Mercenaries of Gor

by Norman, John;

  Few things more impress upon a woman, slave or free, a sense of abject helplessness than being unable to speak. A Gorean saying has it that a woman gagged is already half a slave.

  And there are few things which more impress her bondage on a slave than realizing that her speech is ultimately at the discretion of free persons, that she may not speak without the permission, either implicit or explicit, of free persons. To be sure, this permission is almost always in place, tacitly, but its actuality becomes evident when it is either explicitly withdrawn, or must be explicitly requested.

  The lower lip of the blonde trembled.

  I had placed her in the common position for front leading, the girl behind you, whether she is on her feet, as it was my intention to lead this girl, if only to save time, or, say, on her belly or all fours. The back position is commonly used when the girl is in front of you, and you are controlling her from behind, she either on her feet ahead of you, or, say, beside you or ahead of you on her belly or all fours. In the back leading position the ring, of course, is at the back of the neck, and the buckles are in the front of the neck. The front position is generally preferred as leash pressure is then received at the back and sides of the neck, not the front. To be sure, a girl is likely to be much more wary, and fearful, and docile, when the ring is at the back.

  The leash strap had now been snapped on the leading ring.

  In one’s pouch or pack the leash strap is normally coiled inside the collar, whether it is snapped on the leash ring or not. I usually do not keep it on the collar because in that way I am free to use it independently as a binding device or, doubled, as an admonitory lash. Also, I think it does a girl good, and it had seemed to do this girl good, to hear it snap on the collar ring, either at the back of her neck, when she is to be back-controlled, or just under her chin, when she is to be front-led. Leashing, of course, of either variety, is excellent psychologically for the female, as it confirms her femaleness upon her, that she belongs to men, and is on a male lead, and, if she is a slave, it confirms as well her bondage on her, and helps to make clear to her her animal status. Similarly, as suggested, the jerking of the leash, to test its strength, is good for her. It helps her to understand that it is truly on her.

  This leash pressure, in testing, of course, either is done with the ring in the front position, to avoid damage to the throat, even if the collar is then to be turned and she is to be back-controlled, or, if the ring is left in the back position, in such a way, say, with a thumb or fingers inserted at the front of the leash collar, as to take the pressure of the testing, and protect the throat. The general consideration here, of course, is to avoid pressure to the front of the throat. It is general Gorean practice to avoid even the slightest of pressures here. This does not represent a relaxation of Gorean disciplinary practices, incidentally, for discipline may be, and will be, if there is the least cause for it, inflicted outside the strictures of the leash. Too, if the ring is in the back position, if the girl is not compliant she puts this pressure on herself. An excellent example is the choke leash, which cannot be slipped, but can tighten. The least bit of resistance on the part of the girl closes the loop. In such a device, girls, after the first moment or two, follow without resistance.

  “Please!” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “May I speak?” she pleaded. “Please, may I speak?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she said.

  “I am going to take you to a slaver’s,” I said. “I think I know one who will not ask too many questions.”

  “To a slaver’s!” she cried.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why?” she cried.

  “Why do you think?” I asked. “To make some money on you, of course. It will probably be the first time any man ever made any money on you, but I assure you, it will not be the last.”

  I then turned about and began to stride rapidly down the bridge. She was running behind me, on the leash, laughing and crying.

  27

  I Sell a Blonde

  I threw the blonde to her knees before Tenalion, slaver of Ar. It was he to whom Boabissia had earlier, inadvertently, returned herself, his slave. We were now, however, in his house of business, in his office there. She knelt inside an outlined yellow circle. It was a few feet before his desk. This circle had a diameter of about seven or eight feet. The border of this circle, delineating it, was about seven or eight inches in width, and was formed of yellow stones set mosaiclike into the smooth scarlet flooring.

  “I bring you a woman,” I said.

  He rose from his desk and came about it, to stand a few feet from the blonde.

  I removed the leash from her neck. I separated the collar and strap. I coiled the strap, placing it within the collar. I then returned the two parts of the leash to my pouch. I glanced to the blonde. “Kneel with your knees more widely spread,” I said.

  She obeyed. I could see she was frightened, now that she was here. Perhaps she was having second thoughts. It was a bit late, however, for such thoughts. She squirmed a little, on her knees. She was attractive, doing so. This squirming, I think, was genuinely due to her fear and agitation, but, even so, I thought it might add to her price. She moved well. She was still in her leather. Her hands were still tied tightly behind her.

  “What is her brand?” asked Tenalion.

  Her leather was brief, but it would have covered the most common brand site, which is high on the left leg, under the hip.

  “She is a free woman,” I said.

  “I thought so,” he said.

  “—in a sense,” I added.

  “—that is in my thought, as well,” he said.

  “It is my expectation,” I said, “that you might find her of interest.”

  He smiled. It was his profession, of course, to find such things of interest.

  “Let us see,” he said.

  I unbound her wrists, and she, head down, gratefully rubbed them.

  “You are to be assessed,” I said to the blonde.

  She looked up at me.

  “She is a free woman,” I said. “I request that she not be beaten for this lapse.”

  “Certainly,” said Tenalion.

  “Strip,” I said to the blonde, “now, instantly, completely!”

  She struggled from the leather, pulling it hastily over her head, and putting it to the side.

  “Keep the knees spread,” I said. “Back on your heels, straighten your back, head up, hands palms down on your thighs.”

  And thus she knelt, in the customary position of the Gorean pleasure slave.

  Surely she knew that women are assessed naked. Indeed, there is a Gorean saying to the effect that that only a fool buys a woman clothed. And Tenalion, I assure you, was no fool.

  “You are in the house of a slaver,” he said to the blonde. “You kneel within a circle of assessment.”

  She looked down at it. “I did not know,” she whispered.

  “It is about the size of a slave block,” he said.

  She nodded.

  The circle, of course, was flush with the floor. The slave block, on the other hand, is normally about a yard to five feet high, and is designed to raise the girls above the crowd, so that they may be more easily seen by the bidders. This block height is commonly the case even when the block is in a hall-like amphitheater. In a situation of that sort, then, some men may be at the foot of the block, crowding around it, and so on, but most will be in the tiers. Sometimes a low fence, set out a few feet, discourages crowding near the edge of the block itself. This also tends to prevent the ascent of the block by zealous bidders, men reaching for, say, the ankle of a displayed slave, and so on. Such things might disrupt a sale.

  “Have you ever seen a sale of female slaves?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Perhaps you have some idea,” he said, “of what they are like.”

  “Yes,” she said.

 
“Usually the merchandise is exhibited stark naked and sold to the highest bidder,” he said, “whose slave they then are, in all ways.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “You are to be assessed,” he said.

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “And eventually, doubtless,” he said, “in one way or another, you will be sold as a slave.”

  I was pleased to hear Tenalion say this, for it indicated that he regarded her beauty as adequate for that of a slave. This is not the case with all women, of course. Many women, assessed, are denied the collar. The woman rejected for bondage, she returned in scorn to the lonely garbage of her freedom, is often inveterately impatient with, and unconscionably cruel toward, the female slave, even more so than is common with the ordinary querulous, contemptuous Gorean free woman. They were chosen over her; they were of greater interest to men. How could she forgive them that? Slavers, of course, think in terms of beauty, for they must sell these women.

  I had knelt the blonde in the usual position of the Gorean pleasure slave.

  I had personally no doubt that she was slave beautiful, even as she was, even without the improvements which might be wrought by diet and exercise, by proper posture and carriage, by grace of movement, such things.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Is she a virgin?” asked Tenalion.

  “No,” I said.

  The blonde blushed hotly.

  “I did not think so,” said Tenalion.

  The blonde put down her head.

  “You are beautiful, my dear,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “Are you sexually responsive?” he asked.

  She looked at me, wildly. “I do not know,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “quite so, at least for one who is still substantially a free woman.”

  “In your opinion,” asked Tenalion, “she shows ‘slave promise’?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “May I see?” asked Tenalion.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Oh!” cried the girl. “Please no! Not here! Not like this! I beg you! No! Oh, oh, Master! Master!” I could scarcely hold her then, squirming, bucking, on her knees. It was almost like trying to hold a small sleen. Her body was very strong in its passion. Then she looked at Tenalion, tears in her eyes, revealed before him as a superbly responsive female, in a man’s hands no more than a slave.

  “Excellent,” said Tenalion.

  “I would suppose,” I said, “of course, that she might improve considerably, and indefinitely, in such matters, when she is truly a slave, when she is legally and fully embonded.”

  She looked at me with wonder.

  “Of course,” said Tenalion.

  The blonde put down her head, shuddering.

  “Girl,” said Tenalion.

  She lifted her head.

  “Are you prepared to enter slavery?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Will you strive to be a good slave?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Many masters are not patient with slaves,” he said. “Do you understand what that means?”

  “Master?” she asked.

  “You are well advised to be fully pleasing to your masters,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “It is not pleasant to be whipped,” he said.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “Similarly, it would not be pleasant to be subjected to many other conceivable punishments, or, say, to be thrown alive to hungry sleen,” he said.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Be a good slave,” he said.

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Do you think being a slave is merely a matter of crawling about your master’s legs, and licking and kissing, and serving his intimate pleasures?”

  “I do not know, Master,” she said. “I have never been a slave.”

  “Do you think you would look well dancing before your master?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” she said.

  “Absolutely naked, of course,” he said, “as you are now.”

  “I do not know, Master,” she said.

  I, frankly, thought she would look quite well doing this. No one, however, had asked my opinion.

  “Still,” he said, “such things are only among the more obvious sexual modalities.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Your entire life,” he said, “will now be pervaded with sexuality, with your femaleness. Your life will now be a sexual one, a life in which your femaleness, for the first time, will be of undeniable and paramount importance, a life in which it will be overwhelmingly central. Everything else will take its coloration and meaning from that.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “It will be a life of total femaleness, and dedication, and service and love.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “The smallest tasks in your life, how you clean your master’s leather, how you set out his clothes, how you cook, and sew, how you shop, how you clean and launder, even the tiniest and most servile tasks, all such things, will become sexual, all will become expressions of your femaleness, fitting and joyful manifestations of your worthless but helplessly proffered, gladly tendered love and service, that of only an insignificant slave.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “The life of a female slave,” he said, “is a life wholly given over to love. It is not a compromised life. It is not one of those lives which is part this, and part that. It is a total way of life, a total life. The female slave seeks to give all, selflessly, knowing that she, as she is a mere slave, a rightless animal owned by her master, one who can be bought and sold at his least whim, can make no claims, that she deserves nothing, and is entitled to not the least attention or consideration. There are no bargains made with her, no arrangements.”

  “Yes, Master,” whispered the girl.

  “And it is for such women,” he said, “that men are willing to die.”

  She put down her head, humbly.

  “What do you want for her?” asked Tenalion.

  I shrugged.

  “Two silver tarsks?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Not a thousand gold pieces?” asked the blonde.

  Tenalion smiled. “You have very unrealistic concept of the market,” he said. “Too, you are no longer a free woman, and priceless. You are now only one slave among others, and now, within certain limits, have a specific monetary value.”

  “But so little?” she asked.

  “Prices are useful in helping women to understand themselves and rank themselves, at least in certain dimensions,” he said.

  “So little?” she asked.

  “That is a high price,” I told her. Indeed, when Boabissia had returned herself to Tenalion, only one silver tarsk had changed hands.

  “Oh,” she said.

  He reached to a bell on his desk and rang it. It was not unlike the bell which had been on his desk in his residence. Tenalion, I gathered, like most efficient people, was a creature of habit. This frees the mind so that it may better concentrate on important considerations. In a moment, as before, a fellow had entered the room.

  “This is a slave,” said Tenalion, indicating the blonde. “Take her below. See that she is fittingly marked as such. We do not want there to be any confusion in the future about the matter.”

  “Yes, Tenalion,” said the fellow.

  The blonde saw Tenalion place two silver tarsks in my hand. She looked at them, wonderingly. The slave, she, herself, so easily, now had a new master.

  Tenalion’s man, taking her by the upper arms, from behind, jerked her to her feet.

  He drew her small wrists behind her. In an instant, they were clasped in slave bracelets.

  Slave bracelets, as one may suppose, are not the heavy, brutal shackles often used to confine m
ale prisoners. They are designed for women. They are usually light, and closely linked. Their lightness, however, should not suggest an insufficiency to their primary purpose, that of inescapable fettering, of perfect restraint, which purpose, rather, they serve with a consummate effectiveness. In addition to this primary purpose, however, many forms of slave bracelets are designed to set off, and enhance, the beauty of a woman, this rather in the nature of certain forms of jewelry, such as bracelets, armlets, anklets, rings, necklaces, and such. These bracelets, however, those now upon the blonde, were not the lovely, attractive, colorful devices, as much ornaments as restraints, which are designed for attractiveness as well as custodial efficiency, devices which may be matched to various slave silks, types of collars, and such, in effect, completing an ensemble. These, rather, were plain, and of a sort which might be worn within a slaver’s residence or place of business, within pens, kennels, holding areas, warehouses, and such.