Rogue of Gor (14 page)

"Peggy," she said, "if it pleases Master."

"That is an Earth-girl name," I said. "Are you from the planet Earth?"

"Yes, Master," she said, "but please do not whip me. It is not my fault that Earth is my planet of origin. I will try to be pleasing to you."

"Earth girls make excellent slaves," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Do you speak the Earth language, English?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I, too, speak English," I said. "Let us converse in that tongue."

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

"What was your Earth name?" I asked.

"Peggy," she said. "Peggy Baxter."

"Where did you work?" I asked.

"In a city called New York," she said, "as a hat-check girl, at a restaurant."

"Yes!" I said. "That is it!"

"Master?" she asked, frightened.

"I had thought I had seen you,” I said. "It was there."

"There?" she asked.

"You wore black, low-cut shoes, with high heels, without strap or ties," I said.

"Pumps," she said.

"You wore black-net stockings or panty hose," I said "You wore a black miniskirt, and a long-sleeved, smooth, white silk blouse, open at the throat. You had a black ribbon for your hair."

"Panty hose," she said. "But they were taken from me."

I nodded, Gorean men seldom permit a slave shielding for her warm intimacies.

"Apparently I was not the only one who saw you there," I said. "Some other, or others," I said, "must have seen you as well, and adjudged you worthy to be brought to Gor as a slave girl.”

"Yes, Master," she said

"I commend their judgment, and taste," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"How is it that you were originally captured on Earth?" I asked.

"After work, late," she said, "I left the restaurant. A cab was nearby. I thought myself fortunate. I entered the cab. It was a specially designed capture vehicle. I found myself helplessly sealed within it. Gas entered my mobile prison. I lost consciousness. I did not recover consciousness until I found myself chained in a girl-dungeon on Gor. I awakened to the whip and the hands of a brute upon me. I swiftly learned I was a slave."

"I think that I myself, and a friend," I said, "were captured by the same cab, the same. devices." I recalled that the cab driver, in the garage, had said that he had another pickup to make that night. His next pickup, doubtless, had been the lovely, long legged Miss Baxter.

"Did you get off work at two A.M.?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "How did you know?"

"I heard the pickup of someone referred to who got of work at two A.M.," I said.

"Doubtless it was I," she said, shuddering.

"I think so," I said. .

"Master speaks English fluently," she said, apprehensively. Her hands twisted in the straps.

"Were you brought to the House of Andronicus, in Vonda?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "where I was given rudimentary slave training arid learned a smattering of Gorean. I was, sold in Vonda to a taverner in Tancred's Landing. Tasdron saw me there and fancied me. He bought me and brought me here, where I now wear his collar." She looked at me. "Is Master a slaver?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"How is it that Master speaks English?" she asked.

"It is my native tongue," I said. "I was brought to Gor, rather accidentally, as a slave. I became free."

"Master is cruel to tease a miserable slave," said the girl.

"How am I teasing you?" I asked, puzzled.

She laughed. "Do not expect me to believe that Master is a man of Earth," she said. "I am not a fool."

"I am from the planet Earth," I said.

"You are cruel to a miserable slave," she said.

"Why do you not believe I am from Earth?" I asked, puzzled.

"You are not pathetic and weak," she said. "And your eyes, they look at me, and see me as a female slave."

I smiled. Indeed, she was beautiful.

"The men of Gor," she said, "are strong. They are not weak and divided against themselves. They are not tortured. They are integrated and coherent, and proud. They see themselves in the order of nature. They see females as females, as slaves, and themselves as men, as masters. If we do not please them they punish us, or slay us. We quickly learn our place in the order of things. Only where there are true men can there be true women."

"But you are a naked and collared slave," I said, "bound in a paga tavern."

"I am a woman," she smiled, "something that I never was, truly, on Earth."

"I see," I said.

"We are small, and weak, and soft and beautiful," she said, "and we have dispositions to yield, and to love and serve, selflessly. We long for masters. We cannot be fulfilled until we find them." She smiled. "And then, on Gor," she said, "we look up and, startled, find them standing over us. The whip is in their hand. They will take no nonsense from us. Is it any wonder we love them so?"

"I was once from Earth," I said.

"I find that hard to believe," she said.

I shrugged.

"Look at me," she said.

I grinned, and she reddened.

"What do you see," she asked, "an abused woman to be hastily freed, or a slave tethered for a man's pleasure?"

"A slave," I said, "tethered for a man's pleasure."

"You see," she smiled, "you are Gorean."

"And as what do you see yourself," I asked, "as an abused woman, hoping to be hastily freed, or as a slave, tied to rings, who hopes her master will see fit to linger over her?"

"A slave," she smiled, "one fastened helplessly; tied to rings, who hopes that she will be found sufficiently pleasing that a master will see fit to linger over her, driving her to a madness of imbonded joy."

"Do you wish to be freed?" I asked.

"A woman such as I, on Gor," she laughed, "has no hope of freedom."

I smiled. I did not doubt that. She had even been named 'Peggy'. That name, an Earth-girl name, made it perfectly clear that her master regarded her categorically, and totally, as a slave. It had been her name on Earth. Now, of course, she wore it as a slave name, by the decision of her master. Slaves in their own right have no names. They are animals.

"But do you wish to be freed?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"But you are a woman of Earth," I said.

"So, Master?" she asked, puzzled.

"Surely, then, you wish to be free?" I asked.

"Why?" she asked.

"You are a woman of Earth," I said.

"Do you think that in the bellies of the females of Earth there does not lurk a true woman?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"We are not men, really," she said.

"You would be well advised not to say things like that on Earth," I said.

"I know," she said. "On Earth, I did not speak the depths of my feelings. I did not dare. I did not wish to be criticized by men, or by unhappy, frustrated women."

I nodded. The cultural penalties inflicted on those who speak the truth can be severe.

"I kept silent," she said, "and longed for a master."

"Is not freedom precious?" I asked.

"I have been free," she said. "I know what it is like."

"Is it not precious?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "it is precious, very precious. And sometimes I miss it very much. Sometimes I wish I were again free. Sometimes, when I am chained at night, or whipped, or commanded, and must do things I do not wish to do, I wish I were again free. And sometimes I am terribly afraid when I think of the power my masters have over me."

"I see," I said.

"But then, too," she said, "I find myself exquisitely thrilled, and responsive to, the very power, the force and discipline, to which I am subject. To know that I am a slave and must obey fulfills something very deep in me."

"I see," I said.

"Sometimes, at night," she said, "I find myself, almost without thinking about it, licking the bars of my cage, kissing the steel on my wrists."

"Do you fear your masters?" I asked.

"Of course," she said, "they hold over me the power of life and death."

"But yet," I asked, "you find them exciting?"

"I find them terribly exciting," she said, "both emotionally and physically. I can scarcely be near them without catching my breath, without feeling slightly afraid and trembling."

"They own you," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"When they look upon you, do you feel sexual heat?" I asked.

"Often," she said.

"And if they should snap their fingers and point to the floor?" I asked.

"Then I would swiftly lie before them, and as a slave," she said.

"You are eager to please them?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "I am eager to please them, fully and totally."

"Because they are your masters?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "and I am their slave."

She smiled at me. "Do these responses," she asked, "startle you, coming as they do from a woman once of Earth?"

"There seems little in you now of Earth," I said.

"True," she smiled. She pulled at the thongs. "I am now only a Gorean slave girl," she said.

I said nothing.

"The women of Earth are also women," she said. "Do not despise them for it. Accept them for what they are. There is nothing wrong with being a woman. It is the complementary sex to that of the male. It is not our fault if, when placed in a proper context, a biological context, in a biologically congenial civilization, we behave as we desire, and must. Is your anger or dismay actually an envy of the Gorean brutes who throw us to their feet and put collars on our necks? Consider that. It may be true. Would you not like some delicious Earth woman as your total slave? If so, how are you so different from the brutes of Gor, who do with us as they wish? It is not our fault if, for whatever reasons, the men of Earth seem determined to turn us into men, and deny to us our precious and ancient natures. It is hard to be a woman on Earth." She then pulled again at the thongs. "But it is not hard, Master, on Gor," she smiled. "Gorean men see to it."

"You are a slave," I said. "Are you happy?"

"Yes," she said, "radiantly happy."

"Why?" I asked.

"I am now in the power of uncompromising and dominant males. I must serve them and please them, and as a woman, fully. I am owned by them. They bring the fullness of my womanhood out of me, and are content with nothing less. On Gor, for the first time in my life, I am a total woman. I am completely fulfilled. I am incredibly happy."

"You are fond of your slavery?" I asked.

"I love my slavery, Master," she said.

"Would you like to go back to Earth?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

I regarded her.

"See my brand," she said.

I did so. It was the common Kajira mark. It was .the same brand worn by Miss Henderson. Both girls were left-thigh branded.

"My collar," she said.

I regarded it. It was simple, narrow, close-fitting, of gleaming steel.

"The thongs on my wrists," she said.

I looked at her bound wrists.

"And my naked body," she said, "tied for a master's, pleasure."

"Yes," I said.

"Am I not an exquisite slave girl?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And yet," she said, "I am from the planet Earth. Can you doubt, truly, then, that the women of Earth can be slaves?"

"No," I said.

"I do not doubt it."

"Perhaps you do doubt it," she said.

"No," I said. "No."

"Untie me," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I will prove to you that I am a slave," she said.

I looked at her, not speaking.

"Have you held slaves in your arms?" she asked

"Yes," I said, "many times."

"See, then," she said, "If I am different."

I regarded her.

"Touch me," she begged.

I smiled, ignoring her plea.

She leaned back, her wrists, bound, at the rings. "You are clearly Gorean," she said. "I see that I must wait upon your will.”

I sat, cross-legged, for some time, watching her. Then her eyes looked pleadingly at me. I could smell the heat of her.

"Do you beg to be had, and as a slave?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she whispered. "I beg to be had, and as a slave."

I then slowly untied her.