Read-Along-A-Gor: Fighting Slave of Gor, chapter One

 

Chapter One: The Restaurant; The Cab

 

(In which we read, Fighting Slave of Gor)

"May I speak to you intimately, Jason?" she asked.

 

It’s 1980 in New York, and university students, 22 year old Miss Beverly Henderson, and 25 (going on 45, by the style of his dialogue) year old Jason Marshall are meeting for dinner in a stylish restaurant of the kind that no students I ever knew could afford to frequent. 

 

Come to think of it, they don’t even sound like students. Jason is prone to being very serious and says things like ‘a useful instrumentality’. Miss Beverly Henderson says things like ‘some unimportant, minor differences in anatomical details are all that divide us,” when talking about gender.

 

Neither of them shows any interest in rocking on down to (then fashionable) Studio 54 and strutting their funky stuff. 

 

They are both deeply confused individuals. Jason has long harboured a deep crush on the strikingly beautiful and hormonally flush, Miss Henderson, whom he sees as a stylised Madonna figure, pure and chaste, and frustratingly unavailable (she is said to turn down requests for dates from every man on campus who approaches her, which would lead most perceptive men to assume she preferred girls, but that is definitely not the case, for Miss Henderson is of course a typical John Norman Earth Woman who, despite being incredibly beautiful, has never had sex with a man, but constantly fantasises about it). He alternates between imagining her in various states of undress with a chain collar around her throat, to mentally beating himself up for thinking such things.

 

As for Beverly, well, she has spent her time at university so far, stridently rejecting her abundant femininity, in the face of peer pressure from rather more bullish, masculine women, of the kind who don’t have to worry about Gorean slavers taking an interest in them. She lives in fear of their disapproval, convinced they can ruin her academic career (they can) and social status (also that) in an instant if she acts at all feminine. Despite this she is troubled by a series of recurring dreams and urges that she doesn’t understand. Miss Henderson is described as being:

 

‘a small, exquisitely breasted, lovely ankled, sweetly hipped young woman. She did not fit in well with the large, straight-hipped females who figured prominently in her department’. 

 

Jason goes on to say about her, 

 

‘She had extremely dark hair, almost black. It was drawn back severely on her head, and fastened in a bun. She was lightly complexioned, and had dark brown eyes. She was something in the neighbourhood of five feet in height and weighed in the neighbourhood of ninety-five pounds’.

 

Normally she dresses in male imitation gender neutral clothing, but tonight she is elegant and feminine, in an expensive dress and high heeled pumps. Jason is very impressed.

 

The opening chapter introduces us both to the characters and the John Norman templates of Earth men and women, where the man rejects and fears his masculinity, and goes out of his way to assure the woman that he isn’t a threat. The woman on the other hand is extremely defensive, picking up on perceived criticisms that don’t exist, and fears her secret fantasies. She projects an outwardly sheen of what Mr Norman thinks ‘feminism’ is – a rebuttal of the gender roles, and a fear of sex. 

 

She had asked if she might speak to me intimately. I touched her hand. She drew her hand back. "Do not do that," she said. 

 

"I'm sorry," I said. 

 

"I don't like that sort of thing," she said. 

 

"I'm sorry," I said. I was irritated. But I was now more puzzled than ever. 

 

"Do not try to be masculine with me," she said. "I am a woman."  

 

Miss Henderson has had an unsettling encounter with (although she doesn’t realise it yet) a Gorean slaver, who plans to include her in the next slave ship, after she made some unwise enquiries that she was interested in the subject of Gor and she feels that Jason is someone who can make sense of it all.

 

"Do you believe Gor exists?" she asked. 

 

"Of course not," I said. "It is an interesting fictional creation. No one believes it truly exists." 

 

"I have done some research," she said. 

 

"There are too many things, too much that is unexplained. I think a pattern is forming. Could it not be that the Gorean books are, in effect, a way of preparing the Earth and its peoples for the revelation of the true existence of a Counter-Earth, should it sometime be expedient to make its presence known?" 

 

"Of course not," I said. "Do not be absurd."

 

The apocryphal slaver commented to Miss Henderson, that 'being troublesome and displeasing is acceptable in a free woman. Be troublesome and displeasing while you may. It will not be permitted to you later.' As we often see in the various books, Gorean free women are universally obnoxious and rude to people, and this is generally tolerated by the male population, at least in polite social circles.  

 

Miss Henderson is both attracted to, and afraid of Jason, because of his apparent strength and (rejected) masculinity. He apologises for most of his male traits and tries to reassure Miss Henderson that he is a modern forward thinking man. Deep down she doesn’t want this, and many of her temper displays are meant to provoke him into some dominant reaction that he rarely displays, because he is trying very hard to be a gentleman. 

 

"What a beast you are," she said. "It sounds like you want to put a collar on me and lead me away to your bed."

 

Occasionally though, the cracks show and Jason’s true (repressed nature) come out.

 

At last she turned to face me, angrily. "What are you thinking about?" she asked. 

 

"I was considering how you might look on a slave block," I said, "being exhibited by an auctioneer who knew his business." 

 

"How dare you say such a thing!" she cried. 

 

"You asked me what I was thinking," I said. 

 

"You needn't have told me," she said. 

 

"You would prefer dishonesty?" I asked. 

 

"You are the most hateful person I have ever met," she said.

 

During the conversation, Norman’s style of dialogue alternates between a clipped and terse exchange of short sentences that verge on the ‘he said’, ‘she said’ approach. Only when the characters touch on Norman’s personal views on the sexes does the dialogue turn into a longwinded speech of sorts. You can tell when he sandwiches in his pet interests in philosophy and gender roles. 

 

As the meal progresses, the conversation serves to introduce the newbie reader to the typical Gorean themes of domination and submission, and, in a breaking the fourth wall style, has Miss Henderson confess she has met John Norman (and communicated with his agent) and doesn’t believe he is actually the author of the books, rather that he edits writings sent to him by Tarl Cabot (something that was claimed in the first three books but was dropped soon after). I paid homage to this scene in my book, ‘The Slave World’, when Cat Ambrose researches and contacts Norman’s agent. 

 

We also see Miss Henderson’s resentment of other attractive women, whom she probably views as rivals. Despite her rejection of her own femininity, she doesn’t appreciate a would be kajira any more than the next beautiful woman might:

 

"Scandalous how some women exploit their bodies," said Beverly, when we had stepped away from the counter.

 

She is referring here to the hat check girl at the restaurant who is dressed in a flirtatiously feminine style, and who responds positively to Jason’s masculinity, immediately angering Miss Henderson in the process. We shall meet the hat check girl again later in the series, for Mr Norman enjoys reintroducing former character rivals later on when the tables are turned, and that will become a recurring theme throughout the Jason Marshall trilogy. 

 

All this is a prelude to the inevitable kidnapping, of course, for the Gorean slavers have been circling the beautiful Miss Henderson ever since she made enquiries as to the nature of Gor and came to their attention. As they bicker and argue, exiting the restaurant, a taxi cab waits patiently for Miss Henderson to call it over. Unfortunately for the slaver within, Jason insists on sharing the cab. Jason is not the intended target, but he becomes one when he insists on sharing the ride. 

 

The car door locks snap shut, glass partitions slide into place and gas pours into the back of the cab. We see that Miss Henderson is as incompetent as most John Norman heroines, making the most pathetic attempt to avoid kidnapping:

 

The girl crouched forward, pressing her hands and face against the heavy glass separating us from the driver. "Please, please," she wept, "please, stop, driver! I will pay you!" She scratched at the window. "I'm pretty!" she said. "I will even let you kiss me, if you want. Let me go! Let me go!"

 

The chapter ends with Jason succumbing to the gas himself, but not before speculating on what Miss Henderson might look like with a slave ring locked about her ankle:

 

I recall looking again at Miss Henderson. I recall, as things began to become dim, the last thing in my field of vision, her lovely ankle. It would look well, I thought, in a loop and ring. I wondered what would be done with me. Then I lost consciousness.