Plunder of Gor (61 page)

“Perhaps, Master,” I said to Drusus Andronicus, “dear Paula is below, or nearby, in the street, waiting, chained to a ring. I might then visit with her. I would be so happy to see her.”

“
Ela
,” said he, “kajira. She is not about. Uncertain as to the outcome of this meeting, whose prospects now seem bright, I left her behind, in the house of Decius Albus, in the House of a Hundred Corridors.”

“Oh,” I said, as though disappointed.

But this response much pleased me. I had hoped it would be so. The last thing I wanted was for Paula to be about.

The men, and Lord Grendel, then, affably and civilly, began to discuss a number of arrangements that might appertain to the projected exchange of two captives, Lyris, a Kur female, and Eve, whose nature or status seemed less clear.

Soon Drusus was ready to make his departure.

“May I accompany Master Drusus to the street,” I asked my master, “that I may inquire after my friend, Paula?”

“Yes,” he said, readily enough. Surely he had no reason to suspect that my request might be less than disingenuous.

Past the stairs, on the street, I knelt before Drusus.

“Paula is well, kajira,” said Drusus. “Perhaps she wishes the collar on her neck was other than that of Decius Albus.”

“Perhaps she would like to be in the collar of Master Drusus,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Master Drusus finds her attractive?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “certainly.”

“Am I not attractive, as well?” I asked.

“You are not badly curved,” he said. “I find it easy to believe some men might find you of interest. You and Paula both seem to have been bred to wear a collar and tunic, but then I suppose you both were, as you are both women.”

“Perhaps Master finds me of interest,” I said, putting my head to his thigh.

“Were I, passing on a street, to find you chained on a slave shelf,” he said, “it is true that I might look twice.”

“I find Master handsome and strong,” I said. “Does he not feel Phyllis near him?”

“I am not unaware of your proximity,” he said.

“Is Paula truly so attractive?” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said.

“Is Phyllis, too, attractive?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Does Paula please Master?” I asked.

“Very much so,” he said.

“Let Phyllis please you more,” I whispered.

“Bara!” he said, sharply.

Instantly, not even thinking, reflexively, I went to bara. I felt my ankles crossed and tied together. I could not then rise. I was in consternation. My wrists were crossed, and bound together, behind my back. “Master!” I protested. He then lifted and turned me, placing me, seated, against the wall of the building, near the foot of the stairs. I sat there, looking up at him, my knees drawn up a bit, my wrists bound behind me, my ankles tied together. “Please let me go,” I said. “Please untie me! Free me, I beg you, Master! I meant no harm! Do not let my master find me like this!”

Drusus then drew my tunic down at the left shoulder, and, with a marking stick removed from his pouch, firmly pressing in the lettering, inscribed something on my left shoulder. “Please, come back,” I begged. “Please free me!” But I could see nothing then but his back, as he strode angrily away.

“Please, Master, mercy!” I had cried.

I was well stretched, standing on my toes; my wrists were bound tightly together, and drawn up, high over my head; I was naked; the rope that bound my wrists together was run through the ring fastened in the ceiling, and then brought down, diagonally, to the side, and tied about another ring in the wall, across the room.

“Forgive me, Master,” I had wept. “Please forgive me!”

“What a petty, worthless slut you are,” he said, shaking out the blades of the whip.

“Forgive me,” I begged.

“Do you think,” said he, “I was not aware of your clumsy, transparent attempts to interest our guest, to intrude your presence upon him, the proximity, in violation of customary distance, the smiling, the glances, the movements, the way of pouring the wine, your solicitation to accompany him to the street, on the pretext of learning more about a friend, and such?”

How helpless I was, tied as I was!

“I meant no harm,” I said. “Master Drusus is fine, and handsome, but I have no interest in him. I have no desire for his collar. Yours is the touch for which I long, Master!”

“You wished to interest Drusus Andronicus,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but not as you think!”

“You failed,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“I can well imagine it,” he said, “the words, the protestations, the pleadings, the movements, the soft looks, the earnest words! Doubtless you put yourself at his feet, closely, as well.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

I had pressed my cheek against his thigh. We are taught many ways to excite and please a master, ways that, when sincerely tendered, have their effect on ourselves, as well. This, of course, had not been the case with Drusus Andronicus as my intentions had had nothing to do with him but only with my own vanity. My performance had been feigned, my words empty, my actions lies.

“But all was for naught,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I wept.

“You failed to interest him,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you tried,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do you know what was written on your shoulder?” he asked.

“No, Master!” I said. My body was beginning to ache, as I was stretched.

“It was a simple message,” he said. “It was merely the word ‘No', and then his signature. You were a rejected slave.”

“The matter,” I wept, “had nothing to do with Master Drusus. It had to do with my jealousy of Paula. I wanted to prove that I could do what she could do, that I could interest he whom she had interested. It was to be my vengeance on Paula for her being so preferred to me, my vengeance on her for having sold for a golden tarsk, for having been sold at the Curulean, from the central block!”

“You would try to seize the affections of he for whom she, your friend, might care?”

“I did not want his affections,” I said. “I only wanted to arouse him and then reject him.”

“And thus prove yourself superior to her, by winning and then lightly discarding a prize for which she, herself, might scarcely dare hope?”

“Too, Master Drusus once tricked me, made me seem a fool. Might I not then hope to discomfit him, if only a little?” I wept.

Kurik then, the blades of the whip loose, suddenly rent the air, with a blazing hiss, but a few inches from me.

I shrieked with fear, startled, dangling in the ropes.

Kurik of Victoria regarded me. I trusted he would not strike me.

“You have not been pleasing, Phyllis,” he said.

I regarded him.

“Forgive me!” I cried.

His eyes were hard.

“No, no!” I cried.

I was then lashed.

Afterward, freed of the ropes, I lay, sobbing, shaking, below the whipping ring. My body was afire. I had been switched, now and then, occasionally, but I had never before, even in my training, been subjected to the attentions of the slave lash.

“Do not fear, worthless slut,” he said. “It will not mark you. It will not reduce your value. You will be marketed the same as before, only now there will be a difference. You will know what it is to have felt the slave lash.”

How I had twisted in the ropes, dangling, crying out, scarcely comprehending the pain. Let those who have never felt the lash scoff at it, or speculate how they would brave it. What fools they are! They have never felt it!

“Forgive me, Master,” I wept.

I think he had returned the whip, the blades clipped, to his belt.

“Please do not sell me,” I begged.

“Why should I not sell you?” he asked.

“Because I am your slave,” I said. “I want to be your slave. I want to please you, so much! I want desperately to be found pleasing by you! I am in your collar! You are my master!” I dared not cry out my love for him. I did not want to be cuffed, or kicked, or put again under the lash! How unworthy I was, a woman of Earth, a barbarian, even to be the despised slave of such a male!

“You were not pleasing,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

As I lay at his feet, lashed, sobbing, my skin aflame, my greatest pain, by far, was my remorse, my bitter shame and grief, that he had seen fit to beat me. I had not been found pleasing. The depth, the globality, the poignancy of this misery is perhaps comprehensible only to a woman who has been a man's slave.

“Do you know why you were beaten?” he asked.

“I attempted to interest another master,” I said.

“What a fool you are,” he said. “Do you think I do not know the nature of slave girls, how they relish being looked upon, how conscious they are of their attractions, how they love it that a scarcely garbed flank is viewed with interest, that one observes the sensitivity and delicacy of their features, speculates on what would be the touch of their lips, or hair, marvels at the provocativeness of a shoulder, a forearm, the delicious curve where hip meets waist, the madness of their ankles and calves, the joys of their bosoms, the loveliness of a waist, the sweet width of their love cradles, the excitements of their throats, locked in their collars. Why do you think we buy and own them! And do you not think they do not well know why they are bought and owned? They love being the fullest, the most complete, and most perfect of women.”

“I do not understand,” I whispered.

“A master,” he said, “might even, as a matter of hospitality, put you to the feet of a guest, have you report to a friend, and so on.”

Somehow I suspected he would not do so.

“I can understand,” he said, “how a slave might find another master attractive. Bondage causes a woman to see a great many men as attractive. Are they not possible masters? It illuminates the opposite sex in a way no other condition can.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. Certainly, as a slave, a woman sees men much differently from a free woman. I knew this from my own case. In a tunic and collar one was in no doubt as to what one was, and the radical centrality of sex to what it is to be human.

“Much depends on the slave and master,” he said. “If one has no particular interest in a slave, and she is no more than another plate or goblet, another vase or brush, and she desires another master, and he is interested in her, one might give her to him, or, better, sell her to him. Indeed, one might enjoy making him pay more than she is worth. That is amusing. Would you like me to give you to Drusus Andronicus, or sell you to him?”

“No, no, Master!” I said.

“Or take you to a market, and get rid of you there?”

“No, Master!” I said.

“To be sure,” he said, “there are proprieties to be observed. It would be fully appropriate for you to be lashed for what you did. One cannot have slaves going about like free women.”

“No, Master,” I said.

“Perhaps you think that is why you were beaten,” he said.

“Surely, Master,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said. “It was clear to me that you had no interest in Master Drusus and he none in you, other, of course, than the materially obvious facts that you would see him as an attractive male, which I suppose he is, and that he would see you as not without interest, which you are not without.”

“It all had to do with Paula,” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “That is clear.”

“And I was still whipped?” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “I had not known until then what a vain, petty, worthless slut you were. Paula is your friend. She feels for you, is concerned for you. Why then should you wish to outdo her, to demean and hurt her, and, in a sense, steal from her? Drusus Andronicus may be fond of her, and she may care for him, and you, supposedly her friend, to assuage your jealously, to soothe your wounded vanity, would gratuitously intrude yourself between them? What if Drusus Andronicus had succumbed to your fraudulent overtures? What then of Paula, who cares for you, of Paula, your friend?”

“I did not think of her,” I said.

“You thought only of yourself,” he said, “and your pride.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Had you many friends on the Slave World?” he asked.

“I was popular, very popular,” I said.

“Had you many friends?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Many sought my company, and flattered me. But I do not know what they felt, or said, behind my back. I think they did not really like me. One senses such things.”

“Perhaps,” said he, “they were jealous, of your looks, your taste, your charm, your popularity?”

“I do not know,” I said. “But I think they did not really like me.”

“Perhaps you were not all that likable?” he said.

“I wanted to be liked,” I said.

“So, how many friends had you?” he asked.

“Only one, truly,” I said.

“Paula?”

“Yes,” I said. “She was my friend—my only friend.”

“And now,” he said, “you have lost her.”

“No!” I said. “No, Master!”

“How could it not be so?” he asked.

“Surely Master Drusus would not tell Paula!” I said.

“He will, surely,” he said.

“No,” I wept, “no!”

“He will not let her live on in ignorance, misinformed and deluded,” he said. “One she thought her friend proved herself not to be so. She must learn of this, and will learn of it.”

“No, no,” I said.

“You no longer have a friend,” he said.

“No!” I said.

“You have lost her,” he said.

“No,” I said, “no, no!”