Prize of Gor

by John Norman

  Portus Canio, Fel Doron and Selius Arconious sat cross-legged about the fire. Ellen lay on her belly at the left knee of Selius Arconious. From time to time, he tore off a bit of the meat and put it in her mouth.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  Mirus returned to the fire, from giving his wounded fellow some share of the simple provender, and, after a moment’s thought, it seemed, too took his place before it, too sat cross-legged before it, as were the other men.

  He looked at Ellen. She, on her belly, licked and kissed, deferentially, lovingly, at the hand that fed her, and then, eyes shining, lifting her face and opening her mouth, she delicately, gratefully, accepted another tiny piece of meat.

  “You have an attractive slave,” he told Selius Arconious.

  “You can buy one for yourself, almost anywhere,” said Selius Arconious, “or you can always capture a free woman, if you can find one lovely enough to be a slave, and tame and train her.”

  “Where I come from,” smiled Mirus, “such things are not done.”

  “Remember that men are the masters,” said Selius Arconious.

  “I will never forget it,” said Mirus.

  “If you treat a slave well,” said Selius Arconious, “you will get a great deal of pleasure out of her.”

  Men, of course, get a great deal of pleasure out of their slaves in any event.

  It is what slaves are for, and work.

  Mirus regarded Selius Arconious.

  “One must make certain, of course,” said Selius Arconious, “that she is not permitted the least latitude.”

  “You must not forget the whip,” said Mirus.

  “Of course not,” said Selius Arconious. “If she is not fully pleasing, she is to be lashed. She is not a free woman. She is only a slave. In her early training, of course, when you get a girl, particularly if you are her first master, I would recommend the switch. It is an effective correctional device, and it will be quite adequate for a new slave, only a frightened girl. She may later learn, when she has become familiar with your expectations and desires, should she fail in any way to fulfill them with perfection, and when she has become accustomed to her boundaries and limits, should she violate or transgress them in the least, to fear the five-stranded slave lash. So I would recommend, certainly in the beginning, not the lash, but the switch. Indeed, the switch will continue to be an admonitory implement which will never lose its appeal to the master or its meaning for the slave. A judicious conjunction of the switch and lash is doubtless in the slave’s best interest, assisting her to be alert, and zealous to please. It is good for correcting faulty kneeling, or bellying, an awkward walk, clumsy movements, and such. She must learn to speak not with the strident, insolent tones of a free woman, but with the softness, and deference, of the slave; see that she wears her tunic well, and attractively; she is to be neat and well groomed, brushed, combed, and cleaned; she is not a slovenly free woman; let her keep the lock of her collar at the back of her neck; make certain she understands that she is not to speak without permission; you will find the switch useful in correcting lapses in that regard; one assumes she will know enough to kneel when you or another free person enters the room, such things. You will, of course, train her as you wish, in all ways, and in great detail. Make certain you are satisfied, for example, with the condition of your quarters, the nature of your meals, and such, and everything in the way of domestic matters, dusting, laundering, sewing, ironing, scrubbing, polishing, and so on. One will have such things of a slave. They are appropriate for her. She is not a free woman. See, too, of course, speaking of free women, that she is decorous before them. To be sure, the free women will see to that themselves. She will live in terror of free women, and look to men to protect her from them. Suppose you are giving a dinner for guests, and one or more free women are present. In such a case make certain that she is demurely clad, perhaps in a white, three-quarters or full-length gown, though certainly sleeveless. Be certain, of course, that her collar is always in evidence, that there be no suggestion whatsoever that she is in any way comparable to a free woman. No such comparisons must exist. A free woman would find them tasteless and insulting. She is, in any event, whatever the nature of your guests, to be humble, self-effacing, and attentive. It is to be almost as though she were not there. When not serving she may kneel to one side, unobtrusively, waiting to be summoned. If you are entertaining male guests only, she may, if you wish, be naked. Naturally, you must understand, she must be taught your preferences in all things, from the temperature of your paga to that of your bath, and she, of course, as she is a slave, will bathe you. Why should a free man bother with such things, when there are slaves? Too, you may wish, from time to time, to attend to her slave needs, her need to be at your mercy, and to be helpless, as a slave, and her need to be handled and used as the slave she is, and such. Accustom her early then to binding and chaining, to the helplessness of slave bracelets, and perhaps shackles, to the blindfold and the gag, to encircling ropes, and buckled slave straps, perhaps to a harness, such things. A neck chain is good, fastening her to the slave ring at the foot of your couch. If she performs well you may permit her a blanket. See that she juices swiftly and squirms helplessly. Three or four Ahn of intermixed waitings, feedings, quiescences, touchings, strugglings, caressings, and such, are likely to be informative, even to a new girl, of the nature of her condition and various of its aspects. At the end of a few such mornings or afternoons your girl will be well aware that she is no longer a free woman. In such a way a girl learns her collar. If she becomes a nuisance at your feet, too much whining and begging, too many tears on your sandals, you may thrust her aside with your foot, or cuff her.”

  “Men cannot concern themselves wholly with slaves,” said Mirus. “Certainly not,” said Selius Arconious.

  “It seems there is much to remember,” said Mirus.

  “Not really,” said Selius Arconious. “Just keep in mind that she is a slave, and is to be fully pleasing. If she is not, lash her.”

  “It is pleasant,” said Mirus, “to be on a world where there are female slaves.”

  “Who would wish to be on any other?” said Selius Arconious.

  Ellen lay on her belly at the left knee of her master, Selius Arconious. She lifted her head a little, and pressed her lips softly, almost timidly, to his left knee, a slave’s kiss.

  It is doubtless pleasant for the masters to own us. I wonder sometimes, on the other hand, if they understand us, or fully, our feelings, the feelings of the slave, the thrill for a woman of having a master, the rapture of being possessed, literally, how we desire to give ourselves up to them, the bliss we experience in our collars, our love. Is it so strange that we make excellent slaves? Do they really think that our desire to please, and be found pleasing, is motivated by nothing but the fear of blows or worse? We wish to love and serve. It is our nature. We are women. We are slaves. We long for our masters. We are incomplete without them.

  Selius Arconious tore off a bit of warm, juicy meat and held it to the slave, who took it delicately between her teeth, juice running at the side of her chin, but he did not release it. She looked up at him, not understanding, uncertain. Would he permit her to have it? He released it and she took it gratefully, chewed it, and swallowed it. With his hand then he took her by the hair and gave her head a good-natured shake. She thrust her right cheek to the side of his knee, lovingly, fervently.

  She lay amongst them, in her tunic, on her belly.

  Her master had decided that she had been sufficiently fed.

  Mirus was looking down upon her. She had little doubt he found her of interest, of interest in the keenest way a woman can be of interest to a man, of “slave interest.”

  She felt a frisson of apprehension and pleasure, as when a woman senses that a man sees her as what she is, a slave.

  Will he then do contest for her?

  If she is free, will he then move to collar her?

  How pleased he must be, she thought, co
nsidering our pasts, and my pretenses and frivolities, to see me as I am now, a slave.

  But I am pleased that he can so see me!

  That is the way I want him to see me!

  I would not want him to see me otherwise.

  I want him to see me as I am, as what I am!

  I am shameless, and happy!

  Put me on a block, Masters, and sell me, if you wish. Let it be done to me as men choose. I would not be other than I am.

  “Move your hair,” he said, “that I may better see your collar.”

  She moved her hair forward, before her shoulders.

  “Such things look well on women,” said Mirus.

  “Yes,” said Selius Arconious.

  The collar was a simple one, of a familiar type, particularly in the northern hemisphere, a band collar, about a half inch in height, closely fitting, locked at the back. Most such collars range from a half inch to an inch in height.

  How far away now seemed Earth, and her former life! But had she not, even then, so long ago, dreamed of lying half naked, collared, beside a master?

  “You may now lie as you wish,” said Selius Arconious.

  She brushed her hair back, behind her, and lay then on her left side, facing her master.

  She had not been given permission to rise, of course.

  She did dare to again kiss his knee, softly, timidly.

  Perhaps he would caress her later.

  She lifted her head to her master, tears in her eyes.

  “How your slut looks upon you!” laughed Mirus.

  “She is only a slave,” said Selius Arconious.

  Mirus looked at Ellen. “It seems you have learned your collar,” he said.

  “It has been taught to me, by masters,” said Ellen.

  “You are his,” said Mirus.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “I am his, wholly. I belong at his feet, as no more than his slave. I can be no more. I can be no less.”

  “You seem happy,” said Mirus.

  “We are happiest when we know that we will be lashed if we are not pleasing.”

  “That does not sound like the lessons you mouthed long ago,” said Mirus.

  “I was a fool, Master,” said Ellen.

  “I see,” said Mirus.

  “We resist that we may be conquered. We wish to know if you are strong enough to subdue and enslave us. We wish to belong to the strongest, to the most magnificent.”

  “Interesting,” said Mirus.

  “Men on this world have demonstrated their dominance over me, and their refusal to accept insubordination,” said Ellen. “I love them for it!”

  “It seems,” said Mirus to Selius Arconious, “that you have found a slave, one who is fully your own.”

  “Yes, it seems so,” said Selius Arconious, “for the moment, at least, or until I tire of her.”

  “Oh, please, no, Master!” protested Ellen.

  “Why do you not do so, as well?” Selius Arconious asked Mirus, paying the slave no attention.

  “I fear that is not done where I come from,” said Mirus.

  “But you are not now where you come from,” said Selius Arconious.

  “True,” smiled Mirus.

  “Will you not accept a woman for what she is?” asked Selius Arconious.

  “It is seldom done on my world,” said Mirus.

  “In each woman,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a slave, longing to be commanded forth and ordered to one’s feet.”

  “Such truths may not be so much as uttered on my world,” said Mirus.

  “In each man,” said Selius Arconious, “there is a master, and in each woman, a slave. Each seeks for the other.”

  “Where I come from,” said Mirus, “I fear they seldom find one another.”

  “Consider the wells of profound realities tapped by dreams. In his dreams, those of his sleeping hours and those of his waking hours, what man has not yearned for a beautiful slave, and what woman, in such free, innocent, unguarded hours, has not yearned to be owned, to be collared, chained and mastered?”

  “On my world,” said Mirus, “society walls itself away from nature. It aligns its moats and stakes against the fields and forests. Sanctions, like pikes, array themselves against truth. Snares and traps are at every hand. The insects of conformity swarm and sting. All are vulnerable. Few dare speak their needs, their dreams.”

  “It must be a strange world,” said Selius Arconious.

  “It is a far different, far sadder, far more miserable world than this one, yours,” said Mirus.

  “But this is now your world,” said Selius Arconious.

  “Yes,” said Mirus. “This is now my world.”

  “You must buy yourself a slave,” said Selius Arconious.

  “I think I shall,” said Mirus.

  “Will you buy a Gorean girl or a barbarian?” asked Selius Arconious.

  “I think a barbarian,” said Mirus. “I have a score to settle with the women of Earth.”

  “Excellent,” said Selius Arconious.

  “Mirus, Mirus,” called the wounded man, from where he lay, to the side.

  “I must go to my fellow,” said Mirus, rising from beside the fire.

  “He has lost much blood,” said Fel Doron.

  “Yes,” said Mirus.

  At this juncture Portus Canio and Fel Doron, wiping their hands on their thighs, rose, too, and approached Tersius Major, crouching down amongst the weapons, on his knoll, in the descending darkness.

  “Give me drink, give me food, old friend,” said Tersius Major to Portus Canio.

  “Come down, old friend,” said Portus Canio. “Stakes and thongs await, and knives can be heated, old friend.”

  “For the love of Priest-Kings,” cried Tersius Major, “give me something to drink, something to eat!”

  “You have broken the law of Priest-Kings,” said Portus Canio.

  “Priest-Kings are not to be loved,” said Fel Doron. “They are to be respected, and feared, and obeyed.”

  “Do not approach!” suddenly shrieked Tersius Major.

  “Have no fear,” then said Portus Canio, angrily, hesitating, then stepping back, “I will not cross the circle of forbidden weapons.”

  “None may cross it!” cried Tersius Major.

  At the edge of the camp, there was a motion in the grass, a subtle motion. We saw nothing. It was almost as though a snake, a large snake, might have moved there. A similar motion occurred a few yards to the left.

  “I think we had best leave this place,” said Portus Canio, uneasily.

  “None may cross the circle!” cried Tersius Major.

  “Several of them, I think, are about,” said Fel Doron.

  “As I understand it,” said Mirus, who now joined the group, “the Priest-Kings enforce their laws by the Flame Death.”

  “When it pleases them,” said Fel Doron.

  “Have you ever seen such a thing?” asked Mirus.

  “No,” said Fel Doron.

  “You?” asked Mirus.

  “No,” said Portus Canio.

  “Priest-Kings do not exist,” said Mirus.

  “They exist,” said Fel Doron.

  “But you have never seen one?”

  “No.”

  “It seems,” said Mirus, looking at Tersius Major crouching down amongst the emptied pistols on the knoll, “the Priest-Kings are silent.”

  There were more stirrings in the grass.

  “Perhaps there is more than one way in which Priest-Kings speak,” said Portus Canio.

  “Let us break camp,” said Fel Doron. “It is dangerous to remain here.”

  This said, the men returned to the wagon, and the tharlarion. The few possessions were gathered together and placed in the wagon. Portus Canio and Mirus placed the wounded man in the wagon bed.

  “Get in the wagon,” Selius Arconious told his slave.

  “May I not walk,” she asked, “to lighten the wagon, Master.”

  “Will it be necessary to b
ind you hand and foot, and cast you to the wagon bed?” he asked.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Must a command be repeated?” he asked.

  “No, Master!” she said, and, seizing the side of the wagon bed and, stepping on one of the spokes, supporting herself thereby, climbed hurriedly to the wagon bed, within which she knelt on the tarpaulins and supplies, and, looking out, clutched the sides of the wagon bed.

  “It seems that Master is concerned with the safety of his slave,” she said.

  “No,” he said, angrily. “I do not wish our journey to be delayed by the slowness of a she-tarsk.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, happily.

  The tharlarion suddenly lifted its head on its thick neck, and looked about, nostrils flaring.

  “Do not leave me!” shrieked Tersius Major.

  “Then join us,” said Portus Canio.

  “Ho, on!” called Fel Doron from the wagon box, and turned the tharlarion southeastward.

  The wheels of the wagon creaked and the tharlarion began to plod southeastward.

  “Do not leave me! Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major.

  Ellen, kneeling in the wagon, clutching the sides of the wagon, saw him, as they moved past the knoll. The sleen, she knew, is a primarily nocturnal animal. Too, she was sure that there must, by now, be several in the vicinity.

  “Do not leave me!” cried Tersius Major. The party then took its way from the camp. “Give me a weapon!” cried Tersius Major. “Give me a weapon!” Then, after a time, one could no longer hear him.

  “Do Priest-Kings exist?” said Fel Doron.

  “No,” said Mirus.

  “One does not know,” said Portus Canio. “One does not know.”

  Chapter 28

  WHAT OCCURRED FOUR DAYS LATER

  It was toward morning.

  “Master,” whispered the slave.

  “Yes?” said he.

  “Will you not content your animal? Will you not pet her? Will you not stroke her, just a little, Master?”

  “You, an Earth woman, beg as a slave to be touched?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” whispered Ellen, “as the most abject and needful of slaves!”

  “No,” he said.