Slave Girl of Gor (43 page)

I opened the sack. In it were cut an opening for the head, and two for the arms. I drew it over my head. It was snug. With binding fiber he cinched it on my body.

He stepped back. "Lovely," he said. It came high on my thighs. There was a casualness about it, a carelessness about the shoulders, with respect to my figure. But the binding fiber, bound twice about my belly, and cinched tight, at my left hip, accentuated my breasts and hips. There was a hint of lusciousness, concealed within so apparently negligent a wrapper. It was well contrived, psychologically, to suggest a cheap, but most tasty slut.

I reddened.

"Here," said Ladletender. He held up a string of slave beads. I smiled. I reached for them. "Not so fast," said he. I put down my hands. He put the beads in his belt. "Turn about," he said. I did so. It is the man on Gor, often, who puts jewelry on the female, bedecking her. It is not uncommon, even, for him, should he have a pierced-ear slave, to fasten her earrings on her. I assumed Tup Ladletender would rope the slave beads on my neck, fastening them behind my neck. They were of wood, and cheap and pretty. I would be pleased to wear a decoration. Once I had nearly had my throat cut for my lack of knowledge of "Bina," or slave beads. I still did not understand why. Too, once I had had a strange dream that dealt with slave beads, a meaningless dream I had not understood, in which I had been asked, strangely, to string such beads. My hands were pulled behind me, and locked in slave bracelets. Then, as I stood helplessly braceleted, Tup Ladletender roped the cheap beads about my neck.

He stepped before me.

"You are beautiful, Dina," said he.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

He then turned away. "Come along," he said.

I stumbled after him, barefoot, wrists braceleted behind my back.

We soon took the road to Stones of Turmus. In an Ahn we had come to the great gate. The high, white walls loomed above me. They were more than eighty feet in height. I felt very small. There were six towers on the walls, two defending the gate, and one at each corner. Suddenly I wanted to turn and flee. But I was braceleted. And nowhere on Gor was there a place for a girl such as I to run. I was slave.

A small panel in a small door built within the great gate slid open.

"Tup Ladletender here," said Ladletender.

"Greetings, Ladletender," said a voice, recognizing him.

"I am vending a girl," said Ladletender, indicating me.

"Welcome, Tup Ladletender," said the voice.

The small door in the great gate opened, and we entered. The small door was then shut behind us.

11

Perfume And Silk

"I
 
will give you four copper tarsks for her," said the captain.

"Ten," said Ladletender.

"Six," said the captain.

"Done," said Ladletender.

My body ached. My wrists were confined in wrist rings fastened to a chain, depending from a ring in the ceiling. My weight was borne mostly by the wrist rings and chain. The tips of my toes barely touched the stone floor.

I was naked. I had been examined thoroughly, in Gorean fashion. I was miserable, and purchased.

I had been unable to resist the captain's touch.

I had struggled, shrieking for mercy, twisting on the chain.

"She needs a bit of taming," said the captain, "but we manage that."

I hung upon the chain, limp, the steel cutting into my wrists. My eyes were closed. My body ached.

I heard Tup Ladletender paid his money, it being counted Out from a small iron chest in the office of the captain.

Then he had left.

"Look at me, Slave," said the captain.

I opened my eyes.

"You are a Turian girl now," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. I had been sold for six copper tarsks. It was my worth on Gor.

"Are you tame?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He went to his desk and, from one of its drawers, drew forth an opened slave collar. It was unlike most of the Gorean collars. It was a Turian collar. Most Gorean collars, decorated or not, are basically a flat, circular band, hinged, which locks snugly about the girl's neck. The Turian collar, on the other hand, fits more loosely and resembles a hinged ring, looped about the throat. A man can get his fingers inside a Turian collar and use it to drag the girl to him. It does not fit loosely enough to permit its being slipped, of course. Gorean collars are not made to be slipped by the girls who wear them.

He threw the collar to his desk. I watched it strike the desk. I had never worn a true collar before. Suddenly I was terrified that it might be put on me. It locked. I would not be able to remove it.

"No, Master," I said, "please do not put a collar on me."

He came to me and, with a key, unlocked the wrist rings. I fell to the stone floor at his feet.

"You do not want to wear a collar?" he asked.

"No, Master," I whispered.

He turned away from me. I half sat, half lay on the stone floor, my legs to the side, the palms of my hands on the stones, my head down. I did not watch him. Tup Ladletender had left. He had taken the bit of sacking I had worn, and the slave beads, and the slave bracelets, which had confined my wrists. All he had left behind was she who had been Judy Thornton, six copper tarsks worth of sold she-slave.

"I will make you beg to wear a collar," said the man.

I turned and looked up, frightened. He loomed over me. He held a slave whip.

"No, Master!" I cried.

Well did he punish me then for my insolence. There was nowhere to crawl or run. He whipped me as a Gorean master. At last I lay blubbering at his feet.

"I think now you are tamed," he said.

"Yes, Master," I sobbed, "yes!"

"Are you tamed?" he asked.

"I am tamed, Master!" I wept. "I am tamed!"

"Do you now beg to wear a collar?" he inquired.

"Yes, Master!" I cried.

"Beg," said he.

"I beg to wear a collar," I wept.

He then fastened the collar on my throat. It closed with an efficient metallic snap. I collapsed to the stones.

He turned and left me, placing the slave whip on the wall, where it had hung, convenient to hand. He rang a bell. A door opened, and a soldier, a guard, appeared. "Send for Sucha," said the captain. "There is a new girl."

I lay on the stones. Timidly, when he was not watching, but sitting behind his desk, engaged in work, perhaps entering my acquisition and price in his ledgers, I touched the collar, rounded, steel and gleaming. It was truly locked on my throat. I was collared. Only the brand had made me before feel so much a slave. I wept. I was branded and collared.

I heard the jingle of tiny bells, slave bells.

I became conscious of a woman's feet, bare, near me.

The bells, tiny, in four rows, were thonged about her left ankle. A whip touched me, prodding me, in the back. I shuddered. "Get up, Girl," said a woman's voice. I looked lip. She wore a wisp of yellow silk. Her dark hair was bound back with a yellow, silk talmit.

I stood up.

"Stand as a slave," she said.

I stood beautifully.

"A Dina," said the woman.

Her own brand was the customary Kajira brand, the initial letter in cursive Gorean script, about an inch and a half high, and a half inch wide, of the expression "Kajira," the most common Gorean expression for a female slave. It was clearly visible on her thigh. The wisp of silk she wore made no pretense to cover it.

"I am Sucha," said the woman.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Why were you whipped?" asked Sucha.

"I asked not to be put in a collar," I whispered.

"Remove it," she said.

I looked at her puzzled.

"Remove it " said the woman.

I tried to 'pull the collar from my throat. I jerked it against my neck until I cried. I struggled to force it apart. I turned the collar and, with my fingers, tore at the lock. It remained obdurately, perfectly, inflexibly fastened.

I looked at the woman with agony. "I cannot remove it," I said.

"That is true, Slave Girl," she said. "And do not forget it."

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"What were you called?" she asked.

"Dina," I said.

Sucha looked at the captain. "It is acceptable," he said.

"For the time then," said Sucha, "until masters wish otherwise, you will remain 'Dina.'"

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"Follow me, Dina," she said. I followed her. She, too, wore a Turian collar. The girls of the Wagon Peoples, too, I understand, wear such collars.

We walked along a long passage. Then we left that passage, and took others. We passed numerous storerooms, closed by barred gates. At one point, we passed through a heavy iron door, watched by a guard. On the other side of the door, she said, "Precede me, Dina." "Yes, Mistress," I said. I preceded her. We walked along another long passage. It, too, was lined with barred gates, giving access to store-rooms.

"You are very beautiful, Mistress," I said, over my shoulder.

"Do you wish to feel my whip?" she asked.

"No, Mistress," I said. I was then silent.

I knew why I was now preceding her. It was fairly common Gorean custom. We must be nearing the slave quarters. If I should now turn and flee, she was behind me, to stop me, with the whip. Sometimes new girls become frightened at the entrance to their slave quarters. There is something fearful about being locked within, as a slave.

"Are you tamed?" I asked her.

There was a pause. Then she said, "Yes."

We walked on.

"We are all tamed girls here," she said. "We have been taught our collars."

"Men can tame us!" I wept.

"Men tame girls or not, as they please," said Sucha. "It is their will which determines the matter. Some men do not tame their girls quickly, in order to tease and play with them longer, but the girl, if she is not a fool, knows to whom it is in the end that she belongs. In the end it is the man who holds the whip. This the girl knows. In the end, when the master wishes, we crawl into his arms, docile and tamed. We are women. We are slaves."

"I hate men!" I cried.

"Speak softly, lest you be whipped," cautioned Sucha.

"Do you not, too, hate men?" I demanded.

"I love them," said Sucha.

I cried out in anger. I turned about. "I am not tamed!" I cried. "I will never be tamed!"

"Tell it to the masters," said Sucha.

I shuddered.

"You are tamed," said Sucha.

"Yes," I said, miserably, "I have been tamed." I had been tamed since the first Gorean male had touched me, long ago, when I had worn a chain and collar in a Gorean field. Something instantly in me had told me who were my masters. And I remembered Clitus Vitellius, and Thurnus, and the captain, strict with me in his office. I touched the Turian collar which I wore, looped and locked about my neck.

"Tamed girl," said Sucha.

"Yes," said the former Judy Thornton. now the slave, Dina, "I am tamed."

I knew I must obey men.

"Here," said Sucha, "is the entrance to the kennels of the female slaves."

I shrank back. The door was small, and thick, and iron, some eighteen inches by eighteen inches square.

"Enter," said Sucha.

She stood behind me with the whip.

I turned the handle on the tiny door and, falling to my belly, squirmed through.

Sucha followed me.

Within we stood up. I gazed about myself with wonder. The room was lofty, and spacious; it contained numerous slender, white pillars, rich hangings; it was tiled in purple, and there was in it a scented pool; the walls were glossy and richly mosaiced with scenes of slave girls at the service of their masters; I uneasily touched the collar at my throat; light filtered down from narrow, barred windows, set high m the glossy, mosaiced walls. Here and there, about the pool, lay indolent girls, not set to work. They regarded me, appraising my face and figure, doubtless comparing it to their own.

"The room is beautiful," I said.

"Kneel," said Sucha.

I knelt.

"You are Dina," she said. "You are slave now within the Keep of Stones of Turmus. This is a merchant keep, under the banner and shield of Turia." That the keep was under the banner of Tuna designated it as a Turian keep, distinguishing it in this sense not only from keeps maintained by other cities but more importantly from the "free keeps" maintained by the merchant caste in its own right, keeps without specific municipal affiliations. Similarly, the merchant caste, which is international, so to speak, in its organization, arranges and conducts the four great fairs which occur annually in the vicinity of the Sardar mountains. The merchant caste, too, maintains certain free ports on certain islands and on the coasts of Thassa, such as Teletus and Bazi. Space in a "free keep" is rented on a commercial basis, regardless of municipal affiliation. In a banner keep, or one maintained by a given city, preference, if not exclusive rights, are accorded to the merchants and citizens of the city under whose banner the keep is established and administered. That the keep was also under the shield of Tuna meant that it was defended by Turians, that its garrison was Turian. Sometimes a keep will fly a given banner but its garrison will be furnished by the city within whose territory it lies. It is not unknown for a keep to fly the banner of one city and stand behind the shield of another. Both banner and shield of Stones of Turmus, however, were Turian. Stones of Turmus was Turian. "In the garrison there are one hundred men and five officers," said Sucha. "There are twenty men who are ancillary personnel, a physician, porters, scribes and such."