Mercenaries of Gor

"True," she said.

"Did this one cause difficulty?" I asked.

"Not really," she said.

The girl in the cage looked up, angrily.

"Are you still determined to resist slavery, pretty Lupita?" asked the woman. That was the name on the cage card.

"Yes, Mistress!" said the girl.

"But you will not be successful, will you?" asked my hostess.

"No," said the girl, putting her head down, sobbing suddenly, "I will not be successful."

I looked at my hostess.

"She has had time to think in the slave cage," explained the woman.

The girl in the cage kept her head down. Tears fell from her cheeks to the bit of a blanket on which she knelt. The shadows of the cage bars made an interesting pattern on her flesh.

"For several days, I suppose as a matter of pride, she was pretending to resist slavery," said the woman, "though, clearly, to a trained eye, she wanted it, more than anything."

The girl looked up in agony.

"That is true, is it not, pretty Lupita?" asked the hostess.

"Yes, Mistress," she sobbed.

"Give me your hands," I said to the girl. She extended them through the bars. I then drew her toward me, and moved my hands up her arms, until I held her near, high on her arms, until her right cheek was pulled against the bars. I held her there. "Your resistance, or pretended resistance, is now is nearly at an end, is it not?" I asked her.

"Yes, Master," she said. I then let her loose, and she fell back, twisting, on her shoulder, to the floor of the cage. She pounded on the floor of the cage with her small fists. She tore at the blanket on the floor with her fingernails, sobbing. Then she lay quietly. "Put me out on the floor," she said. "Chain me to a ring."

"Why?" asked the hostess.

"Because I am a slave," she said.

"You are not yet sufficiently skilled, slave," said my hostess.

The slave wept.

We then went to the next occupied cage.

Here a brunet, well-curved, with sweet, full thighs, knelt close to the bars, grasping them with her small hands, her face pressed between two of them. The bars in these cages are set about four inches apart, and are about an inch in thickness. They are heavy, sturdy cages. Here the card read "Mina'.

"This is the former Lady Mina, a huntress, from the luxurious Noviminae villas in the vicinity of Lydius. But she is a huntress no more."

I regarded her.

"Speak," said my hostess to the woman.

"I went hunting," she said, "but it was I who was caught and put in a cage." "How were you taken?" I asked.

"Please," she said.

"Speak," I said, "or will it be necessary to draw you forth from the cage and whip you?"

"I was the Lady Mina," she said, "of the villas of Noviminae, near Lydius. I set out in my hunting leather with crossbow, upon a pacing tharlarion, after tabuk." "You were alone?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"A fool, fit for the collar," commented my hostess.

"I was after tabuk," she said, "but others, too, were abroad that day, who sought a slower, softer game."

My hostess laughed, and the slave clasped the bars yet more tightly.

"I did not suspect they were in the vicinity," said the slave.

"That is not unusual," I said. Such men, of course, commonly know their business. "I spotted a tabuk, and set off in hot pursuit, across the fields," she said. "It was an agile, wily beast, and led me a splendid chase. Intent upon it I did not note the other riders, closing in upon me. The tabuk harried to exhaustion, helpless, lying gasping on the grass, I rode to it, my crossbow ready. It would not be a difficult shot. I would enter my bolt into its heart. I took aim. But the bow was lifted from me. "Greetings, said a man. "How dare you interfere! I cried. "The tabuk is mine! "No, he said, "it is you who are ours. "What? I cried. "Greetings, said he then, "slave. "What! I cried. But I felt then two ropes, from opposite sides, encircle my neck. I was dragged back off the tharlarion into the grass. I sprang to my feet. I reached for my dagger, but it had been removed from my sheath! I stood there, wild, on the grass, between them, the two ropes on my neck. Then in short order I was stripped and bound, my ankles together and my hands before me. I saw the exhausted tabuk recover and rise unsteadily to its feet, and trot away. I, on the other hand, was thrown on my back before the saddle of the leader of these men. Both my bound ankles and wrists were thonged to rings. I was in the place in which I would have brought home the tabuk, save I would have had him on his belly, so bound. My captor had put me on my back, I suppose, so that I might see him. We then began to move slowly toward a distant wood, that of Nina. It was in that place that they had their camp. "Oh! I cried. I had never felt the hands of a man on my body. "You ca

My hostess laughed.

"Go on," I said.

"There were other girls, too, in this camp," she said, "but they appeared to be mere peasant lasses. They were on a common neck chain, stripped, fastened between two trees. They seemed, unlike myself, suitable candidates for slavery." My hostess smiled.

"Continue," I told the slave.

" "You will now beg to wear shackles and cook, said the leader. "Never, I said. They then untied me, but only to string me up by the ankles to a tree branch. In moments I begged to wear shackles, and cook. They took me down, and, in horror, I saw the metal put on my ankles. They were close shackles, and gave me a play of no more than three horts. They need not fear I would run away. I then, though I was of the villas of Noviminae, cooked. It was the first time I had ever served men."

"How did you feel about this?" I asked.

She looked down.

"Speak," said my hostess, sternly.

"I was unutterably thrilled, so to serve men," she whispered.

"Of course," said my hostess, "for you were not truly a huntress. You were only a slave pretending to be a huntress."

"Yes, Mistress," said the woman in the collar.

"The pretense is now over," said my hostess. "Yes, Mistress," she said.

"What occurred then?" I asked the slave.

"There is little more to tell," she said. "After the meal I lay at the feet of my captors. I was docile. I hoped that they would touch me. After they had drunk they removed the shackles from me and I was passed about, among them. I could not believe the things I did, nor the feelings I experienced. There were cries of rage, and denunciation, from the other girls, who could see everything. But I did not care. I could not help myself. They had a wagon there, with a cage on it. They would leave the camp after darkness. When they left, I, and the others, were bound hand and foot, and put in gag hoods, so that we could neither see nor speak. We were then put in the wagon cage. It was locked. We then were taken from the woods of Nina. Eventually, when our solicitations for aid would be meaningless, for who cares about the lamentations of unknown females, our gag hoods and bonds were removed. Then, still sturdily encaged, but mercifully now only stripped, we were brought south. It was a long trip. In the begi