Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

by Players of Gor [lit]

  than is normally expected.”

  “And this tarsk,” I said, “is for you and your men.”

  “That is not necessary, Captain,” protested the officer.

  The coin dropped into the pot. “It is carnival,” I smiled.

  “Thank you, Captain,” said the officer.

  “Thank you, Captain,” said the guards.

  I replaced the copper pot beside the kaissa table.

  I looked down at the slave. “Have you finished the pastry?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” seh smiled.

  “Clean your fingers. Suck and lick them,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. I was growing hot for her. I must soon get her to a

  rack.

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  “It is no use, kind sirs,” said Boots Tarsk-Bit, returning, carrying the two

  empty coin bowls. “They are empty.”

  “What of that pot?” asked the officer, indicating the one beside the kaissa

  table. “That contains earnings accruing to your troupe, does it not, from your

  kaissa booth?”

  “Alas, it contains only three tarsk bits,” lamented Boots Tarsk-Bit.

  “Do your trust him?” asked the officer of one of the guards.

  “Not I, Sir,” responded the guard.

  “Open it,” said the officer.

  “Very well,” shrugged Boots. Then, as he picked up the kettle, a strange looke

  suddenly came over his face. She shook it. From within it came the unmistakable

  dlink of several coins.

  Feverishly he drew a key out of his wallet. In a moment he had unlocked the

  padlock on the chain and drawn it, sliding through the handles, rattling, free.

  He removed the lid from the kettle.

  “Sly scamp, rotund rogue,” scolded the officer. “You have been holding out on

  us.”

  Boots, his euyes wide, sorted through the coins in the pot.

  “What is there?” asked the officer.

  “Three tarsk bits,” said Boots, “—and five silver tarsks.”

  “Three silver tarsks for licensing fees, present and past, one for interest, and

  one for the Master of Revels,” said the officer.

  Boots counted out the coins and handed them to the officer.

  “Is there nothing for myself and my men?” asked the officer.

  Boots drew out the last silver tarsk out of his sleeve and, sheepishly, handed

  it to the officer. I had not seen him place it there. He had done it very

  skillfully.

  The girl at my feet now held my leg in her arms and kissed at my leg,

  whimpering.

  “It seems a slave is ready for pleasure,” grinned the officer, looking at me.

  “Perhaps,” I said, as though nonchalantly.

  “The rack, Master,” she whimpered. “Please take me to a rack!”

  “I see that you wear the favor of a free woman,” observed the officer. He

  referred to the rich, light, colorful scarf thrust through he eyelet of my

  robes.

  “Yes,” I said. I recalled the richly robed, veiled, wheedling free woman whom I

  had permitted to place it there. What a churl I would have been, considering how

  prettily she had begged, and she a free woman, not to have accepted it.

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  “Take me to the rack, Master, please, I beg it!” said the girl at my feet.

  “I see that you, too, have accepted the favor of a free woman,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, grinning. The favor he wore was different from mine, both in

  border and color. In the game of Favors, of course, the favors are supposedly

  unique to the given woman, in pattern, material, texture, color, shape,

  decoration, and so forth. If they were not unique in this fashion they could not

  act as practical counters in the game. Similarly, of course, they would be less

  efficient in manifesting the results of the deeper competitions involved, those

  competitions in which women desperately strive against one another, each to

  prove themselves more desirable to men than the others. Each woman desires to be

  more pleasing to men than the others. This is significant. It is in their

  nature.

  “It is interesting to me that free women play the game of Favors,” I said.

  “It gives them a way of flirting,” he said. “Too it gives them an opportunity to

  put themselves, in a way, at teh mercy of the male, to engage in petitioning

  behaviour, suing for his indulgence. In this it is not difficult to see a form

  of symbolic submission, a making of themselves dependent on his will. Too, of

  course, it gives them a way of testing their desirability and publicly

  procliaming, or advertising, it.”

  “luscious, vain creatures,” I observed. I myself had earlier speculated along

  these lines. To be sure, the game of Favors, like most games, customs and

  practices, was undoubtedly complex and multiply motivated. Too, sometimes things

  take on additional meanings and values as they are enriched in a a historical

  tradition ormore deeply or variously interpreted in different contexts.

  “It also, of course, gives them a way of establishing ranking among themselves,”

  said the officer, “which is probably about the best they can do until they find

  themselves enslaved, put naked on blocks and priced.”

  “I agree,” I said. That certain games, such as that of Favors, provided a

  mechanism for establishing desirability ranking among females, something in

  which they seemed much interested, seemed clear.

  “What do you think of free women?” asked the officer.

  “I didn’t know there were any, really,” I said. Goreans have a theory that there

  are only two sorts of women, slaves and slaves.

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  “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “I suppose they are all right,” I said. They were all right, I supposed.

  “Slaves are incomparably superior,” he said.

  “That is true,” I said. There was no comparison.

  “Please, Master, take me to a rack,” begged the girl at my feet.

  Freedom, with its inhibitions, inertnesses and hostilities, tends to produce a

  blockage to the emergence of the depth female. In bondage this blockage is

  removed, freeing the woman to find her natural fulfillment, her fulfillment in

  the order of nature, that of a slave at the feet of her master.

  “Please, Master,” begged the girl. “I beg to be taken to a rack.”

  I pulled her by the arm to her feet.

  “Happy carnival,” I said to the officer.

  “Happy carnival,” said he.

  “Happy carnival,” I said to Boots Tarsk-Bit.

  “Happy carnival,” said he.

  I thrust the slave ahead of me, and we pressed through the crowds. In a few Ehn

  we had crossed the piazza and come to the racks. There were two sorts, refined,

  adjustable strap racks, with beddings of flat, soft, criss-crossed straps, with

  sturdy stud-and-eyelet securing straps, and simple net racks, little more than

  sturdy wooden frames within which was slung a netlike webbing of rope. In these

  riacks, if o
ne wishes to secure the woman within the webbing, simple cords are

  used. There were also some trestles. I took the slave to one of the net racks.

  The strap racks were all in use.

  I saw the free woman who had worn the brief cloth about her hips near the racks.

  I threw the slave on her belly on the netting and then turned her to her back. I

  had her place her wrists and ankles through the netting in certain fashions. I

  did not bother secure her in position. I then joined her on the netting. In

  moments, gasping, looking at me wildly, gratefully, she was in the throes of

  slave orgasm. To arouse a free woman to the point of orgasm, even the sort of

  which she is capable, takes, usually, from a third to a quarter of an Ahn. The

  reflexes of the slave, on the other hand, for psychological reasons, and because

  of her training, can be much more easily, profoundly and frequently activated.

  This is not really surprising. The free woman, after all is a free woman and the

  slave is a slave.

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  “Buy me,” said the salve, intensely. “You have money. Buy me, please! I will

  serve you well!”

  I kissed her, and withdrew from her; in a moment I stood beside the rack,

  adjusting my robes.

  “May I break position, Master?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “She removed her hands and feet from the netting, slipped from the rack and came

  to kneel before me. She put down her head and kissed my feet. The marks of the

  rope, where she had lain on the netting, were on her body. She then looked up at

  me. “I did not meaqn to be forward, before,” she said. “Please, forgive me. Beat

  me, if you wish.”

  I lifted her to her feet, and kissed her. “It is all right,” I said.

  She looked at me.

  “Go, seek out your own master,” I said. “See that you give him even more

  pleasure than you did me.”

  “Yes, Master,” she smiled, and turned, disappearing into the crowd. A slave’s

  first duty it to her own master.

  “Paga?” invitd a fellow, reeling by.

  We exchanged swigs from our botas, I from his, he from mine.

  I saw the free woman standing, watching, she with the frief bit of cloth about

  her hips. I looked at her. It was interesting, I thought, that she had now come

  to the vicinity of the pleasure racks. Our eyes met. I looked imperiously to the

  rack. She shrank back, in terror. When I looked back again she was half crouched

  over, her head in her hands, her body shaken with fear and sobs. I then left the

  area of the racks. It was bout that time that I caught sight, once again, of

  Henrius and Vina. In a small space, with Henrius and some men about, to the

  music of some nearby musicians, the men clapping and keeping time, she was

  dancing. She did well. She might have been a nude, leashed, harnessed street

  dancer, one of the lowest forms of dancer on Gor. Soon, I suspected, Henrius

  would take her to a rack, or perhaps back to his holding. she was an incredibly

  lovely young slave, and loved him from the depths of her heart. Her perspiration

  had run in trickles through the paint on her body. I watche dher for a moment.

  How real and alive she was, the slave.

  I turned away, troubled by some thought, but I could not, at the moment,

  determine what it was. It ws now gowing late and I thought perhaps I should

  consider returning to my holding. It was then that I recalled my earlier

  conversation with Henrius. He had told me that someone was looking for me. I

  wondered who thism ight be. Perhaps it had to do with Samos. Surely

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  Samos, the last time I had been in his holding, had been evasive. Someone wished

  to see me, as I recalled, in Booth Seventeen. I turned my steps, curious as to

  what might be involved, toward the purple booths. The purples booths are

  normally maintaine3d by slavers, used as locations in which girls, usually

  higher-quality slaves, more expensive merchandise, may be inspected and tried by

  bonafide buyers or their agents. Such booths are usually set up in the

  courtyards of slaver’s houses and at special times, generally in the

  neighborhood of holidays and festivals. At other times, of course, such girls

  may be examined and tested in private chambers in the slaver’s houses. The

  purple booths set up now in the piazza, however, had to do with the time of

  carnival. They were, in effect, good-will and promotional devices, donated to

  the festivities, for the pleasures of free men, by the houses of various

  slavers. The house of samos, for example, provided the first five booths, each

  complete with its furnishings, including a charming occupant. His fifth booth,

  as I had heard, contained the slave, Rowena. He wished to bring her along

  quickly. As I recalled, he intended to soon sell her, with several others, at

  the Fair of En’Kara, near the Sardar. Some men think that the girls in the

  public purple booths are much the same as those vended from the private purple

  booths on other occasions. Generally, however, as most men know, this is not the

  case. For example, Rowena was a new slave. Thus, even though she was very

  beautiful, she would probably not, in virtue of her inexperience, even be

  considered for a private-booth showing for several months or a year. It takes

  time for a girl to develop adequate skills.

  I walked along the line of the booths until I came to Booth Seventeen. Most of

  the booths had the curtains drawn, and the lining of the booths and curtains is

  usually opaque. In two booths the threshold curtains were partly open. In one I

  saw a slave, naked, writhing slowly in chains before a man, his hands upon her.

  In another I saw a slave and her lover-master of the moment in one another’s

  arms half oof the large, soft cushion on which the slave, customarily, kneeling,

  in obeisance, greeets the booth’s entrant. Outside most of the booths two or

  three men were waiting. Interestingly enough, on Booth Seventeen, there was a

  sign pinned on the front of the booth, near the entrance curtain. It said,

  “Closed.” The curtain itself was drawn shut, but it did not appear, from the

  look of it, from its lack of tautness, to be secured from the inside. I looked

  about. There were men about, some with carnival masks, but none seemed concerned

  with this booth. I waited outside the booth for a few moments. Noone,

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  however, approached me. To be sure, I was supposed to meet the individual in

  Booth Severnteen, according to what Henrius had been told. I wondered who had

  spoken to him. I wondered if this matter had to do with Priest-Kings. To be

  sure, it seemed mysterious. Any normal business, I supposed, would have been

  conducted in more normal fashions.

  I brushed aside the curtain and entered the booth, permitting the curtain, not

  much drawn on its rings, to fall shut behind me. A small tharlarion-oil lamp lit

  the interior of the booth. The booth was the only one furnished by the house of

  Vart, once Publius Quintus of Ar, a minor slaver in Port Kar. I had not seen him

  around outside. I wondered why the booth was closed. He had perhaps rented the />
  space to someone for an Ahn or so. Perhaps the whole matter was a mistake. On

  the large cushion, sofr, and some five feet in diameter, toward the back of the

  booth, there lay a small, lovely body. It was a tiny, luscious redhead. She lay

  terribly still, extremely still. I approached her and, crouching down beside

  her, put my fingertips to the side of her throat, by the collar. She was alive.

  I puller her to a seated position on the cushion and smelled her mouth and lips,

  and gently, carefully, delicately, touched her lips with my tongue. I detected

  nothing. There was a smear of Ka-la-na wine at the left side of her mouth. Tassa

  powder had doubtless been used on her. It is traceless, and effective. I did not

  hting she would awaken for hours. The lamp flickered slightly. Her wrists had

  been thonged behind her; her ankles, too, had been crossed and thonged. The

  thongs were narrow, dark and tight. I put her back on the cusion.

  I jerked my body suddenly to the side, to evade the grasping left arm, seeking

  to hod the target in place for the short, low right-handed thrust of the knife,

  or the throat attack, if the assailant was right-handed, and fo the assassins or

  the warriors. The small tharlarion-oil lamp had been placed in such a way that

  no shadow would be cast by it of a figure entering through the curtain. Warriors

  notice such things. Too, in permitting the curtain to fallshut behind me, I had

  not interfered with the antural closure of the booth. Had it not closed in this

  fashion I would have adjusted it shut. It is difficult to move such a curtain,

  heavy and lined as it is, customary in purple booths, without rustle of fabric,

  or the scraping of one or more of the rings. Too, of course, the air in the

  booth changes slightly as the curtain is moved, admitting it. The flame of the

  tiny lamp had flickered, too, in this shifting of air. The knife and arm,

  howeer, descending, passed over my body. The high stroke has various

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  disadvantages. It begins from farther back and thus makes it difficult to use

  the left hand or arm to secure the target. It is easier to block. It does not

  have the same power as the short blow. The blade that has only six inches to

  move, with a full weight behind it, other things being equal, effects a deeper

  penetration than a blade wich must move farther and has behind it primarily the