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

 

Chapter Three: The Lady Gina

 

(In which we read, Fighting Slave of Gor)

 

We bid farewell (for now) to Miss Beverly Henderson, and are left to only imagine the trials and tribulations she goes through, parallel to Jason’s own ordeal that the book squarely focuses on from this point forward. The lovely Miss Henderson will re-appear briefly in a later chapter of course.

 

In her place we are now introduced to our first sight of a dominant Gorean free woman: the Lady Gina. She is Jason’s first sight as he is rudely awakened (in chains) by the vicious strokes of her whip.

 

Lady Gina appears to be the real deal. She is a professional slaver and knows her business. She understands the male psyche and appears to be an excellent trainer of silk slaves for the House of Andronicus. Her appearance is interesting.

 

A strong woman stood there, perhaps some five feet ten inches in height and one hundred and forty pounds in weight. She was breathing heavily and, in two hands, held the whip tightly gripped. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed. She was muscular and strong, but her figure was striking. She wore a leather halter and tights of black leather. Her midriff was strikingly white, and her arms and legs. There was a golden armlet on her left arm. Her hair was held back by a leather band. She wore a heavy, studded belt, tightly buckled, and heavy sandals, almost like boots, with thongs. From her belt there hung a ring of keys and a coiled chain, with a snap. On her belt, toward the back, on her right side, in a snap strap, hung a pair of steel manacles.

 

As you can see, the effect of her clothing is erotic and no doubt has a profound effect on an Earth male conditioned by his upbringing to have submissive tendencies. But as well as being sexually suggestive, the way Lady Gina dresses has an air of explicit dominance in the choice of material – leather, rather than softer, more feminine fabrics. The Lady Gina wants Jason to find her provocative, but also intimidating. 

 

As we will see in the next chapter, Lady Gina tames her men by making them fear their own sexuality. Jason will be punished every time he looks at a woman in a suggestive manner, and this is not made easy for him, for Lady Gina is dressed in a way that deliberately inflames his desire and makes him want to feast his eyes. Jason must struggle against his own responses if he is to avoid being whipped. Effectively, he has to tame himself and be complicit in the undermining of his genetic dominance as a male. The way the Lady Gina dresses therefore forces Jason to confront his sexual responses whenever he is in her presence. 

 

This is the opposite approach to the way we can imagine Miss Henderson is being treated elsewhere. She will be forced to accept and revel in her sexuality, not fear or reject it. A male slave however has to be broken in the opposite direction if he is to be considered safe enough to accompany a free woman. To the Gorean psyche, the male is a wild beast, and dangerous to leave unsupervised in the vicinity of a free woman, unless securely chained. 

 

We quickly see Lady Gina’s attitude towards soft, feminine women when Jason enquires about Beverly. Lady Gina would have liked to put Beverly under her whip, resenting perhaps her natural beauty. 

 

"Are you holding, here," I asked, "an Earth girl named Beverly Henderson?" 

 

"Slaves have no names," she said, "unless it pleases the masters to name them." 

 

"She is dark-haired and dark-eyed," I said, "very pretty, about five feet in height and ninety-five pounds in weight." 

 

"Oh, the exquisite little beauty," she said.

 

"Yes," I said. 

 

“I wish that I had been able to get my hands on her," she said.

 

Miss Henderson has, I think, had a lucky escape to not be in Lady Gina’s clutches.

 

From the moment Jason sets eyes on Lady Gina he is instantly cowed and intimidated. While maybe not ferocious enough to terrify a Gorean male, Lady Gina terrifies a man of Earth. She knows what to say, what to do, and how to switch quickly between different moods. 

 

Frightened, I lifted my eyes to those of my sturdy jailer. Her eyes frightened me. They were cruelly hard, uncompromising, dominating. Never in my life had I seen such inflexible will manifested in the eyes of a woman. I put down my head. I realized that her will was stronger than mine. I feared she would be strict with me. I trembled. I was afraid of her.

 

 

"Who is stronger?" she asked. 

"You, Mistress," I said. I had never encountered such inflexible resolve in a human being. I knew I could not begin to match the power and strength of her will, her stern character. I could only bend helplessly before it. She was totally superior to me. She was mistress; I was slave.

 

Lady Gina is amused by her own power over Earth men, and confesses that she despises them for their weakness and the way they have surrendered their manhood. She is confident in her abilities and knows Jason is no threat to her. 

 

"I have been to Earth," she said. "I have seen the males there. There are so few men among them. Is it so hard, I wonder, to be a man. Why is it that so many of the males of Earth have given up their manhood, and pretend to rejoice in their mutilation.

 

"It was there," she said, "that I learned the nature of the males of Earth, and to despise them."

 

When asked whether she requires male support while handling Jason, she declines it in an amused manner. She knows that Jason will be submissive before her. 

 

"He was asking," she said, "if I wished him to accompany me back to the cell." She hung the whip on her belt, folding back its blades. There was a small ring on the butt end of the whip which fitted over a hook on the belt. The blades of the whip fitted under a clip, also on the belt. She turned the collar on my throat, so that the metal attachment, or ring, was at the back. "I told him it would not be necessary," she said. She unslung the metal chain from her belt. "I told him you were tame," she said. She then snapped the chain on the collar. She jerked it. I was on my hands and knees, leashed. "You are tamed, aren't you?" she asked. 

 

"Yes, Mistress," I said.

 

Jason’s conditioning begins immediately. He is told that he must always kneel with knees spread in the presence of a woman

 

And he is taught to identify, and react in fear to the sound of a whip being detached from Lady Gina’s belt – soon to become a Pavlovian response in the kajirus. 

 

I heard a very tiny sound, almost inaudible, metallic. "Did you hear that sound?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "It is the sound of the whip being removed from my belt," she said. I said nothing. "You will learn to know it well," she said.

 

But Lady Gina is not cruel for the sake of cruelty. Despite the way she despises the man of Earth, she simply does what is necessary to ensure Jason becomes docile and obedient. This then, is her job, and she is very, very good at it. We sense as the chapters proceed, that Lady Gina has a liking for Jason, like some preferred pet pupil. She is prepared to reward good behaviour and good performance with treats, believing very much in the carrot and stick approach. This makes her a good slaver, capable of acting professionally, and not simply some sadist. 

 

"But I am not cruel," she said. "If you please me, totally, I may even be kind to you." 

"I will try to please you, Mistress," I said. 

"It is in my power to make your life more pleasant, if I choose," she said. "Rewards can be many and varied, different sorts of chains and cells, clothing, and of various sorts, a lighter collar, different sorts of food. I can even have a woman thrown to you." She smiled. "Or would you, a male of Earth, know what to do with one?"

 

We will see the alternative approach in the following chapters when Jason meets Gorean slave girls for the first time, one of whom is clearly a sadist towards him.

 

It’s quite possible that Lady Gina is possibly the best slaver a kidnapped man of Earth might hope to encounter. She is fair, in the context of what she has to do, and she finds time to explain to Jason what is happening and answer many of his questions. As I have pointed out before, where Gorean sexuality differs from conventional Earth based BDSM is a lack of sadism by its natural definition. Goreans can be cruel and vicious, but it is never sadism for fun, but rather to serve a purpose. The typical Gorean wishes a compliant and pleasing slave, and sees no need to hurt that slave when she is obedient. Pain and degradation only follows in order to break the slave and correct bad behaviour. Similarly we see no sign of slaves deriving pleasure from being punished. Quite the opposite. While masochism exists, it is not inclusive of a love of pain. Slaves fear the whip and with good reason. I would fear it too, and quickly, I think. In the past I have felt the whip for real in BDSM clubs in England and I really didn’t like it at all. I certainly don’t derive any pleasure from pain, and nor do Gorean kajirae, or, as we see here, a kajirus. This approach comes through heavily in my own writings, I think. 

 

When I refer to a lack of sadism, I’m talking of course about dominant man to submissive woman relations, where there is little (book) evidence of sadism. An exception to this is of course free women looking for faults in beautiful female slaves as an excuse to punish them, but that is a whole different psychological topic for another day. 

 

We see that Lady Gina repudiates her own gender, thinking of herself as being a woman who doesn’t conform to the standards of a truly feminine girl. We see that she is taller, heavier and stronger than the average woman, but there is no indication that she is plain or ugly. 

 

"You are a woman," I said, half turned from her, stung by the fierce stroke of her whip. There were tears in my eyes. 

 

"Do not insult me," she said.

 

By the end of this chapter, Jason has been lowered briefly towards a pit of sleen, and his desperate pleading not to be killed is sufficient to render him docile and compliant. Lady Gina is satisfied. 

 

"I do not understand," I said. "What is your work?" "Have you not guessed?" she asked. "I train men to give pleasure to women." I looked at her with horror.

 

Jason will present little resistance now, and his training to please free women can begin in earnest.