Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “Take me!” she cried. “I beg you to take me!”

  “I wonder if I should force you to yield,” I said.

  “I beg to yield!” she wept.

  “Mother!” cried the girl.

  “But your daughter is present,” I reminded her.

  “I beg to yield!” she wept. “I beg to yield!”

  “No, Mother!” cried the girl. “Do not permit him to so degrade you!”

  “Be silent,” wept the mother. “He has put me in his power.”

  “When you are instructed to do so,” I said, “you will yield.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Do not yield, Mother!” cried the girl.

  “You will now yield,” I told her.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  * * * *

  I now rolled again in my blankets. It was an Ahn or so until dawn. I must try to catch a bit of sleep. I felt content. I felt good. The female on the bench had now been returned to the common chain. She had been the last placed on that bench this night. When I had finished with her I had sat for a few Ehn on the bench, beside her, and had put my hand down before her. She had licked and kissed it, in gratitude, the padlock on her collar moving gently on the marble. I gathered that she had desperately needed what I had done to her. This was particularly interesting, as she was not even, as yet, a slave.

  “What a slut you are!” the daughter whispered chidingly, angrily, to her mother. Her mother now lay near her, on her side, her legs drawn up.

  “Yes, my daughter,” said the mother.

  “You were like a slave!” said the daughter.

  “I will soon be a slave, truly,” said the mother, “and so, too, do not forget, will you, my darling daughter.”

  “I do not respect you any longer,” said the daughter. “You do not deserve respect any longer.”

  “I do not ask for your respect,” said the woman. “Neither do I need it, nor any longer want it. There are things better and deeper than respect. That I have now learned. Too, when we are both enslaved, neither of us will be entitled to that commodity. Our conditions then, I assure you, will be far deeper and more biological than respect. I ask, rather, your understanding, and a little love.”

  “I hate you!” cried the girl.

  “As you will,” said the woman.

  Suddenly the daughter lashed out and struck her. The mother cried out, softly, and drew her legs up more, but did not attempt to defend herself, nor to return the blow.

  “Hateful slut!” hissed the daughter.

  “Is it so hard for you to understand that I, like you, am a female,” asked the mother, “only that, and one now, like you, naked, and in a collar?”

  “Slut!” hissed the daughter.

  “Are you angry,” asked the woman, “that some men might prefer me to you?”

  “No!” said the daughter, intensely.

  “Did you wish it was you, and not I, who was chained on your belly on the bench, helplessly put out for the pleasure of strangers?”

  “No!” she said, angrily.

  “Are you truly so jealous of me?” asked the woman.

  “No, no!” said the daughter, almost crying out, wildly.

  “Be silent,” said another woman on the chain. “You will get us all whipped.”

  “Mother,” whispered the girl. “I am chained, and naked, and afraid.”

  “Of course you are, my dear,” said the woman. She then sat up. “Come here, sweet,” she said. She took her daughter gently in her arms, and held her head against her shoulder.

  “What is to become of us?” asked the girl.

  “We are to become slaves,” said the woman softly, kissing her gently on the side of the head.

  “Men will have their way with us, fully,” whispered the girl.

  “Of course,” said the mother.

  “We will exist merely for their service and pleasure,” said the girl.

  “Yes,” said the mother, kissing her.

  “I want it, Mother,” whispered the girl.

  “I know,” said the mother, soothingly.

  “How terrible I am,” whispered the girl.

  “No, no, you are not,” smiled the mother, caressing the girl’s head.

  “Are we slaves, Mother?” asked the girl.

  “Yes,” said the mother, kissing her. “Now, rest.”

  “I love you, Mother,” said the girl.

  “I love you, too, very much,” said the mother.

  “Good night, Mother,” whispered the girl, “261.”

  “Good night, 437,” said the woman gently, “my daughter.”

  * * * *

  I awakened to the hand of Mincon on my shoulder. “It is time to rise,” he said.

  I sat up in the blankets. I glanced over to where the fair prisoners had been kept. They were gone now. They had been moved out.

  Mincon handed me a packet of letters. “Here,” he said. “They are all here.”

  “How do you know I am going to carry them?” I asked.

  “Are you not?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, and thrust them into my tunic.

  “I have had your weapons, and other things, brought,” he said. “Do you have the claim ticket for Feiqa?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is in my wallet.”

  “Most of the other girls have already been picked up,” he said.

  “Surely it is still early,” I said.

  “Not really, my friend,” he said. “Even Hurtha is up.”

  “That late?” I marveled. It was well known that Hurtha often slept past dawn. To be sure I occasionally permitted myself a similar indulgence, particularly after a pleasant evening with drink and slaves.

  “Yes,” said Mincon. “He and Boabissia are waiting for you, outside.”

  “I must speak to them,” I said. “It is necessary to inform them of the dangers we might face. They might not wish to accompany me.”

  “I have already spoken to them,” said Mincon. “Boabissia is determined to go to Ar. It seems she seeks there the answer to some mystery pertaining to her past. Hurtha, too, naturally, is undeterred.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “He seeks adventure,” said Mincon.

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  “He likes you,” said Mincon.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Mincon. “He appreciates finding someone who listens gladly to his poetry.”

  “Gladly?” I asked.

  “He has already composed a poem this morning,” said Mincon. “He considers it a humorous poem. It is a jolly teasing of folks who sleep late.”

  “Hurtha is composing such a poem?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Mincon. “Too, aside from adventure, and such, I think he regards himself as being on Alar business.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “He plans on scouting out the territories of Ar, to see if they are worth seizing by Alars.”

  “I think he does not quite understand what is involved,” I said.

  “True,” said Mincon.

  “I will pick up Feiqa,” I said.

  “Your things are over there,” said Mincon.

  In a few moments I was descending the outside steps of the Semnium, Feiqa heeling me, carrying my pack.

  “Tal, Rarius!” called Hurtha, heartily.

  “Tal, Rarius,” I said to him.

  “Greetings,” said Boabissia.

  “Greetings,” I said to her. She seemed to me very pretty this morning, smiling, in the long Alar dress. I think she was wearing it a little differently. I think she had corded it a bit more snugly. Clearly the delights of her figure were more evident now within it. Perhaps I should speak to her about that. She might not realize what that sort of thing might do to men, how it might stimulate and affect them, particularly strong men. Ever since we had set her out for the fellows at the wagon camp, making some coppers on her, a subtle change had seemed to come over her, indeed, a sort of trans
formation was becoming more and more evident every day. She seemed to be becoming more radiant, and female. I noted she even wore the yellow metal disk on her neck, on its thong, a bit more snugly than she had before. The thong was looped twice about her neck now.

  “I wish you well, all of you,” said Mincon.

  We bade him farewell.

  “Even you, pretty, enslaved Feiqa,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said. “And I, too, wish you well.”

  Mincon then motioned to a guard. The man approached. Mincon spoke to him as though we might be strangers, unknown to him, just emerged from the Semnium. “Put these civilians with the others,” he said. “Usher them forth, with the others, from the city.”

  “Move,” said the guard, going behind us, prodding us with his spear. “Over there. Get over there, with the others.”

  “Do not resist,” I said to Hurtha.

  “Very well,” he said, agreeably.

  “Oh!” said Feiqa, suddenly. The guard had apparently, for his amusement, touched her with the spear blade, probably putting it between her legs and moving it upward, brushing it against the interior of her thigh.

  As we passed another guard she cried out, again, softly. He had apparently lifted her brief skirt with the blade of his sword, considering her. Then we were with the larger group.

  “Master,” said Feiqa.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Let it be you,” she said.

  I regarded her. I saw that the attentions she had received had much aroused her, the merciless weapon metal of men about her legs and belly. Her needs were much upon her. She had passed the night alone, a checked item, awaiting a morning pickup, on a holding chain. Such attentions as she had received, particularly when they literally touch the body, are sometimes called the caresses of the master’s steel.

  She shuddered, facing away from me, hearing the draw of my steel. She stood very straight. She was quite pretty. I waited for a few moments, and then touched her, and then, after a time, lifted her skirt, that she could feel the air upon her, and then, after a longer time, when I was pleased to do so, let it fall. “Please, Master,” she begged. “Perhaps tonight,” I said. “All right,” said a voice. “Now, move, all of you!” I resheathed the steel and, with Hurtha and Boabissia, now again followed by Feiqa, moved with the throng down the Avenue of Adminius toward the great gate of Torcadino.

  “How terrible it must be to be a slave,” said Boabissia, “and have to submit to whatever men choose to do to you.”

  I did not respond.

  “Don’t you think so?” she asked.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “Like having your body touched with their steel,” she said, “as poor, dear little Feiqa.”

  “I did not realize you were so solicitous for her,” I said.

  “She is a sweet little slave,” said Boabissia, condescendingly.

  Feiqa, behind us, made a tiny, angry noise. She had been, of course, at one time, before being collared, a free woman of high station, of the city of Samnium. This word, incidentally, is, in effect, the same word as ‘Semnium’, although in the western coastal dialects it is commonly pronounced as I have given the spelling here. Its original meaning is apparently “Meeting Place,” and its application to a building, or a hall for the meeting of councils, is, it seems, a later development. In Feiqa’s opinion, of course, Boabissia, having come from the Alar camp, was little better, if any better, than a simple barbarian.

  “Did you say something, Feiqa?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” she said, quickly, humbly. She did not want to be beaten.

  “The touching of the naked body of the slave with steel,” I said, “helps her to understand that she is subject to the master in all things, totally.”

  “I suppose you are right,” said Boabissia.

  “Conceive of it touching your body,” I said, “particularly as you might have to wait for it, expecting it, and knowing it was to come, and that you had to submit to it, the cool, cruel touch of it, the caress of it, and as you might be bound, or chained.”

  “Yes, perhaps,” said Boabissia, uneasily.

  “Sometimes slaves oil much more quickly after such a touch,” I said.

  “‘Oil’?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What a horrid expression,” she said.

  “Not at all,” I said. “It is an intimate, wonderful, exciting, succulent expression. Her body is being prepared for use.”

  “‘Use’!” she said.

  “Of course,” I said. “She is a slave.”

  “That is true,” granted Boabissia.

  “And the intimate and exciting odors attendant upon such oilings, those of the helplessly aroused female, prepared for the master’s use, are quite stimulatory to a male.”

  “Doubtless,” she said.

  “And so,” I said, “it is not uncommon that after such a touch, the caress of the master’s steel, that the slave, cognizant then of her utter helplessness and the master’s power, and her complete dependence upon his mercies, that she is totally and absolutely under his domination, yields to him quickly and lusciously.”

  “I see,” she said. Momentarily she trembled.

  We continued to move along the Avenue of Adminius. There were some two or three hundred of us. We were some two-thirds of the way, or so, back in the group. This seemed to me a good position. I thought it possible that any guards who might have the duty of supervising our exit from the city, or perhaps the duties of inspecting or searching us, might, given the numbers involved, be somewhat lax or a bit less diligent in their efforts by the time we reached them, and we were not so far back that, the guards perhaps perking up, the end of the group in sight, we might find ourselves the target of some burst of compensatory ardor. We were now beyond the lines of suspended bodies outside the Semnium. I was not sorry to leave them behind me.

  We continued to move slowly along the avenue, toward the great gate.

  I saw a naked slave girl kneeling to one side, at the side of a building, on the stones, her hands chained behind her to a slave ring. About her neck hung a sign on which was written, “Free for Use.” As our eyes met she swiftly lowered her head.

  “Keep moving,” said a guard.

  Such women had apparently been put out as a municipal convenience, and to help keep order in the city. She might also, of course, have been put out for punishment, but, given the current conditions in the city, that seemed unlikely.

  “What a slut,” said Boabissia.

  “A pretty one,” I said. “And free for use, too.”

  “I wish they would not put them out like that,” she said.

  “Do you object to public drinking fountains?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But that is different.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Men are beasts, and seeing such women may get ideas. Perhaps free women would be less safe.”

  “The existence of such women on Gorean streets, particularly in times of stress,” I said, “tends to keep free women safer.”

  She was silent.

  “It is true,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Few men will trouble themselves to steal a dried crust of bread, perhaps even at great personal risk, if a free banquet is set forth for them. To be sure, some men are unusual.”

  “I am not a dried crust of bread,” she said, irritably.

  “It is only a figure of speech,” I said.

  “I am not a dried crust of bread,” she said.

  “You are a free woman,” I said.

  “If I chose to be, if I were in the least interested in that sort of thing,” she said, “I could prove to be a quite—a quite tasty pudding for a man.”

  “‘Tasty pudding’?” I asked, pleased to hear her speak in this way.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That is a common misconception of untrained free women,” I said.
“They think themselves attractive and skilled, when they know little of attractiveness and almost nothing of skill.”

  “Skill?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “There is more in pleasing a man than taking off your clothes and lying down.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, irritably.

  “Indeed,” I said, “sometimes you do not take off your clothes, and you do not lie down.”

  “I see,” she said, angrily.

  “Perhaps you could get lessons from Feiqa,” I said.

  “Oh, no, please, Master!” cried Feiqa, fearfully. “Please, no!”

  I smiled. I did not think, under the circumstances, it would be necessary to beat her. It had, after all, been a joke on my part, a capital one. To be sure, not everyone appreciates my splendid sense of humor. Boots Tarsk Bit had not always done so, as I recalled.

  “That would be absurd,” said Boabissia, angrily.

  “Yes, Mistress!” said Feiqa, quickly.

  “To be sure,” I said to Boabissia, “you are in somewhat greater danger than many free women for you have not chosen to veil yourself.”

  “Alar women do not wear veils,” she said. “They are an artifice of civilization, fit rather for perfumed girls who would be better off in collars.”

  “You are not an Alar woman,” said Hurtha.

  “I grew up with the wagons,” she said, angrily.

  “That is true,” he admitted, it seemed almost reluctantly. I supposed if Hurtha had encountered Boabissia under somewhat different circumstances his relationship to her would have been considerably different, for example, if he had bought her in a slave market. Her background with the wagons had perhaps, rightly or wrongly, inhibited him somewhat, I feared, keeping him from viewing her as what she essentially was, a rather juicy possibility for a female.

  “You do want to be safe, don’t you?” I asked Boabissia.

  “Of course, of course,” she said, irritably.

  “Then perhaps you should not object to the occasional chaining out of slaves,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” she said.