Mercenaries of Gor (25 page)

"Look at me," she said. "I have a collar on my neck. I cannot remove it. It attaches me to a chain, with others. I am naked. Men may look upon me as they please. There is a number on my breast. I am 261, among the catches of mercenaries. I will be sold. Do not tell me how I can speak. I am, like you, a woman on a chain!"

"I am afraid, Mother," said the girl, suddenly. "I am so afraid!"

"We are all afraid," she said, holding her.

"I do not know what will happen to me," said the girl.

"None of us do," said the woman.

"I do not want to be owned," wept the girl.

(pg. 180) "Think of it from a man's point of view," she said. "You are quite beautiful. Think of what pleasure men will take in owning you. Think how happy it will make them."

"I would then have value?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said the mother. "In time you might even become a treasure."

"No, no," said the girl, suddenly. "We must never think of things from the man's point of view."

"Why?" asked the woman.

"I do not know!" she said. "But what pleases them, what fulfills them, what makes them so masculine, so powerful and strong, so different from us, must be denied to them!"

"Why?" asked the woman.

"I do not know," wept the girl.

"To make them piteous and weak, so that we may dominate them?" asked the mother.

"I do not know," said the girl.

"So, that we can pretend we are more like them?"

"I do not know," said the girl.

"As a free female you might, if you wished, for whatever purposes, hatred or envy, the seeking of power, or whatever it might be, attempt to do them such hurt, such insidious and grievous injury, but such terrible and grotesque crimes, for which legal penalties are not even prescribed, my lovely daughter, when you are a slave, will not be permitted to you."

"I am afraid to be a slave," she said.

"We all are," said the mother.

"I do not understand slaves," said the girl.

"You understand them only too well," said the mother.

"Why is it that so many of them, owning not even a bowl for their food, or their rags and collars, seem to be among the happiest of women, so radiant and fulfilled?"

"They have masters," she said.

"Mother," said the girl, timorously.

"Yes, my daughter," said the mother, encouragingly.

"This morning, near noon, on the Avenue of Adminius, I was forced to call a man Master."

"So, too, were we all," said the mother, soothingly. "It is (pg. 181) just their way of accustoming us to obedience, and what lies before us."

"There was something else," she whispered.

"Yes," asked the mother.

"I had to kiss a man's whip," she whispered.

"So, too, did we all, I am sure," said the mother, kindly.

"But it is worse," she whispered. "I fear to speak."

"Tell me," said the mother, soothingly, taking the girls head upon her breast.

"I had feelings," said the girl. "I had never felt just those feelings before."

"I understand," said the mother.

"When I felt the stout leather thrust against my lips, I trembled," she said. "Then, as bidden, I kissed, and licked it, lingeringly. I looked up at him. I saw the ferocity, and the strength, and the uncompromising determination, in his eyes. Then, again, I bent to my work. I felt thrilled to the quick. My belly became hot. My thighs flamed. I felt wet."

The mother kissed her, and caressed her hair, softly, soothingly.

"I am a terrible person," said the girl.

"Such feelings are perfectly natural," said the mother. "Do not be ashamed of them. They tell you what you are. It is not wrong to be what you are. It is good to be what you are, exactly what you are, whatever it may be."

"Have you ever had such feelings?" asked the girl.

"Yes," said the mother.

"What can possibly be their meaning?" asked the girl, frightened.

"It is simple," said the mother.

"What?" asked the girl.

"That we are females," said the mother.

"Females?" said the daughter.

"Yes," said the mother. "Such feelings, of need and helplessness, are natural for us. Do not be afraid of them. They tell us what we are."

"Are we-are we slaves, Mother?" asked the girl.

"Hush," said the mother, quickly. "One approaches; a guard."

(pg. 182) Quickly they separated, each looking down. The mother rested now on her right thigh and hip, her hands on the floor of the Semnium, the girl on her left thigh and hip, her hands, too, on the Semnium's floor. They did not lift their heads. They did not wish to risk meeting the eyes of the guard, calling attention to themselves. They looked well in the collars, both affixed to the chain.

The woman near me, on the marble bench, grasped it more tightly. The padlock on her collar moved on the marble. The guard was removing her ankle shackles. He then sat her upright, and unchained her wrists. The ankle chain and wrist chain he left lying over the bench, in front of her. He then took her by the hair and drew her from the bench. He walked her, bent over, to a place on the chain. A second padlock was there, marking what had been her place. He knelt her there, and then opened the padlock on the chain. Without removing it from the chain he pushed its bolt through the ring on her collar and snapped it shut. She was again part of the chain. She lay down on the floor, in her place. The guard looked over the nearby women. None met his eyes. He was the same fellow who, earlier had brought in the newest arrival, bound and leashed, in the Semnium.

"261," he said.

"Please, no," she said.

He regarded her.

"Master," she said, putting her head down.

A young girl, near her, gasped, hearing her mother use this word to a man.

261 was freed from the chain. He sat her on the bench, straddling it.

"Please," she said, "do not. My daughter is near." Then her ankles were shackled, the chain running under the heavy fixed-position bench. Then her wrists were enclosed in the wrist rings, the chain from them, too, running under the bench. He then put her down on the bench. She lay on it, on her stomach, her legs on either side of it. Her throat still wore the padlocked collar. The other padlock, that which had held the collar to the chain, he left on the chain. It marked the place to which she would be returned. He then left her.

(pg. 183) In a few Ahn it would be dawn. I had not slept well. I must make the decision soon, whether or not to carry certain letters. I gathered this couriership might be not without its dangers.

I glanced at the female on the bench. She was lusciously desirable. I put her from my mind.

I had reservations about taking Hurtha and Boabissia into danger. Even if they were willing, and informed, at least to the extent I was, I did not think I should permit them to accompany me. It might be too perilous for them, how perilous, of course, I did not know.

The female stirred on the bench. There was a tiny sound of chain. I forced the thought of her from my mind. She was excitingly desirable.

I had little doubt, however, that Hurtha would cheerfully come along, if asked, and perhaps if not asked, abounding with his customary indefatigable optimism whatever might be the odds. He had already complained, more than once, that his ax was getting rusty. This is an Alar way, I took it, of saying that it had not been used lately. That was perhaps just as well. If Hurtha came with me, however, it seemed that Boabissia should be left behind. If she were left behind, however, I did not doubt but what she would soon find herself in a collar. She was that attractive. I put the woman on the bench again from my mind. I wondered what Boabissia would look like on the bench, in such a predicament. Rather well, I supposed. I might slip from the city, without them, I thought. In that way I would not carry them into danger. That would be thoughtful on my part. If I did that, of course, I should speak to Hurtha and Boabissia. I wondered if I should slip from the city. I did not know what to do. It was hard to sleep.

"Oh!" said the woman on the bench, stiffening, my hand on her.

"Do not relax your body," I said. "Keep it tight against my hand."

(pg. 184) She moaned.

"You are a free woman, are you not?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You may relax your body," I said.

Quickly she drew herself forward on the bench, frightened, an inch or so.

"Move back," I said.

She moaned, and slid back a tiny bit.

"More," I said.

She complied, fearfully.

"More," I said.

She was now back where she had been before. "I do not know where your hand is," she said.

"It is here," I said, lifting a finger, touching her.

"Oh!" she said.

"You look well in a collar, and chains," I said.

"Please," she said. "Do not touch me."

"Why," I asked.

"My daughter is near," she said.

"What is that to me?" I asked.

"She can see, she can hear!' she whispered. "Ohh!" She shuddered, caressed.

"You are a lusciously bodied female," I said. "Doubtless you will bring your seller a good price."

"Ohh," she said.

"When you were brought in," I said, "it seems your wrists were quite tightly bound behind you, more than with the customary tightness ample to keep a female in perfect custody.

"Sir?" she asked.

"You may call me Master," I said.

"Master?" she said.

"The way you rubbed your wrists, that suggests you were not merely bound with customary tightness, but punishment bound."

"Perhaps," she said.

"Perhaps you had showed less than absolutely perfect deference to men?" I speculated.

"No, Master," she said. "I am not a fool."

(pg. 185) "I would guess then," I said, caressing her, "that the tie was intended to be an informative, or admonitory one, one from which you were to gather something of the meaning of your reduction in station."

"Yes," she said.

"Doubtless, then, you were formerly of some importance."

"Yes," she said. "I was important."

"Are you important now?" I asked.

"No!" she gasped.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes, yes!" she gasped.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am-261!" she said.

I pulled her to a sitting position, before me, and then bent her backward and turned her body. "Yes," I said, "you are 261." I then put her back on her stomach. "And who is your daughter?" I asked.

"437," she said.

"Are you more beautiful than your daughter?" I asked.

"I do not know," she wept, clutching the bench.

I heard a gasp from the side, from our right, from among the other women.

I stepped from the bench, looking at the other women. "You," I said to a girl there. "Kneel, straighten your back, put your chin up, throw your hair behind your back." She did these things. "You are 437," I said, reading her number.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes, what?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, quickly.

"Yes," I said to the woman on the bench, "she has something of your beauty."

"Something!" gasped the girl.

"You are both quite beautiful," I said to the woman on the bench, returning to her. "I suppose it would be difficult to say who, ultimately, under proper slave disciplines, will prove the most beautiful, but, clearly, now, at the moment, if these things are pertinent to the issue, you would bring the highest price."

"I?" asked the woman before me, wonderingly.

(pg. 186) "Yes," I said. "But she has something of your coloring and characteristics, and is quite beautiful, and I think it likely, in time, with more experience in life and love, she might aspire to equal your beauty."

The girl gasped.

"Please," said the woman. "We are mother and daughter."

"You are only two women," I said, "two women in collars, and, at this time, you, my chained beauty, would bring a higher price on the auction block, a price she could not hope, for perhaps years, to equal or excel. To be sure, I think you are both excellent collar meat."

The woman moaned. I then renewed my attentions to her body.

"I gather it has been a long time since you have been touched," I said.

"Yes," she said. "Are you disappointed in me? Do I take too long to respond?"

"Mother!" cried the girl, scandalized.

"You are not a slave," I said. "You do not have trained, honed reflexes. Smoldering fires have not been set in your belly, never far from the surface, ready to leap into flame at the smallest touch. You are a free woman. I do not expect much of you."