Hunters of Gor (35 page)

superior to them! I am better than they!”

“And so,” I said, “I should show you special consideration?”

“Certainly,” she said.

“I should be particularly kind to you,” I said, “and you should, doubtless be

accorded special privileges.”

“Yes,” she said. She smiled. “Be cruel to them,” she said, “but not to me. Be

harsh to them, but not to me. Treat them as laves, but not me.”

“Why should I treat them as slaves?” I asked.

She looked at me, puzzled. “Because they are slaves,” she said.

“And you are not?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

“How should one treat slaves?” I asked.

“With great harshness and cruelty,” she said.

I looked at her. She stood in brief, diaphanous yellow slave silk, that of the

paga slave. Her hair was very long and dark. Her skin was very light. She was

slender.”

“I do not accept being a slave girl,” she said.

“Your legs,” I said, “are beautiful enough,” I said, “to be a Gorean slave

girl.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I strode to her and pulled away the bit of silk. She gasped, but dared not

interfere.

‘“I walked about her. “You are beautiful enough,” I said, :to be a Gorean slave

girl.”

She was silent.

“You were brought by slavers to this world,” I said. “You were sold. You have

been branded. You wear a collar.”

She dared not speak.

I examined her, candidly. “I congratulate the slavers on their taste,” I said.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I looked at her, standing in the clearing, the bit of silk at her ankles,

beautiful in the light of the three moons.

She was now frightened.

“I am glad,” I told her, “that the slavers brought you to Gor.”

“Why?’ she said.

“Because,” I said, “it is a pleasure to own you.”

“I cannot be owned,” she said. “I am not a slave girl!”

“Are you aware that the men of Gor look upon the women of Earth as natural

slaves?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“How should one treat slaves?” I asked.

“With great harshness and cruelty,” she said, her head high.

“You wear a collar,” I said.

“I am not a slave!” she said.

“You are an exquisite slave,” I said.

“No!” she cried.

“Quite exquisite,” I said.

“Return me to Earth!” she cried.

“There is no escape,” I said, “for a Gorean slave girl.”

“I know what you want,” she said. “I will purchase my passage back to Earth!”

“What have you to offer?” I asked.

“Myself,” she said. She shook her hair. “Obviously myself!” She looked at me. “I

will serve your pleasure,” she said.

“As a slave girl?” I asked.

She tossed her head. “If you wish,” she said.

“Kneel, Slave,” said I, not pleasantly.

Uncertain of herself, she knelt. She looked up at me. There was fear in her

eyes.

“Am I playing a role?” she asked.

“No,” I told her.

She tried to leap to her feet, but my hand was in her hair, painfully.

When she stopped struggling, I released her. She smiled. “I’m not a slave girl,”

she said.

“Do you know the penalty,” I asked, “for a slave girl who lies to her master?”

She looked at me, no longer smiling. She was now apprehensive. “Whatever the

master wishes,” she said.

“For the first offense,” I said, “the penalty is not usually severe, commonly

only a whipping.”

She looked down.

“Will it be necessary in the morning to have you trussed and switched?’ I asked.

“Why looked up, suddenly. There were tears in her eyes. “Why are you not kind

and solicitous like the men of Earth?” she asked.

“I am Gorean,” I told her.

“Will you show me no mercy?” she begged.

“No,” I told her.

She put her head down.

“I shall now ask you a question,” I said. “I advise you to think carefully

before you answer.”

She looked up at me.

“What are you, Ilene?” I asked.

She put down her head. “A Gorean slave girl,” she whispered.

I knelt then beside her and took her in my arms, and put her back to the grass.

“Slaves,” I told her, “are to be treated with great harshness and cruelty, and

you are a slave.”

She moaned.

She lay on her back on the grass, and looked up at me. “Am I to receive

nothing?” she asked. “Nothing?”

“You are to receive nothing,” I told her. “Nothing.”

In half an Ahn she was wild, moaning, weeping, submissive in my arms.

And when in another half an Ahn she yielded it was with the helpless,

uncontrollable yielding of the utterly vanquished Gorean slave girl. “I am a

slave,” she wept, “ a slave,” she wept, “what will you do with me?”

I did not respond to her.

“Will you return me to Earth?’ she asked.

“No,” I told her.

“Will you free me?’ she asked.

“No,” I told her.

“I am totally your slave,” she wept. “What will you do with me, Master?”

“I will sell you in Port Kar,” I told her. I then left her.

I awakened shortly before dawn. It was muchly dark, but not as dark as the

night. I was cold, and wet. I heard the call of some horned owls.

I rose on one elbow.

At my feet, to one side, a yard or two away, lay Ilene. Her head was on her

right arm, and her eyes were open. She was watching me.

I knew the eyes of a slave girl in need.

I looked about. There was already, though before dawn, a dim filtering of light

in the forest, the false dawn, the inchoate, fractionated light preceding the

true dawn, when Tor-tu-Gor, the common star of two worlds, would, as a Gorean

poet once said, fling its straight, warming, undeflected spears of the morning

among the wet, cool branches of the forest.

I lay on my back.

The sky was now a darkish gray. I could see the edges of the trees clearly

against it. I could detect dim, whitish clouds overhead.

I lifted myself again to my elbow. It was a chilly morning. Dew covered the

grass and leaves. Everywhere drops glistened.

I again regarded Ilene. I read the need in her eyes. The bit of yellow pleasure

silk, wet with dew, clung to her. Her hair was wet and straight, black, damp and

matted back from her forehead, on both sides. Her face was damp. There was dew

on her collar. Her legs were drawn up.

She crept to me and put her head to my waist. Then she lifted her head and

looked at me. “Master?” she whispered. I did not speak to her. She lay beside me

and put her arms timidly about my neck. Delicately, timidly, she kissed me.

“Please, Master,” she said, “please.” Her eyes were pleading.

“I do not have time for you now,” I said.

“But I am ready,” she said. “I am ready!”

I took her in my arms and turned her to her back, and touched her. She tore the

pleasure silk back that there be less between us.

I marveled. In the night it had taken a full Ahn to an Ahn and a half to bring

her to the point of yielding. This morning she had crept to my side as a slave

girl in need. To my slightest touch her body responded helplessly,

spasmodically. Last night she had been an Earth woman who had had to be

conquered, who had had to be taught her collar. This morning she was only a

lovely Gorean slave girl, eager and moaning, begging piteously once again for

her master’s touch, begging to yield again, and again. On Earth a thousand men

might have sued for her hand. On Gor she belonged to only one man, was an

article of his property, and was only one slave girl among others.

Twice I used her.

There was little time.

“Please do not sell me, Master,” she begged.

“You are a slave,” I told her. “You will be sold.”

I looked at her. I wondered what she would bring me on the block. Yesterday I

would have regarded her as a four-gold-piece girl. But today lovely Ilene’s

value had considerably increased. I imagined her ascending the block, turning

for the buyers, presenting her beauty for their consideration, responding to the

deft guidance of the auctioneer’s coiled whip. And then, when she was unready,

when she did not expect it, he would, with the coiled whip, administer to her

the slaver’s caress. I could well conjecture, now, the response of the awakened

body. The crowd would be much pleased. The movement would be startled,

involuntary, sudden, wild, helpless, uncontrollable. Her womanhood would have

been betrayed. How enraged, how tearful, she would be. The men would laugh. She

had been forced, tricked, before her buyers, on the very block itself, into

displaying publicly the ready womanhood of her.

I smiled to myself.

The bids, then, would swiftly increase. The auctioneer, in his skill, would have

demonstrated undreampt latencies in the wench, on sale, that her desirablities

were not merely placid and visual, but organic, reflexive and sensual, that she,

properly handled, was the sort of woman who, as the Goreans say, could not help

but kiss the whip that beats her. I smiled. Men would pay well for lovely Ilene.

No longer would she be a mere four-goldpiece girl, standard merchandise on a

Gorean slave block. The auctioneer, I expected, would close his fist on a price

of ten goldpieces for her. I would then have taken a good profit on the

Earth-girl slave. Indeed, she had cost me nothing. Last night, I congratulated

myself, I had raised her value. I had brought her up by perhaps as much as six

gold pieces. I had had a double profit from my work of last night, my pleasure

in teaching her her collar and commercially, the considerable improvement of my

property, the considerable improvement of my investment.

“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” she whispered. “Sell another girl in Port Kar,

not Ilene.”

It was dawn.

The red-haired girl, first girl in the camp, she who held the switch, was not

up, stretching like a she-panther, yawning like a she-larl. She, though a former

paga slave, pulled the skins of panther girls about her body. I had torn the

skins at her left thigh, that she might not forget she wore a brand. She was a

strong, lithe girl. Ilene, I knew, feared her. And well she might, for she was

first girl, and held the switch.

Slowly, stiff-legged, the red-haired girl walked across the wet grass to the

dark, dew-stained tarpaulin, to pull the pegs.

It was dawn, time for the prisoners to arise, to be fed and watered, and then,

when I wished, to take up their burdens.

“Do not sell Ilene in Port Kar,” said Ilene, snuggling up against me. “Sell

another girl in Port Kar,” she whispered, “not Ilene.”

“Do you see her?” I asked Ilene, indicating the red-haired girl.

“Yes,” said Ilene, “she is an excellent choice for the block in Port Kar,

Master.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Ilene.

“Do you ask that it be she who is sold in Port Kar?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” said Ilene. She kissed me happily.

“Go to her,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” said Ilene.

“Speak to her,” I said.

“I will,” said Ilene. “I will!” she kissed me. “I will tell her that she is to

be sold in Port Kar.”

“No,” I said.

She looked at me.

“You will go to her,” I said. “You will then inform her that you asked me to

sell her in Port Kar. You will then ask her to give you ten switches. You will

them ask for your duties of the day.”

Ilene looked at me, protest in her eyes. Then, fear and tears came into her eyes

and she sprang up.

She ran to the girl.

“I asked for you to be sold in Port Kar,” she said.

“Aren’t you a pretty little slave with the master,” said the red-haired girl/

Ilene trembled.

“And what did he say?” she asked.

“I am to ask for ten switches, and then for my duties for the day.” said Ilene.

“I see,” said the red-haired girl.

Ilene stood before her.

“Remove your garment, pretty slave,” said the red-haired girl.

Ilene did so.

“Go to that tree,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a slender-trunked tree

at the edge of the camp clearing. Ilene went to it. “Hold to that branch, pretty

slave,” said the red-haired girl, indicating a branch over Ilene’s head. Tears

in her eyes Ilene grasped it.

There was the swift hiss of the switch and then the slap of its strike.

Ilene screamed with pain and fell, releasing the branch. She clutched the base

of the tree’s trunk. She looked over her shoulder at the red-haired girl.

“Please,” she wept.

“Hold the branch, pretty little slave,” said the red-haired girl, not much

pleased with her.

Ilene regarded her with horror.

I strode to the tree and, with two short lengths of binding fiber, tied Ilene’s

wrists to the branch.

She was weeping in pain.

“Let me beat her,” said the blond girl, one of the panther girls, in her ankle

ring.

The red-haired girl went swiftly to the girl who had spoken and struck her

twice. The blond girl, tears in her eyes, shrank back in the coffle, shoulder

stinging, and hid herself among the other girls.

The red-haired girl then strode to Ilene.

The Earth girl must now endure nine strokes. The red-haired girl was excellent

with the switch. She knew well how to beat a slave.

Ilene would not soon forget her beating.

It took more than two Ehn to deliver the next five strokes. Ilene did not know