Authors: John Norman
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Fantasy, #Adventure, #Thrillers
I looked down at her. I knew then that I had always wanted Beverly Henderson as my slave. From the first instant I had seen her I had wanted her as my slave!
"Master," she whimpered. "Master!"
Then I stood before her with my fists clenched and threw back my head and wanted to howl with misery. Surely she must be a free woman! She must be free! She was from Earth! But could everything that my blood, my instincts and impulses told me be wrong? But it must be, else a civilization structured upon, and predicated upon, pathologies must disintegrate and perish. But could there not be a civilization congenial to the truths of the blood, to the nature of human beings. Is man so foolish, so naive and habit-bound,' so fundamentally irrational, so ready to believe anything that he might be taught, no matter how absurd, that he cannot understand that torture cannot be truth. The test for truth, surely, must not be pain, misery and frustration, but happiness and joy.
"Master," she whimpered.
But surely she must be free!
But what if she were a true slave, as she had indicated?
But she could not be a true slave. She was from Earth!
But what if, even though she were from Earth, she were a true slave, as in accord with her own avowals? Could such a thing, she from Earth, be possible, even thinkable?
I scarcely dared even consider this possibility, fort then she, a slave, could be mine!
I determined, cruelly, to make test of the matter.
I untied her hands. I waited then for her to shrink back in terror, to, feeling her way, try to retreat to the far wall, per, haps cowering there, at my mercy.
But her head was at my feet. I felt her lips kissing my feet. Beverly Henderson was at my feet! "Forgive me, Master," she said, "if I have displeased you." She was then holding my legs, putting her cheek against them, and kissing them. "Forgive your slave," she said, "and let your slave please you."
I then seized her by the arms and jerked her to her feet. She was startled. Savagely I jerked her small hands behind her back and, with the yellow cord, tied them there, tightly. "Master?" she asked, frightened. I snapped my fingers. She knelt. I snapped my fingers again. She stood. I then threw her, bodily, onto the deep furs on the surface of the couch. She lay there, on her side. I picked up the whip and shook out its cods. She heard the sound, and moaned. I approached her. She was tense, frightened. She, in the darkness of the blindfold, could see nothing. She shuddered in fear as I touched the whip lightly to her body, moving it. upon her right calf. She gasped. Then I moved the whip about on her body, slowly, curiously, observing her responses. She was tense, and frightened. "Please do not whip me, Master," she said. I put the fiat, leather coils of the whip then to her mouth. She, lying on her side, fervently, frightened, kissed them, again and again. "Please do not whip me, Master," she begged.
I put the whip on the couch, to one side, where I might have it at hand, to lash her if she were not totally pleasing.
I then had her, and as the bound slave she was.
She cried out, startled, taken with such force. I looked down at her, gripped in my arms. I dragged her from the couch and threw her then on the chains and furs at its foot. In my desire, and in my eagerness, and in my fury and joy, I had had the wench on the surface of the great couch itself. But she now lay bound at the foot of the couch, in the shadow of the slave ring, trembling, in a more fit place for a slave such as she. I then again took her. She was gasping, and shuddering. It is sometimes months before a girl is permitted, commanded, to ascend her master's couch. Even then she commonly enters it not as a free person, directly, but as a slave, from the lower left, or bottom, after first kneeling and kissing its furs. She cried out, shuddering in my arms, suddenly had again. "Oh, Master," she sobbed, "Master!" My hands were again hard on her arms. I, kneeling then, pulled her, too, to her knees. Then I shook her and threw her to her side, on the furs and chains, against the bottom of the couch. She was sobbing, and gasping. She pulled against the cord loops on her wrists. There were marks, from my hands, on her arms. "Please, Master," she sobbed. She rose, terrified, to her knees, and then to her feet, trying to escape. She stumbled, in the blindfold, against the edge of the couch, crying out, bruising herself. She then stumbled from the couch, frightened, lost her footing and, crying out, turning, fell into the tub. She tried to scramble, weeping, to her feet, but I was on her in an instant. I forced her to her knees in the water and then, holding her by the hair, not permitting her to leave her knees, I forced her head back until her dark hair, beneath where I had it knotted in my hand, was loose, floating in the water, and the bow of her exquisite slave beauty was well exposed to me. I regarded her for a time, so held. "Please, Master," she wept, "be gentle with me." Angrily then, my hand still in her hair, I jerked her head forward and, still keeping her on her knees, crouching over her, I thrust her face beneath the water. I held it there for a time, and then pulled it up. Sputtering, half blinded by the water, gasping, she wept, "Please, Master, forgive me! I did not mean to displease you!”
I then flung her on her back in the water and, she struggling, gasping, trying to keep her head above water, again had her. Then I thrust her up, half sitting, half lying, against the edge of the tub. She turned her head toward, me, gasping. The blindfold was sopped, but secure. Her hair and body were soaked and wet. The cord loops, soaked, were still tight on her small wrists. Her body, wet, was interesting to touch. Then I again had her.
"Master," she sobbed.
I rose to my feet and stepped from the tub. I walked slowly, shuddering, about the room. Then I was calm. I looked back at her. She was half lying, half kneeling, against the side of the tub. I went to her and took her by, the collar and pulled her to her feet, and from the tub, and to the foot of the couch, where I put her to her knees. Crouching near her I toweled dry the steel loop on her throat. It, like her, belonged to Policrates. I then, gently, dried her hair, and wrapped a towel about it. Also, because I intended to put her in the ankle ring, I dried her left ankle. I did not dry her beyond those things, however, what was necessary to protect the collar and steel of Policrates. I then locked her left ankle in the ankle ring, thus fastening her, by a length of chain, to the foot of my couch. Had she been my own girl I probably would have dried her completely. It is pleasant, as one may well imagine, to towel one's slave.
"Master," she wept. "Master."
I made her lie down there, at the foot of the great couch. I then, satisfied, and fulfilled as I would not have believed possible, entered upon the great couch and lay wearily upon its furs.
"Master," she sobbed.
I was soon asleep.
I dreamed that Beverly Henderson was chained naked at my slave ring.
Then I awakened. I left the couch and walked about it, to its foot.
Beverly Henderson was chained there, naked, at my slave ring.
I kicked her, softly, with the side of my foot.
She was not asleep.
She rose to her knees, and put her head down, humbly.
It was near dawn. Gray light entered the room. Her wrists were still tied behind her. I had not released them. "It must be near morning, Master," she said. She could not be certain. She wore the blindfold.
I took her by the upper arms and lifted her to her feet. The towel, in the night, had come loose from her hair. I touched her hair. It was still damp.
I lifted her in my arms, gently, and placed her on the furs of the couch.
"Thank you, Master," she said, "for permitting me the honor of your couch."
I said nothing.
"I gather that it must now be near morning," she said, "though I cannot know that. I gather, too, that Master is now refreshed. I have been lifted and placed upon his couch. Doubtless I am now to please him, his slave."
I said nothing.
"Master well brutalized me last night," she said. "He taught me well that I am a slave. I shall endeavor to please him well."
I said nothing.
"But how can I please him?" she asked. "I am bound!"
I did not, of course, respond to her.
"Ah, yes!" she said. "I am an Earth girl! Master is still curious about Earth girls! He wants to know if we know how to give pleasures to Masters."
So saying, attentively and lasciviously, as a bound slave she addressed herself to my pleasures.
She did well.
When she had finished, and I had rested, I threw her to her stomach and unbound her hands. Swiftly then, and eagerly, feeling for me, she knelt beside me. "I will show you now, Master," she said, "what truly an Earth girl can do!"
I lay there then and wondered if ever other men of Earth had experienced such pleasures, if ever they had had such pleasures from their females. Perhaps only, I thought, if their females, like Miss Henderson, were their slaves.
"It is thus," whispered Miss Henderson to me, "that we serve our Gorean masters!”
I said nothing.
"Do you now wonder," she laughed softly, holding me, quietly snuggling against me, "why it is that we are sought in the slave markets, why it is that we bring high prices?"
Though I did not respond to her her services had come as a revelation to me. I had not even suspected that Earth women were capable of such marvels. Collared, land under discipline, what incredible treasures they were! They were joys, and priceless! Men, I knew, would kill to possess such women. Petty, arrogant, smug, cold, proud, inert, frustrated, the women of Earth trod the sands of their native world, the men of Earth, I thought, did not begin to suspect the gold into which such pain and dross could be transmuted, how long, I wondered, before such creatures were brought naked to their knees before masters.
"How I despise the men of Earth," said the girl to me. "How I love my Gorean Master!"
I then began, for the first time, to truly, attentively caress her.
"You are going to make me yield, aren't you?" sloe gasped. I then continued, patiently, carefully, to touch her. She then began to tremble, and sometimes tried to pull away from me, and at other times to press against me. I controlled her, sometimes letting her do as she wished, and at other times not permitting it. She lay on her back, her lips parted. She began to moan, the whimpers of a collared slave girl. I felt her. She was hot and open, gaping, saturated with the lubricating oils of her readiness. I smiled to myself. The slut was a hot slave. I was pleased with Miss Henderson. "I'm yours, Master," she whispered. "Please have me." I then took her, and she cried out with the unmistakable, rapturous submission of the surrendered slave girl. She then grasped me tightly, fearing that I would leave her. When she understood that I was content to hold her, she lay warmly in my arms, sometimes kissing me. "You have conquered me, Master," she said, "as you have doubtless conquered many other girls before me."
I said nothing.
"I am owned," she said. "That pleases me"
I began to kiss her about the neck and throat. She put her head back, laughing. "I am an Earth girl," she said. "'Do you like us?"
I continued to kiss her.
"Are we not juicy puddings?" she laughed. "Is it not clear now why men will buy us?"
She clutched me to her, and kissed me. "Would you not like to buy one of us?" she said.
I held her from me.
"Buy me, Master," she said, suddenly. "Buy me!"
I did not let her touch me, though she strained toward me, the pretty slut, the clever slut, to press her beauty, piteously, entreatingly, against me.
"I have never been in the arms of a man such as you," she said. "I love you! I want to be your slave!”
I did not speak.
"Put me beneath your whip," she said. "Put me in your chains. Lock your collar upon my throat! Own me!"
I regarded her.
"Please buy me," she begged. "Please own me! I will try to be a good slave to you!”
I did not permit her to touch me.
Then she laughed, a tear running from beneath the blindfold. "How brazen we Earth girls are," she laughed, "how shameless, that we would beg to be purchased! How you must despise us, such lowly, desperate slaves!"
I then entered Miss Henderson and she gasped, clutching me.
I smiled. It was not unusual for a slave girl, fervently, to desire to be purchased by a given man, one before whom she knows she could kneel as a superb slave. In such a case it is natural for her to present herself as piteously and excitingly before him as possible, in order that his interest might be aroused. She, obviously, has nothing to say about her purchase. The choice is his, fully. It is he who is the buyer. This sort of thing is not unusual in slave markets, particularly on open platforms. I have seen, many times, a girl attempting to interest a given man, singled out, in the crowd, in buying her. And, not unoften, such a fellow will bid upon her, knowing well the wonders which she, purchased from her owner, is offering him. Still, in the end, it is his which is the choice. She can do no more than present herself, displaying her owner's merchandise as attractively as she can. It is he who will buy or not. He is the master.
"I love my Gorean master," breathed the girl. "Buy Beverly, please!"