Guardsman of Gor (22 page)

"I was once given for the night in the holding of Policrates to he whom we, at that time, thought to be the courier of Ragnar Voskjard," she whispered. "He forced me to kiss his whip."

"Look up, Slave," I ordered her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"This fellow in the holding of Policrates," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Did you yield to him?"

"Do not make me answer such a question, not to you, please," she pleaded.

"Look into my eyes," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said, in misery.

"Speak," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said, "I yielded to him"

"Fully," I asked, "and as the degraded slave you are?"

"Yes, Master," she said. "I yield to him fully, and as the degraded slave I am."

"Did you yield to him more fully, or as more of a slave, than you did to me?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said, tears in her eyes. "You two are the mightiest of the masters who have used me."

"I see," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"What does he look like?" I asked.

"I do not know, Master," she said. "In the feasting hall of Policrates he wore a mask. Later, in the chambers, when he used me, I was blindfolded."

"I see," I said.

"It was he who first taught me, fully, what it was to be a female slave," she said.

"Are you grateful to him?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Kiss the whip," I said.

She took the coils of the leash in her small hands and, putting down her head, covered them with kisses. She then lifted her eyes to me, in which there were tears. "Now, too, my Master," she said, "I have kissed your whip."

"Perhaps someday you may come again into his pos. session," I said.

"No, Master," she said, "doubtless he has high and beautiful Gorean girls to serve him. I am only a miserable Earthgirl slave. Doubtless he has already forgotten about me. I was only a novelty, and a pleasure, for a night to him."

"I see," I said.

"He made me a spasmodic and submitted slave, and then abandoned me."

"You have not yet seen your master, you have told me," I said. "Perhaps, unbeknownst to you, it is that very fellow who owns you."

"No, Master," she smiled, ruefully. "I know such a man. By now he would have used me, richly and fully. Muchly, by now, would I have had to crawl to him and serve him."

"Do you love him?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed, "but I am the most miserable of slaves!"

"Why is that?" I asked.

"For I love two men!" she wept.

"Who is the other?" I asked.

She looked at me, suddenly terrified. There were tears in her eyes. "Please do not make me speak," she begged.

I shrugged. "Very well," I said.

A householder emerged from a nearby door. He paid us little attention. The woman was obviously only a branded, stripped slave, and a mere Coin Girl at that. He had doubtless seen many such girls, and many who, doubtless, in his opinion, were of much greater interest. He carried a small ladder and, on it, climbed to the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp, and pinched it out. In a moment, carrying the short ladder, he had returned inside. To him, doubtless, the former Miss Henderson was only another little, meaningless, exquisite enslaved wench.

I dropped the leash. It fell between her breasts, and then to the stones of the street. "Get up," I told her, "and put on your tunic."

She looked up at me, agonized.

"Must a command be repeated?" I inquired.

"No, Master," she said. She then got to her feet, the long leash falling before her. She picked up her tunic and drew it on, but did not tie it shut.

She looked at me. "You are sending me away?" she asked.

"It is time for you to be returned to your master," I said.

"So simply as that?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

She fell on her knees before me, and put her head down. She clasped me about the right leg, and began, sobbing, to kiss at my knee. I took her by the hair and pulled her head up, to where she must look at me. "Master," she sobbed.

Casually I inserted another coin in the coin box. She looked at me, with horror.

"Are you obedient?" I asked. I crouched before her, and tossed the leash over her shoulder.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

I then, casually, jerked apart the sides of her tunic.

"Master," she said.

"Lie down," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She then lay back on the stones before me, obedient, agonized.

I brushed back the bell, and coin box, and they lay then on the stones, beside the left side of her neck.

"Master," she said.

I entered her, and held her.

"Master," she wept.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said.

"Will it be necessary to whip you?" I asked.

"No, Master," she wept.

In a moment she cried out, "Is it all that I am to you, a Coin Girl?"

"What else could you be?" I asked.

"Nothing," she wept. "Nothing." Then she clutched me, desperately, sobbing. "Buy me," she begged, "buy me! Keep me! Keep me! I never want to leave youl Buy me, Master, I beg youl I will be a good slave to youl I will strive to please you as might a thousand girls! I want to be your slave! I beg you, my Master, I beg you to buy me!"

Finished with her, I stood up. She lay shattered at my feet, weeping.

I looked down upon her. It was pleasant to see her thusly.

I drew on my tunic.

I kicked the sobbing figure with the side of my foot. "Kneel," I told it.

"Yes, Master," she said. She knelt.

"Adjust the bell and coin box," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Too," said I, "tie shut your tunic. Free women may soon be about. We must not scandalize them."

"No, Master," she said. Kneeling, shuddering, her head down, she closed her tunic, and tied it shut.

I heard the long, horizontal shutters of a shop being flung upward, over the counter. This opens the shop to the street. It was the shop of a leather worker.

The girl looked up at me, agonized.

I then, by the leash, pulling it forward, jerked her to her feet. The collar cut the underside of her chin. I coiled the leash and put the coils in her own hand. "Hold the leash taut," I told her. "Yes, Master," she whispered. She would, thus, her hand about six inches from the ring, lead herself on her own leash. "Seek out now the girl who held your leash last night," I said. "She will be waiting up the street. Find her, and beg her to return you swiftly to your master."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

I regarded her.

"Please, Master," she begged, "pleasel"

I pointed up the street.

"Yes, Master," she said, and then, turning about, stumbling and crying, the bell of the Coin Girl sounding, the coins jingling in the box on her neck, she fled up the street.

XVIII

THE GAG AND HOOD

The small, exquisite, dark-haired slave, naked, knelt on the tiles before the large mirror, trembling, trying to apply, with the tiny brush, the bluish eye shadow.

I watched from behind a dark curtain, one bearing, on both sides, in gold embroidery, an intricate design incorporating cursive Kefs, one larger and several smaller.

"I am afraid," said the kneeling girl, with the small brush.

"As well you should be," said the girl standing behind her, who carried a long, supple leather switch, "for you are soon to be presented to your Master."

"He has treated me with such cruelty," said the kneeling girl.

"You have been treated precisely as you have deserved," said the standing girl.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl. She was quite beautiful under the light of the three, dangling tharlarion-oil lamps, depending from an erect, tall iron stand near the mirror. She replaced the tiny brush and the small, blue, round box which contained the eye shadow on the cosmetics tray on the tiles.

"More eye shadow," said the standing girl.

"Mistress!" protested the kneeling girl.

"Remember that you are a slave," said the girl with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl. Then, she again took up the brush and the tiny box. She applied the eye shadow more heavily then, more sensuously then, in a manner more befitting what she was. Her protests in the matters of her lipstick and perfume, and certain other cosmetics, had been similarly overruled. In a few moments she replaced the materials in the small, oblong tray and leaned back on her heels. She surveyed herself. Her long, dark hair had already been combed with an antique, yellow, stained comb of kailiauk horn.

She regarded herself in the mirror. "I am a slave," she said.

"Yes," said the girl with the switch. She poked the kneeling girl with the switch. "Do not cry," she warned.

"No, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"Are you truly disappointed?" asked the girl with the switch.

"No, Mistress," she said. "It is only that I am not used to seeing myself like this."

She had been forced to make herself up to be maddeningly sensuous.

"Surely you would prefer for your master to see you in terms of desire and not in terms of discipline," said the standing girl.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl at the mirror, fervently.

"Do you object," asked the girl with the switch.

"No, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"Are you not, rather, pleased to see how you look?" asked the girl with the switch.

"I did not know I could look like this," said the kneeling girl.

"How do you think, you look?" asked the girl with the switch.

"Sensuous, and exciting," said the kneeling girl.

"Yes," said the girl with the switch.

"How could a man see me as aught but a slave, like this?" asked the kneeling girl.

"But you are naught but a slave," said the girl with the switch. "Do you doubt that?"

"No, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"And a pretty one," said the girl with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"Look in the mirror, closely," ordered the girl with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"What do you see?" demanded the girl with the switch.

"A slave," said the kneeling girl.

"Say, `I am a slave,"' said the girl with the switch.

"I am a slave," said the kneeling girl, regarding herself in the mirror.

"Do not forget it," said the girl with the switch.

"No, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"Look now again into the mirror, little slave," said the girl with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"Men will make that girl serve them well, will they not?"

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"And that is fitting, is it not, for she is a slave?"

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"And she is very beautiful."

"Thank you, Mistress," said the kneeling girl.

"And are you not pleased to be she?" inquired the girl with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," said the kneeling girl, "I am pleased to be she."

"Then what is wrong?" inquired the girl with the switch.

"I am afraid," said the girl kneeling before the mirror, trembling. "I am afraid to be presented before my Master."

"A suitable fear for a slave," said the girl with the switch.

"What does he look like? What manner of man is he?" asked the kneeling girl.

"You will learn, Slave," said the girl with the switch.

"But what if he does not find me pleasing?" she asked, fearfully.

"You are a slave girl," said the girl with the switch. "It is up to you to see that he finds you pleasing."

"What shall I do?" begged the kneeling girl, looking piteously up at the girl with the switch.

"Be beautiful, and humble," said the girl with the switch.

As the light was arranged I could, through the curtain, see the girls easily; they, on the other hand, because of the same arrangement of light, and because I had set no light behind

me, in the room within which I stood, were totally unable to see me. They were, so to speak, visually at my mercy. This, incidentally, is not an unusual arrangement in a Gorean house, particularly in rooms where slaves might be kept or found. This represents a convenience for the master. Also it is thought to be helpful in the management of a woman, that, when the master wishes, she can be brought secretly under observation. Too, it might be noted that only a curtain separated the cosmetics room from the rest of the house. This sort of thing, too, is not that uncommon where rooms which may be occupied by slaves are found. Such curtains, without ceremony, may be thrust aside, startling the slave and revealing the keeper or master.

Slaves, of course, being mere articles of property, are not entitled to privacy. They may be entered upon as often, and however, one wishes. The Gorean master does not require the permission of a slave to enter a room, no more than the man of Earth requires the permission of his dog to enter a room. This lack of privacy, to be expected, given the lowly condition of the slave, is revealed even in details so obvious as almost to be taken for granted, such as the fact that slave kennels and slave alcoves are almost invariably barred, rather than given opaque portals, say, with observation apertures closed by sliding metal panels, the opening of which might warn the slave of the presence of those under whose governance she finds herself.