Too, about her neck, under the chain, with its dangling articles, there was a high, tight leather collar. Her leash, in the hands of the other girl, was attached to a ring at the back of this collar. The leash, too, was of leather, and long. It was coiled four or five times in the hands of the other girl. More Gorean leashes are long. There are two advantages to the long leash. It may be used, if one wishes, to bind the slave, and its long end, if one wishes, may easily serve as a whipping strap.
"Beverly," I whispered. "Is it you?"
She did not respond. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.
The girl who held her leash then jerked twice on the leash.
"May I serve your pleasure, Master?" asked the leashed girl.
"I thought you were a Coin Girl," I said.
"She is a Coin Girl," said the girl who held her leash. Then she jerked the leash once, against the collar ring.
"I am a Coin Girl," said the leashed girl, before me.
"Interest him," said the other girl.
"I am yours for a tarsk bit, Master," said the leashed girl.
"Open your tunic," said the other girl.
The girl then slipped loose the binding-fiber belt, letting it fall against the two belt loops in the back. Then, with her left hand and her right hand, parting the tunic, holding it open, she showed herself to me.
She was the most beautiful, and attractive, woman I had ever seen.
"It is my hope that I please Master," she said.
"Beverly," I said.
"She has no name," said the girl who held her leash. "Her master has not yet given her one. But once, it is true, that she was known as Beverly. For that reason I suggest, if you are interested in her, that you give her, for your use of her, another name."
I regarded the beautiful girl. She trembled. She did not close her tunic.
"She is an Earth slut," said the girl who held the leash. "Some men like them."
"I could call her 'Linda'," I said.
"An Earth-slut name," said the girl who held the leash.
"Excellent!" Then, suddenly, viciously, loosening the coils of the leash, she lashed the girl across the back of the thighs with the long end of the leash. "Do you not realize you are standing in the presence of a free man, Linda?" she said.
And then she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, of New York City, of Earth, and was now Linda, knelt before me, on the rude stones of that narrow street in Victoria. "Forgive me, Master," she whispered.
"Earth girls are so stupid," said the other girl, wearily.
"Many are not stupid," I said. "It is only that they are ignorant."
"Perhaps they may be taught," mused the other girl.
"Any woman may be taught," I told her.
"That is true," she smiled. Then she jerked the leash of the kneeling girl.
"Have me for a tarsk bit, Master," cried the kneeling girl, her tunic parted, looking up at me.
She who had been Miss Henderson, now kneeling before me, had asked to be had by me, and for a tarsk bit.
She looked up at me, piteously.
"You are a female, and he is a man," said the girl who held the leash. "Interest him."
"Please, Mistress," begged the girl.
"Bite at his tunic, and lick at his legs and feet," commanded the girl who held the leash.
Softly then did the bell of the Coin Girl sound, and the chain and coin box on her neck, as she who had once been Miss Henderson turned her head to the side, and began, with her small, fine white teeth, to bite and nibble at the hem of my tunic. I felt these small tugs, piteous and delicate, and then she, with her lips, pressed the wet tunic against my thigh and through the wet cloth, kissed me. She then, putting her head down, began to lick and kiss at my legs and feet. She performed this submission behavior for several minutes, piteously, desperately, beseechingly, entreatingly. Then, at last, her head down, over my feet, she whispered, begging, "Please have me for a tarsk bit, Master. Please have me for only a tarsk bit, Master."
"No," I told her. "Of course not."
She looked up, startled, dismayed.
"Do you think I respect you so little?" I asked.
"You have failed to interest him," said the girl who held the leash. She shortened the leash and, her fist almost at the girl's collar, jerked it taut, pulling the girl's head up and back straight. Women are very beautiful kneeling in this position.
"But I am a slave," protested the kneeling girl, looking up at me.
"I can see that," I said.
"Have you not wanted to have me, many times?" she asked. "Was I so wrong in sensing that?"
"No," I said.
"Then have me," she said. "I am half-naked before you. I am yours for a tarsk bit. Take me!"
"Surely you would not expect me to press myself upon you, with you at your present disadvantage," I said.
"Disadvantage!" she said. "I am a slave! You are free, but I am a slave. I am a slave girl!"
"Yes," I said.
"Look upon me," she said. "Do you think I am to be freed?"
"No," I said.
"Gorean men will always keep me in a collar," she said.
"Yes," I said. I wondered if she knew how truly she spoke.
"Take me," she begged. "Take me!"
"Surely you do not think that I am a bounder, or a cad?" I said.
She sobbed suddenly in frustration.
"On your feet, Slave," said the girl with the leash, giving her a yard of strap, that she might rise. "You have failed to interest him."
"Please let me try further, Mistress!" begged the kneeling girl. "Please!"
"On your feet," said the girl with the leash, jerking on the leash. Sobbing, the beautiful, leashed slave rose to her feet. Fumbling, she closed her tunic, and tied shut the binding fiber which belted it. It seemed she could hardly stand. She trembled, and wept.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"She is a worthless slave," said the girl with the leash. "Look!" She shook the coin box on the girl's neck chain and shook it. "Empty!" she said, scornfully. She then struck the girl twice about the legs with the strap. "We have been out for Ahn," said the girl with the leash, "and we have passed many masters, not one of whom would deign to have her."
"Why is she crying?" I asked.
"She fears, rightfully, her master's displeasure," she said.
I nodded. It is very natural for a slave girl, who is completely at the mercy of her master, and is owned by him, to be very sensitive as to whether or not he is pleased with her.
"Perhaps he is a lenient fellow," I suggested.
"He is a merciless brute, who has more girls than he needs," said the girl holding the leash.
"What will be done with her?" I asked.
"At the least she will receive a severe beating," said the girl with the leash. "If he is in an ugly mood, she may be tortured and slain."
The leashed girl, sobbing, fell on her knees before the girl who held her leash. She put her head to her feet. "Please, Mistress," she begged, "do not take me in yet!"
"It is late," said the girl with the leash. "It is past the nineteenth Ahn. That you should be out now is even against the agreements of the renters of Coin Girls."
"Please, Mistress!" begged the girl.
"On your feet," said the girl with the leash. "You are now to be led back to your master, as a failed slave."
"Wait!" I said.
The kneeling girl, turning, regarded me wildly.
"Yes, Master?" said the girl with the leash.
"I have a tarsk bit here," I said, opening my pouch. "She need not return with the coin box empty." I smiled at the leashed girl. "It is the least I can do," I said to her, kindly. She was looking up at me, frightened. I went to deposit the coin in the coin box on the kneeling girl's neck chain, but the hand of the other girl, she who held the kneeling girl's leash, interposed itself. "There can be no payment, without the rendering of services," she said. "The honor of my Master must not be offended."
I drew back, holding the coin.
The kneeling girl, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, once a graduate student in English literature at a major university in the New York City area, eyed the coin, fearfully. She feared I would replace it in my pouch.
"I will endeavor to be worthy of the tarsk bit, Master," she whispered.
"A Coin Girl," said the girl with the leash, "will struggle to please a man as much for a tarsk bit, as a high paga slave for a thousand gold pieces, to be paid by her master's customer for her use."
"I see," I said.
"The levels of skill in the Coin Girl, of course," said the girl with the leash, "are commonly much lower." This was true, of course. Yet it must be mentioned that sometimes Coin Girls are extremely skillful. Too, it is not unknown for a master to sometimes send even an exquisitely trained, beautiful high slave into the streets, usually as a joke or a discipline. Such a girl knows that she must perform superbly. Some of the men she falls in with may have been hired by her master, to report back on the quality of her services.
The girl with the leash drew back her hand, it then no longer shielding the opening on the coin box. "You understand the conditions?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Please, Please, Master," said the kneeling girl, tears in her eyes, "put the coin in my coin box. You will not regret it."
I hesitated. I looked at her.
"I beg to please Master," she said clearly.
"You," I asked, as though disbelievingly, "you beg to please a man?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Whom?" I asked.
"You, my Master," she said. "I beg to please you, my Master."
"As a slave?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "I beg to please you-as a slave."
I dropped the coin into the narrow, metal coin box. I thought the girl would almost faint with relief, and pleasure. Too, I saw another emotion in her eyes, which was harder to fathom.
The girl with the leash bent down to a nearby slave ring. Such things are common in Gorean streets. They are usually mounted in a wall, a foot to a yard above the walk or pavement. This one was mounted about a foot above the street, and was ahead of me and to my right, a bit behind the kneeling girl, and to her left. "There," said the girl, knotting the end of the leash about the ring. Usually, at such rings, slaves are on a short leash or chain, and are fastened to them on their knees. If the slave is braceleted to the ring and the ring is in the neighborhood of a yard high her hands are braceleted before her face, and her belly faces the wall, or behind the back of her head, and her back or side faces the wall; with the lower ring her hands are braceleted before her lower body if she faces the wall or has her side to it, and roughly at the small of her back, if she has her back to the wall. But the girl who had controlled the kneeling girl's leash had left her a good deal of slack. She might lie, fully, on the stones, and be moved about on them, if I chose.
"I shall withdraw," said the girl who had controlled the leash. "But understand clearly," she said, meaningfully, "that when I return her body will be closely examined."
"I understand," I said.
The girl who had controlled the leash then withdrew.
I looked at the girl, kneeling on the stones before me. I crouched down, before her.
"You know that you must use me fully," she said. "My body will be carefully examined, for the signs of your use."
"I know," I said.
She then, demurely, unbelted her tunic, and brushed it back.
"You must have me, and fully," she said. "You have no choice."
"I know," I said.
She dropped her tunic behind her, on the stones. "It is my hope," she said, "that I may please my Master."
I grinned. "Who are you?" I asked.
"Your Linda," she said.
"If I choose to have you by that name," I said.
"Yes," she said. "You may have me by any name you care to fix upon me, or nameless, if it pleases you."
"I know," I said.
"In all this time," she said, "you have never had me."
"No," I said.
"You wanted to, didn't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"And now I am only a leashed slut before you," she said, "one for whom you have paid your tarsk bit."
"Yes," I said.
She leaned forward, and kissed me, softly. "I will endeavor to be worthy of my tarsk bit, my Master," she whispered.
"Have no fear," I told her. "I shall see that you are."
"Master?" she asked, drawing back.
I then put my hands on her arms.
She winced, in pain. She looked at me, disbelievingly. "That is not the grip of a man of Earth," she said, "that of one who treats women with respect." She squirmed.
"You are a slave," I told her.
"It is the grip of a Gorean male," she said, "of one who is the master of a woman."
"Is it?" I asked.
"Yes!" she said. "Release me! I mean, 'Please release me, my Master!'"
"No," I told her.
"No?" she asked. "But you are a man of Earth! You must do whatever a woman asks!"
"Why?" I asked.
"I do not know," she cried. "I do not know!"
"Do you wish me to release you?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "Yes!"
"Lying slave," I sneered.
"Please do not punish me, Master," she whimpered.
"The brutes of Gor have their way with you, as it pleases them," I said, "and you serve them well. Do you think the men of Earth should be content with less?"
"No, Master," she whimpered.
"If the men of Earth choose to surrender the birthright of their dominance, to exchange it for the garbage of a political perversion; if they should choose to deny their genes; if they should choose to subvert and violate the order of nature; if they should choose self-castration to manhood, that is, I suppose, their business."
"I do not know, Master," she said.
"Provided, of course, that they are willing to accept such penalties as anxiety, guilt, misery, frustration, sickness and shortened life spans."
"I do not know, Master," she said.
"A subverted nature cannot be expected not to retaliate," I said.
"No, Master," she said.
"Does a man have a right to be a man?" I asked.
"I suppose so," she said. "I do not know."
"And are there not hierarchies among rights, and some which take priority over others?"
"Be kind to me, Master," she begged.
"And is not the right of a man to be a man the highest right of such a sort that man possesses?"
"Yes," she said.
"What right takes precedence over that?" I asked.
"None, Master," she said.
"Has man," I asked, "the right to bring about his own downfall, to destroy himself?"
"He has the capacity, Master," she whispered, "but I do not think he has that right."
"He does not have that right," I told her, "for it conflicts with the higher right."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Rather," said I, "he has, beyond rights, duties; and high among his duties is his duty to be true to himself, his duty to be a man."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"The denial of his manhood, then, by a man, is not only irrational, but morally pernicious. Men have not only a right to preserve their manhood, but a duty to do so."
"Perhaps there is no such thing as manhood," she whispered, "or womanhood."
"Tell that," I said, "to strong men and yielding women, and history."
"Perhaps there are no such things as duties, and rights," she said, "perhaps there are only the words, used as the instruments of manipulative rhetorics, devices of conditioning, cheaper and more subtle than guns and whips."
"That is an interesting and profound possibility," I said, "but then there would still remain needs and powers, forces and desires, and the facts of t
he world, that certain courses of action lead to certain results, and that other courses of action lead to other results. And in such a world who will argue with the larl as to whether or not it should feed, or with a man as to whether or not he should be a man? In such a world the larl hunts, and the man is a man."
Norman, John - Gor 16 - Guardsman Of Gor v2.txt Page 17