Renegades of Gor (12 page)

afraid, for a moment, that her neck might break.

“Where is your collar, your brand?” he cried.

“I’m free!” she wept. “I’m free!”

“Bring me a woman!” he cried toward the kitchen, still holding her helplessly

before me. “Bring me a woman!”

“What is wrong?” asked a fellow, looking out from the kitchen, probably the

night cook.

“Where is the keeper!” cried the fellow.

“He has retired,” said the fellow.

“This thing is free!” cried the fellow, giving the Lady Temione another shake.

“How dare you send it to my table! I do not want it! Send me a female! Send me a

woman!” He then hurled the Lady Temione from him and, with a rattle of chains,

she struck the floor. There, terrified, feet from him, she lay on her belly. I

was amused to see her lift herself slightly, surely not even aware of what she

was doing, a natural female appeasement behavior in the face of male anger. I

thought she would do well in a collar. Then, as though she might suddenly have

understood what she was doing, she lowered herself as flat to the tiles as she

could, (pg. 79) trembling with fear and shame. She looked at me, wildly, hoping

I had not noticed her behavior. I smiled, and she sobbed. Her womanhood had been

observed. The newcomer, as nearly as I could tell, had taken no note of these

things.

“Immediately, Sir!” called the fellow from the kitchen door. “In but a moment,

Sir!” Then he called to the Lady Temione. “Quick,” he cried, “back to the

kitchen, slut! No! Do not rise! Crawl!” He then disappeared back through the

kitchen door. The Lady Temione paused near my table, on all fours. She looked at

me. She had been rejected by a man, thrown from him, in disgust. I saw that she

was stunned, that she was confused, that she was bewildered. Many free women

regard themselves, with justification, as marvelous prizes. It can come as a

great shock to them to suddenly realize they are, for most practical purposes,

worthless. This rejection had shaken her profoundly. Like many free women she

probably regarded herself as inordinately attractive. She looked at me,

piteously, beggingly. She wanted some reassurance from me, that she might be at

least a little bit desirable or attractive.

“Check,” I told her, “and as you are.” I then indicated with a gesture of my

finger, that she should proceed on her way. Sobbing, slowly, as she could, in

her chaining, she took her way from the room. She had scarcely attained the

kitchen door before another woman emerged, swiftly, yet gracefully, drawing a

diaphanous silken wrap about her. How she moved. There was a close-fitting

collar on her neck. How beautiful she was! What bondage does for a woman! She

hurried to the fellow and bellied to him. immediately he seemed mollified. I

felt my fingernails scratch on the lacquer on the table. That must be one of the

keeper’s best girls, I thought. Indeed, perhaps she was the keeper’s preferred

slave, sent by him to the customer from his own furs.

I then sopped the last of the bread in the bottom of the kantharos.

Now, emerging from the kitchen, came the Lady Temione on all fours, as I had

commanded. From her mouth, on its looped string, dangled the small, closed,

hinged, wooden waxed tablet which would contain the bill. These tablets, and

tablets of these sorts, which sometimes have several divisions, and fold up, are

often used on Gor for drafts, note taking, temporary tallyings, children’s

lessons, and such. (pg.80) They contain one or more waxed surfaces which are

written on by a stylus. The smaller ones open like flat books, not roll books,

and may be closed with tiny latches, or tied shut.

There was a small sound as the small wooden tablet, on its string, touched the

floor near the table, as the Lady Temione put down her head, doing obeisance.

Then, lifting her head, crawling, she approached the table, and placed the

tablet on the table.

I looked over to the table where the newcomer was. He had now pulled the slave

to him and thrown her on her belly over the table.

“Disgusting,” said the Lady Temione.

“An attractive slave,” I commented. The girl was now gasping and clinging to the

table. He was not being gently with her. But then, of course, she was only a

slave.

“Disgusting,” said the Lady Temione.

“He may be something of a boor, but he seems to caress well,” I said.

The girl was now gasping with love noises.

“I would not know anything about that,” she said, acidly.

Yet I noted she did not take her eyes from the abused slave.

“Would you like to be subject to such uses?” I asked.

“No!” she said. “No! No!”

the sudden, tense, almost hysterical ardor of her denial spokes of truths, and

needs, and depths within her of the existence of which she must be only too

keenly aware, and yet truths, depths and needs which, for some reason or

another, she seemed almost tragically desperate to conceal and deny, perhaps

mostly from herself. I thought she might serve well herself, on such a table. I

recalled that she had chosen to live dangerously, relying much on duping men to

make her way through the world. Surely she must have realized that there were

dangers in practicing such a livelihood. Not all men are fools. Was she, perhaps

unbeknownst to herself, in these peregrinations, truly, searching for a man, or

men, who were not, men who would simply take her in hand and give her what she

deserved, desired, and needed, her total subjugation?

I picked up the small, closed tablet on the table, unlatched it and examined the

amount. It was correct, bread and paga, two copper tarsks, the other food, an

additional three.

I then glanced at the Lady Temione. She had a beautiful face. The auburn hair

was certainly attractive. She had good flanks, not a bad belly, and lovely

breasts. To be sure, she needed diet, exercise and discipline. Those things,

too, besides improving her appearance, would considerably increase her sexual

needs. Yes, she was beautiful. Many of the women of Cos are beautiful. We enjoy

them in Port Kar. She was aroused, to the extent she could be, as a free woman,

in watching the taking of the slave. To be sure, she had been given little

choice, and put to the tables. I had seen to it that she had performed obeisance

before men. Too, she had been made to crawl in the presence of men, and had been

made to bring the bill in her teeth. Such things work their effects on women,

even free women.

I closed the tablet and latched it.

The slave on the table gasped, used, serving, clinging to its edges.

The bearded fellow, holding her, was then still for a moment.

“She is moving!” said the Lady Temione, scandalized.

“Yes,” I said, “she is cooperating in what is being done.”

“Terrible!” whispered the Lady Temione.

“Perhaps she is responding to instructions,” I said.

“Instructions!” she said.

“OF course,” I said. I wondered if the free woman really thought that the

subjugation of slaves to orders ended with such matters as cooking and cleaning,

the polishing of leather and such, and that they would not be similarly subject

to orders, and also absolutely, where the intimate, marvelous, precious,

private, delicious realms of the furs were concerned. Indeed, some think it is

most pleasant to command the slave in such places, a couching chamber, a room of

submission, a cubicle, and so on.

The bearded fellow drew back for a moment.

The girl clutched the table. She was still for a moment or two. Then she moaned.

Then she moved.

“Did you see that!” she said. “She actually lifted herself to him!”

(pg. 82) “Surely only a slave would so lift herself to a male,” I said.

The Lady Temione blushed, hotly.

“Look at that slut wriggle!” she said.

“She is afraid she may not have been fully pleasing,” I said. “She is trying now

to interest him, to be pleasing, to entice him. But I think he is not angry with

her. I think he is only playing with her, only teasing her.” I wondered how the

Lady Temione would wriggle.

“Look!” said the Lady Temione.

“He is now again with her,” I said.

“Yes!” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed. The slave was indeed beautiful. To ground my emotion, so to

speak, I gripped the table. It seemed thusly, interestingly, as though my

tension might pass through it then, down to the floor, to be dissipated, like a

flood. I kept myself from breaking wood from the table.

“Am I attractive?” asked the Lady Temione.

“Yes,” I said.

“Ah!” she said.

“—as free women go,” I added.

“Sleen!” she sobbed. “Sleen!”

The slave now moaned and whimpered, and then cried out, suddenly, as though

momentarily frightened, or alarmed, but then, again, in a moment, understanding

what was going to be done with her, that to which she was relentlessly being

brought, began to cry out softly, gladly, gratefully, eagerly, anticipatingly.

“Why does that girl reveal her emotions like that?” asked Lady Temione.

“Perhaps she is forbidden to conceal them,” I said.

“Oh!” she said. “How naked that would make a woman.”

“Yes,” said, “but it also, in its way, makes her free.”

“I suppose so,” she said, enviously.

Suddenly the girl on the table screamed aloud, again and again, half reared up,

began to buck, but could not escape, so tightly and helplessly held she was,

uttering the word, “Master!” over and over.

“Slave orgasm has been forced upon her,” I commented.

Lady Temione quivered in her chains.

“I suspect he will not even have to pay for that use of (pg.83) her,” I said.

“It will probably be given to him, as a token of good will, in compensation for

his earlier disappointment.”

The fellow had resumed his place now behind the table, sitting there,

cross-legged, but he had permitted the slave to half lie, half sit, by him,

holding to him, her arms about his waist, her head and hair at his side.

“How pleased I am,” she said, “that I am not a woman such as that!”

“I see,” I said.

The slave now knelt beside him, holding him by the arm. She was looking at him

with something akin to awe, for what he had done to her, for what he had made

her feel. She kissed him softly, deferentially, gratefully, about the shoulder.

“I am not a servile, wriggling slave,” she said, angrily.

“She is not wriggling now,” I said.

“Look at her,” she said, in disgust. “She is content!”

“But she must fear,” I said, “for she may be ordered from him by so little as a

word or gesture, and she must obey in all things.”

“She is a slave,” she said. “She should not be happy, She should be miserable

and unhappy!”

“Doubtless, if you owned her,” I said, “you could make her so.”

“I suppose she is beautiful,” she said, “and owned. I suppose some low men might

find them attractive.”

“Yes,” I said, “and Ubars, and such.”

“I am not a slave,” she said.

“I understand,” I said. Certainly she was not a legal slave, or at least not

yet. She was not, technically, at least at present, a slave in the eyes of the

law, as an animal is an animal in the eyes of the law, a tarsk a tarsk, a vulo,

so soft and pretty, a vulo.

“Men are not my masters,” she said.

“I see,” I said.

“How pleased I am that I am not one of those women who must crawl about the feet

of men, licking and kissing, and groveling, and begging to be found pleasing!”

“I understand,” I said.

She suddenly jerked at the manacles which confined her wrists. They were well on

her.

“Why are you angry?” I asked.

(pg.84) “I am not angry,” she said.

She looked down at her wrists, in the steel, joined by the chain.

“You look well in shackles,” I said.

She put her hands on her thighs, the chain bunched then between them.

“He did not want me,” she said.

“True,” I said.

“I was rejected!”

“Not every woman is attractive to every man,” I said, “and, too, you are a free

woman.”

“I don’t care!” she said. “I am free!”

“I understand,” I said.

“How pleased I am that I am not subject to use,” she said. “Thus, even thought I

must shamefully serve, I can still, ultimately, retain my pride and dignity.”

“I doubt that that fellow would have been overly concerned with such niceties,”

I said.

“No,” she said, shuddering, “I suspect not.”

I glanced at the fellow at the other table. He was now giving his orders to the

beautiful slave. She was kneeling back. She must now relate to him as a mere

waitress. I suspected he would manage to get more than porridge, even this late.

“Do you want anything else?” asked Lady Temione, irritatedly. I saw that she was

terribly jealous of the attention which men might bestow upon the slave, but how

could that be, for she was, by her own account, infinitely superior to the

slave, and she was free? Too, she was, according to her own account, not

interested in such things.

“Anything else, what?’ I inquired.

“Anything else, Sir,” she said, acidly.

She was at table service. Surely the keeper would wish her to observe proper

amenities.

“Are you being suitably deferential?” I asked.