Kajira of Gor coc-19

by John Norman

  “Leading position,” said Drusus Rencius.

  I put my head down to his waist and he fastened his left hand in my hair.

  “Tal, Citizen,” said Drusus Rencius to the fellow passing us in the alley. He soon released my hair and I again straightened up. I was following him, generally, a little behind and on his left. It seemed appropriate that I, in my disguise, might seem to heel him, as though I might be a mere slave. It seemed to me that he had held my hair more tightly than be had needed to, when we had passed the stranger. I still wore the slave bracelets. He had declined to remove them when we had left the house of Kliomenes. In his steel, heeling him, occasionally being put into leading position by him, I felt much in his power.

  “Did you enjoy the pens?” asked Drusus.

  “Please do not make me speak,” I whimpered. I was terribly conscious of the heat in my body, and the absence of a nether closure in my garment. Had Drusus Rencius so much as snapped his fingers I think I might have thrown myself to my back in the alley, begging for his touch.

  ***

  “This is the house of Kliomenes,” had said Drusus Rencius, climbing the stairs to the narrow, heavy iron portal, recessed some feet back, at the end of a narrow tunnel, in the wall. It was on the street of Milo. Above the entrance to the tunnel, and on its right, in the wall, hanging from an iron projection, was a narrow, blue-and-yellow banner. I followed Drusus Rencius carefully, that I might not fall. “This is one of the better, and more respectable of the slave houses in Corcyrus,” he said. “That is one of the reasons that I have selected it for your visit, that your sensibilities, those of a free woman, not be excessively offended.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “On the other hand, do not expect it to compromise overly much with its women. Such would be a violation of the ethics of the slavers. Its women, you will find, all things considered, are held rather close to the standards of slave perfection.”

  “I see,” I said.

  He beckoned and I joined him in the narrow tunnel leading to the door. I regarded the iron door, apprehensively.

  “There are truly slaves in there?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “If you enter, you will be, probably, the only free woman in the house, unless there is a new girl in there, in chains, awaiting, say, the iron and the collar.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Do you wish to enter?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You are a woman, and it is the house of a slaver,” he said.

  “I will enter,” I said.

  He then struck on the iron door. He then thrust me in front of him, so that I, in the tunnel, was between him and the door.

  There was a small, rectangular, iron observation panel, now shut, in the door.

  I felt the stone of the tunnel beneath my feet, the steel holding my wrists helplessly behind me.

  The observation panel slid back. I saw eyes looking at me, and then, beyond me, at Drusus Rencius.

  The panel slid shut with a click.

  I wanted to turn and run. I could not do so, of course, because of the walls of the tunnel, and Drusus Rencius behind me.

  “They are expecting us,” said Drusus Rencius, sensing my sudden terror.

  I heard chains and bars behind the door, bolts being freed.

  Then the door swung open. “Enter,” said a pleasant enough looking young man in the threshold. I entered, followed by Drusus. Beside the young man there was a guard, too, within. I heard the door, with its various devices, being refastened behind me. We were in a tiny torchlit room. Only a few feet before us was another door, also iron, similar to the outside door.

  “Bracelet check,” said the young man to me, pleasantly.

  “Turn your back to him, and lift your wrists,” said Drusus Rencius.

  I did this and the young man quickly, expertly, checked the bracelets. They were locked on me. I was helpless.

  I then turned again, to face the interior door.

  I cried out, startled.

  The guard, crouching beside me, had taken my left ankle in his left hand and run his right hand beneath my foot.

  “No,” said Drusus Rencius, deterring the guard, “there is nothing taped to her instep, nor is there anything else of the sort for which you might be searching concealed about or in her body or hair. She is to be exempted from slave search.” I then realized, shuddering, just how thorough slave search might be.

  The guard looked at the young man, who nodded. The guard then stood up.

  The young man then tapped a complex signal on the inner iron door. In a moment I heard it being freed of its fastenings. It then swung open and we, the young man, Drusus Rencius and myself, were admitted to the corridor beyond.

  The guard there refastened the door and then took his place on a stool behind a small table.

  “We need a pass and a license,” said the young man to the guard.

  I looked at Drusus Rencius.

  “The license is only a formality,” he said. “No free woman, unless a capture, may proceed beyond this point unless she is in the charge of a free man who is responsible for her and has a current license for her. This is a device to control the movements of free women in the house and a precaution against the attempted escape of slave girls pretending to be free women.”

  “Here is your pass,” said the young man, handing a small disk to Drusus Rencius. It was not unlike one of the ostraka used as tickets or tokens for admission at the theater or other such events. The guard, meanwhile, was writing something down on a small, rectangular form. I had little doubt what it was. “And here,” said the young man, taking the form from the guard and handing it to Drusus Rencius, confirming my speculations, “is your license for the female.” I was a woman. Accordingly, I had to be licensed in the house of Kliomenes.

  How humiliating! The Goreans have a saying, “There are only two kinds of women, slaves, and slaves.” I pulled at my wrists. They were well held in the bracelets.

  “Is she really free?” asked the young man.

  “Yes,” said Drusus Rencius, putting the pass and license in his pouch.

  “Interesting,” said the young man.

  “Do you find it surprising?” asked Drusus Rencius.

  “Yes,” said the young man.

  The guard then stood up and came about the table. I backed away a foot or two.

  He crouched down near me, and then stood up, regarding me. “Those are slave curves,” he said, “and rather lovely ones.”

  I blushed, helpless.

  “Such curves,” he said, “should not be wasted on a free woman.”

  “I do not think Publius will believe she is free,” laughed the young man.

  I looked at Drusus Rencius.

  “Publius,” said Drusus Rencius, “is the house master. I know him from Ar.”

  “He would like to see you, after your tour,” said the young man, “to drink a cup of paga.”

  “I shall be delighted,” said Drusus Rencius. He did not ask me for my permission to do this, I noted.

  “She is truly free?” asked the guard.

  “Yes,” averred Drusus Rencius.

  “It is a shame,” said the guard. “Curves like that should be up for sale.”

  “From what I have heard of her,” said Drusus Rencius, smiling, “she is the sort of a woman who has her price.” I wondered what her meant by that.

  “Hermidorus will accompany you in the house,” said the young man, “if we can tear him away from his scrolls.”

  “He understands, does he not,” asked Drusus Rencius, “that the woman is free and, accordingly, certain things are not to be seen.”

  “Of course,” smiled the young man. “Hermidorus!” he called, loudly.

  In a few moments, from a side door, a few yards farther down the corridor, another young man emerged. He was dark-haried and dark-eyed, and had a rather scholarly look about him. He did not seem much different to me than some young men I had seen about un
iversities. He seemed an improbable inhabitant of such a place.

  “This is Drusus, a soldier of the city,” said the first young man. “He is known to Publius.”

  Drusus Rencius and the newcomer inclined their heads to one another.

  The newcomer then looked me over.

  “Do you think she could pass as a slave?” asked the first young man.

  “Easily,” smiled the second. I realized then the question had been rhetorical. I flushed. Why did Gorean men, seeming so naturally, look upon me as a slave?

  “Follow me,” said the young man, turning about.

  ***

  “Leading position,” said Drusus Rencius.

  Swiftly I put down my head again and winced as Drusus fastened his hand in my hair.

  Thus again was I led past a stranger in the alleys. As we passed the stranger, he approaching us, he was on our right.

  Goreans commonly pass in this fashion, the sword arms of right-handed individuals being thus on the side of the approaching stranger.

  I saw some girls rummaging through a garbage can. They wore short tunics but they were not slaves. Goreans sometimes refer to such women as “strays”. They are civic nuisances. They are occasionally rounded up, guardsmen appearing at opposite ends of an alley, trapping them, and collared.

  ***

  “Buy me, Master,” begged the girl, kneeling before Drusus Rencius. “I will give you much pleasure.”

  “Next!” barked the trainer, in the house of Kliomenes.

  The next girl hurried forward and knelt before Drusus Rencius, kissing his feet, and then lifting her head, piteously, to him. “Buy me, Master,” she said. “I will give you much pleasure.”

  “Next!” barked the trainer.

  The next woman then hurried to Drusus and, threw herself to her belly before him, kissing his feet. She then rose slowly to her knees, kissing him from the ankles to the waist.

  Kneeling before him, then, close to him, holding his legs she looked up at him. “Buy me, Master,” she whispered. “I will give you much pleasure.”

  How furious I was that these women were being sent to the feet of Drusus Rencius. They were naked and beautiful, but who would want to buy them? They were only slaves. That could be told by the collars they wore, bars of rounded iron which, here, in the house, had been curved about their necks and hammered shut. I stood in the background, angry, braceleted, helpless.

  “You!” said the trainer, gesturing to another girl with his Whip. “To his feet! Beg for love!”

  This girl hurried forward and knelt before Drusus Rencius.

  “I beg for love, Master,” she whispered.

  “You!” said the trainer, indicating another girl. She, too, hurried forward. She knelt before Drusus Rencius, her palms on the floor, her head to the very tiles. “I beg for love,” she whispered. “I beg for love, Master.”

  I was startled. I realized, suddenly, that these two women, indeed, were begging for love. “Beg elsewhere, sluts!” I thought. “Leave Drusus Rencius alone!” And how offensive that a woman should beg for love! Surely her intimate, desperate needs for attention, for affection and love were better concealed even from herself, if possible, and certainly, at least, from others! And if they must beg, the helpless sluts, did they not know how a woman begs, by looks, by glances, by small, hopeful services. Surely a woman should not be expected to speak honestly in such matters. What brute would force her to such extremities? Too, how vulnerable a woman would make herself, placing herself so at the mercy of men, subject to being spurned, subject to his scorn and rejection.

  Yet how simple, how straightforward and liberating might be such a confession. How beautiful it might be to so express one’s vulnerability, and femininity, so tenderly, so piteously, so openly. To be sure, one would expect such a confession only from a woman whose needs were both desperate and deep, a woman who had needs such as might characterize slaves.

  “Come along,” said Hermidorus.

  ***

  “Please, Drusus,” I said. “My hands have been braceleted long enough. I am beginning to feel too helpless, too much like a slave. Please release me.”

  “I will release you in the room,” he said. I then continued to follow him, still braceleted, through the alleys, toward the inn of Lysias.

  ***

  “Slowly, more humbly,” cautioned the trainer, half crouching over, watching carefully, moving slowly beside the girl. Then he moved about her, more quickly, varying his perspective. Then he moved to the end of the room, where he might wait for her to approach. “Head lower,” he said. “Better, better.”

  I watched her approach him, head down, on her hands and knees, her breasts depending beautifully. Then she dropped the whip from her teeth before his booted feet. She then remained there, head down, in position. “Better,” he said. He then picked up the whip and tossed it across the tiles. “Again,” he said. She then rose lightly to her feet and hurried to the whip, where, once more, she dropped to her hands and knees. She picked up the whip delicately in her teeth, and looked at him. He snapped his fingers. Again, then, head down, slowly, she approached him, the whip held in her mouth.

  ***

  “Kneel, back on your heels,” said the trainer to the dark haired woman. “Straighten your back, suck in your gut, put your shoulders back, thrust out your breasts, spread your knees, widely, lift your chin, put your hands on your thighs. You are not going to be sold as a tower slave, Lady Tina. You are going to be sold as a pleasure slave.”

  ***

  The whip cracked, and I jumped. But it had not touched the girl, only startled her.

  She knelt behind the dark, smooth post, facing it, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts against it, her hands embracing it.

  “This may be done to music,” said Hermidorus, “and, as you know, there are many versions to the post dance, or pole dance, singly, or with more than one girl, with or without bonds, wand so on, but here we are using it merely as a training exercise.”

  The whip cracked again and the girl, suddenly and lasciviously, became active.

  I gasped.

  She began to writhe about the pole. “Kiss it, caress it, love it!” commanded the trainer, snapping the whip. “Now more slowly, now scarcely moving, now use your thighs, and breasts more, moving all about it, holding it. Touch it with your tongue, lick it! Use the inside of your thighs more, your breasts, turn about it, slowly, sensuously. Lift your hands above your head, palms to the pole, caressing it. Turn about the pole! Twist about it! Now to your knees, holding it!” He then cracked the whip again. “Enough!” he said. She was then as she had been before, kneeling behind the post, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts pressed against it, her hands embracing it. The girl was looking at me. She was wondering, perhaps, if I were the next to be put to the post. I looked away, angrily. Did she not know I was not a lowly thing like she? Did she not know I was free?

  “It is a useful exercise,” said Hermidorus to Drusus.

  “Obviously,” agreed Drusus.

  I looked back at the girl. She was now looking away. I looked at the post. It was dark, and shiny. It had been polished smooth, apparently, by the bodies of many girls.

  The girl looked suddenly at me. There was a hostility in our looks toward one another. She saw, I think, in my eyes, that I thought I could have done better at the post than she.

  Then I looked away. What would I care for her opinions? Were we competitive women?

  “Come along,” said Hermidorus.

  ***

  “These women,” said Hermidorus, “are practicing their floor movements.”

  A trainer stood among them, with a whip. Occasionally he would snap this whip near a girl. I did not doubt but what the girls on the tiles, if they were found sufficiently displeasing to the trainer, or too frequently required the admonitory signal of the cracking leather, would soon hear the snap of the lash not in their mere vicinity but on their own bared bodies. Two of the girls
, I saw, had stripes on them, one on the thigh, and one on the side. The trainer was not now paying them much attention. They were now, apparently, doing well.

  “Come along,” said Hermidorus.

  ***

  “How beautiful!” I breathed.

  Drusus Rencius looked sharply at me. I feared for a moment I might be struck.

  Hermidorus, on the other hand, did not seem to notice. My exclamation, perhaps, had seemed sufficiently inadvertent, involuntary and irrepressible, to be ignored; or perhaps it was to be ignored because I was not a slave, but a free woman. I did not meet Drusus Rencius’s eyes. It was not like I had just decided to speak and had spoken. In a place like this I did not know if I was subject to discipline or not. I did not think so, for I was a free woman. On the other hand I knew I was here on the sufferance of the house of Kliomenes. Indeed, on these premises, I knew that Drusus Rencius even held a license on me.

  The drummer and the flautist prepared once more to play.

  The girl in the long, light chain smiled at me. She, at any rate, was pleased by my response.

  A wrist ring was fastened on her right wrist. The long, slender, gleaming chain was fastened to this and, looping down and up, ascended gracefully to a wide chain ring on her collar, through which it freely passed, thence descending, looping down, and ascending, looping up, gracefully, to the left wrist ring. If she were to stand quietly, the palms of her hands on her thighs, the lower portions of the chain, those two dangling loops, would have been about at the level of her knees, just a little higher. The higher portion of the chain, of course, would be at the collar loop.

  The musicians began again to play. There is much that can be done with such a chain. It was a dancing chain. Its purpose was not to confine the girl but to allow her to incorporate it in her dance, enhancing the dance with its movements and beauty. It is, of course, symbolic of her bondage, this adding fantastic dimensions of significance to the dance. It is not merely a beautiful woman who dances, but one who can be bought and sold, one who is subject to male ownership. Too, of course, the wrist rings, and the collar, are truly locked on her. There is no doubt about it. It is a slave, with all that that means, who is dancing.