He’d been scared. He could admit it, now that he was a man who took responsibility for his weaknesses. Scared he’d lose her, then afterward scared he’d have to explain her terrible burns at an emergency room, scared he’d be put in jail, scared he’d lose not only Charlotte and his marriage but his business and his freedom.
Her request for a divorce, though it broke his heart, seemed a reasonable alternative at the time.
But now he could admit to himself he’d been a coward.
He’d been punished, though. He’d lost his Home Stone along with Charlotte.
The loss of a Gorean Home Stone was considered the most heinous shame a Ubar—a leader—could endure. A Home Stone was a Gorean’s home, more than metaphorically. It was his pride, his center. Theft of one, or simply misplacing it like some senile elder, that was a kind of sacrilege against manhood itself. He’d first found his Home Stone while reading the Gor series of science fiction novels. He’d been thinking about founding his own city of “Gorr” on Earth, and the stone simply appeared in his path on a nature hike. Walking and daydreaming, it had caught his eye. The small gray stone with its smooth edges seemed to call to him, and after he’d touched it and turned it over to see the faint, natural lines of a rough G, his blood surged in his veins and he gave a shout of victory. A sign!
It had to be a sign, a sanction of authority from the Priest-Kings themselves . . . if those godlike beings still influenced Earth to such an extent. Kartane still wasn’t certain about that particular detail even after studying many of John Norman’s books.
But the acknowledgment from the more forward-thinking of the local Gorean community that he was Ubar to the new city of Gorr empowered him, gratified him, and reinforced his position as a Bringer-of-Change. Soon Gorr would be a reality. A much-needed reality for so many men.
Or at least it would be a reality if he could find the damn stone. So far he’d managed to keep its disappearance secret, but a secret like that couldn’t be kept from his warriors for long.
When Charlotte disappeared from his home after the divorce, the small, flat stone with the plain initial G carved into its underside had disappeared, too. She had to have it somewhere.
He stopped under a bright streetlight illuminating the familiar men’s magazines logo of three overlapping triangles. He took out a fistful of keys, flipped through them, inserted one into the lock.
“Business must be good.”
He saw her studying the old, well-kept building. Ornate stonework and painted carved-wood trim framed each window and doorway. Surrounded by similar sturdy structures in the active part of downtown, it loomed over the others. Its architectural details pleased him.
Its expensive location pleased him more.
It would make a good Gorr city center—a worthy fortress—when he had the money to buy it outright. Which would be soon.
He smiled. “It’s been around for a century. Has character, doesn’t it? I rent the entire first floor, which has plenty of room. As you’ll see.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but this won’t take long, will it? I’m pretty tired.”
“I’m sure you are.”
She looked at him. “I hope you’re not mad. Or jealous.”
He laughed. “Of Martin? He obviously has no control over his impulses. I pity him. He plays the part, but he’s not a real master. Most men aren’t. Not even most Goreans. Only the honest ones. Coming?” he asked as he held the door.
He saw her shiver, a delightful tremble. Yes, he’d made a mistake letting this one go.
As he entered the building, he heard them.
“Ubar has returned! Tal, Kartane!”
He grinned at the number of people he heard in the background. And at the music. It was perfect.
Kartane gave her an impish smile. “You’ll be safe with me, I promise. Just a quick peek in at the party. I promised them I’d come. And you know I always honor my promises. Five minutes, then we can go. If you want.” He winked at her.
“You’ve changed,” she said suddenly. She scrutinized him. “I didn’t realize how much. It suits you.” She shrugged, smiled. “I’m glad we’ve stayed friends.”
Pride swelled inside him. Certainty grew. He was Ubar of Gorr, chosen of the Priest-Kings, and he had the power to make his vision a reality. A vision that included Charlotte. Even Charlotte sensed it. “I’m glad, too,” was all he said. He waited a moment. “Come inside.”
“Okay. Yes.” She entered.
Charlotte was so lost in thought she barely noticed the vaulted entryway with its glass receptionist desk and the hall beyond with its enormous framed photos of Old Riverport. Her ex-husband’s presence didn’t frighten her at all. He seemed content with their platonic relationship. Plus, Cory . . . no, his club name was Kartane, and he preferred the club name, she had to remember . . . did always keep his promises.
His Gorean friends, however, were an unknown.
While he went to greet them, she turned and surreptitiously twisted the front door’s latch to the unlocked position.
She’d seen and experienced too much violence in a single night.
Some of it had been directed pleasurably at her.
Just remembering Martin and his exquisite, sadistic touch made her knees weak.
But the last bit, Martin punching Kartane, was too much.
She needed to think.
She’d avoided thinking about her desires for too long.
The passion in violence both drew and repelled her. In some circumstances, it provided a rare and wonderful spice. The rapture of being conquered and tamed dominated her fantasies completely. But in reality, it didn’t work. The wildcard of violence could flare into something horrible.
Or heavenly.
She’d done violence of her own too this evening. She’d hurt Martin with his torture tools. Well, she’d halfheartedly tried. She smiled, remembering his bored eyebrow raise.
Then the smile left her face. He’d called her a “submissive all the way through.”
Was it true?
A submissive was acted upon. A submissive agreed to give up choice, control, shame, and honor. A submissive seemed just another type of slave.
It definitely didn’t sound like the type of person who’d build a successful matchmaking business.
Why did her movies have to pair Martin with her?
She noticed Kartane was halfway down the hall. She hurried after him. Five minutes of socializing, she promised herself. Then she’d be able to go home and make sense of it all.
The noises grew louder. How many Goreans were at this party?
She felt her forehead crease in a frown. A Gorean gathering here, at midnight? The men’s magazines had always been a bit on the wild side, with models traipsing through, photos of legs and panties and boobs and bondage gear plastered over all the production layouts. The subject matter ensured a certain amount of political incorrectness in the workplace.
So long ago. So much had changed in the two years since she’d first laid eyes on the blue-eyed boss and lost her heart. And yet it suddenly felt like just yesterday. Things had been so much simpler before her sexual proclivities ruined everything.
How big was Kartane’s business now? It had grown. The cubicles went on and on, and one glass-walled conference room was bigger and stranger than she’d have expected. It might have been a converted warehouse, it was such a surprisingly open space. The only furniture was a bunch of chairs and a few tables curved in a half-circle around what all the men watched with avid fixation.
Women, of course. Women on furs. Women dressed in short, skimpy red silk dresses. About ten women posing and preening.
“A midnight photo shoot?” She looked from Kartane to the other men.
He cleared his throat. “May I present Charlotte, a free woman!”
Chairs scraped and mugs frothy with beer thumped to tables as the men stood. All of them. There were at least thirty of them, most around Kartane’s age. “Greetings, Free Woman!”
They seated themselves again, courtesy executed.
“All right. That was weird,” she said under her breath.
“Come on,” Kartane said, amused. “They salute your status. On Gor, free women are honored. Though, of course . . . all free women secretly crave to be slaves.” His eyes twinkled.
“You’re nuts,” she said, but with affection. If he wanted to role-play with willing partners, who was she to judge? She’d indulged recently herself.
The men had gone back to talking among themselves, darting glances at the women. The music faded, then began again with a new beat. One man stood. He carried a bullwhip.
No one carried cameras and lighting, or a video camera. “Not a layout or an ad shoot then,” she murmured to herself.
“No. Watch,” Kartane said, even as the music increased in volume. Its rhythmic drumbeat reminded her of Subspace. “The Whip Dance is starting.”
“Wouldn’t want to interrupt the Whip Dance,” she grumbled. When Kartane gave her quelling stare, she stuck her tongue out at him. His lips curved into a cute smile, reminding her why she’d fallen for him.
“Quiet, you,” he commanded gently. “I promise I’ll take you home as soon as you ask to go. But you’ll want to watch this.” He indicated the woman rising sinuously to her knees, then her feet. “Talia’s quite talented.”
It was on the tip of Charlotte’s tongue to ask to go immediately.
But just then, a sharp crack filled the air, making her jump.
The bullwhip.
She stared at the spectacle despite herself. The woman moved with the lithe grace of a trained dancer, gyrating and undulating with a restrained sensuality far more effective than blatant bumping and grinding. With each crack of the whip, she flinched with a different part of her body.
“He’d better not miss.”
Kartane’s eyes remained glued to the slave girl. “He won’t hit her. Yet.”
“Yet?” She turned to look at Kartane.
“She doesn’t currently merit discipline.” His face was flushed, his eyelids lowered to the half-mast she remembered indicated lust. He watched the dancer for a moment, then checked Charlotte’s reaction. His expression changed at her look. “Don’t worry. She’s willing.”
The beat changed, increasing tempo. Charlotte looked at the other men.
The man with the whip wore a leather vest and wielded the weapon with a savage smile. His ash gray hair and craggy face indicated maturity, but his body seemed as fit as a man in his prime, especially the rock-hard bulge of his biceps and ropy muscles and tendons of his arms.
The other men lounged in their chairs, the very image of barbarian gentlemen of leisure. Some wore jeans, others kilts, and some seemed dressed for a Renaissance festival with leather pants and chainmail, but all had an air of arrogance she associated with power. The Goreans came in a variety of ages and shapes, but all seemed a little fitter, a little healthier, than the normal guys she knew.
Charlotte noticed four of the women knelt at four different men’s feet, their heads lowered, long hair falling loosely. Their hands lay palm-up on their parted and bared thighs.
Charlotte’s gaze sharpened. Each thigh sported a slave brand. Real ones, if she was any judge, and she figured she was. “Kartane,” she began.
“Unless you’re choosing to leave now, please be quiet? It’s rude to talk during a performance.”
Did the women not mind having the brands? They didn’t seem to. In fact, as Charlotte watched, one of the men patted a blonde on the top of her head as if she were a pet. The red-clad woman leaned into the man’s caress, giving every indication she savored his touch.
Crack!
The dancer yelped, danced faster. She spun away from the whip, her dress swirling up to show bare butt cheeks. Sweat gleamed on every inch of her body.
Charlotte looked from her to Kartane, who now frowned. She wanted to ask what had happened but feared to provoke a reprimand.
Crack!
The dancer stumbled, then spun the other way.
“Clumsy woman,” Kartane declared.
The dancer heard. Not stopping her dance, she tossed her red tresses, retorting, “You’d be clumsy, too, with this oaf whipping you for no reason!”
The men gasped. At her audacity? Charlotte saw their appalled expressions. Yes, appalled she’d addressed the insult with one of her own.
“You should take a whip to her in earnest,” one man declared.
Another shut off the music.
In the sudden silence, Charlotte heard the whispering hiss of leather as the man with the whip coiled the weapon and hung it on his belt. He looked to Kartane.
Who nodded his head. “Tie her for punishment. She dislikes it.” He addressed the men, but rather than waiting, he strode to where different lengths of rope, color-coded, hung on the wall. He selected a short length, tossed it to the nearest man who caught it with a smile. He rose, stepped around the woman kneeling before him. Younger than the whip-wielder, with dark hair glistening with too much oil and dirty jeans that reminded Charlotte suddenly of her landlord, he approached the haughty dancer with eagerness.
His kneeling woman remained in place, still as a statue. All four of them were.
Charlotte frowned, on the verge of protesting. Was this for real? Or was it role-playing?
Watching as the dancer had her dress ripped from her and thrown aside as if it were trash, then forced roughly to her knees, Charlotte was shocked to find her body responding warmly to the violent scene.
“Okay. That’s not good,” she muttered, backing away slowly.
Competently and without a wasted motion, the man forced the girl’s forehead to the floor. “Kneel to the whip.”
“A punishment position,” Kartane explained unnecessarily as he returned to Charlotte’s side.
Incredibly, the woman laughed. She ground herself sensuously against the furs, twitched her glistening ass at the men. “There’s not one among you who can conquer this girl! Do your worst. All you can succeed at is the spoiling of beauty. Silly men.” She stretched sinuously within her bonds and laughed again at the sharp inhales of all the men. One approached with a short, straight whip Charlotte had seen before. Two feet long and wicked-looking. A quirt, Kartane had once called it.
Kartane’s voice rang out sternly in the quiet. “There’s nothing beautiful about a rebellious kajira. I suggest you punish her severely.”
“I agree wholeheartedly, Ubar.” The quirt met the flesh of her ass. The woman made no sound.
It impacted again, harder, and she flinched despite her obvious effort to remain still.
And again. The woman panted, and then: “Is that a little boy? It must be a weak boy, with a limp little weapon.”
The laughs of the men were a goad to the one with the whip. He rained down blows but failed to win from the woman any further sound.
Her ass bloomed with a crosshatch of dark pink welts.
The slave yawned and stretched, making a show of it. Her taut, well-muscled body extended in deliberately provocative ways. She made the rope wrapped around her wrists seem an attractive accessory rather than a forced restraint.
Incensed, the man threw down the quirt. He unzipped his pants, then lowered them to expose his enormous erection.
The slave glanced over her shoulder. Tensed. “You can’t do that.” She began to struggle in her bonds.
Kartane shook his head. “You’re his for the punishing. He can do what he likes.”
“Not in front of everyone!” She wriggled, her face flushing with effort and shame.
The man—the woman’s owner? or was Kartane her owner?—slapped her ass. “Be still and don’t fight me, and maybe I won’t pass you around.”
Immediately the other men started hooting and shouting. “Fight him!” “Kick him in the nuts!” “Fight him, kajira! He likes it!”
She did fight, but there was only so much give in the rope. She fell awkwardly to her side. The music started again, bu
t this time she wasn’t dancing. Her struggles made her body spasm in frantic, violent ways unrelated to the music’s beat.
The woman seemed to wilt, shaking her head. “Please, Master. Please, no.”
The man positioned himself behind her, his erection rubbing between her legs, to the cheers of the others.
Charlotte’s body seemed locked into place. As the simple whipping changed to a threat of violent sex, her own response confused her. The struggle and the dominance turned her on. The woman was just role-playing. So were the men. And yet . . .
Defeated, the woman struggled weakly one last time.
It was completely not okay.
Charlotte had to swallow twice before trusting her voice. She managed to shout, “Stop! Right now!”
16
Her voice was loud with the power of her dismay behind it. She hadn’t intended the shrill, desperate tone. It served its purpose, however.
Kartane looked at her.
The man looked at her.
All the other men looked at her, and even the kneeling slaves momentarily glanced in her direction before returning to their statue-like positions.
But it was the bound woman who spoke first. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
The man poised behind her added, clearly gritting his teeth, “Free Woman, if you don’t like what you see . . . please leave!”
Charlotte trembled with outrage and something more. “You can’t rape that woman.”
Kartane walked to her quickly. “Charlotte, enough.”
“Enough? Look! Do you want to go to jail? Do all of you? Huh?”
Unexpectedly, Kartane smiled. Knowingly. “Why don’t you ask the kajira what she wants.” When Charlotte hesitated, Kartane gave her a little nudge. “Ease your mind. Quickly, if you don’t mind.”
“Then maybe you can drive me home like you promised,” she retorted. But she went.
The woman reclined on her side, showcasing her feminine curves. The long curtain of her hair draped her body fetchingly, feathering over nipples, hips, and slave brand. Her brand, Charlotte noticed, was in the shape of a flower.
Rough Play Page 15