Slave Girl of Gor (53 page)

"It is well," she said, "that a slave girl is grateful to her mistress, that she is permitted to live and is not slain."

"Elicia?" I asked.

"Do not rise from your knees," she said, coldly.

"When will I be freed, and returned to Earth?" I asked.

"You always were a stupid little fool," she said. "I wondered what the boys ever saw in you."

"I do not understand," I said.

"That is why you are a slave, and I am free," she said.

"Surely," I whispered, "you do not intend to keep me as a slave. You are of Earth!"

"This is not Earth," she said.

"Oh, please, Elicia!" I said.

"Silence," she said.

I was silent.

"We were great rivals, were we not?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I shall enjoy owning you," she said, "as a serving slave."

"Oh, no, Elicia!" I begged.

"I saw you as a slave even on Earth," she said, coldly. "When I saw you in classes, in the cafeteria, in the library, walking on campus, attending functions, dating, laughing, applauding, lying beside the pool, posing for the boys, cute, pretty, trying to pretend to be more beautiful than I, I saw you as what you truly were and deserved to be, and would someday be-only a lovely little slave.

"Free me," I begged.

She laughed.

"You asked if I wanted to be free," I moaned.

"Do you?" she asked.

"Yes, yes!" I cried.

"That will make the owning of you all the more pleasant," she said. "But you should not be free. You are a natural slave," she said, "like many of the women of Earth."

"You are of Earth!" I cried.

"Yes," she said, "but I am not a natural slave. I am different from the others."

I put down my head.

"Are you familiar with the duties of a serving slave?" she asked.

"Elicia!" I cried.

"Are you?" she asked. "I do not wish to spend a great deal of time training you."

"To some extent," I said, coldly.

"It is all a little thing like you is good for," she said. "I will get much use from you."

"Please, Elicia," I wept, breaking.

"Go into my room," she said, "through the door on your right. On the wall there is an opened slave collar and a slave whip. Bring them."

I went into the beautiful room, lavishly appointed, with chests, mirrors and sunken bath. I found the collar and whip and, barefoot, returned.

I handed her the collar and whip.

"Kneel," she said.

I stepped back, and knelt.

"You were very pretty on the block," she said.

"You saw," I moaned.

"Everything," she said.

I put down my head. She had seen me exhibited naked, and sold.

"Why did you not buy me then?" I asked.

"There were excellent reasons not to do so," she said. "It was enough to know your location, and where you could be obtained."

"I do not understand," I said.

"To determine," she said, "that others did not follow you."

"I do not understand," I said.

"The search for you," she said, "was long."

"You have gone to much trouble," I said, "to secure a female serving slave."

"Your name is Judy," she said, naming me.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"You understand, of course," she said, "that you bear the name now as a slave name."

"Yes, Mistress," I said. It might be changed, or taken from me, at her whim.

"You will address me," she said, "as Lady Elicia, my mistress, or, as you have done, simply as Mistress, that sort of thing."

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said.

"Excellent, Judy," she said, "you learn swiftly." She leaned back. "Oh, I shall relish owning you," she said. "I shall demean and humiliate you, and work you, and have whatever I wish from you."

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I whispered. My former rival now owned me.

She rose easily from the curule chair and stood before me. She held the opened collar before me. It was slender but sturdy, steel, enameled with white, decorated with tiny flowers in pink, a collar suitable for a woman's girl. There was printing in the enamel, tiny, exact.

"See the printing?" she asked.

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

"I know you are illiterate," she said, "so I shall read it to you. It says 'I am Judy. Return me to the Lady Elicia of Six Towers.' "Then she said, "Put down your head, Slave."

I knelt, with my head down. The collar was locked on my throat.

She stepped back. "Miss Judy Thornton," she said, "-collared at my feet!" She turned in the lovely gown she wore, her arms raised, fists clenched, eyes closed. "The triumph! The pleasure of it!" she cried.

"The collar," I whispered, "has my name on it?"

"Yes," she said, looking at me. "It has been waiting for you a long time."

"It is a ten-hort collar," I whispered. I could tell by its feel.

"Your size exactly," she laughed.

I wondered when the measurement could have been taken. From what she had said I gathered the collar had not been made recently, that it had not been made following the sale in the house of Publius, in which my various measurements, those of a slave, had been made public.

I looked at her.

"You were measured when you were unconscious," she smiled, "before you left Earth."

"How did I come here?" I asked.

"Unconscious," she said, "naked, in a slave capsule."

I shuddered.

"Do you know," she asked, "who it was who picked you for slavery, who designated you for the collar, from among hundreds of other girls, screened, who might have been taken?"

"No, Mistress," I said.

"It was I," she said.

"But why, Mistress?" I begged.

"Because it pleased me," she said, "and I wanted you for my slave."

I looked at her with horror.

I felt the whip thrust against my mouth.

"Press your lips to the whip," she said.

I did so.

"What is the duty of a slave girl?" she asked.

"Absolute obedience," I whispered.

"Kiss the whip," she said.

I did so.

She then went back to the curule chair and seated herself upon it, regarding me. She held the whip in her right hand, its blades folded in her left.

"I am sure we will get on well, won't we, Judy?" she asked.

"Yes, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I whispered.

She looked at me, intently. "What is it like, truly, to be a slave?" she asked.

"Horrifying, Mistress," I said.

"I mean," she said, "-to be the slave of a-of a man."

"Oh, it is horrifying, Mistress," I said.

"I would have thought," she said, "that you, a girl such as you, not I, might have enjoyed it."

"Oh, no, Mistress," I said. "It is humiliating, degrading and terrible. We must obey them in all things. You cannot conceive of what it means!"

"Are you not what is spoken of as a 'hot' slave?" she asked.

"Oh, no, Mistress!" I protested.

"I saw you on the block," she said.

I put down my head, confused, angry.

"I think you are a little whore," she said, "a little tart. I have always thought so."

"Oh, no, Mistress," I said.

"It is girls such as you, responsive to men," she said, "who demean our sex, who have made it difficult for us on Earth."

"Oh, no. Mistress," I said.

"You insult women, and make us seem slaves!" she said angrily. "I despise your sort. I hold you in contempt."

I shook my head, negatively, tears in my eyes.

"Do you find pleasure in the touch of men?" she asked.

"No, Mistress," I said. "No!"

She looked at me, not speaking. It seemed strange to me, later, that we, together, had spoken so. It was as though each of us desired to appear more frigid and less passionate than the other, as though the restriction or impairment of our natural sexuality were somehow desirable or meritorious. Women of Earth, I knew, sensitive to a heritage of insane values, of antibiological acculturation, sometimes competed with one another in their attempts to appear frigid, a competition which was often carried into the bedrooms of their husbands. Few wives, I knew, would dare to let themselves appear to their husbands as a hot, panting bitch. Slave girls, on the other hand, are given no choice.

"As a free woman," she said, "I have had little opportunity to see a slave girl used."

She looked at me, curious.

"Tellius," she called. "Barus!"

The two men who had caught me entered the room.

The Lady Elicia indicated me to them. "Amuse yourselves with her," he said.

"Have mercy on your slave!" I cried.

By the arms, I was thrown back on the tiles.

I wept, the tunic torn away from me, my body red and helpless, writhing on the tiles.

"Can there be more?" asked the Lady Elicia, amazed.

"She has not yet even experienced the first slave orgasm," said Tellius, crouching beside me, looking up.

I turned my head from side to side, in misery. I looked up at him. I tried to lie still. But my body leaped to his touch. I cried out in misery.

"Is it soon?" she asked.

"Yes," said Tellius, "note her breathing, the mottling of her skin, how she moves, her eyes."

"Oh, please, Mistress, have mercy on me!" I wept. "Do not let them touch me further! Please, please, Mistress!"

Then I threw back my head and screamed. I clutched at Tellius. "You are my master!" I whispered, hoarsely. "You are my master!"

"Do not move," he said.

"Oh, please, Master!" I wept.

"You may now move," he said.

I screamed and clutched at him, eyes closed, clawing at him, trying to bring our bodies closer. Then I threw back my head eyes wild, lips parted, and screamed, delivering my body to my master.

"It is the first of the slave orgasms," said Tellius.

"I love you, Master!" I wept, clutching him. Gone now was the thought of the Lady Elicia. I, a slave girl, was in the arms of a Gorean male. I covered him with kisses and caresses, weeping. "Please touch your slave more, Master," I begged.

"Little whore!" sneered the Lady Elicia.

"Touch me more, Master!" I begged.

"I knew you would be like this, even at the college," she said. "Lovely Judy! A little whore!"

I licked at the hair on the upper arm of Tellius. "Please, Master," I begged him.

"You are lower than a whore," said the Lady Elicia. She looked down at me, in fury. "You are a slave girl!"

"I love you, Master," I whispered to Tellius.

"Finish with her," said the Lady Elicia, rising, angrily, from the curule chair. "And when you are done with her see that she is cleaned and groomed, and presented to me in a fresh tunic."

"Yes, Lady," said Tellius.

The Lady Elicia left the room.

I looked at Tellius with terror. "Please do not finish swiftly with your slave, Master," I begged.

"Do not fear, little slut," he said.

And they did not finish swiftly, but exacted from me the full, ecstatic penalties of my bondage.

When Barns rose from my side, spurning me with his foot, I had been well used.

"Kneel," said the Lady Elicia.

I knelt before her, in fresh tunic, in her bedroom. "You were long," she said.

"Forgive a girl," I said.

"Do you have any doubt," asked the Lady Elicia, "that you are a slave?"

"No, Mistress," I said. I put down my head. I remembered Tellius and Barns.

"Prepare my bath," she said.

I went to draw water from the cistern. Too, I lit the tiny oil fire beneath the tempering vessel, on its iron tripod. One regulates the temperature by mixing warmer and cooler waters. A serving slave must know the exact temperature at which her mistress wishes the water of her bath. The Lady Elicia would tell me once, I knew. After that, if it were not correct, I would be punished. I knew she would have little patience with me. I must serve her perfectly. When the water was ready, I prepared the oils, the towels, and foams of the bath.

"Your bath is ready, Lady Elicia, my mistress," I said, kneeling before her.

"Untie my sandals," she said, sitting on her bed, "and disrobe me."

I obeyed.

"Remove your tunic," she said.

I did so.