Prize of Gor

by John Norman

  “Yes, Master,” she agreed.

  Many girls such as she, she knew, and excellent girls, quality shackle sluts, went for as little as one and a half to three silver tarsks. She recalled there had been a bid of fifteen silver tarsks on her even before Mirus and Selius Arconious had entered upon their competition for a slave, the shapely, gray-eyed brunette being displayed and auctioned. Fifteen silver tarsks, though, she thought, was surely excessive. Much, of course, had to do with the place, the wealth at hand, the number of bidders, the fever of the bidding, and such.

  “Perhaps your master is a fool,” he said.

  “A girl dare not comment on such things,” she said.

  “Would you like to be whipped?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “But actually I am not, as it seems, such a fool,” he said.

  “Master?”

  “I have received higher offers for you,” he said, “even from men who have merely seen you on the streets, of twenty-five silver tarsks, and more.”

  The slave began to tremble. She had understood nothing of this.

  “What is wrong?” he asked.

  “Master!” she wept.

  “There are tears in your eyes, pretty slut,” he said.

  “Please do not sell me, Master,” she begged. Her sale now seemed an option within the purview of her master, one he might plausibly view with favor.

  “You now seem in earnest,” he said, not displeased.

  “Yes, Master!”

  “Why should I not sell you?” he asked.

  “I am pretty,” she said. “I juice quickly, I squirm helplessly!”

  “Many slaves are pretty,” he said, “and they, too, juice quickly and squirm helplessly. One expects such things of a slave.”

  “I work hard,” she said. “I strive zealously to be pleasing to you!”

  “I can work any slave,” he said. “And the whip will assure that they strive zealously to be pleasing to me.”

  “I think Master is pleased with me, when I experience great pleasure in his arms.”

  “Slave pleasure,” he said, dismissively.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “But I do not think I could experience such pleasure in the arms of any other man.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “You are a slave. In the arms of any man you would leap and cry out.”

  “Does it not give Master pleasure to know I am so subjugated, so unmitigatedly and irremediably subjugated, that I am so much his, and that in his arms I experience the most ecstatic of joys, those of the overcome, yielding and ravished slave?”

  “Who cares,” asked he, “aught of a slave’s pleasure?”

  “You, Master!” she exclaimed.

  “Bold slave,” he said.

  “Speak,” she said, “as though our pleasures were nothing, which perhaps they are, but it is clearly one of the joys of the mastery to see the effect wrought upon a slave by your attentions. You cannot tell me it is not a triumph for you, and a pleasure, to see a slave begging and pleading for more, fearing only that you will not continue, weeping with gratitude, half blinded with ecstasy, in the throes of her submission orgasms.”

  “I acknowledge,” he said, “it is pleasant to have a slave so, to have her so much in your power, to force her, if one wishes, she willing or not, to undergo such pleasures.”

  “Do you think, Master, that we do not desire such pleasures?”

  “I suppose you want them,” he said, “you are not free women. You are mere slaves.”

  “We are women, Master! We desire our bondage. We long for masters. Without them we are incomplete!”

  “So you desire sexual pleasure?”

  “We do, we do, as Master well knows.”

  “Say it,” said he.

  “We desire sexual pleasure,” she said.

  “Speak specifically,” said he.

  “I, Ellen, the slave of Selius Arconious, tarnster of Ar, desire sexual pleasure.”

  “Do you beg it?”

  “Yes, Master! Please, Master!”

  “Beg, then.”

  “I, Ellen, slave, property of Selius Arconious, of Ar, beg sexual pleasure!”

  She looked up at him, pathetically. Would it be granted to her? She was, after all, only a slave.

  “Slaves beg for such things,” he said. “It is expected of them. One thinks nothing of it. But they are not free women. They are only domestic animals, no more than worthless beasts.”

  “Free women also desire sexual pleasure,” she said.

  He smiled.

  “They do, they do!” insisted the slave. “Let them redden, and froth and deny it, if they will, but they do! I was a free woman! I know! But I did not know what sexual pleasure was until I was put in a collar!”

  “It is true you are a hot slut,” he said.

  “Yes, Master!” she said, defiantly. “But do you think those free women, brought into collars, are so different?”

  “They do learn to kiss one’s feet quickly,” he observed.

  “Of course,” she said. “All they needed was to be collared, to be owned, and mastered.”

  “It is undeniable,” he said, “that women make excellent slaves.”

  “Of course, Master,” she said. “It is what they are in their hearts, and wish to be. The sexes are complementary, two parts which together form a whole! Each is an enigma, a puzzle, meaningless, until they are brought together, each in their difference and perfection, to form one whole. Two radical differences, female and male, but one whole! Is the character of nature so difficult to discern? Can you not see it in the great themes of dominance and submission? One is bred to submit, one to dominate; one is bred to obey, and one to command; one is bred to serve, and another to rule. And the perfection of this complementarity, as societally recognized, as socially articulated, as culturally enhanced and celebrated, and fixed into the matrix of custom and legality, is the relationship of master and slave.”

  “And you are a slave,” he said.

  “Yes, Master!”

  “I think I will have you,” he said.

  “Please do, Master!”

  “But why you, and not another?” he asked.

  “Master?”

  “Are not women women, and slaves slaves?”

  “But one slave is not another slave.”

  “True,” he said, “each is exquisitely different, each wholly slave, and yet each so remarkably and preciously different a slave.”

  True, thought Ellen. Each is sold off the platform as living meat, as a property, as no more than a shapely beast, and yet each is wonderfully different and unique.

  How men search the markets for their perfect slave, and how slaves hope for their perfect master!

  “Are you an insolent slave?” he asked.

  “I trust not, Master,” she said.

  “Yet you spoke earlier — as I recall — of love.”

  “Forgive me, Master.”

  “You love me?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “You, only a slave, dare to love a free man?”

  “Forgive me, Master.”

  “A slave,” he mused. “The love of a slave.”

  “We cannot help ourselves, Master,” she said. “You own us. We are in your collars. We are with you so much, so intimately. We serve you so abjectly. We bring you your sandals. We bathe you. We kneel before you. It is on our limbs that your chains are fastened. It is you by whom we are mastered.”

  “I see,” he said.

  “The first time I saw you,” she wept, “I wanted to be your slave.”

  “The first time I saw you,” he said, “I wanted you as my slave.”

  “Master!” she breathed.

  “Not to love you, of course,” he said, “just to have you as my slave, a simple collar slut, you understand.”

  “Of course, Master,” she said.

  “But you did seem, somehow, as I recall, of particular interest.”

  “A slave is pleased,”
she said.

  “I fought my feelings for you,” he said.

  “As I for you, Master.”

  “Oh?”

  “But not well! Not successfully!”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Scorn me, if you wish,” she said, “for I am only a slave, and that I well know, but I do love you.”

  “With the love of a slave,” he smiled.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, “with the love of a slave, with the helpless, vulnerable love that only a slave can give.”

  “I see,” said he, “my pretty, nicely curved Earth slut.”

  The love of a free woman, should they be capable of love, is very different from the love of a slave. The free woman must have her respect, her self-esteem, her dignity. She must consider how her friends will view her, and the match, and what they will think of her, and say of her. She must consider her assets, her properties, and their protection. All details of contracts must be arranged, usually with the attention of scribes of the law. She must have a clear understanding of what will be permitted to her companion and what will not be permitted to him. Certainly, as she is free, her modesty is not to be compromised. All things are to be regulated with care, how and where he may touch her, and such. She has her position in society to consider, her station and status. She is hedged in with a thousand trammels and compromises, militating against her selfless surrender. The love of a free woman, then, to the extent that she can love, is beset with a great number and variety of considerations, with a thousand subtle and noxious calculations, plannings and governances. Needless to say, these several appurtenances do not enter into the ken of a slave. Sometimes a free woman, who fears that her feelings for a projected companion, to her dismay and scandal, are more intense, suffusive, overwhelming and passionate than is proper for one of her status will withdraw from the projected match. She is terrified to think of herself as, in effect, a slave. Sometimes, too, a free man will withdraw from a match if he suspects that the woman’s desires and needs are unworthy of a free woman. After all, he is looking for a free woman, not a slave, a proud, lofty, noble, free woman, one who will fulfill the customs of her station, and prove to be a suitable asset, particularly with respect to connections and career.

  So pity the poor free woman who would yield herself as a slave to her lover and does not do so, for her enmeshment in the chains of pride. And scorn the foolish free man who cannot recognize and accept, and rejoice in, the slave in a woman.

  And consider that free man who calculates so carefully the advantages of a companionship, who so carefully measures out the prospects of a relationship, as a merchant might weigh grain upon a scale. He treats the woman as an instrument to his future, and thus treats her as more a slave than a slave.

  And what of the calculating free woman, as well, she, ensconced in veils and customs, despising men as weaklings, exploiting them, though sheltered and protected by them, viewing them as conveniences, as little more, at best, than sources of social and economic advantage, save, of course, for the gratifications she derives from their torment, from delightfully arousing in them a hundred hopes and desires which she will then enjoyably frustrate.

  Sometimes a slave learns that her master is to be companioned. In such a case she must expect to be given away or sold. This often causes her great sorrow. But certainly one could not expect the projected companion to tolerate so distractive a presence in their domicile. Free women are well aware that they cannot compete with slaves; accordingly, to the best of their ability, they see to it that any such competition is precluded.

  Two more points may be briefly enunciated.

  First, some free women, disconsolate and lonely, unhappy, miserable, deprived of sex, starved for love, distressed with the numerous circumscriptions and constraints which confine them, realizing the boredom, the emptiness, of their lives, “court the collar.” Consciously, of course, they will deny this sort of thing. An example might be the former Lady Melanie of Brundisium, now collared. They might, for example, wander the high bridges at night, or frequent low markets and gloomy streets. They may undertake long and dangerous journeys, stay at unsavory inns, and so on. They might be careless with their veiling, or, seemingly inadvertently, reveal a wrist or ankle. Some might even disguise themselves as slaves, convincing themselves that this is merely a sprightly lark, unattended with danger. Perhaps they even dare to enter a paga tavern, just to see what they are like, or perhaps wander in the Street of Brands, to stroll through the open markets or slave yards, to see true slaves, chained, or caged. But how easily they might suddenly sense a narrow cloth loop passing over their head and before their eyes, what is it, and then feel it jerk back tightly, cruelly, between their teeth. In strong arms they are helpless. Soon ropes are fastened on them, plenteously, perhaps to convince them that they are now other than they were, and they are carried between buildings, and down stairs, to be left in a basement, gagged, and bound hand and foot, heavily, until nightfall, when they will be placed in a wagon, perhaps with others, to be removed from the city.

  Second, it is not unusual, a point suggested earlier, for a slave to fall in love with her master. It is quite common, in fact. I do not think this is hard to understand, her being owned, and such. The love of a slave, of course, is supposedly worthless, and so she often conceals it, as best she can. Might the master not be annoyed or embarrassed by something as unwelcome and absurd as, say, the explicit expression of a slave’s love? She lies then at the foot of her master’s couch. She kisses her chains. She kisses her fingertips and presses them to her collar. Tears well in her eyes. She fears to speak, for she is only a slave. She does not wish to be whipped, or sold. In any event, in the fertile meadow of bondage the flower of love finds a fertile soil. Even if it should be forbidden, or feared, or dreaded, it will have its way, as the spring and the tides, and bloom. What terror can this bring to the heart of the slave girl!

  “It is acceptable,” he said, “that a slave should love her master.”

  “Perhaps Master likes his slave, a little,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “a little.”

  “Your slave begs to serve your pleasure, Master,” she whispered.

  He then knelt to the side but continued to hold her wrists.

  She sensed that it was only with great difficulty that he resisted seizing her. Surely in a moment she would be put to slave use.

  But then, too, suddenly, it seemed, her entire body began to be suffused, more so than ever before, this startling her, almost frightening her, with an incandescence of surrender, of helpless heat, of overwhelming love, of total, unmitigated submission, of a woman’s desperate, frenzied need to put herself lovingly, helplessly, at the mercy of a master.

  He must have sensed this, for he smiled.

  “Take pity on a slave,” she begged. How helpless was the slave so suddenly in the grip of her need!

  “So,” said he, “in your pretty little belly, there burns slave fire?”

  She half scrambled up, half lying, half kneeling, looking up at him, her master, her wrists still held, regarding him, wildly.

  “Yes, Master” she said. “In my belly there burns slave fire!”

  “In the belly of an Earth woman?”

  “In the belly of one once a woman of Earth, but now only a branded, collared Gorean slave!”

  “I see,” he said.

  “I confess my needs! I am no longer permitted to deny them!”

  He continued to hold her wrists, keeping her from him.

  “I am yours, Master,” she cried.

  She tried to touch his face with her hands but his grip would let her come only so close, a finger’s breadth away.

  “I must touch you,” she begged.

  He then put her hands down, to her sides, forcibly, and she dared not raise them. She understood herself then, as though bound by his will.

  Her body shook with frustration.

  “Master?” she whispered.

  He tore the combs from
her hair, and her hair then, with his two hands, he cast about her. Then he put it behind her back.

  She regarded him.

  He stood. How tall, how powerful, how mighty he seemed, looming above her, before her.

  “Kneel,” he said.

  Instantly, frightened, she assumed first position.

  Now she was before him, kneeling, his, collared, slave naked.

  “May I speak?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I beg permission to go to my master’s slave ring,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “No!” he cried. “No!”

  Then he rushed upon the slave and took her in his arms and cried out “I cannot wait! I will not wait! I want you now! Now! I want you now, this instant!” He regarded the slave wildly. “I cannot even wait to get you to the slave ring!” he cried.

  “I am always at your slave ring, Master!” she cried.

  “I cannot even wait to put a chain on your neck, a shackle on your ankle!” he murmured, pressing his lips above her collar, deeply, possessively, into her throat.

  How slave she felt, desiring to be helplessly his, to be bound, to be totally mastered!

  “No, no, Master!” she wept. “Chain me! Chain me, please!”

  “What?” he cried.

  “Chain me, please, Master!”

  He smiled.

  The slave regarded him, frantic with need.

  “My love for you is a bond a thousand times stronger than a chain on my neck, than a shackle on my ankle!” she cried. “But I want the chain! I beg the chain! I crave the shackle!”

  “What a slave you are!” he laughed.

  “Yes, yes, slave, slave!” she gasped. “Your slave, your slave!”

  Then with a great laugh he swept her up into his arms and carried her lightly, helplessly, to the bedroom.

  The slave, so carried, clung to him, kissing at him, wildly, piteously.

  Then, in a moment, she was thrown on the couch, a chain on her neck, a shackle on her ankle!

  “Surely not on the surface of the couch, Master!” she cried.

  “Be silent!” he cried, and, mad with passion, cuffed her, striking her head to the side but she turned back, instantly, her mouth bleeding, kissing at his body, leaving small, bright prints of blood upon it.