Captive of Gor (28 page)

was in the presence of Rask of Treve, being (pg. 192) casually examined, to see

whether or not she was later to be acquired by him.

It was said that he was a fierce, long-haired man, a tarnsman, a warrior.

It was said that he was one of the master swords of Gor.

It was said, too, that he was incredibly handsome, and merciless to women.

Men feared his sword.

Women feared the steel of his slave collars.

Women, it was said, had special reason to fear Rask of Treve. It was said he had

a gargantuan contempt, and appetite, for them. It was said that when he used a

woman, he then branded her, with his name, as though she, once used, no matter

to whom she might afterwards be given or sold, could truly belong only to him.

It was also said that he would use a woman only once, claiming that he had, he,

Rask of Treve, in once using her, emptied her, exhausted her, taken from her all

she had to give, and that, thus, she could no longer be of interest to him. No

man on Gor, it was said, could so humble, or diminish, a woman as Rask of Treve.

And yet, it was said, there were few women on Gor, strangely enough to the fury

of their own men, or guardians, who were not willing to be used, and branded and

spurned by Rask of Treve, that young, audacious, ruthless warrior, only that

they might helplessly know his touch.

Rask of Treve, it was said, had never purchased a woman. he would capture, and

take by force, those that pleased him. Rask of Treve, it was said, like many

Goreans warriors, preferred free women, enjoying the delicious agonies of his

prey, as he reduced them to the utterness of the surrendered female slave. On

the other hand, if is should please him, it was said he could take a girl who

was already slave and make her more a slave than a slave.

I was later furious with myself that I had wept in the cell.

Of course I was a slave girl!

I had been taught that!

I knew it well!

But I would be a superb one!

(pg. 193)Sometimes, I thought angrily of girls on Earth, many of them, who, too,

were slave girls, but who had not learned this, and who, presumably, would never

do so. I thought of them, dressing for men, trying to please them, though not

much caring for them, to advance themselves in powers and luxuries, using their

bodies and minds, their smiles, and glances and words, and touches, clumsily

perhaps, not having been trained, to obtain their desires of foolish, starved

men. These were girls, not caring for men, who employ the needs of men, without

penalty, intelligently to their own profit. Smile at a man of Earth and he will

be grateful; pretend to be willing to please a man of Earth and he will do

anything for you. You may then use them, such needful weaklings, to rise in the

million strata of your intricate society, to climb, to ingratiate and insinuate

yourself swiftly, expertly, into the high, warm, comfortable, luxurious places

in your busy, impersonal, complex, loveless, anxious world. You will make them

pay well for your favors. I held the bars. How different it was on Gor. Such an

exploitative, indifferent girl, on Gor, might be simply carried off, and

enslaved. Of such women the Goreans enjoy making slaves. She would find her

favors were not hers to dispense, at her own pleasure and to her own profit, but

his to command, as he was pleased to do so. Gorean men were not so easily fooled

as the men of Earth. Gorean men do not choose to be dominated, but to dominate,

to be the master. I wished, sometimes, that such girls, of Earth, might find

themselves naked, branded, helpless in a Gorean slave cage, forced to be the

slave girls they unknowingly were. I was taught. They were not. I was angry. But

they were free. And I was caged. They, though as slave as I, had escaped; I had

not; I had been captured, and, by, Gorean men, would be forced to pay my price!

I had no hope of freedom. I was furious. I had hope only that, though on this

world, I could use my inclinations and training, those of a slave girl, to win

myself an easy life. That I did not think would be difficult to do, for a girl

as clever and beautiful as I. My training, I suspected, as well as my

intelligence, would make me more than a (pg. 194) match for any man, even the

strangely attractive, powerful men of Gor.

Our training continued.

Once, there was a visitor to the pens, a tall stranger, partially hooded, who

wore the robes of blue and yellow silk, those of the Slavers. He had, over his

left eye, a strip of leather, which was wound around his head. He was shown

through our section of the pens by Targo.

“This is Soron, of Ar,” said Targo, stopping before our cage. Then he said,

“El-in-or.”

I was apprehensive. I did not wish to be sold until we reached Ar. I wished to

be sold from the great block of the Curulean Auction House. It was in that place

that there were to be found the highest placed, richest buyers of Gor. It was my

hope to become the preferred pleasure slave of a wealthy master, and to reside

in one of the high towers of Ar, Gor’s largest and most luxurious city, and to

have silks and jewels wherewith to deck myself, and no work to do, saving

perhaps pleasing my master or guests to whom he might, if he pleased, give me

for the evening.

“El-in-or!” snapped Targo.

I went to the bars, and knelt before them. “Buy me, Master,” I said.

“Does this girl know how to present herself?” asked the man.

Targo was angry. “Again!” he snapped.

I was frightened now. I leapt to my feet, and went again to the rear of the

cage. Then I turned, this time a slave girl, and approached the bars, as a slave

girl approaches the bars, behind which a master observes her. I smiled,

slightly, insolently, and knelt again before him. I felt the steel plating

beneath the straw. I lowered my eyes to his sandals, which were of black,

polished leather, with wide straps, and then, still smiling, tauntingly, lifted

my head. I regarded him “Buy me, Master,” I whispered.

“No,” he said.

I rose to my feet, irritated, and backed away. He need not have been so curt. I

had tried to present myself well. (pg. 195) I had! But he had expressed no

interest whatsoever. I felt the humiliation of the spurned slave girl.

“Buy me, Master,” said Inge, now at the bars, whom Targo had gestured forward.

I did not like the way Inge had said “me” as though to contrast herself with me,

and my failure! Did she think herself superior to me? Further, I was furious

with how she had approached the bars. She had done so superbly, sinuously. Was

she not only of the scribes! Could she, sticklike Inge, be more attractive to a

man than I?

The man regarded her, appreciatively, sizing her up, as a master appraises truly

high-quality feminine merchandise.

“Were you truly of the scribes?” asked the man.

“Yes,” said Inge, startled.

“The refinement of your accent,” he said, “suggested the scribes.”

“Thank you, Master,” said Inge, lowering her head.

“She is excellent merchandise,” said the man. “She has the intelligence, and

education, of the scribe, and yet she is obviously an exquisite and well-trained

female slave.”

Inge did not raise her head.

“She should be sold to a scribe,” said the man.

Targo spread his hands, and smiled. “To whomever pays the most gold,” he said.

“You may return to your place,” said the man.

As lightly and beautifully as a cat, Inge leapt to her feet and returned to the

straw at the back of the cage. I hated her.

“Buy me, Master,” said Ute, coming forward in her turn.

“A beauty,” said the man.

Ute, though a slave, blushed with pleasure. She lowered her head. How her blush

and smile, became her! I hated her!

“I am Lana,” said Lana, and she came forward, and, in her turn, knelt before the

bars. “Buy Lana, Master,” she said.

“I did not ask to hear the name of a slave,” said the man.

Lana looked at him in surprise.

(pg. 196) “Return to your place, Slave,” said the man.

Angry, Lana did so.

“You may now approach again,” said the man.

Lana did so. She knelt sinuously, and excitedly, before him, and looked up at

him. “Buy me, Master,” she whispered.

“Return to your place, Female Slave,” said the man. He then turned to talk with

Targo. Furious, dismissed, Lana again rose to her feet and returned to the back

of the cage. She looked about, but neither Ute, Inge nor myself would meet her

eyes. I looked away, and smiled.

The man, and Targo, were now prepared to go to the next cage.

I stood at the back, right-hand corner of the cage, on the steel plating, on the

straw. I looked out, through the bars. The man had turned and was regarding me.

I tossed my head, and, angrily, looked away. I could not, however, in a moment,

resist looking again, to see if he might still be looking at me. He was. My

heart skipped a beat. I felt frightened. And then he had turned away with Targo,

and was then before the next cage. I heard a girl move on the straw in the next

cage, approaching the bars. I heard her “Buy me, Master.” I turned away, feeling

uneasy. I looked about the cage. It was so strong. There was no escape for me. I

felt helpless.

That evening, at our meal, I managed to steal a pastry from Ute. She did not

even know who it was that removed it from her pan.

Our training in the pens of Ko-ro-ba now began to move toward its conclusion.

Our bodies, superbly trained, even those of Inge and Ute, now became

unmistakably those of slave girls. We had had trained into our bodies mysteries

of movements of which even we, for the most part, were no longer aware, subtle

signals of appetite, of passion and of obedience to a masculine touch, movements

which excited the fierce jealousy, the hatred, of free women, particularly

ignorant free women, who feared, and perhaps rightly, that their men might leave

(pg. 197) them for the purchase or capture of such a prize. Most slave girls,

incidentally, fear free women greatly. Some of these movements are, in standing,

as obvious as the turning of a hip; in reclining, as obvious as the partial

extension of a leg, the pointing of toes. But many are more subtle, tiny, almost

undiscernible movements, which yet, in their total effect, brand a female body

as being incredibly sensuous, things like a way of glancing, a way of holding

the head, subtle things like the almost invisible, sudden flexion of the

diaphragm, the tiny fear movement of the shoulders, which signals that the girl,

as she is, is helpless quarry. Incidentally, we also learned our own

responsiveness to certain signals. For example, we could become curious, uneasy,

simply by turning an open palm, perhaps unnoticeably, toward a male. It made us

feel vulnerable. I did not like to do this. And, of course, we came to

understand, too, the movements of men, and how to read their interest and

desire. It is not really a mystery that the Gorean slave girl, who is trained,

seems to anticipate her master’s moods, and that he scarcely need ever speak of

desire for her. She know when he does not desire her, and when he does desire

her, and when he does desire her, she signals her responsiveness to him, and

goes to him. I smiled to myself. Men pay higher prices for trained slave girls.

Some of them do not even understand fully the training the girl receives. They

think commonly only in gross terms, such as her being trained in the dances of

various cities, and in the arts of love, as practiced in various cities. They

often do not know she is trained to read his desires, like an animal, from his

body, and to serve them promptly, subtly and fervently. The trained girl is well

worth her price. I intended to use my training to enslave my master. I had

little doubt I could do so. I would have an easy life. Even though a token

collar might be locked on my throat, it would be I who would be master!

Sometimes at night, lying in the straw of the cage, I would think of Verna and

when I did so, knowing her captured, destined for brand and collar, I would

laugh to (pg. 198) myself. I wished that I might have some opportunity to show

my lack of fear of her, my contempt for her, that slave!

In these days, as our training in the Ko-ro-ban pens drew to its conclusion, I

forgot both Haakon of Skjern and Rask of Treve. Rask of Treve, it was said, had

at last been driven from the environs and claims of the city of Ko-ro-ba.

Certain of the tarnsmen of Ko-ro-ba boasted of having driven him from the lands

of the state, but others, as I learned from guards, were only silent. At any

rate, it seemed that Rask of Treve, and his raider’s band, had left the lands of

the Towers of the Morning. Sa-Tarna fields ripened in their yellow beauty, and

caravans passed with safety. The skies remained clear of the thunder and screams

of the tarns of Treve, the war cries of her spear-bearing warriors. Rask of

Treve, it seemed, now sought elsewhere for the weight of gold and the flesh of

women. Haakon of Skjern, it seemed, still remained in Ko-ro-ba. It lies west of

bleak, rocky Torvaldsland, substantially above even the vast, green belt of the