John Norman - Marauders of Gor

To my surprise, he stopped before a dark-haired girl who sat with her legs drawn up, her arms about them, her ankles crossed; her cheek was laid across her knees; she seemed startled that the Forkbeard stopped before her; she looked up at him, frightened, and then put her face down again, across her knees, but now her eyes were frightened, and every inch of her seemed tense.

She looked up at him, but then could not meet his eyes. She seemed a shy, introverted girl, one who might, before her capture, have been much alone.

Then she had been caught by slavers.

"I would make a poor slave, my Jarl," she whispered.

"What do you know of this girl?" asked the Forkbeard of the officer of Svein Blue Tooth, who was accompanying him.

"She speaks little and, as she can, when not chained, as in the exercise pen, she keeps to herself."

The Forkbeard reached his hand toward her knee, but, she watching, terrified, did not touch it, and then withdrew it.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then opened them. She had feared to be touched.

Where as fear inhibits sexual performance in a male, rendering it impossible, because neutralizing aggression, essential to male power, fear in a woman, some fear, not terror, can, interestingly, improve her responsiveness, perhaps by facilitating her abject submission, which can then lead to multiple orgasms. This is another reason, incidentally, why Goreans favor the enslavement of desirable women; the slave girl knows that she must please her master, and that she will be punished, and perhaps harshly if she does not; this makes her not only desperate to please the brute who fondles her, but also produces in her a genuine fear of him; this fear on her part enhances her receptivity and responsiveness; also, of course, since fear stimulates aggression, which is intimately connected with male sexuality, her fear, which she is unable to help, to her master's amusement, deepens and augments the very predation in which she finds herself as quarry; and if she should not be afraid, it is no great matter; any woman, if the master wishes, can be taught fear.

After the Forkbeard had withdrawn his hand he studied her eyes intently. I, too, detected that for which he had sought, the object of his experiment. Though she had feared his touch, yet, when he had withdrawn his hand, there was, momentarily, disappointment in her eyes. She both feared to be touched, and desperately yearned for the touch.

"Is she healthy?" asked the Forkbeard.

"Yes," said the officer of Svein Blue Tooth.

I had seen such women, sometimes on Earth. They were often studious, quiet girls, keeping much to themselves, lonely girls, yet with brilliant minds, marvelous imaginations, and fantastic, suppressed latent sexuality. They were often among the greatest surprises, and bargains, in the Gorean slave markets.

Virginia Kent, whom I had known in Ar, years ago, who had become the companion of the warrior Relius of Ar, been such a girl. On Earth she had taught ancient history and classical languages at a small college on Earth; to many she might then have seemed a rather blue-stocking, forbidding girl; Gorean slavers, however, with greater perception perhaps then her fellow Earthlings, had seen her potential; she had been, one of several such items of cargo, abducted to Gor; on Gor, given no choice, suitably trained, she had become one of the most exquisite and delicious female slaves it had ever been my pleasure to see in a collar. Relius, given her, had freed her; his friend, Ho-Sorl, given another Earth girl, Phyllis Robertson, had kept the latter in a collar; Relius was younger that Ho-Sorl, and a romantic. Ho-Sorl, doubtless, was more experienced in the handling of females; I wondered if Virginia, to her astonishment, perhaps after a quarrel or after a night of depriving Relius in order to obtain some whim of hers had awakened one morning recollared, again the slave of a master.

"Kneel," said the Forkbeard to the girl, "legs apart, palms of your hands on your thighs."

With a movement of the chain, she did so.

He crouched before her.

"I may wish to use you to breed thralls," he said. "You must be healthy for the farm. Put your head back, close your eyes and open your mouth."

She did as she was told, that the Forkbeard might examine her teeth. Much may be told of the age and condition of a female slave, as of a kaiila or bosk, from her teeth.

But the Forkbeard did not look into her mouth. His left hand slipped to the small of her back, holding her, and his right hand went suddenly to her body. She cried out, trying to pull back, but could not, and then, her eyes closed, whimpering, she thrust forward, writhing and then, sobbing, held herself immobile, teeth gritted, eyes screwed shut, trying not to feel. When his hands left her body she tried, sobbing, to strike him, but he caught both her small wrists, holding them. She struggled futilely, held kneeling.

"Put your head back," he said. "Open your mouth."

She shook her head, wildly.

"I am holding your hands," he pointed out.

Warily, eyes open, she opened her mouth. He looked at her teeth.

"I may wish to use you to breed thralls," he said. "You must be healthy for the farm."

He stood up.

"What do you want for her?" he asked the officer of Svein Blue Tooth.

"I had her for a broken coin," he said, "half a silver tarn disk of Tharna. I will let you have her for a whole coin."

The Forkbeard returned to the man the tarn disk of silver which he had received for Dagmar.

The officer of Svein Blue Tooth, with a key at his belt, unlocked the padlock which held the girl's collar to the common chain. He tossed the padlock, open, into one of the wooden boxes projecting from the wall.

The girl, kneeling, looked up at the Forkbeard. "Why did my Jarl buy me?" she asked.

"You have excellent teeth," said the Forkbeard.

"For what will my Jarl use me?" she asked.

"Doubtless you can learn to swill tarsks," he said.

"Yes my Jarl," she said. Then she put her cheek, to our surprise, to the side of his leg, and lowering her head, holding his boot, kissed it.

It was very delicately, and lovingly, done.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Peggie Stevens," she said. I smiled. It was an Earth name.

"You are an Earth female," I told her.

"Once," she said. "Now I am only female."

"American?" I asked.

"Prior to my enslavement," she said.

"From what state?" I asked.

"Connecticut," she said.

Since the Nest War, the probes of aliens had grown more bold, even on Gor; they had little difficulty in taking female slaves on Earth; gold, exchangeable for materials essential to their enterprises, was well guarded on Earth; it could seldom be obtained in quantities without attracting the attention of the agents of Priest-Kings; on the other hand, the women of Earth, dispersed, abundant, many of them beautiful, superb slave stock, the sort a Gorean master enjoys training to the collar, were, generally, unguarded; Earth took greater care to guard her gold than her females; accordingly, the women of Earth, unprotected, vulnerable, like luscious fruit on wild trees, were free for the pickings of Gorean slavers.

A network, I gathered, existed for their selection and acquisition; Earth was helpless to prevent the taking of their most beautiful women; they were eventually sold naked from blocks in Gorean markets.

I suppose that the governments of Earth, or some of them, were aware of the slaving; perhaps merchants of Middle Eastern countries were suspected; there were, however, delicate negotiations concerning oil to be respected; it would not be well to be too bold in pressing accusations; what were a few beautiful women, taken as slave girls into harems of Middle Eastern businessmen and potentates, to the commodity which supported civilization and turned the wheels of industry; but the evidence would not point to the Middle East; further, the small amount of slaving, if any, which might be done commercially in Western Europe or on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States would not account for the numbers of missing beauties; hundreds a year, I surmised, turned up in Gorean markets.