“I do not have time for you now,” I said.
“But I am ready,” she said. “I am ready!”
I took her in my arms and turned her to her back, and touched her. She tore the
pleasure silk back that there be less between us.
I marveled. In the night it had taken a full Ahn to an Ahn and a half to bring
her to the point of yielding. This morning she had crept to my side as a slave
girl in need. To my slightest touch her body responded helplessly,
spasmodically. Last night she had been an Earth woman who had had to be
conquered, who had had to be taught her collar. This morning she was only a
lovely Gorean slave girl, eager and moaning, begging piteously once again for
her master’s touch, begging to yield again, and again. On Earth a thousand men
might have sued for her hand. On Gor she belonged to only one man, was an
article of his property, and was only one slave girl among others.
Twice I used her.
There was little time.
“Please do not sell me, Master,” she begged.
“You are a slave,” I told her. “You will be sold.”
I looked at her. I wondered what she would bring me on the block. Yesterday I
would have regarded her as a four-gold-piece girl. But today lovely Ilene’s
value had considerably increased. I imagined her ascending the block, turning
for the buyers, presenting her beauty for their consideration, responding to the
deft guidance of the auctioneer’s coiled whip. And then, when she was unready,
when she did not expect it, he would, with the coiled whip, administer to her
the slaver’s caress. I could well conjecture, now, the response of the awakened
body. The crowd would be much pleased. The movement would be startled,
involuntary, sudden, wild, helpless, uncontrollable. Her womanhood would have
been betrayed. How enraged, how tearful, she would be. The men would laugh. She
had been forced, tricked, before her buyers, on the very block itself, into
displaying publicly the ready womanhood of her.
I smiled to myself.
The bids, then, would swiftly increase. The auctioneer, in his skill, would have
demonstrated undreampt latencies in the wench, on sale, that her desirablities
were not merely placid and visual, but organic, reflexive and sensual, that she,
properly handled, was the sort of woman who, as the Goreans say, could not help
but kiss the whip that beats her. I smiled. Men would pay well for lovely Ilene.
No longer would she be a mere four-goldpiece girl, standard merchandise on a
Gorean slave block. The auctioneer, I expected, would close his fist on a price
of ten goldpieces for her. I would then have taken a good profit on the
Earth-girl slave. Indeed, she had cost me nothing. Last night, I congratulated
myself, I had raised her value. I had brought her up by perhaps as much as six
gold pieces. I had had a double profit from my work of last night, my pleasure
in teaching her her collar and commercially, the considerable improvement of my
property, the considerable improvement of my investment.
“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” she whispered. “Sell another girl in Port Kar,
not Ilene.”
It was dawn.
The red-haired girl, first girl in the camp, she who held the switch, was not
up, stretching like a she-panther, yawning like a she-larl. She, though a former
paga slave, pulled the skins of panther girls about her body. I had torn the
skins at her left thigh, that she might not forget she wore a brand. She was a
strong, lithe girl. Ilene, I knew, feared her. And well she might, for she was
first girl, and held the switch.
Slowly, stiff-legged, the red-haired girl walked across the wet grass to the
dark, dew-stained tarpaulin, to pull the pegs.
It was dawn, time for the prisoners to arise, to be fed and watered, and then,
when I wished, to take up their burdens.
“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” said Ilene, snuggling up against me. “Sell
another girl in Port Kar,” she whispered, “not Ilene.”
“Do you see her?” I asked Ilene, indicating the red-haired girl.
“Yes,” said Ilene, “she is an excellent choice for the block in Port Kar,
Master.”
“Do you really think so?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Ilene.
“Do you ask that it be she who is sold in Port Kar?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” said Ilene. She kissed me happily.
“Go to her,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” said Ilene.
“Speak to her,” I said.
“I will,” said Ilene. “I will!” she kissed me. “I will tell her that she is to
be sold in Port Kar.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“You will go to her,” I said. “You will then inform her that you asked me to
sell her in Port Kar. You will then ask her to give you ten switches. You will
them ask for your duties of the day.”
Ilene looked at me, protest in her eyes. Then, fear and tears came into her eyes
and she sprang up.
She ran to the girl.
“I asked for you to be sold in Port Kar,” she said.
“Aren’t you a pretty little slave with the master,” said the red-haired girl/
Ilene trembled.
“And what did he say?” she asked.
“I am to ask for ten switches, and then for my duties for the day.” said Ilene.
“I see,” said the red-haired girl.
Ilene stood before her.
“Remove your garment, pretty slave,” said the red-haired girl.
Ilene did so.
“Go to that tree,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a slender-trunked tree
at the edge of the camp clearing. Ilene went to it. “Hold to that branch, pretty
slave,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a branch over Ilene’s head. Tears
in her eyes Ilene grasped it.
There was the swift hiss of the switch and then the slap of its strike.
Ilene screamed with pain and fell, releasing the branch. She clutched the base
of the tree’s trunk. She looked over her shoulder at the red-haired girl.
“Please,” she wept.
“Hold the branch, pretty little slave,” said the red-haired girl, not much
pleased with her.
Ilene regarded her with horror.
I strode to the tree and, with two short lengths of binding fiber, tied Ilene’s
wrists to the branch.
She was weeping in pain.
“Let me beat her,” said the blond girl, one of the panther girls, in her ankle
ring.
The red-haired girl went swiftly to the girl who had spoken and struck her
twice. The blond girl, tears in her eyes, shrank back in the coffle, shoulder
stinging, and hid herself among the other girls.
The red-haired girl then strode to Ilene.
The Earth girl must now endure nine strokes. The red-haired girl was excellent
with the switch. She knew well how to beat a slave.
Ilene would not soon forget her beating.
It took more than two Ehn to deliver the next five strokes. Ilene did not know
when, or where on her body, they would fall. She would stand there, her wrists
bound over her head, apart, on the branch, waiting. Then suddenly there would be
the hiss, and, somewhere on her body, the swift, lashing fall of the swi
tch.
The red-haired girl had handled the psychological dimension of the beating
beautifully.
Even when she was not being struck Ilene would sometimes cry out. “No! Don’t hit
me!” Sometimes, waiting, unstruck, she would cry out as though she had been
struck. She jerked, trying to free her wrists. She twisted helplessly, but could
not free herself. Then, shaking her head, weeping, she began to writhe and beg
incoherently for mercy. She, of course, as a slave girl, would receive none.
“Be silent, Slave,” said the red-haired girl.
“Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene.
“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl to the slave, “it was not a switch, but the
five-strap Gorean slave whip?”
Ilene closed her eyes.
“Suppose,” said the red-haired girl, “it was not I who disciplined you, but,
with such a whip, a male.”
“Yes, Mistress,” wept Ilene, her head down.
“Rejoice,” said the red-haired girl, “that you are only switched, and by a
woman.”
“Yes, Mistress,” whispered Ilene, her face stained with tears. The red-haired
girl had thrown Ilene’s long dark hair forward, that it not provide any
shielding from the switch.
There were now six stripes on her body, from her ankles to the back of her neck.
They were slender and red. Each was well placed. Spreading from each stripe
there was a redness of pain. She clenched her fists in her bonds. Now her entire
back burned scarlet.
The panther girls, in their chains, laughed. They enjoyed seeing the pretty
Earth-girl slave beaten.
I nodded to the red-haired girl. Swiftly, across the back, in rapid succession,
she delivered Ilene’s last four stinging stripes.
I then unfastened her wrists from the branch.
She was bent over with pain. I picked up the bit of yellow silk and threw it to
her. She caught it, and held it before her body.
“It is you,” I told her,” “who will be sold in Port Kar.”
I then turned away from her.
I heard the red-haired girl addressing the panther women. “On your feet,
Slaves,” she said, slapping the switch in her hand.
They stood up.
“Get bowls,” said the red-haired girl to Ilene. “And open a bag of slave meal.
When the slaves pass you, give each half a bowl of meal.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Ilene.
“Then gather fruit and nuts for them,” said the red-haired girl.
“Yes, Mistress, ”said Ilene.
I went to the tree about which had been fastened the length of chain extending
from the first girl’s Harl ring, that tethering the girls to the tree. I
unsnapped it and refastened it about the left wrist of the first girl on the
chain, that she might carry it as she had the day before.
The red-haired girl, to my satisfaction, but not asking me, took some of the
silk we carried and cut it into strips, wrapping it in and around the ankle
rings of her charges, and about the girl’s ankles, that their ankles be
protected in the march. She was a good first girl. “Thank you, Mistress,” said
one of the girls to her. “Be silent, Slave,” responded the red-haired girl.
“Yes, Mistress,” responded the other. She was a good first girl. She, with her
switch, maintained a harsh and perfect discipline among her charges, but she was
not more cruel to them that it was customary to be with Gorean slaves. They were
animals in her charge. She was, accordingly, solicitous for their welfare. From
my point of view, of course, a girl with a scarred ankle is likely to bring a
lower price than a perfect specimen. I thus approved of her action.
“What is your name?” I asked her.
“Whatever master wishes,” she said.
“What have you been called that pleases you? I asked.
“If it pleases Master,” she said, “I should like to be called Vinca.”
“You are Vinca,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
I regarded Ilene.
“No!” she said. “Please do not take my name away!”
“You no longer have a name,” I told her.
She looked at me with horror, and fell to her knees piteously before me.
“Please,” she begged. “Please, no!”
She looked up at me. She then realized that she was nameless. Her entire body,
fresh from its switching, shook with the horror of it. Her identity, her very
sense of self, from her earliest understandings had been fused with that name,
inseparable from it. Now it was gone. Who was she? What could she be? She looked
up at me, piteously. A she-verr, a tarsk sow, a tabuk doe had no more nor less
name then she. The collared female animal, nameless, knelt at the feet of its
owner.
“I will give you a name,” I told her. “It will be more convenient.”
There were tears in her eyes.
“I will call you Ilene,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.
“There is a difference, of course,” I told her, “in the name Ilene you once
wore, and in the name Ilene you now wear.”
She nodded, miserably. Her old name, her old identity, had been taken from her
forever. Her new name, though in sound the same, was not her old. Between them
there was a difference of worlds, a gulf wider than that dividing planets. Her
old name had been hers as a free person, publicly registered, legally certified,
historically identified with her throughout her life, until her capture by
slavers. It had been a proud, intimate possession, giving her pleasure and
dignity. It had ennobled her. It had served, with other properties, to
distinguish her as a precious person, a unique individual, among all others on
the planet Earth. When asked who she was, it was with that name that she would
answer. That was who she was. Then the name had been taken from her. She was
then only an animal in bondage. In Gorean courts her testimony would normally be
exacted only under torture. In such courts she could not, legally, be named, but
would rather be described as, say, Ilene, the slave of Hesius of Laura, or
Ilene, the slave of Bosk of Port Kar. Her name might be changed, or altered, as
often as a master wished. Indeed, he need not even give her a name. Changing a
girl’s name, or taking it away, are common modes of Gorean slave discipline.
So I would call her Ilene.
But this was not her old name, though in sound it was the same. This was now a
Gorean slave name. It carried no dignity nor civil significance. It might be
changed; it might be wore that name now, and she knew it, only by the whim of
her master. That was the name to which he had decided she would answer. Thus,
simply, but his will, it was her name. The first name, Ilene, had been a proud
Earth name; the second name, Ilene, was only a Gorean slave name. It was the
second name to which she would answer; it was the second name which she would
now wear; it was the second name which was now, by my will, hers.
“You are Ilene,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said. Then she put down her head and wept.
I turned to Vinca. “Have the slaves prepare to lift their burdens,” I told her.
There was much work to be done today.
“Co
ffle!” cried Vinca, striking two of the girls. Swiftly they lined up beside
their burdens. “Posture!” cried Vinca. “Stand straight!” she struck another
girl. “Straight!” cried Vinca. “Remember that you are beautiful slaves!”
“We are not slaves!” cried one of the panther girls. “We are panther women!”
I went to one of the boxes, that which contained uninscribed slave collars.
As the girls stood straight in the coffle, looking directly ahead, fearing not
to. I, from behind, one by one, moving their hair aside, snapped a slave collar
on the throat of each.
I nodded to Vinca.
“Lift your burdens,” she called.
In tears the panther girls lifted their burdens. “Excellent”, called Vinca.
“Remember now, you are graceful and beautiful slaves!”
I strode from the clearing.
“March!” called Vinca. I heard the switch fall twice, and then heard,
alternating with silence, the movement of the chain.
16 I Find Some Tunics of Tyros
Mira, who was the lieutenant of Hura, rolled to her side. She slept fitfully.
The march of the men of Tyros had become a rout. Even before I had come upon the
column in the morning, I had found abandoned baggage strewn along the trail. I
had found also the chains and leg irons that had been fastened on the left
ankles of the male prisoners. They had been struck off that the column might
move with greater speed. That meant that the male slaves now were fastened in
their coffle only by their neck chains. Too, of course, their hands were
manacles behind their back.
It had been necessary to slow the column down, so I had done so.
Eight men of Tyros I felled near the front of the column.
There had been no flankers, no points set. The panther girls were apparently now
terrified to leave the column. And the men of Tyros were unwilling to do so.
I had heard fierce words being exchanged between them.
In my teeth I held two slender lengths of binding fiber. In my right hand I held
a heavy wadding of fur. Looped loosely about my right wrist, so that it would
fall when my hand was held downwards, was a thick, wide strip of panther skin,
twisted in its center.
The arrows which had struck the men of Tyros had been those of panther girls,
taken from their captures. The men of Tyros and the girls of Hura did not know
the nature nor the number of their stalkers. The first man, felled at the
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