Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt

Norman, John - Gor 20 - Players of Gor.txt Page 21

by Players of Gor [lit]

  She put her head in her hands, sobbing.

  “I wonder if I should turn you over to magistrates,” he said.

  “Please, do not!” she wept.

  “I will give you another chance,” he said, reaching behind his back, to where he

  had supposedly hidden the veil at the first sight of the supposed brigands.

  “Now,” he said, thrusting forth his hands, “in which hand is it?”

  “The right!” she cried.

  “No!” he said.

  “The left!” she wept.

  “No,” he said, “it is in neither hand. I left it behind my back!”

  “Oh, oh!” she wept.

  “On your knees, Slave,” he said, sternly.

  Swiftly she knelt, in misery.

  “Do not fret, girl,” said Boots. “Surely you know that you have slave curves.”

  “I do?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “In any event, you are far too beautiful to be a mere free

  companion.”

  “I am?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Your beauty, if you must know, is good enough to be that of a

  slave.”

  Here several of the men in the audience shouted their agreement.

  “Is it?” she asked, laughing.

  “Yes,” said Boots, struggling to keep a straight face.

  “Good!” laughed the Brigella.

  There was more laughter from the audience.

  “Mind your characterizations!” called the free woman in the audience.

  “Forgive me, Lady,” said Boots, trying not to laugh.

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  “Forgive me, Mistress,” said the Brigella.

  “Continue,” said the free woman.

  “Are you in charge of the drama?” inquired a man.

  The free woman did not deign to respond to him.

  “Will you not then accept me as a free companion, noble sir?” called the

  Brigella to Boots, in his guise as the merchant.

  “It is the collar for you, or nothing,” said Boots, grandly.

  There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

  “Though I may be a slave in my heart,” cried the Brigella, leaping to her feet,

  “I am surely not a legal slave and thus, as yet, am bond to neither you nor any

  man!”

  “Many are the slaves who do not yet wear their collars,” said Boots,

  meditatively, and then suddenly, turned about and, to the amusement of the men

  in the audience, to sudden bursts of laughter, started directly at the

  outspoken, troublesome, arrogant free woman standing in the front row, below the

  stage. He could not resist turning the line in this fashion, it seemed.

  “Sleen! Sleen! she cried.

  There was much laughter.

  “is it true that you are as yet merely an uncollared slave?” asked a man of the

  free woman.

  “He is a sleen, a sleen! cried the free woman.

  “I must soon be on my way, “ said Boots to the Brigella, chuckling, trying to

  return to the play. He was well pleased with himself.

  “Go!” she said, grandly, with a gesture.

  “If you wish,” he said, “you may kneel and beg my collar. I might consider

  granting it to you. I would have to think about it.”

  “Never!” she said.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I shall return to the village and take my chances,” she said.

  “Very well,” he said, “but watch out for those two fellows approaching. I fear

  they may be slavers.”

  “They appear to be peddlers, merchant, to me,” she said.

  “They do seem so,” admitted Boots. “But that may be merely their disguise, to

  take unwary girls unaware.”

  “nonsense,” she said. “I know a peddler when I see one.”

  “At any rate,” he said, “let us hope that they are no worse than slavers.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I heard there were two feed hunters in the vicinity,” he said.

  “What is a feed hunter?” she asked.

  “One who hunts for feed, of course,” said Boots.

  page 147

  “Feed?” she asked.

  “Usually for their sleen,” he said, “They are pesky, careless, greedy fellows,

  little better than scavengers, in my opinion. They will settle for almost

  anything. They are particularly pleased when they can get their ropes on a juicy

  girl.”

  “Surely there are better things to do with a girl than feed her to sleen,” she

  said.

  “It probably depends on the girl,” said Boots.

  “No!” she cried.

  ““I am inclined to agree with you, though,” said Boots, “all things considered,

  but then, of course, I am not a feed hunter.”

  “You are trying to frighten me,” she said.

  “Have it your own way,” said Boots.

  “You have fooled me already today, perhaps many times,” she said. “Do not seek

  to do it again!”

  “Have it your own way,” said Boots.

  “I wish that my clothes had not blown away,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Boots. “That was too bad.”

  “I am on my way,” she announced.

  “Good luck!” he called.

  She then, in accordance with a common Gorean theatrical convention, trekked

  about the stage in a circle, while Boots withdrew to one side. In a moment, of

  course, she had come into the vicinity of the two aforementioned fellows, they

  entering from the other side of the stage. So simply was the scene changed.

  These two fellows, of course, were Boots’s Chino and Lecchio, now largely garbed

  in tatters of yellow and white, the colors of the merchants.

  “Greetings, noble merchants,” said the girl.

  “Hah!” snarled the Chino to his fellow, Lecchio. “Our disguises are perfect! She

  takes us for merchants!”

  “Would you please step aside, good sirs,” she said. “I desire to pass.”

  “It is warm today,” said Chino.

  “True,” she said.

  “But even so,” he said, “it seems you are somewhat lightly clad.”

  “My clothes, I fear, blew away,” she said.

  “That is what they all say,” said Chino.

  “That is not really what they all say,” said Lecchio, scratching his head,

  through the hood. “Some say other things. One said her clothes were dissolved by

  magic in the bushes. That

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  must have been frightening for her, to have had her clothes dissolved by magic

  in the bushes.”

  “No,” protested the girl.

  “Doubtless they were torn from your body in a recent hurricane,” said Chino.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Removed from your body by an ardent suitor, then, who neglected to replace

  them?” asked Chino.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Eaten in a momen
t by ravenous insects?”

  “No!”

  “You were attacked by cloth workers with scissors, who desired to replenish

  their stores?”

  “No!”

  “Magic?” asked Lecchio.

  “No, no!” she cried. “It is as I told you. They just blew away!”

  “Do not lie to us, Girl,” said Chino, sternly.

  “Girl?” she asked.

  “This morning,” said Chino, “you were simply sent forth stripped.”

  “Sent forth?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Chino, folding his arms.

  “I think that you are under a grave misapprehension, sirs,” she said,

  righteously. “Simply because I might be somewhat lightly clad this evening, do

  not mistake me for a slave.”

  “Do I understand you correctly?” asked Chino. “Have we the honor of being in the

  presence of a free woman?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You mean that no one owns you, that you are totally unclaimed?”

  “Yes,” she said, proudly.

  “Excellent!” said Chino.

  “Wonderful!” said Lecchio.

  “Sirs,” she asked, “why is it that you are drawing forth coils of stout ropes

  from beneath your robes?”

  “Why to bind your pretty arms to your sides, and to put a good rope on your

  neck, my dear,” said Chino.

  “I do not understand!” she said.

  “She will make a juicy morsel for our sleen, will she not, Lecchio, my friend?”

  inquired Chino.

  “That she will,” agreed Lecchio.

  “You are feed hunters!” cried the girl in horror.

  “What is a feed hunter?” asked Lecchio of Chino

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  “That is exactly right, my dear,” Chino confirmed her darkest suspicions.

  “But you cannot feed me to sleen!” she cried.

  “You are free to be taken,” Chino informed her. “It is all perfectly legal. You

  are neither claimed nor owned.”

  “But I am a slave in my heart!” she cried.

  “That is not good enough,” said Chino. “All free women are merely uncollared

  slaves.”

  AT this line more than one man in the audience turned to look at the veiled free

  woman in the audience, she of the scribes. She, however, of course, her back

  stiff, pretended not to notice that she was the object of this rather obvious

  attention.

  “Oh, misery, misery!” cried the Brigella.

  “You do not have a legal master,” said Chino. “Thus you are eminently qualified

  for sleen feed. Come now. Do not be difficult. Let us get these ropes on you.”

  “No, no!” she cried, and, turning, sped away. AS she again retraced the circle

  on the stage, this time hastily, suggesting her journey, Chino and Lecchio

  watched her depart. “We must soon begin our fierce pursuit,” Chino informed the

  audience.

  In a moment or two the Brigella had again reached the vicinity of Boots

  Tarsk-Bit who turned about, congenially enough, effecting some surprise at the

  sight of her. “Greetings,” he said.

  “I kneel before you as a naked slave,” cried the girl. “I beg your collar! I beg

  your collar!”

  “Your head is rather high,” said Boots.

  Immediately the girl put her head to the ground.

  “I wonder how you would look on your belly,” said Boots.

  Immediately she lay on her belly before him.

  “My sandals are rather dusty, from the road,” said Boots.

  Immediately the girl began to lick his feet and sandals, cleaning them.

  “You may kiss them, as well,” Boots informed her.

  Immediately the girl began to add fervent kisses to her ministrations.

  “Did you wish to speak to me?” inquired Boots.

  “I beg your collar!” she said hoarsely. “I beg your collar!”

  “You may kneel before me, with your knees spread,” said Boots.

  The men in the audience cried out with pleasure. The Brigella was so beautiful!

  Too, a woman is so marvelously vulnerable and attractive in this position. It is

  no wonder that it is a portion of a common position of a Gorean pleasure slave.

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  “Now,” said Boots, “what was it that you wanted to speak to me about?”

  “I want your collar,” she said. “I beg it!”

  “I have given some thought to this matter,” said Boots, “and I have decided

  against it.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have decided that, after all, you are a free woman.”

  “No, I am not,” she said. “I am only a miserable slave, a rightful slave, one

  pleading for her collar.”

  “How can I know that you speak the truth?” he asked, thoughtfully.

  “I am prepared to offer any evidences that you might suggest,” she said.

  There was a cheer from the men in the audience.

  The Brigella laughed.

  “Are you?” asked one of the men in the audience to the free woman in the

  audience.

  “Get her on her knees naked, too,” said another man of her.

  “With her knees spread, and well,” added another.

  “Collar her,” said another.

  “Give her a taste of the whip,” said another.

  “Teach her quickly to lick and kiss,” said another.

  “Teach her what being a woman is all about,” said another.

  “Did you not see?” asked the free woman. “She laughed! She lost her

  characterization!”

  “It is sometimes hard to keep one’s characterization in such a play,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  “Do not be too hard on her,” I said. “She is only a slave.”

  “Slaves are to be shown no mercy,” said the free woman, coldly.

  “Do I detect that you are critical in some respects of her performance?” I

  asked. The Brigella seemed to me to be very talented.

  “She is undoubtedly quite good,” said the free woman, “but many of her lines, I

  think, could have been better handled, or at least differently handled,

  particularly in this form of farce, more broadly, both verbally and gesturally.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “May we have Lady Telitsia’s permission to continue,” inquired Boots, not too

  pleased with the interruption.

  “You may continue,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You are very kind.” He then returned

  page 151

  his attention to the Brigella. “No,” he said. “I am sure you are a free woman,

  not a slave.”

  “No, no!” she said. “I am a slave! I swear it! I swear it!” She cast a wild

  glance back over her shoulder. AS yet, supposedly, Chino and Lecchio were not in

  sight.

  “It is true,” said Boots, “that at one time I
thought you might be a slave.”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “But I think I was wrong,” said Boots.

  “No, no,” she said. “You were right! You were right!”

  “You are a slave, really?” asked Boots.

  “yes,” she said. “I am really a slave! I swear it!” Again she looked over her

  shoulder.

  “You do have slave curves,” admitted Boots.

  “Yes, yes!” she cried.

  “Very well,” said Boots. “I acknowledge, unqualifiedly, with no reservations

  whatsoever, uncompromisingly, that you are a slave.”

  “Collar me!” she cried.

  “I think,” said Chino to Lecchio, at the other side of the stage, “that it is

  nearly time for us to begin our fierce pursuit.”

  “Surely you must understand,” said Boots to the Brigella, “that two quite

  different matters are under consideration here. One is whether or not you are a

  slave, a matter which has now been settled in the affirmative, and the other is

  whether or not I might be interested, in the least, in having you as my own

  slave.”

  She looked at him in disbelief.

  “Not every man wants to own every slave,” he said, “or, at least, it would not

  be too practical for a fellow to own every slave, for that would be a great many

  slaves.”

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Too, slaves can be expensive. One must feed them and , if one wishes, find them

  a rag to wear.”

  “Our fierce pursuit begins,” announced Chino to the audience, and Lecchio began

  to describe a circle about the stage, carefully, bending over, hesitating now

  and then, apparently tracking the lovely fugitive.

  “Disciplinary devices, such as whips and chains, too, can be expensive,” said

  Boots.

  “I fear they are coming!” she cried, turning back from looking over her

  shoulder.

  “Who?” asked Boots.

  “Oh, no one,” she said.

  page 152

  “Oh,” said Boots.

  “I am at your feet, a naked supplicant,” she said. “I entreat you, implore you,

  to show me mercy! Deign, in your graciousness, to consider my humble petition!”

  “What was it again,” asked Boots. “I fear it may have slipped my mind.”

 

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