John Norman - Guardsman of Gor

“No,” I told her. “Of course not.”

She looked up, startled, dismayed.

“Do you think I respect you so little?” I asked.

“You have failed to interest him,” said the girl who held the leash. She shortened the leash and, her fist almost at the girl’s collar, jerked it taut, pulling the girl’s head up and back straight. Women are very beautiful kneeling in this position.

“But I am a slave,” protested the kneeling girl, looking up at me.

“I can see that,” I said.

“Have you not wanted to have me, many times?” she asked. “Was I so wrong in sensing that?”

“No,” I said.

“Then have me,” she said. “I am half-naked before you. I am yours for a tarsk bit. Take me!”

“Surely you would not expect me to press myself upon you, with you at your present disadvantage,” I said.

“Disadvantage!” she said. “I am a slave! You are free, but I am a slave. I am a slave girl!”

“Yes,” I said.

“Look upon me,” she said. “Do you think I am to be freed?”

“No,” I said.

“Gorean men will always keep me in a collar,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. I wondered if she knew how truly she spoke.

“Take me,” she begged. “Take me!”

“Surely you do not think that I am a bounder, or a cad?” I said.

She sobbed suddenly in frustration.

“On your feet, Slave,” said the girl with the leash, giving her a yard of strap, that she might rise. “You have failed to interest him.”

“Please let me try further, Mistress!” begged the kneeling girl. “Please!”

“On your feet,” said the girl with the leash, jerking on the leash. Sobbing, the beautiful, leashed slave rose to her feet. Fumbling, she closed her tunic, and tied shut the binding fiber which belted it. It seemed she could hardly stand. She trembled, and wept.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“She is a worthless slave,” said the girl with the leash. “Look!” She shook the coin box on the girl’s neck chain and shook it. “Empty!” she said, scornfully. She then struck the girl twice about the legs with the strap. “We have been out for Ahn,” said the girl with the leash, “and we have passed many masters, not one of whom would deign to have her.”

“Why is she crying?” I asked.

“She fears, rightfully, her master’s displeasure,” she said.

I nodded. It is very natural for a slave girl, who is completely at the mercy of her master, and is owned by him, to be very sensitive as to whether or not he is pleased with her.

“Perhaps he is a lenient fellow,” I suggested.

“He is a merciless brute, who has more girls than he needs,” said the girl holding the leash.

“What will be done with her?” I asked.

“At the least she will receive a severe beating,” said the girl with the leash. “If he is in an ugly mood, she may be tortured and slain.”

The leashed girl, sobbing, fell on her knees before the girl who held her leash. She put her head to her feet. “Please, Mistress,” she begged, “do not take me in yet!”

“It is late,” said the girl with the leash. “It is past the nineteenth Ahn. That you should be out now is even against the agreements of the renters of Coin Girls.”

“Please, Mistress!” begged the girl.

“On your feet,” said the girl with the leash. “You are now to be led back to your master, as a failed slave.”

“Wait!” I said.

The kneeling girl, turning, regarded me wildly.

“Yes, Master?” said the girl with the leash.

“I have a tarsk bit here,” I said, opening my pouch. “She need not return with the coin box empty.” I smiled at the leashed girl. “It is the least I can do,” I said to her, kindly. She was looking up at me, frightened. I went to deposit the coin in the coin box on the kneeling girl’s neck chain, but the hand of the other girl, she who held the kneeling girl’s leash, interposed itself. “There can be no payment, without the rendering of services,” she said. “The honor of my Master must not be offended.”

I drew back, holding the coin.

The kneeling girl, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, once a graduate student in English literature at a major university in the New York City area, eyed the coin, fearfully. She feared I would replace it in my pouch.

“I will endeavor to be worthy of the tarsk bit, Master,” she whispered.

“A Coin Girl,” said the girl with the leash, “will struggle to please a man as much for a tarsk bit, as a high paga slave for a thousand gold pieces, to be paid by her master’s customer for her use.”

“I see,” I said.

“The levels of skill in the Coin Girl, of course,” said the girl with the leash, “are commonly much lower.” This was true, of course. Yet it must be mentioned that sometimes Coin Girls are extremely skillful. Too, it is not unknown for a master to sometimes send even an exquisitely trained, beautiful high slave into the streets, usually as a joke or a discipline. Such a girl knows that she must perform superbly. Some of the men she falls in with may have been hired by her master, to report back on the quality of her services.

The girl with the leash drew back her hand, it then no longer shielding the opening on the coin box. “You understand the conditions?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Please, Please, Master,” said the kneeling girl, tears in her eyes, “put the coin in my coin box. You will not regret it.”

I hesitated. I looked at her.

“I beg to please Master,” she said clearly.

“You,” I asked, as though disbelievingly, “you beg to please a man?”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Whom?” I asked.

“You, my Master,” she said. “I beg to please you, my Master.”

“As a slave?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said, “I beg to please you-as a slave.”

I dropped the coin into the narrow, metal coin box. I thought the girl would almost faint with relief, and pleasure. Too, I saw another emotion in her eyes, which was harder to fathom.

The girl with the leash bent down to a nearby slave ring. Such things are common in Gorean streets. They are usually mounted in a wall, a foot to a yard above the walk or pavement. This one was mounted about a foot above the street, and was ahead of me and to my right, a bit behind the kneeling girl, and to her left. “There,” said the girl, knotting the end of the leash about the ring. Usually, at such rings, slaves are on a short leash or chain, and are fastened to them on their knees. If the slave is braceleted to the ring and the ring is in the neighborhood of a yard high her hands are braceleted before her face, and her belly faces the wall, or behind the back of her head, and her back or side faces the wall; with the lower ring her hands are braceleted before her lower body if she faces the wall or has her side to it, and roughly at the small of her back, if she has her back to the wall. But the girl who had controlled the kneeling girl’s leash had left her a good deal of slack. She might lie, fully, on the stones, and be moved about on them, if I chose.

“I shall withdraw,” said the girl who had controlled the leash. “But understand clearly,” she said, meaningfully, “that when I return her body will be closely examined.”

“I understand,” I said.

The girl who had controlled the leash then withdrew.

I looked at the girl, kneeling on the stones before me. I crouched down, before her.

“You know that you must use me fully,” she said. “My body will be carefully examined, for the signs of your use.”

“I know,” I said.

She then, demurely, unbelted her tunic, and brushed it back.

“You must have me, and fully,” she said. “You have no choice.”