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 Belt WhipHere are relevant references from the Books where using a belt as a whip is mentioned. I make no pronouncements on these matters, but report them as I find them. Arrive at your own conclusions. I wish you well, Fogaban "I have no more slave whips," said Targo, shrugging his shoulders sadly, "but your sword belt will do as well." She reacted as if struck and tears welled in her eyes. I could not understand why this assertion of mine should have troubled one of Vika's proud and treacherous nature but she seemed somehow more hurt than if I had administered to her when she had knelt the blows of a slave whip or the lashings of my sword belt. The men were in fine humor. One of them pointed across the grass to the fire between the wagons, It was more than a hundred yards off, glowing in the darkness, away from the compound. The men then removed their sword belts, holding the short swords and scabbards in their left hand, the belts in their right. "No!" laughed Ute. "No!" "Run!" cried the guard. Ute and Lana sprang to their feet and raced toward the fire. I was slower than they. I was suddenly stung, smartly, with the fierce slap of a sword belt. "Oh!" I cried, in pain, and leaped to my feet, and ran stumbling toward the fire. They were swifter than we, of course. Ute, Lana and I ran, laughing and stumbling, barefoot, squealing in protest, crying out in pain, through the darkness over the grass toward the fire. Ute reached it first, laughing, falling to her hands and knees and putting her head down to the grass, her hair falling over the sandal of one of the two guards waiting there. "I beg to serve you, Masters!" she gasped, laughing. Lana was but an instant behind her and she, too, fell to her hands and knees, head down. "Masters!" she cried. I was stung once more and then, like Ute and Lana, I too was on my hands and knees, head down, touching the grass. "I - I beg to serve you, Masters!" I cried. "Then serve!" cried one of the fellows at the fire, he whose sandal was lost in Ute's dark hair. Suddenly there were three more sharp slaps of the sword belts and, crying out, protesting, begging for mercy, laughing, we leapt to our feet to busy ourselves. Sometimes I fell. He did not stop for me. I would struggle to my feet, staggering under the weight of the shield, and flee to catch up with him. But then I could go no further. My body was not readied for such treks. I was only a girl of Earth. I fell. My breath was short, my legs weak. I lay in the grass. I could not move my body. I lay on my side, the weight of the shield upon my shoulder. After a time I sensed him standing near me, looking down. I looked up at him. I tried to smile. "I can go no further," I said. Surely he could see my exhaustion, my helplessness. I could not even move. I saw him loosen his belt. I struggled to my feet. He did not look pleased. He would have beaten me! He refastened his belt. He turned away. Again I followed him. I looked about, at the boxes and bales on the wharves. I did not bother the men who were busily engaged. Their foremen did not wish them distracted by the presence and banter of a slave girl. More than once they had taken their belt to me, driving me from the vicinity of the men. "I have no slave whip at hand," I said, "but I trust my belt will serve." "Do you have a whip, Master?" she asked. "My belt will do," I told her. "Perhaps I will whip you, lashing you with my belt," I said. He then removed the belt from his tunic. The accouterments on it he handed to Drusus Rencius. "You lifted your head from the tile position before free persons had passed you, Renata," he said. "You also addressed a free man twice by his name. Similarly your speech has been inadequately deferential. It has not been interspersed, at appropriate points, for example, by the expression 'Master'. You have also referred to yourself as though you might still be 'Deirdre'. Such falsifications of identity are not permitted to slaves. Deirdre is gone. In her place there is now only a slave, an animal, who must wear whatever name masters choose to put on her. Similarly, when asked a question, that pertaining to your house name, you did not respond with sufficient promptness. Do you understand all that I am saying, fully and clearly, Renata?" She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Yes, Master!" she said. "On all fours, Renata," he said. "Yes, Master," she sobbed, assuming this position. "Perhaps you should precede us a few paces down the hall," said Drusus Rencius to me. I moved, frightened, a few feet down the hall, not looking. Then, suddenly, I heard the belt beginning to fall, sharply, on the girl. I turned in time to see her on her side, in her chains, receiving the last few blows. She had not been pleasing. She was a slave. Of course she was being punished. Then Hermidorus, without further ado, took back his accouterments from Drusus and slipped them on his belt. He then fastened the belt again about his waist. "Do not think to suggest that I should dishonor my caste by stooping to shame this arrogant cripple. Far nobler it would be to set your finest swordsmen upon some dimwitted bumpkin brandishing a spoon. Let him rather be driven from the hall with the blows of belts like a naked slave for his presumption!" His hands went to his belt, and she shrank back. I thought that perhaps he was considering removing it, to lash her. I saw his hands tighten on the belt, near its buckle. This was not lost on the slave, either. "What would you have done to me?" she asked. "I do not know," I said, "perhaps cuff you a bit, perhaps lash you with my belt." "What would you have done to me?" she asked. "I do not know," I said, "perhaps cuff you a bit, perhaps lash you with my belt." "Am I subject to discipline, as would be a slave?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "But you have no whip!" she said. "I could tie your hands and feet together and lash you with my belt," I said. "I was cuffed," she said. "And later being tied and lashed with my belt," I said. "But as a captive," she said, "I am subject to your belt, am I not?" "Yes," I said. "Are you being impertinent?" I asked. "No!" she said. "I thought that perhaps you were," I said. "No!" she said. "Perhaps you wish to be lashed with my belt?" "No, no!" she said. "What are you doing?" she asked, apprehensively. "I am removing my belt," I said. "For what purpose?" she asked. "You are going to be lashed as you never believed a woman could be lashed," I said. She sank to her knees. "No," she said, "please." "Then pick up the garment in your teeth," I said, "and bring it to me, on all fours." Frightened, she did so. "Put it here," I said, indicating a place before me. She did so. "You may now beg to wear it," I said, doubling my belt. "I shall of course wear it, if it is my captor's will," she said. I slapped the belt into my palm, hard. "Have we a slave whip in the camp?" he asked me. "No," I said. He put aside his shoulder belt, with the sheath and blade, and removed his tunic belt, slipping the pouch and knife sheath from it. "On your knees, slut of Cos," said he. She struggled to her knees. He doubled the belt, and regarded the slave. "What are you going to call her?" I asked. "What was her name, as a free woman?" he asked. "'Phoebe'," I said. "That will do," he said. "It will amuse me that she will wear that name now as a slave name." "Excellent," I said. "You are Phoebe," he said to her. "Who are you?" "Phoebe, Master," she said. "Kiss the belt," he said. She quickly kissed the belt. Too, then, as he held it there a moment, she kissed it again, more lingeringly, and then licked it, and then looked up at him. He then went behind her and she bent over, her head to the dirt, fearing the belt. He put the belt down, on a pack, and, crouching beside her, touched her at the waist. "Ohh," she said softly. I had seldom seen a female so responsive, at least initially, to the touch of a man. I had no doubt that Marcus was very special to this beautiful young slave, in a way over which she had little or no control. This response on her part seemed to infuriate him. "Sly slave," he snarled. She sobbed. Marcus seized the belt and stood behind her, angrily. The belt, doubled, swung menacingly, back and forth. She trembled, head down. Then, angrily, he returned to where he had discarded the pouch and knife sheath, replaced them on the belt, and replaced the belt about his waist. He then, angry still, slung his sword belt and sheath over his left shoulder. "Lash her," I said to Marcus. "Please no, Master!" she suddenly cried. I was pleased to note that she, as she was a slave, had now recollected to address free men by the title of 'Master'. Marcus used his belt for the business, slipping the knife in its sheath, and his pouch, from it, and handing them to me. He also gave me his over-the-shoulder sword belt as well, that he might not be encumbered. Then the disciplined slave lay trembling on her belly, her eyes wide, her cheeks tear-stained, her hands beside her head, the tips of her fingers on the stones. "I gather," I said, "that the discipline to which you have been recently subject has been lax. Perhaps therefore you should be further beaten." "No, Master!" she cried. "Please no, master! Forgive me, Master! Forgive me, Master!" "Are you are sorry for the error of your ways?" I asked. "Yes, Master!" she said. "Please forgive me, Master!" Her contrition seemed to me authentic. "What is your name?" I asked. "Whatever Master pleases!" she sobbed. "Come now," I said. "Tafa, if it pleases Master," she said. That is a common slave name on Gor. "Do you repent of the error of your ways?" I asked. "Yes, Master," she said. "Who repents of the error of her ways?" I asked. "Tafa repents of the error of her ways," she said. "Who is sorry, who begs forgiveness?" I asked. "Tala is sorry! Tafa begs forgiveness!" she said. "I wonder if you should be further beaten," I said. The belt, doubled, hung loose in Marcus' hand. "Even as easily as she was let off," I said, "I do not think she will soon again consider lying to a free man." "Probably not," he said. I took saddle. "What would you have done?" I asked. "I would have put her under the belt," he said. "It is the same here," I said. "I have seen slaves publicly whipped three times in this city, once on a lower terrace, and twice in the bazaar. And several times I have seen them hastened by a blow of two of a belt or switch." I heard the pit master draw his belt free of his tunic. I moaned. Down came the belt with a hiss and I cried out in misery, and went to my stomach, my eyes filled with tears. I looked up at the peasant. He regarded me, impassively. I do not even know if he understood what was happening. Twice more the belt struck me. I wept. I had not known the pit master could be so angry. She strove, biting her lip, not to whimper, for her master might not care for it. Had he not put her outside the circle of his purview? Too, she did not wish to be cuffed. Yet she was sure she would soon be able to resist no longer, and would inevitably utter the soft, pleading need noise of a stressed slave, even though it might bring not the master's mercy, but the lashing of his belt. "You have not been pleasing," I informed her. "Forgive me, Master!" she cried. I removed my belt. In a moment I was through with her, but it had been enough. "I will not be instructed by a slave," said Constantina, adding, quickly, "such a slave." "Then you will be stripped and instructed by my belt," I said. The stranger was removing his dagger belt, from which he removed, as well, the dagger and its sheath. He then buckled the belt, so that it constituted a closed loop. "Master?" said the slave. "This will do," he said, "until I obtain a proper whip." "I see," she said, uneasily. "And now," he said, "I think I shall begin your training." "My training?" she said. "Surely you know that slaves, as many other sorts of animals, are trained." He then tossed the looped, buckled belt across the room, to the far wall. "Fetch it," he said, "on all fours. Do not touch it with your hands. Bring it back in your teeth." "Yes, Master," she said. It pleased me to see the former Lady Flavia of Ar cross the room on all fours, bend down, pick up the belt in her teeth, and then turn about, and return, on all fours, to her master, the belt dangling from her teeth. He removed the belt from her teeth. "You may now," he said, "show the belt deference." "I do not understand," she said. "We do not yet have a whip," he said. "Lick and kiss it." This was an analogy to the simple ceremony of kissing the whip, wherein the slave demonstrates her bondage and submission, acknowledging and accepting her subjection to the mastery, a common symbol of which is the whip. Similar things may be done with rope, the chain, slave bracelets, and such. The former Lady Flavia of Ar addressed herself to the belt of her master. "She seems tentative," I said. "I think you are right," he said. The slave looked at me, angrily, but then her master's hand was in her hair, twisting it, and she cried out in misery, and his other hand was up, the looped belt in it. "No!" she cried, her head held in place. He then gave her two sharp strokes with the looped belt. Tears sprang to her eyes. He then put the belt again to her lips, and she began to kiss and lick the belt more seriously. "I hate you!" she said to me. "I think she does not understand what is required," I said to the stranger. She then received two more strokes of the looped belt. Astrinax removed his belt, briefly, and, looping it struck Jane twice, sharply, across the back of the thighs, and then served Eve identically, and they cried out, softly, and better understood themselves slaves. Astrinax then replaced his belt, and we continued on our way. "I could, though," he said, "give you a good lashing with my belt. I think you would profit from such a lashing." "Keep moving," he said, "or I will use my belt across the backs of your thighs." "Yes, Master," I said. "As for a whip," said Pa-Kur, "a sword belt, wide and supple, double buckled, will do." |       
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