Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  I then returned to my own table. Louise was still there, kneeling. I had not yet dismissed her.

  “Am I dismissed, Master?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  She gasped.

  “Are you any good on a mat?” I asked.

  “But you are of Earth,” she said. “And I am of Earth! I am from Earth! You are from Earth! We are both from Earth! You could not for a moment be thinking—!”

  “Fetch a slave whip,” I said.

  She uttered a cry of misery and regarded me in disbelief. Then she leapt to her feet and hurried away.

  Did she really think the men of Earth were different from other men? Was she unaware of the pervasiveness of male dominance amongst mammalian species?

  To be sure, this matter had doubtless been omitted from her education.

  Did she really think that there were not millions upon millions of men on Earth who would not desire to have her so in their power, who would not relish seeing her in a slave collar, who would not delight in seeing her at their feet, who would not rejoice to sip and savor the wines of her bondage, who would not wish to avail themselves of the renewable fruits from her lovely orchard, who would not enjoy having her harnessed to their cart?

  Rather let her understand herself as the natural quarry of the hunter, the fit booty of the corsair, the warrior’s reward, the conqueror’s prize, the master’s slave, nature’s gift to the male.

  Let her dispute this matter, if she would, not with men, but with nature.

  In a moment she had returned and knelt before me. She put down her head, as she had doubtless been taught, in submission. She then, lifting and extending her arms, her head still humbly down between them, lifted her hands to me. The backs of the wrists faced me. This was rather as in several common submission ceremonies. With the backs of the hands in this position it is easier to pull them together and tie them. Indeed, in most of these submission ceremonies the wrists are presented already crossed to the male, so that he may the more conveniently lash them together. Every Gorean woman, incidentally, slave or free, is taught by the age of puberty how to render submission. Her life might depend on it. Now, however, held in these small, lovely hands, her hands about ten inches apart on it, lifted to me, there was an object.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “I bring you a slave whip, Master,” she said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Use it on me,” she said, “if I do not please you.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Louise,” she said.

  “Again,” I said.

  “Louise brings you a slave whip, Master,” she said. “Use it on Louise, if she does not please you.”

  “I will,” I said.

  She shuddered.

  “And I might use it on you anyway,” I said.

  “Of course, Master,” she said. One owns slaves and commands them. One does what one likes with them. One does not bargain with them.

  “Go to the mat,” I said.

  “I am of Earth!” she said.

  I shook out the blades of the whip.

  She hurried to the mat, to kneel upon it.

  I regarded her.

  She looked lovely, nude, deliciously curved, frightened, in the glinting collar, in the flickering reddish darkness.

  I folded back the blades of the whip and inserted them in their clip, near the butt end of the staff. By means of the hook at the end of the butt, I attached the whip to my belt. This action seemed to be greeted with relief on her part. Perhaps she thought, being of Earth, she would get off easily. Did she not know that she was now on Gor, and that a whip so easily placed on a belt may be as easily, and, indeed, even more easily, removed from it?

  A girl cried out, nearby, moaning, sobbing, being well mastered.

  I looked about, for a loose chain. In a moment or two I had found one, near another slave ring. I looped it in my hand, and carried it to the ring near my mat. The key, the same key fitting both the padlock-type terminations of the chain, was in one of the locks. I crouched down beside Louise and looped one end of the chain about her neck, where I locked it snugly in place with one of the padlock-type terminations. The chain depended from her neck, between her breasts. I then looped the other end of the chain about the slave ring and, with the padlock-type termination at that end, locked it there. She had about five feet of play between her neck and the slave ring. That is more than sufficient to allow a female to perform. Many men give her even less chain, some only six inches or so, such adjustments being made with different length chains, and also, often with the same chain, by loopings, doublings and such, secured by fastening the padlocklike terminations through various links. She put her fingers on the chain. She surreptitiously pulled it a little. It was on her. “Master?” she asked. I walked over to the wall and hung the key on a nail there, with other keys. That is where the key should have been in the first place. There it is out of the reach of all the slave rings. Too, in this way, it is easier to keep track of them, and a customer is less likely to inadvertently walk off with one. No chains hung there, incidentally. They were apparently, at least those usually there, in use or, like the one I had found, loose on the floor. I glanced around. The place seemed crowded. Ita and Tia were dancing, summoned forth by a hostess, before a customer. I recalled Louise dancing. She had done at least that well, surely. I wondered if she, an Earth girl, going about her business on Earth, had ever suspected that she would one day be so dancing on Gor, as a nude, collared slave. I supposed not. I wondered what she would have thought if someone had suggested this to her. Doubtless she would have thought it absurd, or amusing. But then, a moment later, she might have felt the thick layers of the chemically treated cloth held firmly over her nose and mouth. Business seemed good this evening. Indeed, it seemed to be thriving. This Ludmilla, whoever she was, I conjectured, had something of a gold mine in this little establishment. Tonight’s receipts, at any rate, would probably prove quite gratifying.

  I returned to the slave mat.

  “Master?” asked Louise.

  She looked up at me, the chain on her neck.

  I removed the whip from my belt, freeing the blades. I shook them loose.

  “I am from Earth!” she said.

  “Spread your knees,” I said.

  Swiftly did the Earth girl comply.

  I looked down at her. She was incredibly lovely.

  “Surely you will treat me gently, and with respect,” she said.

  “How do you lie on a mat, Earth girl?” I asked.

  “However a master pleases,” she whispered.

  I gestured to the mat with the whip. Immediately she lay upon it.

  “Perhaps you can interest me,” I said.

  “Please!” she said.

  “Move,” I told her.

  She moved then, and turned, upon the mat, sometimes on her belly, sometimes on her back, sometimes on her side, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting, sometimes curled up, sometimes bending backwards, pausing every moment or so, for a moment or so, stock-still, posing, that I might feast my eyes upon her loveliness, revealing thusly for me her embonded beauty in numerous and various attitudes. There were tears in her eyes. I saw that she had had some training.

  She was then breathing heavily.

  I let the loose whip blades brush her back. “Master?” she asked.

  “Is that all you show Gorean men?” I asked. “If so, I am surprised you have not yet been fed to sleen.”

  “You are from Earth,” she wept.

  “And so you, a slave, think to cheat me, and give me less?” I asked.

  “No!” she said.

  “Do you dare, slave,” I asked, “to think that you can behave toward me as a typical Earth female behaves toward a man of Earth?”

  “No,” she said. “No!”

  “Do you think you can treat me as the typical females of Earth treat the men of Earth?” I asked.

  “No!” she wept. “No!”

  �
�Have you ever felt the slave whip?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, terrified.

  “Do you want to feel it again, now?” I asked.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Perform,” I said.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Better,” I said, “better. Remember you are no longer a woman of Earth now. More leg extension. That is behind you. You are now only a Gorean slave. Good. You are not even a person any longer. You are now only a lascivious animal that exists for the pleasure of men. Only an animal. Do not forget it. But an incredibly desirable animal. Lift your hand more piteously. Good. The most desirable form of animal in existence, the female slave. That expression, improve it. Let it show that you beg a man for his touch. Do you beg a man for his touch?”

  “Yes,” she cried, suddenly, “I do!”

  “Use the chain,” I said. “It is on your neck. Use it! Use it in this mat dance.”

  “Dance?” she wept.

  “Yes,” I said, “you can consider it a dance. You can treat it as a dance. You are writhing for a master, pausing now and then to startle him with your beauty, on your chain. There is even music here. Feel it in your belly. Deep in your belly! Deeper! Yes! Yes!”

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

  I took her in my arms, and kissed her. She was helplessly hot and open.

  “Oh, yes,” she cried. “Now! Now! I beg it! I beg it!”

  “As a woman of Earth?” I asked.

  “No,” she sobbed, “as what I am now, as a Gorean slave of her master!”

  Later I used her once more, this time on her belly, that she might not forget she was a slave, nor grow too proud. I then turned her to her back. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I am yours,” she wept. “I want to live for you, and to serve you in all ways!”

  I kissed her.

  “Buy me!” she begged. “Buy me!”

  “I think you will one day, now that you have learned how to serve, find a fine, strong Gorean master,” I said.

  “Then I, an Earth woman, will belong to a Gorean,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “as do many others. And I think you will make him a splendid slave.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, softly, “a slave!”

  “You are a female of Earth,” I said. “Such as you are fit only to wear the collars of such men.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Aspire to nothing higher here,” I said.

  “I do not,” she said.

  “He would have you in no other way, of course,” I said.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Are you discontent?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “It is a thousand times better to be the slave of such a man than to be an empress on Earth.”

  I kissed her.

  “Nor would I wish to be had in any other way,” she said.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Because,” she said, “it is what I have now learned I am, a slave.”

  I considered her softness and beauty, and her helpless, loving responsiveness in my arms. “Yes,” I said. “You are a man’s slave.”

  “I do not dispute it,” she said. “I learned it indubitably while finding myself helpless in your power. You have taught it to me, and the lesson can never be unlearned.”

  I did not speak.

  “I am happy that I was brought to this world,” she said, “though I was brought here as only a property, a thing to be bought and sold, and used as men see fit.”

  I did not respond to her.

  “Master,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I think there are many slaves on Earth, only they have not yet found their masters. They do not yet wear their collars.”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “I think there are few men on Earth who can, or will, answer the cry of the slave in a woman.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I do not know.”

  “Why will they not do so?” she asked.

  “Perhaps it is too late for them to reclaim their manhood,” I said. “Perhaps it is easier for them now, at this late date, their opportunities slipped away, surrendered to the enemies of manhood, to pretend to find it disgusting, or amusing.”

  She sighed.

  “But here on Gor,” I said, “have no such fears. Here, even for all their harshness, the cultures have not taken so unnatural, demeaning and debilitating a turn.”

  “True,” she said.

  “Here you will find men such as you have only dreamed of on Earth,” I said.

  “Yes!” she said, softly.

  “Here you do not have to fear even initially that men will not answer the cry of the slave in you,” I said. “You will probably not even have time for that. You will be too busy kneeling, and obeying.”

  “True,” she laughed, and kissed me. “Master,” she said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “May I say something?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “But if I am not pleased with it, I may beat you.”

  “Of course,” she laughed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Do you recall that I expressed a wish that I be treated gently and with respect?” she asked.

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  “I do not think you treated me too gently,” she said.

  “Perhaps not,” I said. She had been manhandled a bit, put where I wanted her, and so on, allowed to understand that she was an instrument of my pleasure.

  “And surely you did not treat me with respect,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “But then you are not the sort of woman who is to be treated with respect. You are a collared slave.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “And so?” I said.

  “This may sound a bit strange,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I want to thank you,” she said, “for not treating me with gentleness and respect.”

  I did not respond. I did not think that any expression of gratitude on her part was necessary. I had, for example, never even considered treating her with gentleness and respect, for she was both desirable and a slave.

  “Thank you,” she said, “for not complying with that preposterous request, that so shortsighted, ill-advised and absurd an entreaty.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  “Thus you did not demean and deny my womanhood and its deeper needs,” she said.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I was treated with gentleness and respect by the men of Earth,” she said.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “When what I needed, particularly considering how I treated them,” she laughed, “was to be bound and whipped.”

  “That is probably true,” I said. There were few Earth women, in my opinion, who could not profit richly from a taste of the leather.

  “May I say this in English,” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I was a real little bitch,” she laughed.

  “But no more?” I asked.

  “No,” she laughed. “They would not accept that here. I would be punished, terribly. I might even be killed.”

  “True,” I said.

  “How I had my fill of gentleness and respect on Earth!” she laughed. “How I despised and hated those poor weak fools seemingly so incapable of giving me anything else! Were they men or not? I felt like biting and kicking them in frustration and rage! Had I done so they would doubtless have been stunned and dismayed. Then doubtless they would have wracked their consciences to discover what they might have done wrong, and then they would doubtless have redoubled their efforts to please me, such unbelievable, incredible idiots! Perhaps they were so intent on treating me with gentleness and respect because they did not know anything else to do with me. I do not know. I wondered sometimes if they were simply stupid, or might actually be hostile to women, perhaps blaming us for their ow
n masculine failures, that they would deny us what we really needed and wanted, to be commanded to our place in nature, the slaves of true men, and fulfilled.”

  “I do not know,” I said. “The issues are complex.”

  “At any rate,” she smiled, “they gave me gentleness and respect, while I think they might have done better to have torn my clothing from me and thrown me to their feet. They gave me gentleness and respect when I would rather they had contemptuously thrown me a bit of silk, if anything at all, and put me in a collar. They gave me gentleness and respect when what I needed and wanted was to crawl eagerly to their slave ring in chains, wholly theirs, fearing tardiness might be rewarded with the blow of a whip.”

  “The issues are complex,” I said.

  “At any rate,” she laughed, “I thank you for not showing me gentleness and respect. Those two things, perhaps more than any others, militate against the fulfillment of the human female.”

  I shrugged.

  “You did, however,” she smiled, “show me kindness.”

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “You did not whip me,” she said. “You could have lashed me plentifully, and well, as you were for a moment not pleased with me, but you did not do so.”

  “You quickly and considerably improved your behavior,” I pointed out.

  “Behavior?” she asked.