John Norman - Guardsman of Gor

I continued to walk up the Street of the Writhing Slave. Such girls, now, as it was late, past the nineteenth Ahn, would surely, at least for the most part, be chained in their basement kennels, lying on their straw mats, trying to sleep, clutching their thin blankets about their nude bodies.

The Street of the Writhing Slave winds tortuously upward from the wharves, threading its narrow way through a commercial district upward towards a hilly residential district. Free women, incidentally, tend to avoid the Street of the Writhing Slave. It frightens them, it seems, to walk upon it. I supposed I could not blame them. What free woman would dare to walk upon such a street, particularly at night? Her throat might suddenly feel the capture loop of a slaver and, by morning, branded, gag-hooded and chained, she might be fifty pasangs downriver, on her way to a market in Ven or Turmus.

By putting out my hands I could almost touch the walls of the facing houses.

I thought I heard the sound of a bell. I smiled. It was late, of course, for the sensuous peregrinations of a Coin Girl. Would they not all, now, be secured in their kennels, safe even from fruitless dreams of escape?

I continued on my way. The street was twisting. I could not see far ahead. I heard again the bell. I smiled.

I paused, near a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp. It was about a yard above my head, recessed in a small niche. It was by means of such that the street was lit. Families alternate in the fueling and tending of such lamps. As in many such matters, as in cleaning and repairing streets, Gorean responsibility tends to devolve on the individual and not on the polity. His taxes, in this sense, in such matters, are applied directly, and by himself, to the affairs with which they are concerned. Third parties, thus, in such matters, are not involved, and he knows precisely, at least in such instances, how much money is involved, and where it is being spent.

I heard the bell again. Again I smiled. I then proceeded further, climbing, up the street. Through the soles of my sandals I could feel, clearly, the street’s harsh, rude cobblestones. I was pleased by this.

I turned a corner in the street, and it was then that I saw them, some fifty yards away, approaching, descending, nearing the location of one of the small tharlarion-oil lamps. Near the lamp the girl who was on the leash was jerked up short. I heard the flattish bell on her neck chain. It has a distinctive note. Then she stood still. She must stand in the light of the lamp, to await my approach. Both girls wore brief slave tunics. Both were barefoot. My step was casual, unhurried. It did not even seem, then, that I saw them. I might be anyone, returning late, say, from a tavern or from the visiting of friends. The meeting, surely, was one of mere chance.

“Oh,” I said, pausing, stopping, suddenly, a few yards from them. It seemed that I, lost in thought, had just then noticed them. I regarded them. It seemed then that I looked at the leashed girl intently, as though trying to place her, at the distance, in the light, and then I reacted, as though I might then have placed her, or feared that I might have placed her, feared, dismayed, that I might have recognized who she might be. Swiftly she put her head down, hiding her face in her hands. This made a note sound from the bell. An abrupt command was spoken to her by her fair companion, and she quickly put her hands down, at her sides. Another command was spoken, and the leash jerked taut. She lifted her head. I approached her. Tears were in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled.

I regarded her, in the yellowish, flickering light of the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp, late at night, on the rude stones of that dark, narrow street in Victoria. She stood before me, small, slim, exquisite, beautiful. Her binding-fiber-belted, wraparound tunic was brown, and of clinging, thin rep-cloth; it was sleeveless and had a plunging neckline; it was slave short. About her neck there was a chain. From the chain there hung two objects; the first was a narrow, bronze bell, flatish and tapering, with a fiat top and ring; when she moved it would sound, calling attention to her whereabouts; the second was a metal coin box, which contained a slot for the deposition of coins; the coin box was locked. I had not heard coins sound, from within the coin box.

Too, about her neck, under the chain, with its dangling articles, there was a high, tight leather collar. Her leash, in the hands of the other girl, was attached to a ring at the back of this collar. The leash, too, was of leather, and long. It was coiled four or five times in the hands of the other girl. More Gorean leashes are long. There are two advantages to the long leash. It may be used, if one wishes, to bind the slave, and its long end, if one wishes, may easily serve as a whipping strap.

“Beverly,” I whispered. “Is it you?”

She did not respond. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.

The girl who held her leash then jerked twice on the leash.

“May I serve your pleasure, Master?” asked the leashed girl.

“I thought you were a Coin Girl,” I said.

“She is a Coin Girl,” said the girl who held her leash. Then she jerked the leash once, against the collar ring.

“I am a Coin Girl,” said the leashed girl, before me.

“Interest him,” said the other girl.

“I am yours for a tarsk bit, Master,” said the leashed girl.

“Open your tunic,” said the other girl.

The girl then slipped loose the binding-fiber belt, letting it fall against the two belt loops in the back. Then, with her left hand and her right hand, parting the tunic, holding it open, she showed herself to me.

She was the most beautiful, and attractive, woman I had ever seen.

“It is my hope that I please Master,” she said.

“Beverly,” I said.

“She has no name,” said the girl who held her leash. “Her master has not yet given her one. But once, it is true, that she was known as Beverly. For that reason I suggest, if you are interested in her, that you give her, for your use of her, another name.”

I regarded the beautiful girl. She trembled. She did not close her tunic.

“She is an Earth slut,” said the girl who held the leash. “Some men like them.”

“I could call her ‘Linda’,” I said.

“An Earth-slut name,” said the girl who held the leash.

“Excellent!” Then, suddenly, viciously, loosening the coils of the leash, she lashed the girl across the back of the thighs with the long end of the leash. “Do you not realize you are standing in the presence of a free man, Linda?” she said.

And then she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, of New York City, of Earth, and was now Linda, knelt before me, on the rude stones of that narrow street in Victoria. “Forgive me, Master,” she whispered.

“Earth girls are so stupid,” said the other girl, wearily.

“Many are not stupid,” I said. “It is only that they are ignorant.”

“Perhaps they may be taught,” mused the other girl.

“Any woman may be taught,” I told her.

“That is true,” she smiled. Then she jerked the leash of the kneeling girl.

“Have me for a tarsk bit, Master,” cried the kneeling girl, her tunic parted, looking up at me.

She who had been Miss Henderson, now kneeling before me, had asked to be had by me, and for a tarsk bit.

She looked up at me, piteously.

“You are a female, and he is a man,” said the girl who held the leash. “Interest him.”

“Please, Mistress,” begged the girl.

“Bite at his tunic, and lick at his legs and feet,” commanded the girl who held the leash.

Softly then did the bell of the Coin Girl sound, and the chain and coin box on her neck, as she who had once been Miss Henderson turned her head to the side, and began, with her small, fine white teeth, to bite and nibble at the hem of my tunic. I felt these small tugs, piteous and delicate, and then she, with her lips, pressed the wet tunic against my thigh and through the wet cloth, kissed me. She then, putting her head down, began to lick and kiss at my legs and feet. She performed this submission behavior for several minutes, piteously, desperately, beseechingly, entreatingly. Then, at last, her head down, over my feet, she whispered, begging, “Please have me for a tarsk bit, Master. Please have me for only a tarsk bit, Master.”