Swordsmen of Gor (41 page)

“Mine?” said Pertinax, uncertainly.

“Yes,” I said.

“What would I do with a slave?” asked Pertinax.

The slave looked up at him, startled.

Did he truly not know what to do with a slave?

“You, Cecily,” I said, “will be first girl.”

“She, too, is a barbarian!” said the slave. “I can tell.”

“Life is hard,” I informed the slave.

I had every confidence in Cecily, that she would be a kind, understanding, tactful, fair first girl, that she would share the work, would not mistreat her subordinate and inferior, and so on. I was less certain that she would maintain an appropriate discipline. One has to introduce a hierarchy amongst female slaves, backed by the power of the master. Otherwise one commonly invites chaos into the house, the kitchen, the gardens, the kennel area, and so on.

“Consider her,” I said to Pertinax. “Put your head down,” I said to the slave. She quickly, again, put her head down. “Look upon the sleek, vulnerable little she-beast,” I said to Pertinax. “I give her to you, as your animal. Scrutinize her slave curves. She is raw, and young, but surely she has collar promise. Consider her waiting on you, hand and foot. Consider her licking and kissing your feet. Consider her, squirming, moaning, and begging, in the furs. Am I to suppose that you, truly, would not know what to do with a slave?”

“Perhaps, Master,” said Cecily, “he would prefer another slave.”

“No!” said Pertinax, suddenly. He then lowered his eyes, embarrassed.

“Another slave,” I reminded Cecily, “is otherwise owned.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” said Pertinax.

“Have you visited Saru in the stables?” I asked.

“No!” he said, quickly.

“You might enjoy seeing her as a naked, collared stable slut,” I said.

“Surely not,” he said.

“I am sure some of the fellows she knew on Earth would,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“And perhaps you, too, would,” I said.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“She is there to be seen,” I said.

“I understand,” he said.

“From what I understand,” I said, “that slavery, that of a stable slut, is an appropriate, excellent slavery for her.”

“Undoubtedly,” he said.

“Certainly she makes a pretty little slave,” I said.

“Doubtless,” he said, reddening.

“You did, I take it, after three days,” I said to Cecily, “inform Pertinax of the petition of the slave Saru, that he might call upon her?”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “But I do not think he did so. And you forbade me to inform the slave of aught of this.”

“Did you make clear the earnestness of the slave’s petition?” I inquired.

“Yes, Master,” said Cecily, “and I begged him that he might consent to accede to her supplication.”

“You are a kindly slave,” I said to Cecily, “to feel the misery of another slave, and beg for her.”

She put down her head.

“But he declined to do so?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Surely,” I said to Pertinax, “on Earth, in your offices, or wherever, you must have considered the former Miss Wentworth as naked, in a collar, or on your leash, or roped at your feet, or such.”

“I did not allow myself such thoughts,” he said.

“But you had them, did you not?” I asked.

“Yes!” he said, angrily.

“Good,” I said. “Then you were vital, and in lively, delightful, robust health.”

“She is worthless, and I hate her,” he said.

“She is not worthless, really,” I said. “She is now a slave, and would be worth something, even if only a few copper tarsks. Only when she was a free woman, busy with being priceless,” I said, “was she worthless.”

“I hate her,” he said, angrily.

I found his vehemence interesting.

“May I speak, Master?” asked Cecily.

“Surely,” I said.

“Master Pertinax,” said she, “the slave Saru plaintively calls herself to your attention. You are her only link with her former life. You must understand how important this is to her, how precious it is to her. What else has she, on this perilous world, seemingly so harsh and strange, to cling to? Who else understands her, and whence she has come, and what has been done to her? Who else is there with whom she might speak, with whom else might she hope to share her thoughts, or fears?”

“She may speak with the tharlarion,” said Pertinax.

Cecily was then silent.

“She is cunning, she is clever,” said Pertinax. “A tear, a trembling lip, a pathetic, stammered sound and I would again be hers.”

“Then you do not truly understand that she is now a slave,” I said.

“She did not treat me well, or others,” he said, irritably.

“Have pity on her,” begged Cecily. “She is now only a helpless, frightened slave! She is much at the mercy of any free person! Do you not feel for her?”

I am beginning to understand manhood,” said Pertinax. “I will not now surrender it.”

“A slave, well handled, well mastered,” I said, “does not produce the surrender of manhood, but assures its triumph.”

“And at the feet of a master,” said Cecily, softly, “the slave finds herself.”

“I hate her!” cried Pertinax.

“She wants to be in your arms,” said Cecily.

“Absurd,” said Pertinax.

“The slave fires have been set and ignited in her belly,” I said. “She now needs men, as a slave needs men. But it is you whom she wishes to serve.”

“Serve?” he laughed.

“Yes,” I said.

“She wants to be in your arms, Master,” said Cecily.

“Oh, yes,” he laughed, “anything to escape the stable, the collar! For that what sacrifice would she not make? Even that of becoming what she hitherto most despised, a wife, or companion!”

“No, Master,” said Cecily. “She wants to be otherwise in your arms, not as wife or companion, but as slave.”

“Absurd,” said Pertinax.

“Do not forget,” I said, “that slave fires have been kindled in her sweet, vulnerable belly. Once that is done, what can a woman be but a slave?”

“I suspect,” said Cecily, “she often fantasized about you as her master.”

“Impossible,” said Pertinax.

“Why else,” I asked, “would she, of all others, have chosen you to accompany her to Gor, to complete her role on Gor, that of seeming to be her master?”

“She brought me with her to have a manipulable weakling,” he said, “one to despise, one to do her bidding, unquestioningly.”

“I do not doubt she thought that,” I said. “But deep within a woman’s belly flow mysterious currents, floods she is unable to control, forces and truths which mock and deny, and stir, the uneasy films and surfaces with which she labors to identify herself.”

“She is humanly worthless,” said Pertinax, “even if not economically so, whatever coin she might sell for, whatever price might take her off a slave block, whether a silver tarsk or a copper shaving. She is despicable. I hate her.”

“Yet,” I said, “as is not unoften the case, you want her.”

“I?”

“Yes,” I said. “You desire her.”

“No!” he said.

“You would like to own her, and have her naked at your feet.”

“No, no!” he cried.

“In any event,” I said, “the matter is moot, as she belongs not to you, but to Lord Nishida.”

Pertinax turned away, to face the wall of the hut.

“In the meantime,” I said, “we have a pretty little slut here.”

Pertinax turned back, angrily, to survey the kneeling slave.

Her head was down. She was on my leash. Her tiny wrists were braceleted behind her.

“She is Gorean, of course,” I said.

“I do not want her,” said Pertinax.

The slave gasped.

What man would not want one such as she, if only to trade or sell her to another?

One of the things a Gorean father often does, if his finances permit, is to buy a young female slave for his son. The son, of course, is familiar with slaves, and, as part of his education, has been taught their management, discipline, binding, and such. Pertinax, of course, lacked these advantages, those of culture, background, and practice.

I thought, however, that giving Pertinax a slave would be not only a thoughtful gift for him, for what is a nicer gift for a fellow than to buy him a lovely slave, but that it would help him to learn the ways of Gor, and, too, in its way, help him become a man.

Too, it should help him learn how he might best relate to, handle, and treat, should he someday wish it, some other slave, say, the former Miss Margaret Wentworth.

His task and challenge, of course, difficult as it might be, would be to make certain she was kept as a full and perfect slave, despite their previous lives and background. Only in this way could they both achieve their very different human perfections. Men and women are not the same. I had little doubt but what she would use every trick, every subtlety and wile, every cleverness, every asset of beauty and wit available to her, to reduce him again to the pathetic level of a typical male of Earth, something at her disposal, and that he would be muchly challenged to resist such artifices, and bring her to his feet, she then fully apprised, to her relief, that such games were over, and she was truly slave.

“You are fortunate I am not of the Pani,” I said. “To refuse such a gift might injure one’s pride, and would certainly generate bad blood. It might even be taken as an insult, that you found the gift beneath you, or unworthy of you. To refuse such a gift might injure one’s pride, and it is not wise to injure the pride of one of the Pani, as they are a well-intentioned, sincere folk, and take such things very seriously.”

“I accept her,” said Pertinax.

The slave, head down, trembled, accepted. She now knew her master. It was Pertinax.

“There are welts on her back,” said Pertinax.

“From switches, in the house of slaves,” I said.

“Did you beat her?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I had no reason to do so.”

The infliction of gratuitous pain would be incomprehensible to most Goreans. It would be pointless, and stupid. One expects such things only in a pathological society where the natural relationships between the sexes are denied, confused, or nonexistent. That a slave desires to please, and attempts to please, is usually more than enough to keep the whip on its peg. Should she fail to please, of course, she will expect the whip to come off its peg. And that, I suppose, is why it almost always remains on its peg.

“If you do not want her, of course,” I said, “there may be a price on her head as a former free woman of Ar, a bounty, and if that is the case you could always turn her in for a good bit of coin.”

“Please, no, Master!” cried the slave suddenly, alarmed, and flung herself to her belly to the feet of Pertinax, sobbing, and covering them with kisses. Her wrists, behind her, jerked against the bracelets, and I noted how her small fingers moved, pathetically, helplessly. “Please, no, Master!” she wept. “I will try to be good! I will try to please you, wholly, in all ways, my Master!”

“Surely you like a woman there,” I said to Pertinax, “at your feet.”

“It is not displeasing,” he said.

Doubtless he recalled how the startled, terrified Miss Wentworth had once been at his feet, though somewhat differently, in the pavilion of Lord Nishida.

Needless to say, it is pleasant for a fellow to have a woman at his feet.

Then he said to the slave, “Kneel up, keep your head up, that I may see your face. No, you may kneel with your knees closed.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”

I hoped he would have the common sense to be strong with her. The slave wants strength in a master. Too, she responds to it, in obedience, and sexuality.

She turned in the leash collar and smiled at me. She then clenched her knees even more closely together, victoriously.

I expected that when he became more accustomed to the mastery, and more excited, and so on, he would better see the slave as an object, a possession, from which great pleasure might be derived.

Then I expected he would see to it that her knees would be spread appropriately, nicely.

“You will need a name for her,” I said.

“My name,” she said, “is Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers.”

“‘Was’,” I reminded her.

“Was,” she said. “But surely I might suggest a suitable name.”

“Certainly,” said Pertinax.

“‘Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers’,” she suggested.

“That should draw in bounty hunters,” I said, “like zarlit flies to honey, urts to cheese, sharks to blood.”

“True,” she said, quickly. “Perhaps then something like ‘Lady Philomela of the Amaniani’?”

“I doubt that the Amaniani,” I said, “to whom I doubt that you are related, would appreciate the borrowing of their name, particularly by a slave.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But my aristocratic origin should surely be suggested.”

“Not at all,” I said. “You are no longer an aristocrat, but are now only a vendible, curvaceous, little she-beast.”

“What of ‘Lady’?” she asked.

“It might do for a domestic she-sleen,” I said, “but not for a slave. As you know, ‘Lady’ applies only to free females, not slaves.”

“What of ‘Philomela’?” she asked.

“Too fine for a slave,” I said. “It is better as a free woman’s name.”

“We do need a name for her,” said Pertinax.

“Not really,” I said, “but it would be useful to have one, say, to summon her, order her about, and such.”

“I do not know what to call her,” said Pertinax.

“In any event, it is your decision,” I said.

“True,” he said, regarding the slave.

“Why do you not call her ‘Margaret’?” I said.

“No!” he said. “No!”

“Pick, then,” I smiled, “another name.”

“You bought her,” he said. “You name her.”

“Very well,” I said. “I think that ‘Jane’ is a lovely name for a female slave.”

“No!” cried the slave. “That is a barbarian name! I am Gorean! I once had an Earth girl, a serving slave, by that name! Men wanted her. I often had to switch her, for she would sometimes dare to look at them! How she wanted to be in their arms, as a slave! In spite of being my slave, a lady’s slave, a lady’s serving slave, she was no better than a needful tart! Disgusting! Despicable! She was an insult to me! I later arranged that she be sold to a kaiila drover, and she was muchly pleased, so I whipped her well and lengthily before I had her delivered to him.”