Mercenaries of Gor (52 page)

(pg. 368) But then, a moment later, she might have felt the thick layers of the chemically treated cloth held firmly over her nose and mouth. Business seemed good this evening. Indeed, it seemed to be thriving. This Ludmilla, whoever she was, I conjectured, had something of a gold mine in this little establishment. Tonight's receipts, at any rate, would probably prove quite gratifying.

I returned to the slave mat.

"Master?" asked Louise.

She looked up at me, the chain on her neck.

I removed the whip from my belt, freeing the blades. I shook them loose.

"I am from Earth!" she said.

"Spread your knees," I said.

Swiftly did the Earth girl comply.

I looked down at her. She was incredibly lovely.

"Surely you will treat me gently, and with respect," she said.

"How do you lie on a mat, Earth girl?" I asked.

"However a master pleases," she whispered.

I gestured to the mat with the whip. Immediately she lay upon it.

"Perhaps you can interest me," I said.

"Please!" she said.

"Move," I told her.

She moved then, and turned, upon the mat, sometimes on her belly, sometimes on her back, sometimes on her side, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting, sometimes curled up, sometimes bending backwards, pausing every moment or so, for a moment or so, stock-still, posing, that I might feast my eyes upon her loveliness, revealing thusly for me her imbonded beauty in numerous and various attitudes. There were tears in her eyes. I saw that she had had some training.

She was then breathing heavily.

I let the loose whip blades brush her back. "Master?" she asked.

"Is that all you show Gorean men?" I asked. "If so, I am surprised you have not yet been fed to sleen."

"You are from Earth," she wept.

(pg. 369) "And so you, a slave, think to cheat me, and give me less?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Do you dare, slave," I asked, "to think that you can behave toward me as a typical Earth female behaves toward a man of Earth?"

"No," she said. "No!"

"Do you think you can treat me as the typical females of Earth treat the men of Earth?" I asked.

"No," she wept. "No!"

"Have you ever felt the slave whip?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said, terrified.

"Do you want to feel it again, now?" I asked.

"No! Master!" she said.

"Perform," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Better," I said, "better. Remember you are no longer a woman of Earth now. More leg extension. That is behind you. You are now only a Gorean slave. Good. You are not even a person any longer. You are now only a lascivious animal that exists only for the pleasure of men. Only an animal. Do not forget it. But an incredibly desirable animal. Lift your hand more piteously. Good. The most desirable form of animal in existence, the female slave. That expression, improve it. Let it show that you beg a man for his touch. Do you beg a man for his touch?"

"Yes," she cried, suddenly, "I do!"

"Use the chain," I said. "It is on your neck. Use it! Use it in this mat dance."

"Dance?" she wept.

"Yes," I said, "You can consider it a dance. You can treat it as a dance. You are writhing for a master, pausing now and then to startle him with your beauty, on your chain. There is even music here. Feel it in your belly. Deep in your belly! Deeper! Yes! Yes!"

"Take me!" she cried in English!" "I beg you to take me!"

I took her in my arms, and kissed her. She was helplessly hot and open.

(pg. 370) "Oh, yes," she cried. "Now! Now! I beg it! I beg it!"

"As a woman of Earth?" I asked.

"No," she sobbed, "as what I am now, as a Gorean slave of her master!"

Later I used her once more, this time on her belly, that she might not forget she was a slave, nor grow too proud. I then turned her to her back. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I am yours," she wept. "I want to live for you, and to serve you in all ways."

I kissed her.

"Buy me!' she begged. "Buy me!"

"I think you will one day, now that you have learned how to serve, find a fine, strong Gorean master," I said.

"Then, I, an Earth woman, will belong to a Gorean," she said.

"Yes," I said, "as do may others. And I think you will make him a splendid slave."

"Yes," she whispered softly, "a slave."

"You are a female of Earth," I said. "Such as you are fit only to wear the collars of such men."

"I know," she said.

"Aspire to nothing higher here," I said.

"I do not," she said.

"He would have you in no other way, of course," I said.

"I know," she said.

"Are you discontent?" I asked.

"No," she said. "It is a thousand times better to be the slave of such a man than to be an Empress on Earth."

I kissed her.

"Nor would I wish to be had in any other way," she said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Because," she said, "it is what I have now learned I am, a slave."

I considered her softness and beauty, and her helpless, loving responsiveness in my arms. "Yes," I said. "You are a man's slave."

"I do not dispute it," she said. "I learned it indubitably while finding myself helpless in your power. You have taught it to me, and the lesson can never be unlearned."

(pg. 371) I did not speak.

"Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I think there are many slaves on Earth, only they have not yet found their masters. They do not yet wear their collars."

"Perhaps," I said.

"I think there are few men on Earth who can, or will, answer the cry of the slave in a woman."

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"Why will they not do so?" she asked.

"Perhaps it is too late for them to reclaim their manhood," I said. "Perhaps it is easier for them now, at this late date, their opportunities slipped away, surrendered to the enemies of manhood, to pretend to find it disgusting, or amusing."

She sighed.

"But here on Gor," I said, "have no such fears. Here, even for all their harshness, the cultures have not taken so unnatural, demeaning and debilitating a turn."

"True," she said.

"Here you will men such as you have only dreamed of on Earth," I said.

"Yes," she said, softly.

"Here you do not have to fear even initially that men will not answer the cry of the slave in you," I said. "You will probably not even have time for that. You will be too busy kneeling, and obeying."

"True," she laughed, and kissed me. "Master," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"May I say something?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. "But if I am not pleased with it I may beat you."

"Of course," she laughed.

"Do you recall that I expressed a wish that I be treated gently and with respect?" she asked.

"Vaguely," I said.

"I do not think you treated me too gently," she said.

"Perhaps not," I said. She had been manhandled a bit, put (pg. 372) where I wanted her, and so on, allowed to understand that she was an instrument of my pleasure.

"And surely you did not treat me with respect," she said.

"No," I said. "But then you are not the sort of woman who is to be treated with respect. You are a collared slave."

"I wait for my master," she whispered.

"I do not think, now, given the recent confirmation of these insights in you, you will have to wait long for your rightful chains, but, in the meantime, you will serve the customers in the Tunnels."

"The customers!" she wept.

"Yes," I said, and then I turned her over, putting her again on her belly on the mat.

"Oh!" she said.

"Yes, the customers," I said, "of whom I am one."

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!"

"Excellent," I said.

I saw that her fingernails had scratched at the mat. I put my hand on the mat, near her face. The mat was damp there, from tears.

"Master well knows how to use a slave," she said.

"You yielded well," I said.

"I cannot help myself," she said. "I am a slave."

"And only that?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I gently parted her hair, putting it delicately on either side of her neck. In this way I could see the collar on her neck, and the small, sturdy lock at the back of the neck.

"I wonder who truly loves himself, and women," she whispered, "he who is so true to himself and his nature, refusing to deny it or pretend it doesn't exist, and who fulfills women, as what they really are, or he who betrays himself, who lies to himself and who denies the true needs of women?

"It is true," I said. "There are two sexes, and they are quite different."

"Is that not heresy, for a man of Earth, to say that?" she asked.

"This is Gor," I said. I pulled at her collar a little. "Are you not aware of that, slave?"

(pg. 373) "Yes, Master," she said. "I am aware of it."

"In a world where nature is free, a world not subjected to ideological poisonings, a world where she is not crippled, and hobbled," I said, "what is the place of women?"

"At the feet of men, Master," she said.

"And where are you, Louise?" I asked.

"At the feet of men," she said.

"Such does not prove, of course," I said, "that Gor is the ideal world, but it does indicate that Gor possesses at least one feature of the ideal world."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"To be sure," I said, "it is not unknown for females, free women, of course, to seek power."

"Such pursuits, to me," she said, "seem disgusting and unnatural in a woman."

"They are," I said. "But perhaps they are to be forgiven when men abdicate their responsibilities. Perhaps it is fit then that they be destroyed as males."

"No, Master!" she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"For then we cannot be truly women, Master. The equations of nature would be disrupted. It would be madness and sickness. It could mean the end of a world."

"What do you think would happen if you were to seek power, Louise?" I asked.

"Doubtless I would be whipped and used," she said, "and then thrown naked, chained, into a tiny cage or slave box, and kept there until I learned my lesson, and begged to be suitably subservient. I might even be killed."

"Yes," I said, "but then you, of course, are a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are not a free woman,"

"No, Master," she said.

"That makes a great difference," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"They do much what they please," I said, "even if its ultimate objective is clearly the subversion of nature, involving the reduction and debilitation of an entire sex, a sex crime than which, it seems, none could be more heinous."

(pg. 374) "How filled with hate they must be," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Unable to be men," she said, "they try to destroy them. In this they fail also to be women."

"Perhaps," I said. "I do not know."

"They will attempt to use law," she said, "using men against men, using them as their dupes and tools, until the last man can be destroyed."

"That seems the intent," I said. "It is not even well concealed."

"No, Master," she said.

"It is an interesting concept," I said, "that legislation could be passed against manhood, that nature can be dismissed with a statute, that her reality and aristocracy can be declared illegal. Surely there is some sort of category confusion here. Laws cannot validly be passed against facts. Any such law is automatically null and void. It is like the English king who in the legend sat upon the beach and forbade the incoming waves to touch his robes."

"What happened?" she asked.

"He got wet," I said. "To be sure, he may have ordered the waves beaten, but, as far as we know, the ocean failed to take note of this."

"At least he moved before he was drowned," she said.

"Let us hope that all kings, however stupid they may be, would have that much sense at least."

"Surely they would," she said.

"Not necessarily," I said. "If they are sufficiently stupid, and sufficiently strongly conditioned, closing their minds to options, and such, they might remain right where they were, proceeding righteously to a watery grave. Such things are not unknown. Many people have given their lives for absurdities. Some are called heroes."