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

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

by Kajira of Gor [lit]

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Not you! Not you, of all people! You not see me as a slave!

  You could not see me as a slave! I you. That would be impossible! You could not

  relate to as though I might be a slave! You could not! One such as would never

  enforce my slavery upon me! One such as you could never do so!” Then she looked

  up at him, her lower lip trembling. “’Renata’ is my house name,” she said.

  He then removed the belt from his tunic. The accouterments on it he handed to

  Drusus Rencius.

  “You lifted your head from the tile position before free persons had passed you,

  Renata,” he said. “You also addressed a free man twice by his name. Similarly

  your speech has been inadequately deferential. It has not been interspersed at

  appropriate points, for example, by the expression ‘Master.’ You have also

  referred to yourself as though you might still be ~Deirdre.’ Such falsifications

  of identity are not permitted to slaves. Deirdre is gone. In her place there is

  now only a slave, an animal, who must wear whatever name masters choose to put

  on her. Similarly, when asked a question, that pertaining to your house name,

  you did not respond with sufficient promptness. Do you understand all that I am

  saying, fully and clearly, Renata?”

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “On all fours, Renata,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she sobbed, assuming this position.

  “Perhaps you should precede us a few paces down the hall,” said Drusus Rencius

  to me.

  I moved, frightened, a few feet down the hall, not looking. Then, suddenly, I

  heard the belt beginning to fall, sharply, on the girl. I turned in time to see

  her on her side, in her chains, receiving the last few blows. She had not been

  pleasing. She was a slave. Of course she was being punished.

  Then Hermidorus, without further ado, took back his accouterments from Drusus

  and slipped them on his belt. He then fastened the belt again about his waist.

  I was startled that one such as he, seemingly so scholarly and gentle, possessed

  such uncompromising strength. The female had learned, to her sorrow, that in his

  presence she would not be permitted the least slackness in her discipline.

  “I am sorry for the interruption,” Hermidorus apologized to Drusus Rencius.

  “That is perfectly all right,” said Drusus.

  The girl lay on her stomach, in her chains, in the water on the tiles. She

  lifted her head, gazing in pain, disbelief and awe at Hermidorus. She was a

  slave who had not been pleasing. She had been put under his belt.

  We then continued down the hallway.

  “Master,” she called out, “I want to lay for you! I want to lay for you! Please

  have me sent to your rooms! I want to lay for you!”

  Hermidorus did not look back.

  I looked back. I saw in the girl’s eyes that she now knew she was a slave, and

  helplessly so, and that she loved him.

  We continued on our way.

  I wondered if he would have her sent to his rooms. The decision’ was his. She

  was a slave.

  “As the house opens to the public at the tenth Ahn,” said Hermidorus, “perhaps I

  should now take you to the office of Publius, who wished to greet. you before

  you left the premises.” The tenth Ahn is the Gorean noon.

  “Splendid,” said Drusus Rencius.

  We were then making our way upward from some of the lower pen areas.

  I had not realized the complexities of a slaver’s house, and this house was not

  an unusually large one. We had seen the baths and the sales yard, which is also

  used for exercise; we had seen various holding areas, ranging from silken,

  barred alcoves for superb pleasure slaves, through cells and cages of various

  sorts more fit for medium-priced women, to incarceration chambers that were

  little more than grated pits or gloomy dungeons, areas in which a slave might be

  terrorized to find herself placed; other holding areas, ranging from good to

  bad, were no more than a ring position, in a wall or on a floor; we also saw

  kitchens, pantries, eating areas, some with mere troughs or depressions in the

  floor, storage areas, guard rooms, offices, and places for the keeping of

  records; there were also a laundry and an infirmary; too, there were rooms where

  such subjects as the care and dressing of hair, the application of cosmetics,

  the selection and use of perfumes, manicure and pedicure, and slave costuming

  were taught, and even rooms where inept women, usually former members of the

  upper castes, could be instructed in the small domestic tasks that would now be

  expected of them, small services suitable for slaves, such as cleaning, cooking

  and sewing. Certain areas of the house, however, I was not shown, presumably

  because I was a free woman, such as the lowest pens, the branding chamber, the

  discipline room, and the rooms where girls were taught to kiss and caress, and

  the movements of love.

  “I will be good! I will be good!” I heard a girl cry, from within a low, steel,

  rectangular box, shoved against the side of the passage, presumably that it

  would not be in the way. I stopped, startled. It had not occurred to me that a

  girl could be held within those small confines. Indeed, in the half-darkness of

  the lamp lit passage I had hardly noticed the box

  It was about four feet long and three feet wide, with a depth of perhaps

  eighteen inches. It was of steel and opened from the top. In the lid, at each

  end, there was a circle, about five inches in diameter, of penny-sized holes. It

  was locked shut, secured by two flat, steel bars, perpendicular to its long

  axis, padlocked, in front, in place. “I will be good!” wept the girl, from

  within.

  “It is a slave box,” said Hermidorus.

  “I beg to be pleasing, Masters!” cried the girl, from within.

  “Surely she must be a very tiny woman,” I said, horrified, to Drusus Rencius.

  “She is the former Lady Tais of Farnacium,” said Hermidorus. “Her house name is

  Didi. She is, as I recall, a normal-sized slave.”

  ‘The box is so small,” I said.

  “It is supposed to be small,” said Drusus Rencius.

  “But consider the cramping, the tightness, the girl’s helplessness,” I said.

  “Those are among its purposes,” he said.

  “But it is so small!” I protested.

  “It is not really so small,” he said.

  I looked at him.

  “It would be, for example,” he said, “more than large enough for you.”

  “I will obey lovingly and with total perfection, Masters,” averred the woman

  from within the box. “I beg only to be permitted to be fully and totally

  pleasing to my Masters!”

  “Come along,” said Hermidorus.

  We then, once again, followed him.

  “I beg to be pleasing!” cried the woman from within the box. “I beg to be

  permitted to be totally pleasing!”

  “She is almost ready to l
eave the box,” said Hermidorus

  “Let me see the license on her,” said Publius. “I see,” he smiled, surveying the

  scrap of paper given to him by Drusus Renelus, “the’ Lady Lita.” He looked at

  me. “A pretty’ name,” he said.

  I thought so, too.

  He smiled at me, as though amused by the name. I did not understand this.

  “It is not her true name, of course,” said Publius to Drusus Rencius.

  “Of course not,” said Drusus Rencius.

  “Doubtless, in the circles in which you travel, Lady Lita,” said Publius to me,

  “it would not do for your friends to know how you were brought half naked and

  braceleted into a slaver’s house.”

  I looked away from him. I did not deign to respond to such a remark.

  “It would be quite a scandal doubtless,” he said, “and make a quite good story

  in the telling.”

  I looked away, loftily, still braceleted.

  “Here, Lady Lita,” he said, “let us stand you in the light, where we can get a

  better look at you.” He conducted me to a pool of light, at the foot of a shaft

  of light, falling from a high, barred window.

  I stood there, and the men stood back, looking at me.

  “She is very pretty,” said Publius. “’Lita’ would be a good name for her.”

  “I think so,” said Drusus Rencius.

  I stood there, being inspected. I had been afraid that Publius, when he bad been

  conducting me to the pool of light, and placed me here, might have touched me. I

  could not have prevented it, in such a brief garment, with no nether closure, my

  hands braceleted helplessly behind my back, but he had not done so. Had he done

  so, of course, my condition of arousal would have been made humiliatingly and

  embarrassingly evident to him. I hoped that my need was not somehow evident,

  subtly so, in my appearance and behavior, Perhaps through body cues. I hoped,

  too, they could not smell

  “Kneel down here, Lady Lita, in the light,” said Publius.

  I knelt down, in the pool of light. I kept my knees closely together. I was

  confused, and frightened. I was kneeling before men.

  “Are you sure she is free?” asked Publius.

  “Yes,” said Drusus Rencius.

  “Interesting,” said Publius. He then walked slowly about me, looking at me, and,

  then, again, stood a few feet before me, looking down at me.

  “Look at her,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Drusus.

  “Closely,” said Publius.

  “Yes?” inquired Drusus.

  “Do you not see?’” asked Publius.

  “What?” asked Drusus.

  “She has the softness, the femininity, the look of a slave about her,” he said.

  “I assure you,” smiled Drusus, “she’ is far from a slave.”

  “I do not think so,” said Publius. “I think she is a natural slave, and would

  train superbly to the collar.”

  Drusus threw back his head and laughed at the absurdity of this thought. I

  myself did not find it so amusing.

  “Does anyone know she is here?” asked Publius.

  “No,” said Drusus.

  “Why do we not then enslave her?” asked Publius. “No, Lady Lita,” he said, “do

  not rise to your feet.” I had almost leapt up. My wrists wildly, suddenly, had

  jerked against the bracelets. They had not yielded, of course. They were not

  made to yield. I knelt back then, in the light, on my heels.

  “It would not be difficult,” said, Publius. “We could transport her from the

  city. Then, elsewhere, when she is suitably branded, and her neck is locked in a

  proper collar, when she’ is fully and inescapably a slave, absolutely rightness,

  and in your power, we might make test of the matter.”

  “This woman is not a slave,” said Drusus Rencius.

  “A silver tarsk says she is,” laughed Publius.

  “How are things in Ar?” asked Drusus Rencius. “I have I not been there for a

  long time.”

  “I will get the paga,” said Publius. The men then drank, and spoke of small

  things while I knelt in the light, braceleted, and was seldom, I think in their

  mind or attention. Once I noticed that my knees had opened somewhat, without my

  really thinking about it. I quickly closed them. I hoped no one had noticed. I

  wondered if I was a slave. Publius thought so, and he was a slaver. He had been

  willing to put a silver tarsk on the matter. I looked at Drusus. Something in me

  seemed to say, “You lose your tarsk, Drusus Rencius. She is a slave.”

  Then I hastily thrust such a horrifying thought from my mind.

  “Please, Drusus,” I had said. “My hands have been braceleted long enough. I am

  beginning to feel too helpless, too much like a slave. Please release me.”

  “I will release you in the room,” he had said.

  I had then continued to follow him, still braceleted, through the alleys, toward

  the inn of Lysias.

  Why did lie not release me now? Why did be still keep mc braceleted, like a

  slave? Could he not see that I was almost overcome with emotion? Could he not

  see my misery, my distress? Could be not see how overwrought I was? Could he not

  see the difficulty I was having, fighting myself?

  We were approaching closer and closer to the inn of Lysias. This excited and

  thrilled me, but, too, it frightened and terrified me. There I would be alone

  with Drusus Rencius, a Gorean male, in the room. What would I do? How would I

  act?

  I moaned to myself.

  I wished to run to the room, and I wished to hang back, almost as though against

  a leash.

  Emotions raged within me, furies and resentments lingering ro~ my Earth

  conditionings, residues of masculine values which I had been encouraged to

  espouse and exemplify, and, leased on Gor, welling up from deeply within me,

  from what sources I could scarcely dare conjecture, alarming me, concerting me,

  almost overpowering feelings of helplessness, vulnerability and femininity.

  I did not know what to do. I did not know how to act.

  “I am free,” I cried to myself, “I am free! Free!”

  But I was half naked and my hands were braceleted behind Each step, too, was

  taking me closer to the room!

  I wished that I had never seen slaves, and the house of Kuenes. I wished I had

  never known how beautiful they _e, and how they were dominated by men, and must

  obey!

  ~ished that I had never felt these powerful emotions, in all

  ir irresistibility, profundity and depth! But then I knew

  t this was false. It is better to feel than not to feel. I was

  overwhelmingly moved by having seen slaves, and thlilled to

  re been permitted, even on a license, to see the house of

  omenes. Even though I myself was surely not a s~ve my

  ,I knew, was a thousand times richer for having realized

  t such things existed, for having seen such basic, deep, hu-

  and real things.

  “How do you kn
ow that you are not a slave, Tiffany?” I asked myself. “How do you

  know that you are different from those other girls? How do you know that you are

  not, as Publius suggested, a natural slave? How do you know tile collar would

  not be quite appropriate for you? How do you know it does not, in fact,

  rightfully belong on you?”

  “No,” I said to myself, almost poutingly, “I am free!”

  Then something within me, frightening me, seemed to laugh, derisively. “You are

  a slave, Tiffany,” it said. “You know you are a slave. You have known it, in one

  way or another, in your heart, for years.”

  “No!” I said to myself. “No!” “But, yes, Slave,” said the voice within me,

  insistently, derisively, mocking me. “No!” I said. “Yes,” it whispered. “Yes,

  yes.”

  I wondered if I was a slave. The thought thrilled me, and terrified me.

  Why had Drusus Rencitis not freed me from the bracelets!

  We were not now in the house of Kliomenes!

  “I will release you in the room,” he had said.

  Why would he not release me now? Why could he not be of help to me? Could he not

  see how I was fighting myself!

  I wondered if she who was helpless in his bracelets was a slave.

  Oddly enough I had felt most a slave, most dominated, ill the house of Kliomenes

  when, in the office of Publius, the men had talked, and I had knelt alone and to

  one side, my head down, in the light, neglected, braceleted, waiting for the

  men, the masters, ‘to finish.

  I hurried along in the alley behind Drusus Rencius.

  I tried to fight the emotions flsin’g in me, welling up, irresistibly, from my

  very depths. I was confused and torn. In me conditioning warred with nature. Men

  were the masters. Did they not know that? Why did they not enforce their power’,

  their will on us? Could they not see what we wanted, what we needed? Were they

  so inattentive and insensitive? Were they so stupid, so blind? Could they not

  see that I, in order to attain my perfection, needed the weight of a chain, the

  tas~ St of a whip? Could they not see that I could not be perfect until my will

  was taken from me, and I must serve will-lesslyl

  Could ‘they not see that this was what I wanted? I was not man. I was a woman! I

 

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