Magicians of Gor (57 page)

recall your own speculations, and suspicions, and sensings, and dreams, when you

were free.”

“Only glimmers of terror, and longing,” she said.

“Speak,” I said.

“Of course in my belly,” she said, “I felt the appeal of bondage. I was

intrigued by thoughts of it, and lured by them. Often did I linger lovingly upon

such thoughts. Often was I fascinated to consider how it might be with me if I

should become a slave, be owned and have no options but to obey.”

“Then you did understand much of these things,” I said, “even when you were a

free woman.”

“No,” she said, “I understood nothing, nothing!”

“Oh,” I said.

“Aiii!” she wept, rearing up. “Nothing! Nothing! Oh, my (pg. 335) my master,

thank you, thank you! Be kind! Be kind to your slave, she begs you!”

I was silent.

“How helpless I am!” she said.

The chain moved a little again, on the floor. I glanced to her ankle. The ankle

ring looked well there. She reached up, to put her arms more about me. She was

stripped, save for her collar and the ankle ring.

“I desire to be found acceptable, Master,” she whispered.

“You are acceptable,” I assured her.

“Her skin is blotchy,” said Phoebe.

“Steady,” I whispered to the slave.

“Master?” she asked.

I put her arms gently away from me. I moved my right hand. “Oh!” she said. I

felt the pressure of her left thigh against my hand. I moved my hand again.

“Oh,” she said softly. The chain moved on the floor. I moistened my tongue. I

lowered my lips to her lower belly.

“Oh, Master,” she whispered.

“Steady,” I said.

She moaned, given no choice but to submit to the pleasure I chose to inflict

upon her.

“Steady,” I cautioned her.

“You know I shall not be able to resist you,” she said.

“You will be whipped, if you even try,” I said.

“Yes, Master!” she said, in joy. I felt her small fingers, clutching in my hair.

“Oh, Master!” she suddenly wept. And then she began to twist and moan, and try

to remain still, and thrust against me, and to hold my head where it was not

letting it go and her fingers were tight in my hair and this hurt but I did not

beat her but relished her so moaning and then bucking and trying to remain still

and thrusting against me and how needful and helpless she was and so much in my

power and so responsive and how such helpless movements and cries could be

elicited by such tiny, persistent, patient, delicate attentions and she cried

out begging me and I took her hands from my hair and looked down into her wild

pleading eyes.

“What is it you wish?” I asked.

“I juice, my master! I gape, my master!” she said.

“Do you wish to serve?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

“Do you beg to serve?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I beg to serve.” She lifter her belly, piteously.

I looked down upon her.

(pg. 336) “Please, Master,” she said.

I was silent.

“I am only slave,” she said. “You have done this to me! I am only a girl in a

collar. I am helpless. I belong to you! I am yours to do with as you wish! I

will do anything for you! I beg you to have pity on me!”

“I have tested your responses, slave,” I said.

“Oh, Master!” she wept, in misery.

“I have found them satisfactory,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Once triggered,” I said, “they were involuntary, reflexive, beyond your

control.”

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“Such responses will much improve your value,” I said.

“I am pleased, Master,” she wept.

“And they appear still beyond your control,” I said. I regarded her.

“They are, Master!” she said, tears in her eyes. Her body moved. She squirmed.

Even to look upon her seemed to make her move. She was aroused, clearly, simply

finding herself under the eyes of the master.”

“But surely,” she said, “you have not addressed these attentions to me merely to

assess the nature and specificity of my slave responses?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Let me serve! Let me serve!” she begged.

I regarded her.

“I beg to serve, Master!” she said.

I entered her.

“My Master!” she said.

I then informed her, in a modality of the mastery, of my ownership of her.

“I yield me yours, your slave!” she cried.

Then I held her quietly, her body trembling in my arms. “Ecstasy, ecstasy,” she

breathed.

“You see,” I said, “there are feelings involved.”

“It was unbelievable,” she said.

“You are learning to feel,” I said.

She looked at me, startled.

“It is true,” I said. “You are still a new slave.”

“Then I think I must just die,” she said.

“Slaves have survived such things, and more,” I said.

She laughed softly, and pressed against me.

“There have been slaves for thousands of years,” I said.

“And there is another now,” she said.

(pg. 337) “Yes,” I said. There was no doubt about that.

“I have never been so happy in my life,” she said.

“Your feelings do not matter,” I said.

“Master?” she asked.

“They are those only of a slave.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

She then lay quietly beside me, her head on my chest.

“But if free women could understand these things,” she said, “they would all put

themselves to the feet of me and beg their collars.”

“But they cannot understand them,” I said. “They are not slaves.”

“I assure you that I had some understanding of this sort of thing when I was a

free woman,” she said.

“Anything like the understanding you have now?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said. “Nothing like my understanding now!”

“That is my point,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“The experience is a totalistic one, which occurs in an entire context,” I said.

“It is thus that a woman does not fully understand what it is to be a slave

until she becomes a slave. Once she is owned, of course, and subject to the

whip, she will learn her condition. Kneeling before her master, she will soon

apprehended something of its joys, duties and terrors.”

“It is true, Master,” she said.

“Kneel,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

I lay on one elbow, regarding her.

“It is my hope that I have pleased my master,” she said.

“You have pleased me,” I said.

“Then the slave, too, is pleased,” she whispered.

“She is very pretty,” said Marcus.

“Her skin is still blotchy,” said Phoebe.

“It is much better now,” I said. We had purchased soothing, healing lotions.

“And her hair is much too short,” said Phoebe.

“That is true,” I said.

The slave kept her head down.

“But I suppose she is pretty enough,” said Phoebe, “for a cheap girl.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” said the slave.

“What did you cost?” asked Phoebe.

“Oh, come now,” said Marcus, irritatedly. Phoebe knew very well, of course, what

I had paid for her. Indeed, she had not (pg. 338) rested from the moment we had

brought her in, braceleted and on a leash, until she had learned, and to her

immense satisfaction, how little it had been.

“Five copper tarsks, Mistress,” said the girl.

“I myself,” said Phoebe, “sold for a hundred pieces of gold.”

“That was under very special circumstances,” I said.

“But that is what was paid!” she said.

“True,” I said.

Much of the weightiness of this was lost on the new slave, of course, for she

had very little notion of the prices of women. As she had come into the keeping

of Appanius in virtue of the couching laws, she had had only one sale, that to

me for a few copper tarsks. She would, of course, recognize that a hundred

pieces of gold was an incredible amount of money. In a sense a woman is worth as

much or as little as someone is willing to pay for her. In typical markets, if

it is helpful for purposes of comparison, an excellent woman, suitable, say, for

the paga taverns, would sell for between one and three silver tarsks. In such a

market I thought that Phoebe would probably go for something like two or two and

half silver tarsks, and that the other girl, if her hair was grown out and her

skin healed, for something like two silver tarsks.

“Mistress is very pretty,” said the slave.

Phoebe tossed her head, smoothing her hair about. She was pretty. I had always

thought so.

“I did not know Cosians girls could be so pretty,” said the slave.

Phoebe cried out with rage, and rushed to the wall to seize up a switch there.

She rushed to the new slave, the switch raised. The new slave cried out in

misery, putting her head down. But no blow fell. Marcus intercepted Phoebe’s

descending wrist. Phoebe cried out in pain and dropped the switch. But she

looked down at the new slave. “Cos defeated Ar!” she said. “That is clear!”

“No longer are you of Cos,” said Marcus, sternly. “Nor is she any longer of Ar.

You are both only slaves, only animals!”

Phoebe struggled, angrily in his arms.

“Is it not true?” he asked.

She looked up at him, her eyes blazing. “Yes, Master!” she said.

She struggled a bit more, but was now pinioned tightly in his grasp. She could

do little more now than squirm, futilely. She made a tiny, angry noise. As well

might her lovely body have been wrapped in cables of iron. The sewing she had

been attending to had been spilled to the side, when she had leaped (pg. 339) to

seize the switch. Originally Phoebe had known little, if anything, of sewing,

but when she had become slave she must learn such things. The new slave, too,

knew little of such labors. I would see to it that she received instruction of

Phoebe. One expects a slave to know such things.

Phoebe ceased struggling and Marcus released her, stepped back a pace and

regarded her.

She stood before him, angrily, defiantly, her small fists clenched.

“I suppose you could be thought of, as of Cos,” he mused, “in the sense that you

were once of Cos.”

She trembled.

“So in that sense,” said he, “take off your clothes, female of Cos, and get to

your belly, with your legs widely spread.”

“I am not of Cos!” she said, suddenly. “I am only a slave, Master!”

He regarded her, unwaveringly.

Swiftly she drew off her tunic, over her head, and put herself to her belly and

as he had stipulated.

He looked down upon her.

She sobbed, subdued.

The other slave was very quiet. It seemed she scarcely dared to breathe.

“Perhaps the wrong girl is first girl,” said Marcus.

Phoebe sobbed, her head to the side.

“May I speak, Master,” whispered the new slave.

He looked at her. “Yes,” he said.

She went to her belly before him and reached out her tiny hand, timidly, to

touch his foot.

“Yes?” he said.

“Have pity on her, Master,” she said.

“You would speak for her?” asked Marcus.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Phoebe looked at her, in wonder.

“It is only that she loves you so much,” she said.

“I do not understand,” said Marcus.

Phoebe sobbed, looking away.

“She is telling you that Phoebe is jealous of her,” I said.

Marcus crouched down beside Phoebe.

“Is that true?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” sobbed Phoebe, her eyes closed.

“But you are my love slave,” he said to her.

She sobbed, with joy. He touched her and she trembled beneath his touch like a

vulo.

(pg. 340) He then rose to his feet, and removed a coiled slave whip from the

wall. This he threw down beside Phoebe, the coils of the leather cracking on the

floor, beside her head, to the right.

“You will serve,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” she whispered.

He then put his hand to her hair, letting her feel the tightness of his grasp,

and turning her head from one side to the other. Then he put his hand on the

back of her neck, letting her feel this grip. He then took her right ankle in

his hand and lifted it, bending her lower leg, his grip like an ankle ring,

toward her body. Then he released it, and let it return to its former position.

She lay there very quietly. Then she made a soft noise, as he had begun to

caress her, audaciously and masterfully.

I went over and picked up the sewing which Phoebe had dropped to the floor, when

she had leaped to her feet. It was a tunic resembling that of a state slave,

done in the new fashion. The garmenture of the state slave, that of a girl owned

by the city itself, some time ago, had been brief, sleeveless and gray, slashed

to the waist. The collar worn by such slaves had been gray, matching the tunic,

and it had been customary to lock about their left ankle a steel band, also

gray, from which depended five small bells, also of gray metal. Fashions in such

things tended to change, of course, even in normal times. For example, the

hemlines might go up and down a bit, the garments might be accented or trimmed

with color, or not, the number of bells on the ankle might be increased, say, to

seven, or be returned to the original five, and so on. Currently, however, the

garmenture of the state slaves, as one might have expected, given the defeat of

Ar and the hegemony of Cos, had been considerably altered. No longer were the

tunics slashed to the waist. Now the necklines were high, and about the throat.