"Have you ever known anyone like Poalu?" I asked.
"Not exactly," he admitted.
"Where are you lazy men going?" asked Poalu.
"Home," said Imnak.
We began to trudge back toward Imnak's tent. It was some two hundred yards away. Ininak led the snow sleen, drawing the sled on the tundra, and I walked beside him. Thimble, Thistle and Arlene walked beside the sled.
"Imnak is a lazy fellow!" called Poalu. "Imnak cannot sing in the feasting house! Imnak cannot paddle a kayak! Imnak is a poor hunter!"
"I am getting angry," said Imnak to me.
"Red hunters do not get angry," I told him.
"Sometimes red hunters get angry," said Imnak.
"I did not know that," I said.
"Yes," said Imnak.
"Imnak is a lazy fellow! Imnak is a terrible hunter! I am fortunate not to be Imnak's woman. Pity the poor woman who goes to Imnak's tent! I am pleased that I am not going to his tent! I would not go to his tent for anything!"
"I have had enough," said Imnak suddenly.
"A man does have his pride," I said.
"It is unfortunate that I am so shy," said Imnak between gritted teeth.
"Yes," I said, "that is unfortunate."
Suddenly Imnak threw back his head and howled at the sky. He made a wild animal noise and, wheeling about, in his fur boots, sped rapidly back toward the tent of Kadluk.
"Let us continue on," I said to the girls. We continued on, toward Imnak's tent, not looking back. The snow sleen padded along behind us, drawing the sled over the trodden turf.
Behind us we heard cheering.
We did not look back until we came to the threshold of Ininak's tent.
A large crowd was approaching, yet in such a way as to give Imnak room. Leading the crowd, but seeming half in the midst of it, came Imnak. He was pulling a bent over, stumbling, screaming, fighting figure behind him, his hand in her hair. She wore feasting clothes.
At the opening to his tent he threw her over his shoulder. Her feet were then off the ground, and she was helpless. She could be carried wherever he chose, and placed wherever he chose to place her. He carried her inside the tent, and threw her to the furs at his feet.
She looked up at him in fury. She tried to get up, but he pushed her back down.
"You are wearing feasting clothes," he said. "Do you think you are going to a feast?"
She looked up at him.
"No," he said, "you are not going to a feast. You do not need to wear feasting clothes."
"Imnak," she said.
"Take them off, everything!" he said.
"Imnak," she cried.
"Now!" he said.
Frightened, she stripped herself, and crouched on the fur in his tent. Nudity is not unusual among the red hunters. But even for them it is a treat to see a girl as pretty as Poalu stripped naked. I suspected that we would have numerous guests in the house of Imnak.
Imnak then bound her wrists together before her body and pulled her to her feet. "Imnak!" she cried. He pulled her from the tent, stumbling, to the pole behind the tent, that from which tabuk meat was sometimes hung to dry. A few days ago Arlene had been tied to the pole. Imnak fastened Poalu's hands over her head and to the pole.
"Imnak!" she cried. "What are you going to do?"
Imnak, who had returned to the tent after fastening her in place, returned to the pole. He carried a sleen whip.
"Imnak," she cried, "what are you going to do?"
"Only one can be first," cried Imnak.
"Imnak!" she cried, struck.
The hunters and the women gathered about cheered Imnak on. He put the leather to her well.
Then she cried out, "It is Imnak who is first in his tent!" She shuddered in the straps that bound her. Then she was struck again. "Imnak is first!" she cried. "Imnak! Imnak!"
He thrust the whip in his belt.
He went before her, where she could see him. "You are first, Imnak," she wept. "I am your woman. Your woman wrn obey you. Your woman will do what you tell her."
"No, Imnak!" she cried.
"Aiii," cried a man in the crowd.
He tied bondage strings on her throat.
The men and women in the crowd roared their approval. They stomped on the turf. Some began to sing.
None, I think, had thought to see so rare and delicious a sight as bondage strings on the throat of the arrogant, fiery Poalu.
Her temper and sharp tongue, I think, had made many enemies among the red hunters and their women. There were few there I think who did not relish seeing her in bondage strings. She might now be beaten with impunity, and must obey free men and women.
"Now," said Kadluk, her father, "you will not come running home to the tent."
He rubbed his nose affectionately on the side of her face, patted her on the head and turned away.
"Father!" she cried.
"Do I hear the wind?" he asked, his back to her.
"Father!" she cried.
"Yes," he said, "I hear the wind." Then he left.
Indeed, she could not now go running home to the tent of her father. Imnak, if he wished, could slay her for such an act. She wore bondage strings.
The crowd began to dissipate, leaving Imnak and Poalu much alone.
"Why have you done this to me, Imnak?" asked Poalu.
"I wanted to own you," he said.
"I did not know a man could want a woman so much that he would want to own her," said Poalu.
"Yes," said Imnak.
"I did not know you would be strong enough to own me," she said.
"I am strong enough to own you," he said.
"Yes," she said, "it is true. I see in your eyes that it is true."
He said nothing.
"And you will own me?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"It is a strange feeling, being owned," she said. Imnak shrugged.
"I have loved you since we were children, Imnak," she whispered. "I have thought for years that I would someday be your woman. But I did not think, ever, that I would be your beast." She looked at him. "Will you truly make me obey you, Imnak?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
She smiled. "Your beast is not discontent," she said.
He touched her softly with his nose about the cheek and throat. It is a thing red hunters do. It is a very gentle thing, like smelling and nuzzling.
Then his hands were hard on her waist.
She looked up at him. `The lamp must be lit," she said, "and the water heated, that I may boil meat for supper."
"Supper may wait," he said.
He began to caress her, with tender, powerful caresses, gentle yet strong, possessive, commanding, as one may touch something which one owns and loves.
She began to breathe more swiftly. "Imnak," she whispered, "you may do what you want with a beast, and a beast must do, fully, what you want."
"That is known to me," he said.
"Oh, Imnak!" she cried. "Please! Please!"
Then her hands were untied from the pole, and freed, and she knelt at his feet. At his gesture, she, frightened, pressed her lips to his boots, and then looked up at him, waiting to be commanded.
He indicated that she should crawl to the tent. She did so, and he walked behind her, the whip now loose in his hand. I saw him thrust it, crossways, between her teeth and throw her back to the furs. She looked up at him, the whip clenched, in her teeth. This is a device which helps to keep a slave girl quiet in her ecstasies. She can then do little more than gasp and squirm.
Imnak looked about, and drew shut the flaps of the tent.
I gather that, later, he had, mercifully, removed the whip from her mouth, for I heard from the tent's interior the delicious ear-shattering scream of a slave girl yielding to her master.
Thimble and Thistle looked at one another. I saw in their eyes, though doubtless neither would have confessed it to the other, that they wished, each of them, that it was they, and not the new girl, in the a
rms of the male.
Arlene timidly reached forth to touch me. "Master," she said.
"Do you beg it?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said, "Arlene begs it. Arlene, who is your slave, begs it with all her heart."
"Very well," I said.
I took the slave girl in my arms. How delicious it is to do such a thing. How pleased I was to own her!
Thimble looked away. I saw Thistle, who had been the rich girl, Audrey Brewster, lips parted, look at me. Then she bit her lip and, too, looked away. I smiled to myself. Thistle, I thought, or Audrey, as I sometimes thought of her to myself, using that name now as a slave name, would probably be the first of the three girls to come to a full slavery. I recalled when she had, once, almost inadvertently, when wearing the yoke Thimble had put on her, when they had been going out to gather moss and grass, knelt to me. She, I had conjectured, would be the first of the three girls to come to a full slavery, or, as the Goreans sometimes put it, she would probably be the first to lick her chains.
"Master," whispered Arlene.
I began to kiss her about the face and throat and shoulders.
She clutched me. It was good to own her. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and hot, and mine. I suppose those who have not owned a woman cannot understand what a pleasure it is.
"Oh, Master, Master!" she whispered.
"Be quiet, Slave," I whispered, to her.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
15
Audrey
There is something nice about having a girl lying naked in your arms, who wears bondage strings on her throat.
"I have waited long for your touch, Master," whispered Thistle, who had once been the rich Audrey Brewster. I caressed the side of her face. She looked up at me. She was worth having.
I had won her use in the bone gambling, her use as complete slave, until I chose to leave the tent.
The hunt had gone well. Imnak and I had brought down four tabuk. Poalu, whom Imnak, with my consent, had made first girl, and the other girls, had followed us. Poalu had showed them how to cut the meat and lay it out on stones to dry.
All now slept in the tent, save Thistle and myself. "You were once Audrey Brewster," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"For purposes of my use of you," I said, "for I have full rights over you, I shall name you, for the tenure of my ownership of you, Audrey."
"Thank you, Master," she said.
"But you wear the name now," I said, "not as a free name, but as a slave name I choose to put on you."
"Oh," she said.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I am Audrey, your slave." She clutched me. "Why have you made me wait so long?" she asked.
"It pleased me," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I had wanted her to be well ready.
Two sleeps ago I had had to whip Arlene and Audrey apart. "Stay away from him!" had cried Arlene.
"I do not know what you are talking about," had protested Audrey.
"Do you think I cannot see you putting yourself before him, smiling, brushing his arm!" cried Arlene.
"Liar!" had cried Audrey.
"Do you deny it?" exclaimed Arlene.
"Of course!" cried Audrey.
Arlene had leapt upon her and, in an instant, both girls, scratching and tearing, biting, rolled on the tundra.
"He is my master, Slave!" screamed Arlene. She knelt over Audrey.
"If Imnak gives my use to him I must serve him!" cried Audrey.
"He has not given your use to him!" said Arlene. "Stay away from him!"
"Do not strike me!" cried Audrey.
"He is my master, not yours," said Arlene, her small fist raised. "Stay away from him!"
"I am a slave girl," said Audrey. "I must be pleasing to all free men!"
Arlene struck down at her and, suddenly, they again were locked together, tearing and scratching at one another on the trodden turf.
"Do not hurt me!" suddenly cried Arlene, she now on the bottom, Audrey kneeling over her.
"I am a slave. I will be pleasing to any free man I want," said Audrey.
"Slave!" screamed Arlene up at her.
"Slave!" screamed Audrey at Arlene.
Arlene squirmed free and again, together, they fought. I thought them extremely well matched slave beauties. Arlene might have been a little stronger. Either of them could have been severely bested by blond Thimble.
At last I, with a switch, fell upon them. "Oh," they cried. I took them, one hand in the hair of each, and threw them to their knees under the pole. "Strip and stand," I told them, "hands over head, wrists crossed, beneath the pole." They did so, and I fastened them in position, side by side.
"Now you are going to have us whipped," said Audrey to Arlene.
"Be quiet, Slave Girl," snapped Arlene.
Audrey began to cry.
I handed the switch to Thimble, who once had been Barbara Benson. "Discipline them," I said to her. "Twenty strokes to each."
"Yes, Master," had said Thimble.
I had then walked away. Arlene received the first stroke, Audrey the last.
I now looked into the eyes of Audrey, naked in my arms. "I have waited long for your touch, Master," she whispered. "I wait lovingly and eagerly to serve you."
"It is well," I said.
She kissed me delicately on the arm. Arlene could not now attack her. She must serve me, and serve me to the best of her abilities, superbly and obediently. Her use was now mine.
"You have won in the bone gambling before," she said. "Why did you wait so long to select me to serve you? Am I not pleasing to a master?"
"You are acceptable, Slave Girl," I said.
"I will try to be pleasing," she said.
Before, when I had won in the bone gambling, the dropping of the tiny figures of bone and ivory, I had, of intent, selected blond Thimble, whom I would, in the tenure of her service to me, name `Barbara', putting that name on her, though then of course as a slave name.
"I wanted to let the little pudding named Audrey simmer," I told her.
"You were cruel," she said.
Imnak, since he had acquired Poalu, had scarcely glanced at his two white-skinned slave beasts. It was not that he had meant to be cruel. It was rather that he was simply otherwise occupied. And even had he thought of it, their deprivation would not have been of concern to him, for they were only animals.
Both girls would kneel to one side, stripped, awaiting the outcome of the bone gambling. Sometimes I won, and sometimes Imnak won. When Imnak won he might have the use of Arlene, if he chose, or a tabuk steak. Not unoften, to my amusement and Arlene's outrage, Imnak would select the steak. As I explained to her this was not because there was anything intrinsically lacking in her but because Imnak had eyes only, or generally, for Poalu. He was usually anxious to get his little red slave into the furs. His little slave was forced to compensate him well, indeed, a thousandfold and more, for the frustrating years of her freedom and arrogance. Interestingly, too, she did not seem to mind.
Both Barbara and Audrey had knelt to the side, awaiting the outcome of the sport.
Since the coming of Poalu to the tent life had become hard for them. It was not that Poalu, though she was first girl, and firm, was cruel to them, but rather simply that Imnak now had little time for them and paid them scant attention.
Unfortunately, before the coming of Poalu to the tent, both girls had been brought to the second stage of slavery. The first stage is knowing they must obey, the second stage is needing the touch of a man.
Imnak now seldom touched them.
Their needs, accordingly, were much on them.
Freedom permits a woman to live without men. Slavery makes a woman need a man's touch. The sexuality of a free woman is largely inert; the sexuality of a slave girl, on the other hand, has been deliberately and seriously activated. Men, as it has pleased them, have done this to her. They have, as masters, c
areless of the consequences of their actions, awakened the poor girl's sexuality; it can never then, regardless of the torment and misery it may inflict upon her, return to sleep. It has been made hot and alive. She is no longer free; her freedom is gone; she is now only an ignited slave. Sexuality is a glory in a slave girl which sets her apart from free women, but it is also a force within her which she must fear, for it puts her so helplessly at the mercy of masters. The aroused sexuality of the slave girl is surely the strongest of the chains with which she is bound. Some slave girls, lovely fugitives, have been recaptured simply because they have thrown themselves whimpering at the feet of a man on a road, begging his touch, One of the most humiliating things that can occur to a slave girl is to find herself on her belly, unbidden, moaning, crawling to the feet of a hated master. She puts her lips to his feet. "I beg your touch, Master," she says.
John Norman - Gor 12 Page 29
