Transportation

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of the novel Dancer of Gor by John Norman, one of my favourite books in the saga. Doreen Williamson, a librarian from Earth has been kidnapped and taken to that barbaric world on the other side of the sun, where she has been trained as a slave. Her training done, she is en route to her first sale:

I lay there, hooded, a new slave, trying to understand, down in my belly, what is was, truly, to be a property. I could thus come into the ownership of anyone who had the wherewithal to buy me, male or female. Too, I had little doubt that not all the men on this world could be of the nature of Teibars and Ulricks, and the guards in the house where I had been trained. Doubtless there were men here, too, if not as on Earth, men who might be fretful, petty and weak, men the very sight and smell of which I might find offensive, men whose appearance and least touch I might find literally sickening, men I might find inutterably disgusting, men who were unclean, who were cruel, and loathsome and gross, who might be hideous and frightful, men I might find myself shrinking from, almost vomiting in disgust and terror, but they would own me, as much as any other, and I would be obliged, as a slave, to bring myself warmly and unquestionably into their arms, and bring my lips obediently and hotly to theirs, to submit wholly to them, to give myself wholly to them, to surrender wholly to them, holding back nothing, to please them, fully, and intimately. These things were simple attachments to my condition, consequences of what I was. I could not change them. They were simply part of what it meant to be what I was, a slave. We do not choose our masters nor is it up to us, whether or not we will please them, or to what degree. We must strive to be perfection all ways, for anyone. That is part of what is to be a slave. In reconciling myself to bondage I had, also, to reconcile myself to this condition. It is a part of bondage. It is something which the slave must accept. Without it there can be no true slavery. I had accepted this condition, at least theoretically, verbally, acknowledging its incumbency on me, in my training. Somehow, interestingly, this acceptance, too, seemed liberating to me. It made my bondage much more real to me. Too, interestingly, in its way, it also made it seem much more precious to me.

Still, I supposed one could not truly understand what being a property was until one had been sold, and had come into the keeping of masters. Doubtless Teibar’s "modern woman," his arrogant, pretentious Earth female, as he had thought, his despised catch, would come to understand what that was. How amused he would be from time to time, I supposed, thinking of what he had done to me, the fate into which he had brought me. I tried to hate him, but could not. I wanted rather to kiss his feet. But then perhaps he did not even remember me. Perhaps he had forgotten me! Perhaps I was now alone, totally alone, on this world, having been brought here for a price, and then, having earned my coins for others, discarded, cast into the markets, set adrift in uncertain weather, on trackless seas, to vanish from sight, to disappear tracelessly, with no one noticing or caring, at the mercy of whatever course winds and currents, and fortune, and the will and interests of men, might take me. But I would never forget Teibar. I would remember him, always, even as I moaned in my dreams.

I jerked suddenly, frightened, in the manacles. I could belong to anyone, to anyone who could pay for me! Surely that was wrong for a woman of Earth! How could it have come about that I was now only a lowly slave? I had been a woman of Earth! How could it have come about then that I was now, on this world, only a collared animal, stripped and chained, at the mercy of masters? Could it truly be I here, in this cage, in chains? Had I gone mad? Could I be dreaming? But I pushed up with my tongue, straining my tongue, against the bottom of the leather ball in my mouth, fixed there so mercilessly, so effectively. I moved my lips and teeth about it. I could feel its shape and size. But I could not dislodge it. I shook my head a little, moving the chain on my neck. It was on me. I hurt my wrists, pulling against the manacles that confined them. But I could not relieve their stern clasp in the least, nor extend by an iota the tiny span their links allotted me. I moved my shoulder and thigh on the metal flooring. My shoulder was sore, and my thigh was sensitive, and perhaps red. The flooring gave us a very obdurate surface. It was very solid. It was plated, and heavy. I supposed it might be of iron. The plates, I conjectured, judging from the apparent weight and solidity of them, must be an inch thick, at least. No, I was not dreaming. It was I, here, truly, in this place, now a slave. Then again I was content. How had Teibar, and others, I wondered, have known that I was a slave? It had not been hard to tell, I had gathered. I was frightened, but, too, I knew I was where I belonged, in bondage.