Prize of Gor (23 page)

“Who knows?” said he. “Perhaps, in time, Evelyn, for that is the name Jeffrey has selected for her, and she will learn her name tomorrow, that will be soon enough, may eventually serve naked in this room, as you did this evening.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered the slave.

“And now, Ellen,” said he, “do you beg to serve the pleasure of a man, any man?”

She determined to convince him of her worthiness, that he would respect her, that she was worthy of attention, of consideration, perhaps even of love, that there was a great deal more to her than he might be aware of, that she was not merely a small, well-curved, owned, despised little animal which must squirm helplessly in rapture, writhing within the chains of a master.

“What do you think I am?” she asked.

“I know what you are,” he said. “What is your response to my question?”

“Certainly not,” she said.

“Very well,” he said. “Return to your cage.”

“Master?” she cried, in dismay.

But with a small gesture he dismissed her.

She leaped up and, in consternation, hurried to her cage.

Chapter 12

SHE DECIDES TO BEG

She feared her hands and arms might be ruined forever, from the heat, the suds and water. How reddened, how rough, how wrinkled, they seemed to be. How could a master care for them? She and the other girls, you see, in this terrible place, were not permitted lotions. How hard and rough were her hands. How hard and rough they might be on his body, not soft, silken, as should be the hands of a slave. Would a master not recoil from contact with such hands? Surely we should have at least lotions, she thought. That is not so much. Are we not slaves? Surely the touch of a slave should be as soft as the timid pressing of her lips on the master’s chest or thigh, as gentle, as stimulating, as caressing as the flow of scented slave silk drawn across his belly, as piteously sweet as a tender whisper in the night, at his feet, from the slave ring, begging for his touch.

Suddenly she cried out in pain, for the whip had struck her back.

She wept, and plunged her arms down again, to the elbows, into the hot water. Though she was still within the house the laundering went clearly beyond what might be the needs of the guards, trainers, servants and slaves. She had little doubt, as the gigantic bundles, bulging with tunics, blankets, himations, veils, shawls, robes and scarves, were brought in that most of the work had its origins on the outside.

Most of the slaves at the tubs were naked, save for their collars. She, too, was naked, except for one device, other than her collar, which had been locked upon her.

She knelt on her mat, beside her tub.

She was a slave laundress.

She could not leave her mat without permission. Too, at the command “Mat!” she and the others must scurry to their mats and kneel upon them. Failure to do this promptly was cause for discipline. She had seen two of the girls tied to rings and lashed. She herself had always gone quickly, obediently, to her mat.

She lifted the garment she was washing, dripping and hot, from the suds. It was a garment doubtless of a free woman. The material was of high quality, and so the woman must be of reasonable station, if not of high caste. She herself did not even know how to put on such a garment, how to drape it, and such. Such women, she supposed, were above menial chores. They would not, for example, do their own laundry. High-caste women, in general, or those of the Merchants, she supposed, would not do their own laundry either, but they might have a slave, or slaves, in their own domiciles to attend to such work. Perhaps this woman had fallen on hard times and had had to sell a slave, and must now send her robes and veils to a commercial laundry. But perhaps she lived alone and thus chose to have the work sent out. Certainly the work came back well-aired, clean-smelling, bright with sunlight, pressed and folded. Ellen, sweating, almost fainting with the heat, the hot, dripping garment in her hands, knelt back for a moment, and, in the hot, moist, close, steaming atmosphere of the low-ceilinged room, gasped for breath. The cost of the laundry work, she conjectured, would be minimal, even negligible, to the laundry’s patrons, particularly given its volume. Certainly on such as she the laundry lost little money. She, like the others, was fed on slave gruel and, on all fours, must drink from a pan on the floor.

“Do you dally in your work, little Ellen?” asked a voice.

“No, Master! No, Master!” she cried, and returned the garment to the tub, frenziedly rubbing its folds together.

She had seen the shadow of the legs of Gart, the work-master, on the side of her tub, and the shadow of his whip.

He was a short, gross, blocklike man with a massive bared chest and heavy legs. He wore a half tunic, and bootlike sandals. He had often had her kiss his feet.

She put the back of her hand to her forehead. She gasped, and moaned. She was afraid she might pass out, from the heat, the steam. Her body was soaked with sweat. She could not see it, for there were no mirrors in the laundry, but she supposed that her face, as that of many of the other girls, particularly the fair-complexioned ones, such as she, was red, blotched with red, grossly mottled with red patches, irregular patches painfully, roaringly scarlet, from the heat, from the closeness of the laundry, the oppressive, tropical atmosphere of the cemented, low-ceilinged room.

I do not want to faint, she thought.

I must not faint.

I might be beaten.

A girl who had fainted at her tub was commonly lashed back to consciousness, recalled by the impatient, implacable leather to her labors.

She lifted the garment a bit again from the water.

It was the garment of a free woman. How different it was from the small tunics, the camisks, common and Turian, the scandalous ta-teeras, or slave rags, the slave strips, little more than a shred of cloth and a string, so frequently allotted to slaves, assuming that they were permitted clothing.

She herself did not even know how to wear the garment of a free woman.

One of the girls had, two weeks ago, stood and held such a garment before her, posing, in play. “See!” she had called. “Look here! I am a free woman!” We had laughed in relief, at the delight and farcicality of this, but, unfortunately, Gart, unbeknownst to us, had returned. “We shall see if you are free!” he had roared. “No, no, Master, please, no, Master!” she had cried. “Mat!” had cried Gart, and we all fled to our mats. He then took the slave by the hair and drew her sobbing, and crying out, beneath the high ring. In a moment she was on her tip toes, extended painfully, her wrists crossed and bound, tied to the ring. “It was a joke, Master!” she cried. “Have mercy! Have mercy!” “It is not for
kajirae
to make sport of free women!” he told her. “Never forget that they are a thousand times, an infinite amount of times, your superiors! Now we will see how the joke turns out.” “Mercy, Master!” she pleaded. “Beg the whip to forgive you,” he suggested. “Perhaps the whip will be merciful.” “Oh, dear whip!” she cried. “Please forgive me, dear whip! It was a joke! Be merciful, dear whip! Please forgive me, dear whip!” “What a stupid girl you are,” said Gart. “Do you not know that a whip cannot hear you, that it has no ears?” And he then put the leather to her, and not pleasantly. She spun in her bonds, weeping, lashed. When he had finished he released her and she fell to his feet. “You may now thank me for your beating,” he informed her. She licked and kissed his feet. “Thank you for beating me, Master,” she said.

Gart had then had her crawl back to her tub.

Ellen did not want to be beaten.

She feared that if she fainted she might be beaten.

Surreptitiously Ellen viewed the garment of the free woman. She hoped she had not been too rough with it, in her fear of Gart. It must, above all, not be rent. Even a tiny tear at a seam, she knew, could earn her a beating, but a real beating, not just the two or three strokes that might awaken a girl from a faint.

She heard a girl crying out, a few tubs from her, and, looking over, she saw blond, blue-eyed Nelsa flung on her belly over the water, she gripping the sides of the tub, desperately, to keep from falling into the water. Behind her, Gart had lifted and spread her legs. Ellen shuddered, and looked away.

Ellen was thankful for the device she wore, though sometimes she felt like crying out in misery, because of discomfort, its weight and heat.

She had seen her master only once since the evening in the special room, that so like a room on Earth, in which she had suitably, properly served a lovely supper, stripped.

It had been the morning following that supper, when he had come to her cage, released her, and had her stand, bent forward, gripping the roof of the cage, her back to him, her legs widely spread.

He had been carrying an object whose nature was not immediately clear to her.

Facing away from him, her legs widely spread, she had become aware of him reaching in front of her, and then of two circular, hinged, straplike bands being put about her waist, and then being brought together, front to back, behind her. Another piece of the apparatus dangled before her, but it was, in a moment, on its hinge, drawn up between her legs. She felt the object being jerked about, and, with two hands, being adjusted on her. These three parts of the apparatus were then fitted together, the two side straps over a staple welded to the central portion of the device which had been lifted up between her legs and was now at the small of her back. She then felt the bolt of a heavy padlock thrust through the staple and snapped shut, this holding the pieces of the apparatus together, at the small of her back. When she moved she was conscious of the padlock, its weight, and how it moved, against the three parts it secured in place. Again the object was moved about, and adjusted, with two hands, on her body.

“A good fit,” said a guard.

“Yes,” had said her master.

“Master?” she had asked.

“You have not been given permission to speak,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” she had said.

Because of the narrowness of her waist, and the natural flare of her hips, she could not hope to elude the device.

She wore the iron belt.

“Send her to the laundry,” had said her master.

****

When she had been presented to Gart, and performed obeisance before him, had kissed his feet and had begged to be permitted to serve in the laundry, he had growled in rage, regarding her. He had thrown her to her side and examined, in detail, the device she wore.

“What is this?” he had snarled.

The guard had merely shrugged.

Ellen, lying frightened on her side, locked in the device, at his feet, had no delusions with respect to the work-master’s displeasure.

A glance at the room, as soon as she had entered, she almost suddenly overcome, almost suddenly fainting, from the heat and the steam, had shown her, almost as through a hot fog, that there were several girls in the room, that they were naked, that many were apparently lovely, and that all were kneeling, sweating, their hair streaming down, limp, working at tubs.

Ellen had been struck with horror at this environment. Then she had knelt down, performing obeisance.

“How am I to tub this one?” asked the work-master.

“Tub the others,” suggested the guard.

“A virgin?” asked the work-master, incredulously.

“I think so,” said the guard. “As you can see, she is quite young, little more than a girl.”

“Kneel up,” ordered the work-master.

Ellen assumed position.

“I do not like virgins,” the work-master informed her.

Then Ellen cried out, cuffed, struck to the side. She could not maintain her balance, but fell to her right side. She could taste blood in her mouth, from her lip.

“To my feet,” said the work-master. “Beg my forgiveness for being a virgin.”

Ellen went to her belly before him, her lips over his feet. “Forgive me for being a virgin, Master,” she said. “Please forgive me for being a virgin!” Then, fearfully, terrified before this man, she kissed his feet.

He stepped back then, angry, but mollified.

“We will get her a mat and put her to a tub,” he said.

****

Ellen drew back, suddenly, crying out, for a stream of hot water, poured from a ewer, streamed into her tub, almost scalding her.

“Please, Mistress!” protested Ellen. She was the least in the laundry, because of the youth of her body, and that she was newest at the tubs. Accordingly, she must address her sister laundresses with such respect, though they, too, were but slaves.

“Why did you look when Gart put me to his pleasure?” demanded Nelsa.

“I looked away, Mistress!” cried Ellen.

“Not soon enough!” said Nelsa. “Do you think I like being put to the pleasure of such a brute?”

“Perhaps, Mistress,” said Ellen. “Surely I have seen you wriggle well, lifted at the tub, his arms about your legs.” Nelsa was certainly one of Gart’s favorites.

“I hate him!” said Nelsa.

“Is that why you whimper, moan and cry out as you do?” asked Ellen.

“I cannot help it if he masters me,” said Nelsa, angrily.

“Then you must be a slave,” said Ellen. “No!” cried Ellen.

Nelsa had lifted the ewer of boiling water.

“Stay on your mat!” said Nelsa.

“Please, no, Mistress!” cried Ellen.

“You will not be so pretty when you are a mass of scar tissue!” snarled Nelsa. “Stay on your mat!”

“Please, no, Mistress!” cried Ellen.

“Do not be stupid, Nelsa,” said a shapely redhead, kneeling at a nearby tub. “Let the child alone!”

“Do your work,” snapped Nelsa.

“If you damage her you will be boiled alive,” said the redhead.

“Look,” said Nelsa. “She has moved part way from her mat. Gart must hear of this!”

Ellen scrambled back, that she might be on her mat, fully. For once she wished that Gart was in the room. She looked upward, apprehensively, at the poised ewer.

Then Nelsa lowered the ewer.

“You think you are so special, little she-urt,” said Nelsa to Ellen, “because you are belted! Well, there are many ways in which a slave can give pleasure to a man. And you are not in lock-gag!”