by John Norman
When I awakened on the wooden floor, in the high-ceilinged, spacious room, naked amongst others, and was positioned so that I might be conveniently bound, I realized that I, and these others, had been selected. Thus, having been selected, I supposed, as well, that we had been assessed, and, assessed, had been found acceptable.
But for what had we been found acceptable?
When the cords were knotted about my wrists and ankles there could be little doubt about the matter.
Then I had been turned to my back, and looked up at him. I lay before him, supine at his feet, naked, tethered.
It was he from the store!
I had never forgotten him.
How different was this interview, from that of the store!
“A half tarsk,” he had said, and turned away.
I wondered if he remembered me. Perhaps, perhaps not. I did not know. There were several on the floor, in their lines.
He must remember me, I have often thought. Sometimes I am extremely angry. How dare he not remember me! How could he forget? Was it not he who did this to me? Was it not he who brought me to my chains? Was it not he who is responsible for this radical transformation in my fortunes, my condition, and status, for my reduction and degradation? Should I not hate him! Should I not deplore my state, one so helpless, so without recourse, even on another world! I clutch my chains and shake them. But probably he has brought others, as well, perhaps hundreds, routinely, to similar straits, and plights. I am not special. I have now learned that. He may not remember me. Am I not only another meaningless “collar slut,” as I have been informed? But, yes, it is true. I am that, only that. Why should I be remembered?
Is the expression ‘collar slut’ not informative? I think so. Well does it tell me what I am, and what I am for.
How different are the men of this world from my former male acquaintances, co-workers, and such! I suppose there must be true men on Earth, many perhaps. But where were they? Why did I never meet them? I suppose the answers to such questions are obvious. On Earth the acculturation is arranged to humble, cripple, reduce, subdue, and diminish manhood. Manhood is to be repudiated and overcome, as it constitutes an impediment to the success of militant pathologies. Why should a man be ashamed of his feelings, and desires, and why should a woman be ashamed of her feelings and desires? Did it truly take ten thousand generations to discover that nature was a mistake? Is it not surprising to be taught the subversion of one’s nature, to be ashamed of, deny, and fight manhood, or womanhood? What is so attractive about a crippled lion, or a poisoned rose?
The men of Gor are, in many ways, much like those of Earth, for they are clearly of the same species, if not variety. Statistically, they may be larger, stronger, quicker, more supple, more intelligent, and such, this having to do, I suppose, with those brought to this world, but there are many men of Earth, I am sure, as large, as strong, as quick, as supple, as intelligent as those of Gor. The great difference then, I think, lies in other matters, presumably cultural. Gorean civilization is not at war with nature, but allied with her. The Gorean male tends to be confident, imaginative, self-reliant, ambitious, aggressive, possessive, and dominating. No one tells him it is wrong to be himself. On Gor, for example, as opposed to the social technologies of Earth, no point is served by blurring, identifying, diminishing, or repudiating sexualities. Culture does not prescribe, in the interests of unusual minorities, alienated from their own bodies, the falsification of nature.
The room is large. Straw is strewn about. Several stairs lead up to a barred door. There are rings, iron rings, set here and there in the wall. Some of us are fastened to them.
I am stripped. So, too, are the others. Why should animals be given clothing?
The chains are heavy. They would hold men. Lighter chains are quite sufficient for such as we.
I have been branded. It is a lovely mark. It is in me, high on my left thigh, below the hip. There will be no mistaking me on this world. I have been clearly marked. No, there will be no mistaking me on this world, or perhaps on any other.
They will soon serve the gruel.
I am hungry.
I have long known myself a woman who longed to submit, to belong, to be owned, to be mastered, to serve, to strive to please, to be subject to discipline. I have long known myself a natural, and rightful, slave.
Is this so terrible?
Is it wrong to be oneself?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
I do not claim to speak for others. Why then should they speak for me?
I have never wanted to relate to a man to whom I am an equal. Or more, what woman would? How pathetic that would be, how one would despise such a man, such a betrayer of his nature, or one lacking the nature of man, but rather to one who is incomparably superior to myself, naturally powerful, commanding, and virile, one who would see me as I am, and do with me as he wished, one to whom I could be only a slave.
But I never, on Earth, expected to meet such a man, a man strong enough to see me for what I was, and do with me what he should. Once I did not know such men could exist. Here, fearfully, I have found men who will take such as I in hand, and brand, collar, and train us as thoroughly and thoughtlessly as any other animal, which we are. I now kneel before such men and know myself a slave, and fittingly and rightfully so. They give me no choice. I want none. They bring me to my true self. I am fulfilled.
Why then do they so despise me, I in their collar, so weak and helpless?
Can I help it, if I am not one of their glorious free women?
Am I so different from them, I wonder? Or beneath those robes is another slave hidden?
I was sold last night.
I suppose many women, at least on my former world, do not understand that they can be sold. That is interesting, considering the fact that we have been sold, bartered, and exchanged for millennia, and doubtless for millennia before the records of such transactions were scratched on bark, or incised into tablets of moist clay. Is it so unusual to be exchanged for barley, or cattle, or sheep, or pigs, or bars of iron, or a jingling handful of metal disks? Have not women served often enough as loot, to be allotted amongst victors, to be auctioned in foreign capitals? In kingdoms have not princesses been bartered for land, for alliances and power? Have not the daughters of the rich often served as seals upon bargains? And have we ourselves not unoften sought to sell ourselves, for our own gain? Have we not sought avidly for the golden bed, and the highest bidder?
It is one thing, of course, to sell ourselves as goods for our own profit, while denying this, and quite another to find ourselves explicitly recognized as goods, undeniably so, openly and objectively so, and being sold for the profit of another.
It is a strange feeling, at first, to realize that one has been sold, that one now belongs to another, as much as a pig or shoe.
I am told, however, that one grows used to such things. Would it not be a rare girl who has been sold but once? One is then concerned less with the fact that one is sold, for one knows one is a slave, than the quality of the market, the category in which one is sold, say, a pot girl or a pleasure slave, the price one may bring, particularly in comparison with that of others, and, of course, the nature of the buyer, say, a private individual, for which one hopes, or a farm, a business, a municipality, or such. Sometimes one is bought to be kept, sometimes to be resold. A girl cheaply purchased in one market may be sold in another for a handsome profit. Markets are apparently scouted and information conveyed and exchanged. I am told the great merchant houses have sources of information which might be the envy of warring Ubars.
I sold for forty-eight copper tarsks. I gather that this is not a great deal of money but I also know that some sold for less, although many sold for more. I am not familiar with what forty-eight copper tarsks might buy, other than it might buy one such as I. The face value of a coin is meaningless. The coin is worth only what it will buy. This is obvious, but many on my former world, oddly enough, seem unaware of this. They demand a hundred coin
s and think themselves ten times advanced for they formerly had but ten, and refuse to notice that their hundred today buys only what five bought once.
I remember little about my sale, until near the last, the straw, the block, the torches to the left and right, the darkness in the house, the sense of faces and bodies, the calls of the auctioneer, the occasional responses from the house, the touches of the whip, helping me, guiding me, turning me, lifting my chin, and such. I was too frightened, too tense, I fear, to smile, to display myself well. But he did not whip me. How understanding he was, how kind! Then he grasped me by the hair, and held my head back. I did not understand. Then he touched me! It was quick, and smooth, and then firm, implacable! The coils of the whip! I was helpless! I cried out, and twisted about, held, unable to escape. I fought the touch, the feeling, but it owned me! I squirmed, and sobbed, and begged. My body was wild, and spasmodic. He must desist, but he did not! I could not control myself. I heard laughter. Then he released me, a thousand times more naked than I had been before, a revealed slave! I went to my knees in the sawdust, and wept, and, bent over, my body shaking, covered my face with my hands.
How shamed I was. I heard laughter.
How faraway then was the store, the men I had known!
I was ordered away from the block, and was carried down the stairs, for my legs would not support me.
I had been sold.
I have wondered, sometime, if the glorious free women of these men, so arrogant and remote, so lofty and proud, so secure, so serene, so abundantly and beautifully robed and veiled, so regal, so majestic, so concealed from head to toe, if stripped and sold, if so caressed, would not also have cried out, squirmed, and leapt as obediently, as helplessly, as revealingly, as spasmodically, as I? How we are nothing in a rag before them! But are they, when all is said and done, any different? Might we not all be slaves?
Gorean men are patient.
I hear the gate at the head of the stairs being undone. Soon the gruel will be in the troughs, or, for those chained at the sides, to the heavy rings, in the bowls.
We are not permitted, as yet, to use our hands.
Chapter Six
There are a thousand roads.
Why does one take one road, and not another? Sometimes curiosity, sometimes adventure, sometimes because it is a new road, on no familiar map. And yet, truly, one does not know, really, where even the most familiar and prosaic road may lead. Are there not a hundred roads leading to Ar, at the end of which Ar is not found? In the distance there is the stirring of fog, into which the road leads. Do not all roads lead into the fog? When the wind rises and the fog dissipates, one is not unoften surprised at the country within which one finds oneself.
My purse was heavy enough, early, at any rate. Why did its weight not content me?
The venture had been productive. Each capsule had been filled. Why did I not book passage for Daphne, where the spring rendezvous was to take place? The gray sky ship does not linger long, even in that remote place. Whence came the craftsmen, I wondered, who might have fashioned such a ship. It was said there were islands in the night, even beyond the moons.
I thought of another world, wondering why fools would hasten its ruin, scorning and defiling it, contaminating its soil and darkening its skies, polluting its seas and poisoning its air, felling its forests and gouging its surface. Do they hate it so? If not, why do they neglect and injure it? Have they another world at hand, a secret one, better and more convenient? Would they not insult and despoil it, as well? What is so terrible about trees and grass, white clouds and blue skies? Perhaps they do not care for such things. Perhaps they want a world such as they have made theirs, one crowded and smoky, odorous, and filthy. Perhaps they desire such a world, and deserve it.
It is good to be again on Gor.
The sky ships pay well.
Too, we are often given our pick of the stock.
It is not unusual for a fellow to reserve to himself a particular item, usually on a temporary basis, usually one he may have found arrogant or annoying, that he may have the pleasure of introducing her to the collar. A few days later, she, now well apprised of her bondage, may be led, back-braceleted, hooded, and leashed, sobbing, begging to be kept, to the market. I was thinking of reserving to myself, temporarily, one who had been meticulously, expensively, overbearingly, and pretentiously dressed, as is sometimes the case with slave stock, who had presented herself as aloof, superior, haughty, and frigid, but I did not do so. They are quick enough, at one’s feet, incidentally, to beg a strip of cloth, a rag. I was actually puzzled about her, for when I had initially noticed her she had been quite different, modestly and tastefully garbed, given the season, in a simple sweater, blouse, and skirt, diffident and needful, muchly aware of her sex and perhaps slightly fearing it, aware of how she might appear to men, as a woman suitable to be appropriated, exquisitely female, clearly waiting and ready. Our eyes had met, and it had not been difficult to see her, standing there, startled and apprehensive, as the slave she was, though not yet in the encircling band, locked on her throat. I had half expected her to kneel, and bow her head.
She was not strikingly, even startlingly, beautiful, like many of the women we bring to Gor, but there was something, at least to me, arresting about her. Certainly my colleagues had agreed. She was, in her way, an excellent choice for a Gorean block.
I recalled her.
She was the sort of woman whom it is difficult to think of, save as barefoot, in a slave tunic.
Clearly, some women belong in such, a particularly revealing tunic, which makes it clear to the occupant and the observer, casual or otherwise, precisely what she is, and only is.
I wanted to get her out of my mind.
Why then did I occasionally visit the capsule chamber, and regard her, in her capsule, naked and sedated, the identificatory steel anklet, inscribed with its legend, locked on her left ankle? It is commonly removed before they are revived. Two hoses enter the capsule, one at the head, one at the feet, the first to supply oxygen, the second to withdraw carbon dioxide.
I often, to my annoyance, thought of her. I tried to dismiss her from my mind, but it was not easy to do.
Surely she was not that beautiful.
Or was she?
I remembered her.
Why her?
There are so many, and one puts the lash to them, as needed. It would be the same with her, if she dared to be displeasing. She had doubtless felt it in her training. Thereafter they are muchly concerned to please.
Paga was of little assistance, or the belled sluts of the taverns. The turning wheels and the cards, the dice tumbling on the felt, were of little assistance, save in lightening my purse.
I did attend her sale. She did not do well on the block, as a whole. It was clearly her first sale. She was, however, obviously eager to please the auctioneer. I suppose that is understandable. He, after all, held the whip. On the other hand, I had gathered, from the reports of instructors and guards, as I had expected, that she was a woman who understood that she was a woman, and accordingly, in the order of nature, wished to defer to men, and be pleasing to them. These inclinations are obvious consequences of the nature of the hereditary coils. Despite the distortions, the curbs, and obstacles, of a pathological acculturation, stunting minds and shortening lives, nature, embedded in each cell in the human body, persists. Nature, like a living plant, may be crippled, stunted, denied, poisoned, and, if necessary, uprooted and destroyed, but it returns again, patient, latent, ready, alive, in each new child, in each new seed.