Daughter of Gor by Olga Turlovna (Part Eight)

Daughter of Gor

By Olga Turlovna

30 - A line is crossed.

I have been plunged alive into the sun. I am burning, screaming and screaming from the white heat.

The suffering is only a moment, but a moment lasting forever.

Then the sun is receding into eclipse and I fall back to darkness, leaving just one place on my left thigh that continues to burn with an intense light.

I am able to open my eyes.

Vision changes from bright white to dark shadows, and what I can see is blurred with my own tears.

The first thing I discern is a line of frightened women, on their knees awaiting the same treatment I have just received. A coffle links their collars together, should any of them try to escape.

The pain in my leg is still agonising, but it has reduced to the level where I’m free from the madness of a few seconds ago.

I’m bound over a piece of furniture resembling a pommel horse, legs either side of this thing. Clamps fasten my left thigh in a vice-like grip. This was a sensible measure from my owner’s perspective. I struggled like a wild animal when the iron was pressed into me, and I could easily have done myself damage or smeared the mark, reducing my value.

I was branded third in line, which I suppose must be better than being one of the later girls. The anticipation will make it worse for those further behind me in the queue.

Filling my nostrils is the smell of burnt flesh. It is my own burnt flesh – the perfection created by the Priest Kings now and forever flawed.

“It is a clean mark,” the blacksmith says approvingly. “You can release her from the rack. Keep her tied for a day, like the others, so she’s unable to tear at the brand.”

I look across to his forge and see the iron bearing the symbol of the brandius flower is already back in the coals, heating again.

Men close in, releasing my leg from the clamp. The next girl starts to panic and wail as she is dragged from the line.

At the first movement flexing my limb, the pain increases

exponentially once again, and I give another scream.

Something has happened to me that will never be undone. My flesh carries the mark to indicate I am a slave girl. It is a mark that cannot be removed.

The smooth skin of Aurore’s left thigh carries this mark. The left is the common side to brand a girl, so that her master might feel the mark with his right hand.

Even when the two of them are in the dark, both man and woman will be reminded that she is slave.

I will always remember.

There are many different styles of brand, and many customs for branding.

In some places on Gor it is the practice to mark captives immediately upon their being seized, but in other cities the brand is considered a mark of quality and is more like a symbol of graduation from training.

Here in the compound of Kurtz I have just learnt branding is performed at a time of convenience, the arrival of the panthers to increase our number having created a group of sufficient size to be worth the effort.

Udumi was correct, and I was wrong.

I did not believe my master would let me endure this slave ritual, but this time he did not speak out at the last moment to save me. Fool me. He is Gorean after all.

I thought I was special – he even offered to release me. In fact, I am nothing more than his kajira. Kurtz mind games tricked me into yielding, into giving him everything he wanted.

I am no better than the earlier female agents. Like them, he has made me question my loyalty to The Sardar. If returned to the Priest Kings I might be labelled as compromised, like the others.

None of it matters, anyway. I am a branded slave.

Successfully marked, Aurore the kajira is released from the branding rack, but only to be re-bound. Then I am carried back to the pens by one of the warriors and left lying on my side, wrists secured to my ankles out in front of me.

There on the dirt floor, I have plenty of time to reflect on my situation.

The burning pain from my thigh flames unrelenting. Sometimes it throbs and intensifies like a solar flare, and sometimes it reduces, but it never fades away entirely.

Meanwhile in our humble dormitory, the numbers of bound females slowly increases.

Ailsa is branded; all of her tribe; Nessa; her ladies in waiting – Colleen and Jaya; it goes on and on.

Many are weeping.

We are now linked by our brands to all the slaves throughout eternity. All Goreans understand the meaning of this mark, just as they do with the collar.

In some ways I have become more valuable – unbranded girls cannot be sold in many cities, and many men believe that a clean brand enhances a girl’s beauty.

In other ways am forever diminished. A Gorean man will not take a marked girl as a free companion. Why should he, when he can enjoy her as slave?

Feeling very miserable, I lift my head from the floor enough to look down my body at the oozing sore of flesh.

I do not think it makes me look more beautiful.

By the time all of us are processed the floor of the dormitory is crowded. The rump of one girl, Vani, is left just before my face. Her pose, clutching her ankles in the same manner as me, presents her sex obscenely to be.

It would be erotic, were I not too uncomfortable to have any desire.

Older slaves – those already marked with the brandius, move amongst us, keeping us watered and wiping mouthfuls of a nutritious paste onto our tongues.

One of the newly branded panthers refuses the water, not wishing to risk having to relieve herself in front of the others, and she has to be lashed until she complies.

We do not even have the right to dehydrate to save our dignity.

Making the need to urinate grow more intense, there the sound of yet another rainstorm outside. I hate the jungle.

Then night falls, and with the fading light my pain finally begins to fade, but I still feel despair.

I had felt that I had been making progress with Kurtz, and our relationship had changed into something unique on Gor. In this assumption, I have been misguided.

When I am released in the morning I want to go straight to his hut and teach him by demanding the key to my collar, but I am driven with swats of the whip towards the classroom and must obey my owners.

There we all are kneeling, and answering the same questions.

“What are you?”

“I am a slave girl.”

“What is your purpose?”

“To please men.”

Udumi looks insistently at me when it is my turn to answer.

“What are you?”

“I am a slave girl,” I say, and I understand the truth of it now.

“What is your purpose?”

“To please men,” I tell her mournfully, believing that also. For the first time she looks satisfied with my answer.

Freshly-branded, we shift uncomfortably as we rest on our heels, trying to ease the pain in sore thighs.

It might be expected that our branding would be enough to cope with, but there is a new humiliation prepared for us today.

At some point during the night, a vast mirror has been brought into the classroom. It almost fills one wall, floor to ceiling. We are made to disrobe and then kneel before this mirror in silent contemplation of ourselves in the position of pleasure slaves.

The psychology is again crude and obvious, but effective. How can one not accept the truth of their slavery when it is there in front of them?

Udumi walks up and down the line, using her lash on any girl who breaks eye contact with her own image.

I study my reflection intently, letting the sight fuel my righteous anger.

Last time I knelt like this, before a mirror in the position of a pleasure slave, I was in the mountains of the Sardar.

I had just been transformed. Then I was a free woman, imagining myself as a slave. Now I truly am a slave.

Back in the Sardar I could not believe what a beautiful woman I had become. But the body crafted for my by the Priest Kings has only grown in desirability through slave training.

Aurore’s posture is even better than it was. She kneels to present her body completely instinctively. Toning of my muscles in response to dancing and the whip has made me look more nubile.

I hold up my chin, so the collar of slave steel that has been locked round my throat for so many weeks is clearly visible.

My eyes flick down to the slave brand at my thigh. It is angry red, still protesting at the violation of my flesh, but soon it will heal and fade to a pale colour similar to my skin.

My body looks superb. Aurore’s breasts are full and pert, nipples begging for a man’s caress. Between my legs my sex, now red-silk, pleads to be filled.

I am downhearted about my situation but despite the black mood I still respond to the view by growing aroused, just as I did last time I observed myself in this manner.

I wonder how Aurore might look from the back. One of the negatives of being inside this body is being unable to enjoy a rear view of myself.

At my left side kneels Ailsa, once a Taluna, wild and free as the animals of the jungle. Looking at this line of naked women with male eyes, I note that she is perhaps the only one close to me in beauty.

Ailsa is also collared in slave steel, and she too wears a fresh brand on her thigh. She will never return to leadership of a tribe in the forest, even if she escapes from this place. Women will not follow one marked to show she was weak enough to fall slave to men.

Rather than hate me for reducing her to this condition, Ailsa seems to cling to me. It is not unknown that a newly collared female slave seeks out the companionship of a more experienced woman who she can view as a mother figure.

Perhaps this has been the case with her.

Ailsa too stares at her body in the mirror. Unable to look away, she can do nothing but accept the image of herself as slave.

She is magnificent, a living challenge to men to prove themselves strong enough to tame her and make her theirs. Women such as her cannot realise the power their bodies can provoke.

I desire her very much.

What would she do if I tried to touch her in passion? Making a man like me into a female slave is cruelty itself – I am constantly surrounded by desirable women, but I can only find sexual

gratification in the company of men.

“Concentrate,” Udumi says from behind me, and my back catches fire as she touches me with the whip. “Look at yourself, and know that you are a slave.”

“Yes Mistress,” I say, and gazing into the glass I once again contemplate what I have become.

31 - I learn of the mutability of everything

“How much for this girl?” the fat slaver asks.

He is standing over me, and I almost start with fright.

“Aurore is not for sale,” Chiron answers. “See that purple ribbon at her collar? That indicates she is the Ubar’s girl.”

“Pity,” he says, and moves down the line.

“Mind you Sir, the Ubar has not seen her for one week,” Chiron says maliciously, knowing I’m listening. “I believe he has tired of her, and soon she will be gifted to others.”

It has indeed been one week. It was one week ago Udumi warned me that we would soon be sold. It was the day when the grey man visited, and when I was branded. That was the day all hope was lost.

I wonder if Kurtz is ashamed to face me after letting me endure such torment, but I have not even been granted the opportunity to question him about this small detail.

“Buy me, Master,” Nessa is saying to the fat slaver, from a few places along.

She looks humbly up at him, the fat slaver looks down on her, and I see Nessa’s appealing eyes widen as she realises she interests him.

“What is your name, girl?” he asks.

“Nessa, if it pleases Master,” she stammers.

“Let me see your body, Nessa,” he commands gently.

She reaches for the disrobing loop at her left shoulder and pulls at it. Her tunic falls away, and she is open to his examination in all her naked glory.

Goreans say that only a fool buys a girl clothed.

“Are you trained?” the slaver asks.

“I can cook, and sew, and clean, Master,” she replies. “I am trained in the services required of a kajira. I can dance and provide pleasure in the furs.”

She blushes as she says the last part.

“What do you want for this one?” the slaver asks Chiron.

“Ten gold tarn discs,” he answers.

It is the kind of price one would only offer for a well-trained girl, and Nessa is just such a girl. Over the past months we have become experienced as slaves, learning the many thousands of subtleties to acting in a manner that is most pleasing to men.

I shall give just one example of matters I never understood when I was free - it gives offence to a free person for a slave to present their back to that person. Upon entering a room, I am therefore taught to instinctively find a place to stand or kneel where I face all the free present therein. Free persons in the room would not even be aware I am considering my position in this manner.

And that is as I said, just one example. There are over one hundred ways to enter that room even before choosing the location for kneeling.

The fat slaver moves down the line, and Nessa glances sideways at me, her face anguished. She has grown somewhat attached to her warrior, I think, and does not wish to be parted from him.

She believes it would be bad luck if she were sold on the day he was away, raiding across the lake.

What she does not know, but I hopelessly do, is that her life with him will inevitably soon end anyway. My belief is that it is better she is sold now, and gets away from this place, before it is engulfed with the destruction or revolution that approaches like a thunderstorm.

Life goes through settled periods of stasis before sudden upheaval comes along. It is the times of change that are dangerous, both to men and women.

“How much is this one?” the fat slaver is asking, indicating one of the panthers.

“Five silver tarsks,” Chiron says. “This one is new to the collar, and early in her training. She is still somewhat wild.”

That is an understatement. This girl, a beauty with jet dark hair and olive skin, is lucky to have escaped the fate of her fellows, and be permitted a place in the sale line.

Two of the Taluna wait nude in punishment cages. These bamboo cages are tall and narrow, too small for a captive to sit. However, like the water cage they are also too wide for the captive to brace themselves between the sides in order to rest or sleep.

The cages are suspended above the dock, the swinging of the cage making the captive feel more helpless. In this confinement the panthers must remain standing for many hours.

Passers-by are encouraged to sport with the women.

This punishment is being dispensed because Ailsa’s group of Taluna were unhappy with the turn of events that led to them being collared. In the darkness of the dormitory last night Ailsa was attacked and beaten black and blue.

Free warriors do not normally interfere with spats and power struggles between kajirae, but Ailsa’s injuries were sufficiently severe to temporarily incapacitate her, reducing her usefulness and value.

Thus action was taken by Chiron, and the ringleaders are standing in the cages with ample opportunity to contemplate their behaviour.

They are not placed there for a set term – rather they will wait until Chiron decides they are sufficiently broken.

I suspect once they are released, they will not repeat their mistake.

I was also involved in the disturbance, having done my best to intervene and protect Ailsa, so I kneel in the line with a few grazes and bruises about my person.

“Are you sure this redhead is not for sale? She is in the line.”

The fat slaver has returned to stand over me. I look down at my knees.

“She is in place because it is good for women to be exhibited before men,” Chiron says.

This concurs with a widely held opinion amongst Goreans. Actually the men in the compound have been encouraged to watch our training not just now, but whenever they wish, so we experience the effect we can have on a male.

We therefore frequently go through our paces before a small crowd. Dance classes are particularly popular, as are the sessions where we execute the series of positions and movements known as slave paces while naked before the mirror.

To a female who has been sheltered all her life it can boost her confidence to know herself so desired, and she will subconsciously adopt the behaviours that make her most pleasing.

I too am more aware of myself when there are masculine eyes watching me.

“What is your name again, slave,” the fat man asks me.

“Aurore, if it pleases Master,” I answer.

“If it is good to be displayed, then disrobe, Aurore,” the fat slaver commands me.

I might be the Ubar’s girl, but I know better than to disobey.

Without objecting I reach for the rope that ties my camisk at my waist and unfasten the knot. I lift my only piece of clothing over my head, and fold it carefully, placing it on the ground at my side.

Naked, I endure his inspection.

“This one is the prize of the group,” the fat slaver says to Chiron. “Look at her figure. And look how she reacts to being examined.”

My face grows hot with anger and shame. I wish I could cover myself up.

“You have the body of a passion slave, Aurore,” the slaver says to me. “Were you bred to please men?”

“I am from a village in the Sardar, Master. Near the forbidden places of the Priest Kings.”

“They must have blessed your birth then,” he says, “to gift you with such beauty.”

That is truer than he knows.

“When the Ubar is finished with her,” Chiron says in a drawl, “I intend to have use of her myself before she is sold.”

Oh, lucky me. My future looks better and better.

“What training do you have, Aurore?”

“I too can cook, sew and clean, Master,” I answer. “I am trained to serve. I have a little training in dancing, but not as much as the other women.”

Forty slave girls kneel with me in a line along the sunny dockside. The braziers that drive away the insects are lit. Particularly thick clouds of smoke occasionally block my view of those girls further down the row.

The slaver moves down the line.

I wait nude under the hot open sky, taught by the whip not to replace my clothing until permitted to do so.

My hair shifts across my face in the breeze and I lift my arms to tidy it back, noting it has grown longer since my transformation and could do with trimming to even the ends.

These forty women in the inspection line represent most of the female population of the compound. The only ones absent are those girls who belong to a particular male who prohibits them from participation, such as Udumi, or the girls like Carrie with skills that earn them a permanent home here.

It takes an ahn to decide on the sales. The fat slaver selects ten women, including three of the Taluna and most importantly to me, Nessa.

She looks numb with surprise and shock as her collar is unlocked and removed, in order for her neck to be secured in a new coffle belonging to the fat slaver.

Nessa did not expect this turn of events, but it happened all the same.

Chained at the throat, she is joined in a line with the other sold girls. They all remain stripped, their tunics being the property of the compound of Kurtz.

She is shaking her head. This is not how it is supposed to end.

Nessa is a romantic at heart, and she has hoped to remain with her warrior in the compound, or be rescued in some dramatic fashion by he to whom she was pledged as free companion.

I too am miserable about the scene unfolding here. Now I will never see her again. I have not even heard spoken the name of her new owner.

The slaver moves away to haggle with Chiron. Selection from the display line apparently being completed, discipline breaks and girls move forward to spend a last few moments with those they consider friends.

Many of us have tears in our eyes. Even in the inhumanity of slavery it is impossible not to grow close to one’s companions.

Jaya, Colleen and I comfort the one once known as Lady Nessa.

“My Master, Petrucus,” she pleads to us. “When he returns, you must tell him I was sold. Tell him it was not my choice.”

“He knows you care for him,” Jaya sooths, stroking Nessa’s hair as if she’s calming an animal.

“Perhaps he will follow the slaver and come for me,” Nessa says, voice breaking as she begins to weep.

“Perhaps he will,” Jaya says, her own voice filled with emotion.

I suspect he will not, but I do not tell her. I suspect he has deliberately absented himself, like someone who has to rehome a beloved pet and does not want to witness the moment of departure.

“Slaves, back to your work,” Chiron says, and at his command we are forced away from our friends.

Cracking the whip, the fat slaver’s henchmen drive the line of women onto his boat, and as she disappears into confinement below decks I take what will probably be my last look at the Lady Nessa, she who has been my companion for so many months.

We are an unhappy group in the dormitory that night. In the darkness there is the sound of women crying as many lament lost friends. But not all are unhappy. Kajirae can be spiteful creatures.

Nessa’s descriptions of her master’s kindness have not gone unnoticed and several of the women are considering their prospects at becoming his new chosen.

That man re-joins us next morning when the raiding boat returns.

We are ordered to cheerfully greet its arrival.

A dark skinned woman is lashed to the prow, a pretty girl with smouldering dark eyes and a frizzy nimbus of hair. She is perhaps a little short, but she has unusually large breasts for her frame giving her a figure that is quite delightful.

These breasts are presented nicely for my view, as her back has been arched to fit the prow of the boat much as I was for my arrival.

“I present the Lady Rehema,” says the blonde haired warrior with a sweep of his arm. “I have a mind to take her for my own. Welcome her to the compound of Kurtz.”

One of the women who hoped for promotion to his favourite is displeased at this news.

“Slave!” she taunts the Lady Rehema in a loud voice.

With low spirits I back away from the crowd, and when no-one is watching I slip away back to the pens.

That afternoon the rain comes in yet again, and this time it rains for a week without stopping.

32 - Discovery in the marshes

When the monsoon rain stops, Ailsa and I are sent to gather bundles of the burning herb that drives away the insects. This is usually a daily chore in the compound, but the unending downpour has kept us all inside, while making it impossible to light the braziers.

It is a delight to finally be away from the stockade, and in the panther’s company. My spirits start to lift, even though the mud has turned into a quagmire and our progress is slow. The sun has broken through and the marshes seem to steam.

An iridescent butterfly so colourful as to appear unreal moves from flower to flower across the reed bed, looking for nectar.

We dally about our task, exploring long after we have gathered a sufficient quantity of the herb.

“Look,” Ailsa says at one point, trying to bend down as she indicates a small purple flower growing in the dampness of the marsh.

To reduce Ailsa’s chance of escape she is chained to me by three lengths of slave steel, linking collar to collar; left wrist to left wrist; and right wrist to right wrist.

I have to crouch down with her so she has enough slack to pick the bloom.

“This is a brandius flower,” she says, and holds it to her thigh so I can see the similarity in form.

“If you dry this flower out, the petals can be chewed, or brewed into a tea,” she explains. “The drug has a relaxing effect in small doses, but larger amounts produce hallucinations.”

The flower is discarded and we continue.

We pass by the water cage where once I was kept and when I look down on my former prison my gorge rises with sudden nausea.

The level of the lake has risen by a foot in the monsoon rain, lifting the surface above the top of the cage. The bloated corpse of a man is pressed on the underside of the bamboo grid, face upwards, looking for salvation that will never come.

“They forgot him, in the rain,” I say, clutching Ailsa’s arm as my head spins. “Let’s get away from here.”

Neither of us are in a hurry to return, and we take our time to roam.

The only place we avoid is the prohibited building where the male slaves are housed, and the gang of male slaves themselves. We see them from a distance though, caked in filth as they shovel mud onto a gigantic earthwork rampart.

Lately the malaise that had afflicted the compound has healed, and work is underway to seal the incomplete section of the outer wall. Kurtz has been seen more about the compound.

If the warnings given by the grey man are true, it is a good thing that military discipline is being restored. I need to warn my master in case Chiron has not reported the conversation, but I haven’t been permitted to serve the Ubar since my session of eavesdropping.

Ailsa and I wander further from the fortifications. We do not take care to watch for tarn attack. If someone comes, it is of no matter. The brands on our thighs remind us one master can be as cruel and brutal as another.

About a pasang distance from the compound we discover the site of the Kurii landing ground, a broad raised mound of grassy earth higher than the surrounding reeds.

“This looks like a landing place for tarns,” Ailsa says, reading the land with the instinct of a forest girl, “but I don’t understand why the grass has been burnt. It’s the wrong shape for a fire.”

At the edge of the landing circle two thick wooden posts are sunk into the ground, about six feet apart.

The purpose of these posts is to secure female human beings between them, as proven by the shackles fixed to the wood and the diameter of their bracelets.

I crouch down between them. The grass looks black with bloodstains, and I recoil in horror for a second time. This is a place of sacrifice, an altar to dark gods.

I can’t comprehend the terror a slave chained here to be a meal for beasts must experience.

It makes me feel cold, and I have to move away.

“I think we should go back,” I say, but Ailsa has spotted something else.

“What’s that?”

A second set of wooden posts have been positioned a short distance away, ready to inflict further forms of suffering.

This beam has its top about ten feet above the grass. Fixed to that top of that post is a horizontal crossbar, about six feet in length, so the whole construction forms the shape of a capital “T”.

We close in on this object, and only on passing by do we realise we were facing the back of the construction. A man has been bound to the front of the crossbar by his outstretched arms, so he hangs, body weight suspended by his wrists.

It is the one known as Barolios, who was of the warriors.

“Priest Kings have mercy,” I say softly.

I can see he has been much beaten before he was affixed to the post. Barely an area on his flesh is not bruised, burnt or blooded except for his genitals, which I can see clearly as he is naked.

His ankles are also lashed together, with a thick hemp-like rope.

I think he is already dead, but as we approach the post with growing horror, he slowly lifts his head and opens one swollen eye.

There is no recognition in the vague gaze, and I understand. He’s never seen me unveiled, and does not recognise me.

“Barolios – it’s Aurore,” I say, rushing forward the last few paces between us.

I place my hand on the giant muscle of his broad thigh, instinctively wanting to give the comfort of contact.

“Lady Nessa?” he asks me. His voice is barely audible, a croaked whisper.

“Alive, but slave, like me,” I tell him, and his head slumps back into unconsciousness as if that news is a defeat, not the victory of survival.

“Yesterday she was sold,” I say, not sure if he can hear me.

“We must free him,” I urge Ailsa. “Help me reach the bindings – he is too high for me to aid on my own.”

But the panther backs away until the chains between us pull at my limb, shaking her head all the way.

“Leave him,” she urges.

This the brave Ailsa. How can she not help me? I want to slap her for her timidity. I could cut him down easily – I even have a curved knife meant for harvesting herbs that I could use for the task. We could escape and go after the slaver’s vessel to liberate Nessa.

But I can do nothing unless she lifts me up to those bindings. Ailsa is stronger than me. I can’t even raise my arm without her permitting it.

“Help me,” I urge her with rising temper, but she continues to shake her head.

“You don’t understand,” she says. “It is too late to save him. If you want to show him kindness, speed his passage. Give him the death of pleasure.”

“What’s that?” I ask. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“Make a cut in his manhood, deep and near the base,” she says. “Then arouse him with your touch, and he will bleed out swiftly.”

I’ve never heard such a barbaric idea in my life, and I look at her aghast.

“Leave him, then,” Ailsa says with irritation, reading my reactions, and she turns towards the reeds jerking me even closer to her.

I thought Barolios was unaware of all this debate, but he surprises me by croaking out more words.

“Go, slave,” he says in a voice that is not kind. “Enough blood is already on your hands.”

Ailsa turns back round at this, as surprised as me.

“Why am I at fault?” I can’t help asking.

“All die because of you, omen of evil,” he whispers. “They told me my death will be a meaningless sacrifice. The barge had to be taken at all costs, but to seize you, not Lady Nessa.”

“That’s not true,” I say, shaking my head. I am the one backing away from him now. “They put her at first prow. She was the objective.”

“All disguise,” Barolios whispers. “We would have been at our destination by now, were you not with us. Lady Nessa would have been with her companion. They told me you boarded the barge because you needed it to be captured, and your objective was to yield to Kurtz.”

Ailsa is looking at me with wide eyes.

“You came here because you wanted to be a slave?” she says, aghast.

“It’s not how it sounds,” I try to explain.

“If you hadn’t fought me I too would be free,” she accuses. “And now I learn you were only here for me to fight because you craved the collar?”

“Keep away from her,” Barolios warns. “Death follows behind this one.”

Unfortunately the panther is unable to heed the warning. Only Chiron can release the shackles that join us, and he is right back at the compound.

Instead Ailsa pulls against the chains so hard that I lose my footing and stumble into her.

“Don’t speak to me again, slave,” she says, “don’t ever speak to me again!” and we have a frosty and silent walk back through the reeds.

33 - In which many truths are learnt.

“The Ubar has sent for me,” I tell the guard at the entrance to my master’s hut.

This statement is entirely a lie, but I have clad myself in pleasure silk to try and gain admission, and woman so-dressed can distract a man from his duties. After a longing glance at my figure the guard does not question my reasons and lets me enter.

The silk grazes my body as I pass within. It is the first time I have worn such a garment.

Gor recognises two main designs of slave silks. The most common is a tunic-like garment, similar to the clothing of Roman servants, coming down to thigh length and fastening with a slip knot at one shoulder designed for easy removal.

The desert regions and the south favour the version I wear now, a top formed of two triangles to cover the breasts, like a bikini, and two narrow strips of cloth for the lower body, which reach from the hips down to the ankles. These strips thus cover the pudenda and the buttocks, while leaving the girl’s legs completely bare.

As with the Northern clothing, the silks are fastened with string bows, designed for easy removal.

Far more of my body, Aurore’s body, is on display than is hidden – a show of exquisite female flesh. These garments are about provocation rather than concealment. My legs are bare; my arms are bare; my shoulders are bare; my belly is bare; my feet are bare; and my back is bare.

They are simply the most erotic thing I have ever worn, but I have more important things to think about than being sexy right now.

I find my master sitting cross-legged on his furs, staring into the distance. He does not look well, but I don’t give a tarsk about him.

He looks up when I enter.

“Aurore,” he says, not even seeming to notice my attire. “I hope you have recovered from your marking.”

I brush aside the civilities and go straight for the attack.

“I saw the warrior named Barolios, Master,” I demand. “He was once of the party of Lady Nessa, she who I was travelling with when I was taken.”

He shrugs, as if this is not important news.

“Barolios said that I was the target of the raid, and not Lady Nessa. Is that true, Master?”

Kurtz, the Ubar of the compound, considers for a moment. I think I’m going to get one of those “curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, blah, blah, blah,” responses, but I do not.

“It is true.” He says.

I feel faint. It is true. I am responsible for all of it. The slaves and brave men who were killed on the barge. Nessa and her ladies being sold into slavery. All my fault.

“Why Master?”

He considers again.

“You know from our earlier debates that since my interrogation of the Kurii, their accusation has tortured me. Have I committed my acts of terror in the name of the good Priest Kings, only to be actually working on the side of evil?”

He looks at me directly.

“You must understand I am not a good man, in the view of your Urth culture, Aurore. I have killed many men, and taken their women as my slaves. You would call these war crimes.”

“But the Gorean world has encouraged such actions of me. This is the culture passed down to us by the Priest Kings, that teaches men and women from birth of man’s place as the master, and woman’s natural place as slave and victim.”

“Despite my upbringing, I resolved to act no further for the Nest until I had tested the truth of this morality.”

“Of course I could not test it with the men. The men of Gor are certainly happier than the women. The question that troubled me, along with scholars on this world and your own, is whether women are eventually happier when they accept themselves in their submissive state.”

“Women are sentient beings, and any intelligent free creature will initially resist the will of another being imposed, but that resistance does not make the imposition automatically wrong, if the outcome is better for both.”

“When you were collared I called you catalyst, and that is the truth. Much rests on you, Aurore.”

Tension is building in me, tension and dread, like I’m slipping to the edge of a cliff and about to go over.

“You came here believing your mission was to return me to the service of the Priest Kings, or eliminate me. Those in the Nest believed that only a woman with the mind of a man could complete this task.”

“In fact, I planted this idea in the Nest. It was my plan, mine, and not that of the Priest Kings, that a man should be transformed into a woman, and delivered to me in slavery.”

“You were brought here so I could observe someone experiencing female slavery, without the cultural conditioning present in every other woman.”

“What I wanted to learn was this. If the female body you have worn so entrancingly effected you, so you accepted that your happiest state and most natural place is as a slave, then the philosophy of Gor is correct. We have proven that slavery is where all females should rightly be.”

“If you continue to reject woman’s place as a slave, then you prove that the culture created by the Priest Kings on this planet is barbaric. I decided that if this occurred I would fight for female liberation, even if that means alliance with the kur.”

“Either way, my former life must be lost. I cannot go back to being the man I was before.”

I am over that cliff, aghast at his explanation. There must have been better ways to argue this point than transforming a male soldier into a woman and leaving me here in something like a slave Leia costume.

“You’re crazy after all,” I accuse him. “All those people died – on the boat; the ones you tortured and returned to the Nest; all the others that were taken slave; just to test an idea?”

“Not just an idea,” he says determinedly, “an idea that effects the future of Gor. Many more lives have been sacrificed for causes of less importance than this. The culture of a planet is at stake.”

I shake my head.

“People have died,” I insist, “You think getting your answer is all that matters, not the means of reaching that answer?”

“That is the tragedy of being an Ubar, and the decisions that face us.” He says gravely. “I have committed many unfortunate acts in the name of my cause, but that is the burden I accept for victory.”

I look scornfully at him when he says this.

“A leader from my world named Adolf Hitler said victory is all that matters, not morality,” I retort. “One day I’ll tell you how that worked out for him.”

I don’t know if he’s heard of Hitler, but at least this seems to get through his sanctimonious armour.

“You forget your place, kajira,” he growls, and grasps for the whip. “Do not question or insult me. You do not have the right.”

My temper is up, so I boldly face him.

“Go on, hit me,” I say. “That will really prove that you’re right. Hit me, just here across my face.”

I present Aurore’s delicate right cheek. Kurtz goes red as if he’s about to explode.

“Never has a woman vexed me like you do,” he says, casting the whip aside out of his reach.

We look at each other in silence for a moment, in mutual exasperation.

“So, I can’t wait to hear what you have learnt from this experiment, Master.” I say sarcastically.

“Thinks have not progressed as I intended,” he admits in a deflated voice, ignoring my tone of insolence. “You have not been truly treated like a female slave, so your experience has not been representative of other women.”

“In return for this uneven treatment you have responded ambiguously. In some ways you are slave, in some ways you are not slave.”

“I should have ordered you to be raped the moment you arrived, and then treated you completely without mercy.”

Seriously?

“And why didn’t you treat me so cruelly, mighty Ubar?” I ask caustically.

“I developed tender feelings towards you,” he says, “and did not wish to see you suffer.”

I am about to reply but I am stopped as effectively as hitting a wall. I thought we liked each other as intellectual sparring partners, and there was certainly physical lust as sexual companions, but it never crossed my mind there might be even more than that.

My mouth is hanging open, so I close it.

“But you know I was once a male,” I stammer.

“I showed unforgivable weakness,” he says, as if that truth was irrelevant. “So my treatment of you switched between kindness, and determination to treat you as slave.”

“You showed such courage, Aurore,” he continues, almost pleading. “It was inspiring to me. You knew the consequences when you agreed to the transformation, and yet you bravely continued.”

He looks at my body, like he’s been in the desert and I am water.

“Only you amongst women know the power a female such as you can have over men. What no-one anticipated was that the beauty you have would be combined with such exceptional spirit, making you far more provocative. Desire overrode my judgement.”

“I wanted you, but I could not bring myself to take you by force, so I offered you the right to approach me on your own terms.”

I have no idea how to respond. I find myself blushing.

“Anyway, you deserve to know how this change to you was brought about. My most loyal man, Telisio, was sent to plant the idea in the Nest,” Kurtz resumes. “When the transformation was a success he travelled with you, noting as much of your early reactions to being a female as he could.”

“Your other companion, the warrior known as Rorius, grew suspicious of Telisio’s excessive interest in you, but did not deduce the precise nature of the relationship. As you surmised months ago, Telisio arrived shortly before you did, to warn of the approach of the barge.”

“He was watching, one of the people in the crowd, when your ship entered the compound, but you did not know it.”

“We had expected you to beg for the collar immediately on the dockside, and planned that Telisio would reveal himself to you. Disheartened at this betrayal, you would accept your slavery more quickly.”

“But your comments about my morality angered me greatly, and I sent you to the cage before you had chance to discover his presence. You seem gifted with the ability to provoke emotion in me, both positive and negative.”

I can’t let this go. “People died,” I insist. “Barolios was crucified yesterday.”

Kurtz grimaces.

“Gor is a barbaric world,” he said. “Leadership and survival require difficult choices. There is not always room for mercy. He did not bend to our will, and would have been a threat to the people here had he lived.”

I look up at him. Could I reciprocate with feelings for this man as he seems to care for me? I can’t decide if his motives are incredible bravery, or if he’s a grade-A psycho nut-job. He seems to have the emotional maturity of a teenage boy at times.

I sink down to the floor, leaning back against the raised dais that is his sleeping place, and I put my head in my hands. The strip of silk rests between my thighs, just about hiding my dignity.

“Look at me,” I moan. “I’ve been transformed into this, all for a high-school social science project.”

My eyes drop to Aurore’s scantily clad divine figure, as they’ve done so many times since I awoke in the Nest.

“Look at me,” I moan again.

In the female body created for me, and the clothing intended to display it, the results of this experiment are breath-taking.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of women through Gorean history have failed to resist being awoken by the touch of silk, and Aurore is no stronger than them. Silks are designed to enhance the girl’s beauty by making the wearer constantly conscious of her body, unable to deny that she is female, and a sexual being.

Considering there is so little coverage, I can feel every area of contact. The smooth fabric stokes like a lover’s caress. My nipples, grazed steadily by the lush fabric, have decided to stay permanently erect, with the nubs impossible to disguise through the thin layer. The swath resting between my ivory legs brushes against the rounded contours of my pudenda. Behind me, the other piece sits on the curves of my feminine buttocks.

“I have no answer for you on your little experiment,” I admit mournfully. “I feel beautiful, but demeaned. A part of me is slave, a part not-slave. I have been blissfully happy, and miserable here. So I cannot tell you this is right for all women, but it might not be wrong for some of them.”

After a pause I add, “This is a military standard screw-up.”

“Indeed,” agrees Kurtz. “Things have gone more awry with my plans than you know. Loyal Telisio is missing. I dispatched him after your arrival, to update the agents of the Priest Kings in Port Schendi, and he never arrived. I am not the only threat on this river.”

“These threats grow in strength, and this little ubarate will be absorbed before another could arrive, either by the forces of Bila Haruma, or in the reprisals of the Kurii.”

“You know about that?” I ask.

“Chiron can be trusted completely,” Kurtz states, “even though his dedication is tested by him reacting to you in the same way that I do.”

We look at each other for a moment.

“Whatever the outcome will be, it is the time for you to leave here, my precious Aurore. Under either scenario, you will fall slave to another man, and your chance of a life on Urth is forever lost.”

“You must return right away to the Sardar,” Kurtz says. “You have done enough for the Priest Kings, and should not be involved in the aftermath of my demise, or attempting to save the rest of Gor’s women. I will remain here and decide whether to surrender the compound to Bila Haruma, or let Chiron sacrifice me to the Others.”

My argument with him is set aside. I can’t just let the man who’s told me he cares for me sit here waiting for death.

“Come with me,” I urge him, “we will flee together.”

Kurtz shakes his head.

“There must be a sacrifice, to whoever takes over,” he says. “Otherwise there will be reprisals against those who remain. You might be permitted to escape, whereas I will not.”

I am protesting but he silences me.

“You must go downriver to Port Schendi. Seek out a free women of the physician caste, named Coraline. She will aid you in returning to the Nest.”

I am hesitating.

“Go, Aurore,” he commands. “There is a canoe hidden in the reeds, just beyond the landing site.”

He is almost pushing me from his hut.

“Go! Because if you do not go soon, I will never be able to part with you,” he says frantically, and for a moment I can believe he cares for me. He kisses me tenderly on the forehead, and my body blazes with desire.

I want to melt into his arms one last time, but it is too late.

The implacable face of the Ubar descends once again, and he is the man driven by animal instinct. I am pushed from the hut into the dawn light.

“We shall never meet again,” he says, and I am inclined to believe him.

34 - With others, I depart the compound

Clad in my skimpy pleasure silks, I pad in bare feet across one of the jetties. I glance across to the gap in the outer wall that leads out towards the marshes, and my freedom.

It’s not even guarded.

I could walk over there, this very second, and leave. The braziers produce smoke so thick they reduce the visibility. No one will see me.

But I turn my back to my escape, and cross the network of docks that ring the outer wall, circling towards the building that contains the pens.

I have no intention of going without liberating Udumi, and also Ailsa. Some good could come of my time here, if I can save them. A change of outfits would be a good idea as well. I don’t relish the idea of walking into Schendi Port dressed in pleasure silk.

My spirits are in turmoil. Freedom is before me, something too wonderful to contemplate. But Kurtz is sitting back there behind me, alone inside his hut, waiting patiently for someone to come and kill him.

Perhaps I should have done it myself, using the same dagger he offered me so long ago. Death at Aurore’s femme fatale hands must be better than the alternatives that lie before him.

I stop, half turning back, almost ready to return to his hut and carry out the deed. Then I press forward again.

He has sat here for months, waiting for me to arrive and solve his dilemma. Then everything went wrong, apparently because he developed feelings for me.

No man has ever said they cared for me as a woman before. It’s a heady experience. He has risked much to protect me. How am I supposed to react to that?

He is also to blame for all that has happened. If it wasn’t for him, Aurius would be on Urth, of little use to the Priest Kings. There would be no slave brand on my thigh, and no collar around my neck.

It is time to abandon him. Knowing when to cut one’s losses is important, for a soldier.

I pass the punishment cages where the panthers stood. They are now empty, the girls whom were captive there being most remorseful after two days on their feet.

My hand brushes the bamboo as I pass them on my way to the pens.

I look up and see the guards are bunched together, conversing as they watch something across the lake. They are not even looking at the opening in the wall.

This will be easier than I expected.

A stack of packing crates are close to the edge of the wharf, along with tar-coated coils of the thick rope used to secure ships.

I am cutting behind this stack of crates when it happens.

Arms grab me from behind, multiple sets of arms, and a cloth is held over my face. I am struggling before I know what’s happing, but there are many of them.

Then I inhale instinctively, trying to scream, and my lungs are filled with the fumes from some kind of chemical. It makes my head swim.

Someone is trying to abduct me.

Don’t panic, use your wits, I tell myself.

Rather than try to break out forwards – a method which is destined to fail with my weak body, I propel myself backwards against my assailants.

My head connects with someone’s face, and I hear a female voice cry out with pain. At the same time my bare back presses into a chest – a female chest.

She is scantily covered – either a slave, like my attack from Udumi on the first night, or a panther. I throw my head back several more times, trying to break the mystery woman’s nose, but my attacker is wise now and dodges my attempts.

“Sleen, she’s a fighter,” she curses.

The grip of hands on me remains just as tight, but I’m starting to weaken now, and gradually I realise I’m not going to escape them.

I panic, but that only makes me inhale the strong smelling fumes more deeply. The world of Gor is starting to become unreal, and there is a strange ringing in my ears.

Then comes despair. I am lost. Everything is lost. All this work and suffering is for nothing.

“We have the one we want,” another female voice says with relief.

The sound of her voice speaking is my final companion as I fall from the universe and into oblivion.

The Second Interlude - A nightmare in silk – part 2

Deep under the warm waters of Lake Ushindi, I blink into the gloom. The pressure this far below makes my blood pound in my ears with each heartbeat, as if I am in a womb rather than alone in a vast empty expanse of water. But apart from the sounds of my own living body, it is utterly silent in the depths.

Down here there is little to illuminate the inky blackness, but when I stare far up above me I see that moonlight is still glimmering on the gently rippling surface of the lake.

I feel no panic – quite the opposite. I don’t seem to need to breathe, so I’m suffused with a dreamy calm. All the same, I elect to move upwards in easy swimming strokes, reaching out with my thin arms to pull myself towards the light.

I become aware that something is dragging between my legs, slowing me down. Perhaps they are my heavy masculine genitals.

But no - they are woman’s arms I see propelling me upwards. That’s right – I’m a woman now. I’m not the soldier that I once was – a battle-hardened veteran who witnessed many horrors, including my best friend Lieutenant Dodds blown to pieces in Helmand Province. How could I have forgotten my transition? I’m a woman, and the clothing I can feel is my slave silk. Degrading slave silk is fastened at my waste and dragging between my thighs.

The fabric moves against my pudenda as intimately as a lover’s touch, stirred by the currents, and an awakening deep in my belly warns me that the caress of silk is stimulating my female body into a state of arousal.

The growing warmth irritates me. This is not the time to satisfy my desires, so I do my best to ignore the sensation, even though it is pleasurable.

Instead I strike harder for the moonlit air above.

I break the surface of the water, but during my time in the silent depths the familiar compound has been transformed to a scene of horror.

Everything is in flames, and silhouettes of warriors move in front of the blaze, projecting vast shadows. Real Kurii stride among the phantoms, but not Kurii like I’ve ever seen before. These are Godzilla sized creatures – hundreds of feet high. Their eyes glitter with insane bloodlust, and froth drips from their fangs.

“No!” I plead. How are such monsters to be fought? Everyone will be killed.

“She’s waking up,” a woman’s voice echoes urgently from far beyond the universe. “Give her some more of the drink. Keep her under until we’re further away.”

“That’s dangerous,” the voice of Udumi disagrees, also from somewhere beyond the horrific scene of slaughter I am watching. “We don’t know how the brandius flower will work in combination with the drug you used to knock her out.”

“What are you – a physician?” the first woman’s voice counters. “Give it to her, or I’ll take that potion from your corpse and do it myself. We can’t take the risk of her betraying our position. Do it now!”

Meanwhile one of the giant Kurii is tearing a man in the red tunic of the warriors in half, just as Dodds was dismembered in Afghanistan. It is Petrucus, he who was once master to Nessa. I try to scream but no sound comes.

“You’ll answer to them if she dies,” Udumi says calmly from an infinite distance, but then her words are suddenly right next to me, even though I can’t see her.

“Open your mouth Aurore,” Udumi’s voice says soothingly. “You’re unwell and I’m going to give you something that will make you more comfortable.”

I don’t understand what is happening to me, but if Udumi is here, everything must be okay. It’s all some kind of fever induced by sickness. Kurtz never dismissed me – I imagined that too, and I’m being comforted right now in the pens.

I am safe.

She is lifting my head. Obediently I open my mouth, expecting a spoonful of medicine, but a wad of cloth is shoved between my teeth instead. It’s soaked with some kind of liquid, something as cold and bitter as my hopes.

Why can’t she just let me sip from a cup? I can’t be that ill. I shake my head, trying to expel the cloth with my tongue and explain how unnecessary it is, but something is already being wrapped around my cheeks like a tie, and the mouthful is held in place.

Liquid drips and splashes against the back of my throat and I reflexively swallow. I’m scared of choking – vomiting against the ball of wet fabric in my mouth, but as soon as the fluid reaches my stomach it fills me with the same calm I felt deep under the lake.

“So this is the famous brandius flower?” a different female voice is asking Udumi. This one’s tone is growing less tense with each word, settling with my own sense of peace.

“An infusion of the plant,” Udumi corrects. “It will make her continue to hallucinate, but the aphrodisiac properties of drug are much more powerful than the narcotic effect. One of you should arouse her with your touch and her visions will turn to pleasurable images, keeping her relaxed.”

There is a cynical chuckle.

“I’m not touching another girl,” the other voice counters with open hostility. “You arouse her – slave!”

There is a taunting emphasis on the final “slave”, but their voices are leaving me. The Kurii have also gone and I am falling back to the lake, spiralling like a feather.

I become aware of a sound in the background, like a chord sung by a vast choir, never stopping but building steadily in volume.

The music resonates through me, pooling at my nipples and my sex, but as well as the caress from the sound there is also a real physical touch. My lover and my master, Kurtz, is probing intimately against me, looming as I lay supplicant underneath him, ready to take me as his, and I moan with pleasure, begging him to use me as his slave.

But perhaps I am wrong and he is not in my most intimate place, because my mouth is also filled with his sex. I move my tongue against the bulky bitter-tasting mass, attempting to please him.

No, that image is gone too. I am still a man, back in the Priest King’s home of The Nest, before my transformation. It is I who am on top, claiming the naked body of the slave girl Tala.

Poor Tala. She was sent to my furs with no choice whether to please me or not, but all the same she writhes underneath me in ecstatic pleasure, too aroused to keep still.

My breasts crave a caress, just like Tala wants me to touch her, so I arch my back and groan, pulling my nipples away from me.

If I have breasts I must be Aurore and not Aurius. Yes, I’m Aurore and I’m in the water cage with Kwesi.

I was foolish to fear him, so this time I let him fill me as deep as my abdomen with his tremendous organ. I wrap my legs around his body, and he supports me in the water, holding one of my buttocks with each giant hand.

The cage is filled with lake water and some of it splashes on the back of my throat. I swallow and find it strangely bitter, like the fruit they gave us in the slave pens.

As soon as I think of the prison that was my home I am no longer in the cage, but I find myself back in that room with so many other nude women.

Lying head to toe with Udumi we move towards each other’s cores, lips kissing intimately and fingers probing.

But no, that can’t be right, Udumi does not lay with other females. I look up questioningly to see is the beautiful Taluna, Ailsa, who pleasures me.

She touches me again, throwing fuel on my already blazing passion, and I cry out my pleasure. I am lost in the moment of Ailsa, Udumi, Kwesi, Tala and Kurtz.

I melt, becoming as liquid as the lake, and dissolve into its waters.