Secrets of Gor Chapter Twenty One

 

By day fifty it was obvious to us all that we were learning nothing new, simply honing and perfecting the techniques, knowledge and serves we had learnt in earlier weeks.

 

This kennel had been my home now for ten weeks – two whole months of my life. On the evening of the fiftieth day, while we were playing with a wooden cup and two dice that a guard had given us, Anika looked at me and said, “I suppose you will be the first to leave, Cassie.”

 

I nodded. It was obvious enough. I didn’t belong to the House of Andronicus. I had a private collar. My ‘Master’ would soon come to collect me.

 

Leorah said nothing, she just leaned over and embraced me. Even Anthea crawled towards me and touched my nose gently with her own. 

 

“I’m going to miss you all,” I said, my eyes misting up. “I’m never going to see you again.” 

 

That was the horrible truth of being a slave. You might make friends, but there was no guarantee you would remain in contact with them indefinitely. 

 

“We might run into each other on the streets of Vonda,” said Alika as she threw the dice onto the floor, “Nine!” She had won. I had rolled a seven; and the other girls a three and a five. We each passed Alika one of our pebbles.

 

“I won’t be in Vonda,” I said, sadly. “My Master is travelling north.” I didn’t point out he wasn’t the Master inscribed on my collar, nor was Mikos in fact my Master.

 

“How far north?” asked Anthea.

 

“Very far.” A sense of despair gripped me now. How could I tell them I would be expected to kill a man and somehow escape from his compound before his men might avenge his death. How could I tell them I was doing this to lose the kef brand burned into my left thigh? They thought I would be a slave for the rest of my life. They had given up hope of freedom, and it felt wrong to simply boast that I would soon be rid of this collar and brand.

 

On the fifty-first day in the House of Andronicus, Thorn set aside an afternoon to answer our questions. We sat and knelt again in a semi-circle facing her, with formality now mostly gone.

 

“When am I likely to be sold?” asked Leorah.

 

“It will be a block auction. The House holds these twice a month. Girls are obviously available for purchase on any day of the week, but we exhibit twice a month. Pleasure Slaves are always auctioned, so you will feel the tread of the wooden boards under your feet. But don’t worry.” Thorn smiled. “I will prepare you all the day before. I will take you through your block paces so you can fetch the best price possible.”

 

The slaves all seemed happy to hear that.

 

“And, although I don’t know why I even bother…” she tilted her head, theatrically, and raised an eyebrow again, gazing sideways, up into the air, waiting for our usual reaction.

 

“Because we’re the best kajirae you’ve ever trained!” cried Alika.

 

“Because you love us,” said Leorah, proudly.

 

“Tch. So full of yourselves!” Thorn ruffled Alika’s hair and tweaked her nose. “Despite the fact I’m a busy Thorn, and I have far better things to do, I’ll personally handle your makeup on the day.”

 

Thorn’s makeup was astonishing – far in excess of anything we were capable of. 

 

“I love you, Mistress,” said Anthea, sobbing.

 

“Oh, stop it, or else I’ll have to switch that pretty bottom of yours in order to maintain my fierce reputation in the kennel pens.”

 

“Do you still know where your switch is, Mistress? We’ve speculated you’ve lost it!” I said.

 

Thorn smiled and tweaked my nose, too. “Now, on a more serious note.” Thorn clapped her hands together and we all sprang to attention. “Who can tell me what we should fear the most?”

 

I stuck my hand up.

 

“Cassie?”

 

“Failing to please a man.’

 

Thorn sighed. “Do we have to recite those tired lines so late in your training? Come now, kajirae, you know you can all speak freely when we sit in a semi-circle. What should you fear the most?”

 

“Free Women,” said Alika.

 

“Yes! Free Women.” Thorn looked serious now. “If they hate kajirae, how much more will they hate pleasure slaves?”

 

I shivered, knowing this to be very true. None of us wanted to be owned by a Free Woman, or indeed, a man who had a Free Woman as his companion in his house. 

 

“It is very likely that your Master may have a Free Companion, and she will resent your presence in her house. This afternoon we will address all the things you can do to minimise your presence before her, and try to ensure she can find little fault with your service.”

 

And then came day fifty-two – our last day in training. It started out as any ordinary day, though we had been told the night before that it would be our last.

 

Thorn seemed different that morning, as if she knew something that she couldn’t speak of. She seemed unusually stricter, too, harking back to how she had been in the third week. 

 

Something about this made me feel uneasy, and I could sense my coffle sisters felt the same way. We explored each of the things we had learnt, from sexual techniques to serving at a table, to walking and moving gracefully, to the correct forms of speech, to indicating on a large diagram all the pleasure points on a man’s body. But something felt different. There was a tension in the air around Thorn that I didn’t understand. After a while I noticed she would occasionally glance at the door that led to the other rooms of the House, as if she were expecting to be interrupted at any moment. 

 

Just before our midday lunch break, a man entered the training room. Instinctively we all lowered our eyes, for we had been forbidden in all this time to meet the gaze of a man. 

 

There was a tinge of sadness in Thorn’s voice, almost as if she knew she was now betraying our trust in her. “Kajirae, line up please, in nadu.”

 

What was going on? We all sensed this change in mood and grew nervous, in the same way domestic farm animals might sense their impending cull at a slaughter house. We obeyed, of course, kneeling perfectly in nadu.

 

“Anthea, you will be first. I want you to be brave,” said Thorn. “Make me proud.”

 

“Mistress?” Anthea began crying. She didn’t know why she was crying, but she sensed, as we all did, that something terrible was going to happen. I touched Alika’s hand, and quicky she took my fingers and squeezed them tight. 

 

“Stand. Bracelets position,” said the man as he opened a small leather bag on a table. In the bracelets position, a girl crosses her wrists behind the small of her back, making it easy for a man to secure her. Was she being taken away? I didn’t understand. 

 

“You may need to bind her,” said Thorn, sadly.

 

The man nodded. Anthea now looked even more terrified as the man snapped slave bracelets on each of her wrists. 

 

And then he produced a long steel needle – the needle of the leather workers that is used to pierce a girl’s earlobes.

 

I screamed. Anthea screamed. We all screamed.

 

Anthea was begging the man, begging Thorn, as her knees sagged out from under her.

 

“Stand straight!” snarled Thorn. It was her old voice – the commanding one from the first few weeks. “Do not give me reason to whip you, Anthea! Is THIS how you act before a man? I told him you were a good kajira. How dare you disappoint me like this!”

 

Anthea stood, but she had tears rolling down her cheeks. The leather worker was quick and professional. The needles entered one lobe and then the next, making perfect holes suitable for earrings. And then he sterilised each of the holes with a cotton swab and some ointment.

 

“Cassie, you are next.”

 

I cried. I cried loudly, and I saw how disappointed Thorn was with me. She looked away, furious that I had let her down like this. I too had my wrists fastened in slave bracelets.  I, too, was ordered to stand, and then the leather worker needles made two smart holes in my earlobes. I was a pierced ear girl, now and forever. 

 

None of us ate much later. We had little appetite. We had been ordered not to touch our earlobes on pain of a severe whipping. Every time we gazed at one another we were simply reminded that we too had pierced ears.

 

“I didn’t know…” sobbed Anthea. I hugged her and cried on her shoulder too. 

 

“Thorn never said…” cried Alika. 

 

“We are the lowest of the low, now,” cried Leorah. “We have pierced ears!”

 

Pierced ear girls are mocked by girls who have not suffered the same fate. And Free Women despise us even more than they might do otherwise. Men, though, have a somewhat different reaction to the sight of a slave with pierced ears. Later that afternoon a man led us away from the training area for the very last time. We walked miserably past the induction area where we saw four new girls, recent acquisitions, all clumsy and useless and scared. They were the new intake for pleasure slave training, I supposed. Thorn was with them, introducing herself.

 

“My name is Thorn of House Andronicus, but you will all call me Mistress,” she snarled as she unravelled her whip and let the blades snake down to the ground. “You all look pathetic. What am I to make of you?”

 

It was more or less what she had said to us on our first day, and I recall how terrified I had been at the sight and sound of her. If Thorn saw us led past the induction hall, she didn’t give any indication of being aware of our brief presence. She didn’t turn around, and she didn’t say good-bye. 

 

That night we weren’t housed together in our comfortable stimulation cage. We were each placed in a narrow crawl space kennel of our own, bare and miserable. I heard Leorah crying somewhere in the distance of the kennels. I could see Alika in a kennel pen five cages down from me. She looked sad, as if the life she had known was over now. We no longer laughed or shared stories together in the darkness. I had a straw mattress bed and a single blanket. I cried myself to sleep that night. 

 

The next morning, before breakfast was served, I was taken from my kennel by a man who, without telling me what was happening, led me out past the rows of kennels on either side. I briefly saw Alika, Anthea and Leorah as I was made to walk quickly by their cages. We had last lingering glances at each other before I left the kennel area. 

 

I was told to wash myself, and then I was given half an ahn to make my face up with cosmetics and brush my long hair until it was glossy and beautiful around my face. Hoop earrings were placed in my earlobes and I was given red pleasure silk to wear. I still didn’t know what was happening. I slipped copper bangles, adorned with sparkling costume jewels onto my wrists and then followed the man into a reception area.

 

“Cassie,” said a familiar voice. It was Sadric of Corcyrus. He stared at me in astonishment. “That’s my slave?”

 

“It is. A Pleasure Slave,” said the man who held my leash. He grinned, because Sadric’s reaction was the typical reaction of a man who saw his slave for the first time after she had ben intensively trained

 

“She looks…” Sadric stepped forward. “incredible.”

 

“She is a pleasure slave,” said the slaver. “I think you will be impressed by her service, now. The House of Andronicus never fails to deliver.”

“Master,” I said. My eyes refused to meet his.

 

“Look at me, Cassie.”

 

And then I did. For the first time in fifty three days I looked directly into the eyes of a man and I felt dizzy and submissive the moment I did so. I think Sadric sensed that, sensed the incredible psychological change that had come over me. “Incredible,” he said again. “I brought a collared and branded free woman into the pens for training, and I have collected a pleasure slave.”

 

I felt uneasy, facing him. Was I really that different now?

 

Sadric produced a leash and clipped it to my collar ring. He smiled as he suddenly noticed the earrings. He then produced a folded rep-cloth tunic and told me to put it on. “If I walk you through the daylight streets of Vonda, while you’re dressed in pleasure silk, there may well be riots.”

 

Despite myself, I smiled at that back handed compliment. With the leather leash trailing from my collar, I smoothly stripped myself of the pleasure silk, eliciting a sigh of pleasure from both men as they observed my fluid motions, and then slipped the cheap, plain rep cloth tunic over my body.

 

“Just watching her dress herself is arousing,” said Sadric.

 

What? I hadn’t been aware I had done anything erotic, but I suppose my movements now were so naturally sensuous that men would be fascinated, watching me. 

 

Sadric walked me through the streets of Vonda, making me walk a few paces ahead of him so that he could marvel at the way I moved. “I have to keep reminding myself that you are an agent of the Sardar now, Cassie,” he said with a soft laugh. “You will have no trouble at all passing for a pleasure slave in the North.”

 

“You’re attracting a lot of attention,” said Sadric after a while.

 

I offered him a soft smile, for I had noticed the way men on the street were stopping to stare at me as I passed by. 

 

“You walk like a pleasure slave now,” he said, marvelling at my posture, my graceful paces. For some reason I felt happy at the thought of being desired like that. “I should have brought a whip,” he added.

 

“Master?” I looked round at him, frightened. He wanted to whip me? What had I done? 

 

“Not for you. To beat men away from you when they begin to get too excited.”

 

I laughed. “Master is teasing me.”

 

“No, you really are very desirable, Cassie.”

 

We walked through a park, and Sadric stopped to buy me something to eat from one of the food stalls situated close to a copse of trees. I had missed out on breakfast at the kennels and so Sadric gave me a hot wrap containing fried tarsk and vegetables. It was delicious. He sat, gazing out at the beauty of the park, and offered me many lingering glances as I ate the food slowly, licking my fingers clean of the grease when I had finished.

 

“Come here, Cassie.” Sadric produced a new collar from his shoulder bag. I leaned forward and felt him place the second collar around my neck, just above the first, closing it with a locking click. He then produced a key and removed my former collar, placing it for safe keeping in the bag where the second collar had been carried. My new steel collar settled down to the space around my neck, where the previous collar had rested.

 

“Master?” I gazed at him.

 

“Your new collar reads that you are the property of the mighty Sadric of Corcyrus. It wouldn’t do for you to have another man’s collar around your neck when we travel north.”

 

It is common practice to only remove a collar from a slave’s neck after a new collar was locked in place. That way there is no moment when the slave girl might feel herself uncollared. I firmly believe this is the right way of doing things, though I never considered it might be applied to me. “Do I belong to you, Master?”

 

“Not really. If anyone checked with the slave registry in Vonda they would clearly see details recorded that you belong to Mikos of Argentum. I am in effect borrowing you.”

 

“Master Mikos knows of this arrangement?”

 

“No. I’ve never met the man, nor am I likely to. You’ve been in the safe keeping of the Lady Donna while Mikos is in Argentum. She will write to him to explain what is occurring.”

 

I placed the palms of my hands on the grass and leaned forward slightly. “But if anyone asks?”

 

“You tell them you’re my slave.” Sadric smiled and brushed some hair past my cheek. “We’ll be leaving the city in a couple of ahn.”

 

“So soon, Master?” I thought perhaps I might spend a night in the house of the Lady Donna, and say farewell to Cath and Raisa.”

 

“Your training has delayed the mission long enough. Hopefully it will have been worth the delay. Did you make any friends in the kennels?”

 

I thought sadly of Leorah, Alika and Anthea; the girls that I would never see again. “No, Master. They were just slaves.”

 

He nodded. “I thought as much. Still the spark of the Free Woman inside of you. Good. You will need that pride and stubbornness in order to complete your mission. A true slave would probably hesitate at the crucial moment, and all would be lost.”

 

“You think the governor of the Cosian forces in the North will want to kiss me?” I asked with a seductive smile. I was testing what I had learnt, and was amused and excited to see the reaction as I leaned forward a little closer, parting my lips sensuously. 

 

Sadric stirred, where he sat, and adjusted the way his tunic fell over his groin. “I have no doubt he will.”

 

“Master is kind to say so,” I said. I touched him lightly on the inner leg, at the point of the twenty seventh pleasure spot on a man’s body. Provided you slide your finger in a certain way… ah, yes, his eyes widened as I did so.

 

“We should get moving,” he said as he rose, stiffly. 

 

“Of course, Master.” I rose like liquid silk, and saw him adjust the drape of his tunic again, that now bulged noticeably. I said nothing about it, of course. “Will we be travelling by caravan?”

 

“No. That would be too slow. I could walk faster.”

 

It is true, but of course a caravan offers safety of numbers and routinely employs armed guards. Travelling alone across the countryside between cities is fraught with danger. Sadric saw me look concerned and so he was quick to reassure me. “Your Master is proficient with his blade,” he explained. “I am a warrior.” 

 

I noticed he still wasn’t wearing scarlet.

 

“My father was the great Marcellus of Elysium. You may have heard of him.”

 

“I… have… heard of him.” Marcellus? THE Marcellus? The Marcellus that my brother so admired? The Priest King agent of legend, second only to Tarl and Samos? That Marcellus?

 

“You have met my father?” Sadric suddenly looked thoughtful, and perhaps a little eager to hear something about Marcellus.

 

“A few times, in passing, when he came to the Sardar where my brother lives.” We were walking through the park grounds again. I felt a sense of unease about this. According to Brinn, Marcellus of Elysium was Emma’s father. That would make Sadric…

 

“You have other family? Brothers? Sisters?” I spoke the last word softly, but with a trace of leading emphasis.

 

“Not that I know of. No, I do not think so. I only knew my father briefly. He left my mother when I was young. I was raised mostly by my mother and her family. But I know of the great legends of my father, his feats of heroism against the Kurii. I am proud to follow in his footsteps and carve out a name for myself that will honour him.”

 

“How old were you when you last saw…”

 

“Very young. I have little recollection, to be honest, but one day I hope to meet my father again, but only when I have done something honourable to make him greet me with pride.”

 

“Are you an Earth man, Master?”

 

“What?” he seemed shocked. “No, of course not. I am Gorean. I was born on Gor to a Gorean mother and father.”

 

“It is said your father is an Earth man, brought to Gor in the service of the Priest Kings.”

 

“That is not true.” Sadric looked angry. “Why do you say that? He is Gorean! He was born on Gor! Who told you such a lie?”

 

“I may be wrong, Master, I may have confused him with someone else. Forgive me.”

 

“My father is Gorean!”

 

“Yes, Master.”

 

He didn’t know. He didn’t know he had a step family, born on Earth. He didn’t know he had a step-sister, a slave – that little blonde slut, Emma - living now on Gor. He didn’t know that he was distantly related to my brother’s children.

 

One ahn later we reached a set of stables in the back streets of the residential quarter. It was here I suppose that Sadric had taken rooms while I was training in the House of Andronicus. Rents in this area were reasonable, without sacrificing too much in the way of respectability, or neighbourhood safety. It was hardly a poor area, of the kind crammed with ramshackle terrace buildings with leaking roofs and crowded interiors, but neither was it the sort of street where I would have walked as a well-dressed Free Woman.

 

I saw few slaves on these streets, for men who could normally afford the upkeep of a slave would probably be able to afford better accommodation. It must be understood that the slave population is mostly in the hands of the wealthy. Common folk have to content themselves with the use of paga sluts in the many taverns that can be found in every corner of the city. In these places, for the price of a bowl of paga, a man may dream of owning a slave of his own while he takes a serving girl into one of the alcoves. 

 

As we rounded the corner, I saw a heavy set tharlarion tethered to a post in a narrow courtyard, surrounded by high buildings. The animal was saddled and strung with sacks and leather bags, closely secured to its thick scaled hide by dark brown leather straps.

 

“Yours, Master?” I asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

There were three spears set into a harness, the tips pointing vertically to the sky, close to where his right hand might reach them quickly. Two could be thrown, and the third was a lance. There was a great shield hung from the left side of the animal’s harness, and close to it a crested helmet with a y-shaped face guard. There was also a slave girl, standing on tip toe, straining to attach a sack of provisions to the high saddle rings, as we entered the courtyard. She was pretty, perspiring from her work, and perhaps a couple of horts shorter than me. She wore a simple work tunic, was barefoot, and wore her hair loose as slaves always do. As she strained to reach the saddle hook, I saw the short hem of her tunic ride up on her thighs, giving me a glimpse of her kef brand. It was the same kef brand as mine, but hers was older, suggesting she had been branded long before I had. 

 

I hadn’t realised that Sadric owned a slave. I hadn’t thought to ask. It would, I suppose, make the journey easier, as the inevitable chores would be shared between two girls, rather than given solely to one. Perhaps as a trained Pleasure Slave I might prove to be exempt from most of the chores, and this other girl would work in my stead? For I could tell by the way she moved that she was not a Pleasure Slave. Oh, she was pretty enough – quite beautiful, in fact - but she had no training in the way her body moved. Pleasure slaves are able to recognise one another very quickly. 

 

So, a common slave, too pretty to be called a pot and kettle girl. But untrained. Stiff, unresponsive; at least compared to myself. 

 

I felt the innate and natural superiority of a trained pleasure slave who saw an enslaved girl, far less experienced than her. 

 

I thought perhaps to introduce myself, as Sadric walked to a water trough to drink.

 

“Tal, chain sister. My name is Cassie.”

 

I saw her body stiffen suddenly, and then she turned round to gaze at me. Something made her whimper. I didn’t understand why. And then, as I watched, she cupped both her hands to her face, cried softly and scampered away.

 

I had never experienced such a thing before. I watched her run, barefoot, through one of the arched doorways, into one of the terraced houses and disappear from my sight.

 

“Your slave seems skittish, Master,” I said as I approached Sadric. “Did I scare her?”

 

Sadric laughed. “Possibly. She’s been nervous all morning, knowing I was collecting you from the House of Andronicus.”

 

I shrugged. “What is her problem, Master? I wasn’t cruel to her.”

 

“She’s… sensitive around other slaves,” said Sadric. He really did look amused. “Particularly you, as you will be travelling together.”

 

Fine. I put the matter from my mind. It was really no concern of mine, though it did seem strange behaviour. 

 

I noticed with interest that the tharlarion was fitted with a high backed war saddle, rather than a riding saddle. The distinction is important for a number of reasons. The war saddle is favoured by warriors, such as my brother, Brinn, and it has a fixed posture and a positioning of stirrups designed to support a man who charges into battle, possibly with a lance in his right hand. There is a space in front of the saddle for a slave to be seated, her back facing the front of a Master as he controls the tharlarion with the reins. If the Master chooses, he can have his slave seated before him, available to his touch. The slave space, as it is called, is long enough that the girl can be bent forward, and her wrists secured to a slave ring at the furthest point of the war saddle. Her ankles, too, can be secured to slave rings at the sides of the saddle. Then, effectively bent over like this, the Master can stroke her bottom, or even, with a bit of positioning, enter her from behind as he rides. 

 

The riding saddle is very different. The back support is not structured for combat, and the stirrups are not positioned to add impetus to a furious charge with a lance. But most importantly, the space in front of the man’s seat is designed as a side saddle. Here a noble Free Woman may sit in front of her man, her modest skirted legs supported by a foot rest to the side and bottom of the saddle. There is also a hand support for her to grip if she feels uneasy with the lumbering gait of the tharlarion. She may, if the moment is appropriate, lean slightly sideways into the man, to whom she is sitting at right angles to, and perhaps feel his gentle embrace for reassurance. She may, too, lean her head to the side, towards him, turning her face so that he can place a gentle kiss to her forehead. 

 

The presence of a war saddle suggested that Sadric would not be travelling with a Free Woman. This was a relief to me.

 

“The Lady Marissa will not be travelling with us, Master?” I said.

 

“On the contrary, she is part of this mission.”

 

I glanced back at the saddle. It was a war saddle. There was no place for a Free Woman to be seated. Surely he didn’t expect her to walk? A slave might walk, and one of us at a time would have to, probably tethered by a collar leash to a stirrup until it was our turn to sit up in front of Sadric. But a Free Woman couldn’t be expected to walk, and, dressed in her long skirts, she could not ride the war saddle with legs astride, the way a slave might. Too, it would be shameful for a Free Woman to be placed on the seat designed for a bare legged slave girl.

 

“I don’t understand, Master.”

 

“The Lady Marissa will be travelling with us. What is there not to understand?”

 

I must have still looked confused, because he then added with a laugh, “And you just met her. She ran flustered into the house when you spoke to her.”