Prize of Gor

by John Norman

  “Pronounce yourself slave,” he said, “— but only if you wish.”

  “Please!” she begged.

  “— Only if you wish,” he said.

  “I am a slave,” she said.

  “You are a slave,” he said.

  She looked up at him, pathetically.

  “It is done,” he said. “You have no power to reverse such things. Do you understand, girl?”

  “‘Girl’?”

  He did not bother to respond to such an inanity.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I am a girl.”

  “And does the girl understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, “the girl understands.”

  “You are an unclaimed slave,” he said. “An unclaimed slave is subject to claimancy.”

  “Claim me,” she said.

  “Do you beg to be claimed?”

  “Yes!”

  “I claim you.”

  “I am claimed!” she said, softly, in gratitude, in relief, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  “Whose are you?” he asked.

  “Yours!” she said.

  “Mine?”

  “Yours — Master,” she said.

  “That is doubtless the first time you have addressed that word to a man.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “I have never before had a master.”

  “Your theories have irritated me,” he said. “Accordingly, I do not think that your bondage, at least in the beginning, will be an easy one.”

  “It will be as Master wishes,” she said, a surrendered slave.

  He turned about, to leave.

  “Master,” she called. “May I rise?”

  He smiled. In her dreams, and fantasies, as he had suspected, she had been many times a slave. “Yes,” he said, without turning about. He then left, and she rose to her feet, and hurried after him.

  He decided, it is said, to keep her for himself.

  It is said she became one of the loveliest house and stable slaves in Venna, a city somewhat north of Ar, famed for its tharlarion races.

  Ellen felt herself regarded, and she put her head down.

  “I was the first,” said Mirus, “to have her put where she belongs, in a collar.”

  “I think the men of Earth must be stupid.”

  “Many, doubtless,” said Mirus.

  “If you were surprised at how well she did in the dance, as you claimed,” said the spokesman, “why would you have had her danced in the first place?”

  “I expected her to do badly,” said Mirus. “Particularly for the ba-ta circle. I wished not only to shame her, but to have her fail miserably. I wished that her dancing, that of a mere Earth girl, for one knows what they are, to be an enraging, pathetic joke on the sand. Thus she would be not only humiliated that she must dance as a slave, but, beyond that, an excruciating shame for a woman, that she would be humiliated that she had failed to please, that she had danced so badly. I then expected to have the pleasure of seeing her, for her temerity in intruding on the ba-ta circle, so unworthy a slave, well and lengthily lashed.”

  Ellen shuddered. How miserable she would have been under the lash!

  Was there no end, she wondered, to the hatred, the vengeance, of Mirus?

  But how little he understood her!

  In bringing her to Gor and the collar he had undoubtedly intended, for his satisfaction, his pleasure, his amusement and revenge, to place her fully and irremediably in that situation which he supposed would be the most abject, degrading and miserable of any in which a human female might find herself, and particularly one such as she, the situation of categorical bondage, a situation of obedience, fear, submission, helplessness, and service, a situation in which she could be bought and sold, a situation in which she would be no more than vendible collar meat, vulnerable and rightless, subject to the kennel and cage, to chains and the lash. And so it had been his intention to inflict upon her what he supposed would be the most miserable of lives for a human female, and particularly for one such as she, a life of unutterable terror, misery, lamentation, humiliation, and shame, the life of a female slave.

  But how little he understood me, and understands me, thought Ellen.

  He did not understand, she was sure, that he had, however unintentionally, and doubtless much against his will, brought her not to misery and ruin but to herself, to a happiness she had never hitherto realized could exist, brought her to a meaningfulness and a fullness of life which she would never have dreamed possible, brought her to her radical, fundamental, basic womanhood, brought her to her fulfillment and joy, brought her to the liberation of the collar.

  Oh, yes, she thought, I know the terror of the collar. I certainly know it now, for there are men here who would kill me. But it would surely be the same, were I a free woman. The slave is safer, by far, almost always, than a free woman, for the slave, as she is an animal, is not likely to be killed; rather she is likely merely to change hands, as might a kaiila or tarsk. Do not free women, in the fall of a city, often tear away their clothes and cast themselves naked before the conquerors, begging to be kept as a slave? Do not others find collars and attempt to conceal themselves amongst slaves, but are then seized and bound by the slaves and presented naked to the conquerors, exposed in their deceit. And do those slaves not enjoy administering the first whippings to their former mistresses! To be sure, the slave, and her life, belongs to the master. But seldom would she have it otherwise. The usual fear of the female slave is a simple one, that she may fail in some respect to be fully pleasing to the master, in which case she must expect to be punished.

  And it can be miserable to be a slave, of course, thought Ellen. There is little doubt about that. One is so helpless, one is so vulnerable. She remembered incidents in the house of Mirus, many in her training, her sometimes almost hysterical despair of ever being able to please her instructors, their impatience with her, her deferent and lengthy serving of formally clad diners, she naked and in a collar, her abuse at the hands of Mirus, her writhing under his whip, the ease with which she was drugged and sold, the heat of Targo’s shelf, the fear of masters and the great tarns, the dust of the coffle, the cruel encirclements of tight, coarse ropes, the weight of chains, the sting of the switch, the stroke of the lash, so many things. But I would not do without even such things, she thought. I would not exchange my collar for the world. It belongs on me. I could not be happy otherwise. Do not such things confirm on me what I am? Am I not then, even in my distress, reassured?

  So much depends on the master, she thought. It is little wonder that slaves hope for a private master, one who will notice them, who will speak with them, who will care for them, who will be kind to them, one who will stoke their slave fires and force them to flame with helpless ecstasy, but, in all, one who will well rule their slave, one who will keep them in strict, unrelenting, perfect discipline, and never let them forget what they are, and can only be, a slave.

  It is little wonder that slaves come so often to love their masters, and with that passion and devotion which one can find only in a slave.

  What slave does not seek her love master? What man does not seek his love slave?

  But commonly the slave must strive to conceal the flames of her love, as she is only a slave. Let the master not suspect her presumption and insolence, that she, so unworthy, should dare to love a free man. It is enough that she should be no more than his needful, helplessly submitted, ecstatic toy. And what a fool he would be, on his part, a free man, to love a mere slave! She does not wish to be bound, taken to the market, and sold.

  And yet, in all, how many masters, to the chagrin of free women, come to care for their lovely chattels!

  And what, thought Ellen, of all this talk of humiliation, shame, degradation, and such. I suspect such things are usually more in the mind of free women than in the mind of the slave. Certainly free women often, in their envy and jealousy, do their best to discomfit a slave, to shame and humiliate her, to treat her as a worthless, degraded obj
ect, and so on. But men prefer us. We are the women they want. We are the women they buy.

  But, of course, thought Ellen, we can feel humiliation, shame, degradation, and such things!

  Are we not slaves?

  We must obey instantly, unquestioningly.

  We may be used as men please.

  And sometimes men force us to experience our own worthlessness, particularly if we are women taken from the enemy, or despised barbarians, good only for servile labors and collar pleasures. Men can enjoy humiliating us. They can see to it easily enough that we burn with shame. They can see to it that we are well reminded that we are slaves, that our condition is abject, that we are vulnerable, that we are helpless, that we are rightless, that we are banded chattels, that we are now no more than animals. They can well enforce upon us a recollection of our meaninglessness and degradation. At their hands we are trained and dominated. But, is it strangely, we can find a fittingness, and a reassurance and comfort in being despised, in being demeaned, in performing humble tasks, the scrubbing of a floor, the polishing of boots, the tidying of a room, the laundering of a tunic, the bringing of the master’s sandals to him, crawling, in our teeth. And we can beg for the most humiliating and shaming of ties and chainings. And it is easy for them to bring us to the point where we will beg shamelessly, lifting our bodies to him, rearing upwards toward him, as the most vulnerable and degraded of slaves, for what may now be but the tiniest touch of the tip of a finger. And sometimes in the midst of our humiliation, our shame, our fervent beggings, our welcomed and sought degradation, we have experiences forever beyond the ken of the free woman, the raptures of the mastered slave.

  I think, on the whole, however, that slaves seldom feel humiliated, shamed, or degraded. Why should they? It would be absurd that they should. They are beautiful, they are desired, they are prized. They are a lovely and precious ingredient in Gorean civilization. Are they not special? Were they not, would men bid upon them and buy them with such eagerness?

  A new slave, of course, might feel, at least at the beginning, what free women would like them to feel all the time, embarrassment, burning shame, acute mortification, and such. Is there not a collar on their neck, which they cannot remove? Are they in slave garb not much bared, even brazenly exhibited? Must they not now kneel, even to those who might formerly have been equals and peers? Must they not now obey instantly and unquestioningly? Are they not now owned? Are they not now properties? May they not now be bought and sold? Are they not now, too, mere animals, livestock? But these feelings tend to pass. The collar soon comes to be viewed not as an emblem of degradation but as a badge of quality, a symbol of female excellence, which, to be sure, she cannot remove, a testimonial to her desirability, a sign that she has been found of interest to men, that she is a woman of the sort men want. And when she becomes more a slave she comes to understand that slave garb is not degrading, but enhancing. She discovers that her beauty, unlike when she was a free woman, is nothing to be ashamed of, but is rather something in which to rejoice, something in which to take pleasure and pride. It does not dismay her vanity to learn that she is attractive, and beautiful, even “slave beautiful.” Would it yours? And she is, of course, well aware that where her charms are concerned slave garb will keep few secrets. Accordingly, she soon comes to prize her tunics, camisks, ta-teeras, and such. She knows how wonderfully beautiful and exciting she is in them. In them, scantily clad, she is stunning, a vision of delight, delicious, a viand, a repast, a banquet, for masters; does her soft glance not invite men to her subjugation; does her walk not suggest she would leap helplessly, uncontrollably, under a male caress; in her eyes can they not detect a mute plea, expressive of the need and readiness of a slave? Best she should quickly hurry home to her master! Begone, girl! Do not torture us! Hasten to your own chains! You should see her walk before men! You see, too, slave garb augments her attractions and excitements in dimensions other than the purely aesthetic. For example, in it she is identified as a slave, a property, something which one might own. Do you think that this does not add to her interest? And, of course, she soon, as a female, learns the pleasures and proprieties of pleasing and serving, of kneeling before her master, of hastening to obey, and so on. Let her beware, of course, the switches of free women, who will hate her.

  Is a slave happy?

  In theory, this does not matter.

  Who cares for the feelings of a slave?

  But obviously this depends on many things.

  I certainly was not happy in the laundry, in the house of Mirus. It seems to me improbable that the girls in the mills would be happy, or very much so. I doubt that the naked slaves in the tiny, crooked shafts of silver mines, carrying water to miners, have an easy life, and so on. Too, one supposes the girls on the great farms, struggling with plows, hoeing shackled, chained in seeding and harvesting coffles, kenneled at night, would just as soon be city slaves, and so on.

  Most slaves, however, certainly those with private masters, are happy in their collars, even radiantly so, even pot girls, and kettle-and-mat girls, and take great pleasure in pleasing and serving their masters. They are given the domination and mastering which a woman requires, and under which she thrives and blossoms. Gor celebrates nature; she does not deny her. The slave lives in a world of intimacy and emotional richness. She belongs to her master. She finds herself fulfilled in the collar. To be sure, she knows she is only a slave. But this, too, in its way, as she wants to be a slave, gives her great pleasure. Let us take a simple example, in this discussion of supposed humiliation, and such, which may prove to be illuminating. Suppose two women, one a free woman, the other a slave, both stripped. Both are commanded to belly, and lick and kiss a man’s feet. The free woman, one supposes, will experience humiliation, shame, and such, and, in performing this simple, lovely act, may feel degraded, and so on. It is not unusual, of course, that the free woman, as she is a woman, will feel there is an appropriateness in her performing this act, and may actually, in a way, find her sensations, which she would pretend to deplore, delicious. In any event, she is doubtless on her way to the collar. Now a slave, performing the same act, and doubtless with much greater skill, is likely to feel grateful and loving. Her master, after all, is permitting her to perform this appropriate, intimate and lovely act. She feels very slavelike in doing this, but this pleases her, as she is a slave. She loves her sense of lowliness, her sense of being her master’s slave. She wishes to do this, as it is fitting for her, and it permits her to manifest and express her tenderness and submission. Similarly, consider the kissing of the whip. Imagine the feelings of a free woman forced to kiss the whip, perhaps finding her feelings surprisingly and troublesomely delicious, and those of the slave, grateful to be permitted an opportunity to perform this beautiful symbolic act, of submission.

  And so Mirus, in having had Ellen called to the ba-ta circle, had intended not only to shame her, having her dance as a slave, but had expected her to dance badly, thus shaming herself as a woman, as well, and had then intended, in consequence of her presumed inept, blundering debacle, that she would be put under the whip, to suffer a lashing commensurate with the inadequacies of her performance.

  But the cruel plan of Mirus had failed of its realization!

  She had, it seems, done well! How frustrated, how furious, he must have been. But, too, she suspected that he had been fascinated, intrigued, by her performance, that of an attractive slave, one of whom, wisely or not, he had once ridded himself. And now, perhaps regretting his earlier haste or indiscretion, he had followed her, and with the intention, it seemed, not of killing her, as his companions so clearly seemed to have in mind, but rather of bringing her again within the ambit of his mastery.

  “But it seems,” said the spokesman, “that things did not turn out as you expected.”

  “That is true,” mused Mirus. “I had not expected her to do so well.”

  “She saw too much, she knows too much,” said the spokesman. “You should never have let he
r go.”

  “I did not “let her go,” said Mirus. “It was my intention, after forcing her to undergo the indignity and shame of a public sale, to buy her back.”

  “But it did not work out that way.”

  “No.”

  “In pursuing your trivial, personal vendetta with that meaningless little collar slut,” said the spokesman, “you have jeopardized our plans.”

  “I had no way of knowing,” said Mirus.

  “You were going to buy her back!”

  “Certainly.”

  “Ah, yes, pretty little “117,” and she received bids that shook the market.”

  “I had no idea I could be outbid,” said Mirus, angrily.

  “Yes, you had to publicly buy her, openly, before an entire market, that she would know herself a purchased slave, yours completely, owned, and for no more, you thought, than a handful of coins.”

  “How could I know that others could bid higher?” asked Mirus, angrily.

  Ellen, on her knees near the wagon, sick, put her head down. It is all my fault, she thought. All my fault!

  Can he care for me, Ellen asked herself.

  Clearly, I am sure, he wants me.

  Slaves are familiar, of course, with being wanted. They have little doubt about such things. Can they not see that in the blazing eyes of men? They are sought, captured, stolen, netted, roped, chained, sold, bought, owned. Is their neck’s encirclement not sufficient evidence as to their being wanted?

  This is very different, of course, from being cared for, or admired, or appreciated, or loved, or such.

  A slave may often find herself, sometimes to her dismay or terror, the focus of an uncompromised, ferocious lust, a desire so powerful that it can be satisfied by nothing less than the owning of her, the tearing away of her clothing and the hurling of her to one’s feet, where she is collared.

  This is how a slave is often wanted.

  And who but a slave could be so wanted?

  Perhaps a free woman, whose collar is in readiness, a woman who is to be made a slave, a woman wanted in the fiercest way a woman can be wanted, a woman wanted as a slave is wanted?