John Norman - Rouge of Gor

"Lola!" I had said, my mouth full, chewing on the meat I had bought on the wharves.She had jerked back, seeing me.The sales had not yet begun. "What do you want for her?" I asked."Ten copper tarsks," he said. "Done!" I said.

"No!" she cried. "Be silent, Wench," he ordered her. I removed a ten-tarsk piece from the lining of my tunic. Workers do not commonly carry pouches at their work.

"Do not sell me to him," begged the girl, "please!" But he kicked her brutallly to silence. I paid him and he unshackled her. He also removed his collar from her throat."Come along," I told her. She descended from the platform and naked and miserable, heeled me as I threaded my way slowly from the place. She did not try to escape. She knew there was no escape for her. She was a Gorean slave girl.

I stopped at the warehouse where I had been working and collected a half day's wages. My employer did not object,for he could see that I had purchased something of interest. Doubtless, I was eager to get her home.

"Continue working, Jason" called one of the fellows. "Let her here in the warehouse. We will see that no harm comes to her!" There was much laughter. I waved to them as I left the warehouse. "Have her once for me!" called one of my fellow workers after me."Little do they know you!" she said bitterly.

On the way home I stopped in the market to buy a few thinks, some articles for which I thought I might find a use. "Why are you buying a slave whip?" she asked me."Be patient," I told her. "Perhaps you will learn."

I also bought some chains, and binding fiber, and other things. Interestingly for no reason I clearly understood, I bought two sets of certain articles.Also on the way home, I purchased her a slave tunic and stopped at the shop of a metal worker, where i had her measured and purchased a collar for her. I had the collar inscribed according to my specifications. I put it in my sack with its two keys, tied to it with a string.

I snapped my fingers, and the girl, to the side, rose from her knees and lightly hurried to the table, beside which she again knelt, head down. "You may clear, Lola," I told her. "A deferential slut," said Miss Henderson, who knelt across the table from me.Lola kept her head down."Rather different that when you brought her into the house this afternoon," she said. "What did you do to her?"

"Reminded her she was a slave," I said."I see," said Miss Henderson.Lola rose to her feet and padded softly, barefoot, carrying the dishes to the kitchen. "Her tunic is sleeveless and too short," said Miss Henderson. "It pleases me," I said. "Of course," said Miss Henderson. "She is yours."

"Why have you tied me like this?" has asked Lola.

I had tied her wrists together before her body, before the opened door of the house, leaving a dangling, loose strap of about a foot in length.

I then swept her from her feet and carried her across the threshold and put her down on her feet, near the side wall to the left."Why have you carried me into the house as a capture slave?" she asked. I had rebolted the door, after Miss Henderson, sent on her shopping errands by myself, had exited.I had then turned again to face Lola. We were alone in the house.

She looked at me. "At least I shall have an easy slavery," she said. "Stand here," I told her, positioning her about five feet from the wall, facing it, to the left of the door as you enter, beneath a stout beam."I shall make you a poor slave," she said.

I went to the side of the room and loosening the chain, lowered the chain. Attached to the end of the chain, on theother side of the beam ring, now descending, was a wide circle of steel, a steel ring, some six inches in diameter. I stopped thechain where the steel ring dangled at her belly."You know what that is?" I asked her. "I am a slave girl," she said. "Speak it," I said."It is a whipping ring," she said.I tied her tethered wrists, by the free end of the strap to the ring.

"Why have you tied me to the whipping ring?" she asked. "Why do you think?" I asked. "You're bluffing," she said.

I went back to the wall and pulled the chain again through the beam ring. Then her hands were held well over her head…

"I will make you a poor slave," she said. "Oh!" she said."Perhaps not," I said. "Release me," she said tensely. She stood now, painfully, on the tips of her toes.

I hooked a link of the chain on the holding hook, lifting her a quarter of an inch higher, securing her in place. "Let me go," she said.I walked about her, and then faced her, looking upon her.

"You are luscious," I told her. "I think you may make an excellent slave. "Let me go!" she said squirming in the leather. "Yes, and excellent slave, "I said. Then I went behind her.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "What do you think?" I asked her. "You cannot frighten me," she said."I know you cannot strike me. You are too weak to whip me, and make me obey you. You are a man of Earth!" Long ago you had me beaten in the House of Andronicus," I said. "In your role as a free woman in the slave training you deliberately spilled wine and blamed me, and ordered me whipped. The whipping was very painful. Do you recall?" She said nothing.

"You have never adequately paid for that." I said. "Paid?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "Do not forget you are a man of Earth," she said. "Oh yes," I said, "the men of Earth never make a woman pay for anything. She may even humilitate them and destroy them as men with total impunity. It that right? "Yes, yes!" said the girl."Not always," I said.

"Master?" she asked. "And this is not Earth," I said. "Master?" she asked. And then, suddenly she screamed, caught fully, helplessly, in the blurred, whistling slash of the five-standed Gorean slave whip. Ten strokes did I give her.

Then she hung weeping, shuddering at the ring. "How canyou whip me?" she asked. "You are a man of Earth." I went to her and by the hair jerked back her head, and she cried out in pain. "Is this the touch of a man of Earth?" I asked. "No," she said frightened."Too," I said, whispering in her ear, "you are a new slave who has been brought recently to my house." "No," she begged, "No!"

Sometimes a girl is whipped when she is first brought into a new house. It is regarded, in some cities, including Victoria as a way of making clear to her that the house in which she now finds herself is a house in which she is a slave.

Ten strokes more then did I administer to the fair beauty."Too," I said, "earlier you dared to speak my name."Forgive me Master," she sobbed. "That has earned you five extra strokes," I informed her.She moaned and then was shaken five times, encircled in the burning lashes, being repaid for her insolence.

When I lowered the whip she sagged in the leather, fastened at the ring, and slipped from consciousness. I went before her and slapped her awake. She looked at me, startled, awakened in pain, terrified."And onemore stroke," I told her, " to remind you that you are slave." "Yes Master," she whispered.I delivered the blow, lettig it be the fiercest of her beating.I then put aside the whip and lowered the chain. She collapsed to the floor. I unbound her hands from the rings, freeing her too of the tether which had confined her wrists.

She lay on her stomach on the tiles of the hall. She lifted her head slowly. She shook her head to clear her vision. She looked at me disbelievingly.

I removed my sandles and threw them to the files, near where she lay.Obediently, on her hands and knees, one by one, putting her head down, she brought them to me in her teeth, and put them down before me. She then looked up."Kiss the whip," I told her.She took the whip, held before her, in her small hands, and pressing her lips fervently to it, kissed it.She then looked up at me, and I saw in her eyes, moist and awe-stricken, that I was her Master. I then collared her.