Players of Gor - selected highlights.

We now returned our attention to the woman in the silken, shimmering robes of concealment, standing before our table. Her eyes were apprehensive, over her veil. I could see that the beating of the female slave had had its effect on her. She was breathing deeply. Her breasts, rising and falling, moved nicely under the silk.

"You do not have what it takes to be a good slave," said Samos. "You are too stupid, cold and self-centred."

"No, Master!" she said.

"You lack the talent, the intelligence of the slave," he said.

"No, Master, no!" she cried.

"Release her," said Samos.

The girl, released, turned about and threw herself in supplication to her belly before the table. She lifted her head. There were tears in her eyes. "Let me prove to you that I can be acceptable as a slave!" she begged.

"Do you realise what you are asking?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" she wept.

"What do you think?" Samos asked of me.

I shrugged. The decision, it seemed to me, was his.

"Please, Master," begged the girl, tears in her eyes.

"Do you think you can be pleasing?" Samos asked the slave.

"I will try desperately, Master," she said.

"Stand," he said.

She stood.

"Straighten your back," said Samos. "Suck in your stomach. Thrust out your breasts."

Tears ran from her eyes.

"Remember, my dear," said Samos, not unkindly, "you are no longer a free woman. You have now entered a new life altogether in which, in many ways, you are strictly and uncompromisingly controlled, but one in which, in other ways, your deepest desires and needs need no longer be restrained, but may be, and must be, fully liberated, a form of life in which you, though categorically subjected to the perfections of absolute discipline, that of the total slave, are, paradoxically, freed to be yourself."

She looked at Samos, wonderingly.

"These things may now seem hard to understand," said Samos, "but they, and their reality, if you are permitted to live, will soon become clear."

"Yes, Master," she said, gratefully. I saw that she, already, now a slave, deeply sensed the truth of his words.

Samos glanced at the dancer.

I, too, glanced at her. She was not trained. She did not know slave dance. Her movements were those of a virgin, a white-silk girl. She had not yet been taught slave helplessness. No man yet in his arms had taught her the exquisite, transforming degradations of the utilized slave, the wrenching surrender spasms, enforced upon her by his will, of the conquered bondwoman, experiences which, once she has had them, she is never willing to give up, experiences which she comes to need, experiences for which she will do anything, experiences which, whether she wishes it or not, put her at and keep her at, the mercy of men.

"She is clumsy," said Samos. He was irritated. I saw he did not wish, really, to have her killed.

A man laughed at her, as she tried to dance before him. "Her throat will be cut within the Ahn," laughed another man. Another man turned away from her, when she approached him, to have his goblet of paga filled by a luscious, half-naked, collared slave.

"Clumsy, clumsy," said Samos. "I thought she might have the makings, somehow, of a pleasure slave."

"She is trying," I said.

"She does not have what it takes," said Samos.

"Her body is richly curved," I said. "That suggests an abundance of female hormones, and that, in turn, suggests the potentialities, the capacities for love, the sensibilities, the dispositions of the pleasure slave."

I turned her over, handling her with authority, as a slave is handled.

She looked up at me.

Never before, doubtless, had she been handled like this. "Her face is beautiful," I said, "her body is curvaceous, her limbs are fair. It seems she should bring a good price."

She gasped, appraised as a female.

"But what is inside a woman is more important," said a man.

"That is true," I said. Some of the most succulent and exciting slaves I had known were, I suppose, at least compared with some of their sisters in bondage, comparatively plain in appearence. Such women constitute marvelous bargains in a slave market. They cost far less than many of their higher-priced sisters and yet, in the long run, are worth far more. Many men, upon returning home, thinking that they have bought an average girl within their means, discover instead, to their delight, that they have purchased a dream. To be sure, the matter is complicated. Slavery, for example, marvelously, subtly, tends to bring out the beauty in a woman. Many women, after a year or two in bondage, become so beautiful that they can double or triple their price.

"I think so, Master," she said.

"Now that you are a slave," I said, "it is not only permissible for you to yield to those feelings, but you must do so."

"Master!" she whispered.

"Yes," I said, "for you are now a slave."

I then bought her a pastry from a vendor. "Eat it," I told her, "slowly, very slowly. Make it last a long time."

"Yes, Master," she said.

When a woman is ordered to eat a pastry in this fashion, she knows that she is barely to touch it, and then only once in a while, with her small teeth. Rather, primarily, almost entirely, she is to address herself to it with her tongue. This puts her under a good discipline, is a good exercise for the tongue and tends to increase sexual heat. In the case of the free woman the tongue is usually something which serves rather conventional purposes, for example, it helps her to talk. In the case of the slave girl, however, it serves other purposes, as well.

"Put them all in collars," he said. "Teach them what they are for, and about. No woman is worth anything until she is put in a collar. None of them have any worth until they are made worthless."

"What do you think?" I asked the slave.

"It is true, Master," she said.

"I see that you, too, have accepted the favor of a free woman," I said.

"Yes," he said, grinning. The favor he wore was different from mine, both in border and color. In the game of Favors, of course, the favors are supposedly unique to the given woman, in pattern, material, texture, color, shape, decoration and so forth. If they were not unique in this fashion they could not act as practical counters in the game. Similarly, of course, they would be less efficient in manifesting the results of the deeper competitions involved, those competitions in which women desperately strive against one another, each to prove themselves more desirable to men than the others. Each woman desires to be more pleasing to men than the others. This is significant. It is in their nature.

"It is interesting to me that free women play the game of Favors," I said.

"It gives them a way of flirting," he said. "Too it gives them an opportunity to put themselves, in a way, at the mercy of the male, to engage in petitioning behavior, suing for his indulgence. In this it is not difficult to see a form of symbolic submission, a making of themselves dependent on his will. Too, of course, it gives them a way of testing their desirability and publicly proclaiming, or advertising, it."

"Luscious, vain creatures," I observed. I myself had earlier speculated along these lines. To be sure, the game of Favors, like most games, customs and practises, was undoubtedly complex and multiply motivated. Too, sometimes things take on additional meanings and values as they are enriched in a historical tradition or more deeply or variously interpreted in different contexts.

"It also, of course, gives them a way of establishing rankings among themselves," said the officer, "which is probably about the best they can do until they find themselves enslaved, put naked on blocks and priced."

"Do you think, in time, I might make an adequate slave?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "and perhaps, in time, even a superb one."

"That is high praise," she smiled.

"You had better wear this," I said, handing her the brief bit of cloth which she had worn about her hips. "If men see you without it, they may be stimulated, and you may be raped several times on the tiles before you manage to leave the piazza."

"Spread your knees," she said.

I did so.

"Excellent, Brinlar," she said, "indeed, excellent."

I did not speak.

"How does it feel to be a free man, but one who is in the total power of a woman?" she asked.

I shrugged. I did not really regard myself as being totally in her power.

"Am I beautiful?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"But surely you men conjecture about such matters," she said.

"I would suppose you might be beautiful," I said. "There seem the suggestions of the lineaments of a beautiful woman, particularly as you have belted and arranged them, beneath your garments."

"I like pretty clothes," she said, "and I wear them well."

"Doubtless you would be even more beautiful in the rag of a slave, or naked in a collar," I said.

"Bold fellow," she said. But I could see she was pleased. All women are curious to know how beautiful they might be as slaves. This is because all of them, in their heart, are slaves.

"I am a free woman," she said. "How can you, a free man, deny me anything I want?"

"Easily," I said.

She looked at me, angrily.

"Many free women believe they can have anything they want, merely by asking for it, or demanding it," I said, "but now you see that that is not true, at least not in a world where there are true men."

Again there seemed a great commotion beneath his robes.

Boots then, with the flat of his hands, with some force, cuffed the girl concealed under his robes. Instantly she knelt quietly. "Lazy girl, naughty girl," chided Boots. The tops of her toes, as she knelt, beat up and down in helpless frustration. "I see that I shall have to draw you forth and beat you," he said.

"Look!" cried the Bina. "She begins!"

"Oh, she does, doesn't she?" said Boots. "Oh, yes!"

"What a slave she is!" cried the Bina. "How exciting! How exciting!"

"To be sure," agreed Boots. "Ah! Yes! Ohhh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Quite! Oh! Yes! Oh! Oh! To be sure! Eee! Yes! Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Ohhhh, yes, yes, yes." Boots then wiped his brow with his sleeve.

"Has she gone?" called out the Brigella, after a time, her voice muffled from beneath his robes.

"Yes," said Boots.

The Brigella, as the Lady Phoebe, extricated herself, on her knees, from the ropes of Boots Tarsk-Bit. She turned around, still on her knees. "Tipa!" she cried in horror.

"I thought you had gone," said Boots.

"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa.

"Tipa," moaned Phoebe, in misery.

"Phoebe!" cried the Lady Tipa, in delight.

"Tipa!" pleaded Phoebe.

"Phoebe on her knees, as naked as a slave, on a public road, crawling out of a man's robes!" laughed the Bina, pointing derisively at her. "How shameful, how outrageous, how marvelous, how delicious, how glorious!"

"Please, Tipa," pleaded Phoebe.

"You are the sort of girl who should have been whipped and collared at puberty!" said the Bina.

"Do you think that all free women are no better than slaves!" she cried.

"I would suppose that women are all pretty much of a muchness," said Boots.

I slowly, carefully, piled a plate high with rolls, eggs and fried vulo strips. It had probably been a long time since Lady Yanina had eaten. She had been in the care of the brigands. She was probably quite hungry. I could always watch her feedings later, giving attention to their possible effects on her figure. That would be if I decided, later, to turn her into a love captive, or, if it pleased me, a thousand times lower, nay, a thousand thousand times lower, nay, even uncountably times lower, nay, not even on the same scale, a slave.

"I am a full-grown woman," she said, angrily. "I like to be attractive to men!"

"You dress then," I speculated, "in certain ways, in order to be attractive to men."

"Perhaps," she said, angrily.

"She who is concerned with such matters," I said, "she who dresses in certain ways in order to make herself attractive to men, she who dresses herself in certain ways in order that she may be pleasing to them, is in her heart a slave."

"Then all females are slaves at heart," she said, angrily.

"Yes," I said.

"No!" she cried.

"And they will never be fully content," I said, "until they are imbonded."

"No, no, no!" she cried. "No! No!"

I let her cry out in misery, resisting my suggestions. It was good for her.

Then she wiped her forearm across her eyes. "You distract me from the issue," she said. "The issue is my wardrobe."

"Yes," she said to him, "I am insolent! I am insolent to you! I may be insolent to you with impunity, for you are not a man! You are too weak to punish me! You are only a beast, a monster, a cringing, wretched, pathetic, ignoble, spineless monster! You are not a man at all! You are only some kind of monster, some kind of monstrosity, some kind of contemptible weakling!"

I wondered if she thought she was speaking to a man of Earth, and not a Gorean male.

"Congratulations," I said to the player.

He shrugged.

"You are pleased, surely?" I said.

"I have never even had a woman," he said.

"Try them," I said. "I am sure you will enjoy them."

"Perhaps," he said.

"They make splendid recreations," I said.

"Perhaps," he said.

"They are absolutely delicious properties," I said. "They are the loveliest thing a man can own."

"What has she to do with Kaissa?" he asked.

"Very little, I would suppose," I said.

"In my life, hitherto," he said, "I have been concerned primarily with Kaissa."

"Perhaps you could broaden your interests," I suggested.

"What should I do with such a woman?" he asked.

"For most practical purposes," I said, "she is yours. I would do with her, then, if I were you, whatever I pleased."

"That seems a splendid suggestion," he said.

"You know the sort of woman she is," I said. "Make her grovel, and grovel, and crawl, and be perfect for you."

"I will," he said.

"You were the cause of my reduction in rank," she cried. "You were the cause of my loss of status in Brundisium, my descent from favor in the eyes of my Ubar, Belnar, the reason I have been denied the right to conceal my features, my right as a free female, the reason I have been placed in brief, shameless garments, forcing me to make clear to men my femaleness, the reason I may not bind my hair, but must wear it as though it might be that of a slave, but that is all finished now. Now all changes!"

"Do they have the bodies of slaves?" Chino asked the audience.

"Yes!" shouted several of the men in the audience. It was true. Their bodies had been designed by nature to be incredibly exciting and attractive to men, and to provide men with incomparable pleasures and services.

"Note the slave bodies," said Chino to Petrucchio.

"Yes," said Petrucchio, noting them well.

"And their delicious slave curves," said Chino, bending Rowena back a bit.

"Yes!" said Petrucchio.

"No! No!" cried the girls.

"But can they move as slaves?" inquired Chino.

"Never!" cried Rowena.

"Wiggle, Lana," said Chino.

"You own me," she said to the player.

"Yes," he said.

"You are the first man before whom," she said, "I have ever willingly opened my thighs."

He looked down at her, not speaking.

"I love you," she said.

I then resheathed the blade. I then freed Yanina from the bars and threw her to the tiles before Flaminius, there having her.

"Oh, oh," she wept.

I thrust her from me. She lay near me, shuddering, trying to comprehend what had been done to her. Being had as a collared slave is quite different, in all its modalities, and however it is done, to having polite love made to one as a respected free woman. I lay propped on my elbow. I regarded Flaminius. "Your slave is not much good," I said.

"Forgive me, Master," whispered the girl. "I was terrified."

"Terror, mixing in with the other feelings of a female, can be a powerful stimulant to passion," I said.

"I now want my collar," she said. "I love it. I want to serve, and love. It is what I am."

"You are a female," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "But even did I not desire it, men would see to it that I now served choicelessly, and with perfection, would they not?"

"Do you think you can put a torch to truth?" he asked.

I did not answer him.

"It cannot be done," he said.

"Many manage," I said. Indeed, I knew a world predicated on lies and the perversion of nature. It was called Earth.