I slipped behind the girl and suddenly seized her, holding my hand tightly over her mouth. The trash she carried spilled. I dragged her backwards. She struggled. She made muffled noises. I threw her down, behind the row of trash containers behind the house of Oneander in Ar. My hand was at her throat, thrusting the light steel collar she wore up under her chin. “Make no sound,” I warned her. She was blond. She wore the brief, sleeveless white tunic of a house slave. She was barefoot. I recognized her. She was the woman, once free, who had been last on the coffle of Oneander long ago in Ar, the same coffle in which Miss Henderson had been secured. “Rape me swiftly,” she said. “I must soon be back.”
“Where is Oneander?” I asked, my eyes hard. I had had little fortune with the guards at the gate to his holding. I knew little more than that he was not now in the city.
“Gone,” she said. “To the north, business!”
“Where?” I asked. “Where?” My hand tightened on her throat.
“I do not know, Master,” she whispered. “I do not know! I am only a slave!”
“Is the slave, Veminia, in the house?” I asked. “The barbarian, the small, dark-haired one, she brought from Vonda, she sold out of the house of Andronicus?”
“It is you!” she said, suddenly, recognizing me. “The slave in the street!”
“I am now free,” I said. “Where is she?” My grip tightened. “Speak!”
“She was taken north, she with ten others, by Oneander,” she whispered.
“Where!” I demanded.
“I do not know,” she whispered. “I am only a lowly slave.”
“Who would know?” I asked, fiercely.
“Those with him,” she said. “Oneander keeps a close counsel.”
“Who else?” I demanded. “There must be others.”
“Alison,” she said, “the dancing slave at the Belled Collar, she might know. Oneander uses her when it pleases him!”
I released her throat. She touched it, frightened, looking up at me. I looked down at her. “I am not now in danger, am I?” she asked.
“No more than any other slave,” I said.
She lay back on the cement. Her left hand touched the garbage cans to her left. “You are handsome,” she said.
I shrugged.
“You have me at your mercy,” she said. “Are you going to press your advantage?”
“Do you beg it?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You are not unattractive,” I told her. Then I thrust up the brief house tunic and she put her arms about my neck, lifting her lips to mine.
I considered the belly and hips of the dancing girl as she thrust them toward me, undulatingly, as the music pounded in the tavern.
“Have you heard the news?” the man next to me was asking.
“No,” I said.
The girl was naked, save that she wore many strings of jewels and armlets. Too she wore bracelets and anklets of gold, which had been locked upon her, and were belled. Her collar, too, was of gold, and belled, She was blond, and it was said she was from Earth. A single pearl, fastened in a setting like a droplet, on a tiny golden chain, was suspended at the center of her forehead.
“There has been a major engagement, one long awaited,” said the man next to me, “south of Vonda. More than four thousand men were involved. Fighting was fierce. The mobility of our squares was crucial in the early phases, separating, to permit the entrance of charging tharlarion into our lines, then isolating the beasts.”
Massed men, I knew, could not stand against the charge of tharlarion, not without a defense of ditches or pointed stakes. “But then,” said the man, “their phalanx swept down upon us. Then did the day seem lost and retreat was sounded, but the withdrawal was prearranged to creviced ground; to rocky slopes and cragged, outjutting formations. Our generals had chosen their ground well.” I knew, too, that no fixed military formation could meet the phalanx on its own terms and survive. Different length spears are held by different ranks, the longer spears by the more rearward ranks. It charges on the run. It is like an avalanche, thundering, screaming, bristling with steel. Its momentum is incredible. It can shatter walls. When two such formations meet in a field the clash can be heard for pasangs. One does not meet the phalanx unless it be with another phalanx. One avoids it, one outmaneuvers it.
“Our auxiliaries then drove the tharlarion, maddened and hissing, back into the phalanx. In the skies our tarnsmen turned aside the mercenaries of Artemidorus. They then rained arrows upon the shattered phalanx. While the spearmen lifted their shields to protect themselves from the sky our squares swept down the slopes upon them.”
I nodded. I continued to regard the female before me. It was said she was from Earth. I lifted my paga to my lips, from the low table behind which I sat, cross-legged.
She regarded me, as she danced her beauty before me.
“The field was ours!” said the man. “Vonda herself now lies open to our troops!”
I nodded. I did not take my eyes from the dancer. Her eyes, on me, were sensuous and hot, those of a true slave. It was hard for me to believe that she was really from Earth.
“The women of Vonda will soon be emptied into our slave markets,” said the man.
“It will lower prices,” said another, gloomily.
“I have heard,” said another, “that forces from Port Olni are marching to the relief of Vonda.”
“Our men will turn northeast to meet them,” said another.
“Please, Master,” whispered the girl to me. She extended her small hand, still dancing, as though to touch me. On her wrist was a golden bracelet, belled. I saw the small lock, with its key socket, on the bracelet. She could not remove it.
“She likes you,” said the man next to me, now paying some attention to the dancer.
Suddenly there was the fierce crack of a slave whip and the girl, terrified, scurried from me. Busebius, proprietor of the tavern, stood at the edge of the sand. “Do you think I have but one customer?” he called to her. “No, Master!” she cried. There was laughter. Then she was dancing, too, before others, and among the tables. I watched her. She was a sensuous dream. It was hard to imagine that she was from Earth.
“There was another dancer here previously,” said the man next to me, “one called Helen. She, too, was an Earth blonde. Alison was purchased to replace her.”
“What happened to the other girl?” I asked.
“Helen?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“She was seen once by Marlenus of Ar, who purchased her. She was chained and sent as a gift somewhere.”
“I see,” I said.
“Paga, Master?” asked a dark-haired, belled paga slave, in a scrap of diaphanous yellow silk.
I motioned her away. She had short, lovely legs and a sweet, full bosom. The yellow silk was belted tightly about her waist by several turns of yellow binding fiber, more than enough to tie her for your pleasure in an alcove.
I continued to watch the dancer, now some yards away, under the low ceiling.
The girl who had offered me paga had not been truly interested in giving me paga. My cup, clearly, was still almost full. She had been offering me something else, other wares of the tavern.
The dancer now, as the music was mounting in crescendo, was again approaching me. I considered her ankles and thighs, the sweet belly of her, her breasts, and shoulders and throat, the loveliness of her, her face and eyes, the latitudes of her swirling blond hair, the shimmering, restless jewelry on her body, the metal locked on her wrists and ankles, her collar, the pearl at her forehead.
“Master,” she said, dancing before me.
I regarded her, through narrowly lidded eyes.
Then she sank to her knees and, on her knees, leaning backwards, danced before me as a kneeling slave.
The music swirled to its climax and, as it ended, she straightened her body and then, from her knees, lowered herself to her right hip and, extending her right arm to me, lay before me, submitted, her head to the floor.
There was Gorean applause in the room, the striking of the right palm on the left shoulder.
I rose to my feet and placed two copper tarsks on the table.
I went to the girl and, with the side of my foot, kicked her. “Get to the alcove,” I told her.
“Yes Master,” she said, and scrambled up, hurrying with a rustle of jewelry and bells to a leather-curtained alcove.
There was more Gorean applause as I followed her and, turning, from the inside, drew shut the curtains of the alcove. When I had them buckled shut from the inside I turned to face the girl.
She knelt in the position of the pleasure slave, back in the alcove, on the scarlet furs, in the light of the small lamp. I looked about. There were some chains in the alcove, and a coil of rope, and a whip.
“If Master desires special equipment,” she said, “it will be provided by Busebius.”
“There is more than enough here to tame you,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You are Alison?” I asked.
“In his use of me Master may name me as he pleases,” she said.
“You are Alison?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“It is an Earth-girl name,” I said.
“Please do not be cruel to me on account of it,” she said.
“Are you from Earth?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Was Alison your original name?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “only now Gorean masters have put it on me, by their will, as a mere slave name.”
“How did you come to Gor?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “I retired one night and awakened later, how much later I do not know, naked, in a dungeon, chained with other girls.”
“All slaves?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “though we did not know it at the time, we were all slaves.”
“True slaves?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “true slaves.”
“It is a pretty name,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
“Too,” I said, “it is a superb name for a female slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
I regarded her. “You appear to be a slave,” I said.
“I am a slave, Master,” she said.
“The men of Gor,” I said, “say that the woman of Earth are natural slaves. Is it true?”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “I, and the other girls on my chain, swiftly learned that we were natural slaves.”
“How was this information received by them?” I asked.
“Generally at first with chagrin and shame,” she said, “then with helpless resignation, objective recognition and sober acceptance, and then with a liberating and unspeakable joy.”
“Are you a natural slave?” I asked her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I regarded her.
“Try me,” she said. “Judge for yourself.”
“But you are of Earth,” I said.
“Does it dismay you,” she asked, “that I, a woman of Earth, should be a natural slave?”
“Get on your back,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. She unlooped the strings of jewelry from her body, putting them to one side.
“No,” I said, “leave the armlets, the pearl drop at your forehead.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, and lay down.
“What do you want to do?” I asked her.
“Please my master,” she smiled.
“It is a slave’s answer,” I said.
“It is my answer,” she said, “and I mean it, and am proud of it.”
“On your stomach,” I told her.
Uneasily she turned to her stomach. She then lay tense in the furs. “Master has removed the whip from the wall,” she said. “Am I to be whipped?” I caressed the side of her body, gently, with the coils of the whip. She shuddered. “You have a slave’s fear,” I said. Then I replaced the whip on the wall. I then touched her body and she squirmed in the fur, clutching at it with her small fingers. “Yes,” I said, “you have a slave’s reflexes.”
“On your back,” I then ordered her, sharply.
Swiftly she turned to her back, and looked up at me, frightened.
I took the rope from the side of the alcove and, folding it so as to make four strands, looped it several times about her throat and knotted it. I thus made a heavy rope collar for her, knotted under her chin, with heavy guide strands. I then jerked her to her knees before me, her chin pulled up by the knot so that she must look at me.
“I am prepared to believe that you are, as you claim, a natural slave,” I said. “Do you know the penalty for a slave who lies?”
“Whatever the Master wishes,” she whispered, terrified, looking up at me.
“Do you know one called Oneander of Ar?” I asked.
“He is a merchant,” she whispered.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“He comes upon occasion to the Belled Collar,” she whispered. “Please be kind to me, Master!”
I jerked the heavy rope and she cried out in misery.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“I have served him,” she wept.
“Do you know him!” I said.
“Yes, yes!” she wept, half pulled from her knees. “He uses me as it pleases him, as an abject and total slave.”
I looked down at her, fiercely.
“Busebius has me on retainer to him,” she said, “that he may use me when he wish. Sometimes I am sent to his house!”
“Where is he?” I said. “Where!”
“Lara!” she cried. “Lara!” This was a town in the Salerian Confederation, at the confluence of the Vosk and Olni. It was no wonder Oneander made no public fact of his most recent itinerary.
I threw the girl from me to the furs.
Sometimes a man speaks freely to a slave. Oneander had, perhaps in his drink and pleasures, confided his intentions to the slave in his arms.
“I was not to tell,” she wept.
Perhaps she, a foolish Earth girl, had asked him, and he had not been in the mood to beat her. Perhaps he was proud of his plan to undertake such a bold venture in troubled times. I did not know. Ar, of course, was not at war technically with the Salerian Confederation. Similarly at that time hostilities with confederation cities had been limited to skirmishes with Vonda. His act, thus, though perhaps one of dubious propriety, and accordingly not one he would care to publicize in the streets, of Ar, was neither treasonous nor illegal. It did, however, Lara being a member of the Salerian Confederation, suggest some economic desperation. Being denied the markets of Vonda, and perhaps of Port Olni and Ti, it was natural, I supposed, for Oneander to turn to Lara.
“I was not to tell,” wept the girl.
I pulled her up to her knees and threw her against the wall. I took the heavy guide strands of the rope on her neck and passed them through a slave ring on the wall and pulled them tight, pulling her against the wall. Then, with the guide strands, which had been passed through the ring, I tied her wrists closely together under her chin. She was thus tied on her knees, her belly against the wall, fastened extremely closely by her neck and wrists, and some two inches of rope, to the ring.
“I was not to tell!” she wept.
“Did Busebius, your true Master, order you not to tell?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Why then do you weep and tremble so at the ring?” I asked.
“Oneander did not wish me to tell,” she said.
“But I wished you to tell, didn’t I?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And you told, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Do you think it was wise for a man to have confided secrets to a female slave such as you?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“You do not regret having told me, do you?” I asked.
“No, Master!” she wept.
“Do you think it was wise to have obeyed me?” I asked.
“Yes, Master!” she said. “Yes, Master!”
“You are a mere slave, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, Master!” she said. “Have mercy on me, Master!”
“Accordingly it was right for you to have told me, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she wept. “Yes, Master.”
“Do you think a girl such as you should be told secrets?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we may be made to tell,” she said.
“You were made to tell, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I then turned about and went to the leather curtains of the alcove. I reached up to unbuckle the straps which held them closed.
“Are you going to leave me?” she asked, behind me, bound.
“Certainly,” I said.
“All you wanted from me was information,” she said.
I shrugged. “I now have that information,” I said.
“Dally but a bit, Master,” she whispered.
I turned to regard her. “I do not understand,” I said.
She was looking at me over her shoulder. “Please,” she said.
“I do not understand,” I said, irritably.
“I danced before you,” she said, “and in the fullness of the slave I am.”
“It is true,” I said. “You danced as a slave.”
“I am a slave,” she said.
“But you are of Earth,” I said. For some reason I was angry with her.
“The women of Earth,” she said, “are natural slaves.”
“No!” I cried.
“Do not disparage and condemn us,” she said. “Understand us!”
“No!” I said, angrily.
“Fulfill us!” she begged.
“No!” I said. “No!”
“Is a natural slave not to be granted her fulfillment?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “No!”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I do not know,” I said. “I do not know!”
“Perhaps because we are slaves,” she said. “It is a cruelty you practice upon us.”
“Perhaps,” I said, angrily.
“What greater cruelty can a man inflict upon a slave than to deny her the collar?” she asked.
I said nothing.
“Did you not see how I danced before you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“You excite me, Master,” she said. “Does that horrify you? Does that scandalize you? Does it startle and discomfort you, does it so dismay you, does it seem so hard to comprehend, that a woman from Earth could be sexually excited, that she could have sexual desires, that she could feel helpless and frustrating passion, that she could beg even to be sexually satisfied?”
“It is not typical,” I said. “And it is not permitted.”
“It is typical!” she said. “How little you know of women! And on Gor it is permitted—to slaves.”
I did not speak.
“On Gor,” she said, “I have experienced feelings and sensation, I never knew could exist. Inhibitions have been shattered, some of them commanded from me by strong men and the blows of the whip. I have learned to live and to feel. My emotions have been freed. My deepest sexuality and nature have on this world at last been fully liberated. I have found myself. I love and I serve. I now know at last what and who I am, a love slave for uncompromising masters.”
“No,” I said. “No!”
I turned away from her, again to open the curtains.
“Did my dance interest Master?” she asked.
I turned again to look upon her. She knelt close to the wall, fastened by the neck and wrists tightly to the ring. I heard the small movement of the bells upon her, I saw the barbaric armlets, and the tiny chain that held the small pearl drop at her forehead.
“Yes,” I said. My fists were clenched.
“I beg to be fulfilled,” she said, “and as the slave I am. I know I have no right to beg this, for a slave is without rights. I do, however, beg it, placing myself vulnerably and fully at your mercy. You may, of course, deny me this fulfillment, for I am a slave. I hope, however, that you will not do so. I hope, rather, that you will see fit to show kindness to a miserable girl in bondage.”
I said nothing.
“I will strive to be worthy of my fulfillment,” she said.
I crouched down behind her, and put my hands on her waist. She shuddered, pressing herself against the wall.
“In what way?” I asked.
“By serving you completely and intimately, and as an abject and total slave,” she said.
I did not speak.
“You will not regret it, Master,” she said.
I freed her wrists and neck of the rope, leaving it fallen by the ring. I then had her in my arms, she on her knees, by the ring. “Alison will strive to please Master well,” she whispered. She then kissed me, softly. Then, softly, she whispered in my ear, “The women of Earth are natural slaves.”
“No!” I said.
“Judge by me,” she said.
I lowered her to the furs. I began to kiss at her body. “No,” I said. Soon she began to gasp and sob in my arms. Then she began to writhe. Then she screamed in the alcove and then, shuddering, shaking, was held in my arms. “Am I not a natural slave?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, “you are.” There had been no mistaking the nature of her movements, her reflexes. They were clearly those of a natural slave. These things troubled me. She lay back. “And I am a woman of Earth,” she said. “You are not typical,” I told her. “I am typical,” she said. I looked down at her. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “I was thinking,” I said, regarding the girl, “that the men of Earth, if they could but see an Earth woman as you are now, would scream with pleasure.”
“We are waiting for our masters,” she smiled.
I listened to the musicians outside of the alcove, the sounds of the tavern. When one brings a girl to an alcove one may keep her there for most practical purposes as long as one wishes. She is yours, for most practical purposes, until one chooses to re-open the curtains. After the tavern is closed an attendant will let you out and, taking charge of the girl, see that she is properly chained at her ring by the girl-wall or kenneled.
“Do you now think it is so terrible a thing to fulfill the needs of a slave?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“And if one is a natural slave,” she said, “surely it is acceptable for her to seek, even desperately, the fulfillment of her deepest needs.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And surely,” she said, “it is permissible for the master, though he is under no obligation, to do so, for she is only a slave, to deign, in his kindness, if it be his whim or pleasure, to fulfill the needs of the slave.”
“It is totally up to him,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “She is only a slave.”
“That you are a natural slave, Alison,” I said, “does not prove that the women of Earth are natural slaves.”
“My entire chain, in training,” she said, “learned that we were.”
“It proves nothing,” I said.
“Do you think we were all so rare and different?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I do not know,” I said.
“We were not,” she said.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” I said.
She smiled.
“How long have you known you were a slave?” I asked.
“Since I was a young girl,” she said. “I first discovered it in my thoughts and dreams, and feelings, and fantasies. But I thought I could never be more than a secret slave at the mercy of a secret master. Then I was brought to Gor. Here I wear my collar openly and kneel before my masters for all the world to see.”
“It is true,” I said.
“Do you object that I have slave needs, Master?” she asked.
“I do not object that you, personally, have slave needs,” I said. “Indeed, I rejoice that you have slave needs for they make you a perfection and a dream of pleasure.”
“But you would not want all women to be like me?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“But what if they were?” she asked.
I looked at her, angrily.
“Or is it only one woman you would not want to be like me?” she asked.
“No!” I said.
“But what if she is?” asked the girl.
I closed my eyes. The thought of Miss Beverly Henderson as a female slave was almost overpoweringly erotic. With difficulty I controlled myself. I thrust the thought from my mind. I must not even permit myself to think such things.
I opened my eyes.
“Do not deny her nature to her,” said the girl.
“Kneel to the whip!” I cried. Terrified the girl scrambled to her knees and knelt down, making herself small, her head to the furs. Her wrists were crossed under her, as though bound. She trembled. I now stood over her, the slave whip in my hand. I drew it back, then I threw it aside, angrily. I crouched down. Then I jerked her head up, by the hair. “Permission to placate,” she begged, reaching for me with her lips and mouth. But I held her, by the hair, from me. She whimpered, denied. Then I released her hair and permitted her to touch me.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered.
She was a slave. I would permit her to attempt to placate me, in one of the ancient fashions of the female slave.
“I must soon be on my way,” I said.
“Master searches for a slave, does he not?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Do not ever let her forget that she is a slave,” said the girl.
“I must be on my way,” I said.
“Have me, but once again,” she begged.
I did so, and then, later, I rose to my feet. I unbuckled the leather curtains and threw them back. The tavern was now empty and closed. I turned about and again regarded the girl.
She had replaced the loops of her jewelry and knelt before me, in the position of the pleasure slave.
“It is hard for me to think of you as a girl from Earth,” I said.
“I am now only a Gorean slave girl,” she said.
“You danced well,” I said.
An attendant approached from a side door. “I will put her in her kennel,” he said. He snapped his fingers at her. “Come, Girl,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. She rose quickly to her feet and ran softly to him. He took her by the arm.
“She whom you seek is a slave, is she not?” she asked me.
“She is a legal slave,” I said. “She is not a true slave.”
She was then conducted to the small side door, through which the attendant had emerged. Beyond it, I gathered, would lie such things as the kitchens, the offices, the cellars and pantries, the storage rooms, the dressing rooms, the discipline chamber and the kennels. At the door the attendant let her pause and she turned to me. “Good hunting, Master!” she called to me. “Show her no mercy,” she said. Then she brushed a kiss to me with the tips of her fingers in the Gorean fashion. I returned this gesture. She was then conducted through the door. In a short time I heard the sliding downward and locking in place of a kennel gate.
Shortly afterward the attendant returned to the floor and let me out, through the main entrance. I heard it being bolted shut behind me. I stood then in the streets of Ar. I looked up at the moons and stars, beyond the cylinders and bridges. I then turned my steps toward the Street of Tarns, that somewhere among its many shops and cots I might arrange transportation northward, toward the Salerian city of Lara.