Vagabonds of Gor

25 Ina Begs to be First My Feast

"I did not know that it was you," she whispered.

"It is," I said.

It was now daylight.

She was beautiful in the stocks, though she must have suffered discomfort.

"I have brought down two small gants," I said, "with stones."

I had, as I had intended, in addition to bringing down the gants, reconnoitered the neighborhood. As I had thought I might, I had found, here and there, evidence of the retreat of the men of Ar, the remains of campfires, discarded gear, and such.

I put down the gants on the bench, near her, in one of the other places. There are five places on each bench. There is a center aisle. There are five benches on each side. There are, about the sides of the cabin, various rings. By means of such rings, and chains, of course, an indefinite number of girls, well beyond those in the fifty places on the benches, could be transported. Though it is not practical in the delta, such barges, too, could be tied together, and towed. Many slave barges, of course, carry no more than fifteen or twenty girls.

I looked at her. How well she was held in the stocks.

Conscious of my eyes upon her she sucked in her belly and straightened her body, as she could.

Yes, she was quite beautiful.

"I hope my captor finds me pleasing," she whispered.

"Perhaps, for a free woman," I said.

She did not ask me where I had been, or why I had taken so long. She knew enough not to do so. Such impertinence can be a cause for discipline.

"I think we can have a small fire for the gants," I said. "I think we can set it in here, on a plate. There will be little smoke, and what there is will be randomly distributed, escaping various windows. I do not think it will be detectable."

She did not ask to be released from the stocks. I took it that in the several Ahn I had been gone various things, as I had expected, even though she was a free woman, had become clear to her.

She made a small noise, of need.

That interested me. I had left her in the stocks primarily for her instruction, and not for her arousal.

She looked up at me. I saw in her eyes that she now indeed understood some things which might not have been clear to her before, primarily that her subjection to my will was uncompromising and absolute.

"You sit where doubtless many slaves have sat," I said.

She made another small noise, of need.

"You do not sound like a free woman," I said. "You sound like an amorous slave."

"In the first Ahn," she said, "I was angry. I even struggled a little, but please do not beat me for it!"

"Not this time," I said.

"Then later, as I realized I must await you here, where you had put me, and as you had put me, and for as long as you wished, I began to have strange feelings."

"Yes?" I said.

"I began to long for you, to yearn for you," she said.

"That is understandable," I said, "as you wished to be released."

"No," she said. "It is not that simple."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Helpless here," she said, "I began to have strange feelings in my belly, and whole body, for you."

"It is the constraints," I said. She looked at me, piteously.

"Oh!" she said.

"I see that you speak the truth," I said.

"Yes!" she said.

"Interesting, the effects of such devices upon a woman," I mused.

"It is not just the constraints," she said, "I assure you."

I looked at her.

"It is also the meaningfulness of it, and the wholeness of the thing."

I nodded.

"You have subjected me to your will," she said, "and I am helpless!"

"As much so as a slave?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"No," I said, "not nearly so, not even remotely so, for you are not owned."

"Touch me!" she begged.

These things had to do, I think, with male dominance, and its effects upon a woman, the finding of herself helplessly where she belongs, and her understanding this, in her true place in nature. In the female, sexuality, it seems, is a matter of the totality of her being. It is a wondrous, glorious thing involving, and transforming, the beautiful wholeness of her. The female slave, for example, in her excitement and beauty, is an embodiment of sensuality, love and service.

"Touch me!" she begged.

"Shall I release you?" I asked.

"Release me or not, as you please," she wept, "but touch me!"

I regarded her.

"I am absolutely helpless," she wept. "I beg it!"

"You desire sexual relief?" I asked.

"I am a free woman," she said. "Please do not have me speak so!"

I looked at her.

"Yes," she wept, "I desire sexual relief!"

"A bold admission," I said.

"Please!" she said.

"But if you obtain such relief," I said, "your needs, in time, will reassert themselves, perhaps even more relentlessly, imperatively."

"Please," she said.

"To be sure," I said, "it is not as though you were a slave, and this were to occur within the full comprehension of a categorical bondage."

"Please!" she said.

"You are pretty," I said. I put my hand on her.

"In the manner of the master!" she said. "Please, in the manner of the master!"

"But you are a free woman," I said.

"Please!" she begged. "Ohhh! Ohhhhh!"

"Steady!" I said." I did not want her to hurt herself in the stocks.

Her small shoulders thrust up suddenly against the collar stocks. Her small hands pulled back in the wrist stocks, but could not escape their grasp. Her hands opened and closed. Her head turned to the side, her eyes closed.

"Steady!" I said.

But apparently she could not control herself. She was in the grip of her own needs, which seized her and would do as they pleased with her, having their way with her, whether she wished it or not, giving her no quarter.

Then she subsided, and looked at me, wonderingly.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Yes," she breathed.

I inspected her limbs, where they were enclosed in the stocks. There was some redness, and some minor abrasions from scraping, on the ankles, and neck, but it was nothing serious.

"What you did to me!" she said.

"As I told you before," I said, "it is your body, and your sensitivity."

"If I were a slave, you would own them, you would own it all!"

"You are a free woman," I said.

She looked at me wildly, protestingly.

"It is your body," I said.

"But you made it do what you wanted," she said, "behave as you wished!"

"Perhaps," I said.

I freed her neck of the planks, putting them to the side.

"I could not help myself," she said. "You made me behave as though I might have been a puppet, on strings!"

I freed her ankles. "Perhaps," I said.

I stood up.

She looked up at me, her wrists still in the wrist stocks, these stocks keeping her, in virtue of the slots and fastenings, on the bench.

"I could not believe my feelings," she said, "what you made me feel!"

I freed the wrist stocks from the rings and clips which held it in its slots in the armrests. It could now be lifted out of the slots. She still, of course, wore it. If she were to stand it would still be on her. Sometimes, incidentally, such stocks, and similar stocks, are used to fasten a girl's hands behind her body, at the sides. There is a large variety of stocks, and yokes, of course, for various purposes.

She looked up at me.

"I did very little," I said.

"Consider the nature of my responses!" she said.

"I did very little," I said.

I freed her wrists of the stocks, and put the stocks to the side.

"But my responses!" she said.

"I, if anything, merely triggered them," I said.

"No," she said. "You summoned them, you called them forth!"

"If you wish," I said.

"You mastered and commanded them!"

"If you wish," I said.

"As you may now master and command me!" she said, suddenly kneeling before me.

I looked down on her.

She put her head down and kissed my feet, as eagerly and avidly as an ardent slave, hoping to please her master. Then she lifted her head, and looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

"I cannot believe what I felt!" she said.

"You look well on your knees," I said.

"It is where I belong," she said, "before you."

"Before men," I said.

"Yes," she said, "before men!"

"It was only a touch," I said.

"Do not forget," she said, "that you had put me at your mercy, and that I was controlled and helpless."

"Still it was only a touch," I said.

"It was in an entire context," she said.

"That is true," I said.

"And the thing is a wholeness," she said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"And there was in me, I sense now, a readiness for that experience," she said, "and a fittingness in me for it. Too, in it I sensed the hint of a possibility, of a modality of existence, of a way I might be, of a possible way of life."

"I did very little," I said.

"It was you," she said, "who constructed the entire context of surrender, of helplessness, of submission."

"Of submission?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Interesting remarks," I said, "from a Cosian spy."

"Forget what I have been," she said. "Think of me now only as what I am, and only am, a woman at your feet!"

"I see," I said.

"For the first time," she said, "I begin to sense what it might be to belong to a man, to be his, totally."

"I see," I said.

"And the perfection, and rightfulness, of it," she said.

"I see," I said.

"It is morning," she whispered.

"Yes," I said.

She then crawled back, on all fours, a few feet, and put her head to the floor, the palms of her hands, too, on the floor, in a common position of obeisance. "I hope to be pleasing to you today," she said.

"That is a slave formula," I said. With such formulas a girl might greet her master in the morning.

"I know," she said.

"And you know what is involved in such formulas?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And you still dare to say such?"

"Yes," she said.

"Very well," I said. "You will be held to it, as a slave, and if you are not pleasing have no fear but what, also as a slave, you will be suitably, and severely, punished."

"That is as I wish it," she said.

"You may raise your head," I said.

She lifted her head. Her hair was wild, and damp. She trembled.

"Oh, I must be touched," she whispered. "Be kind to me, I beg of you."

"But there are gants to prepare," I said. "We will have a feast."

"Let Ina first be your feast," she begged.

"Do you know how to be a feast?" I asked.

"Teach me," she said. "Teach me to be a man's feast!"

"Rise," I said. "Approach."

"She obeyed.

"You are permitting me to face you?" she asked, disbelievingly.

"As it pleases me, at the moment," I said.

She looked at me gratefully, tears in her eyes.

"So much is often permitted even a slave," I said.

"I understand," she said.

I motioned her forward and she hurried to my arms, sobbing, holding me. She pressed herself against me, closely, tightly, crying. There would be the print of accouterments on her body. My tunic was dampened by her tears. When I held her back a bit from me, by the upper arms, I saw, as I expected, the mark of my sword belt, diagonal, across her body, and the print of two buckles in her flesh, that of the sword belt, and that of the pouch, or knife, belt.

I then lifted her up and carried her back, and to the side, where I put her down, on her back, on the floor.

When I removed the pouch and knife from my knife belt, I doubled it, and held it to her, and she took it in her hands, and kissed it, as a slave might have the whip.

"You understand our relationship?" asked.

"Yes." she said.

I then knelt beside her and she lifted her arms and put them about my neck.

"What it must be, to be a slave," she whispered.

"But you are not a slave," I said.

"No," she moaned.

I then lowered myself to the floor beside her, our lips meeting.