Raiders of Gor by John Norman Read Free Book Online Page B

demanded.
    “No,” I said.
    “Dare you aspire to your mistress, Slave!” she demanded.
    “No,” I said, “No!”
    “Why not?” she demanded.
    “I am a slave,” I said. “Only a slave.”
    “That is true,” she said. “You are only a slave.”
    Then, suddenly, holding my head in her hands, she pressed her lips savagely down
    on mine.
    I tried to twist my head away, but could not.
    Then she drew back her head, and, in the darkness I could sense her, and her
    lips, but an inch from my own.
    Beams and timbers of misery and wanting clashed within me. It was she who had
    fastened coils of march vine about my neck, and knotted them, putting me in the
    the collar of a slave. It was she who had placed her arms about my neck at dawn,
    on the shore of the rence island. It was she who had beaten me. It was she whom
    I must obey, she for whom I had cut rence, she who had fed me as one feeds an
    animal. It was she who had last night, and this night, bound me as a slave. It
    was she who had tortured me with her beauty, tormenting and tantalizing me, with
    a cruelty all the keener for its being so offhand and casual. I found myself
    fearing her, and desperately wanting her, though knowing her immerasurably above
    me. I feared that she might hurt me, in was true, but the hurts I feared most
    were those of her insolence and contempt, those that more degraded me than bonds
    and blows. And I wanted her, for she was beautiful, and vital, maddening,
    ravishing. But she was free, and I was only slave. She could move as she wished.
    I lay bound.
    I wore besides my bonds only a collar of marsh vine. She wore her swiftness, and
    her freedom, and an armlet of gold.
    But most perhaps, incredible as it might seem, I feared that if I asked for a
    kindness, even a word or a gesture, it would be refused. Alone and slave, beaten
    and degraded, I found myself desperately in need of something, be in almost
    nothing, to indicate that I was a man, a human being, something that might, to
    some extent or degree, be worthy of respect or understanding. I thik that if
    she, this proud woman, before whom I felt myself nothing, she my mistress, if
    she had but cared to speak a word of simple kindness to me I might have cried
    out with gladness, willingly serving her in all things she asked. But if I
    should but beg a kindness, humbly, I feared it might be refused, that she might
    reject me in this as she had in other things, my manhood and my humanity. And
    fused with this, excruciating in the pain of it, was my desire for her, the
    crying out of my blood that she so, and deliberately, aroused.
    In the darkness I sensed her, and her lips, but an inch from my own.
    She had not deigned to move.
    To my horror, timidly, fearing and hesitant, I felt my lips lift then to those
    of my beautiful mistress, and, i the darkness, touch them.
    “Slave,” said she, with contempt.
    I put my head back to the woven rence that formed the floor of the hut.
    “Yes,” I said, “I am a slave.”
    “Whose?” she queried.
    “Telima’s,” I said.
    “I am your slave,” I said.
    She laughed. “Tomorrow,” she said, “I will put you up at stake, to be a prize
    for girls.”
    I said nothing.
    “Say I am pleased,” she said.
    “Please!” I said.
    “Say it,” she said.
    “I am pleased,” I said.
    “Say now,” said she, “I am a pretty slave.”
    My wrists and ankles fought the marsh vine.
    She laughed. “Do not stuggle,” she said. “Also,” she added, “there is not point.
    Telima ties well.”
    It was true.
    “Say it,” said she.
    “I cannot,” I begged.
    “Say it,” said she.
    “I -- I am a pretty slave,” I said.
    I threw back my head and cried out with misery.
    I heard her soft laugh. In the darkness I could see the outline of her head,
    could feel her hair on my shoulder. Her lips, still, were but an inch from mine.
    “I will now teach you the fate of a pretty slave,” she said.
    Suddenly, her hands in my hair, she thrust her lips savagely