Captive of Gor (24 page)

Everything went black, but I did not faint, held in position by the guards.

(pg. 165) When I opened my eyes, blinded with tears, I saw the leather worker

approaching my face with a tiny, steel ring, partly opened, and a pair of

pliers.

As I was held he inserted the ring in my nose. It was painful. Then, with the

pliers, he closed the ring, and turned it, so that its opening, where the closed

edges met, was concealed within, at the side of the septum.

I began sobbing with pain, with misery and degradation.

The guards released me. One untied my ankles.

“Gag her,” said Targo.

I was gagged. My wrists were not unbound, they fearing perhaps I would have torn

at the ring. Perhaps I might have.

A guard, not much pleased with me, dragged me stumbling, eyes filled with tears,

moaning with misery, from the platform. He threw me, half stumbling, into the

wall, among the other girls. I struck the wall, and slid down it, to my knees. I

could not believe what had been done to me. Everything almost went black again.

I shuddered and shook, tears running from my eyes, leaning against the wall.

“Next!” had called the leather worker.

Ute, who was looking at me with puzzlement, as were the other girls, rose to her

feet and went obediently to the block.

When she returned, she, too, wore a tiny, steel ring in her nose. There were

tears in her eyes. “It smarts,” she said to Inge.

I looked at Ute, piteously. Could she not see what had been done to me, to me!

Ute came to me and took me by the shoulders, and I sobbed against her,

uncontrollably.

“Do not cry, El-in-or,” she said.

I pressed my head against her shoulder.

She held my head to her shoulder.

“I do not understand, El-in-or, “ she said. “The most terrible thing you do not

mind. You are then very brave. And they you cry about a little nose ring. It is

not like having your ears pierced.”

“El-in-or is a coward,” said Rena of Lydius.

(pg. 166) “Next!” called the leather worker.

Rena rose to her feet and went to the platform.

The piercing of the ears is far more terrible,” said Ute. “Nose rings are

nothing. They are even pretty. In the south even the free women of the Wagon

Peoples wear nose rings.” She held me more closely. “Even free women in the

south,” she insisted, “” the free women of the Wagon Peoples, wear nose rings.”

She kissed me. “Besides,” she said, “it may be removed, and no will ever know

that you wore it. It will not show.” Then Ute’s eyes clouded with tears. I

looked at the tiny steel rods holding open the wounds in her ears. She wept.

“How can I ever hope to become a Free Companion,” she wept. “What man would want

a woman with the pierced ears of a slave girl? And if I were not veiled, anyone

might look upon me, and laugh, and scorn me, seeing that my ears had been

pierced, as those of a slave girl!”

I shook my head, and against pressed my head into her shoulder. I understood

nothing. I knew only I, Elinor Brinton, once of Park Avenue, once of the

restaurants and boulevards of New York and the continent, now wore in my nose a

tiny ring of steel.

Inge went next to the platform, her hands still bound behind her back, that she

not disturb the tiny rods in her ears. She submitted to the fixing of the ring

gracefully.

She did say to Targo. “But I am of the scribes.”

He said to the leather worker. “Put the ring in her nose.”

She did not protest.

Lana went next to the platform. When she returned, she threw back her head, and

placed her hands behind her head. “Is it not pretty?” she asked.

“It would be more beautiful if it were of gold,” said Rena of Lydius.

“Of course,” said Lana.

“But it is pretty,” said Inge to Lana. “You are so beautiful, Lana.”

Lana smiled.

Inge looked at her timidly. “Am I pretty?” she asked.

(pg. 167) “Yes,” granted Lana, “the ring is pretty—and you are pretty.”

Inge looked at her gratefully.

“What of me?” asked the Lady Rena of Lydius.

“You are beautiful,” said Inge.

I did not lift my head from Ute’s shoulder. I did not want anyone to see.

One after the other of the girls went to the platform.

Afterwards we were fed. Inge and I were unbound, and I was ungagged.

We knelt in a circle, eating from the wooden bowls of bread and stew. We were

given no utensils. Our fingers served to pick out meat and bread, and the gravy

we drank. The girls chatted, and most seemed to have forgotten the ordeal of the

morning. If they had not forgotten it, there was very little they could do about

it. Further, they knew that with their ears pierced, they might bring a somewhat

higher price, and thus, perhaps, obtain a somewhat better-fixed master. Some

prudish slavers, scandalized by ear piercing, refused to have it done to their

girls, but Targo, doubtless because of the gold involved, had insisted upon it.

Many Gorean men apparently find pierced ears in a girl extremely provocative.

Craftsmen of the metal workers, men specializing in the working of gold and

silver, were concerned to work out new forms of jewelry for slave females. It

was said that a year ago in Ar, Marlenus, Ubar of that city, had created a

sensation at a banquet given for his high officers, by presenting a slave-girl

dancer before them who, though she was not in his private pleasure gardens or

compartments, he had had put in earrings. Today, however, better than a year

later, it was not uncommon to see a slave girl wearing, and insolently, such

jewelry, even in public.

I had no objection to earrings. Indeed, if I could find an attractive pair, or

pairs, I was confident I could wear them to my advantage, to please a master, to

perhaps obtain my way, to perhaps help me dominate him. If I could not engage

his affections, I would have him then, would I not, at my mercy? I would bend my

efforts to do so, and when (pg. 168) I had done so then I might, by granting, or

refusing to grant, my favors, or the fervor of my favors, control him and,

though I wore the collar, own Him! How else could a woman fight on Gor? She is

not as strong as a man! She is at their mercy. The entire culture puts her at

his feet. Well I was beautiful enough, and intelligent enough, to fight, and

surely to win! I was truly a slave girl, and that I knew, but my master would

learn that a slave girl could be a dangerous foe. I would conquer him. So I

mused. The only thing that I did not take into my considerations was the Gorean

male. He is unlike the men of Earth, on the whole so weak and pliable, so

reasonable, so compromising, so much in need of recognition and affection, or

its pretense. The only thing I failed to take into my calculations was that the

Gorean male, whether by culture or genetic endowment, is unlike the typical man

of Earth. He, unlike the typical man of Earth, though not unlike all, is a

natural master of women. There was a time in my life when I would not have

understood this, or how it could be. There was surely a time in my life when I

could not have believed this, when I would have found it preposterous, absurd,

incomprensible , false. But at that time I had not been brought to this world.

At that time I had not been in the arms of a Gorean male.

“Eat,” urged Ute.

I had scarcely touched the stew in the wooden bowl.

“We will wear the nose rings,” said Ute, “until our training is finished. Then,

when we leave Ko-ro-ba, they will be removed.

“Where did you hear this?” I asked. There are often rumors carried about the

pens and cages.

“I heard Targo telling one of the guards,” she whispered, looking about.

“Good,” I said. I reached into the bowl. No one ever need know that Elinor

Brinton, of Park Avenue, had once had a steel ring fixed in her nose.

Pleased, I joined Ute in eating.

Afterwards, after we had been hooded and taken to our private training pens in

Ko-ro-ba, I trained well.

It was well I had eaten, for the work was difficult. (pg. 169) Perhaps Targo

wished to take our minds from the events of the morning. In the evening, at the

private pens, we were fed well and our group, myself, Ute, Inge and Lana, were

among those groups given pastries following our meal.

I was pleased with my performance. It was right that we should be rewarded.

I was, indeed, rather pleased with my performance in general.

Sometimes I was irritated by the instructor, herself a slave, when she would

commend me. “See,” she would say to the other girls. “That is how it is done!

That is how the body of a slave girl moves!” but I wanted to learn, that I might

use my skills to enhance my fortunes on Gor. As a warrior applies himself to the

arts of his weapons, so I applied myself to the arts of the female slave, which

I was. I became sleek and more beautiful from the diet and the exercises. I

learned things of which I had not dreamed. Our training, because it was limited

to a few short weeks, did not include many of the elements that are normally

included in a full training. I remained ignorant of Gorean cooking and the

cleaning of Gorean garments. I learned nothing of musical instruments. I

remained ignorant even of the arrangements of small rugs, decorations and

flowers, things that any Gorean girl, slave or free, it likely to know. But I

was taught to dance, and to give pleasure, and to stand, and move, and sit and

turn, and lift my head and lower it, and kneel, and rise. Interestingly, and

sometimes not altogether to my pleasure, I found the training becoming

effective. In the early evening of the day on which our nose rings had been

affixed I was returning to my cage, after having run an errand for Targo in the

pens. I was one of his favorites, and he often used me for his errands.

As I passed by a guard, as a slave girl passes a man, he seized me by the arm

and held me, almost jerking me off my feet, pulling me to him. “You are learning

to move, Slave,’ he said. I was frightened. Then I was not frightened. I pulled

slightly against his arm as though I might be frightened, but could not hope to

elude him. And indeed, of course, I could not have, in fact, eluded him, even

had (pg. 170) I cared to do so. He, being a man, was quite strong enough, as I

knew, to do with me what he might please. How I resented the strength of men! I

looked up at him, timidly. “Perhaps, Master,” I whispered, lips timidly parted,

slightly smiling, keeping my ankles together, and moving my body slightly away

from him, but my shoulders pointing towards him.

“She-sleen,” he said.

He grinned.

He took the nose ring between his thumb and first finger and lifted it. I stood

painfully on my toes.

“You are a pretty slave,” he said.

“I am white silk,” I whispered, now frightened, truly frightened.

He released the ring and reached for me. “What does it matter?” he said.

I backed away from him, and turned and, stumbling, striking into the wall of

cages, fled down the hall. I am afraid I did not flee as a lovely slave girl. I

fled clumsily, terrified, as an Earth girl fleeing from a Gorean male.

I heard him laugh behind me, and stopped. He had been having sport with me.

I turned and looked at him in irritation.

He clapped his hands and took a step toward me, and I turned and fled stumbling

away again, hearing his laughter in the hallway behind me.

But in a moment or two I had regained my composure.

When I reached the cage I was well pleased with myself. I had attracted the

guard. He had wanted me. He, of course, would not have taken me, for fear of the

wrath of Targo, but I had no doubt of his desire. I shuddered. If it had not

been for Targo he doubtless would have taken me, on the cement flooring, before

the bars. But still, on the whole, I was quite pleased. I knew that I was

desirable. I knew that I was very desirable. I was an exciting slave. I was

proud. I was much pleased.

Ute and Inge asked Lana and I to help clean the cage that night but we, as

usual, refused. That was the work of lesser girls. Lana and I were more valuable

than Ute and (pg. 171) Inge, or so we thought. The three of us might have forced

Lana to help, but then I would have had to work, too. I realized that if I

joined with Lana, thought I did not care for her, they could not force either of

us to work. Since Ute and Inge were insistent that the cage be cleaned, this

unpleasant task thus fell regularly to them. I liked a clean cage. I just did

not wish to clean it. Lana and I, that night, thought them fools, and, satisfied

with ourselves, went to sleep on the straw.

I was pleased that I was exciting. I touched the nose ring. I resented it. In

the morning I would have even more reason to resent it. I became drowsy. I was

pleased that I was exciting, and was pleased, too, that the hated nose ring

would be removed before we left Ko-ro-ba. I rolled over, closing my eyes.

Ko-ro-ba, I thought, Ko-ro-ba. I was drowsy. We had approached the city in the

early morning and Targo had permitted us to leave the wagons to look upon it, in

the morning sun. The city, the sun reflecting on its walls and towers, was very

beautiful. It is sometimes called The Towers of the Morning, and perhaps