Savages of Gor (32 page)

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered. "I beg to be bound."

"Kneel," I told her, "quickly."

Swiftly then did she kneel, and looked at me, frightened.

"I have changed my mind," she said.

"Do not break position," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I went to my saddlebags, with the kaiila saddle, and withdrew two fairly short lengths of soft, pliant, braided black leather, each about twenty-five inches in length.

I pulled back her right wrist a bit and tied it to her right ankle. I left her about six or seven inches of slack between wrist and ankle. "This is a common open-legged tie," I said. "It is not good for general security, but it is a good, and familiar, slave tie." I then fastened her left wrist to her left ankle, as I had done with her right wrist and-ankle. "When finished with you," I said', "I might simply bind your wrists behind you and tie your ankles together. That is a familiar and effective security tie. If you had not been sufficiently pleasing I might pull up your bound ankles and tie them to your wrists. Your neck, of course, might always be tied to a stake, or bound to a tree."

I then stood up and stepped back, to observe my handiwork. "An advantage of this tie," I said, "is that a girt may kneel in it comfortably for hours, perhaps beside a master's chair, while he works, and is not yet ready for her."

She pulled a little, almost surreptitiously, at the leather on her wrists, leading back to her ankles.

"Is this all?" she asked, timidly.

"I see that there are potentialities of this tie which, as yet, you have not discerned," I said.

I then took her by the hair and threw her forward on the blankets, on her belly.

"Struggle," I told her.

She did so, helplessly. Then she ceased her struggles.

"An interesting perspective on a woman," I said. "Too, bound in this position she is seldom in doubt as to the fact that she is a slave. Too, in time, it can be quite painful." She groaned, and I, mercifully, thrust her to her side. She looked up at me, frightened. "Whereas this tie," I said, "is not good for general security, it is quite adequate for specific security, namely, security in a specific situation, in this case, in the presence of the master or a keeper. For example, under observation, you cannot very well employ your right hand in the attempt to undo the knot on your left ankle. If the tie, of course, is accomplished with chains, then it is also adequate for a general security, an aesthetic and delicious general security, a chain neck leash being added, naturally, to restrict movement." I then put her on her back. Her knees were drawn up and her hands held helplessly at her sides. "Now," I said, "I think you can see one of the main virtues of this, tie. The woman is quite helpless, absolutely, and there is not the least impedance to the master's approach."

She seemed to shrink back in the bonds.

''Please, untie me," she said.

I thrust apart her knees.

"Oh!" she said.

I held her knees apart, not permitting her to close them.

"I do not want to be tied like this!" she cried. "I did not know it would be like this. I am too helpless! Please, untie me! Free me! Loosen my bonds! Do not keep me tied like this! No! Please!"

I regarded her.

She looked at me in fear. She squirmed, helplessly.

"What do you know of me?" I asked her.

"Nothing," she said, "only that you are my master."

"What might I do to you?" I asked.

"Anything," she said.

I withdrew my hands, permitting her to close her knees, which she did, immediately, clenching them fearfully together.

"You have tied me like a pig," she said.

"The pig," I said, "is not a Gorean animal. To be sure, you are trussed rather like a she-tarsk."

"You have tied me, then," she said, "like a she-tarsk!"

"Do not flatter yourself," I said, "that you enjoy a status as high as either that of the pig or she-tarsk. Your status is lower than that of either. It is that of the female slave."

"You have bound me, then," she said, "as a slave!"

"Now you speak the truth," I informed her.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"Whatever I wish," I said.

She moaned. She pulled weakly at her wrist tethers, fastening her wrists to her ankles.

"Do you begin to sense now," I asked, "what it might for a woman to be bound by a man?"

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Can you escape?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"Are you powerless?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said. "I am powerless, totally."

"What will be done to you?" I asked.

"I do not know!'' she wept. "I am helpless. I am a slave. I am at your mercy. It is you who will decide what is to be done with me."

"Perhaps I will whip you, lashing you with my belt," I said. "Perhaps I will kick you, again and again. convincing you of your worthlessness. Perhaps I shall kneel across your body, slapping you, methodically, again and again, until you beg for mercy. Perhaps I shall merely, for my amusement, beat you senseless."

"Please, Master, no," she said.

"Perhaps it shall be the quirt," I said. "Perhaps I shall us the quirt on you, lengthily, as on a recalcitrant she-kaiila."

"No, Master," she said. "Please, no, Master!''

"Are you recalcitrant?" I asked.

"I am not recalcitrant," she said. "I am docile, and obedient. I am ready to please you, and I desire to please you."

"Perhaps I will butcher you," I said. "Perhaps I will take you.

She looked at me, in horror.

"Would you prefer to be butchered or taken?" I asked.

'Taken, Master," she said. "I beg to be taken."

"The taking of a free woman," I asked, "in which, to some extent, her dignity, pride and status are respected, or the taking of a slave?"

"I am a slave, Master," she said. "I beg that of a slave."

I looked at her knees, clenched closely together. "Spread your knees apart, widely," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Now beg," I told her.

"I beg," she said.

In moments it was necessary to thrust her hair, balled and wadded, into her mouth, and I put my hand, too, over her mouth. Her eyes were wild. She kicked wildly at the pliant, braided black leather, again and again. Then, mercifully, I unbound her limbs and I let her straighten her trembling in the blankets. With one finger I pulled the wet hair from her mouth. She was gasping, and shuddering. I held her closely for a few minutes that she might, while thus warmed and sheltered, make some adjustment to this new dimension, which she had discovered in her being.

"What was it?" she whispered.

"It was a small one," I reassured her.

"What was it?" she whispered.

"It was the first, I think, of your slave orgasms," I said. I then rose from her side and threw her the tiny slave tunic. "Put it on," I said. She did so, and I then lifted her gently in my arms and carried her to the chain. I put her down there, on her side, softly, in the grass. When I lifted the opened collar to place it about her throat, she put her hands on my wrists, and softly kissed my hands. She looked at me, her eyes wondrous, and soft.

"I did not know it could be like that," she said.

"It was only a small thing," I said.

"There could be more?" she asked.

"You have not yet begun to learn what it can be, to be a slave," I said.

She looked at me, frightened.

I then snapped the collar about her throat.

"Do you know, ultimately," I asked, "Who will prove to be your one best trainer?"

"No, Master," she said.

"You, yourself," I said, "the girl, herself, eager to please, imaginative and intelligent, monitoring her own performances and feelings, striving lovingly to improve and refine them. You yourself will be largely responsible for making yourself the superb slave you will become."

"Master?" she asked.

"The collar," I said, touching it, "is put on from without, but what it encircles, the slave, comes from within."

"Master?" she asked.

Slavery," I told her, "true slavery, comes from within, and you, my lovely little red-haired beast, I assure you, as was evidenced by your behavior and performances this night, are a true slave. Do not fight your slavery. Allow it freely and spontaneously, candidly, sweetly and untrammeled, to manifest itself. It is what you are."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It, too," I said, "will save you many bouts with the lash."

"Yes, Master," she said.

I then turned about and left her, on the chain. "Master!" she called, but I did not turn back. She would stay there, on the coffle, where I bad put her. She was only a slave.

I returned to my blankets and lay down again, to sleep for a few Ehn before the camp began to stir.

Nothing of importance had transpired. I had merely done a favor for Grunt, my friend, opening a slimly bodied, red-haired girl for him, one of his slaves.

To be sure, she was pretty, and first on the coffle.

14
   
It is a Good Trading; Pimples; I Learn Something of the Waniyanpi; Corn Stalks; Sign; Grunt and I Will Proceed East

The red-haired girl cried out in pain and fear, struck from her knees back in the grass by the plump, scornful woman of the red savages, a sturdy-legged matron of the Dust Legs. She looked up at her in terror. Slave girls know that they have most to fear from free women.

"Wowiyutanye!" hissed the Dust-Leg woman at the frightened girl lying on her side in the grass before her.

"Yes, Mistress," said the girl in Gorean, uncomprehendingly.

The men at the trading point scarcely paid them any attention.

I sat nearby, a blanket spread out before me, on which I had spread out various of the trade goods, mostly mirrors, dyes and beads this afternoon, which I had brought into the Barrens.

The Dust-Leg woman threw the girl to her right side in the grass and pulled up the tunic on her left thigh. The girl, terrified, did not resist. "Inahan!" called the Dust-Leg woman to the others about, pointing to the brand on the girl's thigh. "Guyapi!"

"Ho," said one of the men, agreeably. "Inahan," agreed another.

"Winyela!" announced the woman.

"Inahan," said more than one man.

"Cesli!" said the woman scornfully to the girl.

"Please do not hurt me, Mistress," said the girl, in Gorean.

"Ahtudan!" cried the woman at her, angrily, and then she spat upon her.

"Yes, Mistress," said the red-haired girl. "Yes, Mistress!" She then pulled up her legs and looked down, into the grass.

The Dust-Leg woman turned away from her and came over to where I sat behind the blanket. She beamed at me. The Dust Legs, on the whole, are an affable, openhearted and generous people. They tend to be friendly and outgoing.

"Hou," said the woman to me, kneeling before the blanket.

"Hou," said I to her.

It is difficult not to like them. Most trading is done with them. They tend to be the intermediaries and diplomats of the western Barrens.

The woman opened a rectangular hide envelope, a parfleche, slung on a strap over her shoulder. In it were various samples of beadwork and some small skins. She put some of these things on her edge of the blanket.

"Hopa," I said, admiringly. "Hopa."

She beamed, her teeth strong and white in her broad, reddish-brown face.

She pointed to a small mirror, with a red-metal rim. I handed it to her.

I glanced back. Behind us and to the side the red-haired girl, timidly, frightened, had resumed a kneeling position. I do not think that she had personally offended the Dust-Leg woman. I think it was rather that the Dust-Leg woman simply did not entertain any great affection for white female slaves. Many women of the red savages, in spite of the wishes of their men, do not approve of such soft, curvaceous, desirable trade goods being brought into the Barrens.

The Dust-Leg woman carefully examined the small mirror. I looked beyond her, to a few yards away; where several kailla of the visiting Dust-Legs, were tethered. There, with the animals, a two-legged one, and lovely legs they were indeed, doubtless by the paws of her master's beast. She wore a brief garment of fringed, tanned skin, rent and stained, doubtless a castoff from some free woman's shirtdress, shortened to slave length. She was wet with sweat and dark with dust. Her hair, which was dark, was wet, and tangled and matted. Her legs, bloodied and muchly scratched, were black with dust and sweat. Here and there one could see where the trickle of perspiration had run through the dust. On her thighs where she had rubbed her hands the dust was streaked in wet smears. She had been run beside her master's kaiila and apparently not slowly.