John Norman - Prize of Gor

But let me put aside such tragic thoughts.

Earth is no longer my world. Gor is now my world, a world on which I am a slave.

In Ar, times are troubled. It remains unclear as to whether Marlenus of Ar, the great Ubar, is within the city or not. One hears many things, frequently conflicting. Sporadic resistance to Cosian occupation continues. Mercenaries grow ugly. Skirmishes occur between crowds and the garrison forces, the mercenaries and the Cosian regulars, but, too, sometimes between the mercenaries themselves and the Cosians. Myron, polemarkos , strives to maintain order. Reprisals occur. Buildings are burned, stores looted. Many free women of Ar are levied for the collar, branded and sent to Cos to serve foreign masters. Some are forced to serve as naked paga slaves, belled and chained, in the taverns of what was, prior to their embondment, their own city. Slaves, of course, no more than tarsks and kaiila, have Home Stones. Even if one day Ar should be returned to herself, and her former power and glory, these women would be kept as slaves, then simply being sold out of the city. Once a woman has worn the collar, truly worn it, you see, she is forever spoiled for freedom. She can never again be truly free for she, as a female, has known the touch of masters. And many slave girls, too, are being brought to the city to content and pacify the troops. And many, it seems, are harvested for this purpose from my old world, Earth. How their lives will change! Talena, acclaimed by some as Ubara, denounced by others as traitress, is seldom seen now in public. It is said she hides within the fortresslike Central Cylinder. I do not know what will be the issue of these complex, troubled matters. Much is kept from me, of course, as I am a slave. There is a saying that curiosity is not becoming in a kajira, and yet how well the masters understand our incessant and insatiable curiosity! But sometimes I think my master keeps much from me not simply because he enjoys keeping me, tormentingly, appropriately, as Goreans see it, in “slave ignorance,” but for my safety, as well. The less I know, the less I understand, the safer, or so he deems, I will be. In the storms of war and revolution it is, not surprisingly, the animals which have the least to fear. There is a joke in Ar now, that it is a good time to be a kaiila. Too, the testimony of slaves in Gorean courts is commonly taken under torture.

I fear for the well-being of my master and his friends.

Often there seems a calmness in the city, sometimes an unnatural calmness, but I do not doubt that intrigues abound, and that dark, hot currents, calculated and violent, turbulent and meticulous, seethe beneath the surface.

How kind of my master to let me express myself, to let me tell this story, so remarkable to me, and yet, perhaps, not all that unusual or unprecedented. There is a business in women, of course. We have value. Apparently a large business. And I have little doubt but what it is excellently organized. Perhaps some of the mysterious, untraceable, coded radio signals on Earth, seemingly indecipherable, perhaps indexed to an unfamiliar language, so perplexing to terrestrial authorities, pertain to this form of merchandising, the transmission of orders, the reports of scouts, the arrangements for, and coordinates of, pickups, and such. In any event, it is clear that the ships of slavers ply the space routes. There is a road, a secret road, so to speak, between Earth and Gor. And I assure you, it is not untraveled. I know. If you are a female of Earth, and, perchance, somehow, despite all probabilities, you one day read this, despite all efforts to prevent that, despite all the efforts to keep these things from you, know that there is truly a Gor. These very words are being written in longhand, in the city of Ar, by one who was once much as you, but is now a collared slave. Know, too, proud, vulnerable woman of Earth, that you might be observed, yes, you, literally you, personally you, exactly you, you who are now reading this, observed, carefully observed, scrutinized and noted, perhaps in the bright, cool office where you work; perhaps at the beach, where you thought to tantalize men and flaunt slave curves with impunity; perhaps at the theater, you so elegant in your black dress and pearls; perhaps on the street, in your high heels and smartly tailored mannish suit, walking swiftly; perhaps going to or coming from the gym, in your shorts, your head back, your hair free, your bag upon your shoulder; perhaps while in the supermarket, in slacks, foolishly with a bared midriff, the “slave belly,” do you not know how men see that, pushing your cart, examining shelves, comparing wares, shopping; perhaps while buying gas, looking out the passenger-side window, smiling, as though innocently, delighting in tormenting the fellow at the pump with your putative seemingly carefree security and invulnerability; perhaps in quickly exiting a taxi, in your miniskirt, so strikingly reminiscent of a slave garment, did you know that, revealing a well-turned calf, a knee, perhaps even a swift, deliberately insolent flash of a supposedly inaccessible thigh.

Are you aware of these things? Surely you are. Do you know how you look to men, who see you in such ways? Perhaps. Do you know how desirable you are, truly? If so, do you live in trepidation, fearing strong hands, thongs and a collar?

Do you think these things go unnoticed, or are noticed only by weakened, helpless males of Earth, reduced and crippled, whom you secretly despise for what they have permitted to be done to them, whom to their anger you may freely, safely, insult, taunt and tease, and that without fear of consequences, brazenly displaying yourselves, delicious, provocative goods on which, culturally, they are not even permitted to gaze? Does it not serve them right? What fun for you! But then, of course, what have you to fear? You are not slaves. No. Or you are not yet slaves, not yet, not at least in a strictly legal sense. I leave aside the sense of the “natural slave,” she who in a natural world would, without a second thought, be fittingly embonded, who would find herself promptly, legally, in the collar in which she belongs.

But these thing, you see, may not be going unnoticed, or noted fruitlessly, only to the misery of the observer.

There are other possibilities, other authentic possibilities.

Remember the mysterious, unaccountable radio signals.

Someone, you see, may be watching you, you entirely unsuspecting, unaware, unwitting of this so significant a surveillance. Someone may be thoughtfully considering how you might look in sirik, that striking custodial device with its collar, the connecting chains, the wrist and ankle rings, or conjecturing, taking notes, on your likely value, as he watches you, what you might be expected to bring on the slave block, first, and then later, after having been suitably informed and trained. All your laws then, your politics, your ideologies, your legal remedies, your petty threats, your thousand devices to obtain power, to control, reduce, tame and destroy men, would be useless. Remember them, such seekings, such devices, when you are chained naked in a Gorean dungeon, collared, with other slaves, a mark burned into your thigh, waiting to be brought to the auction block.

But with you, on the same chain, perhaps prized even more highly than you, their collars locked as securely as yours, their chains clasping as perfectly, their bodies as bared, may be other women, they selected as carefully as you, quiet, gentle, loving, needful, natural women, women less removed initially from their sex than you, women who disdained to strive to be facsimile males, such monstrous transmogrifications of human reality, those to whom grotesque propagandas could not speak, those who could never bring themselves to believe the catechisms of negativity, horror and hatred, those who had no difficulty in detecting the unsatisfying special nature and hollowness, the idiosyncratic party-serving nature of diverse bromides and slogans, the lies that others would impose upon them, but who knew themselves female, even from the beginning, despite all the propaganda and conditioning, female radically and profoundly, those who even on Earth have longed to fulfill their femaleness in the service of men, men who will understand them and treasure them, but will nonetheless give them the domination they crave, who will supply the masculine to their feminine, the yang to their yin , who will see to it that they are, as they desire to be, let it be stated explicitly, mastered , wholly, and beautifully, and uncompromisingly mastered .