John Norman - Rogue of Gor

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“But do not think I am not grateful,” she said. “I shall teach you how to be a true man, solicitous and tender, and that sort of thing.”

“I see,” I said.

“Do not touch me!” she said.

I drew back. “Permit me to kiss you,” I said. She was so beautiful.

“No,” she said. “I am not a pleasure object.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. Again I had insulted Miss Henderson. It seemed I could do nothing right with her.

“But I am grateful,” she said. “You may give me a small kiss, a quick kiss.”

I touched her cheek with my lips, kissing her.

“It is enough!” she said. My hands had tightened on her arms, under the sheet. “You are very strong, Jason,” she said. I had lifted her to her toes and, holding her, pressed her back against the door to the inn. She looked at me, frightened. I saw her lovely cherry lips, the small, fine white teeth behind them. I considered administering to her the kiss of the master to the female slave. “No!” she said.

I held her, my own hands trembling, power in my body.

“I am a woman of Earth,” she said. “You are a man of Earth!”

I held her.

“Do not rape me, Jason,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I put her down.

“Beg my forgiveness!” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry!”

“Never look at me again like that, with such lust and power,” she said. “I am a woman of Earth!”

“Forgive me,” I said.

“I see it will not be easy to teach you to be a true man,” she said.

I shrugged, angrily.

“But I think you will learn, Jason,” she said. “You are a man of Earth.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“We must now go inside,” she said. “The room must be properly partitioned.”

“Please let me kiss you,” I said.

“It has been a trying day for me,” she said. “I am weary. Surely you must understand.”

“Please,” I said.

“After what happened a moment ago,” she said, “I do not think I will permit you to kiss me again for a very long time, if ever.”

“Perhaps you will permit me to kiss you from time to time,” I suggested, “just to keep me performing properly.”

“Perhaps,” she said, angrily. “We shall see.”

“Please, Beverly,” I said.

“No,” she said.

“Please,” I said.

“I am weary,” she said. “And I have a headache.”

“Let us remain here but a moment longer,” I said.

“It is growing chilly here,” she said. “And I do not feel well.”

“Please,” I said.

“Do not be insensitive, Jason,” she said. “I have told you that I have a headache.”

“I did not mean to be insensitive,” I said. “Forgive me.” I wondered what she would look like naked, tied at a slave ring, being lashed.

“We must go in now,” she said. “In the morning you must rise early. You must buy me clothing and go to the market. You must then find work.”

“Yes, Beverly,” I said.

I held the door open for her and she preceded me inside. The innkeeper looked up from behind his counter, puzzled that a woman such as she was not heeling me.

I indicated the stairs, and she preceded me up the stairs.

“We shall certainly have to find better lodgings than these, and soon,” she said.

“Yes, Beverly,” I said.

The stairs were dark, save for small, trembling yellow pools of light, cast from flickering tharlarion-oil lamps.

I considered her ankle as she ascended the stairs before me. It had not looked bad in the shackle at the market. Too, I recalled the moment in the taxi cab, long ago, before I had lost consciousness. She had been lying on the back seat of the cab, her legs drawn up. I had seen her ankle then, too. I recalled thinking then, too, that it would have looked well in slave steel.

“I will use the one in that alcove,” I said to Tasdron, flinging down a tarsk bit on the stained counter.

“She is yours,” said Tasdron, wiping a paga goblet with a large, soft cloth.

I strode across the floor of the tavern of Tasdron and entered the alcove. The blond girl knelt there, nude, against the back wall of smooth, rounded red tiles.

I turned about and buckled shut the heavy curtains of the alcove, and then again faced her.

Her wrists, by several narrow loops of red leather, on each wrist, were tied to iron rings on each side of her body, a little below the level of her shoulders. The former customer had left her tied in this fashion, not bothering to release her. I was just as well pleased. I wished to interrogate her. She knelt on red furs. The light was from a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp in the alcove. Tasdron’s collar was on her throat.

“Master?” she asked, pressing back against the rounded, red tiles.

“Do you recall me?” I asked. “Do you recall I was the fellow who challenged in this tavern, and who was threatened by Kliomenes, the pirate, the fellow who was saved, happily, by one called Callimachus.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. “I was here. I remember. He is Callimachus, of Port Cos.”

“He was once of the warriors?” I asked.

“It is thought so,” she said. “So it is said among the girls.”

“Have you seen me before?” I asked.

“It does not seem possible, Master,” she said. “I am only a slave.”

“It seemed to me, before,” I said, “that you reacted to me as though you might once have seen me, as though I might be somehow familiar to you.”

“It is true,” she said. “It seemed to me that, somehow, I had seen you before. Yet I do not see how, actually, that could be. I am only a miserable slave.”

“Were you always a slave?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said. “I was once free.”

“On Gor?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said. She smiled. “I am afraid that women such as I are slaves on Gor.”

“Where were you free?” I asked.

“On a far world,” she said.

“Where slaves are not enslaved?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she smiled.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Peggy,” she said, “if it pleases Master.”

“That is an Earth-girl name,” I said. “Are you from the planet Earth?”

“Yes, Master,” she said, “but please do not whip me. It is not my fault that Earth is my planet of origin. I will try to be pleasing to you.”

“Earth girls make excellent slaves,” I said.

“Thank you, Master,” she said.

“Do you speak the Earth language, English?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“I, too, speak English,” I said. “Let us converse in that tongue.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, in English.

“What was your Earth name?” I asked.

“Peggy,” she said. “Peggy Baxter.”

“Where did you work?” I asked.

“In a city called New York,” she said, “as a hat-check girl, at a restaurant.”

“Yes!” I said. “That is it!”

“Master?” she asked, frightened.

“I had thought I had seen you,” I said. “It was there.”

“There?” she asked.

“You wore black, low-cut shoes, with high heels, without strap or ties,” I said.

“Pumps,” she said.

“You wore black-net stockings or panty hose,” I said “You wore a black miniskirt, and a long-sleeved, smooth, white silk blouse, open at the throat. You had a black ribbon for your hair.”

“Panty hose,” she said. “But they were taken from me.”

I nodded, Gorean men seldom permit a slave shielding for her warm intimacies.

“Apparently I was not the only one who saw you there,” I said. “Some other, or others,” I said, “must have seen you as well, and adjudged you worthy to be brought to Gor as a slave girl.”