John Norman - Fighting Slave of Gor

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 tameness?" 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?"