Prize of Gor coc-27

by John Norman

  “Guardsman! Search for an escaped slave in a weight collar, a high collar of thick, black iron, hammered shut about her neck, its two forward projections pierced, a dangling, two-hort iron ring threaded through the piercings!”

  So Ellen lay on the cement shelf, chained, closing her eyes, shuddering, shivering, half blinded by the cold, driving rain. She whimpered and moaned. The rain pelted against her, mercilessly, and she felt it run about her body, and, striking the cement, splash up, against her, like spray. Her hair was soaked. Water ran within her collar, and under the constraints she wore. She was bedraggled. Her hair was soaked, and it clung about her forehead and throat. Had Targo’s women been permitted slave cosmetics, they would have run about their lips and eyes, and stained the shelf. But Targo seldom wasted slave cosmetics on his properties, claiming the honesty of his wares, and the right of a buyer to understand clearly, and in all respects, the exact nature, pure, raw and simple, of the goods he proffered. Too, to be sure, cosmetics, even slave cosmetics, were not free, but cost their coins. Ellen would later learn that slave girls would fight for a lipstick or an eye shadow, that they might enhance their beauty and prove more pleasing to masters. Too, Ellen would learn later that slaves were sometimes tied outside, exposed in cruel weather, that they might learn to better appreciate the warmth of a fire, the significance of a blanket, the snugness of a place at the foot of the master’s couch.

  What am I, she wondered. What am I, truly?

  And she feared she knew the answer.

  After a few minutes the rain stopped, rather suddenly, as it had begun, and water dripped from awnings, and trickled through cracks in the paving stones of the market square, and the sun again blazed down, as before, yellow, hot, indifferent, merciless. Some bustle in the market resumed, though muted now, and water was brushed away from the stalls, and, in places, blankets were again spread and various goods, pans, vessels, jewelries, and such, were arranged on the dark, woolen surfaces. The sound of leather sandals and boots was softened, and subtly different now, on the damp stones. There was the sound of a heavy, trundling wheel moving through a puddle. A child splashed and was reprimanded. Ellen could hear, too, now and then, the clack of high, wooden, platformlike, cloglike footwear, such as is sometimes worn by free women, particularly of high caste, which lift the hems of their gowns a bit from the ground, and serve to protect delicately slippered or sandaled feet from dust and mud. Ellen did not look at them, for she feared free women, and, as most slave girls, avoided meeting their eyes directly, lest they be thought insolent and be punished. The water on the shelf became warm and began to steam upward in the heat.

  Much then seemed to her incomprehensible.

  How came I here, she asked herself, how thus?

  I am on a different world, she thought, a world foreign and strange to me, an exotic world, a beautiful, frightening world, an incredible, startling, vital world, a world so different, a world so alive, a world so very different from my own.

  And on this world I am chained, she thought. And I am branded and collared. On this world I find myself only a chained slave.

  I can be bought and sold. I exist only to give pleasure to men. I am owned, literally owned, and I must obey, and with all the perfection I can muster.

  I remember the sensations. I must have more. I cannot live without them. I want them, desperately, needfully. How the beasts, in all their brutish, careless innocence, have made me theirs! I writhe in my chains, a needful slave. Oh, buy me, Masters! I will serve you well. I will kneel at your feet and lick and kiss them, and beg for your touch!

  Oh, dismiss these thoughts, she cried to herself.

  You must not be a woman, you must not be so alive, you must not be so needful! You must not desire to love and serve! Castigate such temptations! Ridicule yourself for such tender, animal realities! Think yourself because of them small and disgusting! Seek redemptive frigidity! Praise inertness! Sing the glories of the dull, dismal body! Put aside feeling! Deny the deepest heart of hearts! Dare not desire to love, dare not desire to serve! How improper, how terrible, how wicked to be alive, and needful and loving!

  I am chained, she thought. I am on a different world, a world foreign and strange to me, an exotic world, a beautiful, frightening world, a world so different from my own, a world on which I am branded and collared, a world on which I am a slave.

  But it is appropriate that I am chained and collared, for I am a slave.

  It is what I am, and what I want to be! Oh, dear world, dearest world, give me a strong master, one who will master me uncompromisingly as I desire to be mastered, that I may fulfill myself, in my pleasing of him, in my serving of him, in my delighting of him.

  How terrible, how unworthy I am, she thought.

  I must have those sensations again. I will do anything for them!

  How terrible, how wicked I am!

  Mirus, Mirus, she thought, what have you done to me?

  It was a slave orgasm, she thought, or something like one. I must have it again! I will do anything for it! Could I do so, were I not so chained, I would kiss my fingers and press them to my collar. And yet it was not a matter of simple sensation, no simple episode, even lingering, of the excitation of tissues. It was muchly other than simply that. It was flames and clouds, forces of nature, winds and storms, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, an entirety of experience, a coming of seasons of being, a time of wholeness. In it there burst alive a universe of significance, a world of meaningfulness. In it was the defiant rootedness and tenacity of life. In it the grass became green, and the stars sang. In those moments I became ecstatically one with the glory of the universe. In my small way I attained a level of consciousness I had not known could exist, and glimpsed the promise of endless horizons, of infinite mornings, and yet, too, I learned that I was only a slave in the hands of a master.

  I remember you, Mirus, my master.

  Mirus, you have given me to myself, she thought. I would that I could give myself to you!

  But you do not want me!

  You have taught me to myself, and have then cast me aside, unwanted.

  You saw to it that I have been made a slave.

  And how worthless and contemptible are slaves! Yes, how worthless and contemptible we are!

  How right of you to have held my lying self in contempt! How shrewdly you perceived my hypocrisy, my worthlessness! How fitting, how appropriate, how right for me then that I should be a slave, naked and chained!

  This you saw! This you knew!

  And now that is what I am!

  And now I would that I were before you, kneeling before you, head down, kissing your feet, begging to serve you!

  But you do not want me!

  Then Ellen began to weep.

  ****

  It was now Ellen’s third day on the shelf.

  She stood at the back of the shelf, against the wall of the tenement, her back to the wall of the tenement, she then facing outward, her wrists chained over her head to a ring set in the tenement wall. Her arms were sore, and her legs ached. Targo was not much pleased with her.

  Surely she should have been sold by now.

  She shuddered as she saw Barzak’s hand tighten on his whip as he passed her. She knew that she could be whipped, even without reason, if it pleased the masters. She was a slave.

  An Ahn later, which is something more than an hour, she whispered to Targo, who passed, “I am thirsty, Master.”

  “Did you speak without permission?” he asked.

  “Forgive me, Master!” said Ellen. She supposed she should have asked permission to speak, but such things tend to be contextual. Surely not all girls invariably ask their masters for permission to speak, but such could, in theory, be required, and the failure to ask for such permission could be a cause for discipline. But habit, practice, and common sense tend to govern such matters. On the girl’s part, the knowledge that she should, in theory, ask permission to speak helps her to keep in mind that she is a slave. Ellen knew
of such things, of course, but she was, as we recall, rather new to her collar, and might thus be expected to occasionally forget such niceties, particularly inasmuch as they are not always observed. A stroke of the switch or lash, of course, tends to encourage an awareness of such things, and thus to minimize such lapses.

  But a bit later Targo had Barzak water his stock.

  Barzak had put aside his whip, but a long, supple switch now hung from his belt. Ellen eyed it uneasily. There was little doubt about the purpose or utility of such an implement, or what it would feel like on her flesh.

  When Barzak pulled the spigot of the bota, it seemed too soon, from Ellen’s wet, eager lips, she moaning and trying to cling to it, to hold it with her teeth, he patted her belly, which was then pleasantly rounded. She looked after him, tears in her eyes, tears from wanting more water but knowing she must not ask for it, and tears of shame consequent on his simple proprietary slapping of her belly.

  Ellen thought that a groom might have slapped a horse in such a fashion, though on the side or back. And then she supposed that the analogy was not as farfetched as one might have supposed.

  Barzak had then gone on to Cichek.

  Ellen moved her wrists a little in the shackles that held them over her head. Her arms and legs were sore.

  She looked out on the market.

  Emris was sold toward noon. Ellen was pleased that Targo, apparently, had received a good price for Emris. It goes that way sometimes. A man sees a girl he wants and his objective judgment as to the market worth of the given property can be clouded, perhaps by simple desire, a simple desire to buy and own, totally, a particularly delightful, curvaceous property, but perhaps by something else, too, mixed with desire, and powerful lust, a subtle something that tells him that this, for him, may be a special slave, something he seriously wants in his collar, something not merely, for him, another slave, not merely something on which to slake his lust, to dominate and master, but something, too, which might, in time, prove to have the makings of something more, perhaps, say, a love slave. And, of course, if it doesn’t work out, he can give her away or sell her.

  Many Goreans, incidentally, fear falling in love with their slaves. Many regard this as a form of weakness. But, in many cases, of course, it is difficult for the master not to fall in love with a slave, as the master/slave relationship is a civilized, codified, institutionalized analogue to the essentials of a natural biological relationship. The master/slave relationship frees both men and women biologically. The natural dominance of the male is not castigated, denounced, ridiculed and societally undermined but allowed to express itself and flourish. This leads to a successful, healthy manhood. Similarly, the female slave, in virtue of similar biological congruities, is the most lovely, vulnerable and needful of all women; she is the most female, the most feminine, and thus the most desirable and lovable, of all women. It is no wonder that men must struggle to resist their feelings for such owned, enticing beauties. Often the love master is most demanding and severe with the love slave, in sensing the weakness which she might produce in him. This brings joy to the heart of the love slave as she hastens to obey and please, and with suitable perfection, indeed, as she must, as though she might be no more than a new girl, frightened and intimidated, in the house. He, of course, remains the master, and she, of course, remains the slave. That is the relationship of the love master and the love slave, the fulfillment of the nature of each.

  “You should have been sold by now,” snapped Targo.

  He was standing beside her.

  “I do not wish to be sold, Master,” said Ellen.

  She drew back, with a rattle of chain, cringing, and closing her eyes, as he lifted his hand, as if to cuff her, but then he had lowered his hand, without striking her, as though such an admonition might be wasted on so stupid a slave.

  “Look on the market,” he said, “straight ahead.”

  Ellen did so, while Targo regarded her. “Perhaps you are just too young,” he said, “little more than a pretty girl, perhaps not even of twenty summers.”

  Ellen was startled to think of this in this manner, recalling Earth. But Targo did not know what the new serums had done, it seemed, and would take her at face value, as no more than a young, pretty barbarian. And then Ellen shook with the realization that, indeed, he was in no way in error; that was all she was, literally, truthfully. Physiologically, biologically, she was clearly, simply, truthfully, quite young. Beyond that there were only a distant, now-seemingly-unreal world and conventions having to do with an invented, mechanistic time, devised for purposes of convenience, purposes irrelevant to the natural courses of nature.

  “You have a nice figure,” he said, “with lovely slave curves.”

  “Master?” asked Ellen.

  “Barzak!” called Targo. “Turn her about. Chain her facing the wall.”

  In moments Barzak had rearranged the chains, that they not be twisted, and Ellen, to her chagrin, and shame, found herself facing the wall, at the back of the shelf, her hands still chained well over her head.

  “Ahh!” said Targo. “Yes, very nice!”

  She felt Targo’s hands on her sides, and then at her waist, and then moving down the sides of her derrière and thighs

  “Good,” he said. “We shall see if you can interest someone this way.”

  Ellen shook the chains angrily, and stared ahead, into the wall, but some six inches before her face.

  She heard Cichek laugh.

  Time passed. Once she heard the scream of a tarn as it swept between buildings, and felt the blast of wind from its wings which half thrust her to the wall. Its shadow passed and she turned her head to the left, looking for it, but missed it between the buildings.

  She did not think it was permitted to fly such beasts so low in the city.

  “Tarns, tarns!” she heard cry, a few moments later, from somewhere behind her. She could turn about, twisting in the chains, and she saw men pointing upward. Half closing her eyes against the sun, looking upward, she saw some five tarns in flight.

  The market returned to its normal sounds.

  Once, later, she heard the measured tread of a group of men behind her, probably guardsmen.

  Shortly thereafter she heard a springing, clattering, birdlike gait on the stones of the market, and a cry of “Make way, make way!” She turned about, and shuddered. A rider had reined in, turning, a light tharlarion, a delicate, quickly moving, bipedalian, reptilian mount. In the saddle he was some eight feet above the stones. He wore the common Y-visaged helmet, and carried a lance. A studded buckler, a small, round, spiked shield, was at the side of the saddle. This was the first tharlarion that she had seen, though she had heard of such beasts, and she gathered that such, this and others, were not common in the streets of cities. She did know that a large variety of tharlarion, of bipedalian and quadrupedalian sorts, were bred for diverse purposes, war, transport, reconnaissance, hunting, haulage, racing, and such. The tharlarion she saw was much as she supposed the racing tharlarion might be, though perhaps heavier limbed and sturdier. The man, she guessed, was a mounted guardsman, or messenger, or scout. He surveyed the crowd in the market, and then, with an angry kick, and blow of the lance, urged his beast away.

  It was unusual, she thought, that such a beast would be in the streets of a city.

  “Down with the sleen of Cos!” she heard.

  “Be silent!” hushed a man, a hoarse whisper.

  “Would that Marlenus were within the walls!” said a man.

  “Marlenus is dead,” said another.

  “He has been seen in the city!” whispered a man.

  “Let the traitress Talena, false Ubara, be impaled!” whispered a man.

  “Who said that Marlenus has been seen in the city?” asked a man.

  “I heard it said in a tavern,” said one.

  “Which tavern?”

  “Do not think me so much a fool as to speak it. The Cosians would seize its goods and burn it to the ground.”

/>   “Do not speak these things!” begged a woman. “The Cosians are now our masters.”

  “Seek your collar!” snarled a man.

  “Sleen! Sleen!” she wept.

  “Is Marlenus in the city?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Can he be in the city?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Marlenus is dead,” said a man.

  “Have you obeyed the Weapons Laws?” asked a man.

  “Of course,” said a man. “The Cosians have disarmed us. It is death to conceal weapons. We are civilians and must be the tame verr of the Cosians, to be milked, or sheared, or led to slaughter, as they please!”