Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  “Please, please,” protested Tajima. “This is to be done gracefully.”

  “Stop! Stop!” cried Miss Wentworth, squirming in the grasp of the guards.

  It was certainly not done gracefully. When a female gift, or prize, is to be revealed to a master, a merchant, a captain, a Ubar, or such, the gift, or prize, as shy as she might be, is commonly revealed formally, gracefully, even ceremoniously.

  Then the guards held apart her arms, each with a grasp with one hand on her wrist, and a grasp with the other on her arm, above the elbow. They held her in such a way that her arms were slightly behind her, and this pressed her forward, accentuating her figure, toward Lord Nishida.

  Her eyes were startled.

  A look of utter dismay bespoke itself on her troubled features.

  The Earth woman was well displayed, and Lord Nishida scrutinized her closely, and, seemingly, though he gave little overt expression of this, approvingly.

  It was my surmise that his senses were pleased, well pleased.

  “What are you doing!” she cried, aghast.

  “I am appraising my new slave,” said Lord Nishida.

  “I am not a slave!” she cried. “I am a free woman!”

  “Not at all,” said Thrasilicus. “You have been unwittingly a slave for months, even for some weeks when you were still engaging in your petty, deceitful games on behalf of your firm, plying your wiles and charms, seemingly so innocently, to wheedle and coax wealth from clients, pathetically dazzled males as you saw it, men whom, given your own words, recently spoken, you obviously held in contempt. You were a slave from the time your name was first entered on the acquisition lists.”

  “No,” she cried, “no!”

  “I entered it myself,” said Thrasilicus, “and, as noted, on the very afternoon of the aforementioned business luncheon, following which, you may recall, you attempted to entice me to join your list of clients, that line of naive fellows begging for your attention, those eager to please you, to render homage to your charm and beauty, ready to exchange capital, often not their own, for one of your smiles. My interest in you, and I trust you find this flattering, was immediate. Indeed, as soon as you approached my table, so innocently, so charmingly, like a sleek, predatory little animal, I considered that you would look less well sitting at my table in your carefully chosen chic business ensemble than you would kneeling beside it, on the carpet, head down, naked, in a collar. And after a few moments of conversation I decided I would enter you on an acquisition list, for subsequent harvesting at our convenience. I did so, and, as noted, in the moment your name appeared on that list you were no longer a free woman, but a slave.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Lament not,” he said. “Given your nature, character, dispositions, actions, and such, it is appropriate that you be enslaved. Bondage is right for one such as you. One such as you should be a slave. One such as you deserves bondage. For one such as you, bondage is not only a suitable fate, but one superbly fitting and apt.”

  “Lord Nishida!” she cried. “Let this cruel jest proceed no further. I am naked, and men may look upon me!”

  “Of course,” said Lord Nishida, “you are a slave.”

  “You freed me of a collar!” she insisted.

  “Only that it may be replaced with another,” he said. “Mine.”

  “I am willing to pretend to be a slave!” she cried. “Let me reassume my disguise. I am exposed! I will willingly wear again even that shameful tunic, though it be but a humiliating badge of degradation!”

  “You are a slave, stupid slut,” said Thrasilicus.

  “No, no!” she cried. She struggled vainly in the grip of the two guards.

  Tajima had retrieved the sheet and had now refolded it, and held it over his arm.

  “See how fair-skinned is my new slave,” said Lord Nishida, over his shoulder, to the two contract women.

  Both giggled.

  The contract woman on the left, as one looked toward the dais, said, “Does she not smell, Lord Nishida?”

  “She will have to be scrubbed,” said Lord Nishida.

  “Please, please,” begged she who had once been Miss Wentworth, “give me the tunic!”

  “Do you beg it?” asked Lord Nishida.

  “Yes, yes!” she said.

  “That shameful tunic, which is but a humiliating badge of degradation?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she cried, “yes, please!”

  “One must strive to become worthy of a tunic,” said Lord Nishida. Then he said to the two fellows who had the blond, distraught slave in custody. “See that she is cleaned, thoroughly, and then see to her branding and collaring. Let the brand be the Kef.”

  That was the most common slave brand on Gor. Most female slaves bore it. It is commonly sited on the left thigh, just under the hip, perhaps because most masters are right-handed. Similarly the disrobing loop of certain tunics is at the left shoulder, presumably for the same reason.

  “White! Gregory! Gregory!” cried she who had once been Margaret Wentworth.

  “I am now ‘Gregory’?” he said.

  “Yes, Gregory, Gregory! Please, Gregory, explain to them that a terrible mistake is taking place.”

  “I was never Gregory before,” he said.

  “Help me, Gregory!” she wept.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I will let you hold me in your arms!” she said. “I will let you kiss me! I know you always wanted to do that! Help me! Help me!”

  “You think to bargain with a free man, slave?” inquired Lord Nishida. “Get on your knees, and lick and kiss his feet, begging forgiveness.”

  The guards released the slave, and she knelt, terrified, before Pertinax, and put down her head and began to lick and kiss his feet. “I am sorry,” she said. “Forgive me, Gregory.”

  “I am Pertinax,” he said.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “You are Pertinax. Please, Pertinax, forgive me.”

  “A slave,” I said, “does not use the name of the master to the master. All free men are to be addressed as ‘Master’, all free women as ‘Mistress’.”

  The slave looked up at me, in misery, her eyes bright with tears, and put her head down, again, to the feet of Pertinax. “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  “More,” said Pertinax, sternly.

  And the former Miss Wentworth again, softly, frightened, addressed her fair lips and small, soft tongue tenderly, for several moments, to the feet of a free man.

  I thought I saw a small movement of sudden comprehension, of profound understanding, pass through the slave’s body.

  Undoubtedly this was the first time she had ever knelt thusly before a man, let alone addressed herself in such a manner to his placation.

  Outside the guard had apparently put her to her knees before him, as a matter of convenience or discipline, but this, obviously, was quite different.

  She looked well at his feet, as a slave, but, then, do not women look well at the feet of men, as slaves?

  “Please, forgive me, Master,” she whispered.

  “I do,” said Pertinax, kindly.

  She looked up. “Help me,” she begged.

  “I fear I can do nothing,” said Pertinax.

  “Please tell them I am not a slave,” she begged.

  “I gather,” said Pertinax, “that you are a slave, or will soon be one.”

  Kneeling, she put her head in her hands, and wept.

  “Take her away,” said Lord Nishida.

  One of the guards reached down, and jerked her to her feet by the upper left arm.

  She turned wildly to me. “Save me!” she cried. “Do something! Fight for me! Rescue me!”

  It interested me that the former Miss Wentworth, in this milieu, if in no other, suddenly understood the dependence of women upon men. Men might, if they wished, do with women as they wished. This simple, obvious fact had not been so clear on her former world, though it was a fact there, as well as here. That world was one in which women
stood commonly within the shelters of civilized proprieties, within the fences of society, encircled by innumerable customs and laws, with their diverse enforcements and sanctions. In such a situation women take much for granted, not even understanding that it is being taken for granted.

  “I fear, Lord Nishida,” said Tajima to Lord Nishida, “the woman is unutterably stupid.”

  “No,” said Thrasilicus, “she is not stupid. She is merely ignorant. At present, it is true, I fear, that she knows little of the collar, and nothing of the furs.”

  “She must learn, quickly,” said Lord Nishida.

  “The whip will teach her, and quickly,” said Tajima, with, oddly, a glance at Sumomo, the contract woman who was on the right, as one would look to the dais. She was, indeed, a lovely young thing.

  She sneered at Tajima. I gathered he had low status, for the women of the “strange men” are taught much respect to males. Even an older sister must bow first to a younger brother.

  “Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Nishida, “what do you think of my new slave?”

  I shrugged. There seemed little to say.

  “I see,” said Lord Nishida. “Would you like her?”

  The slave looked at Lord Nishida with disbelief. In that moment I think she first understood herself as property, which might be handed about, exchanged, bought and sold, and so on.

  Cecily looked up, too, distressed. She knew herself as property, as well. She loved being property, and knowing herself property, but I did not think she was eager to be bestowed or vended. She loved being a possession, but, rather clearly, if I am not mistaken, she wished to remain the possession of a particular master, wished to remain my possession. Her distress, I think, had to do with the apprehension, this now again made clear to her, that she might without a second thought be given or sold to another. The slave, totally, is property, at the mercy of the master. Too, she may have feared that I might accept Lord Nishida’s offer, and then she would no longer be my only slave. Most slaves desire, fervently, to be a man’s only slave. That she might become, in such a situation, “first girl,” over the formerly insolent “Constantina” would be small consolation for sharing the attentions of a master with a rival. Some masters, of course, as it can be afforded, have more than one slave, that each may try to outdo the other, to please him the more. My own feeling is that it is best to have one slave, so that she will strive to be so loving, so pleasing, so hot, so needful, that the master will feel no desire for another. A master may have many slaves, of course, a merchant, say, may have dozens, a Ubar hundreds, and so on, but the slave, in her needful femininity, commonly wants to be the single property of a master, whom she need not share with another.

  “My thanks, great lord,” I said, “but I am content with she who kneels to my left.”

  Lord Nishida nodded.

  His offer, in honor, had to be genuine, but I am confident he did not expect it to be accepted.

  “Your name is Pertinax?” said Lord Nishida to Pertinax.

  “Yes,” said Pertinax.

  “Would you like this slave?” he asked.

  “No,” said Pertinax.

  The slave regarded him, with incredulity. “You always wanted me!” she exclaimed.

  “I did not know you then,” he said. “Here I have learned, for the first time, your true nature and character, who you are, and what you have done.”

  “Accept me! Take me! Own me!” she begged.

  “No,” said Pertinax.

  “Please!” she said. “Own me!”

  “You would be owned,” he said, “but you would not think yourself owned. But sometime, I am sure, you will understand, in your heart and belly, that you are owned, truly owned.”

  “Save me from this fate!” she wept.

  “Your lips and tongue felt well on my feet,” he said.

  “Keep me,” she said. “Own me!”

  “No,” he said.

  “I do not understand,” she wept.

  “You are worthless,” he said. “You are petty, radically petty, to the core.”

  She stood there, in the grip of the guard, naked, forlorn, shaken, stunned.

  Again, I thought the offer of Lord Nishida was genuine, but, again, I was confident he did not expect it to be accepted. He was, I gathered, a shrewd judge of men. I did not find this surprising, from my estimation of his position, and apparent acuity. Indeed, I suspected that these formal overtures on his part were largely intended to express his contempt for the slave. Some men, of course, find it pleasant to embond a woman they hold in contempt, and then treat her accordingly. And, when the slave fires have been ignited in her belly, and she is the helpless prisoner of her needs, it amuses them to have her at their feet, prostrate, piteous, begging for their least touch.

  “I trust, Lord Nishida,” said Thrasilicus, “the slave pleases your senses.”

  “She pleases my senses,” said Lord Nishida, “but I am not sure she pleases my heart.”

  “In bondage,” I said, “a woman is often muchly transformed.”

  This was true. Bondage, in which the woman learns her womanhood, effects in a woman not only a sexual but a moral and personal redemption. In the collar, and in submission, she learns service, fulfillment, wholeness, and love. In the collar, and in her complete and categorical submission to the master, sexually, emotionally, and personally, she becomes herself, and happy.

  “If Lord Nishida is not pleased,” said Thrasilicus, “we may search out another.”

  “And this one,” said Tajima, who had had, from the beginning, as I understood it, reservations pertaining to the former Miss Wentworth, “as she would be unworthy meat for larls or sleen, may be bound and cast into the garbage pit for the delectation of swarming urts.”

  There seemed a general assent to this, amongst those present.

  They took her to be poor slave stuff.

  I myself, however, did not think she would look poorly on a block, if well exhibited.

  “We shall see,” said Lord Nishida. Then he addressed the two guards who had had the former Miss Wentworth in custody. “After her branding and collaring,” he said, “shave her head, and send her to the stables, and see that she learns she is a slave.”

  “Yes, great lord,” they said, and exited the pavilion, the former Miss Wentworth, whimpering, but afraid to speak, held by the upper left arm, in the grip of one of them.

  “Regrettable,” said Lord Nishida.

  “Another may be procured,” said Thrasilicus, concerned. “You may return her to me. I would not mind having her under my whip.”

  “Your choice,” said Lord Nishida, “was excellent.”

  Thrasilicus seemed surprised.

  “If she learns her collar well,” said Lord Nishida, “another may find her pleasing.”

  “I had thought you wanted her for yourself,” said Thrasilicus.

  “No,” said Lord Nishida. “Her yellow hair, blue eyes, and fair skin will be rare at home. She may figure amongst a variety of gifts, for another.”

  “For whom?” asked Thrasilicus.

  “For the shogun, of course,” said Lord Nishida.

  Lord Nishida then looked at me. “Now,” he said, “we may address ourselves to matters of importance.”

  Chapter Eleven

  cecily and i look in on the former miss wentworth

  A few days after her interview with Lord Nishida in his pavilion, curious, I decided to look in on the former Miss Wentworth, and so, after an inquiry or two, I made my way, heeled by Cecily, to one of the large stables in which draft tharlarion were housed, those which aided in the logging, and drew the wagons down the narrow path between the trees, to some destination, to the southeast. The stable was a long, large building, with a towering roof, to contain the longer-necked tharlarion. It would house several beasts, but I supposed, at this time of day, most, if not all, of the tharlarion would be about the camp, or active on the road to the southeast, hauling logs, or returning. By nightfall, as these things go,
before the beasts returned, the stable should be cleaned, fresh straw strewn about, deeply, and the feed and water troughs filled. I chose the late afternoon for my visit, supposing the time one opportune to encounter the former Miss Wentworth alone. Late in the afternoon many of the “strange men” enjoy a pleasant soak in a warm tub. I trusted that the stable grooms might be enjoying this homely indulgence. Several collar-girls, such as those who had been former free women of Ar, were humbly, attentively, silently, here and there, bathing the men. I did not think that the former Miss Wentworth would be engaged in this activity, as it is regarded as a great privilege for a collar-girl to be permitted to bathe a master. Indeed, it is one of the lovely services in which a contract woman, naked beside her client in the pool, was expected to excel.

  I found the former Miss Wentworth toward the back of the stable, on the right, as one would face the large double gate which gave access to the structure. She was facing the back of the stable. I watched her for a time. She was on her knees, moving about, leaning forward, a small, pathetic figure. She would reach down and, again and again, with her small, lovely hands, quite bare, her bare arms stained to the elbows, scrape together tharlarion dung. When a suitable heap had been formed, she would lift it, again with her bare hands, and place it on a low flat cart, which she drew beside her.

  She was naked, not yet permitted a tunic, and was filthy, and doubtless stank.

  She had not yet been permitted even a slave strip.

  The common slave strip is a single, narrow, dangling piece of cloth anchored in binding fiber, double-looped about the waist of the slave. It is usually tied snugly, to accentuate the figure of the slave. It is fastened with a slip knot that it may easily, with a tug, be undone. The binding fiber, of course, is long enough to bind the slave, hand and foot, or, if one desires, to serve as a leash, the slave strip then usually folded and placed between the slave’s teeth, which she dare not drop. Sometimes the binding fiber, in its double loop, is looser, that it may ride low on the hips. The point of this is to exhibit the navel of the slave, which, in Gorean, is known as “the slave belly.” The Gorean free woman, as I understand it, who often mates while gowned, commonly refuses to reveal her “slave belly” to her companion, because of the shame of it. What if he should become excited, tear off her gown, and put her to use with the same audacity, aggression, exhilaration, and exultation with which he might use a vulnerable, meaningless animal, say, a chain-slut or paga girl?