Hunters of Gor (16 page)

me, with fury. “You forced me to serve you as a slave girl!”

“Whose collar do you wear?” I asked.

She turned away.

“Are you not a slave?” I asked, amused.

She turned to face me, her fists clenched. I heard the river behind her.

“Why did you buy me?” she asked.

“To serve my purposed, to implement my plans,” I told her.

“And I have done so,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“They you may now sell me,” she whispered.

“Or slay you,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “or slay me-should it please you!”

“But I am a merchant,” I said, “I would not wish to take the loss. I paid three

pieces of gold and five tarsks for you.”

“I am not property!” she cried.

“Of course you are property,” I told her. “You are animal. You are slave.”

“Yes,” she wept, “I am slave, slave!” She turned away.

I made no attempt to comfort her. One does not comfort a slave.

“When in the slave market at Lydius,” she challenged, “when you saw me chained

at the bar, did you think them only of your plans, your purposes?”

“No,” I admitted.

She turned to face me.

“And your kiss,” I said,” when I tasted your lips, at the bar in Lydius, I did

not find you without interest.”

“And in the hold,” she asked, “after my branding, when at night, on the planks,

you deigned to use me?”

“I found you not without interest,” I told her.

“Does what transpired between us there mean nothing to you?” she asked.

“It means nothing,” I said.

“I am, then, fully and unqualifiedly, a slave,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. I looked upon her. She was quite beautiful, in the shadows, in

the brief, sleeveless garment of white wool, the fillet of white wool tying back

her hair, barefoot, my collar at her throat.

As her seller had said, she was a beauty. And she was mine.

“Tonight,” she said, “I touched your arm.” She put down her head. “It cost me

much to do so. I struggled with myself for several Ahn, fighting myself. But I

reached out, to touch you. I could not help myself. I reached out, to touch you.

And your eyes were hard.”

I did not speak.

“I am no longer a panther girl,” she said. Then she looked up at me, and then

she said, to my surprise, “Not do I wish to be.”

I did not speak.

“In the hold,” she said, :you taught me what it is to be a woman.”

She put down her head. “You gave me no option to my submission. You took from me

everything. You took from me my total surrender.”

“A woman in a collar is not permitted inhibitions,” I said.

She looked up at me, angrily.

“Is it not time you were chained for the night?” I asked.

Yes,” she said, angrily. “It is!” she regarded me. “It is time for me to be

chained.”

I saw the chains lying dark, half covered in the sand, not far from her feet.

“I shall call one of the men,” I said, turning toward my shelter.

“I reached out to touch you tonight,” she said. “But your eyes were hard.”

She looked down to the chains, half covered with hand. “Your eyes were hard,”

she said.

“I shall call some to chain you,” I said.

“Master!” she cried.

I was startled. It was the first time Sheera had addressed me by this title.

The word must have come hard from her.

She was still, for practical purposes, fresh to her collar. She had, however,

standing there, half concealed in the darkness, begun to sense its meaning. I

supposed that I, in the hold of the Tesephone, had perhaps taught her something

of the import of the obdurate steel on her fair throat. She had obviously now,

as it is said, deep in her body, begun to feel her collar.

How hard it must be, to be a woman, I thought. She, noble creature, so marvelous

in her temptations and beauties, with the excellences of her mind and the

determined prides of her heart, how strange that she, so much prizing her

freedom, is made whole only as it is ruthlessly swept from her, that the true

totality of her response, the fullness of her ecstasy is the yielding and the

surrender, and the more delicious and incontrovertible the more complete.

The Goreans claim that in each woman there is a free companion, proud and

beautiful, worthy and noble, and in each, too, a slave girl. The companion seeks

for her companion; the slave girl for her master. It is further said, that on

the couch, the Gorean girl, whether slave or free, who has had the experience,

who has tried all loves, begs for a master. She wishes to belong completely to a

man, withholding nothing, permitted to withhold nothing. And, of course, of all

women, only a slave girl may truly belong to a man, only a slave girl can be

truly his, in all ways, utterly, totally, completely, his, selflessly, at his

mercy, his ecstatic slave, helpless and joyous in the total submission which she

is given no choice but to yield.

But I was not much interested in these things.

I saw her before me. She was only a slave.

“Please, Master,” she said, “chain me.”

“How are your lessons progressing?” I asked. I referred, of course, to those

lessons which Cara was teaching her, in the menial tasks appropriate to female

slaves.

“Let it be by your hand that I am chained,” she begged.

“Are you learning?” I asked.

She put down her head. “Yes,” she said. Then she lifted her head. “Sometimes I

am clumsy,” she said, :You may not understand. There are skills required,

sometimes, delicate skills. Such tasks, seeming so simple to you, are not always

without difficulty. It is not easy to perform such tasks well.”

“Requiring skills or not,” I told her, “such tasks are servile.”

“Yes,” she said, “they are servile.”

“Learn them,” I told her.

“Yes,” she said, “—Master.”

I turned away from her.

“Be kind to me!” she cried.

“No,” said I, not turning.

“Chain me!” she cried.

I turned and faced her. “No,” I told her.

She threw herself at me, across the sand, her fists raised to strike me. I

caught her fists, and held them, as she struggled.

“I hate you!” she wept. “I hate you!”

I released her fists. She pulled at the collar on her throat, her mouth

trembling, her eyes wild with tears.

“You branded me,” she said. “You collared me!” She faced me. “I hate you!” she

cried. “I hate you!”

“Be silent, Slave,” said I to her.

Then suddenly she looked at me, boldly. She challenged me, in her stance and

carriage, with her shoulders, her eyes.

“No,” I said.

“Use me,” she cried, “or give me to your crew!”

I regarded her.

She stepped back a foot in the sand. She was frightened. She had been insolent.

I stepped to her. She looked into my eyes. They were those of a Gorean master.

With my hand I cuffed her brutally across the mouth, blasting her head to one

side.

She turned back to face me, her eyes glazed, blood on her face.

With one hand I tore the fillet from her hair. with one hand I tore the

sleeveless garment of white wool. I bent to the sand and picked up the slave

chains which, half covered with sand, lay there.

“No!” she said.

By the arm I thrust her, stumbling, to the darkness of the small canvas shelter

at the side of the Tesephone.

There I thrust her to the sand, at my feet. I locked the slave chains on her.

She did not move. I sat then beside her, in the darkness, in the sand, under the

canvas. Then I reached out to take her head in my hands. As I did so I felt her

head turn, and heard her, in the darkness, gasp and sob. Her lips, suddenly,

parted, moist, almost uncontrollably, pressed a kiss into the palm of my hand.

Then I held her head between my hands. I could feel the hair at the side of her

head.

“Be kind to me,” she begged.

I laughed, softly. She moaned. I heard the chains move.

“Please be kind to me,” she begged.

“Be silent,” said I, “Slave.”

“Yes,” she whispered, “—Master.”

I pressed my lips to hers. With my finger tip I touched her body, and felt its

vital, obedient helpless surge. I marveled. She began to breathe heavily. As a

Gorean master, curious, I gently, delicately, touched her nipples. They were

sweet and high, full and blood-charged. I was pleased. I kissed them, gently.

Her responses were not feigned.

“You are an excited slave,” I told her.

She did not respond, but turned her head to one side. I heard her sob.

Then I again touched her, my finger gently to her body. To my incredible

pleasure, that of the master of this slave. I felt her body move helplessly,

spasmodically. The body of Sheera, once the proud panther girl, now only a

collared slave, branded, and rightless, an animal, leaped submissively,

uncontrollably, to the slightest touch of her master.

I heard Thurnock and some of the others, begin to stir about.

It was dawn.

Cara had already lit a fire.

Sheera lay against me in the sand, her head pressed against my waist. She was

still chained.

“You must be up soon,” I told her, touching her head. “You will have duties to

attend to.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

I stroked her head, gently, as it lay against me.

“I cannot help it that I am not as beautiful as the other girls,” said Sheera.

I did not speak.

“I cannot help it,” she said, “that my breasts are too small, that my wrists and

ankles are too thick.”

“I find you very beautiful,” I said.

She rose on her elbows, with a rustle of chain. “Could a girl such as I please a

man?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “very much so.”

“But I am not beautiful,” she said.

“You are very beautiful,” I told her.

“Am I truly beautiful?” she asked.

I rose on one elbow. “You are a truly beautiful woman,” I told her.

She smiled. How beautiful she was!

I seized her in my arms and threw her to her back in the sand. She looked up at

me, happily. “And like every truly beautiful woman,” I told her, “you should be

a slave.”

She laughed. “I am a slave,” she said. “Your slave.”

She lifted her lips to mine.

I kissed her.

“Today,” I said, “Rim goes to Laura, to fetch paga slaves for the men. In the

morning, we go into the forests.”

“Then,” she said, “Master, you have nothing to do today?”

I lay on my back. “Yes,” I said, “that is true.”

“If you will unchain me,” she said, “I will be up and about my duties.”

“Cara and Tina can manage,” I told her.

“Oh?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But what then,” she asked, “am I to do today?”

“Thurnock!” I called.

“Yes, Captain,” I heard, from outside the shelter.

“Command the camp today,” I told him.

Thurnock gave a great laugh, and Sheera thrust her head against my side. “Will

you have food in your shelter?” he laughed.

“Yes,” I told him, “from time to time.”

He laughed and turned away.

Sheera looked at me. She was smiling. “And I?” she asked. “Do I have duties

today?”

“Yes,” I told her.

She laughed.

I took her again in my arms.

7
     
Greena

Softly, stealthily, the long bow of yellow Ka-la-na, from the wine trees of Gor,

in my hand, I moved through the brush and trees.

At my hip was slung the quiver, with sheaf arrows, twenty of them, of black tem

wood, piled with steel, winged with the feathers of the Vosk gull.

I wore a garb of green, mottled, striped irregularly with black. When I did not

move, did I stand among the brush and light trees, in the sunlight and shadows,

it was difficult to detect my presence, even from a distance of some yards.

Movement is the danger, but one must move, to eat, to hunt.

I saw a tiny brush urt scurry past. I was not likely to encounter sleen until

darkness. Panthers, too, hunted largely at night, but, unlike the sleen, were

not invariably nocturnal. The panther, when hungry, or irritable, hunts.

Overhead were several birds, bright, chattering, darting, swift among the

branches and green leaves. I heard the throaty warbling, so loud for such a

small bird, of the tiny horned gim. Somewhere, far off, but carrying through the

forest, was the rapid, staccato slap of the sharp beak of the yellow-breasted

hermit bird, pounding into the reddish bark of the tur tree, hunting for larvae.

There was not much breeze today. The forest, for the trees were more widely

spread and the brush thick, was hot. I brushed back an insect from my face.

I ranged far ahead of my men, scouting beyond them. We had left at dawn of the

preceding day. I took ten with me, including Rim. Thurnock I left behind, at the

camp, in command. We had purposely entered the forest to hunt sleen.

We had circled far to the east and north.

We would not approach Verna’s camp and dancing circle by means of the blazed

trail.

I did not know if Talena lay slave in Verna’s camp or not. If she did not, Verna

and her band, would surely know her whereabouts.

My men carried sleen nets, as though they might be sleen hunters. Such nets,

however, would also be suitable for the snaring of female slaves.

I had given Verna and her band their chance.

I brushed back another insect from my face.