, the girl is exhibited as helplessly, uncontrollably, vital and responsive. The buyers may then conjecture how she would leap and squirm in their arms, and cry out, and soon beg. The whip, incidentally, is often used by an auctioneer as a wand, or pointer, to guide the slave in her movements or to call attention, here and there, to aspects of interest. It may, of course, on occasion be used to correct any hesitation, reluctance or recalcitrance on the part of the vended article.
"If he continues to be inert," I said, "if he cannot be awakened or aroused, or fears to be, or does not wish to be, perhaps because of hostility toward you, or toward women, generally, he will presumably grow uneasy with you in the house and give you away, or sell you. Perhaps he will even trade you for a less needful woman, or one more in accord with his needs, whatever they might be."
"But what if he is stupid?" she asked.
"Beg him then to sell you, or give you away," I said, "that you may, if only in being sold off the block, come into the collar of another, one capable of satisfying what you are, a slave."
"But what if he will not sell me, or give me away?" she said. "What if he insists on keeping me, as he is, and as I now am? What if he will keep me only according to his own rules, and lights, and keep me from myself, denying me to myself, frustrating my deepest and most profound needs, as I am?"
"Then," said I, angrily, "that is how it will be, for it is you who wear the collar. He is the master. You are the slave."
"Yes, Master," she sobbed.
"But do not fear," I said. "I am certain, sooner or later, you will come into the possession of one who will not only accept your slavery, in its beauty, in its tenderness and needfulness, in its honesty and truth, but will celebrate it and relish it, and for whom you will be a treasure, an incredible and marvelous treasure, to be sure, one to be kept under the closest of disciplines."
"Yes, Master," she said, smiling through her tears.
"Rise up now, slave girl," I said, "and hurry to your master!"
"Yes, Master!" she said.
Clutching her tunic about her as best she could, she then rose up and hurried from the place of the public boards.
"I think she will make an excellent slave," said a fellow.
"Yes," said another.
I myself, too, thought that that was true. It is a beautiful moment when a woman comes to learn, and love, what she is, when she comes to understand herself, and has the courage to accept this understanding, when in joy the ice breaks in the rivers, when the glaciers melt, when spring comes, when she loves and kneels.
"It is a good thing you did here," said a man.
"For the girl?" I asked.
"She is only a slave," he said. "I mean for the men here."
"Oh," I said.
"You had an opportunity here to strike a blow for Cos, to humiliate the men of Ar, to further reduce and degrade them, to force them to submit even to the insolence and arrogance of slaves, to further subdue and crush them, to remind them of their sorry lot, of their political and military weakness, of the loss of their goods, their city and pride, to injure them, to strike yet another blow at their staggering manhood, yet you did not do so. Rather you encouraged it, you permitted it to grow, if only a little. Word of this will be in all the taverns by nightfall!"
"Cos will not be pleased," warned a man.
"It is dangerous in these times to remind men of their past glories," said a man.
"What if we should be tempted to reclaim them?" asked another.
"Surely you understand how dangerous is the thing you do," said another.
"How is it that you are in the fee of Cos?" asked another, indicating the armbands of Marcus and myself.
"Men may be in the fee of Cos," I said.
"True," said a fellow.
"Surely you are of Ar," said a man.
"No," I said. "I am of Port Kar."
"It is a lair of pirates," said a fellow, "a den of cutthroats."
"There is now a Home Stone in Port Kar," I said.
"That is more than there is in Ar," said a man.
"If you are of Port Kar," said a man, "I say 'Glory to Port Kar!'"
"Glory to Port Kar!" whispered another.
"Your fellow is surely of Ar," said another.
"No, his fellow is not," said Marcus, angrily. "I am of Ar's Station! Glory to Ar's Station!"
"The city of traitors?" asked a man.
Marcus' hand flew to the hilt of his sword, but I placed my hand quickly over his.
"Ar's Station is no city of traitors!" said he. "Rather by those of Ar was she betrayed!"
"Enough of this," I said.
"If you are of Ar's Station," said the fellow who had spoken before, "I say 'Glory, too, to Ar's Station!' "
Marcus relaxed. I removed my hand from his.
"Glory to Port Kar, and Ar's Station," said a man.
"Yes!" said another.
"Glory, too, to Ar," I said.
"Yes!" whispered men, looking about themselves. "Glory to Ar!"
I heard the ripping down of a sheet from the public boards and saw a young fellow casting it aside. Then, with a knife, he scratched a delka, deeply, into the wood. He turned to face us and brandished the knife. "Glory to Ar!" he cried.
"Gently, lad," I said.
Who knew who might hear?
Spies could be anywhere.
"I would cry out!" he said.
"The knife is no less a knife," I said, "because it makes no sound."
"Glory to Ar!" grumbled the lad, and sheathed the knife, and stalked away.
We regarded the delka.
"Glory to Ar!" whispered men. "Glory to Ar!"
I was pleased to see that not all the youths of Ar were in the keeping of Cos, that in the hearts of some at least there yet burned the fire called patriotism. Too, I recalled some would take the oath of citizenship only facing their Home Stone, now in far-off Cos. Others, in the streets and alleys, I speculated, could teach their elders courage.
"You spoke," I said to a man, "of a veteran who was to have been taken in for questioning, who drew forth a concealed weapon, who slew two Cosians, and disappeared."
"Yes," said the man.
"Know you his name?" I aske
d.
"Plenius," said a man.
I found that of interest, as I had known a Plenius in the delta. To be sure, there are many fellows with that name.
I looked again to the defiant delka cut into the boards.
"I do not think I would care to be found in the presence of this delka," I said, "so prominent on the public boards, so freshly cut."
"True," said more than one man.
The crowd dissipated.
Marcus regarded the delka.
"I fear reprisals," he said.
"Not yet," I said. "That is contrary to the fundamental policy of the government. The whole pretense here is that Cos is a friend and ally, that she and Ar, in spite of the earlier errors of Ar's ways, so generously forgiven now, are as sisters. This posture is incompatible with reprisals. It is one thing to tax, expropriate and confiscate in the name of various rights and moral principles, all interestingly tending to the best interests of particular parties, and quite another to enact serious reprisals against a supposedly allied citizenry."
"But sooner or later, surely, as you put it, Cos must unsheath her claws."
"I fear so," I said. "But by that time hopefully you will be free of the city with the Home Stone of Ar's Station."
"And when will you begin to work on this portion of your plan?" he asked.
"We have already been doing so," I said.
"Ho!" I cried out, hailing a squad of Cosian regulars. "Here! Here!"
They hurried across the avenue to the boards.
"Behold!" I said.
"Another cursed delka!" snapped the officer.
"And on the boards," I said.
"Have you been here long?" asked the officer.
"No," I said.
"Did you see who did this?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"The cowards are fled," he said, looking about.
"They are all urts," said a subaltern.
"It is only a delka," I said.
"There are too many about," said the officer.
"It is all they can do," laughed the subaltern.
The officer studied the delka.
"It was cut deeply, swiftly," he said, "with strength, probably in hatred."
"These signs are doubtless the works of only a few," said the subaltern.
"But they may be seen by many," said the officer.
"There is nothing to fear," said the subaltern.
Magicians of Gor Page 31