Daughter of Gor by Olga Turlovna (Part Four)

Daughter of Gor

By Olga Turlovna

14 - I resume my progress up the River Nyoka

Just below my feet, the Nyoka continues its sedate progress downstream towards Thassa – the sea. It has likely made this same journey for millennia, unconcerned by the events of human or Priest Kings, and it will likely continue long after I am gone.

I find its steady presence comforting and try to distract myself, watching any movements of ripples and eddies that distort the smooth surface.

At one point I see a miniature whirlpool disturb the tranquillity, perhaps created by the abrupt movement of some living creature hidden below in the muddy water.

“I still say that this one should have been first prow,” a man’s voice says, the sound of conversation coming from somewhere close behind me. “Now there, is something quite exceptional.”

He called me exceptional, but I am exceptional in a far more profound way than he realises. I am perhaps the only human being on Gor, or perhaps in the history of the universe, to have truly changed sex.

It was less than a Gorean month ago that I was a man, a strong and virile man. I was a soldier, a warrior, just as the man conversing is a warrior.

That was before the Priest Kings gave me my mission. I’d wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. They made me female.

At the back of my knee I feel a sharp sting. Some kind of mosquitolike Gorean insect is biting me. I have been the victim of several such attacks since we began our journey upriver towards the fortified compound of Kurtz on Lake Shaba. Assuming these creatures are real and the heat isn’t making me hallucinate, my flesh is delightful enough to eat.

My wish would be to swat the insect, but I’m currently unable to reach it. In fact I can barely move at all – these men having bound me tightly to the prow of their longship.

I have a little freedom to turn my head from side to side, and to look up and down, and I can also flex my fingers and wiggle my toes. I am able to writhe my woman’s body sensuously, which I must do occasionally to ease the discomfort in my thighs, but that completes the list of my available options for movement.

“One ahn,” a second male voice replies. “We will be there in one ahn, and the rest of the compound can debate which should be first prow.”

An ahn is a Gorean hour. I will be at least another hour trapped in this position.

My spirits sink so low that tears well in my eyes.

The prow I’m lashed to is not quite vertical, but forms a gentle cupid’s bow. My body is bound against this curve, so my back arches and assumes the same shape, pushing my torso out and displaying it more completely.

My arms have been stretched upwards, wrists lashed together and secured to the prow somewhere far above my head, in a fashion that pushes my ribcage and my breasts out even further.

While the weight suspended from my arms makes them feel like they’re being pulled from their sockets, it is the position of my legs that strains my back and makes this ride really uncomfortable.

My long slender legs, the men tied either side of the prow, parted and restrained at the knees. Those knees are secured bent at the joint, with my ankles almost pulled backwards almost to touch my buttocks with my heels. To complete the arrangement, my ankles were lashed somewhere behind me out of my sight, and in this position I remain, unable to straighten my legs out.

Thus, my bodyweight is suspended by a combination of my wrists; my upper back (where my spine rests against the prow); and my stretched thighs.

Goreans call this the bow-tie, I was informed by my captors. Not because it resembles the Urth garment of the same name worn by men, but because the shape formed resembles a longbow. The woman forms the curved shape of the wooden bow itself, and the ropes around the prow form the bow string.

In the army, they used to call it a stress position.

I distract myself by recalling that there is a different position known as the Gorean Bow and attempting to visualise it, where a kneeling woman leans back so her head touches the floor, keeping her body lifted from the ground. But I am not in this pose.

“She moves pleasingly in her bonds,” the first man comments from behind me when I stretch and strain, trying to ease my thigh muscles.

It’s early morning but the sun is already getting hot. If I follow the complexion of most redheads, any areas of exposed skin I present to the UV will burn easily.

That will likely prove a problem, seeing as my captors stripped me naked before displaying me at the prow of their war canoe.

It has been several hours since they last permitted me clothing.

The ship I adorn is on its way to the fortified compound of Kurtz, a place located on Lake Shaba in the Gorean jungle region. My mission is to penetrate this compound in the guise of a slave girl, and determine why Kurtz has turned from service of the Priest Kings.

Then I must either return him to their service or terminate him.

I say ‘guise’, but there is no falsehood. I will indeed enter his compound as a slave girl.

When I endured the dangerous transformation process in the service of those same Priest Kings I already knew that Gor was not a pleasant world to be a woman, and my brief experience as a female has only confirmed this.

I’d be willing to bet that if I was a male soldier, I would not currently be bound to the prow, naked and displayed for men’s pleasure.

However I have to remember that my gender has also saved me. As a male soldier I might now have been dead, killed on the barge as my guardian Rorius was.

Grasping at yet another distraction, I think over what I would do right now, were I a male soldier.

“Status report,” I imagine hearing the snapped voice of a drill sergeant demand, and I occupy myself by composing an update for this fictitious fellow.

Events are progressing according to plan, would be how my situation would be summarised for the platoon log, but that bland military update would not convey anything of the tale of death and human misery that has bought me to my current location.

That report would not detail how the screams of dying slaves on the barge still ring in my ears. It would not convey how my success means that I’m now in torment.

I wouldn’t tell them how I can relax my aching thighs and rest them, but doing that thrusts my pelvis obscenely forward and increases the strain on my arms. This relaxation of my thighs also further curves my spine, doubling the pain in my back.

And I wouldn’t report that my only alternative is to tense my legs, pushing my naked buttocks back against the prow as intimately as spooning a lover, relieving the pain on my upper body but putting the strain back onto my thighs.

When a fresh wave of suffering comes from nowhere I try to lift myself using my arms, at the same time fumbling round with my fingers for any means of freeing myself, but all I can touch are coils of rope.

The knots have been kept out of my range. Goreans know well how to secure women so they cannot escape.

Soon my muscles fail and I have to sink back down, and there it goes, the pain in my thighs starts to build yet again. Aurore’s arms and shoulders are not as a strong as the ones I used to possess, and I cannot support my bodyweight for long. I want to cry, but I’m damned if I’ll permit myself the release of emotion in front of them.

“Do you think that He will give this one for the use of the warriors?”

It is the voice of the first man.

Comments like this are typical in demonstrating the casual manner in which the rape of myself and the other women has been discussed since our capture. They represent the attitude to women’s right to consent prevalent on Gor.

Political correctness has not reached this discriminatory planet, and Gorean men are not ashamed to enjoy women. Rather, they consider it a perfectly natural thing to do, and take great pleasure from the activity.

I reaffirm that this is not a pleasant world to be female, unless the numerous scrolls written by slave girls are to be believed.

Those slaves claim their true nature is set free by the treatment they receive.

But my transformation into Aurore has not changed my brain or my nature, so I have the mind of a male, and a man’s cultural history. That means I’m unlikely to ever understand this “true female nature” talk, and therefore all I can hope is that I will not be given “for the use of the men”.

Unfortunately I am a captive female, whatever the gender of my mind might be, and I accepted it as a risk of the mission that my captors are likely to do with me as they wish.

This will not be a pleasant day for me.

When I was an Urth soldier, in the Special Forces, I was trained in preparation for enemy capture. I was even stripped as naked as I am now, and forced to hold stress positions as part of a mock

interrogation.

Sexual abuse as a prisoner was never a concern for me then, however. Few were as entranced by the body of Aurius, or Arran as I was known on Urth, that they craved to touch it. For the spectacularly beautiful Aurore, it is an entirely different matter.

Already they are using my gender to humiliate me. My knees have been tied well apart, opening the view to my sex obscenely. I’m unable to close my legs to hide myself, and I feel very exposed.

I could be penetrated easily like this.

My eyes follow a giant dragonfly like creature as it zigzags across my vision, so slowly the world might be playing in slow motion.

“The Ubar will take no interest in her,” the second man says critically, “He never does, but I bet Chiron will want her. She’s his type. You’ll have to cross swords with him if you want rights to the redhead. Are you telling me you dare test your prowess against he who was once Ar’s second sword?”

Who is Chiron, I wonder.

“He enjoys too much authority while the Ubar is sick,” first man grumbles. “I tell you, there will be trouble when the leader tries to reassume his control.”

So, Kurtz is unwell? That is news to me. Perhaps his sickness explains the interruption in service to the Priest Kings. This Chiron may not know that Kurtz is an agent of the Sardar.

“The Ubar will never resume control unless he acts soon,” the second man says.

“Perhaps this girl will be sufficient to draw him from the melancholy,” first-voice speculates. “She would bring life to most men.”

“In that case, you will still not get her,” his friend retorts with amusement. “Why do you torture yourself by watching her?”

I shift position in my bonds again, grinding my teeth with hatred of these men.

Many died last night, warriors on the barge and the poor slaves that burnt or drowned below, and these people do not care. They debate who will have sex with me as casually as if I’m a prize on the table of a card game.

If only I could hide my breasts, and the area between my legs, I might not feel so helpless. One shred of dignity would make this bearable. But I’m stuck, on display. A light sheen of sweat even blooms on me now, making my chest look like it’s been made up for a girlie calendar.

Kurtz is to blame. I vow to kill him if I get the chance, whether he’s melancholy or not. We’re so close to him I can sense it.

Focused on my hate I strain even more intensely in the ropes and growl with frustration, imagining myself breaking his neck with my arms. Then I remember that of course, I no longer have the ability to kill a man with brute strength.

I had some skill at martial arts as a soldier, but I’ve given all that up. I present no threat to a healthy adult male.

“I like that she’s feisty,” the first man, he who wants me, says, and I still myself quickly.

I note that the river is starting to widen and the current resisting our progress has slowed. There is a little bit of a breeze developing – the territory ahead must be open enough to permit this.

“Less than a pasang to go,” the second man says.

Then, round the next bend, the river widens dramatically and there it is – the lake. At last, Lake Ushindi. It’s huge – more like an inland sea. As soon as we break cover the breeze increases, offering some merciful cooling, and the surface of the water below me begins to be broken by waves.

Our longship is hugging the marshy right hand bank. I recall Misk saying that Kurtz’ compound was between the two rivers, and a pasang is about three quarters of an Urth mile.

So any moment now I will see it, see him. I shuffle in my ropes, bracing myself for what is to come.

15 - I make a triumphant entry into the compound

On Urth, a major sporting success is often celebrated by parading the victors’ trophy through the home city. This ritual serves both to intimidate and taunt enemies with the strength and power of the winners, and to increase the loyalty of the home supporters, connecting them to the team through shared participation.

While military captives are being displayed even today in the current Middle Eastern conflicts, parading of captive civilian females only took place in older and more barbaric ages.

The Incas and the Mayans displayed their women prisoners along with the males, for example, dressing them humiliatingly to distinguish from their captors. Many of these women ended up being tortured and sacrificed, although the lucky females might be sold into slavery.

While on Earth this savage era is thankfully past, unfortunately on Gor it is not the case. I am not lashed to the prow simply to make me suffer. I have discovered that when raiding by boat on Gor, it is traditional to display captive prizes at the prow of the vessel, live figureheads, and trophies for the victorious homecoming.

The lead boat will display the highest status captive, and then women reduce in value with the reducing rank of the ship.

I am bound to the second prow. Lady Nessa is ahead of me, she being the wealthiest captive. Jaya, one of Lady Nessa’s waiting women who I know to be attractive is on the third boat, and as a terrible insult one of the captured slave girls has been displayed on the fourth and final boat, rather than her other waiting woman, the Lady Coleen.

The sun is almost directly overhead us now. It’s oppressively humid here, with the lake as a further source of water, and the breeze does not cool me. Insects suck Aurore’s sweet blood.

Sweat has started running into my eyes, making them sting. My bare skin streams with so many droplets I might be showering.

All in all, I’m in a miserable state.

Although I’m about to endure a public humiliation, when we round a marshy headland and see the fort, I almost feel relief that this part of my ordeal is over.

So steeling my resolve, I look up as best as I can, analysing what I see.

I’d expected some crude construction of mud and straw, so the scale of Kurtz’ fortifications shocks me. This is not a savages’ building of bamboo – massive jungle trees have been felled and used for the piling, sunk into earthwork ramparts raised above the level of the marsh.

The main compound has a wall large enough to keep King Kong out, constructed from the same vertical tree trunks. They have been coated with some dark tar-like substance to protect them from rot. Each one of the many trunks forming the wall has been sharpened to a spike at its uppermost point.

A pall of smoke hangs over the place, like the compound is in the middle of an artillery bombardment, but I know such weapons are not available on Gor.

The heat makes me feel faint, compounding my woes.

As the lead boat approaches a gate ponderously opens inwards on the wall facing the lake, and our ship follows the lead vessel through the opening.

Decorating the two spikes either side of the gate are the giant decapitated heads of bear-like animals.

They look larger than a bear from Urth. At first I think it must be some Gorean species I’m not aware of. Then another idea occurs to me and I shudder.

Are those Kurii?

I’ve never seen the enemy in reality. These heads look as if they would have been fearsome creatures, but now they are partially decayed and putrefied. Maggots crawl in sunken eye sockets.

It is unlikely that Kurtz would have allied himself with the Kurii while flaunting his gate with their dead.

I shrink away from them, nude in my ropes, as we pass beneath the heads and enter the compound.

The compound of Kurtz is arranged with the buildings backed against the walls, facing into a central harbour. Again I am struck by the magnitude of the civil engineering. Kurtz arrived to seize a Kurii landing site, and his men have built this – or more accurately the slaves to his men have built this. It’s more like a town than a fort.

However the work is not finished, as if someone grew disheartened part way through the project. Although it isn’t apparent from the front, a section of the rear wall is missing entirely, so an enemy can simply walk in from the inland side.

Commerce has commenced before the construction was complete. Sailing ships and galleys of varying sizes are moored against the numerous jetties. A larger ship has triangular sails and reminds me of an Arabian dhow.

Ringing the jetties are smoking braziers, where some kind of plant is burning. These give off the clouds that blanket the fortifications. The plumes must be visible from miles across the lake. Kurtz is not concerned with the location of his home being identified.

Our final destination is at last apparent to me.

A considerable crowd is gathered on one part of the wharf. There must be several hundred there. The majority are men, but I also note a considerable number of female slaves, mostly dark skinned girls from the local tribes, but also a few white skinned northern women.

There are no free women among the crowd, unless they are free women who choose to wear collars and dress either in slave camisks or walk around the compound naked.

All on the dockside are laughing and cheering at our approach. People can be cruel.

I am naked and in a lot of pain, and they’re treating this as some kind of festive occasion.

I feel tears prick in my eyes.

The mocking from the men seems good natured, but some of the women shake their fists at me, their expressions distorted into nightmares of pure hate.

A space is ready for us to tie up side-by-side, the ships’ bows facing the dock, so for the first time I can look across at the naked Lady Nessa, bound to her prow at my left, and see Lady Jaya, similarly nude at my right.

The front of Lady Nessa’s vessel is straighter than the one I decorate, so she has been bound stretched out, arms together above her head and ankles together down below.

Jaya, a raven black haired girl with olive skin, almost as beautiful as Lady Nessa, has been bound similarly to myself. Her face is a rictus of suffering. I wonder if I look as tortured.

Only three ships from our raiding party arrive at the dock. Missing is the one that contained the male captives. I recall hearing that men that are not part of Kurtz’ group are rarely permitted within the compound, and conjecture that it must have diverted to some other location.

On the lead longship, a blonde haired man jumps up to the rail by the prow, so he stands at the side of Lady Nessa. It is he who commanded the raid on her barge.

He is young to be in charge of such an operation, but he is strong, virile. This is a man with greatness in his future.

Blondie did a good job of leading his mission, but his face has the implacable merciless quality you see in many Goreans.

“Honoured warriors,” this man calls out to the crowd, “and worthless slaves. I present the proud free-companionship party of Lady Nessa. Please welcome our guests to the compound of Kurtz.”

He sweeps his arm in front of her, as if unveiling a work of art.

The jeer is like a roar.

From somewhere within the crowd I see an object arc its way across towards Lady Nessa. It strikes her squarely on the face, the thrower’s aim being good, and she is splattered with the scarlet juice of some Gorean fruit.

Nessa cries out.

I don’t have time to feel sorry for her, because I look back furiously to the crowd in time to receive my own missile, which is less accurately thrown and strikes me on my thigh.

“Sleens!” I call out defiantly. “I hate you all.”

I had been expecting something like this – abuse by the mob. They are reaffirming their membership in the group by turning on the outsiders. The women, closest in status to ourselves, are likely to be more insecure about our arrival than the men folk, and thus be the most hostile.

“Rape them!” a female voice calls from the crowd. “Brand them!”

This maltreatment continues for several minutes. I become sticky with the juice of fruit, missiles thrown at me from the crowd. Men approach us, beasts miming obscene sexual gestures or clutching their genitals, but the abuse from them has fortunately not turned physical.

Their faces are inhuman.

“Enough,” the blonde warrior calls then, and the crowd stills instantly. Authority and order still reign within the compound of Kurtz, and we will not be permitted to come to real harm.

Udumi, she who was smuggled on board the barge to start the inferno, has jumped down onto the dock as gracefully as a cat, next to the blonde leader.

I find her quite beautiful.

“Permission to run to my Master,” she wheedles in a needy childish voice.

“Run to the Ubar first, kajira,” he says. “Tell him we have the captives ready for judgement. Then you may fetch the head slaver.”

Obediently she races away.

I am expecting her to head for the most palatial of the buildings, but the hut she heads towards is small, almost humble, although it occupies a prominent position in the harbour.

I look down at myself. Fruit is dripping from a strike near my naked hip.

Shifting in my ropes, I try futilely to hide my body.

I realise I am nervous. Not nervous because I am a man stuck in the body of naked woman, but because of the electricity in the air. There is expectation in the crowd. Something important is about to happen.

“He won’t come out,” a man predicts sourly.

That man’s attitude is interesting to me, as are many things here to a soldier engaged in reconnaissance. I have been in Kurtz’ camp for a matter of moments, and I have learned much.

Something is wrong here – the men seem rebellious and demoralised. Their leader is absent, and without his guidance the great work of building defences has been abandoned.

The blonde haired fellow appears to be de-facto in command. Much is not disciplined. A warrior sleeps unconscious on a jetty a short distance away, drunk or drugged.

Udumi emerges from the hut, still alone, and makes for another building.

“Told you,” the man says cynically.

She will be on her way to fetch the “head slaver.”

I look down and see Aurore’s breasts, hanging full as ripe fruit. My mind is filled with images of what is to come – the hands of men on me, faces looming over mine as they force me down into the furs.

I glance to either side. The women either side of me have also stilled, as we await the decision on our fate.

Rorius told me before he died that I must submit myself completely to survive, but I can only do that and complete my mission if I can keep my sanity.

Here goes.

16 - Judgement on the docks

This man was described as the head slaver, but to me he gives the impression of being of the warriors, or perhaps one of the assassin caste, for his clothing is armour of black leather. He has two short swords strapped round his waist, and I can tell by the casual way he wears them that he’s experienced in their handling.

Mister black-leather strides up and down the dock, studying the captives.

He stops before me.

“Hello pretty,” this man greets me, looking deliberately and at length up and down my naked body.

He might be considered handsome, having strong features and piercing dark eyes, but the way he looks at my body does not incline me to like him.

Here stands a true Gorean male, a man used to taking what he wants by whatever means he wishes. Rorius and Telisio were true Gorean men, but they knew me as Aurius, and they were my guardians. This man sees nothing but a desirable female before him. I shall receive no mercy.

Nonetheless, he called me “pretty” in a way I did not like.

I am slightly higher than him from my bound position, so I give my reply by spitting on him, an elastic gob that clings to the black leather of his tunic.

“She’s spirited, this one,” the man who first caught me says apologetically.

“Fetch me a whip,” black leather tunic says calmly, his eyes locked on mine.

Inwardly I groan. I’ve forgotten the role I’m supposed to play already. I shouldn’t have risen to some simple lechery. My remaining masculine pride was provoked, and I’ve made things worse for myself.

Getting a beating here on the prow in front of the crowd is not going to be good. I don’t like the idea of begging or screaming before strangers.

All the same, I can’t bring myself to break the confrontational stare between us.

“She should be taken before Him before you do anything, Chiron,” my captor counters nervously.

So this is Chiron, the one that they said I was “his type”. He seems to be high ranking within Kurtz’ group, or at least the other men treat him with some deference. Even the blonde warrior I had assumed to be leader treats him with respect.

“Fetch me a whip,” Chiron repeats, in a voice that is not to be countered.

Such an item is duly obtained, and handed to him. It is not the coiled Indiana Jones bullwhip, but a whip with multiple strands of shorter thin leather, reminiscent of a horse’s tail.

This is a slave whip. It is intended to cause pain, rather than injure or maim.

I shuffle vainly, attempting to shield my torso by any means, even though I know I’m tightly bound.

By now I am expecting him to draw back his arm in order to lash with force, so when the touch does comes its nature takes me entirely by surprise. It is a gentle brush from the whip, right between my legs at the sensitive apex. I cry out, my body tensing entirely from instinct at the intense stimulation, throwing my head to the side and my whole form freezing rigid.

Then the whip is gone, but I can still feel where it touched against me, and my face grows red as I know the damage is done and it is damage of a different sort.

I have just experienced what is called a whip caress. The purpose of it is to surprise a female into revealing her sexual responsiveness. Aurore’s body is more unused than most to being touched, so I am hypersensitive, and I’ve just shown that to everybody.

Even once the whip has gone there is a lingering tingle remaining from my sex.

“Interesting,” Chiron says, watching my face burn with humiliation.

“Her response is exceptional,” someone else says, almost awe-struck, as I feel more and more ashamed.

“Superb,” another voice says reverentially.

Chiron turns to my first captor then, sighing as if fulfilling a chore.

“Bring her down,” he says.

At last, warriors with knives move towards me. Priest Kings be praised.

When they cut me free from the prow, I fall into the arms of the man in front of me.

I discover then I am unable to straighten my legs. A man has to grab my ankles and pull them out, and I scream with pain as locked muscles finally uncramp.

There is a similar shriek from Jaya that shows she is also suffering.

Well outnumbered, we are easily carried away.

The building we’re dragged towards is the small, humble hut, which nonetheless occupies a prominent position in the harbour. Here Udumi first ran, when she was sent for the Ubar.

The sense of approaching some life-changing collision is becoming overwhelming.

He’s here. Kurtz is in here.

The hut has no windows, and a curtain at the door is part closed, leaving the interior in almost complete darkness. Despite this disinterest in us, on a short jetty before this structure the three of us are forced to our knees, lined up one behind the other.

Gratefully I rub my wrists, restoring the circulation. There are deep red rope marks at all the points where I was restrained.

All the women kneel with their thighs together, instinctively hiding our sex by adopting the position of free women or tower slaves.

My male intellect then reminds me of its existence, because even covered in fruit stains I can’t help noticing how beautiful the curves of Lady Nessa’s backside look when she’s in this position.

But the soldier’s part of my masculinity is busy, racing in more serious thoughts. The focus of the wrongness I have sensed throughout the compound is to be found here. People keep glancing towards the darkened doorway of the hut, like they’re worried children that can’t get a reply from a sleeping parent.

I am in a place is missing the influence of its Ubar.

The dark-haired warrior, he who administered the caress to me, eventually addresses us.

“My name is Chiron,” he says, striding back and forth before us. “I am the head slaver among the men of Kurtz.”

I see that hanging from his belt are now bands of steel, open bands, about the same diameter as a female neck.

Slave collars.

“The only reason you live is because you are women, and you have the potential to serve and please men. There is no purpose here for a woman other than to serve us, and therefore a free woman’s life will not be spared.”

“You have a choice. Beg for the collar of a slave and call me Master, and you may live. If you do not accept slavery, you will be cut and then thrown into the water, where the thalarion will be drawn to your blood to eat you.”

He only gives us a moment to think before he says, “bring forward the first female.”

Lady Nessa is dragged towards the edge of the jetty by a warrior holding each of her arms. Her eyes are wide with terror as she looks at the muddy water of the harbour.

“No, no!” she pleads.

This must be even more frightening for Lady Nessa than for the other captives - I recall she cannot swim. She screams with misery as she is forced to kneel right at the edge of the jetty.

Then my kind hearted friend cracks.

“Masters,” she weeps, “Please, I beg for slavery.”

“Your request is granted,” Chiron says.

The collar is snapped around her throat only an ihn, a Gorean second, later, and at that instant she is no longer Lady Nessa. She is not even Nessa, unless that title is chosen for her. She is a nameless slave.

That same newly collared naked slave kneels on the jetty, her head down.

“She will be taken to the pens, where she is to be trained,” Chiron says in a perfunctory manner, as if this ceremony has happened hundreds of times.

“Now - does anyone wish to master this woman?”

“I want her,” a warrior says from close by.

It is the blonde haired young warrior from the barge, he who led the mission. He is not un-handsome, and a good specimen of Gorean manhood.

There is a pause for a moment – I deduce that Chiron is waiting for any other interested parties to declare, in which case some kind of contest must take place.

There is none. Perhaps this fellow is not one to be crossed.

“Very well. When you wish her use, send for the girl and she is to share your furs.”

Nessa is weeping as she looks fearfully up at her owner. This is the man who is likely to take her virginity. Whatever Nessa’s future fate, he will be remembered as one of the most significant people in her life.

Jaya is next. As Nessa did, she capitulates quickly.

I would have expected Nessa to be more highly contested, but this time there are three men who desire the newly-collared slave girl to share their furs. A fencing competition ensues to decide the issue, and we all have to wait as the crowd cheer on their favourites.

Jaya is not consulted in this – she has already been collared and is now merely slave.

I look upon the good humoured contest with disgust. It is barbaric – three men sporting over which one gets to rape a slave.

Gor is a hateful place.

While I wait unhappily for the resolution I stare at the rough wooden planking of the jetty, and I reflect that my turn is coming next.

The men on the boat said the one called “Chiron” would want me, but I’m damned if I’m going to screw him after he humiliated me in front of everyone. I can still feel where that whip touched my most intimate place.

The thing that horrifies me is that I couldn’t control that reaction. If he took me by surprise and did the same thing, I’d respond in exactly the same way.

As I dwell on the involuntary betrayals by Aurore’s body, a dark haired man with a scar on his face wins the contest for Jaya, and knotting his hand in her hair he bends her head back and collects a victor’s kiss.

There is cheering from the crowd.

“Bring forward the next female,” he says.

A warrior grabs each of my arms, and it is my turn to be dragged to the edge of the jetty.

“If you wish to live, beg for the collar of a slave,” Chiron’s voice instructs me languidly.

The smell of burnt human beings from the barge is still in my hair. Rotten fruit sticks to my skin. I have been stripped and ridiculed.

He sounds almost laconic, so sure is he that I’m going to capitulate. I suppose that history is in his favour. I have read many Gorean scrolls which describe the female beginning her journey into slavery by submitting as a survival mechanism to avoid death, before joyously releasing her inner slave.

I think that’s a load of bosk crap.

“You people had no right to murder those slaves on the barge,” I hiss angrily, making sure my condemnation can be heard by as many as possible. “Those poor men burnt alive. I would rather die than be slave to such men as you.”

And with that, I rock forward on my knees, overbalancing towards the water.

People are shouting. Someone grabs my ankle at the last moment, a large male hand, and I am dragged roughly by this handle back onto the jetty.

From in the water, something boils just in front of me, and I glimpse the snap of a brightly coloured reptilian snout, but the teeth just miss my face.

An unknown man has just saved my life, but for me their act is a painful experience. I feel a searing pain from my hips to my belly as the wooden planking at the edge of the jetty grazes my soft skin.

I’m dragged safely back on the wooden planking, dumped on my side in almost the same pose as when I emerged from the transformation process, and everything goes quiet.

There is a stunned silence on the dock. Clearly no-woman has ever chosen this way before.

Then, from the near darkness in the hut, a deep male voice speaks for the first time.

“You can call us murderers, yes, but do not think you have the right to judge us, daughter of Gor.”

His voice is resonant, charismatic. I am reminded of the voice of Vader from the Star Wars movies. It tugs at something deep in my belly, vibrating intensely. It is Kurtz. I can’t see him, but I just know by the reaction from the crowd.

Everyone has turned to look into that dark doorway. I stare up, and my eyes begin to make out a giant man’s shape, slightly darker than the background shadows.

“Do you think I am unaware of your purpose in coming here?” that shape continues. “You are in no position to accuse me of cruel murder. What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? Tell me, woman - did you plan to kill me immediately, or after giving your illinformed opinions on my actions and my morality?”

I thought I knew fear as I tipped towards my death in the water, but the voice brings a new horror. He knows.

Priest Kings help me - what are they going to do to me if they know?

Unwanted, the voice of Misk comes back to me, saying, “Parts of our agents’ bodies are returned to the Sardar as a message – limbs, heads, genitals. The treatment is barbaric.”

My future isn’t even the misery of slavery. I have endured all this only to find a tortured death.

“You may call me a murderer, yes. I have killed many,” continues the voice. “But do not judge me for that, woman warrior. If anything – you are more responsible for the deaths on the boat than I. Your ignorance of this fact makes you a fool.”

The word “ignorance” is almost spat, such is his dislike for me.

The warriors on the dock are still looking uncertainly towards the hut, their free will lost in the force of his personality. I can see they were not expecting Kurtz to involve himself in the selection.

But the alpha male has reminded them that he is Ubar, and now, like children, they look for guidance.

“She would prefer to be treated as a warrior than a woman. So take the woman to suffer the death of a warrior,” the voice says. “Put her in the cage.”

His words fill me with dread like I’ve never felt before. I even don’t know what “the cage” is, but it doesn’t sound good.

A male voice speaks up from behind me.

“I wish to take her first,” he says. “If she is to die anyway, Ubar, let me rape her and then she can go in the cage.”

I turn my head to look in alarm at the speaker. It is he who caressed me with the whip, the one they call Chiron.

My stomach rolls with further horror at this prospect, and I look back to the hut, hoping that Kurtz doesn’t agree.

“None shall touch her,” the bass rumble answers from the hut, and I can’t help feel a moment of gratitude towards this man, even though I’ve just been condemned to death by him. At least I shall meet my end without enduring that violation.

“You are illogical,” Chiron persists. “It is a waste to let her die without using her. You did not see how she responds to the whip. Her body cries out for the touch of a man.”

My face reddens. Everyone saw how I reacted to the shameful caress, and there is some murmuring of agreement from within the crowd.

“When I am dead you will be Ubar here,” Kurtz responds. “But until that day, I am Ubar. So draw your weapon and step inside, if you wish to further debate the issue, or be about your business.”

For the first time I see Chiron look unsure of himself. This is even worse news for me than provoking the anger of the Ubar. I have led to Chiron being belittled in front of the rest of the compound.

“I am the head slaver,” he says. “She is my business.”

There is no reply from the hut.

He does half-draw his weapon and I think for a moment there will indeed be a blood fight. But Chiron turns to look at me and I can see he has found an easier focus for his aggression.

“Remember me, free woman,” Chiron says, and he slams the blade back into its sheath. “I swear that if you live, one day I will break you.”

17 - The Cage

In the water, something brushes against the bare skin of my thigh, close to where a brand might have been placed.

Don’t panic, I tell myself. That was just a fish.

There is, located in these fresh tropical waters, a carnivorous fanged marsh eel called the bint. But they only attack when attracted towards blood.

The scratches to my abdomen I sustained on the dockside have closed up. Aurore’s skin will soon be flawless again, and I will not be attacked as long as I don’t sustain a fresh injury.

The bars that form the sides of my submerged cube-shaped cage are too close together to permit the thalarion to enter, but smaller harmless lake creatures may come and go. I am not intended to die from being eaten in the cage – I am meant to drown.

The roof of the cage, formed from that same criss-cross grid of bamboo bars that makes up the walls, is level with the surface of the lake. When the wind picks up, waves lap over it and I am splashed with freshwater spray.

It didn’t take me long to determine that the gaps between these roof bars have been fashioned to be large enough to fit the head of a human being, but not to permit the shoulders and the rest of the body to exit.

Thus I can breathe easily, as long as I remained swimming or holding on to the bars, but I cannot escape, and there is no means of resting.

The cage floor is down below, out of the depth of even the tallest of men. At one point I dived down, checking there was actually a floor, and I couldn’t simply leave by swimming underneath.

It turned out there was no exit through the depths.

“I am trapped,” I confirmed when I surfaced like a mermaid, reaching through the bars to smooth back my soaking wet hair.

If Kurtz is true to his word, eventually I will die in here, because I can’t keep swimming or hold on to the bars of the ceiling forever.

It will not be an easy way to go. Tiredness will take hold of me; I’ll start to panic as I get too exhausted to keep moving; and eventually even the adrenaline of fear will not be enough to energise my limbs. It will could take several days before my human instinct to survive is overwhelmed.

“I would wager that they don’t intend to kill you,” a man called Kwesi says to me. “Look – here he comes again.”

One of the warriors is walking along the jetty towards our cage. He stops when he is standing over us – the floor of his jetty being constructed six inches further above the surface, so I look up from a very humble position below him.

The warrior waits for a moment, giving us the chance to say something – pleading for our lives, perhaps, but nobody speaks. Then he shrugs, turns and walks slowly back towards the compound, which is a short distance away.

The cage has been sunk into the area where the lake meets the marsh, outside of the main fortifications. We are far enough into the reeds that a vessel passing by with a would-be rescuer is unlikely to spot the miserable prisoners in the vegetation, but we still have a reasonably unrestricted view of the lake.

The wooden jetty above my head runs to a grassy area that extends out from the back of the compound. I assume that on this grassy mound must be located the original Kurii landing site, but from down in the reeds I don’t have a satisfactory view of the geography.

“I would wager that they don’t intend to kill either of us,” Kwesi adds. “You are too desirable to waste, and they would rather leave my vessel with its captain intact.”

Kwesi is my companion in here. It must have been a surprise when a beautiful naked woman was pitched through the hinged opening in the roof of the cage to join him for a swim.

“It’s very kind of you to provide such pleasant company,” he called out to the guards as they padlocked the exit and then walked away from us.

Left alone, we made our introductions, facing each other with my head through one gap in the bars and his through another a couple of feet away.

I discovered that Kwesi was the captain of a merchant vessel, trading between Schendi on the coast and the settlements on Lake Ushindi. When Kwesi refused to pay a levy of his cargo to Kurtz, his entire ship was seized and he was thrown into the cage to reconsider his negotiating position.

I agree with his assessment that his ship is more valuable with its captain intact and generating future income, and it is unlikely he will die in this mesh of bamboo.

Furthermore, on a personal level in my opinion it would also be a shame to kill him.

“Water, water,” he pleads up to the guard on one of the periodic visits, and I can’t help smile despite our predicament. It’s the first time I’ve done so since the raid on the barge.

As a man, I would have enjoyed his dry sense of humour, but Kwesi is also particularly charming to Aurore, talking to me in a way that is unlike Rorius or Telisio, and unlike Aurius’ former male

acquaintances.

It is impossible not to react to this gallantry.

Everything below my neck is submerged in the brown waters of the lake, so it is the first occasion I haven’t needed to feel ashamed of my nudity. I am a female head, enjoying conversing with a male head.

We are aware of our difference in sexes, but for once I am not belittled by being the weaker one. He is a handsome black skinned man with a beautiful deep bass voice.

However, other men around here have not forgotten that as a Gorean woman, my beauty defines me. At one point the one called Chiron comes to stand over the cage. Kwesi greets him jovially, but Chiron is only interested in me.

“Don’t think you will be allowed such an easy death, female,” he says. “Here’s a taste of your future.” Extracting his manhood, he then urinates from above us into the water.

I realise an instant beforehand what he’s about to do and duck below the surface, propelling myself backwards and out of range, but not quickly enough to avoid feeling something warm splash my hand.

“Not very big, is it?” I retaliate when I’m back up breathing the humid tropical air. “If you ever do take me, you’ll have to let me know when you’ve started.”

“She-sleen,” he says as he stalks away.

Late in the first afternoon it pours with rain, huge warm raindrops that wet you to the soul in the way that is only possible in the tropics. Visibility drops right down and we can barely see the compound.

“No one will come and check on us when the weather is like this,” I predict miserably, and I am correct.

My initial angry response to the incident on the barge and the mob humiliation at the docks has faded now the crowds have gone, and as the rain soaks my head I reflect on my mission with a clearer mind.

My masculine ego has got in the way of completing the Priest King’s task. I will not succeed by dying here in this cage. I will not, one day, be relaxing on a beach on Urth if I die, either.

Would slavery be that bad when it means living for a little longer? Nessa and Jaya embraced life quickly enough. Why not Aurore?

I know what stopped me. It was the prospect of seeing the victory in their faces when they took me.

This look of conquest is what I imagine when I think of being taken, as I’ve often done since awakening inside Aurore’s divine body.

Because of my refusal to yield I have already antagonised the one called Chiron, and what is worse for me, by spitting on him before the crowd I’ve publically insulted his warrior’s pride.

Being taken by Chiron would be the worst of them all, but would it be worse than death?

It might be. He wouldn’t just want to take me as a slave. He will want me to suffer. Chiron will want to redeem his honour in front of his peers by showing he has conquered me in every way.

Even so, one day, all this might be over, just a bad memory. Or would the nightmare images haunt me forever?

My head is already drenched from the now slowing rain, so trying to focus my thoughts I relax for a moment and sink below the surface.

The lake water is muddy and the visibility is low, but it still feels as cleansing as a baptism. I glimpse the tail of a fish flee me with a flick. Gor can be such a beautiful world.

When I emerge, I feel resolved and more ready to fight on. I am Aurore of the Sardar, agent of Priest Kings, once Aurius of London. I will re-engage in my mission, whatever that takes.

“Do you have anything we can attach ourselves to the side of the cage with?” I ask Kwesi with fresh dynamism. “We could support ourselves while we rest.”

He shakes his head.

“I am as naked and therefore as unequipped as you, my dear.”

Until then, I had not thought that he too might be nude. Perhaps since my arrival he has thought of nothing but being naked in the cage with an attractive member of the opposite sex. Water is the only thing separating his genitals from mine.

“Why are they killing you?” he asks me then, genuinely confused. “The typical punishment for a woman is to make her slave, and to kill one so beautiful deprives the world of its chance to look upon you.”

“I am one of Kurtz’ enemies,” was the only answer I could come up with.

“But if you are a female enemy, making you live as slave is a worse punishment than death,” he says.

Kwesi pauses while he thinks, and smiles at me then, certainty in his expression.

“I wager they do not intend to kill you.”

“You didn’t hear Kurtz’ voice,” I counter. “And the Ubar is known to be without mercy.”

My reply gives me pause as I realise the truth of my own words. Perhaps I truly am too late to change my mind and submit, and I will drown in this cage of water.

When night falls our morale drops with it. The water feels colder, and for the first time in these equatorial jungles, I consider that the chill may be a threat.

The rain, which slowed late in the afternoon, has renewed its intensity. It has been raining for some hours. The night is pitch dark, our illumination from the three moons of Gor being obscured by the rainclouds.

A body of water the size of Lake Ushindi shouldn’t be susceptible to rain, but I see the water level has risen by the length of a fingernail. Drowning may be a threat to me, after all.

I wonder what is happening to Nessa, and Jaya. Perhaps they are warm in the furs of some warriors while naked, they serve his pleasure.

In the middle of the night a terrible sound interrupts the noises of nocturnal wildlife. It is a man screaming, an agonised noise. This is not the sound of fear – it is someone enduring the torments of hell.

“What was that?” I ask, trying to think what tortures might produce such a cry.

“Best not to know, I think.”

Then, without warning, the muscle in my calf cramps. I stretch out my seized leg, awkwardly trying to massage without submerging, but a few minutes later it does it again.

This time I cry out with pain.

“What is it?” Kwesi’s voice asks from the blackness.

“Cramp, in my leg. I think it’s the cold.”

“Permit me to massage the muscle for you.”

I feel a little uncomfortable about the idea, but for my survival it is sensible to accept the suggestion.

Cautiously I extend my foot, stretching my toes out like a dancer, until I feel them make contact with his body. It is solid, masculine. Then I feel Kwesi’s giant hands on my calf.

His fingers make circular motions, rubbing deep into the flesh of my slim leg to relax the muscle. It is very soothing, and I can’t help groan with relief in Aurore’s high voice.

There difference between our sexes feels even more important to me now. Massage is always sensuous, but something about my being Aurore means there is an eroticism in his actions.

Staying alive must be my top priority, however. Soldiers are trained to tolerate personal humiliations for the greater objective.

“I can hold you, support you while you rest,” he suggests next. “Then, you can support me. We might be able to last longer.”

I’m not overly enthusiastic about the idea of even closer contact with a naked man, but again the suggestion is sensible. I warily concede.

“Move closer,” he says, and I do so, ducking below several sets of bars to lift my head above the surface in the square of space next to him.

As we get close our bodies begin to brush together while I manoeuvre into position – kicking feet as we treat water, a thigh or an arm making contact, my rubbery nipple stroking his chest as I twist my torso.

I am facing him. We are intimately close, and I am even more aware he is a man, and I am now a woman.

He would only have to extend his neck to kiss me, and he looks for a moment as if he’s contemplating it.

Deep in my belly there is a glow. A part of me wants him to make the move that would break down the emotional divide between us. That part of me is telling me that feeling his lips on mine might not be unpleasant.

It is perhaps lucky that he cannot read my conflicted mind.

“Turn around and rest back against me,” Kwesi says. “I will hold you.”

I do so. His hands search under the water for my forearms, and as he folds his arms around Aurore’s narrow waist I lean back into him, finding myself supported. It is as I’d thought. The sensation of having my back against his chest is really quite nice.

But then I feel something different against me, something as firm as a limb. His blood is aflame, and is pushing between the cheeks of my buttocks.

I have been tricked. I panic, and flail in the water.

“No!” I cry, suddenly thrashing to escape, but without warning the grip of his arms goes as tight as a vice, and I am trapped.

“Calm down, I’m not going to rape you,” he is saying urgently into my ear, and his arms hold me even more firmly, like he’s taming a wild horse in danger of harming itself. “Be still, girl.”

I struggle, but he’s stronger than me, and it doesn’t take me long to realise I’m not going to let me get away until I give in and breath calmly.

Gradually I stop resisting, defeated, and I try to un-tense my muscles.

“I’m not going to rape you,” Kwesi repeats as my heart rate begins to slow. “You are beautiful, so my reaction to your body is completely natural, and is beyond my control. But men of honour only rape slaves, and you are not a slave.”

I don’t agree that “real men rape only slaves”, but that attitude makes him almost a feminist by Gorean standards, so I can’t help feeling some gratitude.

Once as Aurius the soldier, or Arran as they knew me on Earth, I was on a winter survival exercise in a bitterly cold region of Swedish forest. That night I slept naked between three other men, sharing our body heat as we had been trained.

We joked much about homosexuality, but in the army you have to be used to each other’s bodies, and the night passed without incident.

Aurius was a reasonably handsome man, so in my former life I’d been with my share of turned-on women. But this is the first time in my existence I’ve had physical contact with a sexually aroused male.

His manhood probes against me like a rod.

I know from experience of being in his place and having a woman’s body against me that each small movement I make under the water might be stimulating him, so I feel self-conscious of my body in a way I’ve never done before.

At the same time, I am beginning to relax. He’s not going to force himself on me. This is just human attraction. He is right. It’s not so bad.

“Sleep,” he repeats, but it takes some time before my fears reduce enough to allow that, even though I have not slept since my capture, and I am exhausted.

I awaken abruptly from a disturbingly sensual dream to find myself still in his arms. The contact between us is even more intimate now. One of his hands cups my breast, so my nipple pushes into his palm. The other arm runs round my belly and down to the fulcrum of my legs, where I am supported by him moulding his hand to my sex.

The sun is rising over the reeds.

How long has he been touching me like this? Where else have his hands been? Did I respond to him? Is that why I had the dream?

“No,” I say, when I feel his passion still aflame, pushing my way out of his arms, and he releases me immediately.

I bob up, several squares away, to see him looking sympathetic.

“You’ve never been with a man, have you?” Kwesi guesses.

“No,” I say. We’ve been intimate enough already that there can be noharm in admitting this.

“Is it really worth dying for, protecting your honour from us?” he asks in a gentle voice.

I consider. It’s not just my virginity. I don’t even entirely dislike the idea of having sex with a man instead of a woman. I might actually enjoy it under the right circumstances, and I don’t intend that Aurore remains celibate for her entire life.

“I don’t want them to feel they’ve beaten me,” I answer. “I don’t want to be just one more Gorean female conquered by Gorean men,

perpetuating the culture of male superiority.”

“You are proud,” he says, “as every woman is, but is that pride worth everything? Sacrificing your life will not prevent the rape of other women, but by living to prove your case you might help your sisters.”

I’m morally right, I’m sure, but his argument makes me feel like I’m being a petulant teenager.

“I suppose there’s not much point to my dying in this cage,” I reluctantly say.

“Let me hold you again, free woman of Gor,” he gently requests. “Experience the contact with a man, knowing he is not going to force himself on you.”

This time I comply more quickly, ducking under the water and moving back into his arms, as we had spent the night.

As I move my backside against him I discover him even more inflamed than last night. His arms circle me intimately, but I do not react by attempting to escape.

“You are naked, in the arms of a man,” he says. “Is this fate so dreadful?”

I am silent.

What can I tell him? That I’ve been sent here because of my male heterosexual personality, but I’m starting to quite like the way men can react to me? With Kwesi’s giant frame enclosing me, it is impossible not to feel protected. I am sure that for now, he will not permit anything to happen to me.

I wonder if this is my female body beginning to influence me, that I can so enjoy being held in the arms of a man. If so, it is not a good thing. I am supposed to remain male in thought.

I must resist yielding to the feminine, but not for now. The soldier’s survival option is to permit him to hold me. Thus, we are still in this intimate hold when a warrior from the compound comes to check on us.

By this time, the sun is high in the sky. It is oppressively humid. A cloud of insects are above us, but they don’t seem to be biting.

Above the surface of the water, my long hair has dried. Below, it fans out like the fronds of an aquatic plant.

We squint up as we both look to the guard.

“I have been considering my negotiating position,” Kwesi informs the guard in his good humoured voice. “I am willing to accept the offer made to me.”

“In that case, why are you there in that cage?” the guard asks with black humour. “There is no reason for it.”

“There does seem to have been an oversight,” Kwesi agrees.

The guard unlocks the trap door lid of the cage and flips it back, exposing a square exit large enough for a human being.

“Farewell,” Kwesi says to me as he releases his hold on my slender frame. “Consider that life still has many wonders to show you, lady of the Sardar.”

With that, he ducks under the bars to reach the exit. The guard leans over, lending a hand to pull the muscular man up from the water.

This is the first time I have seen Kwesi’s body. He really is beautifully toned, gleaming like polished ebony. His organ, still rampant, is unusually large.

I wait, small and forlorn in my corner. The cage feels large and empty without him here. I know if I attempt to escape there will be a retribution, so I watch passively as the hatch is closed and relocked.

The stillness of my body shows nothing of the conflict in my thoughts.