A Talendar for Shirley (4) by Peony D Beckside

A Talendar for Shirley

Peony D Beckside

With acknowledgement and thanks to John Norman for creating the world of Gor, in which this story is set.

 

Chapter Four: Bitter And Sweet Lessons.

 

I force myself to ignore that burst of weakness in me, and concentrate on the practical, the ‘what’s happening here and now’

The Rat unlocks the previous collar, the one that wends its way to the floor anchorage.  Even if I could get up off my knees quickly enough without the use of my hands to escape, I doubt that I could run more than two yards before he would catch me.  Then there are doors, are any locked?  If I got out onto the street, where would I go.  I’ve no idea as to the geography of this weird city.  No clue as to who if anyone would help me.  If I’m to believe this lunatic, no-one at all would. Besides, I’m naked.  A naked woman in a strange place, it could easily be ‘Out of the frying pan and into the fire’.

This Michalis, yes Master, if I must call him so, grabs my arm.  He lifts.  He’s surprisingly strong. That strength excites me, weakening me.  My vulnerability delicious somehow, fuelling my growing arousal. I rise to my feet, being unable to do anything else.  I am ushered towards a pillar, presumably a load-bearing one, holding up the ceiling, perhaps even one or more storeys.  Master unfastens the cuff on my left wrist.  Before I can even think to react, he’s brought my wrists before me and secured them together again. Taking my braceletted wrists, he reaches up, pulling me onto my toes, he slips the chain of the bracelets over a hook.  Him being taller than I, he can do this, whereas I could not.  Being at full stretch, up on my toes, I cannot reach any higher to be able to unhook myself from this pillar.  I face the pillar, unable to pull away from it.  Looking over my shoulder I see the rat reach for, and grasp the whip.  He strolls towards me.

“No, please.  This is wrong!  Can’t you see that!...Master.”

My ‘master’, almost an afterthought.

“Not here it isn’t, kajira.  Why is it wrong?”

“It’s just not done!...Master”

Again I almost forget the honorific.  He’s made it clear that failure to do so is punishable.  A stray thought of feminine logic comes to me.  A threat of sorts, one that’s guaranteed to stop a man in his tracks, at least it does back at home.  I have to hope it’ll work here.

“I’ll scream!”

Let him chew on that.  If I scream, it’ll bring others here to see what’s happening,  Socially, assaulting a woman, will doubtless have one of the neighbours calling the cops, or whatever they have here instead.

My threat doesn’t seem to affect him, or should I say it only produces another of those totally maddening smiles from him.

“Yes, you will, Shirley.  That’s the main side-effect of a whip.  Do feel free to give full vent to your anguish.  Be assured that your screams will be genuine.”

“But people will hear, the neighbours, others…”

“Probably.  Do you think that your screams will bring in outraged citizens to protect you from me? I’m sorry to disillusion you, but the screams of a punished kajira are common place.  Even if they are heard they will be ignored.”

I moan.  He pauses.

“Ah…  Are you instead using your Earth ‘woman-speak’ to subtly beg for a gag?  Am I reading that right?”

He knows damn well that he’s not!  He’s being deliberately obtuse!  I coldly and brusquely answer.

“No!”

I laugh.  It’s such fun teasing her, challenging, squashing, her Earth conditioned previously-useful banalities. She’s got so much ‘unlearning’ to do, this badinage is worth the effort in helping her come to terms with her new reality.  Challenging her stereotypical thinking is all to the good.  Rather sarcastically I enquire:

“Any more hackneyed platitudes, Shirley.  Any more verbal gambits to see if my resolve can be shaken, weakened?  Any valid reasons why you shouldn’t be whipped?”

She moans again.  I take that to mean that she’s out of ideas.

Spite kicks in.  When all else fails, attack! Even if verbal attack is all one can offer.

“You are hateful!  A brute!  Do your worst, Monster!”

I can see that my laughter at that annoys her intensely.  That her pique isn’t going to deflect my intentions.

Damn! Not even overt contempt and despision works with this man!  What kind of man is it that is impervious to every wile that a woman has to get what she wants, or in this case to escape what’s about to happen to her?

“You have a brave mouth kajira!  I wonder if you’ll have such temerity after your flogging?”

I’m out of verbal ‘bullets’ now!  No more arguments that I can use.  Whilst I keep my face confident, I’m really beginning to be frightened now.  Never before have I felt this helpless, this powerless, this vulnerable.  What else can I do or say, to try and stay the imposition of his lash to my body.  Held as I am, I can’t even throw myself to his feet and beg him not to punish me, not that I’m prepared to do that yet.  That would be surrender, total and abject submission, which is precisely what he wants!  I fear greatly that I will have to suffer this whipping, and worse perhaps that it will drive me to that very capitulation.  Intellectually, I know that I will suffer my lashes stoically, not giving him the satisfaction of hearing me scream, or worse still beg.  In my heart though, I have doubts, serious doubts that I can withstand this ordeal without ‘cracking’, without abdicating my very self in submission to him.

It can’t be long now.  I can’t put this off anymore.  I’ve no more ‘ammunition’; no more reasons for him to delay.  The time is here.  I just know that the threatened pain is nigh.  Is there nothing that I can do to stop him?

“All it takes, is for you to say the words, and accept in full the implications of that.  The words are ‘La Kajira’  They mean ‘I am a slave girl’.  You will also say ‘I am the property of Michalis Dundras’  You may say the last sentence in English, since as yet you don’t know enough Gorean to say it in that language…  Once said though, the words and their import cannot be retracted.”

“In your dreams...Master.  That’s an acceptance of a status I don’t acknowledge.  Clearly it has some legal significance.  In not saying it, I remain free of slavery.”

“Not technically correct.  You are already legally a slave whether you acknowledge it or not.  By using the word, ‘Master’ you have already acknowledged your slavery.  Who, but a slave, has a Master?  However it is for your own understanding, your own education if you like, that I require this of you. By saying the words, you acknowledge to yourself the reality of your present and future reality.”

“Never!  Not going to happen!”

I laugh.  She’s a, what’s that Earth word, feisty, yes that’s it, she’s a feisty one.  I’ll give her that!  In my experience though, the more spirited a girl is before her acceptance of her slavery, the better a slave she becomes.

“Very good, Shirley.  We shall see.”

 

I howl!  Good God!  The pain!  What’s he using on me, molten lead?  Sure I’ve had pain before, when scalding myself, cutting myself with a knife, but this?  This goes light-years beyond any pain I’ve ever felt before!  I scream!  He’s struck me again, my back is one huge blaze.  In the last few seconds, I know in my heart, in my very soul that I cannot withstand any more of this!  Another screech is drawn from me.  Tears dribble down my cheeks like a flood.  The only thing, the only word coming into my mind is ’surrender’.  My earlier bravado, I see is and was a sham.  Another lightning bolt strikes me.  I squeal like the proverbial ‘stuck pig’.  My soul having unconsciously decided to capitulate, so overwhelming is my agony that I struggle to recall the necessary words, the words that will lock me into servitude, his servitude.  I don’t want to say them, yet I do!  It’s so confusing.  The sun itself seers my back.  Can I shriek any louder?  The words float into my mind.  Say them, Shirl!  Get them said!  Give him what he wants to stop this torture.  The logical part of my brain is still functioning.  It cautions me that if I say them, I have to mean them.  It’s all or nothing, no half-measures.  I’ll have to truly become his slave, no pretence.  I caterwaul as yet another burst of fire strikes me.  It’s no good!  I’ve no more options left.  I simply can’t withstand this, can’t take any more of this punishment.  I’m beaten, and not just physically.  I cannot hold back the words.

“La kajira!  La kajira, Master!  I am the property of Michalis Dundras  Please, no more!  I beg you, Master!”

“Are you in any doubt, kajira about your status, about your place, about your need to serve myself, your Master perfectly in everything?”

“No Master!  Let me be perfect for you.  Show me how, please.”

“Then the instruction imparted to you has been effective, has it Shirley?”

“Yes, Master...Oh yes!”

“Good.  We now come to the matter of your earlier disrespects and disobediences.  Are you ready for punishment for those?”

Surely not!  Has he not just driven me to total abject surrender.  What more is needed?  I cry out, but I know it will have no effect on him.  It’s for myself, I suppose, to tell myself that I am now fully obedient.

“I’ve learned my lesson, Master!  I’m sorry!  Truly I am!  I won’t be disrespectful again!  I’ll obey you in every way.  It’s not necessary to hurt me any more.  Please Master…”

My whining, while genuine, nauseates even me.  I have to at least try it.  See if it has any effect.

“Doesn’t work like that Shirley…”

Damn!

“...It’s for your Master to decide if and when, and for what reason a punishment is imposed.  To give in to your entreaties is to show weakness.  A Gorean Master must never be seen by his slave as being weak, too weak to provide what’s needed by way of punishment.  That’s the rot that will demean and weaken him.  It’s Earth thinking.  Here on Gor, only strength is valued.  Weakness is despised.  You will be given the punishments I deem suitable.  Learn and improve your service from them.”

I watch as Shirley wriggles and writhes under my lash.  I ply the whip so as it to be at its most effective.  I hear her howls and screams with equanimity.  They do not excite me, I’m not a sadist; but having whipped many women over the years, I do not have pity for the girl.  In Gorean eyes, pity demeans both the giver and receiver of it.

In my miasma of agony, I lose track of the number of lashes I receive. I’m in one long entire existence of fire.  The replenishment of that fire has stopped.  There’s a kind of blissful relief.  However my legs don’t seem to be holding me up.  I’m hanging from the bracelets confining my wrists like a rag-doll.  I sob loudly.  Master reaches up to the hook that holds me.  He lifts the bracelet chain over it.  I fall to the floor in a pile of limbs.

After releasing the girl from the slave bracelets, I rub a cooling salve over Shirley’s back; not out of concern for her feelings, but as a protection. Whilst a slave-whip is designed to punish without breaking the skin, the redness does need attending to.  I want the girl receptive to my intentions, not unable to concentrate due to a sore back distracting her.

I hand Shirley a bowl.

“Drink it, kajira.”

What is it?  It smells foul.  I debate whether to say no, but given the whipping I’ve just had I know that I can’t disobey him.  Ultimately I’ll have to drink this disgusting beverage.  Dare I however register a mild protest.

“Yes, Master, but it smells putrid!”

He smiles that infuriating smirk.

“I’m sure it does.  I’m told it tastes worse, but you will drink it.”

There’s no alternative.  I hold my nose and pour the hideous brew down my gullet.  I almost choke on the stuff.

Her grimace is evidence enough of the truth about the stuff.

“What is it, Master?”

“Slave wine, kajira.  It’ll stop you getting pregnant.”

“How long does it last, Master?”

I can almost hear her thinking, ‘How long before I have to drink this stuff again?’

“It’s permanent…”

I see her look of relief.

“...until or if I choose to breed you…”

I’m horrified.  He can do that, breed me like a mare put to a stud stallion?  Do I have no say at all in if or when I have children?

“… I’m told that the releaser is very sweet, delightful I gather.”

I smile ruefully.

Master affixes a hobbling chain to my ankles.

“Go through that door.  You will find that it’s a kitchen.  You don’t yet know how to cook using Gorean equipment and methods, but you will be taught.  For now, you will find some bread, butter, and cheese.  I am hungry.  Don’t be tempted to eat any of it yourself.  You will be fed when I choose to feed you.  A slave eats nothing that is not given her by her Master.”

So controlling…?  Life here is really going to be challenging.  Is there nothing that I can do without Master’s permission?  That terrifies me.  But do I lie to myself.  Isn’t that ultimate controlling also just a little exciting?  NO.  It definitely isn’t!  But in my heart of hearts, my denial has a hollow ring to it.  I set about bringing him food.  I put plenty on the plate.  I’m hungry too.  Shaming though it might be, I have to hope that he’ll give me something from the plate.  I hand him his plate of viands.

“Your serving is inadequate, but I’ll let it go, given how new you are to your slavery.  You will be taught the correct and artistic way to serve food to your Master.  Learn it well.  Now kneel here next to me, knees wide, hands on thighs, back straight, head up.  ‘Nadu’, is the name of this position in case you’ve forgotten.  Remember it.”

“Yes, Master.”

I am lucky, Master does indeed give me some morsels from his plate.  He holds them out to me, to take with my mouth from his fingers.

“Don’t use your fingers, don’t even move your hands.”

 

In the corner there is a curtained alcove.  This is my own personal ‘slave-alcove’, apropos those in paga taverns.  Sure most sleeping dais’ have securing rings to attach slaves to, but since it is not considered appropriate to use slaves on the dais, only at the foot, there is limited scope to truly chain a kajira imaginatively.  That’s the beauty of slave alcoves.  Even the poorest paga tavern alcove is generally furnished with a sufficient variety of chains and shackles to secure the girl in oh-so many delectable ways.

Let us not, to use an Earth phrase, ‘beat about the bush’ here.  A chained woman, nay more than that, a woman in any form of helpless, vulnerable, and inescapable bondage is extremely erotic.  It’s not just Gorean men that think so.  If one can get Earth men to talk about such things, the vast majority would agree. It’s just that over generations they have been conditioned, to use their word ‘brainwashed’, into denying any kind of sexual feelings outside of a limited group of insipid permitted modalities.  Suffice it to say, one can be far more creative in a slave alcove.  Your slave can even become effectively a carnal helpless bondage ‘sculpture’.  A woman in bondage speaks to the masculinity in man.  The Earth people have a term, derived from the name of the man who recognised personality traits such as this.  The word is ‘Jungian’.

Again, whether they admit it or not, women too, often find that being made helpless in this manner arouses and excites them more than they care to concede.  When I’d been discreetly watching Shirley, prior to confronting her, I’d noticed a shiver, a flushing in her face at the moment she realised she was chained, that she no longer had the freedom that she was used to and expected.

Shirley is still not quite taking much notice of what I am doing, recovering emotionally from her whipping.  I open the curtains of the alcove and reach for the key, the common key that unlocks all the shackles in the alcove.  It’s on a hook high up at the back of the alcove by the obligatory slave whip, out of reach of a slave that’s wearing even just one chain.

She’s just about ‘cried-out’ now.  I grab the girl, lifting her and propelling her towards the alcove. There’s a look of mesmerised fear, yet fascination in her eyes as she takes in the restrictive potential of the alcove.  A kind of helpless resignation.  On earth when driving on country roads at night, the headlights of the vehicle would pick out a jackrabbit^[1].  The jackrabbit would be so dazzled by the oncoming lights that it was ‘frozen’, not knowing which way to run.  Not that Shirley can run.  It’s just that same sense of inevitability.

This first time I decide not to be too adventurous.  I push her down to a sitting position and lock a shackle to her right ankle.  I adjust the length of another chain and secure it to her left ankle.  The girl’s legs are set wide enough apart that I can gain access to her pussy, as the Earthers call it.  She can’t close her legs attempting to stop me.  Only now do I unfasten her slave-bracelets.  I push the girl down, her back resting on the satin ‘love-furs’  Love ‘furs’ is a bit of a euphemism.  True furs would be impossible to keep clean of the bodily secretions of rutting humans.  I suppose that a Japanese futon might be the nearest Earth equivalent, though the ones in my alcove are of luxurious silk satin.  I fasten the girl’s wrists too, above her head and wide apart.  She cannot use her hands to cover any of herself, to attempt to deny any of herself to me.  I’ve given her enough slack so she can wriggle and writhe satisfactorily.

“Master, why are you chaining me up?  Isn’t this just a bit ‘kinky’?  Surely it’s not really necessary?”

Master laughs

“Apart from it being aesthetically pleasing?…”

“Definitely kinky, then, Master.”

“… Since you are still not used to surrendering yourself freely, I deem it very necessary…”

His use of the word ‘surrender’, worries me.  It frightens me, but strangely makes me feel all gooey inside. Why should that be?  I know that I’ve agreed to be his slave, his sex-slave, but to surrender my self to him? What does that make me?  I’m not a slut.  I’m not a virgin, but I don’t ‘sleep around’.  I suspect that the surrender he wants of me will be more than just having an orgasm.  I’m horribly afraid that the surrender that he wants is for me to let him turn me into just such a lascivious whore.  I can’t do that.  I won’t do that. But why is my body telling me not to be so sure.  I’m exciting fast.  My nipples are stiffening, my pussy is getting more and more ‘moist’.  I’m awfully afraid that he’ll make me, that I won’t have any option.

“...And, whether you want to admit it or not, like most women, the chains excite you…”

“Not so, Master!”

“Lying to your Master is not permitted you.  However, lying to yourself is self-delusional.  Your body tells the truth of it, irrespective of what your mouth says.  Your arousal is plain to see.”

I moan.  He is right, yet to admit it conflicts with everything that I’ve ever thought myself to be.  If he takes away from me that sense of myself, what will be left?  I feel his fingers gently slide up my inner thigh.  The touch makes me inadvertently buck.

“But to give you the kind of surrender I think you want, will leave me with nothing.  I’ll no longer be who I am.  I’ll be something that I despise.”

“A slut, you mean?”

How did he do that?  How did he read my mind?

“It’s academic, you don’t give me that surrender.  I will take it, make you surrender.  The choice is not up to you.”

I am frightened now.  Can he do that?  I fear that he can.

“You will be different, changed.  How do you know that you aren’t at heart the slut that you fear to be.  In your heart, in every cell of your body, you know that you are.  It’s ingrained in the genetic code of every woman.  You want to be that slut, but you daren’t.  It’s time for you to let go of your inhibitions and embrace that other you.  By hiding from this truth, you have stunted your pleasure, hidden from it, run from it.  Deny it if you dare.”

I’m not sure that I can deny it.  If the truth’s known, those few short-lived relationships I’ve had were disappointing.  The men I was with didn’t really excite me in anything like a grand-passion.  They were ‘functional’, nothing more.

I lean forward and touch my lips to her now swollen nipple.  She sighs.  She’s still very stiff.  She still won’t relax and enjoy the sensations that I intend to force her to.

“I have no need for a block of ice, kajira.  You will relax your body, you will let go of all tension. “You will embrace and adore every caress, every touch to your body.  A slave can own nothing tangible.  The only thing that you can ‘own’ is sensation, feeling.  Have you so soon forgotten the lash?  Obey!”

No, I haven’t!  Most definitely not.  I’ve no desire to ever suffer that again.  This is it.  There’s no more ‘wiggle room’ left.  I just wonder if I can let go.

I think that he understands.  He reaches into an opening at the side of the alcove and pulls out a short length of dark cloth.  He wraps the top of my face in this; I am blindfolded.

I take my time.  I touch her, caress her everywhere.  There’s barely a square inch of skin that I don’t stroke and fondle.  I’ve found out where she’s most ticklish, where she’s most sensitive.  It’s like learning from an Earth road map the best routes to my destination.  I don’t need yet to feel her most intimate place. She’s ‘oiling’ well.  I can smell her arousal.  She wriggles almost uncontrollably as I switch my attack to kissing her body.  The longer that I take, the more pleasure she’ll get from her ‘taking’.  I don’t do this necessarily out of kindness for her feelings, but for her training, for her to learn what delights I’m capable of making her experience.  It’ll meld her to my service, knowing that I might one day again drive her this crazy with lust.  It’s not called ‘The whip of the furs’ for nothing.  That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying what I’m doing to her.  I am, intensely.  A pleasure delayed is a pleasure increased.  The begging of her hips thrusting and writhing is delightful, as are her moans and cries.

“Master!  Please!  Don’t be so cruel!  Give me your cock!  Fuck me, please!”

What’s he doing to me!?  Well I know what he’s doing to me, but what’s he conjuring from my body.  My betrayal of myself, the proof that I am just the kind of low slut that I’ve always looked down on, comes unbidden from me.  It’s said before I realise the implications, the full import of that surrender of my principles.  That I can be driven to such extremities of pleasure is shocking to me.

I’ve used many women, I recognise the moment, the point in her need, to boost her to a new level, one that perhaps she cannot yet believe is possible for her, yet is still only a shadow of what I’m sure she’ll one day be capable of.  I thrust into her, hearing her exultation as her first orgasm hits her.  I ride her long and hard, each thrust forcing a new moan.  My pleasure is exquisite as I ram into her with my ultimate thrust, feeling the flow from my body.  It too drives Shirley to yet another peak that she cannot but verbalise.

Shirley is clearly exhausted.  I let her sleep, but don’t unfasten her from the chains.  I lean back against one of the alcove walls, surveying my property.  Yes, she’s got potential.  I wasn’t wrong about her. Unless I’m wrong in my assessment I’ll not need to sell her soon.  Time will tell.

I awake.  I’m still chained as before but inside, in my soul, I’m flying like an angel.  If Master’s this good a lover, then this slavery lark has some excellent fringe benefits!  The chains somehow don’t emotionally restrict me.  It’s almost as if they are right, fitting perhaps.  I struggle to feel chagrin at them. Master will unfasten me eventually; doubtless to find some other physical stricture for me.

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[1]              UK: Hare