Norman, John - Gor 25 - Magicians of Gor.txt

by Magicians of Gor [lit]

  (pg. 337) “Yes,” I said. There was no doubt about that.

  “I have never been so happy in my life,” she said.

  “Your feelings do not matter,” I said.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “They are those only of a slave.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  She then lay quietly beside me, her head on my chest.

  “But if free women could understand these things,” she said, “they would all put

  themselves to the feet of me and beg their collars.”

  “But they cannot understand them,” I said. “They are not slaves.”

  “I assure you that I had some understanding of this sort of thing when I was a

  free woman,” she said.

  “Anything like the understanding you have now?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” she said. “Nothing like my understanding now!”

  “That is my point,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “The experience is a totalistic one, which occurs in an entire context,” I said.

  “It is thus that a woman does not fully understand what it is to be a slave

  until she becomes a slave. Once she is owned, of course, and subject to the

  whip, she will learn her condition. Kneeling before her master, she will soon

  apprehended something of its joys, duties and terrors.”

  “It is true, Master,” she said.

  “Kneel,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  I lay on one elbow, regarding her.

  “It is my hope that I have pleased my master,” she said.

  “You have pleased me,” I said.

  “Then the slave, too, is pleased,” she whispered.

  “She is very pretty,” said Marcus.

  “Her skin is still blotchy,” said Phoebe.

  “It is much better now,” I said. We had purchased soothing, healing lotions.

  “And her hair is much too short,” said Phoebe.

  “That is true,” I said.

  The slave kept her head down.

  “But I suppose she is pretty enough,” said Phoebe, “for a cheap girl.”

  “Thank you, Mistress,” said the slave.

  “What did you cost?” asked Phoebe.

  “Oh, come now,” said Marcus, irritatedly. Phoebe knew very well, of course, what

  I had paid for her. Indeed, she had not (pg. 338) rested from the moment we had

  brought her in, braceleted and on a leash, until she had learned, and to her

  immense satisfaction, how little it had been.

  “Five copper tarsks, Mistress,” said the girl.

  “I myself,” said Phoebe, “sold for a hundred pieces of gold.”

  “That was under very special circumstances,” I said.

  “But that is what was paid!” she said.

  “True,” I said.

  Much of the weightiness of this was lost on the new slave, of course, for she

  had very little notion of the prices of women. As she had come into the keeping

  of Appanius in virtue of the couching laws, she had had only one sale, that to

  me for a few copper tarsks. She would, of course, recognize that a hundred

  pieces of gold was an incredible amount of money. In a sense a woman is worth as

  much or as little as someone is willing to pay for her. In typical markets, if

  it is helpful for purposes of comparison, an excellent woman, suitable, say, for

  the paga taverns, would sell for between one and three silver tarsks. In such a

  market I thought that Phoebe would probably go for something like two or two and

  half silver tarsks, and that the other girl, if her hair was grown out and her

  skin healed, for something like two silver tarsks.

  “Mistress is very pretty,” said the slave.

  Phoebe tossed her head, smoothing her hair about. She was pretty. I had always

  thought so.

  “I did not know Cosians girls could be so pretty,” said the slave.

  Phoebe cried out with rage, and rushed to the wall to seize up a switch there.

  She rushed to the new slave, the switch raised. The new slave cried out in

  misery, putting her head down. But no blow fell. Marcus intercepted Phoebe’s

  descending wrist. Phoebe cried out in pain and dropped the switch. But she

  looked down at the new slave. “Cos defeated Ar!” she said. “That is clear!”

  “No longer are you of Cos,” said Marcus, sternly. “Nor is she any longer of Ar.

  You are both only slaves, only animals!”

  Phoebe struggled, angrily in his arms.

  “Is it not true?” he asked.

  She looked up at him, her eyes blazing. “Yes, Master!” she said.

  She struggled a bit more, but was now pinioned tightly in his grasp. She could

  do little more now than squirm, futilely. She made a tiny, angry noise. As well

  might her lovely body have been wrapped in cables of iron. The sewing she had

  been attending to had been spilled to the side, when she had leaped (pg. 339) to

  seize the switch. Originally Phoebe had known little, if anything, of sewing,

  but when she had become slave she must learn such things. The new slave, too,

  knew little of such labors. I would see to it that she received instruction of

  Phoebe. One expects a slave to know such things.

  Phoebe ceased struggling and Marcus released her, stepped back a pace and

  regarded her.

  She stood before him, angrily, defiantly, her small fists clenched.

  “I suppose you could be thought of, as of Cos,” he mused, “in the sense that you

  were once of Cos.”

  She trembled.

  “So in that sense,” said he, “take off your clothes, female of Cos, and get to

  your belly, with your legs widely spread.”

  “I am not of Cos!” she said, suddenly. “I am only a slave, Master!”

  He regarded her, unwaveringly.

  Swiftly she drew off her tunic, over her head, and put herself to her belly and

  as he had stipulated.

  He looked down upon her.

  She sobbed, subdued.

  The other slave was very quiet. It seemed she scarcely dared to breathe.

  “Perhaps the wrong girl is first girl,” said Marcus.

  Phoebe sobbed, her head to the side.

  “May I speak, Master,” whispered the new slave.

  He looked at her. “Yes,” he said.

  She went to her belly before him and reached out her tiny hand, timidly, to

  touch his foot.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Have pity on her, Master,” she said.

  “You would speak for her?” asked Marcus.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  Phoebe looked at her, in wonder.

  “It is only that she loves you so much,” she said.

  “I do not understand,” said Marcus.

  Phoebe sobbed, looking away.

  “She is telling you that Phoebe is jealous of her,” I said.

  Marcus crouched down beside Phoebe.

  “Is that true?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” sobbed Phoebe, her eyes closed.

  “But you are my love slave,” he said to her.

  She sobbed, w
ith joy. He touched her and she trembled beneath his touch like a

  vulo.

  (pg. 340) He then rose to his feet, and removed a coiled slave whip from the

  wall. This he threw down beside Phoebe, the coils of the leather cracking on the

  floor, beside her head, to the right.

  “You will serve,” he said.

  “Yes, Master!” she whispered.

  He then put his hand to her hair, letting her feel the tightness of his grasp,

  and turning her head from one side to the other. Then he put his hand on the

  back of her neck, letting her feel this grip. He then took her right ankle in

  his hand and lifted it, bending her lower leg, his grip like an ankle ring,

  toward her body. Then he released it, and let it return to its former position.

  She lay there very quietly. Then she made a soft noise, as he had begun to

  caress her, audaciously and masterfully.

  I went over and picked up the sewing which Phoebe had dropped to the floor, when

  she had leaped to her feet. It was a tunic resembling that of a state slave,

  done in the new fashion. The garmenture of the state slave, that of a girl owned

  by the city itself, some time ago, had been brief, sleeveless and gray, slashed

  to the waist. The collar worn by such slaves had been gray, matching the tunic,

  and it had been customary to lock about their left ankle a steel band, also

  gray, from which depended five small bells, also of gray metal. Fashions in such

  things tended to change, of course, even in normal times. For example, the

  hemlines might go up and down a bit, the garments might be accented or trimmed

  with color, or not, the number of bells on the ankle might be increased, say, to

  seven, or be returned to the original five, and so on. Currently, however, the

  garmenture of the state slaves, as one might have expected, given the defeat of

  Ar and the hegemony of Cos, had been considerably altered. No longer were the

  tunics slashed to the waist. Now the necklines were high, and about the throat.

  Similarly the hemlines had been considerably lowered, just above the knee. These

  alterations had been introduced to assist in the subjugation of the men of Ar,

  by seeking to depress their sexual vitality. Similarly, of course, no longer

  were the left ankles of the slaves belled. the sound of slave bells on a woman’s

  ankle tends to be sexually stimulating to a male. To be sure, of late, with the

  rise of the Delta Brigade, and the undercurrent of unrest in Ar, there seethed

  in the city, doubtless to the dismay of Cos, a surgency of male energies. As I

  have mentioned earlier, many masters, not, no longer sent their slaves

  unescorted about the city, until they had fastened them in the iron belt. The

  slave tunic of the state slave was still sleeveless, however. That is common

  with slave garments.

  I looked down at the new slave, who was lying on the (pg. 341) blanket, on the

  floor. I gestured that she should stand. When she had done so, I handed her the

  tunic. “Hold this against you,” I said.

  She did so, with both hands, closely, one above her breasts and one below.

  I regarded her.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “You could make a rock sizzle,” I said.

  She flushed. “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  I continued to regard her.

  She would be fetching, indeed, in that tunic. The Cosians, I thought, had to

  some extent miscalculated. Did they really think that the excitingness of a

  slave could be reduced by such a triviality as the addition of a few horts of

  material to a tunic? Did they not realize it would still be the single garment

  she wore, the one piece of cloth she was permitted, and that it would have no

  nether closure? And even more significantly did they not understand that her

  true excitingness did not depend on such things as a collar and a particularly

  sort of livery, as telling, and revealing and lovely, as these things were, but

  on her condition itself, that she was slave? That she was slave, the essence and

  perfection of the female, was what made her such an extraordinary, special,

  incomparable object of desire, and that would be so whether she were kneeling in

  a ta-teera, clad in an evening gown or concealed from head to toe in the dark

  haik of the Tahira, peeping out through a tiny screen of black lace. I then, in

  a moment, took back the garment, and dropped it to the side, where Phoebe had

  been working, near the small sewing basket there. I indicated that the slave

  might kneel and she did, her hands on her thighs, her knees in the appropriate

  position.

  Phoebe was now gasping at one side of the room.

  “Master?” said the new slave.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Was I pleasing?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you think another man might find me pleasing, as well?” she asked.

  “It is possible,” I said.

  “I am not now as stupid, or ignorant, as I was, am I?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I am a much better slave now, am I not?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I am grateful for my training,” she said.

  (pg. 342) “It is nothing,” I said.

  “It is my hope that I have profited from it,” she said.

  “You have,” I said, “considerably.”

  “Then you think I might not, under certain circumstances, at least, be found

  displeasing by another man?”

  “No,” I said.

  She put down her head, shyly.

  “I would not get my hopes up,” I said. “It is your business to obey me, and your

  primary objective, in the first phase of our operations, is merely to deliver

  the message.”

  “I understand, Master,” she said.

  “In the course of this delivery,” I said, “you may behave as you wish. That I

  leave to you.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, shyly.

  There was a sudden noise at the side of the room and I looked there, quickly.

  Marcus, turning, rolling. Phoebe locked in his arms, had struck into the wall

  there.

  “Approach me, on all fours,” I said to the new slave. She did so, dragging the

  ankle chain behind her.

  I indicated a flat leather box to one side. “Knee crawl,” I said. “Fetch it

  here.”

  She went to the box on her knees and picked it up, and returned to a place

  before me. It had been a simple knee crawl. I was briefly reminded, however, of

  the Turian knee walk, sometimes used by slave dancers. I considered the slave. I

  did not doubt but what she might be taught to dance.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “Give it to me,” I said.

  But I did not take it.

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Forgive me, Master!” she said.

  She then, kneeling before me, her knees widely spread, lifted and extended her

  arms, proffering me the box. Her head was down, between her lifted, extended

  arms.

  “It seem you still have much to learn,” I said.

  “Forgive me, Master,” sh
e said.

  I took the box.

  She then knelt back, her hands on her thighs, her head still bowed.

  “Your training will continue,” I said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “But it seems that perhaps it should be sharpened with the whip,” I said.

  “As master wishes,” she said, trembling.

  (pg. 343) The whip is an excellent mnemonic device. The girl who receives a

  lash, or lashes, for an error, seldom repeats it.

  “To all fours,” I said. “And stay here close, where I can reach you.”

  I then put out my hand and touched the collar on her neck. It was one of three

  collars I had for her. The other two, with their keys, were in the flat box. The

  collar on her neck bore the legend, “RETURN ME TO TARL AT THE INSULA OF TORBON.”

  I then removed the first of the other two collars from the box and, reaching

  out, put it on her neck, next to the other collar, but ahead of it, closer to

  the chin. I snapped it shut. It fit well. It was now on her, locked. Its legend

  read, “RETURN ME TO THE WHIP MASTER OF THE CENTRAL CYLINDER.” I then turned it

  and, inserting the key, opened it, and removed it from her neck. I then lifted

  the second collar form the box, putting the first, with the key, back in it.

  This second collar I then put on her neck, next to the original collar, and

  ahead of it, closer to the chin, as I had the one a moment before. Then I

  snapped it shut. It, too, fit well, and was now on her, locked. Its legend read,

  “RETURN ME TO APPANIUS OF AR.” I then let her remain that way for a little

  while, on all fours, in the two collars.

  Phoebe was moaning on one side. She turned her head from one side to the other,

  her eyes closed. She was delirious with pleasure, slave to her master.

  I then took the key to the second of the two collars which had been in the box,

  that which I had put most recently on her, the Appanius collar, and removed it

  from her neck. I put it back in the box, under the first collar. I dropped the

  key in the box. I closed the box.

  “Claim me!” wept Phoebe. “I beg it! I am your slave! Use me as the helpless

  vessel of your pleasure!”

  “Do not move,” I said to the new slave.

  She remained as she was, on all fours.

  “I yield me your slave!” wept Phoebe. “I yield me your slave!”