Free Players of Gor by John Norman

Physician comes by to check up on the efficacy of his potion. His conversation with the merchant provides ample opportunity for 'double-entendres' and talking at cross-purposes. The physician, in departing, puzzled that the potion has not yet taken effect, assures the merchant, sitting on the great pot, that he should allow it more time, that doubtless he will soon feel its effects. The merchant, however, convinced that this is not his day, now hobbles home, clutching the great pot. Chino grins and shrugs. He then leaps upon the Golden Courtesan. The time, after all, has been paid for.
    In a moment the actors had returned to the stage, bowing. With them, too, were some of the actors from the earlier farces, usually presented in rounds of four or five. Some tarsk bits rattled to the boards. These were gathered in by the Chino and Lecchio. The Bina and Brigella, too, were now passing through the drowd with copper bowls. They were both very lovely, in particular, the Brigells. Such girls, like the other actresses wiht a small troupe, usually serve also as tent girls. It helps the troupe to meet expenses. I placed a tarsk bit in the towl of the Brigella. "Thank you, Master," she said.
    The paunchy fellow, his belly swinging, now out of character as the merchant, was informing the qudience that a new round of farces, all different, would be performed within the Ahn. I saw his eyes momentarily cloud and, glancing back, I think I detected a possible cause for his distress. In the crowd was an officer of the Master of Revels, with two members of the Council Guard.
    I drew the girl beside me to her feet. "Oh, yes," she breathed, "now," holding me, pressing her naked, collared beauty piteously against me, "take me to a pleasure rack. Now, please. I am so ready. I am so hot!"
    "Not yet," I told her.
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    I then bought her a pastry from a vendor. "Eat it," I told her, "slowly, very slowly. Make it last a long time."
    "Yes, Master," she said.
    When a woman is ordered to eat a pastry in this fashion, she knows that she is barely to touch it, and then only once in a while, wit her small teeth. Rather, primarily, almost entirely, she is to address herself to it with her tongue. This puts her under a good discipline, is a good exercise for the tongue and tends to increase sexual heat. N the case of the free woman the tongue is usually something which serves rather conventional purposes, for example it helps her to talk. IN the case of the slave girl, however, it serves other purposes as well.
    I moved along the front of the stage, through the crowd, the slave, the pastry clutched in her hands, at my elbow.
    I paused only a yard or two from the end of the stage, before a kaissa booth.
    I saw a large figure walking by. It might have stalked off one of the long, narrow, roofed stages or Ar, such as serve commonly for serious drama, spectacle and high comedy. It wore the 'cothornoi', a form of high platformlike boots, a long robe padded in such a way as to suggest an incredible breadth of shoulder, a large, painted linen mask, with exaggerated features, which covered the entire hed, and the 'onkos', a towering, imposing headdress. Such costumes are often used by major characters in serious dramas. This exaggeration in size and feature, I take it, is intended to be commensurate with their importance. They are, at any rate, made to seem larger than life. I did not know if the fellow were an actor or simply someone adopting such a costume, all in the fun of carnival. As he walked away I noted that the mask had a different expression on the back. That device, not really very common in such masks, makes possible a change of expression without having recourse to a new mask.
    A fellow, a pulley-maker I recognized from the arsenal, and the arsenal kaissa champion, rose to his feet, from where he had been sitting cross-legged before the kaissa board in the kaissa booth. "A marvelous game," he said, rubbing his head, bewildered. "I was humiliated. I