Fighting Slave of Gor

27 I SEE TO IT THAT THE LADY FLORENCE PERFORMS FOR ME

"Clean it," I told her.

"I am doing so," she said, angrily. She was facing away from me, on her knees, a large brush grasped in her two hands, a bucket of water at her side.

"Do you think they have gone?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "We waited sufficiently. Such men, too, must make their escape. They must not linger too long in the vicinity of their brigandage."

"Then we are alone, absolutely alone," she said, "on my estates."

"On the remains of your estates," I said. "The house, and many of the buildings, were burned."

She sobbed.

"Continue your work," I told her.

"Yes, Jason," she said.

I watched her.

"You are a clever man, Jason," she said. "I had thought we would have been captured. Yet you saved us."

"No," she had cried, "it is madness. No!" But I had thrown her to her side on the sand of the incubation shed and freed her wrists from before her body. I had then turned her to her belly and rebound her wrists behind her back and, pulling up her ankles and crossing them, lashed them to her wrists. I had then taken her by the arms and thrown her, in a kneeling position, onto the blackened sticks and gray ashes of the flame ditch. I had then kicked sand from the sides of the ditch about her. I jerked her head back as she cried out in misery. I kicked and scooped sand about her until only her eyes, and her nose and mouth, were exposed. I had then heard men pounding at the trap door leading into the. incubation shed. I had flung shut its bolt.

"Open this door!" I heard.

I hurried across the shed and kicked open the outer door to the shed. I scuffed away my tracks back to the flame ditch. I heard pounding at the trap door, men straining beneath it. I looked down at the Lady Florence and saw her terrified eyes. Then I hurled a tharlarion blanket over her. Then I kicked and dug into the sand near her and, as the trap door splintered up, drew the tharlarion blanket over my head.

My left hand clutched her hair, tightly. If she moved so much as a muscle I would know it, and she, too, would know that I would know it. The short sword was grasped in my right hand. The point of it, ever so slightly, was entered into her back. We heard several men come up the ramp through the trap door. We heard them talking, casting about.

"This way," had said one of them, and they had exited through the outer door.

We had remained hidden in the sand for several Ahn, and probably long after the brigands had departed. About the seventeenth Ahn I had eased myself from the sand and reconnoitered. The brigands, indeed, had taken their departure, bringing their tarns to flight, their loot sacks bulging and, tied helplessly at their saddle rings, lovely, naked slaves. I had drawn the Lady Florence from the sand.

"Release me," she had demanded but then had gasped, lying on her back, the point of my sword thrust into her belly. "Forgive me, Jason," she begged.

"Be silent now," I said, "or I will fill your mouth with sand."

"Yes, Jason," she had whispered.

I had then left her on her back, her knees drawn up, tied, in the incubation shed, while I had investigated certain buildings and sheds, gathering such supplies as I thought I might wish.

"Does it amuse you, Jason," she asked, "that I am cleaning your stall?"

"Are you finished?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. She was beautiful, on her knees, in the light of the small lantern, it hanging from an outjutting perpendicular fastened to one of the stall posts.

"Empty the water," I said. "Rinse and dry the bucket. Rinse the brush. Then put these articles back where you found them."

I watched her as she did these things. In a few moments she stood again before me. "I have done as you ordered," she said.

"Put now fresh, clean straw in the stall," I said.

I watched her.

Then she was standing in the stall, the clean, fresh straw to her knees.

"I have done as you have ordered," she said. "What do you want of me now?"

"I was successful many times in the bouts," I said.

"That is known to me, Jason," she said.

"Put it on," I told her, throw the rag against her flesh. She caught it, against her body, and took it in her hands, looking at it in disbelief. I had brought it from one of the supply sheds.

"Never!" she whispered intensely. "I am a free woman!"

I shook out the coils of the slave whip.

"No!" she said. Then, swiftly, she drew over her head and body the brief Ta-Teera. She backed away from me, toward the back of the stall. She tried to pull down the hem of the garment, frightened. It was cut at the sides. Then, frightened, she stood facing me, her back about a foot from the back of the stall.

"Why have you done this to me?" she asked.

The Lady Florence, my former mistress, wore now the rag of a stable slut.

"How do you like The garment?" I asked.

"Please give me something to wear." she begged.

"You have something to wear," I pointed out.

She moaned.

"How does the garment make you feel?" I asked.

"Please, Jason," she begged.

"Feel it on your body," I told her, "its texture, its meaning, how it touches you."

"Jason," she protested.

"Close your eyes," I told her. "Pay close attention to your sensations, to the fabric, its brevity, its snugness, to the feel of it on your body, to the feel, too, of where it is not on your body, to what, too, it proclaims about the woman who wears it."

She shuddered, her eyes closed. "Would you have whipped me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

She shuddered, and opened her eyes.

"How does such a garment make you feel?" I asked.

"It is the first time I have ever worn such a garment," she whispered.

"How does it make you feel?" I asked.

"Vulnerable!" she said. "Helpless!"

"And?" I asked.

"Do not make me speak," she begged.

"Speak," I said.

Her voice became a whisper. "And warm, and receptive," she said.

I smiled. That is a common feature of many female slave garments, most of which are brief and open at the bottom. It has been discovered that a woman who has been placed in such a garment can usually be brought to a succession of orgasms much more quickly than one who has been more traditionally clothed. Perhaps that is why masters often put their slave girls in such garments. Two other features of such garments, of course, are that they teach the woman who wears them that she is a slave and that they expose her beauty brazenly and deliciously to the vision of masters.

"What are you doing to do with me, Jason?" she asked. "No!" she wept. "Not that! Please, no!"

"I won many bouts for which I was not adequately rewarded," I said.

"Do not put the collar on me," she begged. "Please, no!"

She was backed against the rear of the stall. I stood quite close to her. I encircled her neck with the collar, but I did not yet close it.

"I am sorry!" she wept. "Please, Jason, do not close the collar!"

"Do you remember Telitsia?" I asked.

"Do not close the collar," she begged.

"Do you remember Telitsia?" I asked.

"Yes, Jason," she said.

"She pleased me," I said. "You sold her."

"No!" she wept, as the collar snapped shut about her throat. Then I threw her to my feet. Instantly I crouched beside her and, with the chain and ring in the stall, snapping the chain lock about the ring on her collar, fastened her in place. I then stood up. She, on her knees, tears in her eyes, trembling, her small hands on the chain depending now from her collar. looked up at me. "I am the Lady Florence," she said, disbelievingly. "You have chained me at your feet as a stable slut."

"I won many bouts for which I was not adequately rewarded," I said. "Too, I was fond of Telitsia, whom you sold."

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

"I am going to see that you yourself serve me well the pleasures which you denied me from others."

"You are going to make me stand proxy for the services of Telitsia and others?" she asked.

"Precisely," I told her.

"I cannot do that," she said. "I am free."

I crouched then beside her and thrust her back in the straw. I thrust the scrap of a slave rag she wore up over her hips. "I would have to serve you as a slave," she said, horrified.

"You will," I told her, "and many times."

She lay in my arms.

"You have treated me these many times as a slave," she chided.

"Yes," I said.

"Touch me again," she begged.

"As a free woman?" I asked.

"No," she said, with her left hand moving the chain on her collar, which lay partly across her body, to her left, "as a slave."

"Do you beg it?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes, what?" I asked.

"Yes-Master," she said.

"Master," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

"What time do you think it is?" she asked.

"I think it must be about the second Ahn," I said. The lantern had burned out. We were in the darkness.

"Let your girl please you again," she begged. "Oh!" she cried, delighted.

"Very well," I said. Then suddenly I seized her.

"Aiii!" she suddenly cried.

"So soon?" I marveled. She shuddered in my arms. Then I realized she had been lying heated at my side, awaiting my least touch.

"Ho, there!" I heard. "Do not move!"

We sprang apart.

"Do not move!" said the voice. A lantern, unshuttered, was lifted. We were in the pool of its light, lying in the straw. The girl gasped, and drew her legs up, tightly, under her. "A pretty one," said a voice. I tensed. "Do not move," warned another voice. I could see, dimly, that there were some five men a few feet from us. Three held drawn crossbows. The quarrels were trained on me.

"Are you a brigand?" asked a voice.

"No," I said. "You then, too," I asked, "are not brigands?"

"Call Miles," said a voice. One of the men left the barn. When he left, through the large door, I could see that it was still dark out. I saw the light of the Gorean moons on the earth outside. The stars were still bright in the sky.

"You, then, are not brigands?" I asked.

"No," said the man.

"Are you guardsmen then?" I asked. I did not think they were guardsmen. Too, I did not think guardsmen would be likely to arrive before morning. Too, many estates in the area may have been struck by the brigands.

"No," said the man.

A tall figure then entered the barn. With him there were some five men, two with lanterns. One of the men was he who had gone to fetch another man, he called Miles. This Miles, I assumed, was the tall man. He was, too, I assumed, their leader.

"These are the only two upon the estate," said one of the men. "Even the tharlarion were turned loose and scattered"

"The brigands were cruel, and thorough," said another.

Two more lanterns were lifted, and unshuttered, well exposing the girl and me in the straw. I blinked against the light. I could not well see the features of the tall man. He carried a drawn sword in one hand, and, in the other, his left, a dangling set of light slave chains, suitable for a female.

"Who are you?" asked the man.

"I am Jason," I said.

"The fighting slave?" he asked.

"I was freed," I said.

The tall man's gaze wandered to the girl beside me, the chain depending from her collar. His gaze lingered upon her examining her beauty casually. She shrank back. "Does she not know she is in the presence of free men?" he asked.

"Position, Slut!" I snapped to the girl.

Swiftly the Lady Florence, frightened, knelt in the straw. She knelt back on her heels, her back straight, her head up, her hands on her thighs. She knelt in the position of the house slave. I looked at her sternly. Swiftly she spread her knees. She knelt now in the position of the pleasure slave, the slave of interest to men.

"Lift your chin, Jason," said the man. "Bring a lantern closer," he said, to one of his fellows.

I did as he commanded.

"Indeed," said the man. "Your throat no longer wears a collar."

"The Mistress freed me," I said, "even before the brigands departed from the estates."

"I wonder if that is true," said the man.

"It is," I said. "Had I been a slave, interested in flight, surely I would not have dallied upon the estates."

"It is true," said one of the men. "He is known here, and in this area."

"You fought well today, Jason," said the man. "You cost me many tarsk disks."

"You are Miles of Vonda, are you not?" I asked.

"Yes," said the man.

"He cost me twenty copper tarsks," said another man.

"And me fifteen," said another.

"It was a splendid fight," said another man, admiringly.

"Yes," agreed another.

"Thank you," I said. I now felt somewhat relieved. I did not feel these men were motivated by any particularly hostile intent. If I watched my step, I did not think I truly had anything to fear from them.

"Why are you here?" asked the girl.

"Your slave needs discipline," said Miles of Vonda.

I turned about and took the startled girl by the chain at her collar. Swiftly I lashed her face, back and forth, striking her twice, first with the palm of my hand, and then with the back of it. Then I threw her to her side in the straw. She looked up at me in disbelief, horrified. There was blood at her mouth. I do not think she had ever been struck by a man before. Indeed, as a Gorean free woman, it is possible that she had never been struck, truly and seriously, by anyone before.

"Position," I told her.

Then she struggled to her knees and knelt again in the position of the pleasure slave, that of a woman who is of interest to men.

"Why are you here?" I asked Miles of Vonda.

He smiled. "It is of no concern of yours," he said. "Where is she who was your Mistress?"

"I do not know," I said. The girl trembled. Miles of Vonda, of course, would not be likely to recognize her, for, hitherto, he would have seen her only in the robes of a free woman and heavily and modestly veiled. I did not think him likely to identify the lofty Lady Florence, a rich, high-born woman of Vonda, with the scantily-clad, exciting, punished girl who knelt chained as a slut beside me.

"Did she escape?" he asked.

"I think she escaped the brigands," I said.

"Where is she now?" he asked.

"Perhaps safe in Vonda, or in its vicinity," I said. "Why do you seek her?".

"These are hard times," said Miles of Vonda. "There is a breakdown of law and order."

"I see," I said. "But why, in such times, would you be searching for she who was once my Mistress?"

"Who knows what could happen to a woman in such times?" he asked. He lifted the light slave chains before me. They rustled in the palm of his hand.

"I see," I said.

"She is not here," said Miles of Vonda to his men. "We shall search elsewhere, in the vicinity, in the brush near the roads leading to Vonda." He turned again to face me. "Enjoy your slut, Jason," said he. He smiled. "You have well earned her."

"Thank you," said I, "Miles of Vonda."

The men then departed from the barn. I took the back of the girl's neck, over the collar, in one hand, and held my other hand over her mouth, that she might not speak until I was sure the men had gone. Finally, after several Elm, I removed my hands from the back of her neck and mouth.

"Did you see that?" she whispered. "He was looking for me, and he was carrying slave chains."

"Yes," I said. I smiled. Miles of Vonda had been one of several unsuccessful suitors for the hand of the proud Lady Florence of Vonda. He had not been successful in winning her to be his in Free Companionship, nor had his many competitors. The Lady Florence had held herself to be too good for men. Now, perhaps he reasoned, if she could not be enticed to kneel across from him at his table in the honorable resplendent robes of free companionship she might at least, perhaps, more appropriately, crawl to him naked, on her belly, under the whip, across the tiles of his slave quarters.

She looked at me, frightened.

"On your back, slut," I told her.

She lay back in the straw, the chain on her throat. She brushed it to one side with her hand.

"You struck me," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"I was never struck before," she said. "It is a strange feeling, to have been struck by a man."

I looked down at her.

"I must obey you, mustn't I?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you going to strike me again?" she asked.

"If it pleases me," I said.

"Do not strike me again," she said. "Kiss and caress me instead."

"I will do either, or both, as it might please me," I said.

"Then I am, in your arms, no better than a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She sat up, angrily, pulling at the collar that encircled her throat. It remained well fastened on her.

"Do you really think to remove it?" I asked her.

"No," she said, angrily. She sat forward, holding her knees. "What a fool Miles of Vonda is," she said. "He looked upon me and could not even tell the difference between the Lady Florence of Vonda and a mere slave girl."

"The light was poor," I said. "He did not examine your thigh for a brand."

"But he looked at me!" she said.

"That is true," I admitted, smiling. I well remembered the casual care with which the chained beauty at my side had been examined.

"How could he not have recognized me as a free woman?" she asked.

"He did not examine your thigh," I said.

"Light the lantern, Jason," she said, "please."

I found the lantern on its outjutting perpendicular and, in a few Ehn, adding some oil, turning up the wick and striking some pyrites together, relit it. I rehung the lantern on the perpendicular.

"Look at me, Jason," she said. "Do you think that I am a slave?"

"I know that you are a free woman," I said. Then I snapped, "Position!"

Angrily she assumed the position of the house slave. I continued to look at her. Angrily she spread her knees.

"It is difficult to talk to a man as a free woman in this position," she said.

"Doubtless that is true," I said.

"May I assume another position?" she asked.

"No," I said.

"Look at me, Jason," she said. "Can you not see that I am a free woman?"

"I know that you are a free woman," I said.

She tossed her head, irritably. There was a sound of metal, that of the collar with its ring, and of the chain, with its lock, depending from the ring. "Suppose you did not know," she said. "Then what would you think?"

I smiled.

"No!" she said. "No!"

"I could, of course, examine your thighs, your lower left abdomen, your body generally," I said. The thighs and the lower left abdomen are the brand sites recommended by Merchant Law. Masters, of course, may brand a girl wherever they please. She is theirs. Sometimes brands are placed on the left side of the neck, on the left calf, the interior of the left heel, and on the inside of the left forearm. The customary brand site, incidentally, is high on the left thigh. That is the site almost invariably utilized in marking Gorean kajirae.

"No," she said. "No!" She regarded me, in fury. "Can you not simply look upon me and see that I am free?"

"Perhaps if I saw you in the robes of concealment, and veiled, being carried in a palanquin through the streets of Vonda by slaves," I said, "I would think you free."

"It has nothing to do with such things!" she said. "Free women are different from slave girls. They are simply different! Free woman are noble and fine! Slave girls are only meaningless, lascivious, sensuous, little sluts!"

"Many slave girls are as large, or larger than you, Lady Florence," I said. "Too, where do you think slave girls come from? Very few are bred slaves."

"Did you see how Miles of Vonda looked at me?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"As though I might have been a slave girl!" she said.

"Yes," I said. I smiled to myself. It had indeed been a frank, bemused scrutiny to which Miles of Vonda had subjected the lofty Lady Florence, the sort of scrutiny commonly reserved for, and accorded to, slaves. Such a scrutiny, of course, would be inappropriate, even scandalous, if applied to free women. On the other hand, it did not seem out of place to me if applied to property girls. Indeed, in their case, it is fully rational and appropriate, for such girls are only slaves, lovely items of purchasable livestock.

"But I am not a slave girl!" she said.

"Not legally," I said.

"How could a mere legal convention make me a slave," she asked. "It is meaningless."

"Tell that to girls who wear collars, and find themselves at the total mercy of masters," I said.

"Miles of Vonda is a fool!" she snapped.

"Do not break position," I warned her.

She looked up at me. "Look at me, Jason," she said.

I did. It was a pleasure.

"Do you think a woman such as I could ever be a slave?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do I look like a slave?" she asked, angrily.

"Yes," I told her.

She cried out in anger.

"Do not break position, Lady Florence," I warned her.

"Very well, Jason," she said, icily.

"You seem cold," I said. "Perhaps I can warm you."

"Do not dare to touch me!" she cried.

"Perhaps you have forgotten that you are a prisoner," I said.

She looked up at me, frightened. "No," she said. "I have not forgotten."

"On your back, Slut," I said.

She obeyed. She threw the chain from her body to one side. "Please do not speak to me in that way," she said. "Please do not call me a slut," she said.

"You forget that I have held you in my arms," I said.

"I am the Lady Florence," she said.

"The Lady Florence," I said, "is a lovely slut."

"No!" she said.

"Do not forget that I have held you in my arms," I said.

"I am the Lady Florence," she said. "I am not a slut!"

"You wear the Ta-Teera of a stable slut," I pointed out.

"It is meaningless!" she said.

"Then remove it," I said. I tore it from her body. "Yes," I said, "the Lady Florence is indeed a lovely slut."

"Beast," she said. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I have fought well," I said. "I have won many bouts."

"Beast!" she said.

"I think you are suitable," I said.

"Suitable?" she asked.

"I have fought well," I said. "I have won many bouts."

"Yes," she said.

"It is customary to reward a successful pugilist," I said.

"I denied you such rewards," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"But now you have decided that I myself, formerly your Mistress, am yet again to be your reward."

"Yes," I said.

"I am not a man's reward," she said.

"How is it then," I asked, "that you lie chained in my stall?"

"I am not accustomed to thinking of myself as a man's reward," she said.

"Grow accustomed to it," I told her.

"Very well," she said, angrily, "I am a man's reward! You have decided it!"

"Yes," I said.

"Do you really think I am pretty enough to be a man's reward?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "I see that that thought pleases you"

"No," she said. "No!"

I looked upon her sternly.

"Yes," she said, "that thought pleases me. Please do not strike me."

I smiled.

"It is only," she whispered, "that I am not accustomed, not accustomed, truly, to thinking of myself as a man's reward."

"Yet," I said.

"Yet," she whispered.

"It is one of the many things that a woman such as you is good for," I told her.

"I see," she said.

"Smile," I told her.

"Smile!" she cried.

"And lift your arms to me," I told her. She tried to smile. She lifted her arms to me.

"Say, `You fought well. You won many bouts,"' I said.

"You fought well. You won many bouts," she said.

"Say now, 'Your girl hopes to please you,'" I said.

"Your girl hopes to please you," she said. I then crouched beside her, and took her in my arms. She gasped. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked.

"I have well earned you," I told her.

"Collect your earnings, yet again," she begged me.

"I shall," I told her.

"Kiss and squirm well, Slut," I said.

"Yes, I am a slut," she wept. "I am a slut!"

"Kiss and squirm," I said.

"Yes," she wept. "Yes, yes!"

"In your arms, you have taught me that I, the Lady Florence, am a slut," she whispered, bending over me. We were in the darkness. The lantern had again burned out. I felt her hair on my chest, the chain, too, depending from her-looped, iron collar.

"I did not know that I was a slut," she said.

"Your excitement, your responses, have proved it," I said.

"I did not know I could have such feelings, or behave in such ways," she said.

I took her in my arms and threw her again beneath me.

"You must never let anyone know that I am a slut," she said. "You are the only man in the whole world who knows that."

"For the moment," I told her.

She stiffened in my arms, frightened. "Let it be our secret," she begged. "Tell no one!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"No one must know that I am sexually responsive," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"It would be the ruin of my reputation," she said.

"Surely men have a right to know," I said.

"No," she said. "No!"

I laughed.

"Do not make my sexual responsiveness public," she said, "I beg of you!"

"Why not?" I asked.

"I am a free woman," she said.

"But one that is a luscious slut," I pointed out.

"Respect me!" she begged.

"You will not be respected," I told her. "You will be wanted."

"How much we women are at the mercy of you brutes," she said.

"You do not even know what it is to be at the mercy of a man," I said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "you are a mere prisoner."

"And not a slave," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"That shred of pride, at least, I have," she said.

I smiled to myself. As responsive as she was as a free woman, it was hard to even coniecture what her responses would be if she were made a female slave.

"A slut," she said. "is at least higher than a slave."

"Yes," I said, "a slut, if free, is at least a thousand times higher than a slave."

"Yes," she said, and kissed me.

"Are you ready to perform again, Lady Florence?" I asked her, courteously.

"As the slut you have proven me to be?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Yes. Jason," she said.

"Do so, Lady Florence," I said, courteously.

"And if I do not?" she asked.

"You will then be whipped," I said.

"Could you do that?" she asked.

"Yes, and mercilessly," I said. "I will perform," she said.

"And well, and as the slut you are," I said.

"Yes, Jason," she said, "I will perform, and well, and as the slut I am."

"Perform, Lady Florence," I said.

"Yes, Jason," she said.