Prize of Gor

by John Norman

  I love him, she thought. I love him so.

  It had begun, of course, with anger and dismay, irritation, consternation, fascination, and then fear, when he had cuffed her about intellectually in the classroom, when he had indifferently and decisively refuted her again and again, when he had had her reeling from blows of logic and fact, until she had wanted to kneel before him and acknowledge him as her master. Many times she had dreamed that he had put her to his pleasure, mercilessly, publicly. And her fear, and fascination, had gradually turned to love and the desire to submit herself selflessly to his will. He had proved to her that he was her master. She loved him. She suspected she had always loved him. And now she was his slave, truly, on an alien world! It must be clearly understood, of course, that the relationship of master and slave, in its legal aspects, is totally indifferent to, and completely independent of, matters such as affection, caring, or love. Many masters, for example, never see the slaves they own, who may be employed in distant shops or fields, and, of course, the slaves may never see the masters who own them. So emotional relationships, of any sort, are inessential to, and immaterial to, the institution in question. What concern had the law, in all its power and majesty, with such matters? Whether he loved her or he did not, whether she loved him or she did not, did not matter. Their institutional standing was clear. They stood related as master and slave. He owned her, and she was owned. He could do with her as he wished. And so, too, of course, could any master into whose possession she might come, whose property she might find herself.

  “I think I will beat you,” he said.

  “Please, no!” she said.

  The thought suddenly came to her, however, taking her off guard, to her surprise, perhaps to her horror, that she wanted to be whipped.

  She wanted that attention, the meaningfulness of that pain. Would that not show that she was of some interest or importance to her master, that he would put the whip to her? Would that not be reassuring, that he correct her behavior, that he teach her the limits that she must not exceed, that he might take a moment now and then, whether she required it or not, to remind her, with some strokes of the leather, that she was a slave, that she was owned.

  As a slave she knew she was subject to such things. They could be done to her.

  Too, I deserve to be whipped, she thought. I have richly deserved many times to be whipped. Doubtless thousands of times. But no man has whipped me. There are so many things for which I should have been punished, but never was. On Earth, she thought, a woman is never punished, no matter what she has done, no matter how cruel and nasty, how vicious and petty, she has been, no matter how much hurt she has brought about, no matter how much injury she has inflicted, no matter how much misery and pain she has caused, no matter how many lives she may have ruined or destroyed. But here, on this world, she suspected, it might be different, at least for women such as I. Here, I have learned, she thought, I might be whipped for dropping a plate, or not having responded instantly to a command. For such tiny things I could be put as a slave under the leather.

  I am your slave, she thought. Prove to me that you are my master. Whip me. The slave may be beaten by her master. Let me learn that I am a slave. Beat me, that I may truly know I am a slave!

  He stood behind her, not speaking.

  “Master?” she asked.

  “To your belly,” he said.

  She was then prone, before him.

  “I had thought, often,” he said, “of having you before me as you are, a naked slave at my feet.

  “The war is over, for you,” he said.

  “War?” she asked.

  “Do not those of your ideology dare to use that sacred, holy, terrible word, that word for nature’s last and fiercest arbiter, that maker and unmaker of states, that creator and destroyer of cultures, singing songs of armies, and blood and steel, that ultimate and terrifying tribunal, with all the marches, the charges and rides, and the sacrifices, all the horror, all the triumph, all the glory and the shame, the tenderness and cruelty, the best and the worst, the highest and the lowest, the grandest and the most despicable, the most loved and most hated, that moment when beasts and gods look into mirrors and each sees the other, do not those of your ideology dare to use that word, that name for the most fearsome and terrible of all institutions, for its trivial, pretentious, absolutely safe, risk-free, puerile machinations, for your petty political threats, your jockeyings and maneuverings, for your sneakings about, and trickery, and burrowings from within to deprive an entire sex of its birthright?

  “Well,” said he, “if it is a war, it is one that is over for you. You have lost. You have been conquered. You have been taken and in an ancient, time-honored tradition of true war you have become the slave of the victor. You are spoils, pretty girl, understand that, and to the victor belong the spoils!

  “Fear, feminist,” said he.

  “I am not a feminist!” she cried. “Such things are behind me!”

  “They are more behind you than you can possibly now understand,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “I am on the planet Gor!” she cried.

  “Know then that you are on the planet Gor, slave girl,” said he.

  Then the whip began to rain blows upon her.

  She screamed and scratched at the marble, and turned from her stomach to her side, and back, and tried to fend the blows, weeping.

  “So,” said he, pausing, “the little feminist beneath the whip.”

  “No!” she cried. “I am not a feminist. I am a slave, your slave. Please do not strike me further, Master! Please be merciful to your slave!”

  Then, again, as she screamed, and cried, and writhed before him, he put the leather upon her.

  “Know yourself owned,” he snarled.

  “Yes, Master, yes, Master!” she wept.

  She was now a beaten slave. She had no doubts now that she was owned. She had been beaten by her master.

  He threw the whip to one side.

  “The beating was nothing,” he said, angrily. “It was not the five-bladed Gorean slave lash. You were not even tied at a ring.”

  She looked up at him in horror, from her side, bright stripes upon her body.

  “Were you given permission to break position?” he asked.

  Instantly she went again to her belly, being then as she had been before.

  “Do you think you will soon beg to give pleasures to a man?” he inquired.

  She put her cheek down to the marble, sobbing.

  “I have made you the age you are,” he snarled, “so that you will be no more than a bit of fluff in the markets.”

  He looked down upon her.

  The anklet was on her.

  “To be sure,” he said, “a bit of pretty fluff.”

  “Guard!” he called.

  The guard came forward, from near the door, where he had kept his post.

  The young man, he in the brown tunic, he who had wielded the whip, the girl’s master, indicated the slave at his feet. “This is Ellen,” he said. “Her anklet may now be removed. But first, of course, see that she is branded and collared.”

  The guard reached down and then lifted the youthful slave to her feet. She seemed dazed, and in disbelief. He permitted her to bend down and retrieve her small tunic, but not to put it on. Then he indicated she should precede him from the room, and she did so, uncertainly, stumbling sometimes, sobbing, returning to her cage.

  Chapter 11

  A SUPPER IS SERVED, IN AN UNUSUAL APARTMENT;

  SHE IS SPOKEN WITH BY HER MASTER

  “What a pretty little thing she is!” laughed the woman. “Is she to serve us?”

  “Yes,” said Mirus.

  “What monsters you men are!” laughed the woman.

  Ellen, crouching down, set forth the plates of hors d’oeuvres and the tiny glasses of sherry on the coffee table before her master, Mirus, and his guests, a man and a woman. Tutina sat nearby, in an arm chair, with purple upholstery.

  It had b
een explained to Ellen how she was to serve, how to speak, if spoken to, and how to conduct herself throughout the evening. In the adjoining room there were two guards, with their own supper. That room gave access, as well, through a short corridor, to the kitchen. A serving cart was used to bring the food from the kitchen, through the corridor and adjoining room, into the apartment.

  Ellen had been quite startled to see the apartment, entering it for the first time, for it might well have been one on Earth, in the house or mansion of some leisured, comfortable, wealthy individual. Surely it was tastefully and elegantly appointed, and the quality of the rug, the furnishings, and such, was, without being obtrusive, obvious. The oddity of it was that it was on Gor. She had been reminded, entering it for the first time, of pictures in large, glossy magazines, the sort claimedly and pretentiously devoted to the arts of gracious living, those magazines intended to supply apparently desperately desired and much-needed instruction to the ignorant affluent, informing them in what ways they might most appropriately expend their abundant resources, what should be the nature and location of their residences, how they were to be landscaped and furnished, what automobiles they should buy, the type of music and artwork which should be in evidence, what books and how many, how their pantries were to be stocked, the arrangements of tennis courts and pools, many such things. Doubtless, she supposed, serving, there must be some reason this room has been designed as it has. She wondered if it were some subtle joke, some irony. But, if it was, it had apparently been lost on the woman in the room whom she did not know. Perhaps that woman was used to such surroundings, and took them for granted, not really seeing them any longer. Generally one does not see, really see, one’s familiar surroundings. One takes them so much for granted. Perhaps, on the whole, that is just as well. But sometimes she supposed that even husbands and wives, on her old world, did not really see one another any longer, either, but simply took one another for granted, much like the walls, the furniture. Such things would be muchly different, of course, she supposed, if their relationship were to be changed, radically, for example, if the husband were to make his wife, at least in the secrecy of his own home, an obvious, explicit slave. Is that not what many vociferous proclaimers of her former ideology maintained that wives were, anyway, slaves? How silly that was, what infantile semantic slight of hand! Is there no better way to abolish the family and surrender children to the centrally designed, and centrally directed, conditioning programs of the state, the state they expected to put to their own purposes, using it, with its legal monopoly on violence and coercion, to promote their own self-serving agendas? So saying, they seemed to believe that they had manufactured an argument against marriage, refuted matrimony with a lie. But, she wondered, suppose men believed that lie. It did not follow from that, that if they should take it seriously, that they would immediately forgo their genetically conditioned proprietary inclinations, selected for in millions of years of primate evolution, and promptly terminate long-term, intimate relationships with desirable women and abolish families. Rather, might they not choose to accept that view of the matter, the feminist view, so to speak, and rearrange the institutions of society accordingly?

  Mirus, her master, indicated that she might withdraw, and so she stood to one side. For some reason she was not to kneel.

  The woman at the coffee table bantered lightly with the two men, her companion and Mirus. Tutina sat to one side, smiling. Ellen made certain she did not meet the eyes of Tutina. She stood to one side, keeping her head down. If she were to be summoned, a word would suffice.

  But suppose the husband did make the wife, within their marriage, his slave, explicitly. Then, surely, their relationship would have changed, considerably. No longer might they not really see one another. No longer could they overlook one another, so to speak. No longer could they take one another for granted. The slave cannot take the master for granted because he owns her, and she must be diligent in his service, and be desperate to please him. And the master does not take the slave for granted for he now owns her; she has now become to him a source of delight and pleasure. And if she prove momentarily troublesome she may be disciplined as the slave she is. Let her beg naked to enter his bed and serve his pleasure. And if he does seem to take her for granted, it is only that she may zealously, piteously increase her efforts to be even more pleasing.

  She supposed, serving, that such an arrangement would not merely freshen a stale marriage, not simply renew a flagging relationship, but that it would alter it utterly, transform it beyond recognition, catapult it into hitherto unsuspected, astonishing dimensions, replacing the wearying familiarities and tepid placidities of accustomed rounds and routines with a new, moving, exciting, dramatic, startling reality, replacing them with an altogether new life, one incontrovertibly meaningful, as the participants suddenly found themselves the inhabitants of a newer, deeper, more natural world, one of intense emotion and unbelievable feelings, one of perfectly clear identities and relationships, one of abject obedience and strict command, one of absolute submissiveness and uncompromising mastery.

  She wondered what might be the reactions of her former feminist colleagues if society were to take seriously their effusive, tiresome, repetitive, propagandistic allegations pertaining to matrimony as slavery, and the general position of women in society as one of being held in bondage, and decide to make them true. What would they think if they were to suddenly find it necessary to be licensed to men, or simply owned outright, as women?

  Mirus, her master, suggested that the group rise and go to table.

  The table, long, with sparkling linen, polished silver, candles and flowers, was in the same room.

  Mirus indicated that Ellen might ready herself to pour wine at the table.

  ‘Mirus’ is an extremely common male name on Gor. It is doubtless the name of thousands of individuals. Indeed, that consideration might have figured in its selection. It was the Gorean name, so to speak, of her master. His Earth name is not to be included in this narrative, no more than that name which had once been Ellen’s on Earth. The ‘us’ ending is the most common ending for a male name on Gor. The most common ending for a Gorean female name is ‘a’. There are, of course, numerous exceptions.

  Ellen poured the wine, beginning with the woman, and then Tutina, and then the man she did not know, and then her master. The order had been prescribed. The woman, surely, did not know Tutina’s status. The woman had speculated that the bandage on Tutina’s left ankle must be the result of some earlier injury, and Tutina, smiling, did not disabuse her of this plausible surmise.

  The new woman, whom Ellen did not know, had glanced at her at various times during the evening, curious, interested, but Ellen had kept her head down, serving silently, deferentially.

  After a time Mirus indicated that Ellen might serve the soup, which, she began to do, ladling it from a large tureen on a serving cart, filling the bowls one by one, and placing them on the table, in the order prescribed.

  Once, on her former world, in an officelike room, Ellen had relished being served by the hated Tutina, coffee and pastries, and had, in her manner, subtly and abundantly exploited the situation in such a way as to make abundantly clear to Tutina the servile nature of the task, and her own implicit superiority to her.

  Now, of course, Ellen must suffer before Tutina, whom she must struggle to please with her serving.

  And Tutina was not easily pleased.

  Ellen was in misery, but she had no alternative but to serve with all the perfection of which she was capable. She was in the presence of her master. Too, later she knew, she might have to face the switch of Tutina. She feared that even a drop might be spilled upon the tablecloth. The subtleties between Ellen and Tutina doubtless escaped the attention of the guests, though, one supposes, from his amused expression, not that of their master.

  Masters are often amused by such things, the small rivalries, altercations, frictions and tensenesses among their properties.

  As the meal co
ntinued Ellen continued to serve the various courses, bringing them to the table.

  At one point her master indicated the coffee table, and said, “You may clear, Ellen.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said, and went to clear the glasses, the plates and such, left earlier from the hors d’oeuvres and the sherry, from the coffee table. She referred to him as ‘Sir’, as she had been told.

  She supposed that the room might have been arranged, as it was, in order that the new woman would be pleased, and feel more comfortable, more at home. It was certainly not Gorean in style, appointments, furnishings, and such. Gorean decor varies from latitude to latitude, from city to city, and home to home, but, in general, it tends to simplicity and openness, this presumably a heritage deriving from some remote tradition.

  Ellen, quietly, deferentially, soon returned to the larger table, with its sparkling linen and elegant appointments, and, as appropriate, resumed her duties there, continuing to attend unobtrusively to the various courses. It was a lovely supper, surely, in its stateliness, gentility and sophistication, and might have been pleasantly, congenially served in almost any affluent, elegant home on her former world.

  When spoken to she would quietly and respectfully respond with titles she had been told were to be used, ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’. She used ‘Ma’am’ also to Tutina.

  She had now come to the fourth meat course.

  It might be mentioned that the diners’ clothing was elegantly congruent with their surroundings. The two men wore tuxedos. The two women wore evening gowns. It was apparently a celebration of some sort, perhaps one at the conclusion of some piece of business brought to a successful conclusion, or some piece of work that was now finished, and with which they might be well satisfied.

  In all the appointments and furnishings, in all the garmentures of the diners, and such, in all that seemed so elegant, so nicely arranged, so well fitted together, there was only one oddity, or anomaly, in the room.

  “You men are monsters,” laughed the new woman, she unknown to Ellen.