Rogue of Gor (16 page)

"Is she a slave?" she asked.

"No," I said. I had freed her.

"That is unfortunate," she said.

I shrugged.

"Does she have a Home Stone?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Then enslave her!" she said.

"She is different from you," I said

"Is she pretty?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Then she is not so different," she said. "Have I seen her?"

"Long ago, once," I said, "at the restaurant. She was with me.”

"She!" laughed the girl.

"Yes," I said.

"She was very pretty, Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Is she on Gor?” she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"And free?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I do not like that," said the girl. "Why should I be a slave, and she be free?"

"If she were here," I said, "you would have to kneel before her, and obey her."

The collared girl shuddered. Slave girls fear free women, greatly. There is little to wonder about in this. Free women, perhaps envying them their collars, are often extremely cruel to them.

"Do you think she would make a good slave?" I asked.

The girl smiled. "I think she would make an excellent slave, Master."

"I shall have to keep that in mind," I said.

Swiftly the girl knelt before me. "I assure you that she is a slave," she said. "I remember her. She is a slave. It is wrong for her not to be put in a collar. She is a slave, truly. Thus she should be made a slave, and be used, and treated and handled accordingly."

"You do not know her," I said.

"Perhaps it is you who do not know her," she said.

I smiled.

"I am an enslaved woman," said the girl. "Do you not think that one slave knows another?"

I laughed.

"Take her in hand," she said. "Take away her clothes. Put her in a collar. Throw her to your feet. Use her. You will see!"

I smote my thigh, laughing, in the Gorean fashion, so preposterous were the urgent words of the lovely, kneeling slave. How preposterous it was even to think of the lovely Miss Henderson as a slave.

The girl knelt back, on her heels. "I assure you, Master," she said, "she is as much, or more, a slave than I!”

"Watch your tongue, Girl," I said, angrily, "lest it be slit."

She shuddered, and put down her head. "Forgive me, Master," she whispered

"She is different from you," I said. "You are only a shameful and degraded slave."

"Do you wish her to be herself," she asked, "or to conform to some alien image which your culture has devised for her?" '

I did not speak.

"She is not a man," she said. "She is a woman."

"They are the same," I said.

"That is stupid," she said.

"I know," I said. Then I said, angrily, "I know that she is not a man. I know that she is a woman."

"And if that is so," she said, "how do you consider her differently, how do you treat her differently?"

"I don't know!" I said.

"Perhaps Master is indeed from Earth," she said.

"I was once from Earth," I said. "I must respect her."

"Do not respect her," she said. "Fulfill her."

"How?" I asked.

"Make her your full and total slave," she said.

"I cannot," I said.

"Surely Master knows he is of the dominant sex," she said "and that it is those of our sex who must submit."

"I know that it is true," I said, "but it is my duty not to believe it."

"Can it truly be one's duty not to believe the truth?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "It is important to hold the correct opinions, whether they conform to reality or not."

"Perhaps such opinions subserve the purposes of ambitious and eccentric minorities," she said, "and that is doubtless an important point in their favor, but they do not seem to advance the cause of a civilization congenial to the nature of the human species as it is in actuality constituted."

"It is important to cater to the few," I said, "though it may, in time, spell doom and pain to the many."

"That is madness," she said.

"It is the principle on which my world is based," I said.

"That is no longer your world," she said.

"How do you know?” l asked.

"I could tell, a few Ehn ago," she said, "by how you held me."

I shrugged.

"Abandon disease and madness," she said. "Return to the order of nature."

"To look upon truth, openly," I said, "could be a fearful thing."

"Yes, Master," she whispered, and put her head down, the collar on her throat

I reached to her hair and, twisting her head, she crying out, threw her to the furs. "But it might not be unpleasant to do so," I said, and then took her.

Almost instantly she had writhed in my arms, surrendering as a female slave to her master.

Then, trembling, held, she looked up at me. "You took me well, Master," she said.

I laughed, pleased with my conquest and triumph over her. I then knew what was the order of nature.

And she, too, knew it well.

“The other girl," she whispered, "is she unpleasant or difficult to get on with?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you find her at times a bother, or troublesome?"

"Yes," I said.

"May I make a suggestion?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Buy a whip," she said.

12

I BECOME IRRITATED WITH MY KEPT WOMAN;

I KENNEL HER

"Do not forget you are a kept woman," I told her.

"Kept woman!" she cried.

"Precisely," I said.

"I do not care to think of myself as a kept woman," she said.

"Unfortunate," I said, "for it is exactly what you are."

"Where were you last night, and today?" she demanded.

"I owe you no accountings," I told her. "Is my supper ready?"

"I have already eaten," she said.

"Is my supper ready?" I asked.

"You may prepare it yourself," she said.

"The house is dirty," I said.

"Such work is not mine to do," she said. "If you wish such work done buy yourself a slave."

I had rented a small house a few blocks from the wharves. It had an upstairs and a downstairs. It was small, but stout, as are most Gorean dwellings. On the small earnings I made at the wharves it was somewhat expensive for me, but it was not altogether impractical. There were two bedrooms upstairs, and there was a hall, living room and kitchen downstairs. Miss Henderson's bedroom had a porch, which overlooked a small garden, surrounded by a high wall.

"Would you be pleased," I asked her, "to return to inn?"

"The house is not unpleasant," she said, "but it has certain distressing features."

"And what are those?" I asked. I thought the house was rather nice, considering the modesty of the budget which must needs sustain its rental.

"My couch," she said, "in the master bedroom, has a heavy iron ring set in its base."

“That is a slave ring," Laid. "Surely you know its purpose."

"Yes," she said, acidly.

Such rings are commonly used for chaining slave girls, generally by the neck, to the foot of their master's couch.

"And, too," she said, "I do not like the slave kennels in the hall."

I shrugged. "It is a Gorean house," I said.

"Did you bring the suls from the market?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I did not"

"How much money did you earn today?" she asked.

The amount of money earned varied from day to day, depending on the galleys in port and the need for men from the hiring yard.

"It is none of your business," I told her.

Her shoulders stiffened under the robes of concealment and her eyes flashed angrily over the silk of the house veil. I could see her lips and mouth, vaguely, beneath the veil.

"You brought nothing from the market," she said. "Accordingly there is very little for you here to eat."

"Were you not to shop?" I asked. "I gave you money."

"I did not feel like it," she said.

"I will eat out," I said.

“That is expensive," she said. "There is some bread and dried meat left."

"I will eat out," I said.

"The girls are pretty at the paga taverns, aren't they?" she asked, pointedly.

“They had better be," I said, "or they would bring in little money for their masters."

"I have heard such girls are 'hot'," " she said

"It is one of the features for which they are purchased," I said.

"I see," she said, in cold fury. "And what if they are not 'in the mood'?" she asked.

"They know enough to be in the mood," I assured her.

"And what if the customer is not pleased?" she asked.

“The girl, then, would be well whipped," I said.

"Would you," she asked, "if not pleased, have such a girl whipped?"

"Yes," I said.

"And if I were such a girl," she said, "and you were not pleased, would you have me whipped?"

"Yes," I said.

"I see," she said, in cold fury. She then rose to her feet. She drew her robes haughtily about her. "I am weary," she said. "I shall now retire."

"Do not throw the bolt on your door," I said. She had been doing this, and it irritated me.

"It is my bedroom," she said.

"Of these lodgings," I said, "I am the rental master. It is your bedroom only upon my sufferance."

"Of course," she said, coldly. "I am your kept woman."

"You may leave when you wish," I said.

"Of course," she said. "I need only, walk out upon the Gorean streets and see what will happen to me."

"You could sell yourself to an impotent master," I said.

Her eyes flashed angrily over the white silk of the house veil.

"I invite you to leave," I said.

"I do not want to leave," she said.

"You prefer to be kept," I said.

"Yes," she said, coldly, "I prefer to be kept."

She then turned about and left the kitchen, where we had been talking. She went through the living room and, going through the hall, passing the kennels, began to ascend the stairs.

"Do not bolt the door," I called after her.

"Why not?" she asked, angrily.

"There will be no iron between a keeper and his kept woman," I said, "unless it be by his will, such as a collar for her, or shackles or the bars of a cell."

"I will do as I please," she said.

"A keeper must always have access to his kept woman," I said.

"I will do, as I please!" she said.

I listened to her door shut. I listened, carefully. Then I heard the iron bolt slid shut.

I sat, cross-legged, behind the small table in the kitchen. Then I rose up and went to the storage box and took out some bread and dried meat. I chewed on it for a time. Then, finishing it, I wiped my mouth. I then walked through the house to the stairs, and climbed them.

She screamed, suddenly, clutching clothing about her.

I stood in the threshold, the door awry, hanging off its hinges. The bolt with its brackets was splintered from the heavy wood.

She backed away, holding the clothing about her. "Don't hurt me," she said. "I would have opened the door!”

I strode to her, and stood before her.

"I would have opened the door," she said.

"A slave might be slain for such a lie," I said.

She did not meet my eyes. "You should knock," she said, "before entering a lady's bedroom."

I tore away the clothing she held before her, casting it aside. She wore then only a light Gorean slip, white, which came high on her thighs.

"I am not fully dressed!" she said.

I took her and threw her on her belly on the couch. `What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

"Strip you," I told her.

From the back I ripped apart the white slip until she lay upon it.

"Get out of my bedroom!" she sobbed.

"Be pleased that I do not this night make you earn your keep," I said.

"Get out of my bedroom!" she cried.

"For the night," I told her, "this is not your bedroom" I seized her by the hair and pulled her, naked beside me, down the stairs. Before the first slave kennel, that farthest to the left, as you face them, I stopped. With my left hand I flung up the sturdy, barred gate. I put the startled Miss Henderson on her hands and knees before the small opening. Then, my left hand in her hair, and my right hand on her left thigh, I thrust her bodily into the kennel "This is your bedroom for the night," I told her. I then threw down the iron gate. She turned about, clutching the bars. I turned the key, in the lock, fastening her within. "There will be no iron between, a keeper and his kept woman," I said, "unless it be by his will, such as a collar, or shackles for her, or the bars of a cell." I then walked over to the wall. I held the key up, where she could see it. "A keeper must always have access to his kept woman," I said. I then hung the key on a peg, where she might, from time to time, look upon it, as it might please her.