John Norman - Kajira of Gor

I looked at him, startled, protestingly, as my wrists, with one end of a long leather strap, were lashed together.

“Stand up,” he said. I was pulled to a position at the side of the room. The long end of the strap was tossed up, through a ring fixed in a beam, and then put through another ring. Drusus Rencius then drew on the strap and my bound wrists were drawn up, above my head. He then looped and knotted the long end of the strap about a hook, on the side. I then stood there, at the side of the room, naked, in the collar, my hands bound together, held over my head. “Master,” I said, “this is not like you! Where is your concern for me?”

“Were you given permission to speak?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master!” I looked up at my bound hands. The strap was dark on them. I jerked at it. I could not free myself. I was tied in place. My entire body, suddenly, felt very bare, very exposed, very vulnerable. I looked over my shoulder. I was frightened. This was clearly a whipping position.

“Please, Master!” I whimpered.

“Kiss the whip,” he said.

I did so, fearfully.

I recalled that only an Ahn before I had begged his lash, in my joy at learning myself his. I had pleaded for the stroke of the whip that I might, in my joy and pain, in tears, reveling, experience his dominance over me, and know myself his. Now, however, this seemed very different. I had been put in place as though I might have been anyone, any slave! Did I mean so little to him? Was I so unimportant?

Then behind me, before I was fully set for it, I heard the hiss of the five supple blades. I screamed, struck, sobbing! I knew he had not struck me with his full strength. I could tell that from the sound. Still my back seemed to burst into flame. The blades had seemed, too, to encircle me, scalding and tearing at me. “No more!” I begged. Then I was again struck.

Had I stolen a pastry? Had I not cleaned my kennel well enough? Had I not pleased some master well enough in the furs?

I was struck again.

“Oh,” I sobbed, in misery.

Then twice more was I struck. Drusus Rencius did not much vary the locus of the impact nor the timing. He did not exploit the psychological aspects of the whipping. It was done simply, routinely. Then it was over.

When he freed my hands of the strap I sank to my knees on the tiles under the ring. I was half in shock. I knew he had not struck me with his full strength and, indeed, I had been struck only five times. It had been little or nothing as beatings go. Had I truly stolen a pastry, or done something displeasing, I would doubtless have been much more seriously beaten. The beating had been little more than informative in nature, not even really admonitory. Still I had felt it keenly. I had now felt the Gorean slave whip. No woman who has felt it ever forgets it. If I had had any doubts about the wisdom of being pleasing to masters these blows, few and light though they might have been, would have dispelled them. The beating had been little or nothing. Still, and I knew it, I had been under the whip.

He gave me scarcely a moment to recover. Then, crawling, swiftly, crying out, half dragged, I was pulled by the hair to the center of the room.

He knelt me there.

“Put your head down, to the floor,” he said. “Clasp your hands, firmly, behind the back of your neck.”

“Yes, Master,” I moaned. He was then behind me. He put his hands, under my arms, on my breasts, sweetly and firmly. Then he moved his hands back, caressing my flanks. My head was down. My fingers were together, behind the back of my neck. I was in his collar. It was steel, I could not remove it. I belonged to him. My body hurt, from his whip, that of my master. My head hurt, from my hair, where I had been conducted, unceremoniously, to this location.

“Please, Master,” I sobbed. “Not like this! Not you, please!”

“The slave is pretty,” he remarked.

“Oh!” I cried. “Oh!”

“You have a lovely ass,” he said.

“Ohhh!” I said.

“You may thank me,” he said.

“Thank you, Master!” I said. I tried not to move. It was difficult. “Please do not treat me like this. Please do not handle me like this!”

“I will do with you as I please,” he said.

“Please do not make me yield like this, please! I love you!”

“Yield or not, as it pleases you,” he said, unconcernedly.

Then I began to whimper and moan.

“Do not move,” he said.

“Please,” I begged.

“You are a slave, aren’t you?” he asked. “And a natural one?”

“Yes, Master,” I said. “Yes, Master!”

“Very well,” he said, “you may move.”

“I beg to yield!” I sobbed.

“Very well,” he said.

I then, a few moments later, lay on my belly on the tiles. I tried to feel resentment toward Drusus Rencius. I failed.

I turned to my side and, the palms of my hands on the floor, regarded him. He was again sitting in the curule chair.

“You are now ready to begin your slavery,” he said. “Your name is ‘Lita’.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I was now no longer “Tatrix.” I was “Lita.” I would respond well to this name. It had many memories for me. It almost turned me inside out with love for Drusus Rencius.

“You may serve me wine, Lita,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

A few moments later I knelt, lovingly, at the side of the curule chair. Drusus Rencius held the goblet of wine. I had even been permitted to drink from it, from the side opposite to that which had touched his lips.

“I know that you may not believe this,” I said, “and I do not wish to be struck for saying it, but I love you.”

“Now that you are my slave, and are in my collar,” he said, “it doesn’t matter, one way or the other, does it?”

“I suppose not,” I smiled. “But I do love you.”

“I thought you might,” he said.

“Why did you resist my advances in Corcyrus?” I asked.

“You were not toying with me?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“There were many reasons,” he said. “There was a discrepancy in our stations. I thought you a Tatrix. I was only a soldier. Too, deception was involved in my post. I was truly serving Argentum, and Ar, not Corcyrus. Too, though in a part of me I recognized the slave in you the first time I laid eyes on you, in another part of me, I supposed you actually, in spite of the evidence of my senses, to be a free woman. Thus, it was important, though it tortured me to do so under the circumstances, to accord you respect and dignity.”

“Rather would you have accorded me force and mastery,” I smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “Too, do not forget that on a certain level, or in a certain part of me, I recognized that you were, rather clearly, a slave. How then could I admit to myself that I, a warrior of Ar, might have certain feelings toward one such as you, only a slave? Too, that I discerned your pettiness, your cruelty and shallowness, dissuaded me from honestly admitting my feelings to myself. I did not wish to regard myself as a fool. Further, of course, you, seemingly so haughty and mighty a Tatrix, treated me with injustice and scorn. It is little wonder I dreamed of you in my collar, in my chains, under my whip.”

“Does it still distress you that I am a slave?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Even a natural slave?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“You lost a silver tarsk to Publius on the matter,” I reminded him.

“It was a bet which, in my heart, I hoped to lose,” he said.

I licked at his knee, slowly, lovingly. Then I looked up at him.

He put down the goblet on the tiles, to the right of the chair.

He took my head between his hands, those large, strong hands.