Rogue of Gor (29 page)

I stepped down within the tub.

Then, kneeling or standing, as was fit, humbly, Miss Beverly Henderson, with the oils and sponges, and rinsing waters, bathed me.

Then, after a few Ehn, she toweled my body dry and then knelt before me, head down.

I snapped my fingers, and she stood.

I then looked at her, carefully. I assessed the nature of her breathing. I touched my fingers to her side, and noted her sudden, involuntary movement. I smiled. The Gorean bath, of such a sort, has many purposes. The cleansing of the body, of course, is only one such purpose. It has two major purposes with respect to its effect on the girl. The first is that she is performing a lowly and humble task for a man. This helps to remind her that she is a slave. Also, of course, serving a man, particularly in small and humble ways, probably for biological reasons, tends to be sexually arousing for a woman. Many men. I think, fail to understand that. When a girl brings a man his sandals and ties them on his feet she is having a sexual experience. Many men, I think, fail to understand the pervasiveness and radiance, the depth, and contextual richness, of female sexuality. It is such a wondrous, deep and marvelous thing. He who denies a woman her right to serve man, and particularly in such small ways, denies to her a portion of herself; that man is not only a fool, for he is the natural recipient of such attentions, but he is cruel; such a denial, too, can make a woman ashamed to seek sexual gratification for such small services, usually unbeknownst to the boorish male, are intimately connected with such gratification; this is one reason, incidentally, that those who secretly fear sexuality, and would repudiate it, will be among the first to denounce such homely services of love. In the case of the slave girl, of course, such services are commanded of her. She must perform them. This tells her then, on some deep level, that it is all right, truly, to be a woman. Indeed, she is given no choice but to be a woman. Thusly is her love unqualifiedly liberated. This type of thing, I think, accounts for something of the joy which is experienced by many slave girls, a joy which, otherwise, would seem inexplicable. The second major purpose with respect to the effect on the girl, of Course, is that she is touching and, in effect, in the bathing, caressing a man's body. She is intimately close to the male, even to the extent of sensual tactuality. Being alive and hormonally active, of course, this is arousing to her. And it is, of course, particularly arousing to a slave female, for she knows she is fit meat for the lust of men. Does her very condition not tell her that? Too, of course, she herself, though touching, is not touched. This is frustrating to her, naturally, and intensifies her desire, usually near the surface in a slave, to be awaken in the arms of the master. From the point of the man, too, of course, there are several purposes of the bath. Some of these are related to those pertinent to the girl. First, he is served, as the master. He is master. Second, it is not unpleasant to be washed humbly by a beautiful woman. Third, such service tends to arouse the girl. It is not uncommon, when such a bath has been finished, and he has been toweled by the beauty, that she kneels before him and begs to be raped.

"The bath is finished, Master," said the girl, standing before me.

I jerked loose the yellow cord from her hair. I then, with the cord, tied her wrists behind her back. I thought it well that she should feel herself tied.

I then threw thick love furs at the foot of the couch. She heard them. I lifted the chains there and put them on top of the furs.

I then conducted her to a place at the foot of the couch. She stood there on the furs. Often slave girls are not permitted on the couch. They are used at its foot. I took the steel collar, the rounded, narrow metal loop, with its lock, which she had brought with her into the room. I snapped it about her throat. It fitted closely.

"I am now a collared female," she said. I walked away from her, and placed the key among my things.

I returned to her, then, and looked at her. Gorean men truly look at women, and they know themselves looked at, truly.

"My brand," she said, "is the common Kajira mark. I hope it pleases Master." I regarded it, the staff and fronds, delicate and-incisive, beauty subject to discipline.

Quickly I snapped my fingers, sharply. She knelt immediately on the furs, among the chains. She knew well where she knelt. She knelt back on her heels, spreading her knees.

I then sat on the edge of the couch, at its bottom, the palms of my hands resting on its furs, and looked upon her.

I wanted to howl with pleasure.

Beverly Henderson, naked and bound, knelt before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.

"Master?" she asked.

I noted that she had assumed the position spontaneously. That interested me.

"Master?" she inquired.

I knew that come what may I must have her, and have her well. If she were not sent forth in the morning, perhaps bruised and sobbing, as a well-ravished slave, the men of the holding of Policrates, and its master himself, would grow thoughtful. My failure to subject her uncompromisingly to the predations of my mastery would be certain to generate suspicion. The true courier of Ragnar Voskjard, I knew, would be expected to handle women well.

She pulled at the loops of braided yellow cord which held her well.

"Master has not deigned to speak to me," she said. "Am I to be whipped? Am I not pleasing?"

I did not, of course, as was my intent, respond to her.

"Is Master not going to rape me?" she asked. "Did Master not select me out from the other girls for his pleasure?"

She squirmed, miserably, before me.

"Perhaps I am not pretty enough now for Master," she said, "now that he has seen me closely. I know that I am not as beautiful as many of the girls. I know that they say that I am not a good slave, and that I am not well broken as yet to my collar, but I will try to please you well."

It interested me to hear her speak. She spoke as might have a slave. Did she not know she was from Earth?

"I cannot dance," she said. "And I do not know the love songs of slaves."

I said nothing.

"They have not taught me to dance," she whimpered, "nor have I been permitted to learn the desire songs of heated slaves."

I said nothing.

"What does Master want of me?" she asked, piteously.

I did not respond to her.

"I acknowledge you as the courier of Ragnar Voskjard," she said. "I acknowledge you as a great and important man. And I acknowledge myself as only a miserable slave. It is a great honor for me that you have selected me out, from the others, to be sent to your chambers this night, to serve you." She looked toward me, piteously, though she could see nothing in the dark confines of the blindfold. "I will try to be worthy of your choice," she said. "I will try to please you."

Again I did not respond to her.

"I am frightened!" she said. "Obviously I must not be pleasing to you. Then whip me, and call for another girl."

I did not move.

"But you are not at this, moment whipping me," she said, "nor calling for another girl. Now I am truly frightened, for I know that, somehow, now, you must find me pleasing, or of interest. But I am terrified that a man such as you might find me pleasing, or of interest. What will he do to me? Oh, please, Master, speak to me! Let me tell, if only by the tone of your voice, what are your intentions with respect to me! Oh, I am so helpless! I am so helpless!"

I regarded her, and the steel collar on her throat, placed there by my own hand.

"I am so helpless," she wept.

Then she tossed her head, and smiled. "You have me at something of a disadvantage, Master," she laughed, "for whereas you may see. I am blindfolded, and whereas you are free, I am kneeling collared, nude and bound." Her lower lip suddenly trembled. "Please, speak to me, Master," she begged.

She was very beautiful.

She squirmed in the loops of yellow cord holding her wrists behind her back.

"I understand," she said, "why I must be blindfolded, that you have doubtless here, in the privacy of your own chambers, removed your mask. I am not to be permitted to see the face of the courier or Ragnar Voskjard, no more than others, even though I am only a lowly slave. Who knows through what sales or changings of hands a girl who is mere property such as I might pass? You cannot risk that I might, someday, somewhere, if only by inadvertence, perhaps by a startled cry or gesture, or a too-eager licking at your feet, compromise your secret."

I was interested that she had spoken, and naturally, of the licking of feet. That sort of thing is common in a slave girl. Did she not know she was from Earth?

"But you cannot even speak to me, Master?" she begged. "Ah!" she said. "That you do not speak to me must also be intended to conceal your identity! You would not wish me to be able to recognize even your voice!" She trembled. "Or is it, rather," she asked, "that I am so low a slave that you do not concern yourself even to speak to me?"

I smiled. Whereas the frightened, deferential slave had not recognized me sitting regally with Policrates and Kliomenes in the feasting hall, in the robes and mask of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard, I did not doubt but what she might quickly recognize my voice.

"I have it, Master," she said, happily. "If you do not speak to help protect your identity, touch me once upon the left shoulder. If you do not speak because you regard me as only a contemptible slave, unworthy to be spoken to, touch me once upon the left arm"

She lifted her body, tensing to see where she might be touched.

"Please, Master!" she begged.

But I did not move.

She then knelt back; on her heels. "I see, Master," she said, miserably. "Not even that is to be made known to me." She shuddered. "Do you not know how terrifying it is to be in a room, blindfolded, with one who does not speak to you? Ah, perhaps you do!" She smiled. "You well know how to treat a slave, Master," she said.

I was interested to note that she spoke of herself, naturally, as a slave.

"But yet," she said, "you are permitting me to speak. You have not struck me to silence, nor put a block of wood in my mouth, or gagged me. I may gather, then, that at least until I feel your blow, or the lash of your whip, that you wish to hear me speak. But why would this be? What could I, a mere slave, have to say that might interest you?"

She pulled at the cord loops. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

"How am I different from the other girls?" she asked herself, aloud, thinking.

"Of course!" she said, suddenly, delightedly. "Now I have it! I am the only Earth girl in the holding! They old you I was from Earth, didn't they! You are not familiar, with Earth girls. That intrigued you! They must have told you. You did not take me in your hands and force open my mouth to look for bits of metal in my teeth. I do not think my accent betrayed me, for there are many barbarian accents on Gor, and I speak Gorean excellently."

I smiled, the vain little thing, but it was true that she did speak a liquid, fluent Gorean. Her linguistic skills in this respect, and I have unusual aptitude in such matters, approached my own.

"That my masters call me `Beverly'," she said, "would not in itself tell you that I was from Earth. Not unoften Gorean girls, particularly if they are to be consigned to a low slavery, are given such names. Perhaps, then, you might have seen the tiny scarring high on my left arm. It is called a `vaccination mark.' "

I smiled. Such marks, and fillings in the teeth, are used by slavers as almost infallible signs of Earth origin. And woe to the girl who has them, for she is almost certainly then to be marked out for heavier chains and more ruthless treatment.

"But, on the whole," she said, "I think it most likely that you were merely told that I was from Earth. This, then, you found of interest. You decided, then, that it was to be I who would come to your chambers this evening. Did you wish merely to see if we, being lower, were juicier puddings than our Gorean sisters, or, beyond this, as a matter of curiosity, did you wish to learn something of our nature?"

It amused me that Miss Henderson had used the graphic Gorean expression that she had, an expression almost always applied to a slave, a hot and helpless lay. From my own experience I did not think Earth girls were juicier puddings, so to speak, than Gorean girls, nor, really, that Gorean girls tended to be juicier puddings than Earth girls. It is true, of course, that the slave tends to be a far juicier pudding, so to speak than the free woman of either world. Some Earth girls are marvelous in the furs, and some Gorean girls are. Much depends on the individual girl. This is to be expected, of course, for all Gorean girls, as far as I know, have ultimately an Earth origin. I think it is true, however, that an Earth girl may sometimes have an extra dimension of lovely, yielding slavishness in her, which is perhaps natural, considering the sexual desert from which she has been rescued. She can remember her loneliness and frustration, how she, a slave, languished in a world where she could find no masters. Such women, in time, find themselves overwhelmed in gratitude for the collar. For the first time, in spite of the world from which they come, they are forced to become true women. Thus they find fulfillment, and joy. To the Gorean free woman the joys of the slave girl, though they may be despised and disparaged, are at least culturally not unknown, and are the envy of such free women. To the Earth woman, on the other hand, who finds herself in the collar, of a Gorean master, such joys come as a revelation. Only in her wildest and most secret dreams had she dared even to suspect their existence. Then she finds herself a slave girl.