Secrets of Gor Chapter Five

 

A few months passed by and, not surprisingly, an insurmountable distance now existed between Simon and myself. We went through the motions of our relationship, but there was no mistaking the fact that we had given one another an ultimatum in words that once spoken could not be unsaid.

 

Simon would not give me children while he feared I might in time develop slave needs.

 

I, in turn, had made it clear that if he did not give me children, I would find a companion who would. 

 

And so I visited friends, outside of the city walls, for a few days to give us both some space. I hoped that when I returned the air may have been cleared, but no, Simon regarded me with increased suspicion, and I grew angry with his nonsensical belief that I somehow had a slave heart beating inside of me. 

 

I told him to sleep in another room.

 

He told me this was his house and he would sleep with his companion as and when he wished.

 

And so I would lie with my back to him and snarl if he touched me. 

 

“I suppose you’re provoking me because you secretly want me to seize you, tie your wrists to the slave ring at the head of the bed and take you, the way Mikos did?”

 

How dare he! I stormed out and went to sleep in another room. Simon came after me and ordered me to return to his bed. When I drew a knife and he saw the serious look in my eyes he backed away.

 

The next day I found my scabbard empty when I came to dress. My knife was gone.

 

“You took my blade!” I screamed, angrily, as he sat, non-plussed, at the breakfast table. 

 

“You will not be permitted a knife any more, Cassandra,” he informed me over a cup of steaming black wine. “You are too ready to use it. And anyway, you have guardsmen who can accompany you when you are out in the city. You do not need to be armed. A woman should rely on men to protect her. That is the way of Gor.”

 

I told one of my guards to bring me a weapon, but Simon had already spoken to our house guards and they apologised and told me that they couldn’t do as I asked. I ordered them again, and it became apparent I was only making them feel acutely uncomfortable.

 

My men obeyed Simon because he was my companion and now head of the household. Men side with their own sex, it seems. And so now I had no knife.

 

That night I was ordered to my bed when I changed into my nightgown and made ready to sleep in a room away from Simon. 

 

“I will not be disrespected by my companion,” Simon stated. “You will sleep with me. Here! Now!” He clicked his fingers and pointed to our couch bed.

 

When I refused and tried to leave, he demonstrated just how very strong he is, and forced me into our bedroom where he tied my wrists to the slave ring at the headboard. I lay there, gasping, out of breath from the fierce struggle I had put up, and he mistook my lack of breath for sexual excitement.

 

“So, it’s true. You’re already excited as soon as I tie you to the slave ring. Well, you can just simmer there Cassandra. I will not satisfy your slave fantasies while you are like this.”

 

I pulled at the bindings about my wrists and shouted for him to free me. Simon paid no attention, but told me if I wouldn’t be quiet, I would sleep that night with my mouth gagged, so I lay down on my side, quietly seething with rage as he prepared himself for bed. True to his word, he didn’t touch me. I lay there in the darkness, wide awake, listening to his nocturnal breathing, with my back to him. My wrists remained tied to the slave ring, but true to my word I felt no sexual excitement from this bondage, just a growing sense of cramp as I fidgeted constantly to ease the tension in my arms. 

 

I was not a slave. I had no desire to be a slave. All I felt then was anger. 

 

In the morning, Simon told Brianna to untie me. Brianna didn’t say a word. No doubt she assumed Simon had done this because I wanted it.  

 

“Oh, Mistress,” is all she said, in a sad sounding voice, as if she knew where this might lead. 

 

“I did not ask for this,” I said to Brianna. 

 

“Mistress does not have to explain herself,” she said, softly.

 

“Brianna, I did not ask to be tied in bondage. That’s the truth.”

 

“Whatever Mistress says.” She couldn’t look directly at me. 

 

I began to understand just how much legal authority a man has over his companion. 

 

That morning, as I bathed, Brianna spoke to me as she gently washed my body with a soft sponge. “I am concerned, Mistress. You must not indulge these fantasies.” She lifted my wrists where the marks from the binding fibre still appeared red. “You are a Free Woman, Mistress. It is not becoming.”

 

“I did not ask for this,” I said again.

 

I was afforded no privacy. To my rising anger, Simon employed a young woman, Evona, to act as my chaperone. She was not a slave, and so there was no way I could intimidate her. She was always there during the day, watching me, especially if I chose to leave the house.

 

“Evona will ensure you don’t spend time lingering in the area of slave markets or slyly watching the comings and goings of men in paga taverns,” explained Simon. “She will also ensure you do not improperly approach men outside of the house. That would be disrespectful to me, your Free Companion.”

 

 I considered killing Evona, but I had no knife. I could try to kill her with my bare hands, but it would be a noisy fight and I would swiftly be arrested, tried and convicted. Often the death sentence for a woman is commuted to slavery if she is beautiful, which I suppose I am. Goreans see no point in wasting good slave flesh. While I had no qualms about murdering someone, I didn’t want to be sentenced to slavery for the crime. 

 

Evona seemed to have authority to determine the areas of the city that I mustn’t enter. These were places where paga taverns might be located, or where a slave market was situated. She inspected my veils and robes each morning and insisted I wore gloves that covered my wrists. 

 

And then each night Simon would eat with me and make polite conversation as if nothing was amiss, asking how my day had been, and describing his own day in broad brush strokes. 

 

After seven days of this restriction to my liberty, I tried to reason with him. “Why are you doing this?”

 

“Because I don’t trust you, Cassandra. I want to trust you, but I can’t.” He dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “I don’t know what you might do if I didn’t have Evona watching you.”

 

“You know all this will end when our year is up. You will have no power over me then.”

 

“We will renew our vows of companionship at the end of the year,” said Simon, as if we had both already decided that together. “I suppose we will have to plan the ceremony soon and send out invitations. Time passes so quickly, my darling.”

 

Simon and I no longer had sexual congress, but Simon enjoyed the company of slave girls. He remained true to his word though and did not put them to use in our bed, and, in fairness, he kept them out of my sight as best he could. 

 

“I do love you, Cassandra. I will do nothing to distress you.”

 

I began to imagine using a wire garotte on Evona, dumping her body in an alleyway afterwards, but I had no garotte, and the opportunity never presented itself. Vonda is a busy city and it is not really feasible to kill a free woman close to the market quarter without attracting a considerable number of witnesses, many of whom might wrestle me to the ground before the bitch was even dead. 

 

There had been no word of my brother, Brinn, returning to the Sardar. Had there been I could have appealed to my brother for support and he would have been only too happy to visit Simon with a sword in his hand. Brinn had remained on the black coast when Simon and I had left, and he had been gone now for a very long time, long enough for me to grow worried for my brother, immortal as he may seem to be at times. While Brinn was away, and while my father fought in some ridiculous border war between Corcyrus and Argentum, I had no power or authority that I could appeal to for help. And as Simon’s dutiful companion I had no legal recourse for he was doing nothing more than exercising his legal right over me. A Free Woman surrenders her liberty to her man the moment she enters into companionship with him. The man takes control of her affairs for her own good. While I didn’t object to this in principle – of course the man should be dominant in the relationship – in this case Simon’s control of my affairs was overstepping the mark. 

 

And then came the day when I began to feel what I can only describe as a… frustration. Simon had not attempted to have sexual congress with me now for several weeks and while in the past that would not have been a problem while I was blissfully ignorant of sex, I now felt a growing absence. I began to grow restless and feel a need between my legs, faint at first, but growing stronger as the days went by. I began to notice the men of the house in ways I wouldn’t normally do, for they were all strong warriors, broad shouldered, muscular, of the kind women find attractive. 

 

There is nothing wrong with me finding a man handsome, I told myself. I am a woman. 

 

But it seems that my awakening in that barn loft had given me an appetite that I had never truly possessed before. I began to look at men for longer periods of time, and was angered when Evona noticed me doing so.

 

“A Free Woman does not stare like that, Cassandra,” she said, tugging at my sleeve. “Look away, demurely, if a man gazes at you. Do not hold his gaze!”

 

“I have been considering ways to kill you,” I said softly. “You only still breathe because I have yet to make up my mind.”

 

She of course reported that, and my perceived gazing at the men of the household, to Simon. 

 

“You have threatened Evona,” he said over dinner. He tapped his fork against his plate in frustration.

 

“No, that wasn’t a threat,” I said.

 

“Yes it was. You said you were going to kill her.”

 

“That is correct, beloved. It was a statement of fact, not a threat.” I drank some of the delicious wine and considered the shocked expression on my companion’s face. 

 

But small victories like that did nothing to relieve my restless mood as some sort of need was growing within me. I began noticing men on the street, and the slave girls who walked beside them. I knew the slave girls would probably be ravished by them in the evening. Why did that bother me? 

 

I considered relieving my frustration with my fingers, but that was impossible while I wore several layers of ankle length gowns, and it was impossible too when I bathed, for Brianna would wash me, and Evona would stand guard in the pool room. At night I would quietly rub my thighs tightly together and touch myself lightly through my night gown, hoping that Simon wouldn’t notice what I was doing, but it did little to abate my growing hunger. I could risk nothing more, lying next to him in our bed. For all I knew he was awake, silently listening to my breathing. 

 

After three nights of rising frustration, I slept not with my back to Simon, but facing him. He seemed surprised by this change of heart and he gazed at me as he rested his hand on my nightgown covered thigh. 

 

“Is everything all right, Cassandra?” he asked. His question was sincere.

 

“I’ve missed my companion,” I whispered, offering a pout of my lips.

 

“Oh?” He stroked my hair softly.

 

“I still have feelings for you,” I said. “Despite our angry words.”

“As do I. You are my woman, Cassandra, and I love you very much.”

 

“Show me,” I said. He smiled and kissed me. It was a polite kiss and, when I tried to kiss him back, he separated from me and placed a finger to my lips. 

 

My frustration seemed worse now. 

 

“I’m your woman,” I said, touching his hand. He withdrew it and placed my hand back by my side.

 

“You are.”

 

“Your woman misses her companion.”

 

Simon nodded and rose from the bed slightly. He lay me onto my back and placed my hands by my side. Then he carefully slid the length of my nightgown up past my knees. The sensation of the cloth sliding against my skin, knowing what this meant, drew a soft gasp from me that Simon noticed. He paused to kiss me again softly on the lips.

 

“And I’ve missed my woman,” he said. 

 

I felt the hardness of his penis against my thigh as he slid between my legs, lifting the hem of the nightgown further. “Lie back, Cassandra. Close your eyes. Do not move.”

 

I nodded, feeling breathless. I felt the head of his hard sex touch the lips between my legs and I quivered from such a mild stimulation. Again I felt Simon’s finger brush the lips of my mouth. And then I let out a little gasp as I felt Simon push himself halfway into me. I squirmed, feeling tingles rush through my body. I pressed my bottom against the firmness of the couch bed and waited for Simon to push further inside me.

 

And then he did. My breathing grew rapid as I felt each slow thrust, and I moved in time to them as best I could. I tried to raise my hands, but Simon pushed my arms back down by my side and continued to ride inside of me.

 

This was lovely. This was heavenly. 

 

And then, before I was anywhere near a climax, Simon withdrew, turned round facing away from me and finished himself off with his hand.

 

“That was beautiful, Cassandra,” he said when he turned back to me. “A truly beautiful moment.”

 

I remained in a state of heightened sexual need, lying there, my body desperate for more. Simon kissed me gently on the lips and lowered the hem of my nightgown back down my body. “I hope I did nothing to distress you, darling?” he said before he lay down on his side and turned me gently onto my side so that I spooned within his arms. Lying there with him resting against my back, one arm holding onto me, there was nothing I could do to stimulate myself, and so I spent a restless, frustrated night, totally unfulfilled.