Prize of Gor (50 page)

I remember you, Mirus, my master.

Mirus, you have given me to myself, she thought. I would that I could give myself to you!

But you do not want me!

You have taught me to myself, and have then cast me aside, unwanted.

You saw to it that I have been made a slave.

And how worthless and contemptible are slaves! Yes, how worthless and contemptible we are!

How right of you to have held my lying self in contempt! How shrewdly you perceived my hypocrisy, my worthlessness! How fitting, how appropriate, how right for me then that I should be a slave, naked and chained!

This you saw! This you knew!

And now that is what I am!

And now I would that I were before you, kneeling before you, head down, kissing your feet, begging to serve you!

But you do not want me!

Then Ellen began to weep.

****

It was now Ellen’s third day on the shelf.

She stood at the back of the shelf, against the wall of the tenement, her back to the wall of the tenement, she then facing outward, her wrists chained over her head to a ring set in the tenement wall. Her arms were sore, and her legs ached. Targo was not much pleased with her.

Surely she should have been sold by now.

She shuddered as she saw Barzak’s hand tighten on his whip as he passed her. She knew that she could be whipped, even without reason, if it pleased the masters. She was a slave.

An Ahn later, which is something more than an hour, she whispered to Targo, who passed, “I am thirsty, Master.”

“Did you speak without permission?” he asked.

“Forgive me, Master!” said Ellen. She supposed she should have asked permission to speak, but such things tend to be contextual. Surely not all girls invariably ask their masters for permission to speak, but such could, in theory, be required, and the failure to ask for such permission could be a cause for discipline. But habit, practice, and common sense tend to govern such matters. On the girl’s part, the knowledge that she should, in theory, ask permission to speak helps her to keep in mind that she is a slave. Ellen knew of such things, of course, but she was, as we recall, rather new to her collar, and might thus be expected to occasionally forget such niceties, particularly inasmuch as they are not always observed. A stroke of the switch or lash, of course, tends to encourage an awareness of such things, and thus to minimize such lapses.

But a bit later Targo had Barzak water his stock.

Barzak had put aside his whip, but a long, supple switch now hung from his belt. Ellen eyed it uneasily. There was little doubt about the purpose or utility of such an implement, or what it would feel like on her flesh.

When Barzak pulled the spigot of the bota, it seemed too soon, from Ellen’s wet, eager lips, she moaning and trying to cling to it, to hold it with her teeth, he patted her belly, which was then pleasantly rounded. She looked after him, tears in her eyes, tears from wanting more water but knowing she must not ask for it, and tears of shame consequent on his simple proprietary slapping of her belly.

Ellen thought that a groom might have slapped a horse in such a fashion, though on the side or back. And then she supposed that the analogy was not as farfetched as one might have supposed.

Barzak had then gone on to Cichek.

Ellen moved her wrists a little in the shackles that held them over her head. Her arms and legs were sore.

She looked out on the market.

Emris was sold toward noon. Ellen was pleased that Targo, apparently, had received a good price for Emris. It goes that way sometimes. A man sees a girl he wants and his objective judgment as to the market worth of the given property can be clouded, perhaps by simple desire, a simple desire to buy and own, totally, a particularly delightful, curvaceous property, but perhaps by something else, too, mixed with desire, and powerful lust, a subtle something that tells him that this, for him, may be a special slave, something he seriously wants in his collar, something not merely, for him, another slave, not merely something on which to slake his lust, to dominate and master, but something, too, which might, in time, prove to have the makings of something more, perhaps, say, a love slave. And, of course, if it doesn’t work out, he can give her away or sell her.

Many Goreans, incidentally, fear falling in love with their slaves. Many regard this as a form of weakness. But, in many cases, of course, it is difficult for the master not to fall in love with a slave, as the master/slave relationship is a civilized, codified, institutionalized analogue to the essentials of a natural biological relationship. The master/slave relationship frees both men and women biologically. The natural dominance of the male is not castigated, denounced, ridiculed and societally undermined but allowed to express itself and flourish. This leads to a successful, healthy manhood. Similarly, the female slave, in virtue of similar biological congruities, is the most lovely, vulnerable and needful of all women; she is the most female, the most feminine, and thus the most desirable and lovable, of all women. It is no wonder that men must struggle to resist their feelings for such owned, enticing beauties. Often the love master is most demanding and severe with the love slave, in sensing the weakness which she might produce in him. This brings joy to the heart of the love slave as she hastens to obey and please, and with suitable perfection, indeed, as she must, as though she might be no more than a new girl, frightened and intimidated, in the house. He, of course, remains the master, and she, of course, remains the slave. That is the relationship of the love master and the love slave, the fulfillment of the nature of each.

“You should have been sold by now,” snapped Targo.

He was standing beside her.

“I do not wish to be sold, Master,” said Ellen.

She drew back, with a rattle of chain, cringing, and closing her eyes, as he lifted his hand, as if to cuff her, but then he had lowered his hand, without striking her, as though such an admonition might be wasted on so stupid a slave.

“Look on the market,” he said, “straight ahead.”

Ellen did so, while Targo regarded her. “Perhaps you are just too young,” he said, “little more than a pretty girl, perhaps not even of twenty summers.”

Ellen was startled to think of this in this manner, recalling Earth. But Targo did not know what the new serums had done, it seemed, and would take her at face value, as no more than a young, pretty barbarian. And then Ellen shook with the realization that, indeed, he was in no way in error; that was all she was, literally, truthfully. Physiologically, biologically, she was clearly, simply, truthfully, quite young. Beyond that there were only a distant, now-seemingly-unreal world and conventions having to do with an invented, mechanistic time, devised for purposes of convenience, purposes irrelevant to the natural courses of nature.

“You have a nice figure,” he said, “with lovely slave curves.”

“Master?” asked Ellen.

“Barzak!” called Targo. “Turn her about. Chain her facing the wall.”

In moments Barzak had rearranged the chains, that they not be twisted, and Ellen, to her chagrin, and shame, found herself facing the wall, at the back of the shelf, her hands still chained well over her head.

“Ahh!” said Targo. “Yes, very nice!”

She felt Targo’s hands on her sides, and then at her waist, and then moving down the sides of her
derrière
and thighs

“Good,” he said. “We shall see if you can interest someone this way.”

Ellen shook the chains angrily, and stared ahead, into the wall, but some six inches before her face.

She heard Cichek laugh.

Time passed. Once she heard the scream of a tarn as it swept between buildings, and felt the blast of wind from its wings which half thrust her to the wall. Its shadow passed and she turned her head to the left, looking for it, but missed it between the buildings.

She did not think it was permitted to fly such beasts so low in the city.

“Tarns, tarns!” she heard cry, a few moments later, from somewhere behind her. She could turn about, twisting in the chains, and she saw men pointing upward. Half closing her eyes against the sun, looking upward, she saw some five tarns in flight.

The market returned to its normal sounds.

Once, later, she heard the measured tread of a group of men behind her, probably guardsmen.

Shortly thereafter she heard a springing, clattering, birdlike gait on the stones of the market, and a cry of “Make way, make way!” She turned about, and shuddered. A rider had reined in, turning, a light tharlarion, a delicate, quickly moving, bipedalian, reptilian mount. In the saddle he was some eight feet above the stones. He wore the common Y-visaged helmet, and carried a lance. A studded buckler, a small, round, spiked shield, was at the side of the saddle. This was the first tharlarion that she had seen, though she had heard of such beasts, and she gathered that such, this and others, were not common in the streets of cities. She did know that a large variety of tharlarion, of bipedalian and quadrupedalian sorts, were bred for diverse purposes, war, transport, reconnaissance, hunting, haulage, racing, and such. The tharlarion she saw was much as she supposed the racing tharlarion might be, though perhaps heavier limbed and sturdier. The man, she guessed, was a mounted guardsman, or messenger, or scout. He surveyed the crowd in the market, and then, with an angry kick, and blow of the lance, urged his beast away.

It was unusual, she thought, that such a beast would be in the streets of a city.

“Down with the sleen of Cos!” she heard.

“Be silent!” hushed a man, a hoarse whisper.

“Would that Marlenus were within the walls!” said a man.

“Marlenus is dead,” said another.

“He has been seen in the city!” whispered a man.

“Let the traitress Talena, false Ubara, be impaled!” whispered a man.

“Who said that Marlenus has been seen in the city?” asked a man.

“I heard it said in a tavern,” said one.

“Which tavern?”

“Do not think me so much a fool as to speak it. The Cosians would seize its goods and burn it to the ground.”

“Do not speak these things!” begged a woman. “The Cosians are now our masters.”

“Seek your collar!” snarled a man.

“Sleen! Sleen!” she wept.

“Is Marlenus in the city?”

“I do not know.”

“Can he be in the city?”

“Who knows?”

“Marlenus is dead,” said a man.

“Have you obeyed the Weapons Laws?” asked a man.

“Of course,” said a man. “The Cosians have disarmed us. It is death to conceal weapons. We are civilians and must be the tame verr of the Cosians, to be milked, or sheared, or led to slaughter, as they please!”

“The Cosians are our beloved allies,” said a man. “They have disarmed us for our own safety.”

“Cosian spy!”

“No!”

“Who knows what may serve as a weapon,” said a man, “a knife from the kitchen, a pointed stick, a stone.”

“The weather,” said a man, loudly, “may change. We may have another rain.”

A silence came over the men near the shelf.

Then, “Yes, yes,” said another man, loudly.

The group broke up, and the market became again much as it had been.

Turning about Ellen saw two guardsmen sauntering by. On their helmets were yellow crests.

Then, suddenly, there was the sharp snap of a switch across her
derrière
and Ellen cried out in pain, and humiliation. “Keep your eyes on the wall, slave,” said Barzak.

“Yes, Master,” said Ellen, quickly, her eyes brimming with tears.

I am an animal, she thought. I am owned. I am owned!

It was late in the afternoon, in the heat of the day, when she sensed two men behind her. She did not turn about, and kept her eyes fixed on the wall before her. She noted a tiny blemish in the stone.

“Do not turn about,” said Targo.

She continued to stare ahead, at the wall. Then she was aware of something dark being lifted over her head, and then it was pulled down, over her head. It completely covered her head. She gasped. She could see nothing. Then she felt it drawn back, under her chin, with threaded straps, and fitted closely about her throat. It was then buckled behind the back of her neck. She now wore a common Gorean slave hood.

“Unchain her. Take her inside. Remove our iron,” said Targo. “Then return her to the shelf, hooded, her hands tied behind her back.”

“It will take a little time,” said Barzak, and Ellen felt him reaching over her head, to the chains which fastened her against the wall.

Within the welcome coolness of the building, Barzak faced her away from him and, with a short thong, casually, tied her hands tightly behind her back. He then, leaning her against the wall, facing away from him, lifted her foot and positioned it on the small anvil. Then, with his hammer and wedge, and with three blows, he opened the shackle on her ankle, and slipped her foot free. He then knelt her beside the anvil, her head down, across it. In order to remove the weight collar he unbuckled the hood, and thrust it up, a few inches. He did not, however, raise it enough for her to see. She shuddered, kneeling, bent over, her head laid across the anvil, as Barzak then, with his tools, opened and removed the weight collar. The ringing of the tools on the metal was loud, reverberating, terrifying, and she remained on her knees, frightened, absolutely still. One false blow of the hammer and she knew that her head or throat, with such blows, could be broken as easily as one might crush an egg underfoot.

How good it felt to have the weight collar removed!

The hood was then drawn fully down again, about her throat, and buckled shut.

Barzak then stood her up, hooded, bound, before him. She then felt herself suddenly, lightly, lifted from her feet and carried toward the entrance of the holding chamber. In a moment, still carried, helplessly hooded and bound, her head to the rear, as a slave is carried, she felt herself brought again into the sunlight, and up the few steps to the surface of the shelf, where she was knelt down, she thought near the forward edge of the shelf.