IN THE SHED, WHICH IS OUR QUARTERS
“She is a slave,” I told Pertinax. “Put her to your pleasure.”
“No,” said Pertinax.
Saru knelt before us, in the half light of the shed we had been assigned for our quarters.
“Spread your knees more widely, girl,” I told her.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“More,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Use her,” I told Pertinax.
“No,” he said.
“It is all right with Lord Nishida,” I assured him.
“No,” he said.
“Speak,” I said to the slave.
“The slave,” she whispered, “is eager to serve master.”
How different she was from when on Earth, in her tailored garments, heels, silk stockings and such.
“No,” said Pertinax.
“Consider the collar on her neck,” I said to Pertinax. “It is lovely, is it not?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And it is locked,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
“Consider her in the rep-cloth tunic,” I said. “It is a slave garment. It conceals little. Surely you find her attractive.”
“Of course,” he said, angrily.
“The hair is still too short,” I said. “But some women are sold with less.”
“If you say so,” he said.
“Surely that does not give you pause,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Use her,” I urged.
Angrily Pertinax turned about and left the shed, the door closing more fiercely behind him than I thought necessary.
I smiled.
“He does not want me, Master,” she whispered.
“On the contrary,” I said, “he wants you mightily, with the ferocity of Gorean desire, wants you crushed, subdued, helpless, begging, at his feet.”
“That cannot be, Master,” she said.
“He wants you in a way that he dares not admit to himself,” I said, “wants you in a way that he feels he must not permit himself to want you, wants you that much, wants you wholly, without a particle of reservation or hesitation.”
“But there is only one way in which a man can so want a woman,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“He cannot so want me,” she whispered.
“His passion, his desire, his ardor, are such,” I said.
“Surely not,” she whispered.
“He sees you at his feet,” I said, “scarlet and braceleted, illuminated in the flame of his lust.”
“It cannot be,” she said.
“He wants to own you,” I said, “like a dog, own you as a dog is owned.”
“I am less than a dog,” she said. “I am a slave.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“He wants me so much?”
“Yes,” I said.
The slave is the master’s possession, wholly and perfectly, vulnerable and defenseless, his to do with as he wishes.
“It is thus,” she said, “that I have dreamed of being wanted, it is thus that I want to be wanted.”
I was silent.
There were tears in her eyes.
“What woman would be satisfied,” she asked, “to be less desired? What woman would be satisfied, truly, to be more weakly, more feebly desired?”
“I suppose it depends on the woman,” I said.
Surely many were content with tepidities.
Perhaps they knew of nothing more.
“Some of us want more,” she said, “want to be so wanted that we will find ourselves collared, want to be so desired, so lusted for, that he will be satisfied with nothing less than having his collar on us, with putting it on our necks and locking it there.”
“You wish to be so lusted for?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, “— to the collar.”
“Then you would be owned,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“You would belong,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “— to our masters.”
I noted that she, in her intentness, her earnestness, and tears, had permitted her knees to close, but I did not effect anything critical.
“I did not bring you here,” I said, “to torment Pertinax.”
“Master?” she asked.
“Long ago,” I said, “when you naively thought you were a free female, and that the name Margaret Wentworth was still yours, you spoke to me of various things, amongst them that you understood someone or something had, or would have, a hold over me in some way, by means of a woman.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“That was not clear at the time, I gather,” I said, “but it seems reasonably clear now that the agency involved must be the Pani, say, Lord Nishida, or Lord Okimoto, or those in whose behalf they labor.”
“I would think so, Master,” she said.
“You did not know the woman in question at that time,” I said.
“Nor do I now, Master,” she said.
“You have heard nothing more, or such?” I asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“The woman, I believe,” I said, “is Talena, once daughter of Marlenus of Ar, Talena, recently deposed as Ubara in Ar.”
“I know little of these things, Master,” she said, “but surely that seems unlikely.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The importance of the Ubara,” she said, “the height and grandeur of her place, your modest status, if I may remark it, Master, that we have heard nothing of the Ubara, that we are here, in a remote location, far from the cylinder cities, the ports, the caravan routes, the trading places, somewhere in the northern forests.”
I nodded.
I had not thought the outcome of this gentle interrogation would prove other than it had.
She knew nothing, of course, of my conversation with Seremides, formerly of the palace guard, the Taurentians.
“What are you about this morning?” I asked.
“I must scrub the floor of the quarters of the contract women,” she said.
“You may leave,” I said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said, rose lightly to her feet, backed away a step or two, and then turned, and left the room.
She was beginning to move well, I noted. Lord Nishida had made arrangements for her training. There were several trained pleasure slaves in the camp. The former free women of Ar in the camp sought a similar tutelage though they must pay for it, by parting with portions of their rations, relieving the pleasure slaves of various chores, and such. Slaves are to be pleasing. Free women need not be pleasing, and, commonly, are not so, as it is beneath their dignity to be pleasing, and to be pleasing is to be too much like a slave. The slave, of course, if not pleasing, is likely to be well whipped. On the other hand, something in every woman, presumably the slave, desires to please, and to be found pleasing by, men. This desire to be found pleasing by men, of course, is not only liberated in the slave, but required of them. This naturalness in a woman, and her desire to please the opposite sex, thus, is not only permitted and encouraged in the slave, but incumbent upon her. Some women require a lashing before they feel genuinely entitled to accede to what they really want to do, using the strokes, one supposes, as an excuse to gratify their vanity, that they have no choice now, poor things, but to do what they would wish to do anyway. But there is something to that, of course, because they really do not have a choice, which, interestingly, is the way they want it. Soon, of course, freed in the collar, at the feet of a master, they are eagerly disposed to be found, and are striving to be found, as pleasing as possible. Thus, they soon realize they are concerned to give the master exquisite pleasure, and, with the joy of the slave, are doing so. And, it sometimes comes as a surprise to them that, in the grasp of the master, whether they wish it or not, they will endure, and submit to, ecstasies they never realized possible as a free woman, ecstasies often prolonged for Ahn. But then masters like to see their slaves so, so helpless, so pleading, so gasping, so moaning and writhing, so beyond themselves, so much at their mercy.
Saru, as far as I knew, had not been seen by Lord Okimoto. Lord Nishida, it seemed, had not see fit to present her before the greater daimyo. I wondered if this might be an oversight or an inadvertence. Perhaps she was of insufficient interest or importance. Still, she was very beautiful, and, in the collar, was becoming ever more beautiful. I supposed that a shogun would relish such a gift, from whomsoever’s hands it might be received.
I feared that the Pani did indeed intend to descend the Alexandra, before she froze.
This seemed to me a madness, but the only alternative seemed to be to abandon the camp, and scatter, seeking individual refuges and safety, thus surrendering the efforts of the past months and forswearing whatever projects might have brought the Pani to known Gor. This second alternative, the dictate of reason, however, I knew would not be accepted by the Pani. To them, I suspected, the two alternatives were otherwise, either to descend the Alexandra, or to put themselves to the knife.
This had to do with honor, either a travesty of her, I suspected, or, as they would see it, with she herself.
I made no pretense to understanding the Pani.
I was reluctant to take either Cecily or Jane down the Alexandra, but I did not think Lords Nishida and Okimoto, who were unwilling to accept the resignations of men, but would rather put them to the sword, would be more willing to accept the defections of slaves. I had put the matter to Lord Nishida and he had reminded me that it would be difficult for a naked woman to survive the winter in the forests, particularly if neck-chained in a coffle, shackled and back-braceleted. “Too,” he said, “we will be taking other animals along, and the men will need their pleasures.”
Cecily and Jane, at the moment, with two sacks, had been set to gathering berries. When they returned they must put their heads back, open their mouths and extend their tongues. If there was any evidence of their having tasted a berry, either on their tongue or breath, they would be beaten. The berries were for the masters. Some could always be fed by hand to the slaves later, as they knelt at hand, naked, hands clasped behind their backs, or thrown before them to the floor, which they might then delicately retrieve, heads down, on all fours, without the use of their hands.
I had refrained hitherto from directly confronting either Lord Nishida or Lord Okimoto with the matter of the supposed hold over me, in virtue of some woman. Indeed, perhaps there was no such woman, and this menace or threat was a hoax, no more than an instrument of tactical efficacy, relying on my supplying in my own imagination some particular woman, with whose welfare I might be supposed to be concerned.
Now I would put the question to either Lord Nishida, or, if necessary, to Lord Okimoto.
If they wanted to retain my sword, at least as a willing instrument in their armory, then I would have an assuagement to my provoked curiosity.
With this resolution in mind I exited the shed which had been assigned for my quarters, quarters I shared, as before, with Pertinax, a free man, and two female slaves.