who was and knew herself owned. I wanted to take her in my arms. She lifted the tray of grapes to me, proffering it.They were Ta grapes. I smiles. Each, I noted had been carfully peeled. Doubtless that had been the task to which she had set that afternoon. Suchtrivial, painstaking tasks are often useful in teaching a women that she is a slave. 'Master?' she asked. I wanted to take her in my arms. I permitted her to feed me a grape. Then she withdrew. I watched her withdraw. She was beautiful. She wore a snatch of yellow silk.
'I see that she pleased you,' said Policrates. 'You may have her this evening in your chambers, if you wish.'Perhaps,' I said. I shrugged.The whip dance continued before us.
'Fruit, Master,' asked a girl softly, timidly, kneeling down lightly beside me. Her head was down. She was frightened. I turned, sitting to face her. She trembled. She did not raise her head. 'She fears you,' said Policratesk 'for she knows you are the courier of Ragnar Voskjard. Too she is perhaps intimidated by my presence, and that of Kliomenes, for we are highest in this holding.' I smiled. Such men of course held over her the total power of life or death. I regarded the girl.
There were five, narrow, rounded loops of steel locked upon her hair body, one serving as collar, and the others for her wrists and ankles. In her hands she carried, held, ripe rounded fruit.
She wore, like the girl before her, tantalizing to the eye, what might constitute a master's conception of a garment suitable for a lovely female slave, a fragment of silk which made unmistakable clear that the beauty to which it clung, and which it made little pretense to conceal, lay fully at the disposition and mercy of lusty men. Yet is was, in its way, more demure than that which had been worn by the girl before her. In particular, as it was tied snugly, it gathered her breasts, holding them together and lifting them.
'She is a new slave,' said Policrates, 'and is not yet fully broken to the collar.'Her dark hair was coiffured loosely and high upon her head. It was bound with a braided yellow cord, strong enough to hold her wrists, should she be bound with it. If the cord were jerked loose the hair would fall, uncound, to the small of her back.'She is exquisite, isn't she?' asked Policrates.
I put my thumb under her chin and lifted up her head. Her soft brown eyes, frightened, met mine.there was a look in them which I had seen before, I thought, in others girls, in the eyes of asalve girl as she looks into the eyes of a master. That interested me. Then she turned aside her head, though it was still held much in place by the obdurate pressure of my thumb. She did not recognize me.Her delicate lips wore lipstick, red. There was a subtle shading of blue on her upper eyelids.
'She fears that you will find her pleasing,' said Policrates, 'but yet, I think, desires that you will.'The girl trembled. I removed my thumb from beneath her chin, and she put her head down. Policrates regarded her. 'Little, fool,' he said, 'for what purpose have you come to this table?'
The girl lifted her head then and timidly lifted the ripe, rounded fruit which she held in her hands. Gorean peaches and plums, to me. Her eyes met mine, and then she looked down, blushing. I then understood the purpose of the gathering of her brief yellow garmet at her breasts, lifting them, sweet, rounded and swelling, for the inspection and delectation of masters. In her gesture, her offering of the fruit, it is cleafning understood that she was offering to me as well the lovely fruits of her service and beauty.
I took one of the peaches and bit into it, watching her. She shuddered.
'You are dismissed,' said Policrates.'Yes, Master,' she said, frightened, and rising quickly, lightly, hurried away, barefoot on the tiles to serve others.I thought Miss Henderson made a lovely slave girl.
The whip dance was now approaching its climax.
'She is a pretty little think,' I said, looking after MIss Henderson, 'What do you call her?' Beverly,' said Policrates. 'You are cruel,' i said, smiling, 'to give her an Earth-girl name.'She is an Earth girl,' he said grinning.'Oh,' I said.'Do you like Earth girls?' he asked.'Yes,' I said.
'That one is raw,' he said, 'but in time like the others, I think she will make an excellent slave.'Do you think she is a natural slave?' I asked.'Undoubtedly,' he said. 'I meant that she was not yet fully trained, not yet broken fully to the collar. 'I see,' I said.
'Kliomenes fell in with her at the tavern of Hibro, the Pirate's Chain in Victoira,' he said. 'He immediately sized her up as slave meat. Thinking herself in delightful converse with hi she informed him that her name on earth had been Beverly. Accordingly it seemed fitting that we should put that name again upon her, though now only as a slave name, by our whim.'Of course,' I said.'She, herself,' said Policrates, 'repudiated the assistance of a fellow desireing to extracate her from her peril, mocking and dismissing him, one called Jason of Victoria, he to whom you bear some physical resemblance.'I see,' I said.
'Kliomenes did not even use Tassa powder on her,' he said. 'He simply bound her and carried herk struggling to his ship.'He indicated the girl, among the tables moving about, keeling and serving fruit.
I thought her thighs and ankles, and her back, which wa smuch exposed, were beautiful. 'She now serves us well,' he said.
I turned my attention to the dancer on the floor. She lay now on her back, one knee lifted, her arms at her sides, palms down, before the brute with his whip, who towered over her. Her head, too, was turned to the side. Then she turned her head to face the brute, who tyrannized her. She looked deeply into his eyes. Then delicately, in a graceful gentrues, she turned her hands, putting their backs to the floor, exposing her palms and the soft flesh of her plams to him, indicating her surrender, her submission, her vulnerability and her readiness.
There was applause, the strking of the left shoulder from the tables.
The brute then crouched beside her and encircles her neck with the coils of his whip. He drew her to her knees then before him. She looked up at him, her neck in the whip coils, his.
There was more applause. Then the brute looked to Policrates, who indicated a table. He then pulled the girl to her feet and, running her over the tiles, and then releasing the coils form her neck, threw her stumbling into the arms of waiting pirates who, with a cry of pleasure, seized her and began to work their lusty wills upon her. There was more applause, and laughter.
I rose to my feet.'The feast has but begun,' laughed Policrates. 'I am weary,' I said. 'I think I shall retire to my chambers.' 'Certainly!' he laughed, 'Your journey has been long. I shall of course send a girl to wash your body and content you.'Policrates is generous,' I said.'It is nothing.' he said.
This form of hospitality of course is common on Gor. It is common to provide a guest with a girl for the night, to see to his comfort. My compliment, nontheless, was appropraite as was his reply. Ritualistic amennities, and pleasantries on such occasions are invariably observed.
He rose to stand beside me. Together we looked about the tables at various girls, slaves, nude and partialy clothed, who served there.
'Take your pick of the wenches,' he said.
I looked about at the girls, attending dutifully to their serving, many of them not even conscious of my attention. One of them could discover later that she had been selected to be sent to my chambers for the evening.
'Tai is interesting,' said Policrates. A dark-haired girl quickly averted her eyes from ours, putting down her head and hurring to pour wine nearby. Two silver chains ran from a large look on her collar to her writs. The snug metal bracelets there were jeweled. 'There is Reli ther,' he said. 'Consider her.' He indicated another dark-haired girl. She wore a long lovely red gown, but it had been pulled down about her waist. She carried a tray of tiny cups, filled with liqueurs. She was willowy and sweetly-breasted. A silver collar graced her throat. 'Tela, when captured,' he said indicating a blonde, 'begged to be permitted to be kept in white silk.' He laughed. 'After thowing her to a crew for their pleasure, we put her as she had asked in white silk.' 'Amusing,' I said. 'She now often begs for red silk,' he said. 'Perhaps we will one day permit it to her.' 'I see,' I said.'She is now quick to lick a mans' feet,' he added. 'Excellent,' I said.'Bikkie,' said he, indicating a short, dark-haired girl, 'is good. too there are Mira and Tala, the matched blondes. They are sisters from Cos' He indicated two girls, one older than the other, one perhaps 19 and the other 17. They were fastened together by the neck byaknotted red strap some four feet in length. They were slender and nude. 'You may have both,' he said.
I continued to look about.
'I saw that you were interested in Lita,' he said, referring to a girl in adiaphanous bit of swirlingyellow silk. She was the woman who had been free, whom I had seen enslaved on the wharves of Victoria, only a few nights past. In her own hair she had tired the knot of bondage. 'She is trying hard to improve her skills,' he said. 'I think she will be ready for sale in another month. Perhaps you could assist in her training.Perhaps some other time,' I said.'There are others, of course,' said he, 'below in cages.'
'I think I see one in which I might be interested,' I said. 'Which?' he asked. 'That one,' I said.
