by John Norman
“This cannot be you,” she wept. “It cannot be you!”
“It is,” I told her.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“Treating you as the slave you are,” I told her.
“But I am a woman of Earth!” she cried.
“No,” I told her, “you are only a leashed slut, a rightless Gorean slave girl, who is soon to learn something of the meaning of her collar.”
“Yes, Master!” she cried, suddenly, helplessly.
“Do you admit that you are a slave?” I asked.
“Do not ask me, a woman of Earth, to admit to a man of Earth that I am a slave!” she begged. “It would be too shameful!”
“You would admit it swiftly enough to the brutes of Gor, would you not?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she wept. “Yes, Master!”
“Admit it then to me,” I said, “for now you are no longer a woman of Earth, nor am I now any longer a man of Earth.
“I am a slave, Master,” she said. “I admit it.” I recalled then the time that we had dined in the small restaurant on Earth, so long ago. Her hair had been bound back in a severe bun. She had worn an off-the-shoulder, svelte, white satin sheath dress. She had carried a small, silver-beaded purse. She was now in my arms, sweating, naked and leashed. “I am a slave, Master,” she said. “I have always known it.”
“Now you speak the truth,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Do you now feel shamed, that you have made this confession?” I asked.
She looked up at me, startled. “No,” she said.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“It is strange,” she said. “I feel exalted, glorious. It is strange. It is as though I had come home to myself.”
“The only true liberation,” I said, “is to become what one truly is.”
“Oh!” she cried.
“Does a slave object to being treated as a slave?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said. “I regret only that I never admitted my slavery on Earth.”
“There would have been little point,” I said. “There are few masters on Earth.”
“There is no dearth of masters on Gor,” she said.
“No,” I smiled.
She shuddered in my arms. “I admit to you that I belong in a collar,” she whispered.
“It is true,” I said.
“I long to be taught its meaning,” she said.
“You will be,” I assured her.
“Teach me my collar,” she begged. “Make me the slave I long to be.”
“I shall,” I said.
“Linda is now ready to serve her master,” she said. “Master,” she said, “what is wrong?”
I looked down at her, locked as a hot, leashed slave in my arms. “I shall have you under the name of ‘Beverly’,” I said.
“That was my name on Earth, long ago, when I was free,” she said.
“I put it on you now, for my use of you, as a slave name,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You were once of Earth, were you not?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Are you now of Earth?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Of where are you now?” I asked.
“Gor, Master,” she said.
“Once you were a free woman, were you not?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Are you now free?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said. “Please, Master!”
“What are you now?” I asked.
“I am now naught but a Gorean slave girl!” she wept. “Please, Master!”
“What is your name,” I asked.
“Beverly,” she said. “My name is ‘Beverly’. That is the name which my master has seen fit to put upon me.”
“It is a pretty name,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master. Please, Master!”
“You appear to be sexually aroused, Beverly,” I said.
“I am, my Master,” she said. “Please, please!”
“Speak, Slave,” I said.
“Beverly begs to serve her master,” she said.
I then took her, and, in moments, in helpless spasms, sobbing, in joy, she cried out her slave’s submission to me. “I am now naught but a Gorean slave gir1! I am now naught but a Gorean slave girl!” she cried. “And I am yours, my Master! I am yours! I am yours!”
***
The girl who had held the leash of the girl whom I had just enjoyed, having now returned, removed her hand from the docile, supine slave’s body. She tasted, and smelled, her fingers. “I see that you have earned your tarsk bit,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” said the girl, happily.
The girl who was the Coin Girl’s leash holder then bent to untie the leash from the slave ring.
“Please, Mistress,” begged the girl whom I had just enjoyed, scrambling to her knees and putting her head to the feet of the other girl, “do not yet untie my leash!”
“It is well past the nineteenth Ahn,” said the girl who was apparently the new girl’s slave supervisor and trainer, “But the pleasures of the master are not to be interfered with,” said the kneeling slave. “That I was told in the house!”
Then, on her knees, she turned and looked pleadingly at me. I took out another tarsk bit, and held it out. The girl came then near to me, and leaned forward, that I might, from my reclining position, be able to reach the coin box chained on her neck. I put in another tarsk bit. The kneeling girl then turned and looked, pleadingly, at the girl under whose orders she was.
“Very well,” said the girl who was standing, looking down upon the kneeling slave. “I shall wait up the street.” Then she looked at me. “When you are through with her,” she said, “send her to me.”
“Very well,” I said.
Beverly knelt happily beside me, and I lay back, on my back, on the tunic, on the stones of the street. I felt her small hands, lovingly, timidly, touching me about the shoulders and chest. “I did not know you could be like this,” she said. “I have never seen you before like this.”
“A woman looks differently at a man when she is a slave,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she smiled. “What must you think of me?” she asked, ruefully.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“How I behaved, how I acted,” she said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“How can you respect me?” she asked.
“I do not,” I said.
“You do not respect me?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “of course not, for you are a slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she smiled. She kissed me, softly, on the right shoulder. Then she knelt back, on her heels, beside me. Her knees were spread, in the position of the pleasure slave. “You think little of slaves, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you must think little of me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Am I good?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I am glad,” she said. “Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“What if I were not good?”
“Then I would not have put another coin in your coin box,” I said.
“What if I were not good the first time, after you had put a coin in the coin box?” she asked.
“Then I would have beaten you,” I said.
“Could you beat me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her.
“Would you, truly, had you not been satisfied with me, have beaten me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I am pleased that you found me pleasing,” she said.
I smiled.
“Too,” she said, “you would have been entitled to a refund, though I myself could not have given it to you, for the coin box is
locked. You could have obtained it, however, later from my master.”
“I know,” I said.
“But then, too, I would be again beaten,” she said, “doubtless whipped.”
“Yes,” I said. The satisfaction of Coin Girls, in its way, is guaranteed, or one can receive one’s money back. It is not surprising, then, that the girls, under the conditions obtaining, strive to be pleasing.
“I put a second coin, did I not, in your coin box?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Address yourself to my pleasures,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, and bent forward, over my body. I felt her sweet lips, and her small teeth and tongue, those of a slave, on my body. In a few moments I ordered her again to her back.
She lay beside me.
Then I pulled her by the neck chain closer to me. I thrust another coin into the small metal box on the chain. She kissed me. “Again, Master?” she asked. I took her by the arms and flung her beneath me. “Do you know the name of this street?” I asked.
“The Street of the Writhing Slave,” she said.
“Writhe, Slave,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
It was an Ahn later.
She lay beside me, pressing her softness against me, kissing at my arm, my shoulder and chest, softly, piteously. “Very well,” I said.
“Oh, yes, Master!” she breathed. “Yes, yes, Master!”
I then put her beneath me, and looked down into her eyes. “Yes, Master,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes, Master!”
I was preparing to have her when suddenly I saw fear come into her eyes. “Oh, no, Master!” she cried. “No! No!”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The coin!” she cried, in misery, “the coin. You have not paid the coin!”
I smiled.
“I am a Coin Girl!” she cried, miserably. “I may not be had without the coin!”
“Oh,” I said.
“Please,” she begged. “Please pay the coin!”
“Do you beg it?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Yes, Master!”
“Very well,” I said. I put another tiny coin in the coin box.
“Thank you, Master,” she breathed, lifting her lips to mine. “Now have me, have me, have me!”
“Very well,” I said.
“It must be near dawn,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, softly, frightened.
“We must think about having you returned to your master,” I said.
“Oh, please, Master, not yet,” she begged. “Let me stay beside you for but a little more time.”
“Very well,” I said, “for perhaps a moment more.”
“I never want to leave your side,” she said. She clutched me.
“Who owns you?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said, “doubtless some renter of Coin Girls. I was apportioned to him in the division of the spoils taken from the holding of Policrates.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “I have never even seen him.”
“What manner of man is he?” I asked.
“He is harsh and cruel, uncompromising and merciless,” she said. “He keeps me well as a slave.”
“Do you fear him?” I asked.
“I fear him terribly,” she said. “I am his girl.”
“Perhaps he is not such a bad fellow,” I said.
“He keeps me chained in a basement, in the darkness,” she said. “He throws me scraps of food for which I, on my chain, must search, or starve.”
“Perhaps he merely wishes you to learn that you are a slave,” I said.
“He has taught it to me well,” she said.
“He does not sound like such a bad fellow,” I said. “If I owned you, I might treat you similarly, at least at first.”
“Until I had learned well to whom I belong?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“And what if a girl is incapable of learning her lesson?” she asked.
“She may always, then,” I said, “be fed to sleen.”
“She will learn her lesson, and well,” said the girl.
“Of course,” I said.
“But he has never once summoned me to his couch, to abuse me, or caress me, or order me to serve his pleasures.”
“I see,” I said.
“If you owned me,” she said, “you would have used me by now, would you not have?”
“Yes,” I said, “if I owned you, doubtless, by now, I would have put you, and well, to my pleasure.”
“Perhaps he does not find me attractive,” she said. “Perhaps he has many women. Perhaps he does not even find me a curiosity to exploit.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
She then lay closely against me, her head at my hip, trembling.
“I am afraid to be a slave,” she whispered.
“As well you might be,” I said.
“I can be bought or sold, or given away,” she said. “I may even be slain, on the least whim of a master.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Masters do not respect their slaves, do they?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said.
“But might they not, sometimes, feel other emotions toward them?” she asked. Her voice was very soft, and frightened. I gathered that she feared she might be struck.
“Yes,” I said.
“What emotions?” she asked, timidly, beggingly.
“Irritation,” I said, “desire, lust.”
“But is there no other emotion that a master might, sometimes, feel towards his slave?” she asked.
“What emotion did you have in mind?” I asked.
“Please, Master,” she sobbed, “do not make me speak!”
“Very well,” I said.
I felt her tears, and hair, at my hip. Doubtless it is hard, I thought, to be a slave girl. One is so helpless.
“It is light now,” I said.
“I hear a bell,” she whispered.
“It is not the bell of a Coin Girl,” I said. “It is the bell of a vendor of bosk milk. He is making his rounds, coming up the street.”
“Do not send me from your side,” she said.
“Would you be seen here,” I asked, “as a naked slave, leashed, lying upon the street?”
“Slaves have no pride,” she said.
“On your knees,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said, getting to her knees. I stood up, and looked down upon her, kneeling on the stones, in the gray light of the Gorean dawn.
“Use me but once more,” she begged, “before you send me away.”
I looked down at her.
“Shorten my leash,” she said. “Tie my hands before my body. Fasten me closely at the slave ring.”
“The vendor of bosk milk approaches,” I said.
“I care not,” she said. “Take me before him.”
I pulled her back by the leather collar, and leash, not gently, to the slave ring. There I untied the leash and then retied it, considerably shortening it. She knelt there, then, against the wall. The tether, from the heavy metal ring to the stout ring at the back of her collar, taut, holding her head up, was about eighteen inches in length. She held out her hands to me, wrists crossed. With the free end of the leash I bound them together, tightly, before her body.
I looked down at her. “You are now tied, or muchly so,” I said, “as was the girl on the walk, outside the shop of Philebus, in Ar.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, happily.
“I had brought her a drink of water,” I said. “I had set the price for this favor as my having of her.” This had occurred long ago, when I had been a silk slave, owned by the Lady Florence of Vonda. I had, myself, later captured my mistress, and sold her into slavery. She belonged now to Miles of Vonda, who had helped us in our work wit
h the pirates, part of the spoils, as many other slave girls, taken from the holding of Policrates. My former mistress was now naught but the obedient and joyful love slave of the proud Vondan.
“You were a beast, of course, my Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
I looked down upon her, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, of New York City. She looked well, naked and bound, tethered at the slave ring.
“You accused me of raping her,” I said. “You were furious.”
The palanquin of Oneander, a salt and leather merchant of Ar, had been passing. To the rear of the palanquin, in a double coffle of briefly tunicked beauties, display slaves, their hands braceleted behind their backs, had been the girl who now knelt before me. Then the palanquin had stopped, as Oneander had chosen to pass the time of day with another fellow, he, too, in a palanquin, with display slaves. When I had withdrawn from the girl at the ring I had seen her, she who had once been Miss Henderson, among the display slaves. It had been the first time that I had seen her as a slave. I had never forgotten that first glimpse of her as a slave. It had been one of the most exciting moments of my life.
“Yes,” she said, “I was furious.”
“I was only making her pay for the drink of water,” I said.
“But making her pay as a slave,” she said.
“Of course,” I said. “She was a slave.”
“As you are,” I added.
“Do you know why I was furious?” she asked.
“You felt pity and indignation seeing the abuse of one of your sisters in bondage?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “I was furious because it was she, and not I, whom you forced, with such casual audacity, to serve your pleasure at the ring.”
I smiled.
“I wanted to be at the ring, not she,” she said.
“I see,” I said.
“I am now at such a ring, before you,” she said.
“And well tethered there,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“That girl,” I said, “was not, truly, raped at the ring. She was only paying for a drink of water.” I looked down at her. “It is you, rather,” I said, “who will be raped at the ring.”
“Yes, my Master!” she said.
I crouched down before her. I heard the bell from nearby, that of the vendor of bosk milk. “The vendor of bosk milk approaches,” I said to her.
“Take me, take me!” she begged.
“Are you shameless?” I asked.
