It’s that time of year again!
I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. My best laid plans were to complete Outcast of Gor in time for the Christmas break (just two chapters remaining) but alas I have been so busy these last few days that I’ve only got two thirds of the way through chapter thirty nine, despite my best intentions.
The run up to Christmas this year has been more frantic than usual and I’m now resigned to finishing of that book in the Christmas to New Year period.
Penny was waiting for me, having arrived at our meeting spot early, before the sixth ahn. I was very happy to see her. I woke up this morning, intent on coming here, in hopes that she would show up, despite the lack of a prior arrangement. She looked good this morning, with a clean camisk, and her usual smile and bright blue eyes. She knelt in nadu on the side of the street as I approached and her neck bell rang. She said, “Tal Master. You have been cured even more! There is no sign of withering on you.”
“Yes Penny, thank you. We find breakfast,” I said.
“Yes Master!”
We didn’t have to walk far before we found a street vendor that was making fresh pastries. I bought one with meat and melting cheese and Penny chose a sweet one with berries. We ate them steamy hot, before starting our walk.
“You did not come, when we arranged,” I said.
“No Master, I am sorry. I could not come then.”
“Army camps?” I asked.
“Yes Master,” she said, her smile fading.
Tidying the Camp
Patrick Master’s Narrative
Woodrow Frick said, “Almost done now. Our reports were that there were eight in this group, the last group of them there was. We got six, once we get the last two, we will be done with this.”
“But there are all eight of them here. The other two are buried under the tent. The tent has an internal frame that supports it. The pegs just hold it down. I killed the first two, then wrapped them in tarps, unpegged the tent, buried them in shallow graves, and moved the tent back over the bodies. No one could tell they were there. Meanwhile the girls rode the ATVs to the river and sank them in a deep spot. Then we made the camp look normal and waited for you.”
Juli, I could tell, was wondering why I was putting myself in Woodrow Frick’s power by admitting to two killings. I knew that Woodrow Frick was the sort who would never want anyone to have something to hold over him. He carried himself and had the aura of a dangerous man. Even more than when he had visited the camp earlier, he was now grim. The events of the range war had not mellowed him.
This could easily be the Tatrix of Corcyrus standing before me, stripped and ankle braceleted, her hair unbound, and her voluptuous curves garbed only in a gauze like wrap of fabric that hung loosely from her shoulders.
But such a thought was clearly ridiculous. The Tatrix of Corcyrus would not present herself in my chambers late at night, alone, vulnerable, in the guise of a captive woman of Isurium.
I walked towards this woman, wishing the light was better.
“You are the Lady Tulia Fava?”
“I am.” She folded her arms about her upper body and refused to look at me. She struck a haughty pose that was perhaps intentionally provocative and challenging to a man.
“Lower your arms. You are not to cross them again in my presence.”
I woke up on the couch in the guest bedroom, very early in the morning, many ahn before sunrise. The room was dark, with very faint twilight coming through the window. I had an unbearable urge to urinate and my body was sore. I swung my feet over the side of the couch to the floor as I sat up. My left foot landed on a small cold metal chain. I shifted my foot to the side. I felt lightheaded and unsteady. My stomach growled in hunger. I heard rain outside.
As I sat there hoping the dizziness would fade, my eyes adjusted to the twilight. I looked at the chain on the floor and followed it from a ring at the bottom corner of the couch, to only a few feet before it went under a blanket covering someone laying on the floor. The shape was hard to make out but it was resting on the ground lying parallel to the couch. I heard a very faint snore coming from the blanket, so faint that it could only be a woman’s snore.
Slave Inge’s Narrative
Each day, as our processing continues, I am less and less able to think about life before I was collared. All in our group are what the cowboys call red silk, opened to the use of men. We have all husbands, or partners, or boyfriends and have known the pleasures of sex. Even the young wyld wyman, Luta, who grew up in the men despising camps has known a man or two. She whispered to me that when she made her first capture of a man she was allowed to tie and then mount and ride him until she orgasmed.
In my present condition this seems strange now. It seems like it is backward to what is normal. A cowboy came yesterday and used her right over the water trough. She cried out and the unprocessed women in the other corral mocked and jeered at her. The cowboy was still putting her to use, with her hands tied together and the rope holding her bend over when the rest of us gathered by the fence between the unprocessed and we the processed and we threatened them. We are in greater numbers than they and they shrank back. It is well for them that there is a fence between their part of the corral and ours. The harshest condemnation came from the stripped rancher’s women who had been condemned for being captured and raped.
Luta’s mother, Velma, was strongest in her defence of her daughter crying out in passion as Aaron the Cowboy rode her daughter to ecstasy.
“You have never made a man happy as he used you. To mount you was just a chore as you lay there, frigid and cold, not daring to move!”
I was permitted, within certain limits, to explore the inner palace at my leisure. Occasionally I might roam too far and find myself confronted by guardsmen who, having been appraised of the circumstances of my residency, would politely direct me away from the doors that presumably led to the outer palace and the streets beyond the plazas and surrounding stone walls that were forbidden to me.
The architecture both inside and outside the palace walls resembled certain features of the classical Renaissance. Crow-stepped gables, porticoes and architectural decorations were carved in stone. Oak and dark woods, coffered ceilings and wooden panelling with divisions, facets and panels were found in abundance. These sometimes had painted or inlaid motifs of elaborate painterly detail and exquisite brushwork rendering. What furniture there was (Gorean interiors can be very minimalist in that regard) appeared in freestanding form, with chests often featuring rich pictorial carvings, heavier tables with baluster legs, and easily movable furniture of a simpler nature such as trestle tables and benches. The furnishing, on the whole tended towards a rectangular profile.
My feet brought me to a grand library with recessed alcoves and wooden frames designed to hold tens of thousands of scrolls. Being largely illiterate, I could only gaze at this vast literary marvel and shake my head with regret. Scribes busied themselves between the heavy racks, filing, cataloguing and archiving various papers. They spared me little attention, except if I found myself standing in their way, which might prompt some sounds of indignation and a degree of ill-mannered tutting.
“I’m surprised you’re telling me this, your Grace. And… just why are you telling me this?”
People in power aren’t normally this frank, especially not to people they don’t know from Adam. The last thing I wanted was to be entrusted with confidences that might later get me killed, simply because I knew too much.
“I’m confirming what you already know, Roland of Newark.” It was the first time she had used my name, and I suppose she used it precisely so that I understood she had enquired about me.
“I am no longer of Newark,” I said. “I am an outlaw.” I held my left hand up with the brand clear as day.
“Argentum made you an outlaw, yes?”
I nodded as I lowered my hand.
“You have reason to hate Argentum, then.”
“I have reason to hate a good many people, your Grace. It would be a long list.”
I woke up early in Trem’s apartment. He had encouraged me to stay the night at his place after a long evening of eating and drinking at the Feasting Tavern. It was dark when we left and he reiterated that my neighbourhood was not safe at night. My place was also a good walk from here.
I heard Trem getting ready for work and he was making something for breakfast. It didn’t smell or look good. It was some sort of porridge, or oatmeal, or, well, I didn’t really know. But I was hungry too and got up, thinking I would get something on the way to meet Penny. I bid Trem farewell as he left for work and the long walk up the stairs to the tarncot.
On the street I sniffed out a bakery. I walked out with two little vulo egg and cheese pies. Very delicious, they reminded me of quiche, and was just what I needed. As I walked, noticing many Goreans walking briskly to work or other morning errands, I thought about yesterday. My solo tarn flight was amazing and I was eager to fly again and again. I had asked Trem if I could volunteer to work for him in the tarncot, so that I could learn everything about tarns. He said yes, and I would have gone with him this morning, except I had made an appointment to see Penny.
Slave Tiffani’s Narrative.
Juli screamed as Patrick fell to the ground. The man beside us got off his ATV and grabbed her arm, spun her around, and threw her to the ground. I did not kneel; I stood and watched closely. The man by us took out a pistol, and moved towards Master Patrick.
The other man, the one who had knocked down Master Patrick, had swung his ATV around, and drove in front of the first man.
“Not with a firearm, you fool. Not on this side of the river where it could draw the attention of hikers or vehicles passing by. They might report it to the Sheriff’s office; we know that Deputy Morrison is on the Lazy F payroll.”
Juli was crying; it made her face ugly. I understood, to find your Master and then immediately see him struck down must have been terrible.
The two men argued a little in low voices. They stood nose to nose for a bit, near us and the picnic table. I watched Master Patrick. He still had not moved. He was likely unconscious, or even dead.
The Tatrix was about a foot shorter than me. Her robes were bright, rich, and very expensive. She looked regal as she regarded me, with her rat like First Minister, Laskar Tagaris, standing close by her side. He seemed to frown each time I spoke, as if no matter what I said, he didn’t think it was appropriate speech to be directed at his regal Tatrix.
“There is still time to have him killed, your Grace. With all due respect, I have a couple of men on standby. They are professional stranglers from Schendi. It will be quick and relatively painless.”
The Tatrix brushed aside the suggestion with a languid sweep of her left hand.
“My rule is built on the principles of honour,” she said. “Without honour, my rule means nothing to my people. Already they talk in the markets and the paga taverns of what occurred in the gardens of Caphius. Word has spread. Men ask who this man was, and where he is now. They know he was taken by guardsmen. They enquire after his well-being. They ask whether he is to be honoured.”
“Idle chatter,” suggested Laskar Tagaris. “The babbling of inconsequential fools. They will soon grow distracted by other news. With your permission, your Grace, I have already arranged a number of topical issues that my agents are poised to spread like wildfire through the paga taverns. Paid tongues will quickly wag with alacrity! Within a couple of days the simple rabble will be obsessed by these new matters, forgetting what transpired in the market and gardens of Caphius a week ago.”
I have never understood the concept of men digging their own grave, or, to put it another way, submitting meekly to their own death. I remember as a kid watching a film in which one man pointed a gun at another man and ordered him to dig a grave for himself, and even at that young age I thought, why doesn’t the man try to fight? Yes, the odds are against him, but he’s going to die anyway. He has a shovel in his hands. That’s a weapon. Have a go. What do you have to lose? Worst case scenario – your murderer has to do the digging himself.
“You’re not putting a noose on me,” I said as I readied myself for a fight.
“Shackle his hands,” said the lead guard.
“Like fuck you will.” I needed a weapon, but there wasn’t anything in the cell I could pick up and use. Okay, fine, I’d use my hands, and I’d at least die fighting. I know how to use my hands.
Trust me when I say, a sky diving tarn is a terrifying prospect.
The typical war tarn has a wing span of thirty or more feet and is a monstrous, savage, killing machine that can power dive from cloud level without warning, emitting a terror screech that can curdle the blood of even the bravest warrior. In military combat, the only protection against a sudden tarn strike is a phalanx formation of long spears that can bristle out like the spines of a hedgehog. Arrayed in tight formation, such a spear wall can unnerve a tarn and perhaps entice it to find other prey. But here in the open park grounds of the city market of Caphius, the lone guardsmen were armed only with short swords, lacking even a shield.
Screams sounded from every direction as men and women fled in panic, trampling one another in an uncoordinated rout to escape the talons and razor beak of this war tarn.
But this was no random assault. I could see the tarnsman was guiding his mount with the four strap which compels the great bird to descend at a speed relative to the pressure on the strap, aiming to swoop low across the ground in the direction of the richly dressed female. She too was fleeing, but like all Free Women, she was encumbered by her heavy gowns and robes, making it impossible to run at normal speeds. The long gowns of a woman reach to her ankles and effectively restrict the movement of her legs. Her garments effectively hobble her and make it comparatively easy for a tarnsman to seize such a prize. Slaves of course are not hindered by their brief slave tunics, and they are quite capable of fleeing at top speed.
And so, this was the day when my life changed dramatically once more. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or perhaps the right place at the right time, depending on how you look at it. Whatever, today was the day when my life was destined to finally have some meaning on this planet.
But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.
One of the things recommended by the caste of slavers is that a master should control and regulate the orgasms permitted to his slave.
“Oh! Please! Please, Master, I beg you!” Clara writhed helplessly in my arms as I looked deep into her eyes. Her wrists were tied tightly to two separate slave rings, but other than that she was free to wriggle and moan to her heart’s content.
This of course assumes that a master is capable of reading the tell-tale signs in his slave’s body, and is able to determine when she is getting close to a possible climax. This knowledge takes time and patience and some effort on the part of her master, requiring him to know his girl, to understand the exquisite responses her body is capable of. But then, part of the pleasure of owning a girl is to know her completely. If you own a girl, you soon find you develop a keen interest in assessing and understanding all her quirks and mannerisms. She is yours, after all. You would wish to explore what she is capable of, in much the same way you would want to push the limits of an expensive sports car you had bought.
After my morning with Penny, I wandered a bit, further out, in a part of the city that was new to me. I had lunch in a new tavern. I saw another passage of army units pass through the streets, apparently heading for a city wall gate and one of the camps outside. The banners, shields, spears, helmets and uniforms all looked brand new to me. My impression was that these units were freshly mobilized and being sent to the front. The front was further and further out, approaching Corcyrus closer every day. The war was a popular topic in the taverns and even though I could still only understand bits and pieces of an eavesdropped conversation, it was expected that the conflict would be over very soon. Many men in the tavern seemed to get excited about maybe being able to afford purchasing a Free Woman of Corcyrus, sent to Argentum as a cheap captive slave.
I had no idea how much slaves cost and I certainly hadn’t been looking at slave markets to see if prices were actually getting cheaper. I knew that if I lingered too long at a market, I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of buying my own kajira. Someone like Lina or Penny. I was still enjoying the use of paga sluts. Someday I would be ready to take on the responsibility of caring for, and keeping a woman secure in my bonds. I was still too new on Gor to think that I could manage that type of relationship. The master/slave relationship requires a lot of time, if done right. There are many considerations. Feeding, clothing (maybe not clothing), bathing, sheltering, training and discipline all require time and I looked forward to those things, but they would be a distraction for me now.
“Ten days ago the Governor of Isurium threatened me with news that the legions of Cato Marius had entrenched themselves to the south of the river Agosta, and that they would advance in good order to join with the legions of Castus Prinium, and push deep into Corcyrian territory.” Aliyyah gazed at her people in the light of the burning torches that surrounded the plaza, as she spoke clearly and powerfully. “I was ordered to surrender. Surrender, he said. The message was delivered to me in the form of a scytale ribbon tied in the hair of a whipped slave who had once been the former Lady Farzenah of Corcyrus – a woman who had been claimed by the last levy of our Free Women that our former Tatrix had permitted in this glorious city – and also a woman who had been my friend before I had been blessed with your faith in me. It was intended as both an insult and a threat. It was the last ever levy of our Free Women, for I have refused to submit to the yoke of Argentum, and I have refused to place any more of our brave Free Women in Argentum collars. The Governor told me that I was but a woman – that my right hand was weak - and that the legions of Argentum are invincible. Invincible, he said. He told me he would be merciful; that General Cato himself would spare my life and that of my daughter, and that we need only submit to the collars of Argentum, on our knees, with our heads down, kissing the boots of Cato of Argentum.” She paused, letting those words sink in to the assembled thousands who lined the plaza. “He ordered me to kneel and bend my head in submission to the throne of Argentum. I told him that he was right to state I am but a woman. I know my limitations. I know my place. I know how physically frail I am.” She raised her right hand high in the air. “This hand is obviously not the right hand of a man. This is not the right hand of a warrior. I know who I am. I know that men are far stronger than me. I do not doubt that. But you and I know another truth. This is NOT my right hand.” She paced back and forth along the length of the twentieth step. “My right hand is General Linus Trillium of Corcyrus! My chosen commander! The man I have entrusted with the security of our glorious city! HE is my true right hand, and I told the governor, that where my right hand brandishes a blade in the name of Corcyrus, there the legions of Argentum will be scattered like wheat before the scythe!”
“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!”
The crowd was shouting her name, now – the name of their Tatrix: Aliyyah Mercator. We had arrived early, and as the plaza quickly filled up, I could understand why. She was attracting a huge crowd. As the sun set overhead, a thousand long pole torches were lit around the square, bathing the palace plaza in flickering light. It seemed to me like some ancient Roman take on the Nuremburg Rally.
A line of warriors with shields and spears stood at the foot of the one hundred and one steps that led up to the front of the palace. At intervals of twenty five steps, there was a flat platform where a man or woman might stand and address the milling throng, choosing just how high above the crowd he wished to be. I could see the large double doors to the palace courtyard were swung wide open. There was a sense of anticipation as the crowd watch closely for any sign of movement that might be the Tatrix emerging to address her people.
I stood beside the Lady Herminia. I was her escort tonight, and it was my duty, for I supposedly shared caste with her, to ensure her safety. I doubt she could see much. Like most Gorean women, she was far shorter than a man. If you’ve ever been to a festival or a stadium Rock gig with a girlfriend, you will understand the frustration of your girlfriend as she complains bitterly that all she can see are the backs of the men standing in front of her.
“Uh-lee-yuh! Uh-lee-yuh!”
The Tatrix seemed popular. There was no doubting that.
Trem and I went down the wide stepped central staircase of the Feasting Tarn. I had a few questions in my mind about what had happened with the altercation we had just left on the rooftop lounge. As we walked he muttered something about going somewhere to talk. When we got to the first floor of the tavern, he led us off the staircase and into the busy tavern area. There was a lot of hustle and bustle of tavern activities that we walked through before he found us a small unoccupied table, that we sat at.
“Rykart, it looks like your treatment has gone well,” Trem finally said. I felt like he was trying to talk about something other than what had just happened.
“Thank you Trem, one treatment then stabilize,” I said. “Neris is who? Man I hit is who?”
“Yes, yes” He said. “Neris and Otho, I owe money and they are sent to collect it.”
“I have money, l pay for you. You pay me later?” I said.
“No, Rykart, I owe them more than you have and some of I what I owe them is not money. You would not understand.”
Slave Fires
Patrick Master’s Narrative
If having one slave girl totally subject to my orders and my use was good, having both Juli and Tiffani is great. Seeing the two of them together, both stripped and in collars, subject to any kind of usage at any time has made this one of the best times of my life. I see now, that much as I love Juli, having a variety of women would be ever so much more exquisite.
This is something rich men and rulers have had and enjoyed throughout history; almost a universal male dream. There is no arguing that such feelings are innate. Today though, even rich men have to settle for mistresses, women they pay and who can leave if the terms are not to the woman’s liking. That is not ownership though. Haggling over every encounter and terms reduces and diminishes a man’s power in an unseemly way. It is unfortunate that when I return to San Francisco, I will not be allowed, by the conventions and laws of society, to own, truly own, even one slave. It may be time to investigate changing the laws of property, or at least finding a loophole. As I always say, the loophole is part of the law!
Tiffani and Juli are so different in build and figure and colouring, even in temperament, but they are so deliciously alike in their femininity and submission. I wish I could own a hundred like them!
This would be my life now. No more relationships, just a series of slave girls for my use. I had tried relationships with Felicity, with Kelsee, and with Kulai, and they had all ended in disaster, with me losing them. Even Kelly Milford, with whom I had not actually had a relationship - but in an alternative world maybe I would have - my friendship with her had also ended disastrously. Who knows where she was now; whether she remained free or had become a slave.
No, from now on I would eschew any form of meaningful relationship with women, and simply satisfy my needs with slave girls.
It was apparently the Gorean way.
I lay on my couch, feeling sated. Beside me lay the extremely curvaceous body of my slave, Clara. I owned five slaves! How incredible was that. I had put her to use last night after returning to my insula. First I had set her to cleaning the apartment as it was dirty from months of neglect while it had lain empty. She had scrubbed and cleaned on her hands and knees, while I took a walk around my local district, checking out the municipal parks and markets; familiarising myself with the area. I came back with some fresh food that I then gave to Clara and told her to prepare it in one of the two communal kitchens in this insula. One kitchen is reserved exclusively for free men and women, so that a Free Woman does not have to work alongside a slave girl, while the other, smaller, kitchen is permitted for the use of slaves.
While there are many occupations on Gor that are physically tiring, I can confirm that selling slave girls in a city market is not one of them.
“Buy me, Masters! Buy Iona and place me in your collar!” cried Iona as she moved seductively on her knees on a stone plinth that protruded from the centre of a cement shelf in the market of Kadriya, in the Kadriyan district of Corcyrus. She wore a steel collar and a steel ankle ring with a smaller ring welded to one side of it. Through this smaller ring was threaded a steel chain, padlocked in place, the other end terminating, similarly padlocked, at the slave ring set into the cement shelf. “Teach a wanton slut of Argentum what it is to be a slave to the strong, proud, men of Corcyrus! Make me kneel before you! Make me beg to kiss your feet! Whip me, strong masters, for I was the woman of your enemy! Put me to your service and take your revenge on the men of Argentum!”
Iona was of course the lovely black girl with the distinctive areola around her nipples. She was naked except for – and this was a clever idea of mine, for it attracted much attention – a long length of silk ribbon that encircled her slim waist and was then tied in front of her in a long floppy bow with long trailing ends that hung between her thighs. The white ribbon bow would both conceal and draw attention to the delights of her sex, which the strands might obscure, unless brushed aside, but would do so in the shape of enticing gift wrapping . The whiteness of the silk, furthermore, indicated subtly that Iona was white silk – a virgin, not yet opened by men. I had ascertained her virginity with my hand.
(oh come on, as if anyone thought I was going to write chapter after chapter about goings on in and around a ranch without at some time using that expression…)
Wilson Frick and his nephew Woodrow were holding their early morning war council with two of the assistant foremen, Jim Hawkins and Randy Schlesinger. The Ranch Foreman, Buddy James, who was too old for battle, and anyway was not a wartime foreman, was holding a council elsewhere with the cattle foreman and the facilities foreman. Since the death of Trelawney Hawkins in the earlier assault there was no arms foreman at the War Council. Such an absence was missed.
“There is only a small band of the enemy contractors at large on our range,” began Wilson Frick. “Woodrow and Hawkins can take a couple of groups and try to corner them; hunt them down. I don’t think we are missing any of our human livestock, which is good, with the Silver Ship scheduled for Friday.”
“Randy, I want you to make a list of supplies and replenishment we urgently need. Send Smith in a truck to town to pick them up later this morning. Call the order in as soon as our shopping list is ready. Then it will be ready for pickup. I don’t want trained hands off the ranch for too long. Smith is a fighter.”
“Name and Home Stone?” asked the bored scribe, seated behind the desk, close to the main gates. He had a stack of temporary residency permits to hand, beside an ink pot and quill.
“Roland of Newark,” I said. He scribbled this down on a sheet of paper.
“Caste?” he asked.
“I am a slaver,” I replied. “Obviously,” I added with a smile, indicating the ankle chain coffle of five pretty girls who stood, in various states of distress, to one side of me.
“Another slaver,” remarked the scribe with a smile. “You’re like bees round a honey pot these days.”
“What can I say,” I remarked, pleasantly. “Business is always good during times of war. Hai Corcyrus!” I raised my right fist into the air.
Sometime around the eleventh ahn I was back braceleted with my wrists in slave steel, and conducted by two men to a tent that had been set aside for my mistress, the Lady Savanna of Argentum, or Kelsee, as I still liked to think of her.
I had gambled that I could march boldly into this slaver camp and save Kelsee from the brand, but I had lost everything in the process. Kulai, my so-called Free Companion, in my eyes at least, if not the law’s, was now a slave to the same woman as me. She would hate me now. I had lied to her and it was my fault she now wore a steel collar and had a brand seared indelibly into her thigh. How could she not hate me?
I was naked, and a steel collar was now locked about my neck. It was made of iron and far heavier than the decorative, enamelled, pretty collar I had worn in Argentum – the collar that had so clearly marked me as the personal silk slave to a Lady.
Training Juliette
From Slave Juliette’s Narrative
Oh, that Tiffani, ‘I’m a Dancer’, she makes my blood boil. Everything about her annoys me. Her sweet green silk dress or tunic or whatever it is. Her constant smile and sucking up to Patrick. Her dancer’s legs and supple torso. But most of all her smoothness in movement, her grace, her walk. I envy all those. I admit it. Tiffani is a better slave than me. Natural aptitude no doubt.
She mocked my name! In front of Patrick, she told me that Juliette was too grand a name for a slave, that it should be shortened to something like Juli.
“If you were a dancer, or some kind of valuable slave you might be called Jewel, but a mat and kettle girl like you is no jewel, you should be Juli.” Patrick just ignored this abuse. He was honing his knife and his razor.
I want to be the best slave I can be to Master Patrick, at least for the rest of my sentence to slavery for running away. But I am limited in being a slut by the whole of my upbringing and my desire to be respectable. But I am doing my best.
I had left Mirus’s home in early afternoon - I think maybe during the twelfth ahn - and I was walking back to my apartment. But I didn’t want to go to my apartment. There was nothing there and being there bored me. I have been blessed in my life to not really suffer from boredom. I have always been able to entertain or content myself with my surroundings. Luckily, I have lived most of my life near mountains and they draw my attention. I can’t imagine living in some featureless flat place like Nebraska. I am never bored during my wanderings. Quite the opposite, wanderings usually offered something new to look at or people to interact with. Maybe I needed a better apartment.
I was hungry again and stopped at a street vendor selling fresh baked meat pies. I was curious about how they were baked in a small brick oven mounted on a cart. I had smelled the pies for at least five ehn before finding them.
While I walked, eating my delicious steaming bosk and cheese pie, with a golden crispy crust, I thought about my extraordinary time at Mirus’s. After the exhausting swim with Mirus and Lina, I had a large hearty breakfast and went back to my room.
Training Day
“My owner calls me Tiffani, Master.”
“I am a dancer.”
Slave Juliette’s Narrative
From the minute I saw her, I hated her. Even before she opened her mouth and uttered her name in a husky voice, so obviously fake, I hated her.
She moved out of the water like Venus rising from the waves, her green short dress clinging to her body like it was painted on. She glided towards us, and then she knelt in a smooth movement, seemingly going from her bare feet to her knees in an instant, continuing on to what I recognized from my Gor book, Dancer of Gor, as an obeisance position. Her arms were towards Patrick, her head pressed right to the earth of the riverbank, her rump in the air.
I hated the smooth grace with which she did this.
Patrick was smiling. I guess any man would.
“Follow me to my camp, Tiffani, I must report this to the Lazy F.”
Smith’s Secret Diary
Last night’s dinner was good, but we shut down early. We knew we were going out again this morning, and anyway, there is still a shortage of captive women. After our first two pitchers of beer for our table, we had weak cocktails. We know this fight is not over; the struggle continues. Not that we didn’t have our fun training the new girls, but an untrained girl cannot compare to a girl whose desire is solely to give pleasure and has been trained to do so.
This morning Wilson Frick gave us a briefing and our orders. Our Native American friends have reported that they broke up a large formation of survivalists and mercenary contractors heading north to their own lands by the simple expedient of stampeding a bison herd through them. The enemy broke formation and scattered. Some women and cattle will be returned to us today or tomorrow, and the enemy headed west. The fuel truck they were using to refuel their ATVs was captured.
Our task now is to track down the broken small groups and one by one neutralize them. Mr Frick is very anxious to get Tiffani the dancer back. “She is worth almost the rest of the girls combined.” She was a loan from Willard Frick, the chieftain of the Frick clan, so to lose her would be a huge loss of prestige for the Lazy F in the Frick Family. And if the other families ever heard? That might even mean losing the leadership of the Old Families!
Kulai was a brave girl, but she screamed helplessly as men stripped her of her knee length, long sleeved, high collared tunic. They used knives to cut it away from her body. There might have been poison pins lurking near the fastenings for a man to find the hard way, after all.
She screamed again, held by her wrists, as she was thrown to her belly on the grass. Her soft brown leather ankle boots were removed, and then, again with the knife, her woollen leggings were cut from her and pulled away from her legs.
Entangled in the net, as I was, with men forcing me to the ground, there was nothing I could do to help Kulai. Nothing at all. I could only watch, helpless myself, as the Turian girl I loved – yes, loved – I recognise that now - was dragged before Kelsee.
Kelsee’s enforced silence would make this difficult. I had no way of knowing what she had said to Darian. I could speculate that she had been captured in the woods by outlaws when she had blundered through the trees in panic. They would perhaps have put her to use throughout the night and then come morning, taken her to Darian’s camp to sell her for whatever they might get.
I don’t think Kelsee had known beforehand that it was Darian’s camp. She had only known there was a slaver camp somewhere distant from the paved road. Did she try to appeal to Darian when she had been brought in terror to the branding tent? Had she seen him and cried out his name? And if so, what had she told him?
I weighed up my options. So she had claimed to be a Free Woman of Argentum? Fine. I was an outlaw. I wasn’t expected to hold that Home Stone to any sacrosanct status. All women were assumed to be my prey. Darian would know that.
I shrugged. “Most slaves were Free Women once upon a time. The number of bred slaves is surely still in the minority?” I phrased that as a question for him. There you go, I thought – here’s an opportunity for you to show off with your caste knowledge, Mr Athuk.
Darian laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“An outlaw complaining that other outlaws stole the girl that I suppose he stole from someone previously. That is what you are trying to tell me, yes?” said Darian.
“She ran away last night. There was a lapse in my security.”
“Evidently so. My advice to you: learn from your mistakes and do better next time.” He turned to go.
“Her name is Kelsee. I know you have her. I want her back.”
Darian turned slowly back. “I am sure you want a lot of things. If I have your girl, it is because I paid good money for her. Your loss is not my concern, outlaw. Slaves are commonplace. Buy yourself another. And buy some chains while you’re at it.”
“I didn’t come here expecting charity,” I said.
“Good. Then you will not be disappointed.”
“I am Darian Athuk of Talmont. I currently operate under licence from Claudius, the Ubar of Argentum. How may I help you?”
There was no sign of recognition in his eyes, for which I breathed an inner sigh of relief. I had been a kneeling silk slave with my head down when he had been entertained in the apartment of the Lady Savanna of Argentum. He had gone there with the Lady Kelapina, and he had explained to Kelsee the arrangements that took place around her transportation to Gor, and then the city of Argentum itself. There was no reason he would have paid me anything more than a cursory glance or two, at the time. Darian Athuk had made it quite clear in Kelsee’s loft apartment that he despised silk slaves. Any man who knelt and submitted before a woman was less than a man in his eyes, and the eyes of most men on Gor. If you are a man you are expected to act like a man, and submission to a woman runs counter to everything that Gorean men believe in.
There is a reason why the caste of Slavers delegates the training and sale of such male silk slaves to the women of their caste. It would be a distasteful job for a male slaver to concern himself with. Male slavers much prefer the acquisition and training of beautiful women. And who can blame them.
I returned as instructed to Mirus’s house on the morning of the fourth day after spending the night in his home. I knocked on the door and was greeted by young Fen, Mirus’s assistant. He invited me into the formal foyer and said that Mirus would be with me shortly. I came unarmed this time, not bringing my short sword with me as it had created some apprehension the last time I was here. I sat on the cushioned bench.
Fen returned after about ten minutes and told me to follow him. I followed him into a hallway, then we turned right into another hallway that I recognized. I had spent the night in a guest quarter three doors down this hallway. We went past that room and near the end of the hallway entered a room that was bigger than the room I had stayed in before. The room looked like it was set up for guests too. It had a low table with cushions around it on the floor. There was a couch with furs on it and metal rings attached in places. This room had a window with a view of a large pool outside. I did not think that the pool was visible from outside the home on the street.
Mirus walked into the room followed by his lovely slave Lina. “Tal, Rykart,” he said. “Tal, Mirus,” I replied. “Sit,” he said and motioned with his hand. We sat on the floor cushions around the low table. Lina knelt next to her master, with her eyes lowered. She had not looked at me. “Lina will translate,” he said.
“Come back, beloved,” said Kulai, anxiously, as I stumbled through the dark wood, calling out Kelsee’s name. “She is gone. It isn’t safe to look for her in the dark.”
“I can’t let her get away,” I said. “She doesn’t understand what she’s doing.”
“You are making too much noise,” said Kulai as she fast paced to keep up with me. She had her short bow in her hands and an arrow notched to the string.
“She’s afraid. She’ll realise running away is a terrible mistake. She wears a collar. There is nowhere for her to run to.” I cupped my hands to my mouth and called out loudly, “KELSEE!”
“We need to return to our camp. We can’t be here,” said Kulai. She turned her head to the left and the right, trying to discern any movement that might be a wild animal or an outlaw.
“KELSEE!” I cried again. “Come back, Kelsee! Please come back!”
I blundered on in roughly the direction I thought she might have taken. It was far too dark to track her, even if I knew how to. She could be anywhere. She might be hiding close by, terrified, confused, or she might still be running, fleeing what she supposed might be her branding tomorrow. “KELSEE!”
There was no reply.
Also landing in my inbox over the last couple of days is the first concept art for the defiant Tatrix of Corcyrus: Aliyyah Mercator, who will be an important character, appearing soon in Outcast of Gor, and then in the third book in the Roland Martell trilogy: Barbarian of Gor.
This is the woman who has dared to start the war between Argentum and Corcyrus; the very same woman that Claudius, the Ubar of Argentum, has sworn will be stripped and collared on the marble steps of her own throne room, dragged naked through the streets of Corcyrus in chains, to be whipped before her cowed populace, before being brought back to Argentum for ceremonial impalement on the city walls.
