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

by Players of Gor [lit]

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “The first moments may be crucial,” I said. “You will wish to disarm his

  suspicions. What if he does not immediately put aside his weapons?”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Lie more seductively, Lady Yanina,” I said. “Think slave.”

  “Brinlar!” she said.

  “That is better,” I said.

  “Your hands!” she said.

  “Part your lips slightly,” I said. “Look at a man as a slave, feel your

  helplessness, feel burning heat between your thighs.”

  “you are posing me as a slave!” she said.

  “You are not the first woman who has lain chained in this alcove,” I said.

  “But they were slaves!” she said.

  “Most of them, probably,” I said, “but perhaps not all.”

  She looked at me, frightened.

  I rose to my feet.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “It must be quite near the eighteenth Ahn,” I said.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked.

  “I am going to withdraw from the alcove,” I said, “I shall draw the curtains

  behind me.”

  “Then I must simply wait,” she said, “wait for a man!”

  “Yes,” I said, “it would seem so.”

  She squirmed angrily.

  “Many women have done so, of course,” I said, “particularly women in such

  places, in such a bond.”

  “Of course,” she said, angrily.

  “And many of them,” I said, “would not have known who it was who would come

  through the curtains, only that they must serve him, and exactly according to

  his dictates, and marvelously.”

  “Yes!” she said, angrily.

  “You are very beautiful,” I said. “Slave silk and a chain become you.”

  “Oh!” she said.

  “It is difficult to conjecture how beautiful you might be, if you were truly a

  slave.”

  “Do you think I would be a beautiful slave?” she asked.

  “yes,” I said.

  page 112

  “I thought I might be,” she said, cuddling down in the furs, “but let men

  despair, for I shall never be a slave.”

  I then withdrew from the alcove, closing the curtains behind me. I heard a small

  sound of the chain, from within, as she moved her ankle.

  I conjectured that it must now be about the eighteenth Ahn. Flaminius, probably

  with his men, would be arriving in the neighborhood of the nineteenth Ahn. This

  did not give me a great deal of time for all I wished to do. I looked about the

  inn. The Tassa powder which I had placed in the wine had already, mostly, taken

  its effect. One of the Lady Yanina’s men lifted his head from the table, looking

  at me groggily, and then tried to rise to his feet. His legs failed him and he

  sprawled back, over the bench, and then, half catching himself, slipped to the

  tiles of the inn floor. I had had little difficulty in locating the Tassa

  powder. It had been contained among the belongings of the lady Yanina. I had

  discovered it on my first full day as her servant, while tidying her tent. It

  had been contained in a small chest of capture equipment, such as weighted slave

  nets, ropes, hoods, gags and manacles. Similarly I had had access to the general

  stores of the camp, that I might more conveniently wait upon and serve her and

  her guards. With the aid of the lamp taken from the table, about which the

  guards now lay sprawled, I soon located, in one of the farther alcoves, what I

  was looking for.

  I then returned to the table about which the guards lay and replaced the small

  lamp on its surface. The things I had taken from the alcove I put to one side. I

  then went to the curtained threshold of the alcove wherein lay the Lady Yanina.

  I jerked apart the curtain.

  “Brinlar!” she said, startled, drawing back on the furs, her legs under her,

  with a movement of chain, against the back wall of the alcove.

  I regarded her.

  “You startled me,” she said.

  I did not speak.

  “Is he here?” she whispered.

  “yes,” I said. “He is here.”

  “Where?” she asked, in a whisper.

  “Just outside the alcove,” I said. “I suggest you compose yourself. I suggest

  you prepare yourself for him. I suggest you invite him to your arms.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, frightened. “Yes.”

  I stepped back a bit, as though to yield the threshold, that it might admit the

  entrance of another.

  page 113

  The Lady Yanina now lay seductively on her side. She was quite beautiful in the

  slave silk, and the chain, in the light of the tiny lamp. She gathered together

  her powers of concentration. Then she extended one hand. “I love you, Bosk of

  Port Kar,” she called, softly. “I have loved you from the first moment I saw

  you. At the very thought of you I am helpless and weak. Do not be dismayed that

  someone whom you do not know and whom you have perhaps never even seen is madly

  in love with you!” I have fought my passion for you! But it has conquered me! I

  am yours!”

  She looked at me. “Very good,” I said, nodding.

  “Permit me to confess my love for you,” she called. “Permit me, too, the

  dignity, as I am a free woman, of using your name in my doing so, before

  perhaps, if it pleases you, you impose upon me the discipline of a slave.”

  I nodded.

  “I love you, Bosk of Port Kar,” she cried. “I love you!

  There was silence.

  “What is wrong?” she whispered to me.

  I shrugged. “Perhaps he intends to make you wait a moment or two,” I said.

  She make a small movement of impatience.

  I frowned.

  She then again composed herself, seductively. Again she extended her hand. “I

  lie here panting with passion,” she called, “as submitted as a slave.”

  Many of the things which she had said, incidentally, were not different from the

  genuine, heartfelt declarations of women in love, particularly those so much in

  love that they find themselves, in effect, the slaves of masters. One the other

  hand, of course, the Lady Yanina was acting. It is not difficult for a skilled

  master, incidentally, to discriminate between such declarations which are

  genuine and those which are not, usually in virtue of incontrovertible body

  clues. The lying female is then punished. Soon she learns that her passion must

  be genuine. She then sees to it, with all the consequences, physical,

  psychological and emotional, attendant upon it, consequences which, at first,

  are sometimes found horrifying or disturbing but which, ultimately, because of

  their relation to her depth nature, when she surrenders to this, are found

  joyfully and gloriously fulfilling. She is then herself, fully.

  “Hurry to me, Bosk of Port Kar!” she cried. “I desire your
touch! I desire to

  serve you! I beg to please you! I plead to please you! Take pity on me! Do not

  torture me so! Do not make

  page 114

  me wait longer! Hurry to me, Bosk of Port Kar, my lover, my master!”

  “Good,” I said.

  “Enter my alcove!” she cried. “I am yours!”

  I entered the alcove. I did not have a great deal of time.

  “Brinlar,” she cried, drawing her legs under her, “what are you doing!”

  “What do you mean, ‘what am I doing!?” I asked.

  “Where is Bosk of Port Kar?” she asked.

  “He is here,” I said.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Here,” I said, jerking my thumb toward my chest. “I am he.”

  “Do not be absurd!” she said.

  “Kneel,” I said.

  “Is this some form of mad joke, Brinlar?” she asked. “Have you taken leave of

  your senses?”

  “I believe you received a command,” I said.

  “Men!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “Men! Men!”

  I let her run to the threshold of the alcove, where the shackle on her left

  ankle held her up short. She looked wildly out into the main hall. From where

  she stood, at the curtains, in the light, and shadows, of the small lamp on the

  table, she could see the slumped, fallen, senseless figures of her guards.

  “Tassa powder,” I explained. “It was your own. I believe you are familiar with

  its effects.”

  I then took her by the upper arms and hurled her back into the alcove, with a

  rattle of chain, onto the furs.

  She scrambled about, and looked at me, wildly. “You are not Bosk of Port Kar!”

  she cried. “You cannot be Bosk of Port Kar!”

  “I am Bosk of Port Kar,” I assured her.

  “You have gone mad, Brinlar!” she cried. “This is an outrage! Release me!”

  I smiled.

  “Sleen! Sleen!” she wept.

  “You are a female,” I said, “and you are in slave silk, and chained. I suggest

  you keep a respectful tongue in your head, unless you wish to have it removed.”

  She looked at me, frightened.

  “Do you recall having received a command earlier?” I asked.

  She knelt.

  “How does it feel to be kneeling before a man?” I asked.

  She clenched her fists.

  page 115

  “You are wearing slave silk,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Remove it,” I said.

  “No,” she said.

  I reached to the wall and took a slave whip from its hook. Such things are

  common in the alcoves of inns and taverns on Gor. They help a girl be mindful of

  her duties.

  “Now,” I said.

  ` She jerked the silk angrily from her body.

  “You are quite beautiful,” I said, “for a free woman.”

  She tossed her head, angrily. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Kiss the whip,” I said.

  “Never!” she said.

  “You will kiss it now, or after you have felt it,” I said. “It does not matter

  to me.”

  “I will kiss it,” she said angrily.

  “More lingeringly,” I said, “and lick it, as well.”

  She complied.

  “Now, kiss it again,” I said.

  She complied.

  “Now say, ‘I have licked and kissed the whip of a man,’” I said.

  “I have licked and kiss the whip of a man!” she said. “Now what are you going to

  do with me?”

  I do not have much time,” I said.

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Turn about,” I said, “and lean forward, resting on the sides of your forearms.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Assume the position, as instructed,” I said.

  “No!” she protested.

  I lifted the whip.

  She complied.

  A few moments later, having freed her ankle from the shackle, I dragged her by

  her right arm out of the alcove, to the side of the table about which her men

  lay sprawled. Her lovely dark hair was down about her face. I forced her down on

  her knees, under the table. I put her over the ring, in the midst of the chains.

  I clasped the ankle rings about her ankles, locking them. I thrust the short,

  attached chain, attached to the ankle-ring chain at one end, and the wrist-ring

  chain at the other, and the wrist rings, on their short chain, between her legs

  and through the sturdy floor ring. I then, close to the floor, locked her wrists

  snugly into the wrist rings. She was now held helplessly in place beneath the

  page 116

  table. “In such a fashion,” I told her, “the men of Torvaldsland sometimes

  secure their bond-maids. Thus they have them at hand and may use them, to some

  extent, to please them under the table. In this fashion, similarly, it is easy

  to feed them by hand and throw them scraps of meat. It is a useful arrangement

  in their training and, too, even a skilled, experienced girl, even one who is

  highly esteemed, is sometimes confined so, when it pleases the master to do so.”

  Her eyes were glazed. Her hair was down before her face. She pulled at the

  chains, weakly.

  “But perhaps you are not interested in the lore of Torvaldsland,” I said.

  “What you did to me,” she said.

  “Perhaps you are hungry,” I said.

  She looked at me, angrily. She moved her head to the side, trying to free her

  face of hair. I took her hair and, arranging it, put it back over her shoulders.

  “You are quite beautiful in chins,” I said. Perhaps you should be a slave.”

  She did not respond.

  “You look well chained under a table,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, angrily.

  I took a piece of meat from the table, one of the viands I had brought from the

  camp, a small tidbit of roast tarsk.

  I held it out to her.

  “No,” she said.

  “Eat,” I said.

  Her wrists pulled upward, against the wrist rings, but her hands, chained as

  they were, could lift but a few inches from the floor. “I cannot reach it,” she

  said.

  “I am not a patient man,” I said.

  “I am a free woman!” she said.

  “I am well aware of that,” I said. “If you were a slave, you would probably have

  received at least two beatings by now.”

  She extended her head.

  “Excellent, Lady Yanina,” I said. “You take food well on your knees, from a

  man’s hand.”

  Then next few pieces of meat I scattered on the tiles. She must take them

  without touching them with her hands. While she was doing this I disarmed the

  guards, slinging their weapons about my shoulder.

  I then came back to regard the Lady Yanina.

  “Have you finished the meat, Lady Yanina?” I inquired.

  “Yes!” sh
e said.

  I picked up the things, lying to one side, which I had taken

  page 117

  from the farther alcove. Her eyes suddenly widened, and she regarded me with

  terror.

  “This key,” I said, “I found concealed in your robes. It is, I assume, the key

  to one of the chests, which contains, doubtless, the keys to certain other

  chests, and perhaps other keys, as well, such as those pertinent to the shackles

  of your work chain. If it does not, of course, I may have to make use of certain

  tools in your camp.”

  She began to tremble in the chains.

  “Among your belongings,” I said, “there are also doubtless other things of

  interest, such as rings, and moneys, and such, pilfered from your captives. I

  alone am missing a considerable wallet. Too, I think I may count on your having

  independent stores of coins and notes, and, given your apparent wealth and

  elegance, a suitable measure of costly cloths, gems and jewelries. These

  materials I shall distribute among the members of the work chain, to compensate

  them somewhat for their inconvenience and loss of time. These weapons I carry,

  too, save for those I reserve for my own use, I shall give to skillful, worthy

  fellows. We shall then, still free men, make our way to the fair. At the fair,

  as you know, fighting, enslavement, foul play, and such, are not permitted.

  After some days of sport and recreation at the fair, we may then, if we wish,

  from the fairgrounds themselves, take tarns to Port Kar, an expensive

  proposition to be sure, but one which your resources will doubtless prove

  sufficient to fund. If you see a light in the sky later, it may be your camp

  burning.”

  “Do what you wish,” she pleaded, in her chains. “Free the men, take the gold,

  burn the camp, but do not touch that packet!”

  “Oh, yes, this,” I said, lifting the leather packet which I had taken from the

  farther alcove. “This contains the materials, doubtless, which you were to

  deliver to your dear friend, Flaminius.”

  “Leave it!” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I am a courier,” she said. “I must deliver that to Flaminius!”

  “I gather that that will be difficult for you to do,” I said, “chained as you

  are.”

  “Please,” she said. “Do not even think of taking that! Leave it! I beg you!”