Slave Girl of Gor

by John Norman

  Weeping I tore away the robes, frenziedly, and, stripped, threw myself on my belly naked before him, he a Gorean male, he a master, I a slave girl.

  "Standard binding position," he said. I was prone. When a girl is prone, the standard binding position is to cross the wrists behind the back and to cross the ankles. I took this position instantaneously.

  That I did this did not cause him any pleasure. No one in the room thought anything of it. I was simply a prone slave girl who had been commanded to standard binding position. No one in the room, including myself, would have expected me to do other than comply. Lack of compliance by a slave girl to a command in the Gorean world is unthinkable. She obeys.

  The captain spoke swiftly with two of the men in the room. Then he spoke, too, to one of the slave girls, who, addressed, knelt before him. She left the tent.

  I could hear the men outside. There was some rattle of weaponry.

  The girl who, earlier, had been tied at the wagon wheel and beaten was brought into the tent. She looked at me and went and lay, miserable, in a corner of the tent. The other girl, too, re-entered the tent.

  The captain made ready to depart from the tent, to take command of his men.

  I lay there, unbound, but in binding position. I had not moved. I did not wish to be slain.

  The captain looked down at me, and then, as though in response to an afterthought, said to one of his men, "Tie her."

  The captain's helmet was brought to him. I felt my wrists and ankles being tied. My wrists were tied with the loop of thong which had bound my right wrist previously, when I had been brought to the tent.

  The captain turned me over with his foot. Then he knelt on one knee beside me. I felt the point of his sword in my belly. "I will see you later," said he, "pretty little Kajira." I felt the point of the sword push in. I winced. "Speak," said he. "Yes, Master," I wept.

  "A barbarian," said one of the men.

  "Yes," said the captain, getting up.

  "But a pretty one," said one of the men.

  The captain regarded me, bound at his feet. "Yes," he said. Then he donned the helmet, turned, and left the tent.

  The other slave girls in the tent, save she who had been beaten, who lay miserably in a corner of the tent, looked angrily at me. One rubbed the bruise on her shoulder. "Kajira," she hissed. I turned to my side, in the dirt. I wept. I lay, a captured slave girl, in the tent of enemies.

  What would be done with me?

  Surely they would not blame me! Surely they would understand that I was only a slave girl! Surely they must understand that I had had to obey my master! Would they so much as give me the opportunity to please them—and as what I was, a slave? Would they find me attractive? Might my beauty, and my zeal to serve them, suffice to divert their wrath? Might they not, in the light of the pleasures which I would be eager to supply them, consider sparing me? If I were sufficiently pleasing, as I would strive to be, might I not be permitted to live? Surely I would beg on my belly to be permitted to please them, to be permitted to provide them with inordinate pleasures, to be permitted to please them as only a slave girl can please a man! They must let me live! Please, I thought, let me live!

  I moaned with misery.

  Obviously I was nothing to my master!

  I had been used to create a diversion, had been employed as a mere pawn. I had been exposed to danger, as though I might have been any slave, any slave at all, even a hated slave. Did my master not love me? Did he not care for me? Did he not reciprocate the feelings which I had for him? I wept, a discarded, abandoned, insignificant slave.

  I heard the men leaving the camp. Then the camp was empty, save for the wounded, and the slave girls, of which I was one.

  "Dina," said the girl with the bruise to me. She had called me that because of my brand, the Dina, or Slave Flower. Girls who wear the brand are sometimes spoken of as Dinas. As she had said "Dina," it had been a term of abuse. The Dina brand is one of the more frequently found of the specialized brands on Gor. Dinas, such as I was, were relatively common girls.

  The camp was now quiet.

  The bruised girl came over to me. "Dina!" she said, and kicked me. Then she returned to the other girls.

  "Our poor mistress," cried the girl who had kicked me. "Pity her!"

  I heard the sounds of the night outside the tent, the insects, the cries of fleers.

  Surreptitiously, for I did not wish to be struck or again kicked, I tried to move my wrists and ankles. It was useless. Thongs had been used, not rope; the knots, simple and efficient, had been made by a warrior. With a minimum of means I was held with absolute perfection. A Gorean warrior had bound me.

  I heard again, from outside, the cries of the hook-billed fleer.

  I reared up.

  The slave girls cried out, then were silent. Swords lay at their throats.

  My master was in the tent, following his men through the rent silken wall.

  One of the men carried a looped coffle chain, with wrist rings.

  "Master!" I cried out with elation. I struggled to sit up. He crouched beside me and, with his unsheathed blade, slashed apart the leather which bound me. I flung myself to his feet, pressing my lips to his sandals. "Master!" I wept with joy. He had come back! He had not left me. But he pulled away from my hands and lips at his sandals, and issued orders to his men. The four slave maids crouched terrified, under swords, in the center of the tent, including she who had been beaten. Some men left the tent.

  "Kneel to be coffled," said one of the men. The girls knelt, closely, one behind the other. There were six wrist rings on the chain he carried. He placed the girl who had been whipped by the Lady Sabina first in the coffle line. "Left wrist coffle," he said. They lifted their left wrists, frightened. Interestingly, the man snapping the wrist rings on the girls' left wrists did not put the first girl in the first ring, but the second. When the four maids were coffled there was, thus, an empty wrist ring both at the head and the rear of the line. "Stand, Slaves," said the man. "Lower chain." The girls stood. Then, ordered, they lowered their wrists. They were then in line, standing, coffled.

  Outside I heard bosk being hitched to wagons. Other bosk I heard being freed and driven into the woods.

  I wondered if the camp would be fired. I supposed not, for the glow of the burning silk and canvas in the night sky might too soon apprise the camp's soldiers of what had occurred. An obvious trail had been left for the soldiers to begin to follow; then the men of my master had circled about to return to the camp. The trail would become difficult to detect, then perhaps disappear. The men of the camp had not had trained sleen. While the pursuing soldiers followed a false scent, my master's men returned to their camp, from which, later, in a new direction, they might make their departure. My master prepared to leave the tent. I wanted to run beside him, but he would not permit it. He pushed me back. I must remain within. He left the tent.

  The man who had coffled the girls now stood back, looking at them. "May I speak?" begged the first in the line, she who had been earlier whipped. "Yes," he said. "I hate my mistress," she said. "I am ready to love you, Master!" "Do you not enjoy being owned by a woman?" he asked. "I want to love a man," she wept. "Shameless slave," cried the last girl in the line, she who had lamented the fate of her mistress, and who had called me "Dina," and kicked me. "I am a woman and a slave!" cried the first. "I want a man! I need a man!"

  "Do not fear, Slave," grinned the man who had locked her in her wrist ring, "you will not be neglected when wench service is wished."

  "Thank you, Master," she said, and stood very straight, very proudly.

  "Brazen slave," scolded the last girl in the line.

  "Comb the hair of the spoiled brat of a merchant, if you wish," said the first. "I will dance naked before a man."

  "Slave!" cried the last girl in the line, horrified.

  "Yes, slave!" said the first, angrily, proudly.

  I heard a wagon being driven from the camp. In it, I suspected, lay the dowr
y riches of the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus. The location of the lady herself I did not know, but I had little doubt she was in a safe place, probably blindfolded, gagged and chained to a tree somewhere. I wondered if she had been permitted to retain her clothing.

  "Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second girl in the line.

  "Yes, Master," she said, smiling.

  "You are aware," he queried, "of the penalties for lying to a free man?"

  "Examine them, Master," she said, smiling, boldly. "It will not be necessary to beat me."

  The last girl in the line cried out with indignation.

  The man, with his knife, cut away much of the long, flowing white gown the girl wore, considerably shortening it, until it was provocatively high, ragged and exciting, on her thighs.

  "It will not be necessary to beat you," he acknowledged.

  "Thank you, Master," she said.

  The last girl in the line snorted angrily, tossing her head in the air.

  "Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second gowned girl in the coffle.

  "I do not know, Master," she whispered. "I am only a girl's maid."

  "Let us see," said the man, and, as he had with the first, transformed the flowing classic, sleeveless garment into a sweet scrap of lovely slave livery.

  "May I speak?" asked the second gowned girl.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Are my legs—pretty?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said.

  "A girl is pleased," she said. She, too, like the others, stood straight.

  "How shameless you are, all of you!" scolded she who was the third of the gowned girls in the line, the last in the line.

  "And you?" inquired the man.

  "I am a woman's slave," she said proudly. "I am above such things." She did not look at him. "I have dignity," she said.

  "But a slave girl is not permitted dignity," he said. Then he said, "We will see your legs." He then, with his knife, shortened her gown, as he had those of the others, until its shreds, too, ragged and exciting, were high on her thighs. She stood before him, her legs, though those of a girl's maid, bared to his eyes.

  "Excellent legs," he said.

  She shuddered, but I did not think that she was entirely displeased with his appraisal. All women wish to be attractive to men. "I—I want to be a woman's slave," she said, I thought a bit uncertainly.

  "Do you fear men so?" he asked.

  She did not speak.

  "What you want," he pointed out to her, "is not important." He regarded her. "Is it?" he asked.

  "No, Master," she said.

  He touched her about the throat and chin. "Have you never been curious about the touch of a man?" he asked.

  "Come to me," said the first girl. "I will love you like you have never been loved before!"

  "He is touching me!" cried the last girl.

  "Wanton slave!" laughed the first.

  The man then went to the first girl and took her in his arms. She cried out with pleasure and pressed herself to him, melting and yielding to his tunic and leather. He subjected her mouth and lips to a kiss which could have been only the prelude to fierce slave rape.

  "I can kiss, too," cried the last girl. "Master! Please, Master!"

  "No," moaned the first girl. "She is nothing. Stay with me. I am sensuous. You do not know what it is to have had a slave girl until you have had me!"

  I heard a second wagon being driven from the camp. I thought it might be one laden with produce, but, as it later turned out, the treasure freight of the dowry wagon had been divided between two wagons, the dowry wagon itself and another, the produce in the second wagon discarded, to lighten the load and make driving swifter.

  My master then re-entered the tent. "Rape her later," he said to the soldier who held the first girl in the coffle in his arms. Reluctantly the soldier put the moaning girl from him.

  "Yes, Captain," grinned the soldier.

  "When we are to be raped, and must serve you as slaves," begged the first girl, she who had been in his arms, "let me be the first to be raped, the first to serve you as a slave."

  "You will not be forgotten, my beautiful little slut," he promised her.

  "Thank you, Master," she whispered.

  "Do not forget Donna either," said the second girl.

  "Nor Chanda," said the third.

  "Nor Marla," said the fourth.

  "Lehna is first," said the first girl.

  The soldier regarded the fourth girl. Under his eyes she stood very straight in the coffle. The wrist ring was closed on her left wrist, inflexibly, fastening her with the other girls.

  "Nor Marla?" he asked.

  "Nor Marla," she said.

  "Are you not a woman's slave?" he asked.

  "Save me a place at your feet, Master," she said. "I am a man's slave."

  My master walked about the coffled girls. Then he returned to his original place of stand. "Four beauties," said he, "a good catch. We shall have much pleasure with them, and then, should we choose to sell them, we will get a good price."

  How right it struck me that he had said this of the beauties, and yet, in its way, how horrifying to me, an Earth girl. Why did these men not hide their dominance; why did they not pretend it did not exist; why did they not suppress it; why did they not thwart and repudiate the birthright of their nature; why did they not make themselves miserable; why did they not torture themselves and diligently cultivate weakness like the men of Earth, shortening their lives and praising themselves for the constriction and mutilation of their instincts? Were they not powerful enough to be manipulated, strong enough to be weak?

  "Coffle her," said my master, looking at me.

  I stiffened. Surely the coffle was not for me. I was his girl. I was not a new slave. I had served him well.

  The soldier whistled, as though he might have been summoning a pet sleen, and lifted an open wrist ring, the last ring on the chain. I ran angrily to the chain.

  "We must make haste," said my master.

  I felt my wrist taken, and the metal of the wrist ring snap shut upon it. I was coffled.

  How angry I was to be chained with the new girls. I felt the chain hanging from my wrist, dangling from the wrist ring of the girl coffled before me. I was furious. I was well fastened. I could not escape.

  My master looked down at me.

  I lowered my eyes. I wore his chain.

  He turned away from the coffle and, moving the slashed silk of the rear wall of the tent with his hand, brushing it to the right, not looking back, disappeared into the darkness.

  "Marla was not kind to a poor slave when she was helpless," said Marla, the girl before me. "Marla is terribly sorry. Please forgive Marla."

  "What?" I said.

  "Marla is sorry, Mistress," she said. "Please forgive Marla." The girl was clearly frightened.

  It seemed strange to me, that she had addressed me as Mistress, and her fear. Then I realized the legitimacy of her fear, that of a slave girl. She was the one who had called me "Dina," and who, when I had been bound, had kicked me. Now she was owned by my master, and she was a newer girl than I. She did not yet know the nature of the relationships in which she was now helplessly implicated, relationships which could be every bit as perilous and significant as the physical bond of steel on her wrist. Was I first girl? Was I over her? Did I have switch rights upon her body, as Eta had upon mine? Would I be cruel to her? Would I make her suffer? Would she have to please the masters incredibly, and constantly attend them, that they might perhaps be moved to shield her to some tiny extent from my vengeance? Too, she was coffled before me, and this put her much at my mercy. Chained as she was I might, if I chose, make the march a misery of unexpected blows and torments for her. Her fears, in the light of these considerations, were understandable.

  "I forgive you," I told her.

  Immediately the girl straightened herself insolently, and dismissed me from her awareness. She had, she assumed then, nothing to fear f
rom me, and I might be contemptuously ignored. This irritated me. Doubtless she considered herself, and quite possibly correctly, my superior in beauty, and thus planned to soon stand higher in the relationships of bondage than I, a lesser girl. Having nothing to fear from me she would freely and opportunistically insinuate herself among the men. Slave girls compete for the attentions of masters. Each strives to be more pleasing to them than the other. The quality of a slave girl's life is commonly a direct function of her pleasingness to her master. Whether she is a treasured love slave or an ignored pot-and-floor wench depends much upon her. Gorean men, unlike the men of Earth, do not bother much with girls that are not pleasing to them. Yet even such may find their utility, and indirectly serve masters, perhaps sweating in the public kitchens of the high cylinders, or laboring, neck-locked, at the looms in the cloth mills, or digging, chained with others, in the sul fields. It is a rare girl who, having tasted the mills or sul fields, does not beg her proprietor to be sold again on the open market, that she may attempt anew, and perhaps more successfully this time, to be pleasing to a man.

  I was furious with the posture, so proud and sensual, of the girl before me. I wondered why I had forgiven her. It had seemed the natural thing to do. I had done it, unthinkingly. It was not irrational, of course. For example, she was beautiful, and any dominance which I might have over her might be temporary, and then our relationship might be reversed. What if she much pleased my master one night and he gave her switch rights over me? Also, on another march, it might be I who would be coffled before her, and at her mercy.

  Yet I was angry. She now ignored me. Her victory had been cheaply won.

  Suddenly, angrily, I kicked her.

  She cried out, startled. I stood straight, as though I had done nothing. The soldier with the coffle, who was gathering jewelry into a scarf from various coffers in the tent, pretended that he had not noticed my action. Masters do not much interfere in the squabbles of slaves. Let them impose their own internal order among themselves. On the other hand, they would not approve if one slave injured or marked, or reduced in value, another. That would be serious, and not to be tolerated.