Daughter of Gor by Olga Turlovna (Part Nine)

Daughter of Gor

By Olga Turlovna

35 - I have new owners. Others enjoy a change in social status.

There is sunlight and my head rests on a pillow of dead leaves. This place where I’m lying is warm with the tropical climate, but unlike the grassy swampland around the compound, it is shaded here.

Above me is the canopy of jungle trees, vast trees that are hundreds of years old. I am in the main rainforest.

It is quiet in this new place, except for the exotic calls of tropical birds, the buzzing of insects and the faint rustling of the breeze through the foliage.

I blink, not certain that what I see is reality, or the beginning of another series of hallucinations.

Abruptly I try to sit upright, but realise that I can’t move as I wish. A pain in my head stops me, so severe that a warrior’s sword must be piercing my skull.

My gorge rises as if I have the world’s worst hangover, and I understand there is a rag held in my mouth. I panic. If I vomit, I could choke to death.

Looking around frantically for aid I barely register that I don’t know this place. It looks like a nomadic campsite, claiming just enough space from the rainforest for a few tents around a fire.

The bundle of cloth must be removed immediately, but I can’t do it, because my hands are pinned together behind my back. My fingers probe urgently, and brush against some kind of coarse rope. I discover that my arms are tied together at the wrists, and further attempts to struggle tell me there is also a set of ropes above my elbows. They restrict me uncomfortably, straining muscles and cutting into my flesh.

I have been restrained enough times to know that these bindings are inescapable, and I grow more desperate.

“She’s awake,” a woman’s voice says from close by.

I demonstrate this by jerking my bare legs enough to lift my torso into a sitting position, discovering in the process that a third set of ropes lash my ankles together.

There is another intense flare from the headache, and my stomach gives another threatening roll, but this time I manage to get into a sitting position. Upright, I use my tied arms as a prop so I can look around, and with the nausea under control my panic starts to subside.

I am in a ring of Taluna, the Amazon-like panther women of Gor. Some of the Taluna are standing, some are crouching, and some are sitting on logs strategically locating around this forest clearing, but I am the only one bound.

Several of the girls, despite being clad in animal skins that identify them as free panthers, have rusted slave collars about their necks and brands at their thighs. Runaways. A couple of these former kajirae are exceptional beauties – their masters were foolish to let girls such as they escape.

I do not recognise this tribe – they are not the group of Ailsa.

When I attempt to speak to these women, I emit a muffled and incoherent sound, reminding me I am gagged.

Probing with my tongue I find the rag is still wet, but from my saliva rather than the drug. The bitter taste of the brandius has almost faded.

“You can free her mouth,” one of the panthers says. I look to the voice and see a stocky girl with frizzy brown hair. Udumi, following orders by instinct, steps in and fumbles at the back of my head.

So Udumi really is here. That part wasn’t a dream.

When the cloth is pulled from my mouth my stomach immediately heaves, as if my body has been waiting for the first safe moment to purge itself, and I vomit a thick fluid like slave broth.

Once my stomach is back under control I look again at my captors, who seem willing to watch silently and let me take the initiative.

I will do that by trying to gather intelligence on my situation.

I select the one I consider most beautiful, reasoning that she is most likely to be the leader. Across both worlds, people are drawn to follow beauty.

This girl is a willowy creature, almost gangly and exceptionally tall, with big green eyes and hair the colour of straw. She holds a long spear like a javelin, with a large serrated blade at the tip. She does not wear a collar and her skin is unmarked.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

“Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira,” she replies in a sultry voice. “You could be beaten for it.”

I shrug, which is a mistake with such a severe headache, and I groan.

“Let’s agree I’m not a very good kajira, and then you can answer my question.”

The panther laughs at this, amused.

“The fortified compound that has been home is about to be attacked,” she says. “The raiders wish you removed into safe custody before that event. They do not wish for you to be killed by accident. They employed my band to complete the extraction.”

I look around the circle again. There is only panther girls, and Udumi.

“Who are you your employers?” I ask.

The leader might be tolerant to my questions, but others are not.

“She said you could be beaten for asking questions, slave!” a familiar voice commands. Just as familiar is the strike she delivers to my head, hard enough to make my ears ring and trigger a second wave of vomiting.

Udumi’s presence must be my answer. I look miserably towards her, my eyes blurring with the pain in my skull.

“The man in the grey cloak,” I say to Udumi in Aurore’s high voice. “You sold me to the man in the grey cloak.”

“It was not difficult to obtain a lock of your hair while you were sleeping, the token that the grey one required as a sign,” Udumi agrees. “But I took a risk leaving it as at the slave posts. I had to accompany it with a note, that the grey man not approach Chiron by accident. Had my master discovered it, he would have known it was me, as the only other witness to the offered deal. For once in my life, luck was on my side.”

“You’re not lucky, you’re a fool,” I tell her contemptuously. “I was about to leave with you. Kurtz had given me the means to return home, and others with me. Now you’ve made yourself as much of a prisoner here as I am.”

“You were escaping dressed like that?” Udumi says, disbelieving. “Yeah, like you’d really flee dressed as a pleasure slave.”

“She looks like a tavern slut,” the frizzy haired girl agrees, confirming this opinion.

Checking myself I blush with shame. I had forgotten my attire.

The lower section of pleasure silks rely on the assistance of gravity in covering the intimate areas of the body, hanging down from ties at the waist to cover the genitals and the backside.

When horizontal they’re more difficult to keep in place, and looking down past Aurore’s heaving breasts I see my silks have fallen aside, exposing the apex of my legs.

I am only displayed before other women, but it is humiliating nonetheless. I draw up my knees to hide myself as best as I can, tucking my bound ankles beneath me.

Meanwhile the remaining masculine soldier’s part of my intellect continues its tactical assessment of my situation.

First, I must dismiss the possibility that the panthers will help me. Panthers hate slave girls as much as they hate men, viewing them as traitors to the female sex.

My best chance of an ally had been Udumi, but she won’t help me if she’s betrayed me into captivity a second time.

“They will never return you to Urth,” I tell her spitefully, risking naming the other world.

“Be silent, both slaves.”

It is not Udumi addressing me, but the willowy panther commanding us.

“I am not a slave,” Udumi quickly asserts to her, although her hand strays to the steel collar which is as secure as ever around her neck. “I am free, at the orders of the grey one.”

She tries to pull her camisk in enough to cover her exposed sides. It is of course unsuccessful. Men take great care in selecting the fit of their slave’s clothing.

“Do you not have some animal skins I can wear?” Udumi asks with whining annoyance. “I do not wish to be mistaken for a slave about the encampment.”

“Only women in my band are given pelts,” the willow-girl replies with a smile. “If the grey one wishes you to be recognised as free, the grey one must provide suitable clothing.”

“Let me temporarily join your tribe then,” Udumi says.

There is a rumble of amusement through the group at that.

“If you wish to join our sisterhood, even for a short time, you must defeat one of my girls in combat,” the willowy girl says. “Why not choose one, if you wish to fight?”

Udumi looks uncertainly around the ring of aggressive faces, sizing up opponents.

In scrolls describing this situation, the weak kajira usually folds quickly at the threat of violence. The Taluna seem to think the same will happen here.

“Fight me!” says the girl with the frizzy brown hair stepping boldly forward.

It is a mistake.

Before she’s even finished issuing her challenge Udumi has punched the frizzy haired girl in the face with all her might. The poor panther is entirely unprepared for this commencement of hostilities, and the blow strikes her square between the eyes with an audible crunch.

The frizzy girl tumbles back to the leaves where she lies on her back, groaning.

“Will that do?” Udumi says calmly, turning back to the blonde leader.

“Fudding bitth, I tthink you bwoke my fudding nothe” the frizzy girl is saying, pushing herself up and clutching that part of her face while she scowls at Udumi. Blood streams freely down her chin.

No one ever said Gor was fair, and it turns out Udumi’s demonstration is perfectly acceptable. Five ehn later she is clad in her reward - the striped animal skins of a Taluna.

I hide a smile as I watch the frizzy-haired girl use the discarded camisk to staunch the flow of blood.

Udumi still has the collar of a slave around her neck but the change of clothing has transformed her. Suddenly here stands a free woman of Gor, proud and beautiful. The skins expose even more of her athletic form than the camisk did, and yet her dignity is restored. I feel very inferior bound at her feet, my pleasure silks in shameful disarray.

“I don’t suppose I can fight someone to join as well?” I ask the leader, pulling at the ropes at my wrists.

She smiles.

“You are too valuable to set free, pretty one. And some women truly are only good for slavery. I have watched you for some time and concluded you are created for men’s pleasure. Your reaction to the brandius flower was quite something to behold.”

I recall the erotic visions I saw under the influence of the drug, and wonder how much of the hallucinations I’ve betrayed.

“Beware of this one though,” Udumi says, stepping close so she towers over me. “She is tougher than she looks. She defeated the chief of another Taluna band in combat, a woman known as Ailsa, with very little effort.”

“Ailsa of the Jerags Sa'ng Vana'shii?” willow says with great interest, “We are not the best of friends with those of her tribe.”

“Then you will be pleased to learn that Ailsa lives in the slave pens back at the compound,” Udumi says. “She is collared and branded and serves the desires of men, as do the rest of her girls. All thanks to the fighting prowess of Aurore.”

“I am in your debt then, redhead,” willow says to me with unexpected respect, “but it is one I cannot entirely repay. I must still deliver you over to our employer. And if Udumi speaks the truth and you can fight, then I must keep you secured at all times. But all else that is possible will be done to ease your stay with us.”

I look at her in surprise. This leader is nothing like Ailsa. She is more thoughtful and more compassionate a commander than Ailsa was, and I can see how she could inspire trust and loyalty. But however great a leader she might be, it will be no help to me.

I must remain her prisoner and her slave. I look gloomily about me. The jungle looks dense in all directions, and I don’t know where I am. It would be foolhardy to attempt an escape.

“Mistress has not honoured me with her name,” I say despondently to my new if temporary owner, admitting defeat.

“I am called Giani,” she says. “My girls named me Giani. That was not the title I was born to. They make jest of my excessive height, by naming me after the smallest species of the panthers.”

I don’t dare pronounce “Giani” back – a slave does not repeat the name of a free person to their face, but I commit it to memory.

“Do you question your place as slave to us?” Giani asks. “I do not wish to force you into obedience through punishment, but it can be done if you intend to disrupt the order of this tribe.”

Again I glance hopelessly at the dense jungle, and pull at my roped wrists.

“No Mistress,” I say. “I do not question my place. I am a slave.”

My training as a kajira has made me less ashamed by displays of humility, and I shrewdly calculate that a show of debasement on my part will lower the Taluna’s guard.

With my ankles bound I summon my courage and shuffle towards Giani on my knees, then I lean forward and almost overbalance.

Humbly I touch my lips to each of Giani’s grubby but shapely feminine feet. Aurore’s long beautiful hair falls about my face, dragging into the dirt of the forest floor.

I feel like my curvaceous rump is sticking out behind me. It is not the most graceful of positions.

There are a few titters of contempt from the group, but the scorn of panthers is not going to hurt me.

“If I’m the only slave in the camp, I could better carry out all the chores with my wrists and ankles released, Mistress,” I wheedle as I straighten up, keeping my tone subservient. “I promise not to run away.”

Giani grins wryly.

“Do not worry, little one,” she says. “We have some old steel shackles that will permit you sufficient movement to serve, but will make resistance or escape difficult. And you will soon learn you are wrong in thinking yourself the only slave in our camp, you are merely the only kajira.”

36 - I make the acquaintance of Kailiauk, who is slave to women.

My new home would be like a piece of paradise, were it not for my miserable situation, serving free women as their slave while I wait my inevitable trade to agents of the Kurii.

Surrounding our rainforest clearing is a fertile Garden of Eden, with dark green plants that proliferate below the tree canopy producing huge white blooming flowers emitting a pungent aroma.

I notice after several ahn in the camp that I have not been bitten by the mosquitos since my arrival here, and conjecture that the scent those flowers must keep the insects away.

A waterfall just outside the camp plunges to a refreshing looking shaded pool. I see from the presence of a nude panther girl washing herself in the flow that this waterfall serves as the camp shower.

All around me are the sounds of wildlife, the rasping calls of jungle insects and the exotic cries of tropical birds and mammals. I suspect that hunting is easy here, but also that the creatures of the forest represent danger for the unarmed.

All the needs of the tribe are catered for in this one location. It is a good strategic choice, and my respect for Giani’s leadership and forest-craft increases.

The Taluna of this tribe live in simple tents, similar in design to the tipis of Native Americans on the Great Plains. There are fewer of these tents than there are women, but when I observe the despatch of half a dozen girls of the tribe I conclude that more are unnecessary as some of the band are usually absent on scouting patrol.

Panthers are nervous creatures, knowing their inferiority to men, and I had been assuming the only people permitted in camp would be the tribe and their chattels. I am therefore surprised to see the grey man emerge from one of the tents.

I’m certain this is the same person I watched in the quarters of Chiron. He still wears that long grey cowl, but surrounded here by women he keeps the hood pushed back on his shoulders to expose his head. No two men on Gor would have that same deformed face and patchy white hair sprouting from his misshaped skull.

The grey man stretches and drinks from a gourd, looking as if he is feeling as rough as I am. Giani walks over to confer with him and he looks directly up at me, piercing me with his sharp blue eyes.

My stomach rolls as our eyes meet. My fate, my life, is entirely in the hands of this stranger.

Then he nods to her in confirmation. I recall the woman’s voice at the moment of my abduction. “This is the one we want,” she said, and the grey man’s gesture seems to confirm that.

I’m expecting him to address me, but his face assumes a strange expression, almost as if he’s overcome with emotion, and he abruptly turns his back and walks into his tent. Even Giani looks a little bemused by this reaction, but she shrugs.

“Kailiauk!” she shouts then.

Instead of one of the slow lumbering bovine forest mammals of Gor who bear that name answering the summons, a human man emerges from one of the tents.

His status in the camp is immediately obvious. This hapless fellow is the first example I have seen of a male slave indentured to women.

It would be difficult to demonstrate a captive’s status by dressing him in even less clothing than the panthers wear, but they have managed with this fellow.

A small rectangle of silk-like fabric, about the size of the page in a book and secured only with ties at the waist, covers his manhood, and that’s all he is permitted to wear. When he turns to fall to his knees before Giani, about six feet from my position, I see that there is not even a covering for his buttocks.

A stripe of the man’s neat hair has been shaved to further indicate his status – the band running from the crown to the nape of the neck, making the whole like the inverse of a Mohawk.

It is common for panthers to shame captive males in this way, but he is the first example I have seen in life.

The man is well built, and would be stronger than any of the women in a one-on-one combat, and yet I immediately note the Taluna are fearless around him. Giani touches him affectionately in greeting, the way one would pet a puppy rather than handling a dangerous sexual enemy.

“Kailiauk, this is Aurore,” says Giani. “She will be staying temporarily with us, as slave to the grey one.”

“Yes, Huntress,” Kailiauk replies, flashing me a quick glance of acknowledgement over his shoulder.

He does not address the panther as “Mistress”. It is a distinction in title to show that these Taluna do not see themselves as the same as other free women on Gor.

“See that Aurore is locked in steel shackles, both wrist and ankle,” Giani commands, “those ropes she wears now are not practical for long periods. Then make sure Aurore does not learn the location of their key.”

He looks at me again, and then nods.

“After that you may see that she is fed and watered.”

“Yes, Huntress,” Kailiauk responds, and Giani dismisses us both.

He is diligent in carrying out his mistress’ instruction. In one of the tents allocated to storage shackles replace my ropes, and I am bid to remain kneeling and face forward while Kailiauk goes somewhere outside to hide my only means of release.

I do not attempt cheat and discover its location. At this point I would not know where to escape to, even if I were unrestrained. My best chance of survival is to remain here, despite the threat of the Kurii over me.

My shackles are heavier than the ropes, but I have much more freedom of movement – there being about eighteen inches of chain between my wrists, and twelve between my ankles. It is similar to the sirik I wore before my master, except my current shackles miss the vertical chain linking ankles to collar.

“Come with me, Aurore,” Kailiauk requests. “I will show you where to find food.”

Unsteadily I get to my feet, having not walked for some hours, and I shuffle after him with the abrasive sound of my ropes replaced with the clink of steel.

He walks away from me and observe him with interest, and not only because he appears naked from the back view and I find his muscular body attractive. I study him carefully because as the only other slave in this camp, he is my best chance at an ally or friend.

I attempt to engage him in conversation as follows:

“You are slave to women,” I begin rather unnecessarily.

“That is true,” he confirms.

“Why do you not attempt to escape?” I ask. “You are not kept restrained and could quickly hide in the trees.”

Kailiauk stops and studies me for a moment, and immediately I regret the impudent familiarity of my opening gambit.

“It is not in my interest to escape,” he says eventually, turning back to his tasks, and changes the subject before I can ask any more.

“This tent, is where we store our provisions,” he says, resuming my instruction. “You can identify it wherever we camp, for there is a red ribbon tied to the canvas.”

It is starting to rain, so we take cover inside the same provision tent. “You move camp frequently?” I ask, trying a less controversial topic.

“Sometimes we remain in a location for many days,” he answers. “Sometimes it is only for one night.”

His tone is still brusque. I am not forgiven for discussing escape with him.

The food he gives me is underwhelming, comprising only some berries and dried fruit. I would actually have felt fuller at the end of a bowl of slave gruel.

“We can only eat meat when meat has been caught,” Kailiauk says, observing my disappointment. “Today, meat has not been caught.”

As we fall into uncomfortable silence I realise I am actually missing the compound.

I wonder what Kurtz is doing right now, but it is a mistake to think of him for that my spirits sink. He will believe I have left as ordered, unless he happens to find the canoe still present and hidden in the reeds. He will be unaware of the attack closing in on him.

I tell myself I must not allow myself to succumb to self-pity, but the unwanted memory of him saying he loved me returns, and my despair grows. He seemed in physical pain as he pushed me from his hut. He claimed that his feelings had interfered with his experiment in the rights and wrongs of Gorean morality.

Could someone really feel that way about me? My body is desirable but that’s lust, not love. Under the skin I’m just – me. Aurius of London is hardly loveable.

Well - I will never have the opportunity to find out about Kurtz’ feelings now. They have removed me from the compound before the attack. As the Kurii have so much interest in me, they must know I am an agent of the Sardar. From here I expect to be delivered to a place of interrogation, and once I’ve been broken I’ll be sold or even executed.

My future does not look rosy.

I refocus on my surroundings and see Kailiauk’s eyes are on me. Men’s eyes are always on me, but usually it is sexual desire, not love. In Kailiauk’s case, unusually he looks at my body appreciatively, but without the raw hunger that is typical of most Gorean males.

All the same, I feel self-conscious, and press my hand between my bare legs to check that the very meagre swathe of cloth covering my sex is in place.

“You are very beautiful,” he says, but in a tone of observation rather than passion.

Interesting – his preference seems to lie somewhere else. If my reading of him is correct this could mean he’s less likely to rape me, but it makes the task more difficult of charming him onto my side.

The rest of the day passes miserably. Back at the compound there was always chores or training to keep slaves occupied, but here in the camp the Taluna are a self-sufficient band.

Left with nothing to do, I spend the best part of an ahn sitting in my chains by the waterfall and resting back against a tree, until I discover some giant Gorean insect like a cockroach has perched on my bare shoulder and I shriek with fright.

I am no longer used to having my own leisure time. It is almost with relief therefore that Kailiauk comes to find me, and tells me, “Come, the grey one has summoned you.”

Docilely I follow his naked back view, steeling myself to learn my fate.

37 - I serve the grey man

Both the parallels and the differences between the nights when I knelt before my former master, Kurtz, and my current situation, are not lost on me.

The dwelling we are in is humble and lit by a small oil lamp. That is very similar.

I am dressed in a camisk, just as I was the second time I knelt to give service to Kurtz. Only tonight my garment is the cast-off from Udumi, who as a free woman no longer needs it, rather than it being one carefully personalised for me in the slave pens.

This new garment does not fit me well.

Udumi and I were of similar height, both of us being long legged women and tall as catwalk models, so the length of her camisk is acceptable. But my body, being created for the sole purpose of pleasing men, has more of the hourglass shape that males find so desirable. Thus wearing clothing fitted for a girl with a straighter figure, my fuller breasts bulge humiliatingly at the sides of my new garment, and more of my wider feminine hips are exposed.

Since I was given this hand-me-down rag I have frequently pinched handfuls of the cloth under my arms, trying in vain to close the broad stripe of my pale skin bared from underarm to thigh.

My new camisk is also blood-stained with the evidence of the defeated panther’s nosebleed, however it is an improvement on my pleasure silks, which were quickly disintegrating under the rigour of forest life, and the variation in attire between tonight and my earlier camisk is not the most significant change.

The most notable difference between now and my earlier service is of course that rather than being on my knees in Kurtz’ crude hut I kneel in one of the panthers’ tents. The sounds I can hear outside are not the voices of warriors and slave girls, but the chatter of women gathering around a fire.

I am a trained pleasure slave however, and I focus only on satisfying my current host. Serving in precisely the same way I keep my head down and hold out the bowl above me, offering “water Master?”

The grey man takes it as silently as Kurtz might have done, and sips. I interpret this as permission to rest back, my heels pressing into the perfect curves of my buttocks.

My knees are apart, as is expected of a red-silk kajira such as me. He will be able to view my sex. I try to remember the last time I wore underwear, and didn’t feel perpetually open.

“Quite magnificent,” he finally says, and I am unsure if this is a reference to the water or myself.

“Thank you, Master,” I say neutrally.

The grey man’s eyes are on me, so I attempt to hold myself as beautifully as is possible. The light from a single small oil lamp flickers on my exposed skin.

You perhaps consider me sluttish in this behaviour, but my actions are more pragmatic.

I am a woman on Gor, I am chained and unarmed, and I am in the camp of my enemy. Beauty is my best survival chance at this moment.

“You are not frightened by my appearance,” the grey man observes.

In the privacy of his tent his hood is drawn back, and again I can see those bulging, deformed features and the irregular tufts of white hair that show his age.

Taking his tone as permission to speak I reply, “Life has shown me that looks are not important, Master.”

He chuckles.

“Yes you in particular would understand that. Here you kneel, the Priest King’s bold experiment. I have been much interested to see in reality the outcome of a female body and Kurtz’ slave training when imposed on one who was once a man.”

I think back to when I hid inside Chiron’s hut and overheard the conversation I learned I was part of the Kurii demands. This must be the reason why. The technology that transformed me could be a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy.

In the compound, only Kurtz knew of my origins though. So it is not someone there, but a traitor within The Nest that has betrayed the secret. I resolve to ask questions and try to induce the grey man into revealing the identity of the mole.

“Master seems to know much about me.”

“I know more than you might expect,” he agrees, “both about you and those around you. For instance, how was our bald-headed friend when you last saw him? Frozen into noble inertia by the troubles of Gor only he has the vision to solve, I suppose?”

I don’t intend to give away any intelligence, so instead I risk glancing up and smiling maliciously.

“If Master knows Kurtz so well, Master will know how relentless the Ubar can be when he has a challenge. He is probably in pursuit of me already, and nothing will stop him achieving victory. Kurtz is likely to be vexed with you, Master.”

The grey man laughs.

“No doubt,” he says. “But I do not think he will find us in time. He will soon be occupied with his own problems. I suggest you abandon dreams of rescue for now, and focus on ingratiating yourself with your new owners.”

It is in my interests to co-operate, but I silently vow not to please these people by revealing anything that might damage Kurtz or the Priest Kings, even if he tortures me.

The grey man picks up a gourd at his side and takes a sip from it. It is the same gourd I noticed him using when I first arrived at the camp.

“So Aurore, I already understand the purpose of your mission here in the jungle, and I understand that this mission was planted at the instigation of Kurtz,” he begins.

That wrong-foots me. How has he found out that it was Kurtz, and not the Priest Kings, who came up with the concept of my mission, and I was in fact the lab rat in some cruel experiment? How can he hold secrets from both locations? The mole has told him even more than the Priest Kings knew.

“I am aware that you responded superbly to slave training and charmed your way successfully into the Ubar’s furs. Through training in the behaviour pleasing in a woman you increased greatly in desirability, and they tell me you deserve your place as the First Girl.”

First Girl – this also gives me pause. I was never addressed directly so in the compound but I suppose it is true. Goreans give the title to the highest status slave – typically the most beautiful among the females, and the favoured girl of the leader.

“Whether your response to training answered Kurtz’ little ethical dilemma does not interest me. He can tie himself up in moral knots as long as he wants, as it keeps him from causing trouble elsewhere.”

“What interests me personally is one of my few missing pieces of my information. I wish to understand why you stayed with him, Lady Aurore, when you had the opportunity to leave him some time ago. My explanation is unsatisfactory. Udumi tells me you were offered your freedom and could have been back in the Sardar by now, with your mission completed.”

It is strange being addressed as Lady Aurore – the era before the fire on the barge seems a lifetime ago. But that does not matter. He seems to know everything that’s happened in the compound, except the intimate details between Kurtz and myself.

Udumi must have told him everything she witnessed, but she wasn’t able to read my mind.

“You are not the only one to raise that point, Master,” I answer, “I’ve asked myself that same question, especially since I found myself in this reversal of fortune.”

“And what did you conclude, Aurore?”

“A lot of reasons, Master. There was still time to influence Kurtz’ path, and if I’d left to return he might have been forever lost. My orders, as you seem to know, were to return him or terminate him. Ending Kurtz’ life did not seem an attractive option once I knew more of his motivation.”

“Furthermore he made me question my own allegiance to the Sardar, and it would have been hypocritical to return. And finally and perhaps most importantly, I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time.”

The grey man’s head nods in acceptance.

“The force of his personality can be somewhat mesmerising,” he agrees with a smile, “or perhaps your wish to influence his path towards life stemmed from feelings that were more intimate?”

I feel a blush rising. This question I do not wish to answer. I’m not going to admit that I loved him, or he loved me. That is between us. When pressed I always reply by counterattack.

“I presume that we can dispense with ambiguity, and Master can confirm his interest in these answers is on behalf of his employers, the species known as the Kurii, or the Others?”

He laughs at me then.

“You might look entirely like a woman, but you remain as closed from discussing your feelings as a man, Aurore, or perhaps I should call you Aurius?” he says.

If that’s meant to sting my pride it works. My blush deepens, and he laughs at my discomfort, saying, “Very well, Lady. At this moment I am acting on behalf of the Others, although I have a more personal interest in a creation so unique on Gor.”

This good-humoured banter puts me even more on the defensive. My stomach gives the familiar lurch of fear. I hope that “personal interest” wasn’t an allusion to him wishing to sleep with me.

“But why have the Kurii gone to so much effort to capture me?” I ask, trying to turn back the initiative yet again. “I am no scientist, so I cannot betray the secret of the transformation process through interrogation. As a hostage, the life of a kajira would be sacrificed for the cause of The Nest. The process that transformed me is valuable, my personal worth is only the coins needed to buy a slave girl.”

“Your importance in proceedings will become clear when we return to the compound.”

I am so surprised I forget myself.

“We’re going back?”

I have switched in a heartbeat from defeat to being filled with hope. I have a better chance of escape back there where I know the surroundings. If we return to the fort I might see him, I mean see everyone in the compound again.

But then my spirits start to deflate as quickly as a punctured football. The only way the grey man might return me is once the compound was under the control of the Others.

“You still intend to attack the compound, even though you have me?” I ask.

“The aims I disclosed in discussion with Chiron, which I have been informed you overheard, were all truthful. The compound was in a useful strategic location for our operations, and it will be so once more. It is remote enough to land ships without drawing attention, but the waterways provide reasonable links for dispersing agents or merchandise.”

I am opening my mouth to ask another question, but he silences me.

“But enough questions for now, slave. It is time for us to rest.”

Then all thought of strategy and the great war being waged for Gor is banished when he continues, “You are to spend your nights while in camp here, sleeping with me.”

Oh no, I think. My heart doubles in speed, and I feel sweat break out on my skin. I had at least thought I might escape rape in the camp of the Taluna, but it turns out I will end up in the furs of a man after all.

Since arriving I have been aware of the grey one’s sleeping roll unfurled on the floor of the tent, as it fills much of the cramped space. His bed is barely large enough for one person, so we will be intimately close unless I spend the night on the bare floor.

“Come,” he orders, indicating a place on the bedroll.

“Have mercy Master,” I plead, drawing back.

But before I can argue further he snatches the chain between my wrists, closing his giant hand over the steel and pulling me towards him. With his superior strength I am dragged out of my kneeling position and onto my belly.

The grey man has immense broad shoulders and I am expecting him to overpower me easily, but he grunts with exertion as I’m forced to the floor. My heart is pounding with fear, and my skin crawls with a cold sweat.

With his free hand the grey man reaches out and picks up two steel stakes, hooked at one end like a tent peg, but with their shafts much longer so they’re more difficult to remove from the soil.

These he hammers into the ground with a wooden mallet, threading the spike through one of the links in my shackles so it pins the chains to the floor at the top and bottom of his bedroll.

One spike secures my wrist chain and the other my ankles, so I finish lying helpless on my side, stretched out along the length of the mattress.

Rape is commonplace on Gor, but I have not truly contemplated becoming its victim since I knelt on the dockside in the compound, expecting to be given to Chiron’s use. By the time Kurtz took Aurore’s virginity I was more-or-less consensual in the matter. But here in a remote tent in the jungle I am finally at the mercy of a male, and my refusal will make no difference.

I close my eyes, feeling sick with anticipation, and expecting his hands on me any moment now, but the touch does not come.

The grey man does no more than lie down on his bed, and reaching out to the oil lamp to blow out the flame.

With the tree canopy blocking any moon or starlight from reaching the campsite, we are plunged immediately into total blackness.

“I would advise you not to attempt to escape,” the grey man’s voice calls in the dark. “The jungle is not a safe place for you to go alone.”

I lie there feeling grateful bemusement at this turn of events. Why didn’t he force himself on me? I am truly thankful, but I still wonder is he the first man to not find Aurore’s body desirable, or am I being preserved for some other purpose?

The grey man has certainly not forgotten the right of owner to enjoy slave, because as we try to sleep a loud reminder of this power becomes audible through the thin walls of the tents.

Such is the volume of noise that any chance of rest is prevented by the loud and rhythmic animal grunts of a male and a female joined in copulation. As there is only one other man in the camp, the sound I can hear must be Kailiauk satisfying the pleasure of one of the women. It does not sound as if the experience of forced service is too much of an ordeal for him.

Chained to the floor I feel very sorry for myself. The cries of joy bring vivid memories of the last time I took pleasure as a man, lying with the beautiful slave girl Tala. Even more intense are those recollections of becoming one with Kurtz when I was the woman.

Now both such chances of happiness are forever gone. I am a forgotten female left on a barbarian world, and one who is never likely to fall asleep on such an uncomfortable surface.

To the sound of Kailiauk reaching climax I miserably close my eyes.

38 - All is not peaceful in the Garden of Eden

I am being shaken roughly awake.

“Come, we need to move,” one of the Taluna is saying in a stern whisper, standing over me in the early morning light of the grey man’s tent.

I am quite unable to move, but I am quickly released from the pegs securing me to the floor, and emerge into the dawn to discover the camp is silently being dismantled.

Kailiauk is busily strapping the rolled-up tents across his back like a Sherpa.

“What’s happening?” I whisper to him, he being the closest thing to an ally.

“One of our scout patrols has not returned,” he answers. “It probably means that hunters have seized them, and they now approach the camp.”

I look up hopefully, but I can see nothing in the impenetrable green.

“Kurtz’ men?” I ask.

Kailiauk shakes his head. I have kept my voice quiet during the conversation, but even that low volume has attracted attention.

“Gag the slave girl,” Giani orders.

A wad of muddy cloth is forced into my mouth by one of the panthers, and held in place via a leather strap secured at the back of my head, in similar manner to the gag soaked in brandius fluid when I was kidnapped.

“We cannot risk you betraying us,” I am told.

Their concern for my silence even includes swapping my chains for tightly knotted ropes, so I cannot use the jingle of metal to give away our location.

Despite this greater security I could probably still lean forward and reach to unfasten the gag strap, but I do not attempt to do so. Rather, I look indignantly around me.

“We have to relocate frequently,” Kailiauk tells me in a whisper. “Many would like to take the huntress Giani as slave.”

His face clouds with fierce emotion while he tells me this, as if he himself might wish to take on all these men in battle as a means to protect her. I study his features, recalling that this man as the source of the noises last night.

Perhaps I have discovered which of the Taluna he served.

While I ponder the mystery, the disassembly of our corner of jungle paradise is completed with tense urgency. There is almost no trace that we were present save for the fire circle, which they cover with some strategically arranged leaves.

As soon as we are able we silently pad into the woods, a blonde Taluna who reminds me a little of Ailsa picking a route into what at first appears to be impenetrable jungle.

It turns out we have not reached safety, even away from the site of our encampment. At one point the scout in front signals wildly and we crouch down, deep in the cover of some vegetation.

Gradually I hear the voices of men growing louder, and the crashing sound of unskilled movement through the jungle. Each one of us inches as far into the undergrowth as they can, trying to be swallowed entirely by the forest.

Silently, in the green gloom of the leaves, we wait. These men are going to pass terribly close – what will happen if they walk right across us?

Then, through a tiny gap in the foliage, I see movement. They are indeed hunters. Men, and what’s more they are men that I do not recognise.

One after another these brutes enter my field of view, the third and fourth hunters carrying a long pole of bamboo between them, its weight supported on their shoulders.

Between this is suspended a girl, tied to the pole to hang by her wrists and ankles.

It is the frizzy haired girl, she of the broken nose. She is not having a lucky week, getting punched by Udumi and then captured by hunters. They have stripped her, but they left her brief furs dangling from her neck to show all who see her that she was once Taluna.

The frizzy haired girl passes from my view and I see a second captive also hanging from a pole, a small pixie-like Taluna with short dark hair that I recognise as one of Giani’s number.

She too is naked, with her furs hanging from her neck. This girl is one of the runaways, with a rusted iron collar and the scar from a brand inflicted long ago on her thigh.

Her treatment will not be pleasant if she is returned to her former owners. Knowing this, the pixie girl writhes desperately as she fights her bonds.

The hunting group pass near enough to our hiding place for me to hear their words.

“We’re close behind them, I’m sure,” a man says in a relaxed, laconic voice, unaware how accurate his words are. “The campfire was still warm, and now I can smell woman.”

There is a coarse laugh.

“The Taluna Giani will please us from on her knees before nightfall,” his companion boasts confidently.

I look across to Giani, who is crouching down with a look of such quiet determination on her face that I wager that these men will not be enjoying her tonight.

The hunting group perhaps totals forty males. They are too numerous for any direct rescue attempt on the captives, and as they gradually draw away from us I assess that Giani will not be foolhardy enough to try a recovery by stealth.

It is common on Gor to use captives as live bait to lure their comrades to the same doom. But the wisest decision of abandoning these two will mean the girls are lost to us, and will begin a new career as slaves. I do not envy them.

Giani makes us wait for nearly two ahn hiding in the undergrowth before she gives the signal to continue. We chose a direction tangential to the path of the hunters. Perhaps they would expect us to flee in the opposite direction, and thus our chosen route is safer.

There is an atmosphere of defeat permeating the tribeswomen, but on this new path we have our first sign of improving luck, disturbing a boar like tarsk from the undergrowth which one of the Taluna has shot before even knowing the nature of the creature.

Thus when we finally make camp around a clearing created by a fallen tree, we have some meat to roast over a spit.

Unlike in the compound of Kurtz I am not involved in the cooking.

Once returned from my ropes to my chains I am left idle in the company of the grey one. Perhaps it is because I am perceived by the group as being his slave, rather than communal property.

The mood of the Taluna band gradually lifts during the evening, although I notice the panthers sitting in a ring around the fire subconsciously leave spaces between them, as if they expect the missing to return at any moment and claim their places in the group.

Conversation and singing occasionally falls into sudden silence as these women think of the ordeal their recent companions might be enduring even now. The captives are probably being what Goreans euphemistically call “taught their slavery”.

When we go to our furs, with me once again chained to the ground in the tent of the grey man, this night there are no sounds of Kailiauk providing pleasure.

39 - I experience more of the life of a Taluna

Like many of those familiar with Gor I had developed a romantic image of life as a Taluna, picturing a slow paced life of sisterly love with its innocence only coloured with the undercurrent of lesbian eroticism.

From my experience with the tribe of Giani I see that the reality is a rather miserable existence, constantly in fear and on the run, with few comforts and subsisting on the edge of starvation.

This perpetual sense of threat is the truth of a woman’s life on Gor without the protection of men.

At night in the blackness of the jungle I am not the only one lying awake and fearing that hunters might be a few feet away, about to surprise us. Each time I think of such a fate I shudder, shuffling with a rattle of chains instinctively closer to the protection of the grey man.

During my five days with the Talunas of Giani, we have to relocate our camp two more times. I grow in respect for the skill of our guides on each occasion I experience these treks, for they manage to pick their way to new and suitable sites unerringly when I am completely disorientated in the woods.

I also grow in admiration of the qualities of Giani, who might lack the fire of Ailsa in her steady leadership, but commands and manages her girls with strategic and tactical surefootedness that helps soothe their terrors of the unknowns lurking in the jungle.

But even with the best of leaders I still pity these women. Their base fear of a fate at the hands of men makes them prisoners to this life. And despite even Giani’s skill I know the tribe will not be lucky every time, and one day they all will fall into the captivity they dread.

I am the only woman who feels any hope when there’s a warning of hunters in the woods. My mind clings to fantasies of Kurtz coming to save me, but it turns out every time that the groups we dodge are never from the compound, but are groups of men from the cities, flying in on tarns and hunting women for sport.

Being taken by these strangers would not be pleasant, but sexual slavery to the hunters is likely to be better than my fortunes once I’m delivered to the Kurii.

I think of my former master often. Perhaps Kurtz is preoccupied with other matters, or he’s failed to realise that I was kidnapped, rather than leaving of my own volition.

I do not know.

They grey man said that we would be returning to the compound, and despite the threat to myself implicit when that occurs, I look forward to it. At least with the Kurii this hungry, mud-soaked time will come to an end.

The only positive of my experience of panther life is that for the closet bisexual, I am indeed given pleasingly erotic sights to watch.

One morning when we again camp close to a pool I am treated with the view of several entirely nude panther girls washing themselves, splashing and laughing with chaste vivacity, and I marvel at what beautiful creatures women can be.

From my first arriving in the pens I have frequently witnessed nude women cleaning themselves, but these girls are different to those slaves because of their liveliness. This spirit is because they are free, and proud. These free women are confidently exposing themselves both before Kailiauk and the grey man without shame.

This behaviour before Kailiauk is no surprise – a male slave is nothing, a beast, an object, and nudity before such as he is no different to changing clothes before one’s pet dog. But it is strange they reveal themselves without inhibition to the grey man, and he apparently takes as little interest in their bodies as he has in mine.

As I have already noticed, Gorean men are not usually trusted in the camps of panther girls, and yet the grey man seems to be as tolerated by Giani’s tribe as if he too were female.

Perhaps here stands the only homosexual man on the planet. The puzzle intrigues me, and I know there is a secret there somewhere.

Kailiauk is the only one likely to give me a clue to this and other concerns, so I continue to engage him in conversation when I have opportunity.

At first I was a little nervous of him. As a slavegirl, I do not have the right to choose my sexual partners, and it could easily have been that I would be mated with Kailiauk as a reward.

But it soon becomes clear that while he might find my female body physically attractive, Kailiauk’s emotional cravings are for the delights of free women rather than kajirae.

Provided with only a loose square of silk to cover his manhood, this truth is regularly demonstrated in an entirely literal sense. He is unable to disguise when he grows aroused in response to his many mistresses, and I fail to raise this reaction.

The Taluna take great delight in provoking his blood to warm, and Kailiauk accepts their treatment with good natured endurance. He seems to be shared amongst all the women, but I can soon see that one particular flames his passion.

“You like her, don’t you?” I ask him, when I see him paused in a task, lost in watching Giani conferring with the scouts.

He looks at me with the sad expression of the lovelorn.

“My feelings do not matter. I am a slave,” he states to me with simple dignity.

“That’s why you stay here, isn’t it?” I say. “You don’t want to leave her.”

“Not every man on Gor is destined, or wishes to be a warrior,” he replies candidly. “It is my rightful place to serve women.”

“Does she use you?” I ask, rather nosily, wondering who the source of the cries of pleasure was the other night.

“Never,” he says, shaking his head. “All the others have taken me to their bedrolls except her, and Lori, she with the red hair who was recently taken by hunters.”

Thus I learn that like so many men before him, Kailiauk desires most the one he cannot have. This confirms finally that I need not fear him. A lowly kajira such as myself is not of interest. He will not want such an easy conquest. Kailiauk seeks to prove himself by winning the affections of a woman he considers superior in status, like all men seek challenges.

As he says, not every man on Gor wishes to be a warrior. People on Gor and on Earth can be aroused by the idea of service to strong and beautiful women, and there is nothing I find contemptible in him.

“What’s the story with my master, the grey one?” I ask, deeming that safe to discuss. “How came he to our camp?”

“The grey one has been with us nearly a Gorean month,” Kailiauk answers.

“The Huntress Giani and the Huntress Fieri,” and here he indicates a leggy brunette looking fetching in one of the briefest sets of skins in the tribe, “returned from a foraging trip in the jungle with the grey one in their company.”

“Rumour is that the grey one had defeated both women, and he spared them to prove himself true to his word. I do not know if this is the truth, but since his arrival he has been trusted completely by the tribe.”

Could the grey man really have had the opportunity to take his pleasure from both of the women, as he did from me, and still he declined? What is it with him?

“Tal slaves,” Udumi says, striding athletically across and then standing before us with one hip raised coquettishly. “I bring you tidings. Tomorrow we are to leave, so this night I will enjoy the use of the male.”

The last part of this sentence is directed at Kailiauk, and as she speaks she boldly reaches under the square of his silk to touch him intimately.

“As you command, Huntress,” he says, voice trembling as he tries to speak while she tests him.

“It has been some time since a man has tried to please me, so prepare yourself for a busy night.”

She releases him from her caress, but by this time his manhood is at attention. Then Udumi slaps his bare buttock, the way a farmer might slap a beast to test the quality of the beef.

So, finally we are leaving. I prickle with nerves. I can both fear and hope for what I’ll find back at the fortified compound.

When darkness falls and the nocturnal noises of the jungle are again disturbed by the sounds of human pleasure, this time I am certain of the identity of both male and female voices. Udumi makes love with the passion that she applies to the rest of her life.

The ecstasy of Kailiauk fills my thoughts as I lie unable to sleep. If a man can take such pleasure from sexual servitude, might it not be possible for woman also to enjoy providing pleasure in a submissive role without shame?

Tala certainly seemed to find great joy in her slavery, and I have met other kajirae who are quite clearly happy. Perhaps I should accept there is some merit in this culture.

But no, what makes Gor barbaric and inhuman, different from any other BDSM relationship, is the denial of consent by the weaker party. If those people who certainly wanted slavery were the only ones to be collared, it might be a better place.

I reach up in the dark to finger my own slave collar, as I have done so many times. I am still wearing the collar of Kurtz – the Taluna not being equipped with the tools to remove it, but it will no doubt soon be replaced with the badge of the Kurii.

Next day I rise bleary eyed in the early morning light to accompany the grey man and Udumi as we begin to pick our way into the jungle.

After stripping and washing in the pool I don my camisk, tightening it to give what little covering I can to Aurore’s lush curves. Oh why did the Priest Kings have to make me so beautiful? I will never escape the consequences of this body, until old age finally quenches my desirability.

When our party assembles I see the Taluna are not to accompany us for this journey. Unlike Ailsa, Giani is not planning to lead a group of sexy underdressed women into a place filled with Gorean warriors.

Thus we are deprived of the skills of the scouts, but the grey one leads the way into the jungle trees with the same certainty of navigation.

I take a last look at the encampment of the tribe. All the girls have gathered to stand and watch us in a silent farewell.

I am not sorry to be leaving.

It seems inevitable to me that one day Giani and her girls will be captured, stripped and conquered, quickly being turned into willing and obedient slaves like so many women before them. I do not want to see her fall to that fate.

We circle round a large bush with dark green leaves and rhododendron like flowers, and the Taluna are lost to our sight. Away we walk proceeding in single file, with myself in the middle of the group.

Udumi seems irritable this morning, more than she would be from mere lack of sleep, and she deliberately trips me several times, kicking one of my chained feet behind the other so I fall to my face on the forest floor.

The treatment is unpleasant, but I am a slave girl and as we trek into the jungle I know better than to object.