John Norman - Rogue of Gor

“Your market and goods?” I asked.

“The market was burned,” she said, “and the goods and slaves taken.”

“Did many of those of Vonda escape the city?” I asked.

“Many,” she said.

“In flying over this area,” I said, “I saw several stockades, mostly filled with women.”

“We were hunted more relentlessly,” she said, bitterly.

“Yet some women must have escaped the city,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “particularly those who fled early. Many have gone as refugees to Lara.”

The blonde a few racks away began to squirm and sob in her straps. “No, no,” she begged. But she was not being shown the mercy for which she pleaded.

“What of the House of Andronicus?” I asked.

“Gone,” she said, “burned, its slaves and personnel fled or taken.”

“What of the Lady Gina?” I asked. I remembered her with some fondness.

“Shackled,” she said, “in the food tent, where she waits upon men.”

“Do you think she enjoys serving them?” I asked.

“They enjoy having her serve them,” she said, angrily.

“Doubtless,” I said. “Do you recall the slave, Lola, of the House of Andronicus?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I do not know her fate.” Lola and Tela had been the girls who had first taught me Gorean. They had been the first Gorean slave girls I had ever seen. I had never forgotten my first sight of them. That such women could exist and be slaves had been a stunning and welcome revelation to me of certain of the realities of Gor.

“You had an assistant,” I said, “a superb actress, who, pretending to be a mere Earth-girl slave, even to the collar and Ta-Teera, well prepared me for my sale in your market.”

“The Lady Tendite,” she said. “Don’t touch me!”

“Yes, she,” I said. “She well made a fool of me.”

“Please, don’t, Jason!”

“I believed her,” I said.

“Jason,” she begged. “No!”

“I believed her,” I said, “completely.”

“I am completely helpless, Jason,” she said. “Please have mercy on me!”

“The sale must have been amusing,” I said.

“Your hands!” she wept.

“Did you plan it together?” I asked. “Your body seems smaller and more helpless than I remembered it,” I observed.

“Yes, yes,” she sobbed, “but it was her original plan, her ideas. She thought it would be amusing to do it to you.”

“I see,” I said.

“Please stop touching me,” she begged.

Suddenly, a few racks away, the blonde, throwing her head back, and rearing helplessly in her straps, screamed her submission.

The Lady Tima shuddered, and then, suddenly, lifted herself to me. But my hand did not quite touch her.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She fled early from Vonda,” she said. “She went to Lara. Please do not stop touching me.”

“Are you prepared to beg to be touched?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I beg it!”

“How do these things work?” I asked, looking at the rack.

“Jason, please!” she whispered.

“I note that you are not yet branded,” I said, “nor, I suppose, are these others.”

“Jason!” she pleaded.

“Speak,” I said.

“We were put on the racks as free women,” she said, “that we, the women of the enemy, be properly humiliated. Too, is it not a rich joke for the men of Ar that more than a thousand of the free women of Vonda adorn their pleasure racks, fastened down like slave girls, their use available for a tarsk bit to the passers-by?”

“Yes,” I smiled, “it is a rich joke.” The men of Gor are fond of such jokes.

“And only after this, our profound humiliation,” she said, “will the men of Ar, if it should please them, see fit to permit us to be divided into lots, and be branded and collared, and sold into slavery throughout the towns and cities of Gor.”

“Splendid,” I said. “Splendid!”

She looked at me with horror. “Are you a man of Gor?” she asked.

I shrugged. I did not know.

Then again, suddenly, she lifted her body to me. “You have aroused me,” she whispered. “You know you have aroused me, and cruelly.”

“You lift your body like a female slave, Lady Tima,” I said.

She groaned, and lay back. She moaned.

The blonde a few racks down was now sobbing with pleasure. She was alone. “Masters, Masters,” she called. “I am only a tarsk bit! Please touch me!”

“What a slut she is,” I said.

“Yes, Jason,” whispered the Lady Tima.

“These straps seem to hold you quite well,” I said.

“I am absolutely helpless,” she said. “Touch me, I beg you!”

“The pleasure rack is an interesting device,” I said. I examined the wooden wheels, the levers. In virtue of the axes of the device and the various gears and pinions, and the joints, braces, fitted, sliding boards, notches and lock points, it can be adjusted to a variety of positions. To be sure not all the pleasure racks were as sophisticated as that on which was bound my former Mistress, the former female slaver, the Lady Tima of Vonda. This device, like some of the others, had doubtless been brought from the city, perhaps dragged forth by shackled men of Vonda hauling on wagon ropes.

“Jason,” begged the Lady Tima.

“I have never seen one this close before,” I said.

“Jason!” she cried.

“You look well on your knees before me,” I said.

“Jason,” she wept.

I then bent her backward, and then, lifting and turning her, examined the left side of her beauty, and then the right. I then put her through a variety of positions, more experimenting with the possibilities of the apparatus than anything else, though the experiments had their aesthetic value, for the Lady Tima was a lovely woman. “Fascinating,” I said. “Jason!”, she protested. I then, as I had grown more proficient with the device, used it for one of its two major purposes, that of exhibiting and displaying its helpless prisoner. Its second major purpose, of course, is to hold the woman in any position one pleases. I rotated her to her back. I then turned away. “Jason!” she cried. “Jason!”

I turned back, again, to face her.

“You have humiliated and abused me,” she said. “You have turned me about and examined me on the rack as though I might be a slave girl! You have cruelly aroused me! You cannot leave me now!”

“I can,” I told her.

“Please come back,” she wept. “Touch me! Touch me!”

“Do you beg it?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“As a slave?” I asked.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I beg it as a slave!”

“But that is lower than a mere slut,” I said. “Surely you remember the blonde girl,” I said, indicating the girl some racks from her.

“I beg it as both a slut and a slave,” she said.

I then went slowly to the rack. She looked up at me, frightened. Then I fastened her in position, spreading her legs uncomfortably apart. Then, looking down upon her, I spread her legs by another four inches.

Then I had her.

“Over here,” I told the Lady Gina. “Kneel down.” I indicated a place on the straw, at the wall of the food tent, a clear place, between other couples.

She knelt before me, looking up at me. “You are the first man who has ordered me to the straw,” she said.

“Do you think you are unattractive?” I asked.

“I know I am unattractive,” she said.

“To many men,” I said, “you could be very attractive.”

“I am a naked and shackled prisoner,” she said, “soon perhaps, if it should please the men of Ar, to be branded a slave. I have waited upon your table, and brought you food and drink. Beyond these things, I beg you not to insult and torture me.”