Conspirators of Gor

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Have you not finished yet?” asked Chloe.

“Do not tell the Mistress,” I begged.

“Only if she asks,” said Chloe. “I do not wish to be lashed.”

Chloe bit into a larma, and the juice ran down her chin. “Where is your camisk?” she asked.

“In the slave quarters,” I said. “It is not to be soiled.”

“You had best hope that no men traverse here,” she said. She took another bite of the larma, and sucked the juice into her mouth. “Why are you shackled?” she asked.

“It pleased the Mistress,” I said.

“She is Mistress to us,” said Chloe, “but she is slave to the men. She is as much in a camisk and collar as the rest of us.”

Chloe then went her way.

It pleased me to think of the proud Nora on her knees, her lips pressed to the feet of men.

I was on my hands and knees, and I dipped the heavy, thick-bristled brush into the soapy water again. The strokes are to be firm, and circular. Later one rinses with rags and clear water. As I moved, I heard the chain linking my ankles move on the wood.

Nora would usually give me my assignments in the morning, as I knelt before her, specifying the times they should begin and the times within which they were to be completed. This was usually done in such a way that I could not complete the task in the allotted time. I would then be punished. Usually the punishment was not as serious as a lashing, though I had been bound and lashed twice. More often I was given a harsh scolding before the other girls, concluded with a stroke or two of the switch. The point of this was more to demean and humiliate me before my sister slaves than really hurt me. Indeed, Nora would have been treading a thin and dangerous line if she were to diminish my value. Often my punishment would consist of nothing more than being ordered to enter my small cage well before locking time, or being denied a meal. One expects a first girl to have her favorites, and those she least favors, but, I think, it was clear to all that for some reason I was very much in our first girl’s disfavor, and indeed, unusually so. I suppose most of the other girls thought me indolent or lax, or my work slovenly, but Jane and Eve, at least, realized that this hostility had nothing to do with those matters for which I was commonly castigated, but was of long standing, dating back, even, to a distant venue, one on another world. As long ago as my former world, I had sensed myself a slave, and this intuition or comprehension had been explicitly and undeniably confirmed at the party. Under Nora’s switch, she clad in regalia akin to that of the Gorean free woman, I actually camisked at her feet, I had cringed as the slave I was, being beaten. I had feared her afterwards, on my former world, and even here, on Gor, as Mistress, and knew myself fittingly a slave at her feet, or at the feet of any such as she. I wept at my work. How cruel she was! How helpless I was! Surely she must understand that I was trying to please her, and was striving desperately to do so. Could she never be satisfied? Could she not understand I was no longer what I had been, her haughty, pretentious, shallow, despised rival, Miss Allison Ashton-Baker, but was now only a humbled, helpless kajira at her mercy?

“Allison,” said a voice.

I went immediately to my belly on the wet, slick floor. I was terribly frightened. “Please do not beat me, Mistress!” I begged.

“How is the task proceeding?” she asked.

“I have not yet finished!” I said, trembling.

“That is obvious,” she said. “When was the task to be finished?”

“The Fourteenth Ahn,” I said.

“It is past that time,” she said.

“I have not even begun to rinse the floor, Mistress,” I said.

“That is obvious,” she said. “Do you think you could finish by the Seventeenth Ahn?”

“Yes, Mistress!” I said.

“Do not dally,” she said.

“No, Mistress!” I said.

“Have you pleased men?” she asked.

“As they have summoned me,” I said.

“Have they been pleased?” she asked.

“It is my hope that they have been pleased,” I said. “I have striven to please them.”

“Have slave fires begun to burn in your belly?” she asked.

“A little, Mistress,” I said.

“I see,” she said.

“I cannot help myself, Mistress!” I said.

“Have you been in the hands of Kleomenes?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

I went to my knees before her, as was appropriate, for she was first girl. I looked up. She touched her collar, dreamily.

“Mistress?” I said.

“We are all kajirae, Allison,” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“Am I beautiful?” she asked.

“Extremely beautiful, Mistress!” I said.

“Today,” she said, “I was put to the slave ring of Kleomenes.”

“Chained?” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

“Your beauty would grace any ring,” I said.

“Do you think so?” she said.

“Yes, Mistress,” I said.

“I have been severe with you, Allison,” she said. “Tomorrow you will be unshackled. Tomorrow it will be with you, as with the others.”

“Mistress!” I exclaimed.

I threw myself to my belly before her on the wet floor, and pressed my lips to her feet, again and again. My eyes were flooded with tears. “Thank you!” I said. “Thank you, Mistress!”

“There is to be no slacking in your work,” she said, “or in the pleasures you give the masters. If I am not satisfied, or if I hear complaints, you will lashed, and well.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Thank you, Mistress!”

“Now return to your work,” she said, “and do not dally.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said, and seized up the brush, immersed it in the soapy water, and bent again to my task.

“I will have Jane and Eve hold a plate for you,” she said.

“Thank you, Mistress,” I said.

The strokes are to be firm, and circular.