Captive of Gor (49 page)

absolute master.

I looked up into the eyes of Rask of Treve. He looked down upon me.

“How is it that I care for you?” he asked.

(pg. 344) “I love you,” I whispered. “I love you, Master.”

“I despise you,” he said.

I smiled at him, tears in my eyes.

“And yet,” he said, “from the first time I saw you, in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, I

could not forget you, but must have you as mine.”

“I am yours,” I whispered, “I am yours, Master. Utterly. Unconditionally yours.

Your slave. Your helpless slave!”

“From the time I saw you,” said he, “I knew that to me you could not be simply

as other slaves.”

I clutched him.

He looked down at me, troubled. He touched my head gently, moving back hair from

the right side of my face. “Can it be,” he asked, “that I, Rask of Treve, care

for a mere slave?”

“I love you, Master,” I cried, “I love you! I love you!”

He did not let me press my lips to his. He looked down upon me, smiling. “Were

you curious,” he asked, “why before I never let you serve the men, when the

other girls did so.”

I smiled up at him. “Yes,” I said, “I am curious.”

“I was saving you for myself,” he said.

I laughed.

“I kept you as long as I could,” he said, “but when you danced, then I knew I

must have you.”

I kissed him, and kissed him, weeping.

His hands were suddenly hard on my arms, and he forced me back. He grinned. “You

danced your insolence,” he said. “You danced your pride, your defiance, your

contempt and scorn.” He looked down at me.

I looked up at him. “I am not now insolent,” I said, “Master.” I smiled, tears

in my eyes. “I am not now proud. I am not now defiant. I am not now

contemptuous, nor scornful.” I reached up, and he permitted me to kiss him,

gently. I lay back. “I have been humbled, well humbled, Master,” I smiled.

“What are you now?’ he asked.

“Only your slave,” I whispered, looking up at him, “only your humbled, helpless

slave, Master.”

(pg. 345) He laughed.

I smiled.

“I have heard,” he said, “that there is an insolent female slave in camp, a

proud, unconquered girl.”

I shook my head. “No longer, Master,” I said.

“Did she escape?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I smiled, “she did not escape.”

“Her name was El-in-or,” he said.

“She did not escape,” I said.

He smiled.

“No female slave escapes Rask of Treve,” I said.

“That is true,” he said, the beast. But it was true.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“That same El-in-or,” I said.

“She did not escape?” he said.

“No.” I said. I laughed to myself. I had indeed not escaped.

“Whose slave is El-in-or?” he asked.

“Rask of Treve’s,” I said.

“Does she love?’ he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “she loves.” I tried to lift myself, to touch his lips with mine,

but he would not permit me. “She loves desperately and completely,” I whispered.

“Whom?” he asked.

I lay my head back, regarding him. I put my head to one side. “May I speak?’ I

asked.

“Yes,” he said, toying with his finger on my shoulder.

“But must I speak the truth?” I asked.

“Or you will be lashed, and put in the slave box,” he said.

I was startled. Yet I knew, suddenly, that, if I lied, he would indeed whip me,

and quite possibly place me again in the hated slave box. He was a Gorean

master. I was at his mercy. I wondered if I could have felt so much his, so

completely surrendered, if he had not possessed this complete power over my life

and body. I belonged to him. But I did not want him to whip me, or put me in the

slave box. I wanted only, desperately to please him. And I knew I must, for I

was his slave.

(pg. 346) The absolute truth must be spoken to a Gorean master. It is forbidden

to a girl to hide her feelings.

I looked up at him.

“It is well known to Rask of Treve,” I smiled, “whom it is that the slave girl,

El-in-or, loves.”

“Speak it,” he said.

“She loves her master,” I said. “She loves Rask of Treve.”

“I am he,” he said.

“It is you whom she loves,” I said.

“And who are you?’ he asked, his finger idly at my hip.

“She!” I cried, suddenly, laughing, with pleasure.

He kissed my throat.

“Has she been conquered?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said. “Yes!” I held him.

“Conquer me!” I wept. “Again conquer me!”

* * *

There were sounds of the early morning in the camp. It was now light. Far off, I

could hear Ute summoning her girls. A tarn cried in the compound. I heard the

sounds of pans. Some fires were being lit.

“In your dance, before you fell before me in the sand,” said Rask of Treve, “I

thought I detected in your dance something other than contempt and scorn.”

“Yes,” I said. I kissed him.

I knew then what I had not understood before, what, for brief moments in the

firelight, on the sand before his warriors and their slaves, my body had danced

to him, my need, my desire for him, my readiness and my desperate plea for his

touch.

For those moments, briefly mingled with the dancing of my pride, my insolence,

my contempt and scorn, I had, not fully aware, yet sensing fear what I did, in

the dance of a slave girl, piteously begged for the love of my master.

He had seen fit to touch me, and had summoned me to his tent.

We heard the sounds of the camp.

My left ankle wore the heavy chain. We lay together on the grassy knoll. I held

him to me, my cheek at his waist.

(pg. 347) His hand lay gently on the right side of my head.

“It is time for you to be about your work, Slave,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I whispered.

From his pouch he took forth a key and sprang open the heavy manacle that had

clasped, so perfectly confining it, my left ankle.

He put his cloak about my shoulders. “Go to the shed,” he said, “and get a work

tunic.”

I was being dismissed.

I threw the cloak to the grass and knelt at his feet, as though chained. I

looked up at him. He was now standing on his feet, and he looked down at me,

tenderly.

“I am chained at your feet,” I said. It was a saying of a Gorean slave, to

express her feelings.

“Yes,” he said, gently.

“I love you!” I cried. I thrust my head to his feet. I suddenly began to weep.

“Do not sell me!” I begged. “Do not sell me! Keep me for yourself! Keep me

forever for yourself!” I could not bear the thought of being separated from him.

It would have been the torture of the tearing of my heart from my body. The very

thought caused in me excruciating suffering. I looked up agonized. I understood

then as I had not before what could be the cruelty, the tragedy, of being a

female slave. What if I had not pleased him sufficiently? “I will please you

more!” I wept. “More! I will give you everything! Everything! Keep me! Do not

sell me! I love you! I love you!” I lifted my wrists to him, as though they wore

slave bracelets. I smiled through my tears. “You see,” I whispered, “I am

chained at your feet.”

“Does the proud El-in-or beg to be kept as my slave?” he smiled.

“Yes,” I said, “she begs.”

“To your work!” he laughed.

I leaped to my feet. He seized me in his arms, and, on the summit of the knoll,

held me long, lovingly, in his arms. I looked up, into his eyes. “I love you,

Master,” I whispered. Then I laughed, and cried out. He, his body tightening,

startling again mighty with strength, astonishing me, delighting (pg. 348) me,

lifted me from my feet and lowered me, gently, to the grass, covering me with

his cloak. Again he forced me to weep with pleasure.

When I leaped up, laughing, shaking my head and hair, he again offered to place

his cloak about my shoulders, that my body might be covered when I went to the

shed for the work slaves.

It was much honor that he did me, a mere female slave. How the girls would have

cried out with envy to see me, secure in such a cloak, and that, too, of the

mighty Rask of Treve!

But I did not wish to wear it. Did I so, it would not have been well concealed

that he, my master, had touched with gentleness, and care, a girl who wore a

collar. What would his men think? And I wore penalty brands. Surely a girl such

as I, after being brutally used, should have been casually dismissed, or beaten

and spurned. No, let it not be revealed that he, my master, the mighty Rask of

Treve, had been tender with a slave, particularly such a low and miserable slave

as I.

I laughed and hurled the cloak back to him. “A steel-collar girl,” I said,

“should not have so fine a cloak!”

He laughed. “And one with pierced ears!” he said.

“Yes,” I laughed, “and one with pierced ears!”

I turned about and sped down the hill to the shed for female work slaves. I was

ravenously hungry. I had little doubt that Ute would have saved me a roll from

the feeding pan. I loved her! She would also, however, have a full roster of

work for me to perform this day. She played no favorites. I was one of her

girls. She would treat me no differently than the others. I loved her! And I

loved, too, my master.

I turned. He was watching me, from the hill. I smiled, and waved to him. He

lifted his hand. I turned again, and ran toward the work shed.

Before I appeared before the shed, I stopped and, secretly, pressed my

fingertips to my lips and then to the lettering on my collar, which proclaimed

me the slave of a Gorean warrior. I loved him! I laughed. You could read his

(pg. 349) name, that of my master, on my collar. It was Rask of Treve.

I was not displeased that I had been chained under the moons of Gor. I hurried

to the shed.

“I have saved a roll for you,” said Ute.

“Thank you, Ute,’ I said.

“Eat it quickly,” she said.” You have much work to do today.”

“Yes, Ute,” I cried, kissing her. “I will! I will!”

17
   
Port Kar

(pg. 350) The past few years had been the most happy and beautiful of my life.

“Hands to the rear. Cross your wrists,” said the man.

I did so.

I felt the straps through the heavy wicker. My wrists were pulled back, tight

against the wicker, and bound there. I shared the tarn basket, my knees drawn

up, with five other girls. We were naked. Our ankles were tied together at the

center of the basket.

“They will be in Ar by nightfall,” said the man.

My head fell forward on my breast.

Yet I had few regrets, for in the past weeks I had been happy, and I had been

alive.

I would never forget the face, nor the touch, of Rask of Treve, nor the long

walks, and the speakings, and touchings beyond the palisade.

“Will they be sold in the Curulean?’ asked a nearby warrior.

“Yes,” said the man.

Two of the girls, bound helplessly in the basket, squealed with pleasure.

In the beginning, following my total conquer by Rask of Treve, I had been

summoned night after night to his tent. I had served him in a delicious variety

of ways, to our mutual pleasure, for I had been well trained. I had feared only

that my imagination might fall short of the invention of new and exciting ways

to please him. Sometimes to my fury, he had tried to put me from him, and had

summoned other women to his tent, but often he would (pg. 351) send them away

again, and it would be I, El-in-or, who would again be commanded to the tent of

scarlet canvas, red-silk lined, on its eight poles.

“Did master summon me?” I would ask.

“El-in-or,” he would say, opening his arms, and I would run to him.

And then he no longer summoned other women to his tent. Then it was only

El-in-or, whom he summoned. And then I, to the anger of some of the other girls,

was the acknowledged favorite of Rask of Treve, his preferred slave.

A heavy, long strap thrust through the wicker, behind me and to the left. It was

passed several times about my throat and then drawn through the wicker behind me

and to my right. I felt my throat jerked back against the wicker by the strap.

The same strap, passing in and out of the wicker, similarly fastened the other

girls in place.

Inge and Rena were not in the basket with me. They had been given to the

huntsmen, Raf and Pron. In the fashion of Gorean huntsmen, both girls had then

been freed and give a head start of four Ahn, that they might escape, if it were

in their power. After four Ahn, Raf and Pron, running lightly, carrying snare

rope, left the camp. The next morning they had returned, leading Inge and Rena.

The thighs of both girls had been bloodied. Their wrists were bound behind their

backs with snare rope. Their slave leashes, too, were formed of a loop of snare

rope.

“I see you have caught two pretty birds,” had laughed Rask of Treve.

About the throats of the girls were locked new collars, again of inflexible

steel, but now those of huntsmen, vine engraved and bearing the names of their

masters.

No scribe it seemed would own Inge, but she would belong to a brutal and

powerful huntsman, the handsome Raf of Treve’ and Rena’s captain of Tyros, he

who had contracted for her capture, must now surely be disappointed, and his

gold lost, for his lovely prize had been taken by another, at whose feet she