Norman, John - Gor 19 - Kajira of Gor.txt

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  the men, I recalled, had thought that I might be ideal for their purposes.

  “We are pleased,” he said, “very. You did very well.”

  “When will you be able to make your decision?” I asked. “When will I learn

  whether or not I have been selected?”

  “For one thing,” said the man, “you have already been selected.”

  One of the men laughed.

  “That decision we are empowered to Make,” said the first man. “The second

  decision, that with respect to the more important post, so to speak, of

  necessity, must be made elsewhere.”

  “May I call you?” I asked.

  “We have your number,” he said.

  “I understand,” I said. I was not really displeased, for he bad told me that for

  one thing, at any rate, I had already been selected.

  “Process the photos, immediately,” he said to the photographer.

  The photographer nodded.

  They were apparently going to proceed expeditiously in the matter. This pleased

  me. I do not like to wait.

  “When do you think you will know,” I asked, “-about the more important post?”

  “it will take at least several days,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Come here,”-he said, beckoning to me. I went and stood quite close to him. “Put

  down your head,” he said. I did so, and he, moving behind me, and pulling the

  collar of my blouse out a bit with his finger, put his head down, close to the

  side of my face, by my neck. He inhaled, deeply.

  “Yes,” I said, “I am wearing the perfume, as you asked.”

  “As I commanded,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, softly, rather startled at myself, “as you commanded.” Is I then

  left. I wore his perfume.

  2 The Crate

  I turned off the shower.

  It must have been about ten minutes after eight in the evening. It was now some

  six weeks after my test, or interview, or whatever it had been, in the

  photographer’s studio. On each Monday of these six weeks I had received in the

  mail, in a plain white envelope without a return address, a one-hundred-dollar

  bill. This money, I bad gathered, was in the nature of some sort of a retainer.

  I recalled that the man who had first seen me at the perfume counter, he who

  seemed to be in charge of the group, had said that he recognized that my time,

  as of now, was valuable. I was still not clear on what he had meant by the

  phrase ‘as of now.’ These bills, until a few days ago, had been my only evidence

  that the men had not forgotten me. Then, on a Monday evening, a few days ago,

  the Monday before last, at eight o’clock, I bad received a phone call. I bad

  returned home to my small apartment only a few minutes earlier, from the local

  supermarket.

  I was putting away groceries and was not thinking of the men at all. I had, to

  be sure, taken the hundred-dollar bill from the mail box earlier and put it in

  my dresser. This had become for me, however, almost routine. I was, at any rate,

  not thinking of the men. When the phone rang my first reaction was one of

  irritation. I picked up the phone. “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello?” Then I was suddenly afraid. I was not sure there was someone on the

  line. “Hello?” I said. Then, after a moment’s silence, a male voice on the other

  end of the line spoke quietly and precisely. I did not recognize the voice.

  “You have been selected,” it said. “Hello!” I said. “Hello Who is this?” Then

  the line was dead. He had hung up. The next two nights I waited by the phone at

  eight o’clock. It was silent. It rang, however, on Thursday, precisely at eight.

  I seized the receiver from its hook. I was told to report the next evening to

  the southwest corner of a given intersection in Manhattan at precisely eight

  P.M. There I would be picked up by a limousine.

  I was almost sick with relief when I saw that the man I knew, he whom I had met

  at the perfume counter, he who had seemed in charge of the others, was in the

  limousine. The other two were with him, too, one with him in the back seat and

  one riding beside the driver. I did not recognize the driver.

  “Congratulations, Miss Collins!” he said, warmly. “You have been fully approved.

  You qualify with flying colors, as I had thought you would, on all counts.”

  “Wonderful!” I said.

  The driver bad now left the vehicle and come about, to open the door. The man I

  knew stepped out, and, while the driver held the door, motioned that I might

  enter. I did so, and then he entered behind me. The driver shut the door, and

  returned about the vehicle to his place. I was sitting between the two men in

  the back of the limousine.

  “I had hoped I might qualify,” I said.

  “I was confident you would,” he said. “You have the appearance, and,

  independently, the beauty and the dispositions. You are perfectly suited to our

  purposes.”

  “Am I to gather that I have been found acceptable for what you spoke of as the

  more important position, or post, or something like that, then?” I asked.

  “Precisely,” he said, warmly.

  “Good,” I said, snuggling back against the seat. I was quite pleased. These men,

  it seemed, were rich, or, at least, had access to considerable wealth. They

  would doubtless be willing to pay highly for the use of my beauty.

  “I recall, you said,” I said, “that I had already been selected for one thing,

  even at the photographer’s studio.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But it was less important, I gather, than this other, more prestigious

  assignment, or position?”

  “Yes,” he said. “The other position, so to speak, could be filled by almost any

  beautiful woman.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “And if there should come a time in which your services are no longer required

  for this more important post, as I have put it, you might still, I am sure, meet

  the qualifications f or this other thing.”

  “That is reassuring,” I said.

  The man on my left smiled.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Were you given permission to speak?” asked the man I knew, he who had

  originally seen Me in the department store, he on my right.

  I looked at him, startled.

  “Kneel down here,” he said, pointing to the floor of the car, “your left side to

  the back of the front seat.” I did so, frightened. I was the only woman in the

  car. “Get on your hands and knees,” he said. I did so. I could then, facing as I

  was, see him, by lifting and turning my head. He was unfolding a blanket. “You

  will not speak,” be said, “until five minutes after you have left the

  limousine.” He then, opening the blanket, cast it over me. I on all fours before

  them, covered by the blanket, hidden by it, was in consternation. The limousine

  drove on. No one
outside the car could have told that I was in the car. I was

  silent.

  As I knelt on all fours before them my mind was racing.

  Why had they done this? Perhaps they did not wish anyone to know that I was in

  the car with them. Perhaps they did not wish for me to be recognized with them,

  or they with me.

  Perhaps they were driving to some secret location, which they did not wish me to

  know. I was frightened. I did not know what their purposes were. After a time

  they let me lie down at their feet, with my legs drawn up, still covered with

  the blanket. I lay near their shoes. Once they even stopped for gas. “Do not

  move,” I was told. I was perfectly quiet, at their feet. They drove about for at

  least four hours. It was all-I could do to keep from rubbing my thighs together

  and moaning.

  Then the limousine pulled to one side and stopped. The blanket was lifted from

  me.

  “You may get out now,” said the man who seemed in charge, pleasantly.

  I rose to my feet and, crouching down, my muscles aching, stepped from the

  limousine. The driver bad remained in his place. The man who had been to my

  right when I was sitting, he who seemed to be in charge of the others, bad

  opened the door. I stood outside then, on the curb. There was traffic. The

  lights were bright. I was in the same place where I had originally been picked

  up, at the southwest corner of the intersection in Manhattan. It was a little

  after midnight.

  I watched the limousine drive away, disappearing in the traffic. I did not

  really understand what they had done, or why they had done it. I stood back on

  the sidewalk then. I was extremely disturbed. I was almost trembling. Too,

  inexplicably, it seemed, I was terribly aroused, sexually.

  Why had they done what they did?

  For the first time in my life I had been put to the feet of men, and kept,

  uncompromisingly, in ignorance and silence.

  They had dominated me. I almost trembled, filled with unfamiliar sensations and

  emotions. These feelings, these responses, were not simply genital. They seemed

  to suffuse, overwhelmingly, my whole body and mind.

  I became aware of a man asking me for directions.

  I turned away from him, suddenly, and hurried away. I had not yet been out of

  the limousine for five minutes. I could not yet speak.

  I took my hand from the shower handle. A few drops of water descended from the

  shower head. It was warm and steamy in the bathroom, from the warm water which I

  had been running. It was about ten or eleven minutes after eight P.M. It was

  Tuesday. Yesterday, on Monday evening, at eight-P.M., I had received another

  call. I had been instructed to take a shower at precisely eight P.M. this

  evening. I had done so. I slid back the shower curtain. There was steam on the

  walls and mirrors. I looked for my robe. I had thought I had left it on the

  vanity. It was not there. I stepped from the shower stall, and picked up a towel

  and began to dry myself.

  Suddenly I stopped, frightened. I had thought I had heard a noise oil the other

  side of the bathroom door, from beyond the tiny ball outside, perhaps from the

  tiny kitchen or the combination living and dining room.

  “Is there anyone there?” I called, frightened. “Who is it?”

  “It is I, Miss Collins,” said a voice. “Do not be alarmed.” I recognized the

  voice. It was he I took to be the leader of the men with whom I had been in

  contact, that of he who had first seen me at the perfume counter.

  “I am not dressed,” I called. I thrust shut the bolt on the bathroom door. I did

  not understand how he could have obtained entrance. I had had the door to the

  apartment not only locked but bolted.

  “Have you cleaned your body?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I thought he had put that in an unusual fashion.

  “Have you washed your hair?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I had done so.

  “Come out,” he said.

  “Do you see my robe out there?” I called.

  “Use a towel,” he said.

  “I will be out in a moment,” I said. I hastily dried my hair and put a towel

  about it, and then I wrapped a large towel about my body, tucking it shut under

  my left arm. I looked about for my slippers. I had thought I had put them at the

  foot of the vanity. But they, like the robe, did not seem to be where I thought

  I had left them. I slid back the bolt on the bathroom door and, barefoot,

  entered the hall. There were, I saw, three men in the kitchen. One was he whom I

  now knew well. The other two, who wore uniforms; much of a sort one expects in

  professional movers, I did not recognize.

  “You look lovely,” said the first man, he whom I recognized, he who was, by now,

  familiar to me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Make us some coffee,” he said.

  I proceeded, frightened, to do so. I was very conscious of my state of

  dishabille. Their eyes, I could sense, were much on me. I felt very small among

  their powerful bodies. I was conscious, acutely, how different I was from them.

  “How did you get in?” I asked, lightly, when the coffee was perking.

  “With this,” he said, taking a small, metallic, pen like object from his left,

  inside jacket pocket. He clicked a switch on it.

  There was no visible beam. He then clicked the switch again, presumably turning

  it off.

  “I do not understand,” I said.

  “Come along,” he said, smiling, and getting up from behind the kitchen table. I

  followed him into the combination living and dining room. I noticed the coarse,

  fibrous texture of the rug on my bare feet. The other two men followed us into

  this room.

  “There is my robe,” I said, “and my slippersl” The robe was thrown over an easy

  chair. The slippers had been dropped at its base.

  “Leave them,” be said.

  I knew I bad not put them there.

  He opened the door to the apartment and looked outside.

  He was seeing, I supposed, if anyone was in the hall.

  He stepped outside. “Lock and bolt the door,” he said.

  I did so. I then stood, waiting, behind the locked, bolted door. I glanced back

  at the other two men, in their garb like professional movers. They stood behind

  me, in the apartment, their arms folded.

  I heard a tiny noise. Fascinated, I saw the bolt turn and slide back. I then

  heard the door click. The man re-entered the apartment. He closed the door

  behind him. He returned the penlike object to his pocket.

  “I did not know such things existed,” I said, Inadvertently, frightened, I put

  my hand to my breast. I was very much aware that only a towel stood between me

  and this stranger.

  “They do,” he smiled.

  “I didn’t bear you enter,” I said.

  “It makes little noise,” he said. “Too, you had the water running.”

  “You knew, of course,” I said, “that I would not hear you enter.”

  “Of course,” he said.
r />   It had been in accordance with his instructions that I had been showering at the

  time.

  “What are those things?” I asked. I referred to two objects.

  One was a large carton and the other was a weighty, sturdy metal box, about

  three feet square. The metal box looked as though it would fit into the carton,

  and, presumably, had been removed from it, after having been brought into the

  room.

  “Never mind them now,” be said.

  The metal box appeared extremely heavy and strong. It reminded me of a safe. I

  wondered if it was. Too, I wondered why it had been brought to the apartment.

  “Is that a safe?” I asked, indicating the box. It was sitting on the rug, like

  the carton. It was squat and stout, and efficient looking. Because of its weight

  it was impressed, with sharp lines, into the rug.

  “Not really,” he said. “But it may be used for the securing of valuables.”

  I nodded. There seemed little doubt about that. It appeared to me, indeed, that

  it might serve very well, by virtue of its strength and weight, for the securing

  of valuables. I conjectured that I, with my strength, would scarcely be able to

  move it about.

  “What is in it?” I asked. I was curious. In the side of the box facing me I

  could see two small holes, about the size of pennies. I could not, however,

  because of the light, and the size of the holes, see into the interior of the

  box. The interior of the box was, from my point of view, frustratingly dark.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “I see,” I said, in an acid tone. I was certain he was not being candid with me.

  “Come over here,” he said, pleasantly, beckoning to me.

  I joined him.

  I glanced over at my robe on the easy chair, and the slippers at its foot.

  “My robe and slippers,” I said, “were in the bathroom, were they not?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You then entered the bathroom while I was showering, and removed them, did you

  not?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I had neither seen nor heard him doing this, of course. The water had been

  running. The shower curtain had been drawn.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We decided that you would appear before us much as you are,” he said.