Guardsman of Gor

by John Norman

"Yes, Master," she laughed, and hurried down the stairs ahead of him.

  I then closed the door, and threw the bolts and bars in place. I then turned and looked at the small slave standing near me. "Go to a place near the table," I said, "and kneel there on the tiles, with your head bowed, deferentially." "Yes, Master," she said, and hurried to obey. I then went about the house, locking and securing it. The dancers, and their master, of course, had gone long ago. I had made many improvements in the house. I set the bars and bolts in place at the back door, leading from the kitchen. I attended, too, to the windows. When I returned to the vicinity of the table the house, in effect, had been transformed into a small fortress.

  I looked at the small slave, kneeling, head down, on the scarlet tiles, in the light of the lamps.

  "We are alone," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "You may lift your head," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I walked about her, examining her. She was very beautiful.

  "May I speak, Master?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "You brought three binding straps to the table," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "But you brought none for me?"

  "No," I said.

  "Ah," she said.

  "Your gift to me, your performance, during the course of the black wine," I said, "was very beautiful."

  "Thank you, Master," she said. "But it was not a mere entertainment. I had long fantasized stripping myself before you, and offering myself to you as your slave."

  "Really?" I said.

  "Yes," she said. "And in many fashions, and ways."

  "You shall enact these for me in the future," I said.

  "I shall be pleased to do so, Master," she said.

  "How long have you entertained these fantasies?" I asked.

  "Even on Earth," she said. "I can even recall attempting to decide what might be the most sensuous way I could remove a bikini before you."

  I took her by the upper arms and put her forward, on her belly, on the tiles, and then I crossed her wrists behind her body, and her ankles. It is a standard binding position. She then retained this position, not having been given permission to break it, while I went to the tiles at the foot of the table and gathered up the two golden straps with which, earlier, she had simulated the footwear she had worn at the restaurant. I then returned to her side and crouched down. I then began to tie her, her wrists with one of the straps, and her ankles with the other.

  "Had you fantasized thusly," I asked, tying her, "the removal of your clothing, the white-sheath gown, and such, and the offering of yourself to me as a slave, on the night of our meeting at the restaurant?"

  She winced. I checked the knots.

  I then turned her to her back.

  "Yes, Master," she said, looking up at me, "but then, of course, I did not know that slaves were not permitted purses nor, without their master's explicit permission, a nether closure to their garments."

  I stood up, and looked down at her.

  "You have tied me," she said. "I am helpless! You own me!"

  "But you were testy, ill-tempered, belligerent in the restaurant," I said.

  She squirmed on the tiles, bound. "I was a confused Earth woman," she said. "I did not know what to do!"

  She tried to pull her ankles apart. "Please untie my ankles, Master," she begged. "Let me throw them apart for you!"

  "It seems you now know what to do," I said.

  "I did not know then what I was," she sobbed. "I know now what I am! Please untie me now, Master! Please let me serve you!"

  "You will be untied if, and when, I please," I told her. "Yes, Master!" she sobbed. I then sat down, cross-legged, a few feet from her. I wished to think. She was an interesting, complex slave.

  The former graduate student in English literature, bound, nude and collared, struggled to her knees. She looked at me.

  "It is rather different from Earth, isn't it?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Do you know your place, and condition?" I asked.

  "Yes, Master," she said. "My place is at your feet. My condition is that of a slave."

  I then gave myself to thought.

  "Master," she asked, "may I speak?"

  "No," I told her.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  I then considered many things, Earth and its miseries, the nature of life, genetic endowments, biology, civilizations, chains and collars, and the small, excruciatingly desirable, curvaceous beasts that are human females.

  I heard her whimper. I looked up. "Yes?" I said.

  "May I speak, Master?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Thank you for tying me," she whispered.

  I nodded. In tying her I had, of course, demonstrated her desirability for me. She was worth tying. Too, I had demonstrated for her, in a way that is incontrovertible for a female, my mastery over her. I had tied her. Too, of course, I had enjoyed tying her, making her helpless and mine. It is a great pleasure for a man to tie a woman. It is interesting to consider, when one thinks of it, that there are probably many men who, in all their lives, have never tied a woman. These, of course, are not Gorean men.

  I stood up, and looked down at her. She shrank back. This amused me.

  "Alas," she said, lightly, "now I must clear the table, and finish the dishes, and put the house in order."

  "Such things can wait," I told her.

  "Oh," she said.

  I continued to regard her.

  "Doubtless I am now to be locked in my kennel for the night," she said.

  "No," I said.

  "Oh," she said.

  I continued to regard her, amused. She squirmed on her knees.

  "Master gave away two girls tonight," she said, lightly. "But he kept me. He kept me in his collar."

  "Yes," I said.

  "Is that meaningful?" she asked.

  "Perhaps," I said.

  "I am now the only girl in the house," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Am I to be kept for full service?" she asked.

  "Doubtless you have much to learn of cooking and sewing," I said, "but I have no doubt that you are already a superb little maid and laundress."

  "Does Master intend to buy other girls?" she asked.

  "That will be decided later," I said.

  "I shall endeavor to be such that master will find the purchase of others girls unnecessary," she said.

  "But then," I said, "you would have to render a full service."

  She put her head down, shyly. "It is my desire," she said, "to render my master a full service."

  "A full Gorean service?" I asked.

  "Despise me, if you must, my Master," she said, "but the answer is a most emphatic 'Yes!'"

  "It had better be," I said.

  "It is," she laughed. "It is, my Master!"

  I walked over to her, and looked down into her eyes.

  "But will you not, sometimes, remember that you knew me from Earth?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "But you made me serve your guests naked," she said, reproachfully.

  "Of course," I said. "There were two reasons for that. Neither of them, of course, need be made known to you."

  "Please, Master," she said.

  "The first reason," I said, "was for your own instruction. In performing such servile tasks for the guests, and while naked, were you not fully conscious that you were a slave?"

  "Quite, Master," she said. "I am certain that I have profited well from the lesson."

  "Secondly," I said, "you are very pretty. Thus your nudity contributed to the pleasure of the guests and myself, thereby improving the course of the liqueurs."

  "Then you might have me serve nude anytime?" she asked.

  "Of course," I said.

  "Even though you knew me from Earth?"

  "Of course," I said. "Do not expect, simply because we are both of Earth origin, that this will softe
n your slavery. It will only make it more delectable."

  "Yes, Master," she said. "Master," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I do not want my slavery to be softened," she said, "for any reason."

  "It will not be," I told her.

  "I beg to be kept in a full, and hard, slavery," she said, looking up at me.

  "You will be," I told her.

  "Without compromise," she begged.

  "Without compromise," I said.

  "Thank you, Master," she said. "It is how I have always wanted to serve you, even from the first moment I saw you, on the campus of the university."

  "And, too," I said, "from the first moment I saw you, it was the form of service I wished from you."

  "It is now yours, my Master," she said.

  I then crouched down and gently lowered her, to her back, on the tiles. I then stood up, and looked down at her, naked and bound, at my feet.

  "Please rape me, Master," she said.

  "Why?" I asked.

  She looked up at me, startled. She squirmed in the bonds. There were tears in her eyes.

  "I beg to be raped," she said. "Please, Master, rape me! Rape me!"

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Is it not obvious?" she asked, weeping, twisting in the golden straps.

  I smiled.

  "I—I," she stammered.

  "Say it," I said.

  "I—I am hot in my collar!" she wept. She then blushed crimson.

  "Where did you hear that expression?" I asked.

  "From weeping girls in pens, and in kennels, in the holding of Policrates!" she said.

  "Denied their caressings?"

  "Yes," she said, angrily.

  I smiled. How cruel sometimes men can be to female slaves. But how helpless is a woman once slave fires have been ignited in her belly! She has such a rich radiance of pervasive sexuality in her body, so many nerves, so many excitable tissues, that perhaps it is just as well that the women of Earth are seldom apprised of, or even aware of, their sexual dormancy, of the sexual inertness that is prescribed for them, of the conditioned anesthetization of their needs, of how the culture and their training, for its own purposes, intends to seal doors, and hide them from themselves. And yet how this fragile architecture of denial and frustration can, under certain stimulus conditions, almost instantaneously collapse, and can never again be restored or rebuilt. No woman who has felt the slave fires in her belly can ever again be free. It thus amuses men to ignite the slave fires in the bellies of beauties. The slave fires of a bond slut are doubtless the strongest of her chains. Not unoften is a would-be fugitive apprehended because, driven by her slave needs, she has no alternative other than to seek their assuagement. She kneels to a guardsman, casting off her disguise, revealing herself as a collared slave, and begging to be returned to her master. Too, it is not surprising that a guardsman may be in the vicinity, for he may have followed her, noting, under the stolen robes and veils, the body movements, the hesitant, uncertain steps, the tormented breathing, perhaps even the confused, trembling responses to civil inquiries, of a woman in the grip of slave needs. Yes, perhaps it is just as well that these fires have not been lit in the bellies of most of the women of Earth, for how alien are such fires to their cultures. How they would then suffer! And how little would they be satisfied! How few men of Earth, I conjecture, would understand such flames. Would they not be more likely to abuse and castigate the unfortunate women for revealing such needs, perhaps even for having such needs. How wickedly coercive are the strictures of pathological cultures! So perhaps it is well that the women of Earth remain substantially sexually inert, for there is there, it seems, a dearth of masters. How woeful to have the needs of a slave in a world with so few masters. On the other hand, I think that, on the whole, actually, it is a great tragedy that slave fires burn so seldom in the bellies of the women of Earth. Thus, they have wondrous, marvelous dimensions in them of which they do not dare to dream, but it is true, of course, that these dimensions, if recognized, and explored, and realized, would put them in the order of nature, at the feet of men. And of course, perhaps there is a master in the men of Earth. Perhaps it is only that they do not yet realize it. It will be noted, in passing, though I suppose it has been clearly implicit in these remarks, that whereas on Earth the male is commonly the pursuer and is frequently frustrated by the flight, inaccessibility, aloofness, disinterest, and frigidity of his quarry, a quarry commonly not worth pursuing, the situation is usually quite different on Gor. Whereas the Gorean male may pursue his quarry, perhaps a frigid free woman, by means of conventions and such, much as his Earth counterpart, and be subjected to similar frustrations, he has at his disposal other recourses, such as the capture net, and the girl markets. The slave in whose belly slave fires have been ignited desperately needs the satisfaction of carnal attention. Accordingly, on Gor, it is commonly the slave who is the needful petitioner, hinting, even kneeling and pleading, lips to feet, and the man he who decides if, and to what extent, her needs may be satisfied. Needless to say many a Gorean fellow has had the pleasure of having a once-elusive, unsuccessfully sought frigid free woman, now enslaved, and well collared, at his feet, begging him for his least touch. That is always a pleasant turnabout. I have heard of several instances in which something similar occurred, though it does not have to do with slave needs. A slave, say, serving at a banquet, spills a drink or drops a plate. Such clumsiness is not acceptable, of course. She is to be thrown then as feed into a pool of restless, hungry eels, unless a given fellow, one she hitherto spurned as a free woman, and has tried to ignore at the banquet, will accept her as his slave. She kneels to him in tears, and terror, licking and kissing at his feet. "Please, want me, Master!" she begs. "Please accept me! I beg to be your slave! Want me! Oh, want me! Please, Master! I beg to be your slave, Master! Want me! Please want me, Master!" Perhaps he glances to the dark, stirring waters of the eel pool, to the side of the out-of-doors, marbled banqueting area. It is a cool, and pleasant summer evening. The three moons are bright in the sky. "Please, want me, Master! I will serve you well! Want me, please, want me, Master!" He then drags her to the side of the pool, to see if she will serve him well. She tries to do so, desperately. Her life depends upon it. Let us suppose he finds her satisfactory, at least for a new girl. He accepts her. Later, in his own domicile, after such an experience, now thoroughly conscious of her vulnerability, and the hitherto unsuspected strength of her new master, well now revealed to her, slave fires begin to burn in her belly. She is then his.

  "And have you hitherto been hot in your collar?" I inquired.

  "Yes, sometimes," she said.

  "When, for example?" I asked.

  "After being used by the courier of Ragnar Voskjard," she smiled, "in the holding of Policrates."

  "Truly?" I asked, amused.

  "Yes, truly," she said. "I see that it amuses you, a girl's misery. I assure you that it was not amusing to me when a guard lashed me to silence with a strap in the slave pen. I must then weep in silence, and moan only to myself."

  "We would not want you to disturb the other girls," I said.

  "Of course not," she said.

  "And you are hot in your collar now?" I said.

  "Yes, I am," she said.

  "Excellent," I said.

  "Master?"

  "Speak further," I suggested.

  "I am a slave," she said. "I am nude, collared, bound hand and foot, lying before my master. How could I not be hot in my collar? My belly burns! My thighs flame! My heart calls out to you!"

  "Perhaps I should now kennel you for the night."

  "Please, Master, no!"

  "Did you not suggest this earlier? It has been a long day. Perhaps you are tired. Perhaps you have a headache?"

  "No, Master! No, Master! Feel me, feel me!"

  "Feel you?"

  "Yes, Master! I am ready to leap to your touch! Did you not see my response to the whip caress, when it was unexpectedly delivered, when I was sold i
n Victoria? I have slave reflexes, Master! I cannot help myself! I am vital, I am a vital female!"

  "Does this not shame you?"

  "No, no, Master! I am a slave! I must be vital! I want to be vital! I love being vital! Please touch me! Yes, yes! Oh! Ohh, oh! See, Master?"

  "Yes," I said, "you leap well, and you are ready, and soaked with the fluids of desire."

  "Your girl juices well," she said. "Others have found her a tasty pudding. Try her. She begs it. Am I not a pretty tasta?"

  A tasta is a soft Gorean candy mounted on a stick.

  "And where did you learn such expressions?" I asked.

  "In the pens," she said, "of course."

  "You scarcely seem refined," I said.

  It amused me to hear the lovely, former Miss Henderson, who was articulate, intelligent, and well-educated, and a former graduate student in English literature at a major university, so bespeak herself.

  "I need not be refined," she said. "I am a slave!"

  "And what a vulgar little slave, you are," I said.

  "Yes, Master," she said.

  She squirmed a little, in her bonds.

  How beautiful a woman is, bound.

  I think the little she-sleen knew well what she was doing.

  It is a rare slave who does not know how to excite, intrigue, and arouse a master. Indeed, the very sight of her does that. There are a thousand subtle ways in which she can call herself to his attention, even without seeming to do so. Such skills are alien to the free woman. But they seem to come with the collar. Slaves are clever, the desirable, shapely little sluts. Fortunate it is for the master that they are in their collars, and that it is he who holds the whip.

  She turned her head to the side. "What a beast master is," she pouted, "to make a girl so explicitly confess her needs."

  "Her slave needs," I said.

  She turned her head, to face me. "Yes," she said, defiantly. "Her slave needs!"

  I looked down upon her.

  "Please, Master," she said.

  "Yes?" I said.

  "An aroused slave, yours, lies before you, Master," she said.

  "Yes?"

  "Please put her to your purposes, Master. It is what she is for. Please use her, Master. She is needful. She begs your touch. Please rape her, Master. She begs it."

  "The former Miss Henderson begs to be raped?"