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

  as to your loyalty.”

  “Perhaps,” he whispered.

  “In any event the delay between the messages has given independent agents of

  Priest-Kings time to arrive in Port Kar. It may also have been noted that you

  did not act immediately upon the receipt of the confirmation.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Samos, agast.

  “I think I have an explanation which makes sense of this little arrair in the

  booth,” I said.

  “No!” said Samos.

  I looked down at the fellow in the rich robes, the knife protruding from his

  chest.

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  “I think I have just killed an agent of Priest-Kings,” I said.

  “No!” said Samos.

  I shrugged. We could hear the sounds of carnival outside.

  “If anyone,” said Samos, “Kurii must have sent him.”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Priest-Kings would not behave in such a way,” said Samos.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Leave the city,” he said.

  “In his wallet were staters of Brundisium,” I said. “Do you know anything about

  Brundisium, anything having to do with either Priest-King or Kurii?”

  “No,” said Samos.

  “Then the Brundisium staters are probably meaningless,” I said.

  “I would suppose so,” said Samos. “They are, of course, a valuable stater. There

  would be noting incredible about thier use being specified in a given

  transaction.”

  “Why not coinage of Ar,” I asked, “or that of Port Kar, or of Asperiche, or

  Tharna, or Tyros, or Schendi, or Turia?”

  “I do not know,” said Samos.

  “How will I know if it is safe to return to Port Kar?” I asked.

  “From time to time,” said Samos, “presumably you youself, incognito, or an agent

  acting on your behalf, might be in the city. Do you know the slave chains I have

  hanging behind the banner on the banner bar to the left of my threshold, where

  the bar meets the wall, those that have tied there with them a bit of scarlet

  slave silk?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “When it is safe for you to again appear publicly in Port Kar, when it is safe

  for you to again make contact with me, the scarlet slave silk will be replaced

  with yellow.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I wish you well,” he said. We clapsed hands.

  “I wish you well,” I said.

  Samos then withdrew from the booth. I remained inside for a few Ehn. It would

  not be well for him to be seen with me at this time. I looked at the man on the

  rug, that flooring the booth spread over the tiels of the piazza, he in whose

  heart I had left his own knife. I recalled the tale of Yngvar, the Far-Traveled.

  There was a new order, I surmised, in the Sardar. I did not regret what I had

  done in the case of Zarendargar. Once we had shared paga.

  “I listened to the merriment of the revelers outside, to the cires, the horns

  and music.

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  I must leave Port Kar tonight. I would go to my holding; I would make

  arrangements; I would obtain weapons, moneys, letters of credit. I could be gone

  in two Ahn, on tarnback, before Priest-Kings discovered the failure of their

  plans.

  I looked back at the samll, lovely redheaded slave bound hand and foot on the

  large cushion, the wallet filled with teh staters of Brundisium tied at her

  collar. Throughout all that had transpired in the booth she had not regained

  consciousness. Tassa powder is efficient.

  I then left the booth. In a moment I was again making my way through the crowds

  of carnival.

  I was bitter.

  I would take no men with me. I had no wish to endanger them, nor to involve them

  in the dark matters of warring worlds. Too, the best guarantee of the safety of

  Samos, ti seemed to me, was my departure from the city. He was my friend. He had

  risked much fo rme. I could be gone in two Ahn, on tarnback, before Priest-Kings

  discovered the failure of their plans.

  “Paga?” inquired a fellow.

  “Of course,” I said. It was carnival.

  We exchanged swigs, I from his bota, he from mine. Then he turned aside, to

  offer paga to another. I stepped back, while one of the gigantic fellows, on

  stilts, stalked by. I was jostled. I checked my wallet. It was intact.

  I then continued on my way, pressing through the throngs.

  “Master,” said a woman, kneeling before me. She put down her head and kissed my

  feet, and then looked up at me.

  I recognized her. She was the free woman whom I had seen earlier, she

  masquerading as a slave, with the brief bit of cloth about her hips.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I have been in agony for two Ahn,” she said. “I am now ready, of my own free

  will, to go to a rack.”

  Ilooked down at her. Women are very beautiful on thier knees.

  “Please,” she said, “—Master.”

  “precede me,” I said.

  She rose to her feet and, frightened, trrembling, I behind her, made her way

  through the crowds.

  At one point we were literally stopped in the press.

  “Paga?” asked a fellow, waiting beside me. We exchanged swigs. Then, in a few

  moments, the ccrowd loosened and, once again, I followed the female.

  She came to the foot of a rack and stopped, regarding it. It

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  was one of the strap racks, not a simple net rack, or rope rack. It was now

  open. Frightened, she crawled upon it, and then lay on it, on her back, on the

  broad, soft, flat, smooth, comfortable interlaced straps.

  “I have never been on a rack before,” she said.

  “Not all of them are this comfortable,” I assured her.

  “I do not doubt it,” she smiled. The comfort of the slave may or may not be

  taken into consideration by the master, as it pleases him. They are only slaves.

  “You are a free woman,” I said. “You need not go through with this.”

  “Touch me,” she said.

  “Paga?” asked a fellow. We exchanged swigs. Then he was on his way. He had not

  concerned himself with the woman. He had assumed she was a slave. She was, after

  all, half naked, in a collar and on a pleasure rack.

  “I had to wait,” she said, wonderingly.

  “If you are going to masquerade as a salve,” I said, “you should grow

  accustomed, at least in some respects, to being treated as a slave.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Suppose it were not a masquerade,” I said.

  “I understand,” she said. Her eyes briefly clouded. I saw that she was

  frightened. I saw that she had just had some inkling as to what it might be to

  be truly a slave, to be truly, utterly, at the mercy of masters.

  “Leap up,” I suggested. “Flee the rack. Hurry home. If the straps are fastened

  upon you, it will be too late.”

  “No,” she whi
spered.

  “But what of respect and dignity?” I asked. “Surely you desire these,

  desperately.”

  “I have had respect and dignity for years,” she said, “and they are empty! I

  have had my fill of respect and dignity! For years I have been betrayed and

  deluded by those trivializing, vacuous, negative verbalitites! I do not want

  respect and dignity! Obviously they are not the answer. If they were, I should

  be happy, but I am not! I do not want respect and dignity! I want fulfillment,

  and truth!”

  I saw that her sexual drives were far too strong to be appropriate for those of

  a free woman. In her there was an eager, succumbing slave.

  “Now I want to be overwhelmed, dominated. Now I want to tatke my place in the

  order of nature. Now I wasnt to be what I am, and have always been, truly, a

  woman!”

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  In every woman, of course, Goreans think, there is a slave. Perhaps, in the end,

  there is no difference.

  She looked at me, pleadingly.

  “You are a free woman,” I told her.

  She moaned.

  “It would seem thus,” I said, “at least according to some, that you are entitled

  to respect and dignity.”

  “I have never encountered a convincing proof to that effect,” she said. “Have

  you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, would that i were a slave,” she smiled. “Then I owuld not have to concern

  myself with such matters. Then I would only have to mind my manners and make

  certain that I pleased my masters, totally.”

  “To be sure,” I said, “many of the matters with which the free woman must

  concern herself are simply irrelevant to the slave.”

  “Such as dignity and respect,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Undre those names I have gone for years,” she said.

  “And yet, now,” I said, “you have come, and of your own free will, to a rack.”

  “There comes a time,” she said, “when the slogans no loner suffice, a tiem when

  the myth is seen to be meaningless.”

  “And such a time came for you?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And then you put on a collar and came to carnival.”

  “Yes,” she said, “and to a rack!”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Are you going to touch me?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “You would use me withont a second thought if I were a slave,” she said. “You

  are puttting me through this because I am a free woman. That is why oyu are

  making me suffer! That is why you are torturing me! Do you want me to beg?”

  “Surely that would be unseemly in a free woman,” I said.

  “If I were a slave,” she smiled, “I would beg quickly enough.”

  “I do not doubt it,” I said. I could sense that whe was quite hot, for a free

  woman. To be sure, as a free woman, she could not even begin to suspect what it

  might be to tbe in the throes of slave need, to be slave hot, so to speak.

  “Are you going to touch me?” she asked.

  “I do not know,” I siad, musingly.

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  She twisted her head angrily, in frustration, to dhe side, on the surface of

  broad, soft, interlaced straps.

  “You are free to leave, of course,” I said. “You have not yet been fastened in

  place.”

  “And what if I were fastened in place?” she asked.

  “Then you would not be free to leave,” I said.

  “I see,” she said. She lay back on the straps, and lifted her knees, and put her

  hands above and behind her, hooking her fingers in the interstices of the broad

  straps. She looked at me.

  “I think there may be a slave in you,” I said.

  “Very well,” she said. “You win. I beg rape.”

  I regarded her.

  “Do you find me attractive?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you want me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then take me,” she said. “I am yours.”

  “You are a free woman,” I said. “Thus, it would doubtless be improper for me to

  subject you to powerful uses. It is up to me, doubless, to see that you are

  protected from, indeed, shielded from, powerful sexual insights and experiences.

  You do not need to know what it is to be under male dominance. It is doubeless

  best that you never learn. It might change your life. Similarly, it is probably

  best that you learn nothing of helpless obedience, of submission and total

  surrender. It is difficult to tell where shuch things might lead. All in all,

  you had best remain on the superficial levels of sexuality, those appropriate to

  a free woman, unaware that anything deeper and more profound exists.”

  She looked a me, angrily.

  “It seems thus,” I said, “that I must refrain from responding to your needs,

  real and urgent though they may be.”

  “Do you think that I wll respect you for falsifying your manhood,” she cried,

  “for denying it, for pretending it does not exist! Ultimately I would only

  despise you for your self-betrayal! Is honesty too much to ask from men? If you

  will not be a man, how can I be a woman? If I were a man, I would be a true man,

  and I would never betray my manhood! It would be precious to me! I would rejoice

  in it! And I would teach women, which is what we want, what it is to be women! I

  would be merciless with them! I would be their master!”

  “That is what you want?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “for without it, we cannot be women.”

  I reached to one of the straps. It was a holding strap. These straps are

  adjustable. I would take it twice snugly about her wrist

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  and then, angling it, press the cap-topped stud at the end of the strap, from

  the bottom, up through one of the small, sturdy, suitable eyelets on the same

  strap. No buckles are used. The occupant of the rack, of course, because of the

  nature of the cap-topped stud and the eyelet, cannot, from her position, free

  herself. She is helpless. The arrangement, tus, is not only such that teh girl

  finds herself, when the straps are on her, held in perfect custody, but this

  custody, in virtue of the nature of the studs and eyelets, may be easily imposed

  or removed, a convenience to the handler. “If I fasten these upon you, you will

  be helpless,” I said.

  I began with her wrists, and then I secured her ankles.

  “Free yourself,” I suggested.

  She struggled. “I cannot,” she said. She looked at me, frightened. “I am as

  helpless as a slave,” she said.

  I regarded her. She was extremely attractive.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. My hands were at the string holding the cloth

  about her hips.

  “I am going to lay aside your veil,” I told her. />
  “No,” she begged.

  I undid the string.

  “I shall cry out!” she threatened.

  “Then it will only be necessary to gag you,” I said.

  “Please,” she begged. “I have changed my mind! RElease me!”

  “It is too late for htat,” I said.

  “Please,” she pleaded.

  “I am only human,” I said.

  “Please,” she pleaded.

  “No,” I told her.

  Then she lay back on the soft, broad straps, moaning. The cloth at her hips, now

  freed, ahd been brushed to the sides. No longer now between us lya the least

  impediment. She was now, as it is sometiems said on Gor, slvae naked.

  She looked at me. I put down my head and began to kiss her, and lick her, slowly

  about the belly.

  “Oh!” she said.

  And in a few moments, she was trying to move her body beneath my mouth, trying

  to bring me to other positions on her body. Her movements were mute, helpless

  pleas.

  “Ohhhh!” she said suddenly, softly.

  “Now,” I said, “you must restrain yourself. You must try not to move.”

  “I cannot hel myself,” she said.

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  “It would be easy enough for me to desert you now,” I said, “leaving you in the

  straps.”

  She moaned.

  “You will not move now,” I said, “until you receive permission.”

  “I will try,” she said.

  I then continued to lick and kiss at her, softly. She began to whimper and moan.

  I looked at her. Her eyes were wild, pleading. I put my hands on her belly. It

  was tense and hot, throbbing with blood and need. “Do not move,” I told her.

  “No,” she said, “no!”

  I then resumed my ministrations to her body. They were such as might be

  inflicted upon a woman who was no more than a slave.

  “Please!” she whimpered, “Please! Please!”

  “Very well,” I said. “You may move.”

  She cried out and seemed to explode under me, sobbing with joy and helplessness.

  Then she looked at me wildly, still held in the straps, disbelief in her eyes.

  Then I entered her and took her, not gently. “Oh,” she cried. “Master! Master!”

  Then again she lay back on the straps, helpless.

  “I have business to attend to,” I said. Indeed, I must soon make away from Port