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

by Players of Gor [lit]

  “Make me your slave!” she cried. “I beg to be made your slave!”

  “Oh, yes,” said Boots. “That is it. Have you had any experience?”

  “That is her, up ahead, I think,” called out Chino to Lecchio.

  “No!” she wept.

  “Then perhaps you should apply to another master,” said Boots.

  “Train me!” she said. “We must all start somewhere! I will be zealous and

  obedient!”

  “I think you are right,” said Lecchio to Chino, looking in the direction of

  Boots and the Brigella.

  “Put your collar on me, please!” cried the Brigella. “There is little time!”

  “I will give you my answer in the morning,” said Boots.

  “No,” she cried. “No, please, no!”

  “Or next week,” he said.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Yes,” said the Chino. “I am sure it is she. Let us hurry. We can have our ropes

  in her in a moment!” They then, apparently, began to hurry. To be sure, their

  new haste was largely a matter of marking time in place. Yet one had the

  distinct impression, in the lovely conventions involved, that they were getting

  closer and closer.

  “Do you think you can be pleasing?” asked Boots. Free companions, after all, can

  be anything. But slaves must be pleasing.

  “Yes,” she cried, “yes!”

  “Good,” said Boots. “I shall let you know in the morning or in a few days.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Why not?” asked Boots.

  “Then you would miss a night’s pleasure,” she said, desperately, wildly, “or

  perhaps even my use, at your slightest whim, for a few days!”

  “That is true,” mused Boots.

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  “Yes! There she is!” cried Chino to Lecchio. “Let us rush upon her! In an

  instant we will have her helpless in our bonds!”

  “Oh, collar me, Master!” she cried. “Please, please, Master!”

  “What did you call me?” asked Boots.

  “Master, Master!” she cried.

  “Oh, very well,” said Boots.

  Swiftly she thrust her neck forward, lifting her chin. Boots stood between her

  and the audience and seemed to reach into his pack. He seemed then to withdraw

  something from the pack and, in a moment, to fasten it on her neck. In this

  instant, of course, he had removed the scarf from about her neck, that

  concealing h er collar. He then stepped back. Lo, there was steel on her neck!

  There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

  “We have you now!” cried Chino, he and Lecchio arriving on the scene, ropes in

  hand.

  “Who are you fellows?” called Boots. “What do you want?”

  The Brigella, now collared, trembling, cowered beside Boots, clinging to one of

  his legs.

  “Do not question us,” said the Chino. “Our profession is a dark one. I dare not

  mention it lest you faint in fear.”

  “Assassins!” cried Boots.

  “Far worse,” said the Chino.

  “Feed hunters!” cried Boots, aghast.

  “The same,” said Chino.

  “The very same,” said the Lecchio, grimly.

  “I am surprised, actually,” said the Chino, “that you have heard of our

  profession, as it is not well known.”

  “I, myself,” said the Lecchio, “heard of it but moments ago.”

  “I heard that two such rascals as yourselves were about,” said Boots. “What do

  you want here?”

  “Her!” said the Chino, pointing dramatically, menacingly, at the Brigella. She

  shrank back in fear.

  “Her?” inquired Boots.

  “Yes!” said the Chino. “Now if you will be so kind as to step aside, we will get

  our ropes on her.”

  “Hold, rogues!” said Boots.

  “What is wrong, sir?” inquired Chino

  “You cannot have her,” said Boots.

  “WE have been hunting her for some time,” said Chino. “She is our legitimate

  prey. It is all quite legal. We are honest fellows. We are entitled to her. Now

  please do not interfere. Come no, little vulo, put your head in this noose.”

  “Desist!” cried Boots.

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  “What is wrong now?” asked Chino.

  “Apparently,” said Boots, “you are under the delusion that this is a free woman,

  one that my simply be picked up, like a larma in a field, for whatever purposes

  you might please.”

  “Of course,” said Chino.

  “She is not a free woman,” said Boots.

  “What!” cried Chino.

  “Observe her pretty neck,” said Boots.

  “It is collared!” cried Chino.

  “Yes!” said Boots.

  “She is a slave!” said Chino.

  “Yes,” said Boots.

  “Ah, well, an unclaimed slave is almost as good as a free woman,” said Chino,

  reaching forth again with the noose.

  “Stop!” cried Boots.

  “What now?” inquired Chino.

  “Yes, what now?” inquired Lecchio.

  “This woman is both claimed and collared,” said Boots.

  “What!” cried Chino

  “What?” asked Lecchio.

  “Are you thieves?” asked Boots.

  “No!” cried Chino.

  “No?” asked Lecchio.

  “No!” cried Chino.

  “No!” said Lecchio, righteously.

  “Then desist, scoundrels,” said Boots, “for this woman is my property!”

  “Is it true?” asked Chino.

  “Yes, Masters,” she said, “it is true. I am his property. He is my master. He

  owns me. I belong to him, legally and completely, in all ways, fully!”

  “There are, of course, two of us,” said Chino, menacingly.

  “I do not fear you!” said Boots. “Be off, you scurvy scamps, lest I feed you to

  your own sleen!”

  “I did not know we had any sleen,” said Lecchio to Chino.

  “Be gone, scamps, scoundrels, rogues!” cried Boots, with a vast, wild

  threatening gesture. Immediately Chino and Lecchio, in apparent terror,

  scampered away.

  “You have saved me!” cried the Brigella.

  “Yes,” said Boots.

  “I wear your collar,” she said. “I am now yours, truly, you know.”

  “Why, yes,” said Boots, interested. “That is true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

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  “And then anything may be commanded of you,” mused Boots, “absolutely anything,

  anything whatsoever, and you must obey, instantly and perfectly.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Assume,” said he, “standing, partly crouching, the position of a free woman,

 
zealous to conceal her beauty.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. There was much laughter as she, the

  already-so-much-exposed slave, assumed this coy, silly position, one often

  associated with timid, scandalized, shocked, surprised free women. Indeed, it

  was the same as that which she had often assumed earlier in the farce, when she

  had supposedly been such a free female.

  “Now, for the merest instant,” said Boots, “move your hands away, and then

  replace them, instantly, immediately, as they were.”

  She complied. If one had not been watching closely, one might have missed the

  action.

  “Yes, yes!” cried Boots ecstatically. “Oh, bliss! Bliss! That is it! That is

  it!”

  “What?” she asked.

  “A peep!” cried Boots. “A marvelous peep!”

  “That is all?” she asked.

  “Yes!” he cried, joyfully.

  “Give me then,” she cried, suddenly, “the wondrous magic veil!”

  “Alas,” cried Boots. “I cannot. It would be incorrect to do so.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  “What I negotiated for, as you may recall,” said Boots, “was a peep at the

  beauty of a free woman, not a peep at the beauty of a mere slave.”

  “Oh, oh!” she said, in misery.

  “If that were all one wished,” said Boots, “one could go to the nearest market,

  to see girls naked in their chains.” That was true, I supposed. That is how

  girls are normally displayed in such markets, incidentally, that and in cages.

  “But I am the same woman!” she protested.

  “That is not really true,” said Boots, “for you are now a slave.” That sort of

  thing, incidentally, in its way, is true. A woman collared is quite different

  from a woman uncollared. The collar works a wondrous transformation in a woman,

  psychologically, sexually and humanly. She is then vulnerable; she must then

  obey. She is no longer the same. She has then no

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  choice but to be a total female. She becomes a thousand times more interesting,

  exciting and desirable.

  “Even though I am a slave, Master,” she said, “yet do I strongly desire it. I

  have been through so much! Please let me have it!”

  “My benevolence may perhaps yet prove my undoing,” said Boots, reaching into his

  pack.

  “I begin already,” said the Brigella to the audience, “to sense that slaves may

  have ways and wiles wherewith to achieve their ends which are denied to free

  women.”

  “I have it here,” said Boots, supposedly withdrawing it from his pack, “but you,

  of course, now that you are a slave, will not be able to see it.”

  “To be perfectly honest with you, Master,” she said, “for I am your slave and no

  longer dare lie to you, I could not see it before either.”

  “No!” cried Boots.

  “Yes,” she said, putting down her head, “it is true.”

  “It is perfectly fitting then,” he said, “Slave, that you are now in your

  collar.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Even though you are a slave, yet still do you desire the wondrous veil?” he

  asked.

  “Yes, Master!” she said. “Now,” she said to the audience, “I am at last to have

  my way. You see, in the end, it is I who win. What does it matter that I am a

  slave? I am to obtain the wondrous veil.”

  Boots seemed to be folding up the veil, neatly.

  “How clever I am,” said the Brigella to the audience. “My patience is now to be

  rewarded. How simple are men! How easy it is to obtain my way with the wiles of

  a slave! I did not know that before. The wondrous veil is now to be mine! Thus

  it is that I, with my beauty, can conquer men!”

  “Here,” said Boots.

  She, still on her knees, rising from her heels, reached eagerly for the veil.

  “Oh!” she cried, in disappointment, for Boots, at the last moment, had jerked it

  back.

  “I forgot,” said Boots.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  “I cannot give you the veil,” he said.

  “Why not?” she wailed.

  “You are a slave,” said Boots. “You can own nothing. It is you who are owned.”

  “Oh!” she cried, in misery.

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  “Back on your heels,” he snapped. “Spread your knees! Hands on thighs! Back

  straight! Chin up!”

  “Oh, oh,” she moaned, but swiftly complied. “He reminds me well that I am a

  slave,” she said to the audience. “I had thought to conquer men but instead I

  find that it is I who am h elpless, that it is I who am conquered, and totally.”

  At this moment Chino and Lecchio reappeared, now with their peddler’s packs.

  “Beware, Master,” cried the girl. “The feed hunters have returned!”

  “Greetings, Boys,” said Boots.

  “Greetings,” said Chino and Lecchio to Boots.

  “Do you know these men, Master?” asked the girl, not daring to rise from her

  knees.

  “I mistook you for feed hunters earlier,” said Boots to the new arrivals. “I see

  now that you are my old buddies, with whom I have been traveling these roads for

  weeks.”

  “The collar is locked on my neck!” said the girl to the audience, struggling

  with the collar. “It is truly on me. I cannot remove it!”

  “A pretty vulo,” said Chino, scrutinizing the girl.

  “A juicy pudding,” said Lecchio.

  “I am now only a slave!” cried the girl to the audience.

  “I am now going to toss the wondrous veil up into the air,” said Boots. “Let it

  blow away on the winds, traveling to I know not where.” He then tossed it up,

  lightly, into the air.

  “Master!” protested the girl.

  “There it goes!” said Boots.

  “Master!” said the girl.

  “It was in such a fashion that I received it,” said Boots. “Surely it is only

  right that I should let it fly away, back into the clouds and winds, perhaps

  even back to Anango.”

  “But why would you let it go?” asked the girl, in misery.

  “It has served its purpose,” said Boots.

  “Its purpose?” asked the girl.

  “yes,” said Boots. “It has served to catch me a pretty, greedy little slave, on

  who by tomorrow morning will be in no doubt as to the nature of her many

  utilization.”

  “Surely you have not tricked me!” she cried.

  “Shoulder my pack,” said Boots.

  “And mine,” said Chino.

  “And mine,” said Lecchio.

  The girl then, with great difficulty, struggling, bending under the weight,

  staggering, shouldered the three packs.

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  “Hurry, la
zy girl!” called Boots, leaving the stage with Chino and Lecchio. “I

  did not know we had any sleen,” Lecchio was saying to Chino. “Where could they

  be?”

  “I wonder if I have been tricked,” said the girl to the audience. There was much

  laughter. “In any event,” she said, “I am now in the collar and that is all

  there is for it!”

  “Hurry, hurry, lazy girl!” called Boots from off-stage.

  “I must go now,” said the girl. “Oh, these packs are heavy. But I must bear them

  as best I can. I am a slave now, and if I am not pleasing, I will be beaten!”

  She then turned about and , staggering under the weight of the packs, left the

  stage.

  In a moment Boots, smiling, reappeared on the stage, with Chino and Lecchio, and

  the Brigella, too, now freed of her preposterous burden. “Noble free woman, and

  noble gentlemen, of the audience,” said Boots, “the Magic Veil of Anango,

  presented by the players of Boots Tarsk-Bit, actor, promoter and entrepreneur

  extraordinary! We thank you for you consideration!” There was much applause.

  Boots, and the Chino and Lecchio, smiling, bowed, again and again. The Brigella,

  at a sign from Boots, knelt on the stage. She would take her bows on her knees,

  of course, for she was a slave.

  “Bina!” called Boots, gesturing to the side of the stage. The Bina, then, in her

  garments of a free woman, she who had played the brief role of Lady Tipa, the

  fellow villager of the Lady Phoebe, emerged onto the stage. “Off with those

  absurd impediments to our vision,” said Boots, jollily, to her. She removed her

  veil and threw back her hood, shaking loose her dark hair. She was an exquisite

  little slave, but not a match for the Brigella in beauty. She would not, at

  least, I supposed, have brought as much as the Brigella on a slave block. I

  remembered her, too, from Port Kar.

  “Come, come,” said Boots, her master. She then pulled down her robes, about her

  shoulders, and then stripped herself to the waist. She had small, well-formed,

  exquisite breasts. On her neck was a collar of steel. “Off with them, mow,

  completely,” said Boots, gesturing to the robes she had clutched about her hips.

  “Kneel.” She thrust the robes down about her ankles and knelt then on the

  boards, beside the Brigella, before the audience. Boots gave her an almost