Fighting Slave of Gor

by John Norman

  "A silver tarsk!" cried a woman. "Let us see him!"

  "A silver tarsk!" called the girl in the white gown, who had pretended to be an Earth-girl slave. She was quite pleased. She thrust my chin up with her whip. "An excellent bid for one of the opening bids!" she congratulated the woman who had called out.

  "But a moment!" laughed the Lady Tima. She signaled to an attendant, a burly fellow, who brought forth and set at one side of the platform a large, shallow bronze dish, containing cubes of wood. He set a torch into this wood, which had apparently been soaked with oil. The wooden cubes sprang immediately, briefly raging, into flame. I did not understand the meaning of the dish, or its flaming contents.

  "We are ready now, are we not," asked the Lady Tima, "to remove his clothing?"

  There were affirmative shouts from the tiers.

  The Lady Tima nodded to the two men who held me. They shifted their grip to my wrists.

  The Lady Tima then signaled again to the burly fellow who, with a knife, from the back, cutting at the back of the coat, and at the sleeves, cut and tore away the coat. He threw it into the dish of burning, oil-soaked wood. He then removed, similarly, my jacket, which, too, he threw into the dish of burning wood. I looked at the coat and jacket, burning. They had been things I had had from Earth. The men who held me returned their grip to my arms.

  "More! Let us see more of him!" cried a woman.

  "But first," called the Lady Tima, "permit me to congratulate you, my lovely, and generous and noble clients, for cooperating so splendidly in the joke we played upon this poor slave. You were silent. He thought himself attempting to escape to freedom, abetted by a woman of his own world, which role was played by the lovely Lady Tendite." She indicated the girl in the white gown, who had pretended to be an Earth-girl slave. She whom I had thought bore the exciting slave name of Darlene, whom I now understood to be Tendite, a lady of Gor, nodded and smiled, lifting her whip to the crowd. Many in the tiers struck their left shoulders with the palms of their right hand, in Gorean applause. "Instead," she laughed, "he finds himself only a slave being marketed." There was much laughter. "You were superb," she told them. "The House of Tima is grateful," she said. Several of the women continued to applaud her. She was clever. The crowd, enlisted in the sale, was in a splendid mood.

  Suddenly I was furious.

  I began to struggle wildly. To my astonishment, in spite of the two men who held me, and their large size, I almost freed myself. I think the men, too, who held me, were astonished. They were almost thrown from my body. Then, again, they held me firmly fixed between them. I looked out with rage at the crowd. I was confident that had there been only one man he could not have, in spite of his size, held me. I had not realized I was so strong.

  I think the women in the tiers, and the Ladies Tima and Tendite, too, had not realized this.

  They exchanged glances.

  "Is he tame?" asked one of the women in the second tier.

  I could see, to my surprise, that several of the women were alarmed. In the back of the tiers I saw two guards, with spears, go to the top of one of the aisles, whence they might descend quickly into the tiers if it should be necessary.

  I was pleased though, breathing heavily, I gave no sign of this. I had become, in my time on Gor, given the exercise and diet, more formidable than I could have dreamed, from my sedentary, refined existence on my native world.

  "Many of you own tharlarion," said the Lady Tendite, calling merrily to the crowd. "They are much stronger than he," she laughed. "And perhaps they are more clever!" she added.

  There was some uneasy laughter.

  "Who wants a stupid slave?" called a woman.

  "The Lady Tendite jests," said the Lady Tima, quickly. "The slave is highly intelligent. The House of Tima vouches for this."

  "Yes!" said the Lady Tendite. "I but jested. The slave is quite intelligent."

  "Perhaps he is too intelligent," said one of the women.

  "Look at his eyes," called another. "He does not look like a slave."

  "Perhaps he is a master," said another woman, her voice trembling.

  "Would you sell us a master for our boudoir?" inquired another. I heard several women gasp, taken aback at the boldness of the question. I was startled. There had been something unmistakable in their response, an expression of excitement, of thrilled, scandalized pleasure. Was that what they desired, I wondered, a master in their boudoir? But if that were true surely they knew that then they, in their own boudoir, would be only slaves.

  I knew I must be mistaken.

  "No, no, no, no," laughed the Lady Tima. "No!" She seemed amused, but I could tell she was not pleased at the sudden turn the sale had taken. No more bids, I noted, had been forthcoming. "His intelligence, which is quite high," she said, "is that of a man of Earth. He is trained to use his intelligence to anticipate the desires of women, and to obey and serve them. The intelligence of the men of Earth is at the disposal of women. They do what women tell them."

  "Are there no masters among them?" asked a woman. "Are they all silk slaves?"

  "That is my understanding," said the Lady Tima. "They are all the silk slaves of women."

  Surely that is false, I thought. I had known large and strong men on Earth. Yet it was true that many such men, of masculine configuration and size, hastened to obey women. They had been taught that they would not be true men unless they did what women wished. On Gor, of course, it is the women who obey, if they have been made slaves.

  "The men of Earth are only silk slaves," said Lady Tima.

  I was certain that she was wrong. Somewhere on Earth, here and there, I was certain, there were honestly strong men, in the historical and biological sense, men before women knelt as smaller and weaker creatures, and objects of intense desire. I had thought that I had been such a man. Then I had found myself a slave on Gor. I wondered if more than a handful of men on Earth would ever recollect their manhood. I thought not. It is easier to fear and castigate manhood, than to assume it. The first is well within the reach of the weak; the second is only within the grasp of the strong.

  "Only silk slaves!" said the Lady Tima.

  "No," I cried, in agony. "No! There must be true men on Earth!"

  The whip of the Lady Tendite, suddenly, its blades folded back against its staff, struck me on the side of the face.

  "Oh, Jason," said the Lady Tima, pityingly, "did you speak without permission?"

  Again I struggled, fiercely, to throw off the men who held me. Then again, helplessly, was I held.

  "That is no silk slave," I heard.

  "Send him to the quarries!" cried a woman.

  "Chain him at a rowing bench," called another. "Let him draw an oar!"

  "Bring forth the next slave for sale!" called yet another.

  "Begin the next sale!" called yet another.

  "Wait! Wait!" called the Lady Tima.

  The crowd subsided.

  "Have we truly fooled you, Ladies?" she laughed.

  The crowd was silent.

  She turned to me. "You did well, Jason," she said. "You played your role well, pretending to be imperfectly tamed." I looked at her, my arms held.

  She turned again to the crowd. "Forgive me, Ladies," she laughed. "It seems my jest was but a poor one. I had thought all knew that the men of Earth were mere slaves. Thus, when you saw the slave struggle, obedient to my signal, I thought the farcicality of his activity would be evident. But I see that you are not truly familiar with the males of Earth, fearing that some of them might be men. Is he not a fine actor?" She faced me and struck her left shoulder, as though applauding my performance. Some of the women, too, uncertainly, in the tiers, struck their left shoulders.

  "Is he tame?" asked a woman in the fourth tier.

  "He is perfectly tame," said the Lady Tima. "I have used him even on my own couch."

  I put down my head. I well remembered my humiliation on the couch of my mistress, the Lady Tima.

  "Do you guarantee his tamenes
s?" asked one of the women.

  "We do," said the Lady Tima. "The House of Tima guarantees his tameness, fully."

  "Prove to us that he is tame!" called a woman.

  "We shall do so," smiled the Lady Tima. She turned to me. She smiled. She spoke softly. None but those on the platform might hear. "You have had your moment of sport, Jason," she said, "pretending, as is occasionally the wont of the males of Earth, to be a man, but it is now time to remember what you truly are, only a weakling of Earth, one fit to be only a woman's slave."

  I looked at her, angrily.

  "There are sleen in the House of Tima," she said. "Perhaps you desire to be fed to them."

  "No," I said.

  She looked at me.

  "No, Mistress," I said. I put my head down, frightened. Well did I recall the fearsome, curved fangs, the long, sinuous bodies, the claws, the lithe muscularity, the incredible swiftness and agility, of the sleen in the House of Andronicus, leaping upward, ferocious, eyes blazing, mouths slavering, to tear me from the rope which suspended me over their heads.

  "Look into my eyes, Jason," she commanded.

  I lifted my head and met her eyes. She, and those who were masters, held the power of life and death over me. They were all, and I was nothing. I was a slave.

  "What are you, Jason?" she asked.

  "A slave," I said.

  "Do not forget it," she said.

  "No, Mistress," I said.

  "You may lower your eyes," she said.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said. I put my head down.

  "It is not necessary to hold him," she said to the two men who held me. They released me. I stood quietly on the platform. I had been well reminded that I must obey, and that I was a slave.

  "Pretty Jason," said the Lady Tendite, stepping toward me. She touched the side of my face with the palm of her right hand.

  I clenched my fists.

  "Be warned, Jason," whispered the Lady Tima.

  I opened my hands.

  The Lady Tendite handed her whip to one of the attendants.

  Gently, solicitously, the Lady Tendite, standing quite near to me, removed my necktie. "Is that not more comfortable, Jason?" she inquired. She then walked to the side of the platform and discarded the tie in the shallow bowl of burning wood. She then returned to me and, attentively, button by button, unbuttoned the shirt I wore, even the buttons on the sleeves. "Do not be upset, Jason," she said, sweetly. "Surely you remember me, Darlene, the little Earth-girl slave?"

  "I trusted you," I said, bitterly.

  "What a fool you were," she said.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I did not think I would be so successful in deceiving you," she said.

  "Why?" I asked. "Did you fear the inadequacy of your English?"

  "My English is excellent," she said.

  "That is true," I said. Her English was indeed excellent. It was perhaps a bit formal and precise for a native speaker, a little too correct, perhaps, and it had been occasionally infected with certain oddities of expression and construction which had been surprising, but I had not weighed these factors heavily. I had discounted such matters in virtue of what I had conjectured were consequences of Gorean influence and a lack of practice, over years, in the language. "Why then," I asked, "did you fear you might not be able to deceive me?"

  "Is it not obvious?" she asked.

  "No," I said.

  "Do you think that any real slave girl would even have dared to think of acting as I did?"

  I said nothing.

  "Do you know the penalties for such a thing?" she asked. "The little sluts know well the meaning of their collars."

  "I understand," I said. I shuddered. From her few simple words I now understood more than I had before of the depth and significance of Gorean slavery.

  She went behind me and removed my shirt, which she threw in the fire.

  She then strode to the front of the platform. "We have a bid of a silver tarsk on this slave," she said. "Do I hear a higher bid?"

  The crowd was silent.

  "Come now, Ladies," said the Lady Tendite. "This is a superb silk slave. It is true he is somewhat untrained, but which of you is not capable of training a silk slave? He is from the planet Earth. He is fully tame."

  But no bids were forthcoming from the crowd.

  The Lady Tendite turned to me. "Remove your upper garment," she said, "that which conceals your chest."

  I looked at her.

  "Quickly," she snapped.

  I pulled the garment, short-sleeved, of white cotton, a common T-shirt, over my head, and then held it. There is no specific Gorean word for this type of garment. The English expression for the garment was presumably unknown to the Lady Tendite.

  Some of the women in the tiers had laughed, seeing my quickness in obeying the Lady Tendite.

  Too, I was conscious of the women in the tiers regarding me with renewed interest, though caution. I stood very straight. I was not displeased to be regarded with interest. Too, I was not displeased to sense that certain of the women regarded me with considerable circumspection. I am large and strong. They were not certain, I conjecture, that I was fully tame. The feelings of a woman toward a man who may not be fully tame tend to be ambiguous. They are afraid of him, and yet they find him intriguing. They wonder what it would be to lie at his mercy, in his arms. What if, truly, he should not be tame? Then how would they be treated? What would be done to them? Would they not, in effect, be made his slaves, in the way of nature? But, too, I was apprehensive, for, in looking out on the tiers, I realized that one of these women could buy me, and that I would then have to obey her, and would be hers, fully, to do with as she pleased. I noted, too, that I was looked upon with a frankness, an openness of curiosity and sensual speculation, which I would not have expected from the women of Earth. I was being looked upon candidly as an erotic brute, a possible complement to their own urges and needs. Gorean women, not trained to be ashamed of their instincts, not tutored in the betrayal and suppression of their nature, tend to look upon males whom they find attractive with both honesty and pleasure. The concealment of feelings, particularly where male slaves are concerned, is a deceit not often practiced by Gorean women. Such a deceit tends not only to be rather beneath them, but, beyond this, would be almost meaningless to them. The male slave, you see, is an animal. Accordingly, he should be assessed as such.

  The Lady Tendite approached me and held out her hand. I placed the T-shirt I had removed from my body in her hand and she went to the shallow bowl of burning cubes of wood and discarded it. I saw it burn.

  She returned to me, speaking to the crowd. "Note," she said, "the breadth of the chest, the width of the shoulders, the narrowness of the waist, the flatness of the belly."

  "One five!" called a woman. "I can use him in the stable bouts." I did not understand the reference to stable bouts. The bid, however, I gathered, was one silver tarsk, five copper tarsks.

  "Stable bouts?" laughed the Lady Tendite. "Surely you jest?"

  "Are you sure he is tame?" asked another woman.

  "You saw with what alacrity he removed his garment at my command," said the Lady Tendite. "You see how he stands unheld on the sales platform."

  "Lower your head," whispered the Lady Tima to me.

  I did so.

  "Regard him," said the Lady Tendite, "a fearful slave, awaiting your command."

  "One six," called another woman.

  The Lady Tendite turned angrily to me. "Take off your shoes and stockings," she said. "Leave them on the platform. Then kneel."

  "Yes, Mistress," I said. I knelt down on one knee. I began to unlace my right shoe.

  The Lady Tima, with her whip, stood near me.

  "This is not a common work slave," said the Lady Tendite to the crowd, "a simple brute, an insensitive lout for your fields or stables. This is a valuable and highly intelligent silk slave. Furthermore, he is a male from Earth. From birth he has been taught to be deferential to the wishes of women, to adopt
whatever values they have told him to adopt, and to believe whatever propositions they have told him to believe. Buy him. He has been trained since birth to be the slave of women. Have no fear. He will be sweet, tender, solicitous, understanding, sympathetic and obedient. You need not fear lust and power from him. You need not fear to be alone with him. He is a male of Earth. Bid for him. He will always be to you a lovely and complete slave."

  I now knelt on my right knee and unlaced my left shoe.

  "Tendite," said the Lady Tima to me, "is not skilled in conducting a sale. I am training her."

  I did not respond.

  "Is her skill in your language good?" she asked me.

  "Yes, Mistress," I said.

  The bids, slowly, without enthusiasm, increased to one eight.

  "How is it," I asked, "that the Lady Tendite knows English?"

  "She learned the language in connection with training Earth-girl slaves," she said, "in the House of Andronicus. At one time, two or three years ago, English was one of the Earth languages used in that occupation. Now, as you may know, Earth girls are trained substantially in, or entirely in, Gorean."

  "Yes, Mistress," I said. I recalled that the Lady Gina had once told me something along these lines. The collared Earth girl would now learn her Gorean, or most of it, as a child learns it, or an animal, not through the medium of another language. According to the Lady Gina the method was efficient. I did not doubt it. Indeed, my own Gorean was largely a function of exactly this approach. The Lady Gina, who knew English, had, however, I must admit, given me occasional assistance. Although she had been strict with me, she had not, on the whole, treated me badly. I was sorry that I had disappointed her, in not becoming a man. But I was only a male of Earth, and a slave.

  "Even after this change, of course," said the Lady Tima, "she continued in her employment in the House of Andronicus, continuing to be used particularly in her specialty, that of the training, though now generally brief, of naked, collared Earth sluts."