Prize of Gor (22 page)

It could be done to her.

She was slave.

“May I speak?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Might Master Mirus desire me, as well?” she whispered.

“What?” he asked, disbelievingly.

“Nothing, Master,” she said, quickly.

“You, me?” he asked.

“Forgive me, Master! It is well known, the contempt in which Master holds his slave!”

“Are you now begging, you, with all that you were, now begging as an amorous slave to be used?” he asked.

“No, Master,” she said, quickly.

She resolved that she must not let him know the depth of the slave she was.

How could he then respect her?

But how absurd was such a concern!

Dignity, respect, and such, were not for slaves. Did she not know that? One did not respect slaves; one commanded them, worked them, ravished them, perhaps loved them.

She might demand respect from weaklings of Earth; before Gorean men she would kneel, and hope to be found pleasing.

She was in torment.

She must remember she was of Earth!

Did she truly desire the tepidities and formalities of respect, she wondered. Perhaps, rather, she wished something else, say, a radical fullness of life, wished rather fulfillment, wished, rather, to be coveted, prized, and relished, owned.

No, she must insist on respect!

“I think, Ellen,” he said, “that you have not been lashed enough.”

“Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“Perhaps you think that you may be a saucy slave,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“Sometimes,” said he, “a slave girl needs the whip.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“It is good for their behavior, and their comprehensions.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You are a virgin, are you not?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. Surely that was clear from her papers.

“But,” said he, “of the many things that may be done to a female slave, whipping is only one.”

“Oh?” she said.

“You tread a thin line, slave girl,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked.

“You are a bright, pretty little slave,” he said.

The monster, she thought. I was his teacher. To be sure, what am I now, with my eighteen-year-old body, but a bright, pretty, little slave? It is true, true! That is what he has made me!

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Are you prepared to beg to please a man, any man?” he asked.

“I am a slave,” she said. “Surely Master can force me. He can bend me to his will. A mere snapping of the fingers will suffice. I must obey, with all the perfection with which I am capable, and instantly.”

“I am awaiting a response to my question,” he said.

“Is the man my master?” she asked.

“You have heard the question,” he said.

I am of Earth, she thought. I am of Earth!

She decided that this would be the moment to convince him of her value, of her nobility, of her loftiness, of her worthiness, the moment to earn his respect. She must lead him to believe that she was essentially a free woman who unfortunately, inexplicably, astonishingly, found herself in a collar. That way he would doubtless respect her. She now wanted his respect, desperately. She must never let him know that there knelt before him on the rug a woman who in her deepest heart of hearts was a helpless, vulnerable, submissive, craving, begging slave girl.

“Master may of course order me to beg,” she said. “Then I must beg, as I am a slave.”

“Then you would not choose to beg?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” she said, tossing her head.

She was frightened by the sternness of his gaze.

“I may, of course, be subjected to slave rape,” she said, quickly. Indeed, she hoped that he would simply take her and work his will upon her, a will she longed to satisfy. She desired desperately to be taken in hand and put to his purposes, to be ravished by him, uncompromisingly, thoroughly, ruthlessly, as befitted her slaveness, by him, her master.

I love him, she thought.

He brought me here. He must want me. Perhaps he loves me. No, that could not be. But he must like me a little. Oh, I hope that he likes me, if only just a little! Please, Master, like me, if only a little!

Take me, she thought. Take me! I am your slave! You are my Master! We are your slaves, oh Masters. Do you not use us as you wish, ravishing us whenever, and however, it might please you to do so?

Oh, take me, beloved Master, she thought. I am yours! I am ready! Be merciless! Be ruthless! Take me! Take me!

“Perhaps you were curious,” he said, “as to the modalities of discourse required of you at supper this evening,” he said.

“Master?” she said.

Inwardly she reeled, in shock.

She had expected, at any moment, to be thrown back, to feel the rug’s harsh nap on her back, to feel her ankles seized and her legs, he laughing with exultation, spread cruelly, widely.

Why had he not, at least, issued the “Sula!” command? That was one of several commands she had been trained to respond to instantly. Upon hearing this command, the slave immediately assumes a supine position, her hands at her sides, palms up, her legs open.

“You understood very little of what transpired this evening, I would suppose,” he said.

“Yes, Master, very little,” she said.

“These are matters of war,” he said. “Involved are the fates of two planets, Earth and Gor.”

“Master?” she asked.

“You are a slave,” he said. “It is no concern of yours.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“No matter how things turn out you will still be in a collar.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You are of no more account in these things than a pig or a horse.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Perhaps you are curious as to why the room is as it is, and why you were required to use certain forms of address to myself, and our guests, and Tutina, this evening.”

“Certainly, Master,” she said, eagerly.

“Curiosity is not becoming in a slave girl,” he said.

“Please, Master!” she begged.

“You silken little beast,” he said.

“Please, Master!”

“You are all the same,” he said. “The room was to reassure, and comfort, our fair guest, whose name is to be ‘Evelyn’.”

“Whose name is
to be
‘Evelyn’?” she asked.

“Too, in a way, it is to put her off guard, psychologically, of course, for there is no way she could guard herself now, at this point, in any practical fashion.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

“In its way, too, it is a joke on Jeffrey’s part, for he has had to put up with her for several months, rather on her terms. His role, I fear, has been rather an embarrassing, frustrating one, much like that in which many Earth males spend their lives, but he is patient, and knew that his patience would be eventually rewarded.”

“I understand nothing of this, Master,” she said.

“Surely you noticed that she was strikingly beautiful?”

“Yes, Master.” There was no gainsaying that.

“And quite bright?”

The slave nodded.

“But perhaps a bit bitchy,” he said.

“Master?” she asked.

“The whip can take that out of a woman,” he said.

“The whip?”

“The Kurii, in whose service I labor,” he said, “tend to be quite tolerant of the interests and dispositions of their human agents.”

“The Kurii are not human?” she asked.

“I gather not,” he said, thoughtfully. “To be sure, I am not clear on the matter. I have never met one in person. At least to this time. That may change in the future. I do not know.” He then returned his attention lightly to Ellen, who knelt before him, his stripped chattel. “In any event, they allow their human agents a considerable amount of latitude in their work, at least in matters in which they feel it unimportant to involve themselves. As a result we, and those akin to us, tend to seek out, and recruit, as female agents women who are on the whole unusually beautiful and desirable. It pleases us to work with such. To be sure, with the developments in the serums over the last few years, our options have been multiplied. For example, if, through photographs, or such, we can determine that a woman was once beautiful and desirable, she may still be of considerable interest to us, for we may always return her to her former youth and beauty. One might add, as well, that while beauty is of great importance, desirability is not always linked with beauty. For example, some women, for no reason that is fully clear to us, are not beautiful, but are extremely desirable. Just to look at them is to want them naked at your slave ring. And desirability is surely most important. On the other hand, if one can conjoin such desirability with remarkable beauty, then that is so much the better for the markets.”

“For the markets?”

“Yes.”

“Are you not speaking strangely of Mistress Evelyn, Master?” she asked.

“The female agents, who are commonly egotistical, petty, vain, self-seeking and mercenary, need not be informed of their eventual disposition. They will discover it in good time.”

“Master?”

“The female agents, thus, do not really consume our resources, so much as, in the end, add to them. You seem frightened. You seem dismayed. She whom you referred to judiciously as Mistress Evelyn, you must understand, has served her purpose. No longer do we need her. She was exceedingly helpful, particularly because of her connections, her many affiliations, in the worlds of society, business and finance. But we have now absorbed, and profited from, and will continue to profit from, those connections and affiliations. She is no longer needed. Too, Jeffrey wanted her.”

“You are betraying her?”

“Not really,” he said. “It is merely that the entire arrangement was never fully explained to her.”

“But the gold, the diamonds!” she said.

“We kept our word,” he said. “She was paid for her work.”

“She will soon with her treasures then be returned to Earth?”

“Sometimes I think that you are very stupid, Ellen.”

“Forgive me, Master.”

“The gold and diamonds were hers,” he said. “That is true. That was our part of the bargain.”

“I understand so little of this,” said Ellen.

“Surely you recall that he whom you judiciously refer to as Master Jeffrey, you see, you are learning, Ellen, informed our fair guest that, on the way to her chamber, that in which she would spend the night, there was another chamber which he would like to show her.”

“Yes,” she said, uncertainly.

“And she will indeed be shown that chamber.”

“And what manner of chamber might that be, Master?”

“It is, of course, a slaving chamber,” he said. “There our fair guest will be stripped, fingerprinted and toeprinted, measured with care, and papers prepared on her. She will then be branded and collared, following which the final certifications will be placed on the papers. She will then be taken in chains to the chamber where she will spend the night, a cell. The gold will be waiting in the cell, all the twenty double-weight ingots of it, carefully stacked. Too, after she has been chained to the wall, she may notice that, dangling from the ceiling, before her, just out of her reach, is the sack of diamonds We do not want her to be able to reach them lest she should attempt something foolish, such as trying to hide some of them in her body. It will be soon enough tomorrow for her to learn that she belongs to Jeffrey.”

“How could you do this to her?” she asked.

“I do not understand the difficulty,” he said.

“Master!” protested the slave.

“It is appropriate for her,” he said. “She is a female. All females should be slaves.”

“Yes Master,” moaned the slave.

“It is right for them.”

“Yes, Master,” said the slave.

She shuddered, kneeling naked before him, in his collar. She knew that she was a slave, in the deepest heart and belly of her. But could what was so obviously right for her, so obviously true of her, she wondered, be right, or true, for all women? Already, in her heart, she had begun to fear free women. They must be so proud, so wondrous, so lofty and formidable, she thought. But then she wondered if they could, truly, be so different from she. Did they not bear in every cell in their bodies, those billions of cells, the same genetic heritage, going back to thongs and caves? She suspected that perhaps they were not so different from her, really. Would they be so different from me, she wondered, if they were, too, as I, on their knees, naked and collared, owned, before an uncompromising, powerful, virile master.

“Did you see how pleased she was to learn that certain selected female rivals, enemies, and such, women she had listed, had been abducted, brought to this world and embonded?”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Now she is simply following them in her turn.”

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen. She could well imagine the horror, the dismay, the consternation, which might be felt by the fair guest when her disposition, what men had decided for her, was made clear to her. How her misery would mingle with the viselike grasp of the opened, then closed, spun shut, tightened, then locked-closed branding rack on her thigh, the meticulous, brief, carefully controlled, searing fury of the marking iron, the futile pulling at the light, attractive bracelets that held her hands confined so perfectly behind her, and the sudden awareness of the clasp of a metal band snapped shut, locked, about her neck!

“But you promised her the gold, the diamonds,” said the slave.

“And, for a time,” said he, “she possessed them. To be sure, now, she does not, for a slave owns nothing. Rather it is she, herself, who is owned. She does not even own her collar, or the pans on the floor from which, tomorrow, we will have her eat and drink.”

The slave nodded.

“Certainly you see that she would make a beautiful and desirable slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said. There was no doubt about that. The fair guest would make a most beautiful and desirable slave, a luscious bit of collar-meat, a veritable prize of flesh-loot. She would doubtless attract much attention in a public cage.

“So all is in order,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.