11. Peggy
"I will use the one in that alcove," I said to Tasdron, flinging down a tarsk bit on the stained counter. "She is yours," said Tasdron, wiping a paga goblet with a large soft cloth.
I strode across the floor of the tavern of Tasdron and entered the alcove. The blond girl knelt there, nude, against the back wall of smooth, rounded red tiles. I turned about and buckled shut the heavy curtains of the alcove and then again faced her.
Her wrists, by several narrow loops of red leather on each wrist, were tied to iron rings on each side of her body, a little below the level of her shoulder. The former customer had left her tired n this fashion, not bothering to release her. I was just was well pleased. I wished to interrogate her. She knels on red furs. The light was from a tiny tharlarion-oil lamp in the alcove. Tasdron's collar was on her throat.
"Master?" she asked, pressing back against the rounded-red tiles.
"Do you recall me?" I asked. "Do you recall I was the fellow who challenged in this tavern, and who was threatened by Kliomenes, the pirate, the fellow who was saved, happily, by one called Callimachus.
"Yes Master," she said, "I was here. I remember. He is Callimachus of Port Cos."He was once of the Warriors?" I asked."It is thought so," she said. "So it is said among the girls." "Have you seen me before?" I asked.
"It does seem possible, Master," she said. "I am only a slave." "It seemed to me before," I said, "that you reacted to me as though you might once have seen me, as though I might be somehow familiar to you." "It is true," sahe said. "It seemed to me that, somehow, I had seenyou before. Ye I do not see how, actually, that could be. I am only a miserable slave."
"Were you always a slave?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. "I was once free." "On Gor?" I asked. "No, Master," she said. She smiled. "I am afraid that women such as I are slaves on Gor."
"Where were you free?" I asked. "On a far world," she said. "Where slaves are not enslaved?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she smiled.
"What is your name?" I asked. "Peggy," she said. "if it pleases Master," "That is an Earth-girl name," I said. "Ar you from the planet Earth?" "yes Master," she said, "but please do not whip me. It is not my fault that Earth is my planet of origin. I will try to be pleasing to you." "Earth girls make excellent slaves," I said. "Thank you Master," she said. "Do y ou speak the Earth language, English?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she said."I too speak English," I said. "Let us converse in that tongue." "Yes, Master," she said. "What was your earth name?" I asked. "Peggy," she said, "Peggy Baxter."
"Where did you work?" I asked. "In a city calledNew York," she said, "as a hat-check girl at a restaurant." "Yes!" I said, "That's it!" Master?" she asked, frightened. "I had thought I had seen you," I said. "It was there." "There?" she asked.
"You wore black, low-cut shoes with high heels, without strap or ties," I said.
"Pumps," she said. "You wore black-net stockings or pantyhose," I said."You wore ablack miniskirt and a long-sleeved, smooth white silk blouse, open at the throat. You had a black ribbon for your hair.
"Panty hose," she said, "But they were taken from me." I noeeded. Gorean men seldom permit a slave shielding for her warm intimacies.
"Apparently, I was not the only one who say you there," I said. "Some other or others," I said,"must have seen you as well, and adjudged you worthy to be brought to Gor as a slave girl."Yes, Master," she said."I commend their judgement and taste," I said. "Thank you Master," she said.
"How is it that you were originally captured on Earth?" I asked."After work late," she said, "I left the restaurant. A cab was nearby. I thought myself fortunate. I entered the cab. It was a specially designed capture vehicle. I found myself helplessly sealed within it. Gas entered my mobile prison. I lost consciousness. I did not recover consciousness until I found myself chained in a girl-dungeon on Gor. I awakened to the whip and the hands of a brute upon me. I swiftly learned I was a slave."
"I think that I myself and a friend," I said, "were captured by the same cab, the same devices." I recalled that the cab driver in the garage had said that he had anohter pickup to make that night. His next pickup, doubtless, had been the lovely, long-legged Miss Baxter."Did you get off work at two A.M." I asked. "Yes," she said, "How did you know?"
"I heard the pickup of someone referred to who got off work at two A.M.," I said. "Doubtless it was I," she said shuddering. "I think so," I said.
"Master speaks English fluently," she said apprehensively. Her hands twisted in the straps.
"Were you brought to the House of Andronicus, in Vonda?" I asked."Yes," she said, "where I was given rudimentary slave training and learned a smattering ofGorean.
I was sold in vonda to a taverner in Tancred's Landing. Tasdron saw me there and fancied me. He brought me here, where I now wearhis collar." She looked at me. "Is Master a slaver?" she asked. "No," I said. "How is it that Master speaks English?" she asked. "It is my native tongue," I said. "I was brought to Gor, rather accidentally, as a slave. I became free." "Master is cruel to tease a miserable slave," said the girl.
"How am I teasing you?" I asked puzzled. She laughed. "Do not expect me to believe that Master is a man of Earth," she said. "I am not a fool." "I am from the planet Earth," I said. "You are cruel to a miserable slave," she said. "Why do you not believe I am from Earth?" I asked puzzled.
"You are not pathetic and weak." she said. "And your eyes, they look at me and see me as a female slave."
I smiled. Indeed she was beautiful."The men of Gor," she said, "are strong. They are not weak and divided against themselves. They are not tortured. They are integrated and coherent, and proud. They see themselves in the order of nature. They see females as femals, as slaves and themselves as men, as Masters. If we do not please them they punish us, or slay us. We quickly learn our place in the order of things. Only where there are true men can there be true women.
"But you are a naked and collared slave," I said, "bound in a paga tavern." "I am a woman," she smiled,"something that I never was truly on Earth."
"I see," I said.
"We are small and weak and soft and beautiful," she said,"and we have dispositions to yield and to love and serve, selflessly. We long for masters. We cannot be fulfilled until we find them." She smiled. "And then on Gor," she said, "we look up and startled find them standing over us. The whip is in their hand. They will take no nonsense from us. It is any wonder we love them so?
"I was once from Earth," I said. "I find that hard to belive," she said. I shrugged.
"Look at me," she said. I grinned and she reddened. "What do you see," she asked, "an abused woman to be hastily freed or a slave tethered for a man's pleasure?" "A slave," I said, "tethered for aman's pleasure. "You see," she said, "you are Gorean."
"And as what do you see yourself," I asked, "as an abused woman, hoping to be hastily freed, or as a slave, tied to rings, who hopes her master will see fit to linger over her?"
"A slave," she smiled, "one fatened helplessly, tied to rings, who hopes that she will be found sufficiently pleasing that a master will see fit to linger oer her, driving her to a madness of imbonded joy."
"Do you wish to be freed?" I asked. "A woman such as I, on Gor," she laughed, "has no hope of freedom." I smiled. I did not doubt that. She had even been named Peggy. That name, an Earth-girl name, madeit perfectly clear that her master regarded her categorically and totally as a slave. It had been her name on Earth. Now, of course, she wore it as a slave name, by the decision of her master. Sles in their own right have no names. They are animals.