by John Norman
"Gag her," said Targo.
I was gagged. My wrists were not unbound, they fearing perhaps I would have torn at the ring. Perhaps I might have.
A guard, not much pleased with me, dragged me stumbling, eyes filled with tears, moaning with misery, from the platform. He threw me, half stumbling, into the wall, among the other girls. I struck the wall, and slid down it, to my knees. I could not believe what had been done to me. Everything almost went black again. I shuddered and shook, tears running from my eyes, leaning against the wall. "Next!" had called the leather worker.
Ute, who was looking at me with puzzlement, as were the other girls, rose to her feet and went obediently to the block.
When she returned, she, too, wore a tiny, steel ring in her nose. There were tears in her eyes. "It smarts," she said to Inge.
I looked at Ute, piteously. Could she not see what had been done to me, to me! Ute came to me and took me by the shoulders, and I sobbed against her, uncontrollably.
"Do not cry, El-in-or," she said.
I pressed my head against her shoulder.
She held my head to her shoulder.
"I do not understand, El-in-or, " she said. "The most terrible thing you do not mind. You are then very brave. And they you cry about a little nose ring. It is not like having your ears pierced."
"El-in-or is a coward," said Rena of Lydius. "Next!" called the leather worker.
Rena rose to her feet and went to the platform.
The piercing of the ears is far more terrible," said Ute. "Nose rings are nothing. They are even pretty. In the south even the free women of the Wagon Peoples wear nose rings." She held me more closely. "Even free women in the south," she insisted, " the free women of the Wagon Peoples, wear nose rings." She kissed me. "Besides," she said, "it may be removed, and no will ever know that you wore it. It will not show." Then Ute's eyes clouded with tears. I looked at the tiny steel rods holding open the wounds in her ears. She wept. "How can I ever hope to become a Free Companion," she wept. "What man would want a woman with the pierced ears of a slave girl? And if I were not veiled, anyone might look upon me, and laugh, and scorn me, seeing that my ears had been pierced, as those of a slave girl!"
I shook my head, and against pressed my head into her shoulder. I understood nothing. I knew only I, Elinor Brinton, once of Park Avenue, once of the restaurants and boulevards of New York and the continent, now wore in my nose a tiny ring of steel.
Inge went next to the platform, her hands still bound behind her back, that she not disturb the tiny rods in her ears. She submitted to the fixing of the ring gracefully.
She did say to Targo. "But I am of the scribes."
He said to the leather worker. "Put the ring in her nose."
She did not protest.
Lana went next to the platform. When she returned, she threw back her head, and placed her hands behind her head. "Is it not pretty?" she asked.
"It would be more beautiful if it were of gold," said Rena of Lydius. "Of course," said Lana.
"But it is pretty," said Inge to Lana. "You are so beautiful, Lana." Lana smiled.
Inge looked at her timidly. "Am I pretty?" she asked. "Yes," granted Lana, "the ring is prettya€”and you are pretty." Inge looked at her gratefully.
"What of me?" asked the Lady Rena of Lydius.
"You are beautiful," said Inge.
I did not lift my head from Ute's shoulder. I did not want anyone to see. One after the other of the girls went to the platform.
Afterwards we were fed. Inge and I were unbound, and I was ungagged. We knelt in a circle, eating from the wooden bowls of bread and stew. We were given no utensils. Our fingers served to pick out meat and bread, and the gravy we drank. The girls chatted, and most seemed to have forgotten the ordeal of the morning. If they had not forgotten it, there was very little they could do about it. Further, they knew that with their ears pierced, they might bring a somewhat higher price, and thus, perhaps, obtain a somewhat better-fixed master. Some prudish slavers, scandalized by ear piercing, refused to have it done to their girls, but Targo, doubtless because of the gold involved, had insisted upon it. Many Gorean men apparently find pierced ears in a girl extremely provocative. Craftsmen of the metal workers, men specializing in the working of gold and silver, were concerned to work out new forms of jewelry for slave females. It was said that a year ago in Ar, Marlenus, Ubar of that city, had created a sensation at a banquet given for his high officers, by presenting a slave-girl dancer before them who, though she was not in his private pleasure gardens or compartments, he had had put in earrings. Today, however, better than a year later, it was not uncommon to see a slave girl wearing, and insolently, such jewelry, even in public.
I had no objection to earrings. Indeed, if I could find an attractive pair, or pairs, I was confident I could wear them to my advantage, to please a master, to perhaps obtain my way, to perhaps help me dominate him. If I could not engage his affections, I would have him then, would I not, at my mercy? I would bend my efforts to do so, and when I had done so then I might, by granting, or refusing to grant, my favors, or the fervor of my favors, control him and, though I wore the collar, own Him! How else could a woman fight on Gor? She is not as strong as a man! She is at their mercy. The entire culture puts her at his feet. Well I was beautiful enough, and intelligent enough, to fight, and surely to win! I was truly a slave girl, and that I knew, but my master would learn that a slave girl could be a dangerous foe. I would conquer him. So I mused. The only thing that I did not take into my considerations was the Gorean male. He is unlike the men of Earth, on the whole so weak and pliable, so reasonable, so compromising, so much in need of recognition and affection, or its pretense. The only thing I failed to take into my calculations was that the Gorean male, whether by culture or genetic endowment, is unlike the typical man of Earth. He, unlike the typical man of Earth, though not unlike all, is a natural master of women. There was a time in my life when I would not have understood this, or how it could be. There was surely a time in my life when I could not have believed this, when I would have found it preposterous, absurd, incomprensible, false. But at that time I had not been brought to this world. At that time I had not been in the arms of a Gorean male.
"Eat," urged Ute.
I had scarcely touched the stew in the wooden bowl.
"We will wear the nose rings," said Ute, "until our training is finished. Then, when we leave Ko-ro-ba, they will be removed.
"Where did you hear this?" I asked. There are often rumors carried about the pens and cages.
"I heard Targo telling one of the guards," she whispered, looking about. "Good," I said. I reached into the bowl. No one ever need know that Elinor Brinton, of Park Avenue, had once had a steel ring fixed in her nose. Pleased, I joined Ute in eating.
Afterwards, after we had been hooded and taken to our private training pens in Ko-ro-ba, I trained well.
It was well I had eaten, for the work was difficult. Perhaps Targo wished to take our minds from the events of the morning. In the evening, at the private pens, we were fed well and our group, myself, Ute, Inge and Lana, were among those groups given pastries following our meal.
I was pleased with my performance. It was right that we should be rewarded. I was, indeed, rather pleased with my performance in general.
Sometimes I was irritated by the instructor, herself a slave, when she would commend me. "See," she would say to the other girls. "That is how it is done! That is how the body of a slave girl moves!" but I wanted to learn, that I might use my skills to enhance my fortunes on Gor. As a warrior applies himself to the arts of his weapons, so I applied myself to the arts of the female slave, which I was. I became sleek and more beautiful from the diet and the exercises. I learned things of which I had not dreamed. Our training, because it was limited to a few short weeks, did not include many of the elements that are normally included in a full training. I remained ignorant of Gorean cooking and the cleaning of Gorean garments. I learned nothing of mu
sical instruments. I remained ignorant even of the arrangements of small rugs, decorations and flowers, things that any Gorean girl, slave or free, it likely to know. But I was taught to dance, and to give pleasure, and to stand, and move, and sit and turn, and lift my head and lower it, and kneel, and rise. Interestingly, and sometimes not altogether to my pleasure, I found the training becoming effective. In the early evening of the day on which our nose rings had been affixed I was returning to my cage, after having run an errand for Targo in the pens. I was one of his favorites, and he often used me for his errands. As I passed by a guard, as a slave girl passes a man, he seized me by the arm and held me, almost jerking me off my feet, pulling me to him. "You are learning to move, Slave, he said. I was frightened. Then I was not frightened. I pulled slightly against his arm as though I might be frightened, but could not hope to elude him. And indeed, of course, I could not have, in fact, eluded him, even had I cared to do so. He, being a man, was quite strong enough, as I knew, to do with me what he might please. How I resented the strength of men! I looked up at him, timidly. "Perhaps, Master," I whispered, lips timidly parted, slightly smiling, keeping my ankles together, and moving my body slightly away from him, but my shoulders pointing towards him.
"She-sleen," he said.
He grinned.
He took the nose ring between his thumb and first finger and lifted it. I stood painfully on my toes.
"You are a pretty slave," he said.
"I am white silk," I whispered, now frightened, truly frightened.
He released the ring and reached for me. "What does it matter?" he said. I backed away from him, and turned and, stumbling, striking into the wall of cages, fled down the hall. I am afraid I did not flee as a lovely slave girl. I fled clumsily, terrified, as an Earth girl fleeing from a Gorean male. I heard him laugh behind me, and stopped. He had been having sport with me. I turned and looked at him in irritation.
He clapped his hands and took a step toward me, and I turned and fled stumbling away again, hearing his laughter in the hallway behind me.
But in a moment or two I had regained my composure.
When I reached the cage I was well pleased with myself. I had attracted the guard. He had wanted me. He, of course, would not have taken me, for fear of the wrath of Targo, but I had no doubt of his desire. I shuddered. If it had not been for Targo he doubtless would have taken me, on the cement flooring, before the bars. But still, on the whole, I was quite pleased. I knew that I was desirable. I knew that I was very desirable. I was an exciting slave. I was proud. I was much pleased.
Ute and Inge asked Lana and I to help clean the cage that night but we, as usual, refused. That was the work of lesser girls. Lana and I were more valuable than Ute and Inge, or so we thought. The three of us might have forced Lana to help, but then I would have had to work, too. I realized that if I joined with Lana, thought I did not care for her, they could not force either of us to work. Since Ute and Inge were insistent that the cage be cleaned, this unpleasant task thus fell regularly to them. I liked a clean cage. I just did not wish to clean it. Lana and I, that night, thought them fools, and, satisfied with ourselves, went to sleep on the straw.
I was pleased that I was exciting. I touched the nose ring. I resented it. In the morning I would have even more reason to resent it. I became drowsy. I was pleased that I was exciting, and was pleased, too, that the hated nose ring would be removed before we left Ko-ro-ba. I rolled over, closing my eyes. Ko-ro-ba, I thought, Ko-ro-ba. I was drowsy. We had approached the city in the early morning and Targo had permitted us to leave the wagons to look upon it, in the morning sun. The city, the sun reflecting on its walls and towers, was very beautiful. It is sometimes called The Towers of the Morning, and perhaps justifiably so. I rolled again to my other side, shutting my eyes. But there was little beauty in the pens, with their heavy blocks of stone and stout bars, and straw, and the smells. I then fell asleep, pleased that I was exciting, forgetting even the nose ring. As I feel asleep I thought that Ute and Inge were busying themselves in the cage, cleaning it.
Ute was such a sweet, stupid little thing. And Inge, too.
But, as it turned out, they did not clean the cage that night.
* * *
"Awaken, Slaves!"
I felt a sharp pain in my nose, excruciating.
I was instantly awake. I heard Lana cry out with pain. I jerked my head and felt another sharp pain.
"Keep your hands at your sides," commanded Ute.
Lana and I had been thonged together by the nose rings. In our sleep it had been done. A thong had been passed through the two rings and then knotted. The knotted, double thong that fastened us together was only about a foot long. Lana and I faced one another. Ute's small fist was securely fastened on the thong.
Lana tried to reach the thong. Ute twisted it. Lana squeaked with pain. I, too, cried out, for the same thong bound me. Then Lana, tears in her eyes, had her hands down at her sides, obediently. I did, too. We dared not move. "Ute!" I protested.
She twisted the thong, and I cried out in misery.
"Be silent, Slave," said Ute, pleasantly enough.
I was silent, and so, too, was Lana.
Ute jerked us to our feet and we wept with pain. Our hands, our clenched fists, remained at our sides.
"Place your hands behind your backs," recommended Ute. Lana and I looked at one another.
Ute gave the thong a twist.
We cried out and did as we were told.
Inge then came forward with two small thongs, probably wheedled from a guard. I felt my wrists tied behind my back. Then Lana's wrists were similarly secured. "Kneel, Slaves," said Ute.
Lana and I looked at one another in fury. Her fist never left the thong. "You may call the guard," she said, "for brushes and water, and fresh straw." "Never!" said Lana.
There was a sharp twist on the thong.
"I'll call him," I cried. "Please! Please!"
"Which one of you chooses to work first?" asked Ute.
Lana looked at me. "Let El-in-or," she said.
"Let Lana," I said.
"El-in-or will work first, said Ute.
The guard brought fresh straw, and water in a leather bucket, and a heavily bristled brush.
My hands were unbound and, on my hands and knees, I began to gather the soiled, stinking straw.
"Be careful!" cried Lana. It had hurt me, too. Lana was left bound, and we were left thonged by the nose rings. It was clumsy work.
I cleaned one half of the cage, taking out the used straw and scrubbing the plating. Ute would not let me shirk. I had to scrub my section of the plating twice. My knees hurt. At last my half of the cage was clean and I spread fresh straw there. Then I was rebound and Lana was unbound, and set to her work, cleaning the other half of the cage. On my hands and knees, wrists tied behind my back, my nose ring linked to Lana's by the thong, I followed her about, as she had me. At last her work was done. She, too, was forced to scrub her portion of the cage twice. Her wrists were then rebound. Ute then took us to the bars at the front of the cage and, unknotting the thong, passed it around two of the bars and reknotted it, over one of the crossbars, about two and a half feet above the floor plating. She then left us there.
"Ute," I begged, "please let us go."
"Please," wheedled Lana.
We squirmed, but were secured.
On the outside of the bars, slave girls, and guards, passed by, on their way to the morning feeding. They laughed at us. It was well known in the pens that we had shirked the cleaning of our cage. I was humiliated. Even Lana, then, did not seem so lofty and clever, kneeling bound by the bars, for the inspection of all, thonged to them by a nose ring.
When the cage was unlocked, Ute and Inge went to breakfast. Lana and I remained behind.
When Ute and Inge returned Lana and I had had enough of this misery. "Lana will work," promised Lana.
"If you do not," warned Ute, "next time it will not go so easily with you." Lana nodded. She
was strong, but she knew that in a slave cage, one is at the mercy of one's cage mates. Ute and Inge had demonstrated their power. "And you, El-in-or?" inquired Ute, pleasantly.
I hated Ute!
"El-in-or, too, will work," I said. "Good," said Ute. Then she kissed Lana and myself. "Let us now release these slaves," she said to Inge. Ute and Inge freed us.
"It is time to leave for the private pens, for morning training," said the guard, passing by.
Lana and I got to our feet and looked at Ute and Inge. We would not again shirk our work.
* * *
One day slipped into another in the pens of Ko-ro-ba. Four days after we had had ours ears pierced the leather worker returned to the pens and removed the tiny threaded rods with the disks from our ears. Behind remained the tiny, almost invisible punctures in our ear lobes, ready for whatever jewelry a master might decide to fix in them. The nose rings would not be removed until the day before our departure from the pens. We were pierced-eared girls, among the most exciting of slaves.
Day followed day, and round followed round of feedings, exercisings and training periods. One day seemed much like another, save that our lessons increased in length and complexity. I found it necessary now to apply my full attention and intelligence to master the increasingly subtle and intricate skills of a female slave. The slave mistress would switch me, and the others, when we failed. I noted the change and the improvement in the other girls. We were learning, we were increasing our skills. Even Inge! I watched her, in the training sand, dancing to hide drums, naked, in slave bracelets and jeweled dancing collar. She did not then appear to be of the blue-robed, studious scribes. She was only a naked, dancing slave girl, exciting, writhing in the sand, her body throbbing to the beat of a man's pleasure drums. I wondered if a scribe would buy her. I supposed if one did, she would pretend to be a shy girl, once of the scribes herself. But what if he should command her to perform? Would he not be astonished to find what he had purchased, a girl suddenly forced to reveal herself as a wild slave, exquisitely trained to please the senses of a master? I now saw Inge as a rival. But I resolved to best her. I could be even a more superb slave that she! Ute, of course, was incredible, superb. She would doubtless bring a high price. But I thought that I would bring a higher. It also interested me, even astonished me, to see the fervor and skill brought to her training by the refined Lady Rena of Lydius. She knew that she had already, in effect, been purchased, but she did not know who her master might be. Since her ears had been pierced she was terrified that she might not please him. She trained with almost piteous ardor. She had been a free woman; she was now a female slave, the ease of whose life and whose fortunes would now depend entirely on her capacity to be pleasing to those who might capture or purchase her, those who would own her. Lana and I, incidentally, were, by general admission, and the indications of our instructor, the finest of the slaves of our lot. Try as I would I could never best her. I hated her. But though I was not as good as Lana, I had little reason to be ashamed of my advances in the arts of the female slave. I was almost flawlessly superb. I would bring a high price. I was proud. In acknowledgment of my skills, perhaps Lana began to take me into her confidence, and though I hated her, I became her friend. We spent more time together, and I talked less with stupid Ute and skinny Inge. Lana and I were the best, the very best!
