Free Dancer of Gor by John Norman Page B

very library where I had worked. He was clad now in a tunic. I did not understand this, but it seemed to fit in well with the plain room in which I was confined. That garment, so simple, so physically freeing, so attractive, I supposed, might be congenial to this world, as it had been to several of the worlds of Earth. I suspected it was not untypical of this world. He had strong arms, and strong legs. I was even uneasy looking at him in such a garment. I knew that I had found him physically disturbing, and deeply and profoundly (pg. 54) so, even on Earth, and had felt helpless and weak before him, but now those feelings, now that I saw him as he was on his own world, so splendid and powerful, so uncompromising, so fierce, so vital, so masculine, masculine like no man I had ever seen, or had known could exist, seemed multiplied a thousand times. It was like a lion before me, a lion whose teeth could rend me, whose paw, with a blow, could break my neck. And I was chained within his reach!
    He was regarding me.
    I dared not meet his eyes directly. I saw the whip in his hand. Men on this world, I suspected, were not patient with women, or at least women such as I.
    "What is to be done with me, on this world?" I asked.
    "You are not wearing clothes," he said, as though he might be just noticing this.
    "No," I said.
    "You are chained by the neck," he said.
    "Yes," I said.
    "I think it must be obvious," he said.
    I shuddered. I wondered what it might be like, to be a female on a world like this, or the sort of female I was, on a world like this, where, unlike Earth, men had not been weakened.
    "You are afraid, aren't you, slut?" he asked.
    "Yes," I said.
    "Good," he said. "That is as it should be. And you have every right to be afraid, I assure you, even, indeed, far more afraid than you can even begin to understand now."
    I shuddered.
    "It is amusing, " he said, "to consider how the nature of your life is going to change."
    "Were many women brought here?" I asked.
    "In your shipment," he said, "one hundred. You were the hundredth."
    "That seems a great many," I whispered.
    "I do not gather them all, of course," he said. "There are others engaged in these enterprises, as well. The captures are brought together from various places, one from here, one from there, this attracting little attention."
    "From various countries?" I asked. "America, England, France, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan?"
    "Yes," he said. "But your shipment was largely regional."
    "Is it difficult to 'gather' these girls?" I asked.
    "No," he said, "they are trapped more easily than the small animals you call rabbits. Consider your own case."
    (pg. 55) "Do your people do this sort of thing regularly?" I asked.
    "We have our schedules," he said.
    "Are there other groups engaged in this sort of thing?" I asked.
    "I think so," he said, "But I know little about them."
    "I was the hundredth?" I asked.
    "Yes," he said.
    " I was saved for last?" I asked.
    "Yes," he said.
    "That was your doing?" I asked.
    "Yes," he said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    "I have asked for a transfer to other duties," he said, musingly, regarding me. "It is thus possible that you may be the last female I will bring her from your world. To be sure, I will doubtless capture other women from time to time, here on my world, women native to my world, and perhaps, from time to time, Earth girls who have been brought here earlier."
    "But you chose me for your last catch," I said.
    "Yes," he said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    He smiled, fingering the coils of the whip.
    "Surely you could have taken others," I said.
    "Yes," he said.
    "But you did not," I said.
    "No," he said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    He did not respond.
    "There is something different or special about me, somehow, from your point of view, isn't there?" I said. I had sensed this from the first.
    "I did wish to make my last catch a particularly delicious one," he said.
    "I do not understand," I said.
    "Do not underestimate yourself, and your desirability as a female