Captive of Gor (38 page)

of shaggy sable.

I cried out with misery that I had fallen to such a man.

He laughed. The teeth in his darkly tanned, wind-burned face seemed large and

white, and strong.

I trembled.

(pg. 264) I feared what they would feel like on my body.

I felt again weak. I felt like a golden-pelted tabuk, lying between the paws of

the black-maned mountain larl.

I moaned with misery, for suddenly I understood the foolishness of my fantasies

in the pens of Ko-ro-ba, and in the caravan of Targo, that I would conquer, that

I might, by the withholding of my favors, or the fervor of my favors, reduce a

master to bondage, turning him into a needful slave desperate for my smiles and

pliant to my will. I realized with a blaze of misery, and self-pity, that to

such a man it was only I who could be the slave. He was totally and utterly

masculine, and before him I could be only totally and utterly feminine. I had no

choice. My will was helpless. I suppose that a woman, like a man, has buried

instincts, of which they may not even become aware, but these instincts lie

within them, dispositions to respond, dispositions locked into the very genetic

codes of her being, instincts awaiting only the proper stimulus situation to be

elicited and emerge, overpoweringly, irresistibly, sweeping her, perhaps to her

astonishment and horror, in a biological flood to her destiny, a destiny once

triggered as incontrovertible and uncontrollable as the secretion of her glands

and the mad beating of her heart.

I knew then that he was dominant over me. This had nothing to do with the fact

that I lay stripped before him, wrists and ankles lashed, his prisoner. It had

to do with the fact that he was totally masculine, and in the presence of such a

stimulus, my body would permit me to be only totally feminine. I wished that he

had been one of the weak men of Earth, trained in feminine values, and not a

Gorean male.

I felt a mad impulse to beg him to use me.

“So you do not recognize me?” he laughed.

“No,” I whispered.

He fastened his helmet to the side of the saddle and, from his saddle pack,

withdrew a roll of leather. He wrapped this about his head, covering his left

eye.

I remembered then, the tall figure in the blue and yellow silk, with the leather

covering one eye.

(pg. 265) “Soron of Ar!” I cried.

He smiled, removing the leather, replacing it in the saddle pack.

“You are the Slaver, Soron of Ar!” I said.

I recalled I had knelt before him, as a slave girl, and he had forced me to do

it twice, saying “Buy me, Master.” It had only been to me that he had said,

curtly, “No,” so offending me! And he had looked at me, afterward, and I had

tossed my head and looked angrily away, but when I had looked again, he was

still observing me, nude, standing on the straw of the slave cage, and I had

felt vulnerable and frightened.

And I remembered how, on the night before we left the pens of Ko-ro-ba, I had

dreamed of him and had awakened in terror. “Purchase me!” I had begged, in the

dream, “Purchase me!” “No,” he had said. Then he had captured me. I had

awakened, crying out.

Not I lay before him, in reality, fully captured, his, his helpless, bound

prisoner.

“When I first saw you,” said my captor, “I decided I would have you, when first

you knelt before me, and said, “Buy me, Master,” I resolved to own you. Then,

later, when I looked upon you and you tossed your head and angrily looked away,

I knew I would not rest until you were mine.” He smiled. “You will pay much for

that snub, my dear,” he said.

“What are you going to do with me?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “I shall keep you for a time, I suppose,” he said, “for my interest

and sport, and then, when I weary of you, dispose of you.”

“Sell me in Ar,” I begged.

“I think rather,” said he, “I will give you to a village of peasants.”

I remembered the peasants, with their switches and sticks. I trembled. I knew,

too, that such men often used girls, with the bosk, to pull plows, under whips.

At night, unclothed, when not being used, they were commonly chained in a straw

kennel with a dirt floor.

“I am worth gold,” I said. “Sell me in Ar!”

(pg. 266) “I will dispose of you as I please,” he said.

“Yes, Warrior,” I said.

I looked again up at him.

“Why did you not buy me from Targo?” I inquired.

He looked down at me. “I do not buy women,” he said.

“But you are a slaver!” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” I cried. “You are Soron of Ar, the Slaver,”

“Soron of Ar,” he said, “does not exist.”

I looked at him with horror.

“Who are you?” I asked.

I shall never forget the words he spoke, which so terrorized me.

“Lo Rask,” said he. “Rarius. Civitatis Trevis.”

“I am Rask,” he said, “of the caste of warriors, of the city of Treve.”

14
   
I Must Submit

(pg. 267) This was now my second day in the secret war camp of Rask of Treve.

When his tarn had dropped, wings beating, into the clearing among the tents,

they ringed with a palisade of sharpened logs, some twelve feet high, there had

been much shouting, much welcome.

Rask of Treve was popular with his men.

I saw, too, among the warriors, slave girls, collared, in brief rep-cloth

tunics. They, too, seemed pleased. Their eyes shone. They crowded near.

Laughing, raising his hands, Rask of Treve acknowledged the greetings of his

camp.

I could smell roast bosk. It was in the late afternoon.

He untied my ankles from the right-hand saddle ring. He then unbound the strap

that lashed my wrists to the left-hand saddle ring, but he did not untie my

wrists themselves. My hands, then, were still bound, before my body. He then

took me lightly in his arms and slid from the back of the tarn. He set me on my

feet at the side of the saddle. He did not throw me to my belly or put his foot

on the back of my neck, or force me to kneel.

I dared not look at him.

“A pretty one,” said a voice. It was a woman’s voice. She was incredibly

beautiful. She wore a collar. Her garment was white, and came to her ankles, in

classic folds. She did not wear the brief work tunic of the other girls. I

gathered she was high girl in the camp and that I, and the other girls, would

have to obey her. It is not uncommon, where several girls are concerned, to put

a woman over them. (pg. 268) Men do not care to direct us in our small tasks.

They only wish to see that they are done.

I hated men!

“Kneel,” said the woman.

I did so.

Some of the men murmured appreciatively.

“I see she is trained,” said the woman.

I reddened. I hated men! But my body, subconsciously, had been trained to be

attractive to them.

“She is a pleasure slave,” said Rask of Treve, “though of a poor sort. Her name

is El-in-or. Also, she is a sly girl, and a liar and a thief.”

I was furious.

The woman took my head in her hands, and turned it from side to side. “Her ears

are pierced,” she said, in irritation.

Some of the men laughed. I did not care for their laughter. It frightened me.

I gathered that, because my ears were pierced, they would feel free to do

anything they pleased with me.

“Men are beasts,” said the woman.

Rask of Treve threw back his great head, like the head of a larl, and laughed.

“And you, Handsome Rask,” said she, “are the greatest of the beasts.”

How bold she was! Would she not be beaten?

Rask laughed again, and wiped his face with the back of his right hand.

The woman was again looking at me. “So, Pretty One, you are a liar and a thief?”

she asked.

I put my head down, swiftly. I could not look her in the face.

“Regard me,” she said.

I lifted my head, frightened, and looked at her.

“Is it your intention to lie and steal in this camp?’ she asked.

I shook my head fiercely, negatively.

The men laughed.

(pg. 269) “If you do,” she said, “you will be punished, and promptly, and your

punishment will not be pleasant.”

“You will be beaten,” said one of the girls nearby, her eyes wide, “and put in

the slave box!”

This news, whatever it meant, did not much reassure me.

“No, Mistress,” I cried. “I will not lie and steal.”

“Good,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“She is dirty and she smells, “ said Rask of Treve. “Clean her and groom her.”

“Is it your intention to put her in your collar,” asked the woman.

There was a pause. I put my head down. “Yes,” I heard Rask of Treve say.

He turned away, and, with him, the others.

“Come with me to the tent of the women,” said the woman.

I arose and, wrists bound, followed her to the women’s tent.

* * *

The slave girl, with a touch of her finger, put perfume behind my ears.

It was not the morning of my second day in the war camp of Rask of Treve.

This was the day of my collaring.

I was not permitted cosmetics.

Kneeling within, slave girls preparing me, I looked through the tied-back

opening of the tent of the women. Outside, I could see men, and girls, passing

back and forth. The day was sunny and warm. There were soft breezes.

Today Elinor Brinton would be collared.

I had been coached in the simple collaring ceremony of Treve. Ena, the high

girl, who wore the garment of white, had not been much pleases that I did not

have a caste, and could not claim a familiar city as my place of origin.

Accordingly, it had been decided that I should identify myself by my actual

city, and by my barbarian title and name. In the ceremony then I should refer to

myself as (pg. 270) Miss Elinor Brinton of New York City. I smiled to myself. I

wondered how often, on this rude world, I would have the opportunity to so refer

to myself. The proud Miss Elinor Brinton, of New York City, seemed so far away

from me. And yet I knew she was not. I was she. Miss Elinor Brinton, incredibly,

uncomprehensibly, found herself kneeling in a barbarian tent, on a distant

world, myself, being prepared for her collaring. The fact that New York City was

of Earth, and that Treve was of Gor, would not even enter into the ceremony.

Scarcely anything would enter into the ceremony save that I was female and he

was male, and that I would wear his collar.

Yesterday, by slave girls, under the direction of Ena, who was high girl, I had

been washed and combed, and then fed. The food had been good, bread and bosk

meat, roasted, and cheese, and larma fruit. I, famished from my trials in the

wilderness, fed well. I had even been given a swallow of Ka-la-na wine, which

exquisite beverage I had not tasted since the time of my capture, long ago, by

Verna outside of Targo’s compound.

I had been frightened, but I had been well trained. I had not dared to speak.

After I had been washed and combed, and fed, Ena had said to me, “You have the

freedom of the camp, if you wish.”

I had been startled. I had expected to be close-chained. She seemed amused,

regarding my astonishment.

“You will not escape,” she smiled.

“No, Mistress,” I said.

Then I looked down. I did not wish to leave the women’s tent.

Ena went to a chest, opened it, and drew forth a folded piece of striped

rep-cloth, a rectangle some two and a half by four feet.

“Stand,” she said.

I did so.

“Lift your arms,” she said.

I did so, and to my pleasure, she wrapped the piece of cloth about me, snugly,

and fastened it with a pin behind (pg. 271) my right shoulder blade. She then

fastened it again, with anther pin, behind my right hip.

“Lower your arms,” she said.

I did so, and stood straight before her.

“You are pretty,” she said. “”Now run along and see the camp.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” I cried, and turned, and sped from the tent.

I wandered about the camp. It was a war camp, lying in a remote, hilly area,

covered with trees. I supposed it to be somewhere in the realm of Ar, perhaps to

its northeast, among the foothills of the Voltai range. It was a typical Gorean

war camp, though small. It had its compound where tarns were hobbled, and its

cooking and washing sheds. There were many warriors about, perhaps a hundred or

more, the men of Rask of Treve, and perhaps a hundred or more, lovely ones, in

brief work tunics, busying themselves with their tasks, cooking, cleaning

leather, polishing shields. Treve, I knew, was, nominally, at war with several

cities. Strife is common among Gorean cities, each tending to be belligerent and

suspicious of others. Rask of Treve, in his way, as other raiders of Treve,

carried the war to the enemy. Earlier, I knew, he had despoiled the fields and

attacked the caravans of Ko-ro-ba. He was now in the realm of Ar. He was a bold

tarnsman indeed. I expected Marlenus of Ar, its Ubar, said to be the Ubar of

Ubars, would give much to know the location of this small, palisaded camp. I

enjoyed the smells of the camp, and its sounds. I watched two warriors

practicing with their swift, short blades on a square of sand. The ringing of

the metal excited and frightened me, the swiftness and cruelty of it. How brave