Rogue of Gor (18 page)

"Attend to it," I told her.

"Yes, Jason," she said, angrily. She descended the stairs, took some coins from the kitchen, unbolted the door, and left. I rebolted the door again, after her.

Lola looked at me. "At least I shall have an easy slavery," she said.

I had found her this morning, near noon, when I had been on my luncheon break. At such times, for my amusement and interest, I occasionally frequented some of the dock markets, where, though cheap girls tend to be sold there, one may occasionally see a real beauty being vended. It is pleasant, of course, to see women being sold, particularly if they are beautiful.

She was kneeling, back on her heels, naked, on the hot boards of a slaver's platform. The boards were rough and splintery, and there were tiny droplets of tar on them. She was shackled by the wrists, on a short chain, to an iron ring, heavy, whose plate was bolted into the boards.

"Lola," I had said, my mouth full, chewing on the meat I had bought on the wharves.

She had jerked back seeing me. The sales had not yet begun.

“What do you want for her?" I asked the slaver on the platform, carrying his keys and whip.

“Ten copper tarsks," he said.

"Done!" I said.

"No!" she cried.

"Be silent, Wench," he ordered her.

I removed a ten-tarsk piece from the lining of my tunic. Workers do not commonly carry pouches at their work.

"Do not sell me to him," begged the girl, "please!”

But he kicked her brutally to silence.

I paid him and he unshackled her. He also removed his collar from her throat.

"Come along," I told her. She descended from the platform and, naked and miserable, heeled me as I threaded my way slowly from the place. She did not try, to escape. She knew there was no escape for her. She was a Gorean slave

I stopped at the warehouse where I had been working and collected a half day's wages. My employer did not object, for he could see that I had purchased something of interest. Doubtless I was eager to get her home. "Continue working, Jason," called one of the fellows, "Leave her here in the warehouse. We will see that no harm comes to her!” There was much laughter. I waved to them as I left the warehouse. "Have her once for me!" called one of my fellow workers after me.

"Little do they know you," she said, bitterly.

On the way home I stopped in the market to buy a few things, some articles for which I thought I might find a use.

"Why are you buying a slave whip?" she asked me.

"Be patient," I told her. "Perhaps you will learn."

I also bought some chains, and binding fiber, and other things. Interestingly, for no reason I clearly understood, I bought two sets of certain articles.

Also on the way home I purchased her a slave tunic and stopped at the shop of a metal worker, where I had her measured and purchased a collar for her. I had the collar inscribed according to my specifications. I put it in my sack, with its two keys, tied to it with a string.

I snapped my fingers, and the girl, to the side, rose from her knees and lightly hurried to the table, beside which she again knelt, head down.

"You may clear, Lola," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said, and began to remove the dishes from the table.

"A deferential slut," said Miss Henderson, who knelt across the table from me.

Lola kept her head down:

"Rather different than when you brought her into the house this afternoon," she said. "What did you do to her?"

"Reminded her she was a slave," I said,

"I see," said Miss Henderson.

Lola rose to her feet and padded softly, barefoot, carrying the dishes, to the kitchen.

"Her tunic is sleeveless, and too short," said Miss Henderson.

"It pleases me," I said.

"Of course," said Miss Henderson. "She is yours."

"Why have you tied me like this?" had asked Lola.

I had tied her wrists together before her body, before the opened door of the house, leaving a dangling, loose strap of about a foot in length.

I then swept her from her feet and carried her across the threshold and put her down, on her feet, near the side wall to the left.

"Why have you carried me into the house as a capture, and a slave?" she asked.

I had rebolted the door, after Miss Henderson, sent on her shopping errands by myself, had exited.

I had then turned again to face Lola. We were alone in the house.

She looked at me. "At least I shall have an easy slavery," she said.

"Stand here," I told her, positioning her about five feet from the wall, facing it, to the left of the door as you enter, beneath a stout beam.

"I shall make you a poor slave," she said.

I went to the side of the room and, loosening the chain, lowered the chain. Attached to the end of the chain, on the other side of the beam ring, now descending, was a wide circle of steel, a steel ring, some six inches in diameter. I stopped the chain when the steel ring dangled at her belly.

"You know what that is?" I asked her.

"I am a slave girl," she said.

"Speak it," I said.

"It is a whipping ring," she said.

I tied her tethered wrists, by the free end of the strap, to the ring.

"Why have you tied me to the whipping ring?" she asked.

"Why do you think?" I asked.

"You're bluffing," she said.

I went back to the wall and pulled the chain again through the beam ring. Then her hands were held well over her head.

"I will make you a poor slave," she said. "Oh!” she said.

"Perhaps, not," I said.

"Release me," she said, tensely. She stood now, painfully, on the tips of her toes.

I hooked a link of the chain on the holding hook, lifting her a quarter of an inch higher, securing her in place,

"Let me go," she said.

I walked about her, and then faced her, looking upon her.

"You are luscious," I told her. "I think you may make an excellent slave."

"Let me go!" she said, squirming in the leather.

"Yes, an excellent slave," I said. Then I went behind her.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"What do you think?" I asked her.

"You cannot frighten me," she said. "I know you cannot strike me. You are too weak to whip me, and make me obey you. You are a man of Earth!"

"Long ago you had me beaten in the House of Andronicus," I said. "In your role as a free woman in the slave training you deliberately spilled wine and blamed me, and ordered me whipped. The whipping was very painful. Do you recall?"

She said nothing.

"You have never adequately paid for that," I said.

"Paid?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do not forget you are a man of Earth," she said.

"Oh, yes," I said, "the men of Earth never make a woman pay for anything. She may even humiliate them and destroy them as men and with total impunity. Is that right?"

"Yes, yes!" said the girl.

"Not always," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"And this is not Earth," I said.

"Master?" she asked

And then, suddenly, she screamed, caught fully, helplessly, in the blurred, whistling slash of the five-stranded Gorean slave whip.

Ten strokes did I give her.

Then she hung weeping, shuddering, at the ring. "How can you whip me?" she asked. "You are a man of Earth."

I went to her and, by the hair, jerked back her head, and she cried out with pain. "Is this the touch of a man of Earth?" I asked.

"No," she said, frightened.

“Too," I said, whispering in her ear, "you are a new slave who has been brought recently to my house."

"No," she begged. "No!"

Sometimes a girl is whipped when she is first brought into a new house. It is regarded, in some cities, including Victoria, as a way of making clear to her that the house in which she now finds herself is a house in which she is a slave.

Ten strokes more then did I administer to the fair beauty.

"Too," I said, "earlier you dared to speak my name."

"Forgive me, Master," she sobbed.

"That has earned you five extra strokes," I informed her.

She moaned, and then was shaken five times, encircled in the burning lashes, being repaid for her insolence.

When I lowered the whip she sagged in the leather, fastened at the ring, and slipped from consciousness. I went before her and slapped her awake. She looked at me, startled, awakened, in pain, terrified. "And one more stroke," I told her, "to remind you that you are a slave"

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

I delivered the blow, letting it be the fiercest of her beating.

I then put aside the whip and lowered the chain. She collapsed to the floor. I unbound her hands from the ring, freeing her, too, of the tether which had confined her wrists.

She lay on her stomach on the tiles of the hall. She lifted her head, slowly. She shook her head to clear her vision. She looked at me, disbelievingly.

I removed my sandals and threw them to the tiles, near where she lay.

Obediently, on her hands and knees, one by one, putting her head down, she brought them to me in her teeth, and put them before me. She then looked up.

"Kiss the whip," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

She took the whip, held before her, in her small hands and pressing her lips fervently to it, kissed it. She then looked up at me, and I saw in her eyes, moist and awe-stricken, that I was her master.

I then collared her.

"Your duties in this house, Lola," I told her, "will be numerous and complex. In particular, you will be a house slave. You will dust and clean the house, and keep it neat. You will mend and sew. You will wash and iron clothing. You will shop, and cook and serve. All manners of domestic tasks, trivial and servile, unfit for free women, will be yours."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Too, you will take orders in this house from Lady Beverly, Miss Henderson, who is a free woman in the house, as you would from me, but you are to remember always that it is I who own you, and not she."

"Yes, Master," she said. "But for such a handsome Master am I to be only a house slave?"

"Foremost among your duties," I said, "for you are beautiful, will be to attend to the pleasures of your Master."

"Yes, Master," she said. "Please forgive me, Master, for not having been pleasing to you before."

"Do you wish to be whipped again?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said. "No!"

The whipping had convinced her that she was under discipline. This understanding, of course, goes far beyond the mere pain of a particular episode. The whipping in itself, though of considerable moment, is insignificant when compared to the lesson it teaches. It teaches the girl that she is under the total domination of a man. It teaches her that she is at his mercy; and is owned, truly. This fulfills something very deep in the female. This is the lesson of the leather. This is not to deny, of course, that a woman who is fully conscious of her imbonded condition, does not fear the whip. She does, for she knows what it can, and will, do to her if she is not pleasing. The only woman who does not fear the whip is she who has not felt it.

"Then, perhaps you should begin to be pleasing to me now," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said, and began to kiss at my body.

"But on the other hand," I said, "perhaps you should merely tie my sandals."

"Let me tie them later," she said. "Let me please you now."

"Do you beg it?" I asked'

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Very well," I said.

Lola, kneeling behind the bars of the slave kennel, looked up at me. "You are so different now from before," she said.

I shrugged.

She put her arm timidly through the bars, to touch me. "Will you not again, sometime, subject me to slave rape?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

"I am pleased that you bought me," she whispered. "I will try to serve you well."

"Do not think things will be easy here for you," I said, "for there is a free woman in the house."

"I will obey her," said Lola, "and with perfection."

"But do not forget," I said, "that it is I who own you, and not she."

"I shall not forget, Master," she smiled. Then she kissed her finger tips and, putting her hand through the bars, put her hand to my waist. "I know well who owns me," she said.

"Rest now," I said. "The Mistress will be home soon, and then, doubtless, you will be soon set to chores."