Vagabonds of Gor (52 page)

"It was not an animal, as you thought," I said, "but, as it turned out, a man, as I thought."

She looked at me, frightened, but, too, teetering on the brink of an uncontrollable response.

"It was a fellow of Ar," I said.

"Oh, no!" she whispered.

"--whom I managed to save," I said.

She closed her eyes, tightly.

"Perhaps you are interested to know what became of him?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"He returned to his fellows," I said. "Apparently their camp is not far from here."

She looked at me with terror.

Then, as it pleased me, I touched her again, once, briefly.

"Oh!" she said.

"He does not know, of course," I said, "that you are with me."

"Good," she said.

I again touched her, once. "Good! Good!" she said.

"What is wrong?" I asked.

"Every particle of me begs to respond to you!" she wept.

"It is just as well they do not know you are with me," I informed her, "for, as you feared, by now the treachery of Saphronicus, and that of those closely associated with him, such as the Lady Ina, is well understood."

She moaned.

"I see you feared as much," I said.

"Yes," she said.

I was letting her subside a little. I could bring her back to the brink of her response, as I chose. This she knew.

"He brought up your name," I said, "not me." She groaned in the thought of it.

I turned her to her back, in this way, in the circumstances, I made her even more vulnerable to me. Too, I could better see her face. It was very beautiful, the lips parted, the hair about it.

She tried to lift herself toward my hand, but I withdrew it. She lay back, moaned, remained tense, turned her head to the side.

"He spoke of a court-martial for you, here in the delta," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

"To be followed, of course," I said, "by the impaling spear."

She shuddered.

"He thinks, however," I told her, "that you were done away with by rencers."

"Good!" she said.

"Interestingly," said I, "he does not seriously entertain the speculation that they might have enslaved you, not regarding you as woman enough to be a slave, or indeed, even woman enough to begin to understand what it might be, to be a slave."

She looked up at me, angrily.

So I touched her twice more, delicately.

She looked at me, wildly, helplessly.

I moistened my finger, and again touched her, again delicately.

She squirmed, helplessly.

She looked up at me.

She knew I could do what I wanted with her.

I could let her sink down, or hold her where she was, or, with a few gentle, even delicate, touches, have her explode into helpless, moaning, writhing submission.

"I would think," she said, "that any woman who has been in your binding fiber would have some inkling as to what it might be to be a slave!"

"No," I said. "To know what it is to be a slave one must be in the collar, one must be a slave."

I touched her, softly.

"Oh!" she said.

It is pleasant to have a woman so in your power.

She looked up at me, wildly. "I begin to sense," she whispered, "what it might be like, to be a slave yielding to her master."

"You sense perhaps the incipience of a mild submission orgasm," I said, "quite suitable for a captive, but do not delude yourself that you can even begin to sense the significance and totality of the slave orgasm, for that has a special informing ambiance, and takes place within a unique conditioning context, physical, psychological and institutional. You cannot sense it for a very simple reason, you are not owned, you are not a slave."

She moaned.

"But," I said, "you can perhaps, even now, sense how a female slave can beg for sex."

"Yes," she said. "Yes!" I touched her again.

"Oh, yes!" she said.

"Do you like that?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" she said. "Please, more."

"I do not mean, once significantly ignited by the master's touch," I said. "I mean, for example, when the master returns from his day's labors, such things."

"I understand," she said. "Please, more!"

"Do you think you could understand how a girl, in the middle of the night, fearing being beaten, could beg for sex?"

"Yes," she said. "I can!"

There are many ways in which a female slave can beg for sex, for example, the bondage knot, offering the master wine, holding up to him fruit, next to her body, kneeling, licking, kissing, and so on. Many times, too, she must beg explicitly. Then she may be told she must wait, or can have only a brief use. After the slave fires have been ignited in a girl's body, which usually occurs in the first days of her slavery, the denial of sex to her amounts to a torture. Sometimes, cruelly, slavers will deny a girl sex for days before she ascends the auction block. Needless to say she is then likely to perform well, becoming, in effect, a piteous dream of needfulness on the sawdust, pleading to be purchased, begging to serve, fully, totally, as what she is, only a slave.

Again I touched her.

"Oh, yes!" she whispered.

Some think of the female's sexual response as a matter of simple physiology. This is incorrect. Her response is holistic, and significantly conditioned by large numbers of factors, often complex and subtle. For example, being put on her belly over a table, her wrists tied to the opposite legs of it, is a very different experience for her than being fastened down on the wave-washed deck of a Torvaldsland serpent, subject to the attentions of its crew. Yet both may be exciting and precious to her. Too, her sexuality is not a matter merely of episodes but of a mode of being. In the case of the female slave, for example, her entire life is one of sexuality, vulnerability and love.

"Will you not complete your work?" she asked. "Will you not give me relief?"

"I am thinking," I said, "of giving you a slave strip, perhaps two."

"But I am not a slave," she said.

"A free woman, a captive, may be put in such," I said.

"I do not understand," she said.

"Your breasts are beautiful," I said. "I think I will, accordingly, keep them bared. Too, this seems fitting, not only because you are a captive, but given the heat in the delta. In this way you will be more comfortable. Perhaps when you were a free woman, that is, not yet a captive, in your barge, on the islands, and such, in your robes of concealment, you often wished you might go about stripped, or, say, in slave strips, that sort of thing, surely, at least, bare-foot in the scanty garments of a female rencer."

"I do not understand," she said. "Why would you now, only now, be thinking of giving me clothing?"

I touched her.

"Oh!" she said.

"Do you not wish clothing?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, warily.

"And are you not grateful," I asked, "even as would be a slave, for such an indulgence?"

"Of course," she said.

"Good," I said.

"But why, only now, are you thinking of giving me clothing?" she asked.

"Can you act?" I asked.

"I do not understand," she said, apprehensively.

"Can you act?" I asked.

"I am a free woman," she said.

Free women, on Gor, are seldom seen on the stage. Almost all female roles, accordingly, are played either by men, sometimes boys, or female slaves. To be sure, there are many exceptions to this, as theater on Gor is a very diversified institution, with many forms, with varying levels of prestige. There is a great deal of difference, for example, between a grand historical drama recounting the saga of a city, staged in a tiered amphitheater, and a comedy set up on an improvised stage at a crossroads. On the whole free women do not attend most forms of theater on Gor, unless incognito, in heavy veiling or even masked.

"But you must be curious as to what it might be, to act?" I said.

"Forced to appear on a public stage scandalously clad, or naked," she asked, "dancing, singing, saying lines, being struck with paddles, and such, your master all the time in the wings with a whip?"

"If you like," I said.

"And then serving in tents, in the back?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I said.

There are, incidentally, certain slavers who specialize, in the capture of free women for the stage. Too, it is a joke of young bucks to capture an arrogant free maiden and sell her to a theatrical producer out of the city. Then, later, they enjoy her performances, both on the stage and in the tents later.

"I think I could manage," she said.

"Even in the tents, afterwards?" I asked.

"As I understand it," she said, "one is forced to manage there."

"True," I said. "Normally one is chained there, commonly to a stake."

"I see," she said, shuddering.

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," she said, "there are more serious roles."

"True," I said.

"Ones which perhaps do not involve the tents afterwards?"

"More likely special booths, or arrangements, for wealthy patrons," I said.

"Yes," she said, "I think I might be able to act."

"In any sort of role?" I asked.

"I suppose so," she said.

I thought with amusement of what it might be to see the former Lady Ina, then a slave, hurrying about on a stage, crying out, trying to evade, but never quite managing it, the paddles of a Chino or Lecchio.

"Why do you ask?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said.

She looked at me. She squirmed a little. Then she whimpered.

"You may beg explicitly," I said.

"Please touch me," she said.

"Very well," I said.

"Not on my nose!" she said.

"Oh," I said.

"Yes," she said, suddenly. "Yes!"

I then, after having let her subside for a time, indeed, even languish, judging by her whimper, began, she, eyes closed, moaning with gratitude, to lift her up again, toward flowers and treetops.

I then desisted.