Rogue of Gor (7 page)

"But I am not," I said.

"No," she said, "I suppose not."

"Come over here," I said, "and lie down on the table, on your back, before me."

She did so.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"You will learn," I said. The table was low, and sturdy.

"Obviously you intend to treat me as a slave," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"I see you have prepared lengths of rope," she said.

"Yes," I said.

Then, slowly, not hurrying, I began to tie her down across the table. I began with her left wrist, fastening it over her head and behind her, to one of the short legs of the table.

"Where are the others?" she asked.

"The city has been evacuated," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"It was feared there would be an attack of tarnsmen from Ar," I said

I then jerked tight the rope pulling her right wrist over her head and behind her. I secured it in place.

I thrust up the Ta-Teera, that I might spread her legs.

"Did you truly throw away the key to the collar?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Then you must help me to get out of it soon," she said, "perhaps with tools."

"Why?" I asked. I fastened down her left leg.

"Surely you have read it?" she asked. Such collars usually bear a legend. Usually the legend identifies the master, that the slave, if fled, or lost or strayed, may be promptly returned.

"No," I said. "I cannot read Gorean."

"Does it tell who your master is?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Oh!" she cried, as I pulled her right ankle to the right corner of the table and there, with two loops of the slim, coarse rope, tied it down.

I then jerked apart the Ta-Teera, that she be well revealed to me. She gasped. She squirmed, and trembled. I then stood up and looked down upon her, observing my handiwork..

She pulled at the ropes, and knew herself helpless. She looked up at me. "You have taken me boldly," she said.

I said nothing.

She pulled again at the ropes. Then she lay back, helpless. "You have tied me well," she said.

I shrugged.

"I suppose now," she said, "you will wish me to address you as `Master'."

"As you wish," I said. "It does not matter."

“Tied as I am," she said, "it seems to me not unfitting that I should call you `Master'."

I said nothing.

"I request your permission to do so," she said.

"It is granted," I said. "What does your collar say?" I asked.

Suddenly she reared in the ropes. "You must help me to remove it!" she said.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"It says, `I am the slave, Darlene,'" she said.

"It is an Earth-girl name," I said.

"Precisely," she said. "You can well imagine what might be done with me if I were caught in such a collar. Men might think that I was an Earth girl, or one of those girls like an Earth girl, and was thus given such a name!"

I smiled.

"Surely you understand my fears," she said.

"Of course," I said.

"I used to train Earth girls," she said. "I know how men look upon them."

I nodded. Gorean men were not gentle with Earth gals. They regarded them as natural slaves, and treated them accordingly, fully. Some of the most abject slaveries on Gor were assigned to Earth girls.

"So you will help me out of this collar as soon as possible, will you not?" she asked.

"I will if it pleases me," I said.

She lay back. "I am in your ropes," she shrugged.

I crouched then beside her.

"You know me, don't you?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"You heard my name about the inn," she said.

"Yes," I said, "but even aside from that I would have known you."

"Even veiled?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

She pulled at the ropes. "You have then," she said, "a shrewd eye for the flesh of women."

"Perhaps," I said.

"Do you truly know me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"What is my name?" she asked.

"You are the Lady Tendite of Vonda," I said, "who was assistant to the Lady Tima of Vonda, a slaver of that city, of the house of Tima."

"Who are you?" she asked, frightened.

I drew away the mask.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Do you not recall me?" I asked. "I was once a silk slave. My name is Jason."

Slowly recognition crept into her eyes. "No," she whispered. "No!" Then, struggling wildly, she tore at the ropes. "No," she screamed. "No!" Then again she lay before me, tied as helplessly and perfectly as before. "No," she whispered. "No, no."

"Yes," I whispered to her. "Yes."

The Lady Tendite now lay on the slave mat, where I had put her later in the morning.

"You will help me get this hated collar off, won't you?" she purred lifting her arms and putting them about my neck, lifting her lips to mine.

"Does Darlene beg it?" I asked.

"Darlene!" she said, lying back, angrily.

"Is that not the name on the collar?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "it is."

"Does Darlene beg it?" I asked.

"Yes," she purred, again lifting her arms and putting them about my neck. "Yes," she whispered. "Darlene begs it." Then we kissed.

"The request of Darlene is refused," I told her.

Angrily she scrambled to her knees and pulled at the collar. She looked at me in fury. "You sleen!" she said.

I smiled.

"Sleen! Sleen!" she said.

The Ta-Teera had been half torn from her. She had squirmed well.

"Sleen! Sleen!" she wept.

She was soft, and luscious and curved. It was easy to see why men make women slaves.

"Be silent!" I said to her, suddenly.

She looked at me, frightened.

"Do not leave the mat," I told her, getting up. I went to one of the narrow, barred windows in the inn. I saw five armed men running down the street.

"River pirates," I said. "I think they must be."

She moaned, and foolishly tried to cover her beauty. I looked back at her. "Do you think they would permit you modesty in their shackles?" I asked. Then I returned to her side. "They are not coming here," I said. "I think they have decided it is time to leave Lara."

"Why?" she asked.

"Yet I do not smell smoke," I said. "It is interesting."

"What is going on?" she asked.

"Can you not guess?" I asked.

"No," she said. "No!"

I then took her by the arms and threw her to her back on the slave mat beneath me.

"My dear Lady Tendite, or 'Darlene,' as I may choose to call you," I said, "I do not think we have a great deal more time to tarry in this place."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"And you must leave it somewhat earlier than I," I said.

"I do not understand," she said. "Oh," she said, entered and held She tried to press me away, but could not do so. Then she clutched at me.

"Excellent, Darlene," I said.

"What are you making me do?" she whispered.

"Can you not guess?" I asked her.

"You have won, Jason," she whispered to
me, lying on her side beside me, her head on her arm. "You have made me yield to you, irreservedly, helplessly, and as a slave."

"As a free woman," I said, "you cannot yet begin to understand the fullness, the helplessness, of true slave yield.”

"I sense what they might be," she whispered, "being fully owned, being fully and legally at the mercy of a master."

"Do the thoughts intrigue you?" I asked.

"I must put them from my mind," she said. "I must not even dare to think them."

"Why?" I asked.

"They are too profoundly feminine," she said.

"And thus not fit for a proud free woman?" I asked.

"Yes," she said

"But suitable perhaps for a collared slave?" I said.

"Yes," she smiled. "Such a woman is permitted to be true to herself."

"I suspect," I said, "she is given no choice but to be true to herself."

"Yes," said the girl. "She is given no choice. She must be true to herself. If she should be reluctant the master and the whip will see to it."

"You seem to speak enviously of the miserable women in bondage."

"Perhaps," she said.

"You yourself wear a collar," I said.

"But I am a free woman," she said.

"For the time, perhaps," I said.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Get up," I told her. We got up.

She faced me. "You are not going to help me get the collar off, are you?" she asked. She touched me about the shoulder with her finger.

"No," I said.

"You fill me with strange feelings, Jason," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"I am accustomed," she said, "to having men do what I wish."

"I suggest, Lady Tendite," I said, "that you begin to accustom yourself to doing what men wish."

"What are you doing?" she asked. I had heard men nearby, the sound of weapons. I dragged her toward the door of the inn. I slid back the panel and looked out. The street, as far as I could tell, was clear. I then shut the panel, and swung up
the heavy
bars on the door. I opened the door and looked out. The street was clear. I held the Lady Tendite firmly by her left upper arm. She was barefoot, in the torn Ta-Teera and collar. I then flung her down the wide, shallow steps and some fifteen feet into the street beyond. She fell to her hands and knees in the street, and suddenly scrambled up, wildly, looking about herself. I then shut the door, dropping the two heavy beams into place. She ran to the door and began to pound on it. "Let me in!" she cried. "Let me in!"

Within the inn I left the main room and went up to the second floor where, from one of the room's windows, I might command a better view of the street. I could still hear her pounding on the door below. "Let me in, Jason!" she sobbed. "Let me in!" Again and again she struck with her small fists against the door. "I will be your slave, Master!" she cried. "Have mercy on me, Master! Please have mercy on me, Master!"

Then, from the window, I saw her run to the center of the street. She turned from the left to the right, uncertainly. She was sobbing.

"Hold, Slave!" I heard. Men had entered the street. I saw they wore, as I had thought, the uniforms of Ar.

The girl turned wildly in the street and started to run from the men. But she had gone only a step or two when she saw some five other men at the end of the street, also approaching her. She stopped, uncertainly, confused, in the street. The men, not hurrying, then surrounded her.

"I am not what I seem!" she cried. "I am not a slave!"

One of the men seized her by the hair and bent back her head. "Her name is 'Darlene'," he said.

"No!" she said. "I am the Lady Tendite, a free woman of Vonda!"

One of the men then was drawing her hands behind her back. He snapped her wrists in slave bracelets.

"I'm not a slave!" she said.

"'Darlene' is an excellent slave name," said one of the men. "I am hot for her already."

"Wait until we have her in the camp," said their leader.

"A nice catch," said another.

Another man was snapping a leash on her collar.

"Are you an Earth wench?" asked one of the men.

"No," she said, "no!"

"Nonetheless I wager you will whip as well," said another.

"I am not a slave!" "See," she cried, moving her hip to throw back the shreds of the ripped Ta-Teera, "I am not branded!"

"Only a slave would so expose her hip to free men," said one of the men.

"She is not branded," observed another.

"That technicality can be swiftly remedied by a metal worker," said one of the men.

"Why are you not branded, Darlene?" asked a man.

"I am not a slave!" she said. "And my name is not 'Darlene'!"

"You speak much, Darlene," she was told

"Bring her along," said the leader. "We must finish our patrol.”

The Lady Tendite felt the leash grow taut at her collar. She hung back.

"I am not a slave," she said. "My name is not 'Darlene. I am the Lady Tendite of Vonda!"

"Do all the women of Vonda run about the streets half naked, clad in the rag of a slave, wearing collars?" asked the leader.