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"The coin!" she cried, in misery, "the coin. You have not paid the coinl"
I smiled.
"I am a Coin Girl!" she cried, miserably. "I may not be had without the coin!"
"Oh," I said.
"Please," she begged. "Please pay the coin!"
"Do you beg it?" I asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. "Yes, Masterl"
"Very well," I said. I put another tiny coin in the coin box.
"Thank you, Master," she breathed, lifting her lips to mine. "Now have me,
have me, have met"
"Very well," I said.
"It must be near dawn," I said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered, softly, frightened.
"We must think about having you returned to your master," I said.
"Oh, please, Master, not yet," she begged. "Let me stay beside you for but a
little more time."
"Very well," I said, "for perhaps a moment more."
"I never want to leave your side," she said. She clutched me.
"Who owns you?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said, "doubtless some renter of Coin Girls. I was
apportioned to him in the division of the spoils taken from the holding of
Policrates."
"What does he look like?" I asked.
"I do not know," she said. "I have never even seen him."
"What manner of man is he?" I asked.
"He is harsh and cruel, uncompromising and merciless," she said. "He keeps me
well as a slave."
"Do you fear him?" I asked.
"I fear him terribly," she said. "I am his girl."
"Perhaps he is not such a bad fellow," I said.
"He keeps me chained in a basement, in the darkness," she said. "He throws me
scraps of food for which I, on my chain, must search, or starve."
"Perhaps he merely wishes you to learn that you are a slave," I said.
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"He has taught it to me well," she said.
"He does not sound like such a bad fellow," I said. "If I owned you, I might
treat you similarly, at least at first."
"Until I had learned well to whom I belong?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"And what if a girl is incapable of learning her lesson?" she asked.
"She may always, then," I said, "be fed to sleen."
"She will learn her lesson, and well," said the girl.
"Of course," I said.
"But he has never once summoned me to his couch, to abuse me, or caress me, or
order me to serve his pleasures."
"I see," I said.
"If you owned me," she said, "you would have used me by now, would you not
have?"
"Yes," I said, "if I owned you, doubtless, by now, I would have put you, and
well, to my pleasure."
"Perhaps he does not find me attractive," she said. "Per haps he has many
women. Perhaps he does not even find me a curiosity to exploit."
"Perhaps," I said.
She then lay closely against me, her head at my hip, trembling.
"I am afraid to be a slave," she whispered.
"As well you might be," I said.
"I can be bought or sold, or given away," she said. "I may even be slain, on
the least whim of a master."
"Yes," I said.
"Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Masters do not respect their slaves, do they?" she asked.
"Of course not," I said.
"But might they not, sometimes, feel other emotions toward them?" she asked.
Her voice was very soft, and frightened. I gathered that she feared she might
be struck.
"Yes," I said.
"What emotions?" she asked, timidly, beggingly.
"Irritation," I said, "desire, lust."
"But is there no other emotion that a master might, sometimes, feel towards
his slave?" she asked.
"What emotion did you have in mind?" I asked.
"Please, Master," she sobbed, "do not make me speak!"
"Very well," I said.
I felt her tears, and hair, at my hip. Doubtless it is hard, I thought, to be
a slave girl. One is so helpless.
"It is light now," I said.
"I hear a bell," she whispered.
"It is not the bell of a Coin Girl," I said. "It is the bell of a vendor of
bosk milk. He is making his rounds, coming up the street."
"Do not send me from your side," she said.
"Would you be seen here," I asked, "as a naked slave, leashed, lying upon the
street?"
"Slaves have no pride," she said.
"On your knees," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said, getting to her knees. I stood up, and looked down
upon her, kneeling on the stones, in the gray light of the Gorean dawn.
"Use me but once more," she begged, "before you send me away."
I looked down at her.
"Shorten my leash," she said. "Tie my hands before my body. Fasten me closely
at the slave ring."
"The vendor of bosk milk approaches," I said.
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"I care not," she said. "Take me before him."
I pulled her back by the leather collar, and leash, not gently, to the slave
ring. There I untied the leash and then retied it, considerably shortening it.
She knelt there, then, against the wall. The tether, from the heavy metal ring
to the stout ring at the back of her collar, taut, holding her head up, was
about eighteen inches in length. She held out her hands to me, wrists crossed.
With the free end of the leash I bound them together, tightly, before her
body.
I looked down at her. "You are now tied, or muchly so," I said, "as was the
girl on the walk, outside the shop of Philebus, in Ar."
"Yes, Master," she said, happily.
"I had brought her a drink of water," I said. "I had set the price for this
favor as my having of her." This had occurred long ago, when I had been a silk
slave, owned by the Lady Florence of
Vonda. I had, myself, later captured my mistress, and sold her into slavery.
She belonged now to
Miles of Vonda, who had helped us in our work with the pirates, part of the
spoils, as many other slave girls, taken from the holding of Policrates. My
former mistress was now naught but the obedient and joyful love slave of the
proud Vondan.
"You were a beast, of course, my Master," she said.
"Yes," I said.
I looked down upon her, she who had once been Miss Beverly Henderson, of New
York City.
She looked well, naked and bound, tethered at the slave ring.
"You accused me of raping her," I said. "You were furious."
The palanquin of Oneander, a salt and leather merchant of Ar, had been
passing. To the rear of the palanquin, in a double coffie of briefly tunicked
beauties, display slaves, their hands braceleted behind their backs, had been
the girl who now knelt before me. Then the palanquin had stopped, as
Oneander had chosen to pass the time of day with another fellow, he, too, in a
palanquin, with display slaves. When I had withdrawn from the girl at the ring
I had seen her, she who had once been
Miss Henderson, among the display
'Haves. It had been the first time that I had seen her as a gave. I had never
forgotten that first glimpse of her as a gave. It had been one of the most
exciting moments of my life.
"Yes," she said, "I was furious."
"I was only making her pay for the drink of water," I said.
"But making her pay as a slave," she said.
"Of course," I said. "She was a slave." "As you are," I added
"Do you know why I was furious?" she asked.
"You felt pity and indignation seeing the abuse of one of your sisters in
bondage?" I asked.
"No," she said, "I was furious because it was she, and not 1, whom you forced,
with such casual audacity, to serve your pleasure at the ring."
I smiled.
"I wanted to be at the ring, not she," she said.
"I see," I said.
"I am now at such a ring, before you," she said.
"And well tethered there," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"That girl," I said, "was not, truly, raped at the ring. She was only paying
for a drink of water." I looked down at her. "It is you, rather;" I said, "who
will be raped at the ring."
"Yes, my Master!" she said.
I crouched down before her. I heard the bell from nearby, that of the vendor
of bosk milk.
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"The vendor of bosk milk approaches," I said to her.
"Take me, take me!" she begged.
"Are you shameless?" I asked. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]