Fighting Slave of Gor (56 page)

"So you will use the leash after dark," she said.

"Yes," I said. "Apparently you have no intention of permitting me to escape from you," she said.

"No," I said.

"Let me negotiate for my freedom," she said.

"Begin moving," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

31
WE
CONTINUE
OUR
WAY
SOUTHWARD

It was the heat of the afternoon. The sun was high. "On your back," I told her. She lay down, and I took her. Then I put her on her stomach, and untied her hands from behind her back. Then I put her on her back and retied her hands, wrists crossed, before her body, holding them in place, at her belly, with a loop of strap. "On your feet," I told her, "and face again southwards."

"Why have you tied my hands in this fashion?" she asked, her back to me.

"Because you are beautiful," I said.

"I see," she said.

"Begin moving," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

32
I
DO
NOT
LISTEN
TO
THE
ENTREATIES
OF
THE
LADY
FLORENCE

"I did not think you would have the nerve to leash me," she said.

We lay together on the soft dirt and leaves, in a small clump of trees in a meadow. I was on my back, looking up at the moons through the branches of the trees. The stars were fine and beautiful, bright in the black sky. She pressed herself against me. I had again tied her hands behind her back. She was tethered by the neck beside me, by the strap which had earlier served as her leash. The tether was fastened to a tree which I could reach out and touch. The knot was under her chin.

"How is it that you have dared to put me on a leash?" she asked.

"I do not understand," I said.

"I am still free, truly, you know," she said.

"Yes," I said, "legally."

"I am furious," she said, "that you have leashed me." She kissed me.

"Why?" I asked.

"I am free," she said, "and it is so degrading. It is like I am a slave girl."

"I see," I said.

"I suppose it was necessary to leash me," she said, "as a matter of prisoner security."

"I do not think it was necessary," I said, "but it was convenient."

"Convenient!" she cried. "You leashed me because it was convenient!" She struggled up to one elbow beside me, the tether on her throat

"Yes," I said, "but, too, there was another reason."

"What was that?" she asked.

"Because you are pretty in a leash, Lady Florence," I said.

She looked at me, not speaking.

Shortly after dark, while we were still trekking, I had put her to her back, untied her hands, then put her on her stomach, tying her hands again behind her back. I had then put her on her back again and unwrapped the long strap from her throat. I had then, holding the coiled strap about two feet from her throat, jerked it twice, that she could feel the pull against the back of her neck. She had looked up at me. "Not bad," I said. She had gasped. Then, loosening the coils. giving her some slack, I had pulled her to her feet. She had looked at me, her eves wide. "I am leashed," she had whispered, disbelievingly. Then I had turned about and pulled her after me. In a moment she was hurrying behind me, hands bound, on the leash. Twice, that she might rest, we had stopped. Each time she had knelt quite close to me. The second time she had looked up at me, piteously, the tether on her throat, and kissed me on the thigh. It is interesting, the effect that a device such as a leash can have on a woman. The common Gorean leash, incidentally, unlike the simple strap I was using, has a lock snap and closes either about a collar or a collar ring. It might be mentioned that there are also such devices as wrist leashes and ankle leashes.

"What are you thinking?" I asked her.

"I was thinking," she said, "that you were once my silk slave."

I did not speak.

"If you were a gentleman," she said, "and I more fully free, I might beg to attempt to earn my freedom, by the performance of intimate services for you."

"Any such services which you might perform," I said, "are already mine to command."

"That is true," she said.

"I command them," I said.

"That I might earn my freedom?" she asked.

"No," I said, "that you might, through practice, improve your skills as a slave."

"I am not a slave," she said.

"You will behave as one," I said.

She looked at me, angrily.

"Come here," I said. I held the leash.

"You hold my leash. I obey," she said.

When she was but inches from me, I pulled her by the leash even more closely to me. Her lips were then but the breadth of fingers from mine.

"Are you taking me tomorrow to the camp of Tenalion?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do not lead me in on a leash," she said.

"It is common to take a girl to and from a market on a leash," I said.

"But Tenalion has known me as a free woman," she said.

"You will soon be known to him only as a lovely slave," I said.

"Not on the leash, please," she wept.

"On the leash," I told her.

"My will means nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing," I told her.

She sobbed then, and I threw her beneath me.

"Do not sell me!" she begged.

"Be silent, lovely slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Tomorrow," she whispered to me, confidently, "you will return with me to my estates and free me."

"No," I told her.

"You cannot be serious about selling me," she said. "It is madnessl"

"No madness is involved," I said. "You will be an object in a simple business transaction."

"You cannot sell me, after all I have done for you this night!" she wept. "I have behaved as a full slave to you!"

I pulled her again to me, by the leash. She moaned. Then I turned her to her back, and put my hand under her chin, forcing her head back. "As a full slave," she said.

I kissed her, on the lips. Then I lifted my head. "And you will do so again," I whispered.

"I must," she said. "You hold my leash."

She writhed in my arms, squirming and moaning. Then I held my left hand behind the small of her back and touched her well and fully with my right hand. The tether was on her

throat. Her hands were bound behind her back. She lifted her body to me piteously.

"You will make some master a hot slave," I said.

"I am leashed," she said. "I must obey!"

"Your condition is that of a slave," I said. "It is a thing far beyond leashes and collars."

"Do not stop touching me!" she begged. She thrust herself, rearing, up against me.

"You are superb, Lady Florence," I said.

"I want-I want-" she whispered, terrified.

"Yes?" I said.

"I want to scream myself a submitted slave!" she wept.

"Do so," I told her.

"I am a slave!" she sobbed. "I admit it!" she sobbed. "I am a slave!" she cried out. "I am a slave!" Then she shuddered and shook in my arms, and I could scarcely hold her, and then she was crying, and sobbing joyfully. I continued to hold her, and kiss her, and then, as she was so beautiful, I entered her and, in fierce silence, exulted within her. "Thank you, Master," she whispered, and I then continued to hold her. "I am a slave, aren't I?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "I have always feared so," she said. "In itself it is nothing to fear," I said. "Fear rather the actual state of bondage, and those who will be your masters."

"I do fear it, and them," she said. "But should not a true slave, like myself, be placed in actual bondage, and have a master? Otherwise she could not be truly fulfilled."

"On the world which I once knew, one called Earth," I said, "it is common to deny the fulfillment of slaves. Laws, even, are sometimes opposed to their fulfillment."

"Cruel laws," she said.

"The Gorean world, in many ways, is cruel," I said, "but its cruelties are unhypocritical and open. They are honest-and comprehensible. They are not pernicious and insidious. It would not occur to a Gorean to deny a slave her collar. She would not be forced to thwart and frustrate her deepest biological dispositions and sentiments, her desire to be, fully, a male's female."

"I am a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I want to be a slave," she said, "but I am terrified to be a slave."

"As well you might be," I said.

"What can a master do to me?" she asked.

"Anything," I said.

"I am afraid," she whispered.

"As well you might be," I said.

Suddenly she scrambled from my side, miserably, scattering leaves and dirt about. She backed away, frightened, to the end of her tether. She struggled against it, her head down. She struggled to free her wrists, futilely. She was very beautiful as she tried to free herself. She could not do so.

"I do not want to be a slave!" she cried.

"By tonight," I told her, "you will have felt the iron and will wear the collar."

"I do not want to be a slave!" she cried.

"The decision is not yours," I said.

"I do not want to be a slave," she wept. She fell on her knees at my side. "Free me," she begged. "Free me!"

"Try to be pleasing to your masters," I said. "Perhaps then you will be permitted to live."

She looked at me, aghast.

"Now lick and kiss me," I told her. "It is dawn, and we must soon be on our way."

"Yes, Master," she said.

33
WE
WILL
ENTER
THE
CAMP
OF
TENALION;
THE
LEASH

"There!" I said. "That is it!" I indicated to her, in the shallow valley between the two sloping hills, some half pasang from the southern road, the blue and yellow canvas of the distant tents. Too, we could see cages, and palisaded pens, and slave wagons. In the late morning we had asked directions from a surly, armed fellow herding two trussed women, a stick bound behind the back of their necks. We had seen a tarnsman, too, flying in this direction, four girls tied at his saddle rings. We stood at the top of the hill, in the grass, in the shade of some Ka-la-na trees, the yellow wine trees of Gor. "It is the camp of Tenalion," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I took the leash and wrapped it about her throat, tucking it in.

"Will you not take me into the camp immediately?" she asked.

"Are you so eager to be branded?" I asked.

"They will brand me, won't they," she said, "as though I might be any girl."

"You are any girl," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"We will rest here for a time," I said. "There are grapes here. Feed me."

I lay down on one elbow and watched her picking the grapes with her teeth. Then she came and knelt humbly beside me and, one by one, from her mouth, as I fed, placed the grapes in my mouth.

"Bring me water," I told her.

She went to a nearby stream and, lying beside it on her belly, in the gravel, took water in her mouth. She then returned to me and, as she knelt above me, I took the water from her mouth.

She straightened up, kneeling. "Were you not afraid I would try to escape?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She looked down at me. "There is no escape for me," she said.

I then took her and flung her, twisting her, on her back in the grass beneath me. "It is true," I told her. "There is no escape for you."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I watched you bring me food and drink," I said. "You did well. I think you are learning swiftly."

"You have taught me much," she said.

"We are near the camp of Tenalion," I said. "Do you not now wish, again, to beg me piteously for your freedom?"

"No, Master," she said. "I now beg piteously only to be permitted to please you."

I later lifted my lips and hands from her body.

"Am I pleasing?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

I then stood, unsteadily for a moment. I picked up the steel of Orgus, in its sheath, and looped it over my shoulder. She knelt in the grass, in the position of the pleasure slave, as she could, her hands bound behind her.

"Do you think I will make a good slave, Master?" she asked.