Authors: John Norman
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Adventure, #Erotica, #Gor (Imaginary Place), #Outer Space, #Slaves
07 Captive of GorCaptive of Gor
John Norman
Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 7
1
The Brand
The following account is written at the command of my master, Bosk of Port Kar,
the great merchant, and, I think, once of the warriors.
My name was Elinor Brinton. I had been independently wealthy.
There is much I do not understand. Let others find what meaning they can in this
narrative.
I gather that my story is neither as unique, nor as strange, as it may seem. By
the standards of Earth, I was regarded as extremely beautiful. Yet on this world
I am a fifteen-goldpiece girl, more lovely than many, yet far excelled by many
whose stunning beauty I can only envy. I was purchased for the kitchens of the
house of Bosk. Traders, I have learned, ply the slave routes between this world
and Earth. Women, among other goods, are acquired and brought to the markets of
this strange world. If you are beautiful, and desirable, you many fear.
Apparently they may do what they wish.
Yet I think there are perhaps worse fates that might befall a woman than to be
brought to this world, even as a prize of men.
My master has told me not to describe this world in great detail. I do not know
why that is, but I shall not do so. He has told me to narrate primarily what has
occurred to me. And he has asked me to put down my thoughts and, particularly,
my emotions. I wish to do so. Indeed, even if I did not wish to do so, I would
have to obey.
Suffice it then to say but little of my background and condition.
I was expensively educated, if not well educated. I endured a succession of
lonely years at boarding schools, and later at one of the finest women’s
colleges in the northeastern portion of the United States. These years seem to
me now oddly empty, even frivolous. I had had no difficulty in obtaining fine
grades. My intelligence, it seems to me, was good, but even when my work seemed
to me inferior, it was rated highly, as indeed, was that of my sorority sisters.
Our parents were wealthy and substantial grants to the schools and colleges were
often made following our graduations. Also, I had never found men, and many of
my instructors were such, hard to please. Indeed, they seemed eager to please
me. I was failed in one course, in French. My instructor in this case was a
woman. The Dean of Students, as was his wont in such circumstances, refused to
accept the grade. I took a brief examination with another instructor, and the
grade became an A. the woman resigned from the school that Spring. I was sorry,
but she should have known better. As a rich girl I had little difficulty in
making friends. I was extremely popular. I do not recall anyone to whom I could
talk. My holidays I preferred to spend in Europe.
I could afford to dress well, and I did. My hair was always as I wanted it, even
when it appeared, deceptively, as most charmingly neglected. A bit of ribbon, a
color on an accessory, the proper shade of expensive lipstick, the stitching on
a skirt, the quality of leather in an imported belt and matching shoes, nothing
was unimportant. When pleading for an extension for an overdue paper I would
wear scuffed loafers, blue jeans and a sweatshirt, and hair ribbon. I would at
such times smudge a bit of ink from a typewriter ribbon on my cheek and fingers.
I would always get the extra time I needed. I did not, of course, do my own
typing. Usually, however, I wrote my own papers. It pleased me to do so. I liked
them better than those I could purchase. One of my instructors, from whom I had
won an extension in the afternoon, did not recognize me the same evening when he
sat some rows behind me at a chamber music performance at the Lincoln Center. He
was looking at me quizzically, and once, during an intermission, seemed on the
point of speaking. I chilled him with a look and he turned away, red faced. I
wore black, an upswept hairdo, pearls, white gloves. He did not dare look at me
again.
I do not know when I was noticed. It may have been on a street in New York, on a
sidewalk in London, at a café in Paris. It may have been while sun-bathing on
the Riviera. It may even have been on the campus of my college. Somewhere.
Unknown to me, I was noted, and would be acquired.
Affluent and beautiful, I carried myself with a flair. I knew that I was better
than most people, and was not afraid to show them, in my manner, that this was
true. Interestingly, instead of being angered, most people, whatever may have
been their private feelings, seemed impressed and a bit frightened of me. They
accepted me at the face value which I set upon myself, which was considerable.
They would try to please me. I used to amuse myself with them, sometimes
pouting, pretending to be angry or displeased, then smiling to let them know
that I had forgiven them. They seemed grateful, radiant. How I despised them!
They bored me. I was rich, and fortunate and beautiful. They were nothing.
My father made his fortune in real estate in Chicago. He cared only for his
business, as far as I know. I cannot remember that he ever kissed me. I do not
recall seeing him, either, ever touch my mother, or she him, in my presence. She
came from a wealthy Chicago family, with extensive shore properties. I do not
believe my father was even interested in the money he made, other than in the
fact that he made more of it than most other men, but there were always others,
some others, who were richer than he. He was an unhappy, driven man. I recall my
mother entertaining in our home. This she often did. I recall my father once
mentioning to me that she was his most valuable asset. He had meant this to be a
compliment. I recall that she was beautiful. She poisoned a poodle I had once
had. It had torn one of her slippers. I was seven at the time, and I cried very
much. It had liked me. When I graduated neither my mother nor my father attended
the ceremony. That was the second time in my life, to that time, that I remember
crying. He had a business engagement, and my mother, in New York, where she was
then living, was giving a dinner for certain of her friends. She did send a card
and an expensive watch, which I gave to another girl.
That summer my father, though only in his forties, died of a heart attack. As
far as I know my mother still lives in New York City, in a suite on Park Avenue.
In the settlement of the estate my mother received most everything, but I did
receive some three quarters of a million dollars, primarily in stocks and bonds,
a fortune which fluctuated, and sometimes considerably, with the market, but one
which was substantially sound. Whether my fortune on a given day was something
over three quarters of a million dollars did not much interest me.
Following my graduation I took up my own residence, in a penthouse on Park
Avenue. My mother and I never saw one another. I had no particular interest in
anything following school. I smoked too much, though I hated it. I drank quite a
bit. I never bothered with drugs, which seemed to me stupid.
My father had had numerous business contacts in New York, and my mother had made
influential friends. I made a rare phone call to my mother a few weeks after my
graduation, thinking it might be interesting to take up modeling. I had thought
there might be a certain glamour to that, and that I might meet some interesting
and amusing people. A few days later I was invited to two agencies for
interviews, which, as I expected, were mere formalities. There are doubtless,
many girls beautiful enough to model. Beauty, in itself, in a population
numbering in the tens of millions, is not difficult to find. Accordingly,
particularly with unexperienced girls, one supposed that criteria other than
beauty and charm, and poise, often determines one’s initial chances in such a
competitive field. It was so in my case. I believe, of course, that I could have
been successful on my own as well. But I did not need to be.
I rather enjoyed my career as a model, though it did not last more than a few
weeks. I enjoy clothes, and wear them beautifully. I enjoy posing, though
sometimes it is painful and wearying. The photographers and artists seemed
intelligent, witty men, though sometimes abrupt. They were very professional.
One of them once called me a bitch. I laughed. My assignments were frequent.
My most lucrative assignment was to be to model several pieces in a new line of
swimwear being brought out by a rather well-known company, the name of which is,
however, unimportant for purposes of this narrative.
I did not do so.
It was on a Monday afternoon that I received the assignment, and I was to report
to the designated studio on Wednesday morning. I had no assignment for Tuesday.
The evening before I had dismissed my colored maid and cook until Wednesday. I
wanted the house to myself, to be alone, to read and play records.
I slept late Tuesday morning.
I was awakened by the sun streaming through the curtains. I stretched. It was a
warm, lazy day. It was near noon. I sleep nude, between white satin sheets. I
reached over to the ash tray on the night table near the bed and lit a
cigarette. There was nothing unusual about the room. A stuffed toy, a fluffy
koala bear, lay near the foot of the bed. The books lay on their tables. The
lamp shade was tilted slightly as I remembered from the night before. The alarm
clock, which I had not set, lay on the vanity. The cigarette did not taste well,
but I had wanted it. I lay again on top of the sheets and stretched again, then
swung my legs over the side of the bed and into my slippers. I pulled on a
silken peignoir. I jammed the cigarette down into the ash tray and went to the
bathroom to shower.
I tied my hair up and slipped off the peignoir and slid back the door of the
shower, and stepped inside. Soon I was luxuriating in the warm water of the
shower. It was a good day, a warm, lazy, lazy day. I stood there for some
minutes, head back, eyes closed, letting the warm water run over my body. They I
picked up the soap and began to soap my body.
As my fingers applied the soap to my left thigh, I was suddenly startled. There
was something there, that I had never before touched.
I leaned to my left side, my left leg extended and straight.
Suddenly things went almost black. I could not catch my breath. I looked in
horror.
I had felt no pain.
But it had not been there the night before!
There was now a mark on my thigh. It was high on the thigh. The mark itself was
about an inch and a half high. It was a graceful, cursive mark. In its way
lovely. I knew it could not have been the result of a natural wound. It was in
its way perfect, rather deep and clean. It was a deliberately, and precisely
inflicted mark.
I gasped for breath, and felt for the wall to steady myself. Numbly, I washed
the soap from my body and turned off the shower. I left the bathroom, still wet,
and walked barefoot over the rug to stand before the full-length mirror at one
side of the room. There, again I gasped, and again the room seemed to reel about
me. On the mirror, which I had not noticed before, there was another mark. It
had been drawn in my most scarlet lipstick on the surface of the mirror. It was
more than a foot high, but it was the same mark that I wore on my thigh, that
same graceful, cursive mark.
Disbelievingly, I looked at myself in the mirror. I touched again the mark on my
thigh. I looked again at the red mark drawn in lipstick on the surface of the
mirror. I beheld myself.
I knew almost nothing of these things, but there was no mistaking the lovely,
deep, incised mark on my thigh.
Everything went black, and I collapsed to the rug before the mirror. I fainted.
I had been branded.
2
The Collar
(pg 7) I do not know how long I lay on the thick rug before the mirror.
It was perhaps better than an hour, judging from the position of the sun coming
through the curtains.
I rose to my hands and knees on the rug and looked at myself in the mirror.
I screamed.
I was going mad!
I threw my hands to my head, and shook my head.
I locked my fingers in the band at my throat, trying to tear it from my neck. It
had been placed on me while I was unconscious!
About my throat, snugly, there was a graceful, gleaming band of steel.
Gathering my wits I simply reached behind my neck to release the catch, and
remove it. My fingers fumbled. I could not find the release. I turned it slowly,
carefully, because it fitted rather closely. I examined it in the mirror. There
was no release, no catch. Only a small, heavy lock, and a place where a tiny key
might fit. It had been locked on my throat! There was printing on the band, but
I could not read it. It was not in a script I knew!
Once again the room seemed to go dark, and swirl, but I fought desperately to
retain consciousness.
Someone had been in the room to place the band to my neck. He might still be
here.
With my head down, hair falling to the rug, on my hands and knees, I shook my