Guardsman of Gor (19 page)

I thought I heard the sound of a bell. I smiled. It was late, of course, for the sensuous peregrinations of a Coin Girl. Would they not all, now, be secured in their kennels, safe even from fruitless dreams of escape?

I continued on my way. The street was twisting. I could not see far ahead. I heard again the bell. I smiled.

I paused, near a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp. It was about a yard above my head, recessed in a small niche. It was by means of such that the street was lit. Families alternate in the fueling and tending of such lamps. As in many such matters, as in cleaning and repairing streets, Gorean responsibility tends to devolve on the individual and not on the polity. His taxes, in this sense, in such matters, are applied directly, and by himself, to the affairs with which they are concerned. Third parties, thus, in such matters, are not involved, and he

knows precisely, at least in such instances, how much money is involved, and where it is being spent.

I heard the bell again. Again I smiled. I then proceeded further, climbing, up the street. Through the soles of my sandals I could feel, clearly, the street's harsh, rude cobblestones. I was pleased by this.

I turned a corner in the street, and it was then that I saw them, some fifty yards away, approaching, descending, nearing the location of one of the small tharlarion-oil lamps. Near the lamp the girl who was on the leash was jerked up short. I heard the flattish bell on her neck chain. It has a distinctive note. Then she stood still. She must stand in the light of the lamp, to await my approach. Both girls wore brief slave tunics. Both were barefoot. My step was casual, unhurried. It did not even seem, then, that I saw them. I might be anyone, returning late, say, from a tavern or from the visiting of friends. The meeting, surely, was one of mere chance.

"Oh," I said, pausing, stopping, suddenly, a few yards from them. It seemed that I, lost in thought, had just then noticed them. I regarded them. It seemed then that I looked at the leashed girl intently, as though trying to place her, at the distance, in the light, and then I reacted, as though I might then have placed her, or feared that I might have placed her, feared, dismayed, that I might have recognized who she might be. Swiftly she put her head down, hiding her face in her hands. This made a note sound from the bell. An abrupt command was spoken to her by her fair companion, and she quickly put her hands down, at her sides. Another command was spoken, and the leash jerked taut. She lifted her head. I approached her. Tears were in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled.

I regarded her, in the yellowish, flickering light of the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp, late at night, on the rude stones of that dark, narrow street in Victoria. She stood before me, small, slim, exquisite, beautiful. Her binding-fiber-belted, wraparound tunic was brown, and of clinging, thin rep-cloth; it was sleeveless and had a plunging neckline; it was slave short. About her neck there was a chain. From the chain there hung two objects; the first was a narrow, bronze bell, flatish and tapering, with a fiat top and ring; when she moved it would sound, calling attention to her whereabouts; the second was a metal coin box, which contained a slot for the deposition of coins; the coin box was locked. I had not heard coins sound, from within the coin box. Too, about her neck, under the chain, with its dangling articles, there was a high, tight leather collar. Her leash, in the hands of the other girl, was attached to a ring at the back of this collar. The leash, too, was of leather, and long. It was coiled four or five times in the hands of the other girl. More Gorean leashes are long. There are two advantages to the long leash. It may be used, if one wishes, to bind the slave, and its long end, if one wishes, may easily serve as a whipping strap.

"Beverly," I whispered. "Is it you?"

She did not respond. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.

The girl who held her leash then jerked twice on the leash.

"May I serve your pleasure, Master?" asked the leashed girl.

"I thought you were a Coin Girl," I said.

"She is a Coin Girl," said the girl who held her leash. Then she jerked the leash once, against the collar ring.

"I am a Coin Girl," said the leashed girl, before me.

"Interest him," said the other girl.

"I am yours for a tarsk bit, Master," said the leashed girl.

"Open your tunic," said the other girl.

The girl then slipped loose the binding-fiber belt, letting it fall against the two belt loops in the back. Then, with her left hand and her right hand, parting the tunic, holding it open, she showed herself to me.

She was the most beautiful, and attractive, woman I had ever seen.

"It is my hope that I please Master," she said.

"Beverly," I said.

"She has no name," said the girl who held her leash. "Her master has not yet given her one. But once, it is true, that she was known as Beverly. For that reason I suggest, if you are interested in her, that you give her, for your use of her, another name."

I regarded the beautiful girl. She trembled. She did not close her tunic.

"She is an Earth slut," said the girl who held the leash. `Some men like them."

"I could call her `Linda'," I said.

"An Earth-slut name," said the girl who held the leash.

"Excellent!" Then, suddenly, viciously, loosening the coils of the leash, she lashed the girl across the back of the thighs with the long end of the leash. "Do you not realize you are standing in the presence of a free man, Linda?" she said.

And then she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, of New York City, of Earth, and was now Linda, knelt before me, on the rude stones of that narrow street in Victoria. "Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

"Earth girls are so stupid," said the other girl, wearily.

"Many are not stupid," I said. "It is only that they are ignorant."

"Perhaps they may be taught," mused the other girl.

"Any woman may be taught," I told her.

"That is true," she smiled. Then she jerked the leash of the kneeling girl.

"Have me for a tarsk bit, Master," cried the kneeling girl, her tunic parted, looking up at me.

She who had been Miss Henderson, now kneeling before me, had asked to be had by me, and for a tarsk bit.

She looked up at me, piteously.

"You are a female, and he is a man," said the girl who held the leash. "Interest him."

"Please, Mistress," begged the girl.

"Bite at his tunic, and lick at his legs and feet," commanded the girl who held the leash.

Softly then did the bell of the Coin Girl sound, and the chain and coin box on her neck, as she who had once been Miss Henderson turned her head to the side, and began, with her small, fine white teeth, to bite and nibble at the hem of my tunic. I felt these small tugs, piteous. and delicate, and then she, with her lips, pressed the wet tunic against my thigh and through the wet cloth, kissed me. She then, putting her head down, began to lick and kiss at my legs and ,feet. She performed this submission behavior for several minutes, piteously, desperately, beseechingly, entreatingly. Then, at last, her head down, over my feet, she whispered, begging, "Please have me for a tarsk bit, Master. Please have me for only a tarsk bit, Master."

"No," I told her. "Of course not."

She looked up, startled, dismayed.

"Do you think I respect you so little?" I asked.

"You have failed to interest him," said the girl who held

the leash. She shortened the leash and, her fist almost at the girl's collar, jerked it taut, pulling the girl's head up and back straight. Women are very beautiful kneeling in this position.

"But I am a slave," protested the kneeling girl, looking up at me.

"I can see that," I said.

"Have you not wanted to have me, many times?" she asked. "Was I so wrong in sensing that?"

"No," I said.

"Then have me," she said. "I am half-naked before you. I am yours for a tarsk bit. Take me!"

`Surely you would not expect me to press myself upon you, with you at your present disadvantage," I said.

"Disadvantage!" she said. "I am a slavel You are free, but I am a slave. I am a slave gull"

"Yes," I said.

"Look upon me," she said. "Do you think I am to be freed?"

"No," I said.

"Gorean men will always keep me in a collar," she said.

"Yes," I said. I wondered if she knew how truly she spoke.

"Take me," she begged. "Take me!"

"Surely you do not think that I am a bounder, or a cad?" I said.

She sobbed suddenly in frustration.

"On your feet, Slave," said the girl with the leash, giving her a yard of strap, that she might rise. "You have failed to interest him."

"Please let me try further, Mistress!" begged the kneeling girl. "Please!"

"On your feet," said the girl with the leash, jerking on the leash. Sobbing, the beautiful, leashed slave rose to her feet. Fumbling, she closed her tunic, and tied shut the binding fiber which belted it. It seemed she could hardly stand. She trembled, and wept.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"She is a worthless slave," said the girl with the leash. "Look!" She shook the coin box on the girl's neck chain and shook it. "Empty!" she said, scornfully. She then struck the girl twice about the legs with the strap. "We have been out for Ahn," said the girl with the leash, "and we have passed many masters, not one of whom would deign to have her."

"Why is she crying?" I asked.

"She fears, rightfully, her master's displeasure," she said.

I nodded. It is very natural for a slave girl, who is completely at the mercy of her master, and is owned by him, to be very sensitive as to whether or not he is pleased with her.

"Perhaps he is a lenient fellow," I suggested.

"He is a merciless brute, who has more girls than he needs," said the girl holding the leash.

"What will be done with her?" I asked.

"At the least she will receive a severe beating," said the girl with the leash. "If he is in an ugly mood, she may be tortured and slain."

The leashed girl, sobbing, fell on her knees before the girl who held her leash. She put her head to her feet. "Please, Mistress," she begged, "do not take me in yetl"

"It is late," said the girl with the leash. "It is past the nineteenth Ahn. That you should be out now is even against the agreements of the renters of Coin Girls."

"Please, Mistress!" begged the girl.

"On your feet," said the girl with the leash. "You are now to be led back to your master, as a failed slave."

"Wait!" I said.

The kneeling girl, turning, regarded me wildly.

"Yes, Master?" said the girl with the leash.

"I have a tarsk bit here," I said, opening my pouch. "She need not return with the coin box empty." I smiled at the leashed girl. "It is the least I can do," I said to her, kindly. She was looking up at me, frightened. I went to deposit the coin in the coin box on the kneeling girl's neck chain, but the hand of the other girl, she who held the kneeling girl's leash, interposed itself. "There can be no payment, without the rendering of services," she said. "The honor of my Master must not be offended."

I drew back, holding the coin.

The kneeling girl, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, once a graduate student in English literature at a major university in the New York City area, eyed the coin, fearfully. She feared I would replace it in my pouch.

"I will endeavor to be worthy of the tarsk bit, Master," she whispered.

"A Coin Girl," said the girl with the leash, "will struggle to please a man as much for a tarsk bit, as a high paga slave for

a thousand gold pieces, to be paid by her master's customer for her use."

"I see," I said.

"The levels of skill in the Coin Girl, of course," said the girl with the leash, "are commonly much lower." This was true, of course. Yet it must be mentioned that sometimes Coin Girls are extremely skillful. Too, it is not unknown for a master to sometimes send even an exquisitely trained, beautiful high slave into the streets, usually as a joke or a discipline. Such a girl knows that she must perform superbly. Some of the men she falls in with may have been hired by her master, to report back on the quality of her services.

The girl with the leash drew back her hand, it then no longer shielding the opening on the coin box. "You understand the conditions?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Please, Please, Master," said the kneeling girl, tears in her eyes, "put the coin in my coin box. You will not regret it."

I hesitated. I looked at her.

"I beg to please Master," she said clearly.

"You," I asked, as though disbelievingly, "you beg to please a man?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Whom?" I asked.

"You, my Master," she said. "I beg to please you, my Master."

"As a slave?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I beg to please you-as a slave."

I dropped the coin into the narrow, metal coin box. I thought the girl would almost faint with relief, and pleasure. Too, I saw another emotion in her eyes, which was harder to fathom.

The girl with the leash bent down to a nearby slave ring. Such things are common in Gorean streets. They are usually mounted in a wall, a foot to a yard above the walk or pavement. This one was mounted about a foot above the street, and was ahead of me and to my right, a bit behind the kneeling girl, and to her left. "There," said the girl, knotting the end of the leash about the ring. Usually, at such rings, slaves are on a short leash or chain, and are fastened to them on their knees. If the slave is braceleted to the ring and the ring is in the neighborhood of a yard high her hands are braceleted before her face, and her belly faces the wall, or behind the back of her head, and her back or side faces the wall; with the lower ring her hands are braceleted before her lower body if she faces the wall or has her side to it, and roughly at the small of her back, if she has her back to the wall. But the girl who had controlled the kneeling girl's leash had left her a good deal of slack. She might lie, fully, on the stones, and be moved about on them, if I chose.

"I shall withdraw," said the girl who had controlled the leash. "But understand clearly," she said, meaningfully, "that when I return her body will be closely examined."

"I understand," I said.

The girl who had controlled the leash then withdrew.

I looked at the girl, kneeling on the stones before me. I crouched down, before her.

"You know that you must use me fully," she said. "My body will be carefully examined, for the signs of your use."

"I know," I said.

She then, demurely, unbelted her tunic, and brushed it back.

"You must have me, and fully," she said. "You have no choice."

"I know," I said.