What happened to me over the past couple of months

I know I had not updated this blog. Then too, I really had nothing major to write about since I was not a part of Gor from about October, 2011 until May, 2013 due to me starting my own online talk radio show and also dealing with the 2012 elections. Now this is going to be a little long, so bear with me please.

They say that once you first learn of Gor, the tug is there and once you leave, even if only for 20 months as I had, the yearning to return is still there. As such, ever since I had thought about coming back to Gor as Richard of Laura about April or May of this year, I had initially thought of returning as a slave just because I had been a Free for some time and just thought of trying something new for a change. That and as most of you know I am a switch in the BDSM world or rather exploring both sides.

The only times I was a slave in Gor was during the online form of kajuralia (where the Free and slaves switch roles for one day) and then for about 5 or 6 days in 2006 when I was a slave within a group and they were in Port Kar over on Darker Shades of Reality. Of course, during that time there was not much for me to do as they were only on at night and not during the day. It was also during that time on Darker Shades that I was eventually freed and then a week later the person (who was really a woman roleplaying a man) had decided she did not like my RP and wanted me to submit. I told her to kill me, and she said death is too easy for me, so I just left there and took up a new name. Would I have been considered a gamer? Probably; however, as I said to kill me and she was a physician and the only “man” in the group there was no other choice BUT to do so. And besides, she had beat around the bush and I found out that she was really a woman roleplaying a man from another person. If there is one thing I do not like is hearing about things from others. If there is a problem with me or if you are not who you say you are, please come talk to me and tell me, because if I find out from another then that makes me think if you are lying about that then what else would you be lying about?

But back to April or May of this year. When I decided to come back to Gor I had talked with one and it was planned that at first I would be a slave in her private room to get myself acclimated to being a slave before actually submitting in the Gor rooms, kind of a test to see how I would do and to see if it was what I REALLY wanted to do. She had not come back around since that first discussion and so I decided to try Plan B, which was return to Gor and also open up the City of Laura over on Portal of Dreams, where I am a Lifetime Member and like what they do. So I was reading and it turns out that on their board they have a section to where you can actually claim a home in the GRP (or then Wilds) rooms. That got me to thinking and I decided to go that route, requesting two pulldowns for the North Gor (then known as the Northern Forests) GRP room and actually roleplay my way to finding the compounds to the north of Laura. From there, I would get to work on the room application and the invitation of people (some old-timers in particular) to come to Laura as members once I had the two pulldowns (the City of Laura and then the Vicinity of Laura) in place in the North Gor GRP room. I would also do a little roleplay in there to try to make things more livable in the small chunk I had for myself. About late June or Early July I finally had my home set up and at least one member, a FW Physician named Sylence Darke MacKaine, in the home with a couple of possibilities in mind. I also had a slave as well.

After that things were going fine, even if the slave had drifted away because she was not having any time with me. I had told her a couple of times that I was working on a few other things and that there were a couple of things about the city to do, but she left anyhow. Was I a fool in not going after her? Possibly, and in hindsight I knew I should have gone after her but did not.

As I was a Merchant I was known to travel to either purchase or sell some items or even open trade routes. I would also open a few trades with some of the Panther Girls along the Laurius River at the Exchange Points. Even in my own home I had the compounds set up initially for the Panther Girls to trade, as it was seen in Captive of Gor that they went as far as the compounds north of Laura OR they would enter the cities of Lydius and Laura in disguise, as had been seen in the revised editions of the books. These quotes prove such:

“Without looking back she then strode, spear in hand, from the camp, toward the dark forests in the distance.” (Old edition of Captive of Gor, Page 121)

"I had little doubt that panther girls, in disguise, perhaps veiled, in Robes of Concealment, or perhaps even as scantily clad, haughty, brazen slave girls, knowing their collars were meaningless, occasionally penetrated towns such as Lydius or Laura." (Revised Edition of Hunters of Gor, Page 193)

So based on that I had decided to only have the Compounds set up for the Panther Girls. However, someone had asked me why not have a section for the Northern Forests, which can extend for thousands of pasangs (a Gorean pasang is about .7 miles) from the Thassa in the west all the way to possibly the Voltai Mountains or further to the territory of the Red Savages (which is similar to the American Indians) to the east, so this way the Panther Girls can have a place to roam. I thought it was feasible, so I had put in 6 pulldowns (at the time) dedicated to the Panther Girls and the Forest, out of a total of 38 pulldowns in the room and most of the 38 pulldowns had to do with the Dock, the Compounds, the Riverside Camp, and even the places in the City proper. I had even added a couple of Exchange Point pulldowns so this way I can trade with the Panther Girls in my own room (but OUTSIDE of the City proper) and at the same time build up my own post numbers in the home.

About the middle of July I had talked with a lady friend and we had decided to go through that which I had initially planned about me roleplaying a Gorean slave in her private room while in the main Gor room work on a roleplay to where her character knew my character’s father and then we would have a relationship like that of Marlenus, the Ubar of Ar, and Verna, the Panther Girl and leader of her own band of 15 girls, (or even that of Arn the outlaw and Grenna, the panther scout formerly of the band of Hura which numbered 100 or more) until such a time as I felt ready for her to claim me as a slave. however, I was not totally honest with her and as such that blew up in my face. So I kept roleplaying in Laura and then thinking on other things as well, even approaching another friend who has her own room (which has an Outlaw lair and a Panther lair as separate subrooms) for a  fun capture lasting possibly a couple of days. The reasoning for that type of roleplay is because back in 2001 I had made a trip to the Northern Forest on the old AlterRealm and was captured by a Panther Band. As I was only on one or two days a week, and then only during the day, I wound up spending about 2 or 3 months as a captive. So while it was fun in a way, I did not experience the full, total feel of being a captive to the Panther Girls. So I wanted to experience it once more. Am I crazy in doing such? Mayhap so. However, one thing you have to keep in mind is that this IS roleplay and as such I choose to roleplay however I want to.

In the beginning of August things really started to unravel, as Sylence had asked me when I was going to start to court her after only a couple of months of knowing each other and interacting. While I did sense a little bit of a spark between us, it kind of started to die away at the end of July, on July 26 to be exact. It was the night before my 20 year high school reunion, which I had planned to attend and had my room already planned out. It was also the day that the plan I had with the aforementioned lady friend who I had roleplayed as a Gorean slave in her private room for a time until she claimed me in public roleplay as her slave went awry. Sylence had wanted me to entertain her, so I told her that I would after I had dinner. Well as I was looking for dinner I was thinking that she only wanted me to entertain her so she can have me under her thumb, basically manipulating things in the home as she wanted me in there all the time and not travelling. As I mentioned above, I was a Merchant so I had to be out setting up some trade routes and whatnot. So I just logged off and had dinner, then went to bed early so this way I could be refreshed for my high school reunion and possible post-reunion party. It turned out the reunion ended at 11 PM Eastern and the post-reunion party ended at 12:30 AM Eastern when I returned to the hotel room, the night of barhopping with a couple having gone awry. All the while she thought I was standing her up.

After that time I decided to try to distance myself from her as much as possible. In fact, I had heard that a close friend of mine, Siren (formerly known as Iceis the Panther Girl of Blood Moon Panther Lair) had returned to the Forest and decided to take me up on my offer of prowling the lands surrounding Laura. It was also about the time that I had developed good interactions with a Panther Girl named Ice (who I know from a chatroom outside of Gor) as well as a Red Savage turned Panther Girl (who then decided to go to the jungle and be a Taluna before returning as a Panther Girl this past Friday) named Kar’Tara. In fact, it was Kar’Tara who I had developed a good rapport and interaction with back in late June to early July when she had given me a couple of rubies in a trade and I held one of them as a pledge of friendship. In fact, I had even told her in roleplay that she and her slaves are welcome to use one of the compounds north of Laura at any time. When Siren came to Laura she had requested for a pulldown for the Blood moon Panther Lair. I said yea and had given her two of them, one for the territory of Blood Moon and another for the lair itself. Well, Sylence was beside herself and decided to go off on me on Skype. Her post on Wednesday, August 28, read that Laura was a lot more fun before I “decided to turn it into a Panther Lair.” I did not reply to her as she was 1.) snarky about it; and 2.) the pulldowns for the Panther Girls were only 8 pulldowns out of a TOTAL of 40 or so pulldowns. Now, if I had 25 – 30 pulldowns devoted to the Panther Girls then it would be a whole other story, but it was only 8 pulldowns, and they were OUTSIDE of the City proper. Then on Thursday, August 29, I had woken up at 11 PM (all the while thinking it was 2 AM due to the fact that I had fallen asleep about 6 PM) to a Skype message from Siren saying that there was a problem and that I needed to enter the home. I did not reply to her for the simple reason that I had just woken up and did not need that drama to wake up to. Then Siren sent me a message saying she was leaving. Now, with hindsight being 20/20 I should have replied to her but needed to think on things. Kar’Tara had sent me a script of what happened in the home and I could only get past Sylence’s initial post at the beginning when I got pissed off because she said that “Panthers have their place in the Forest and at the exchange points, not in the home.” Well for one thing remember that I HAD A PLACE FOR THE PANTHER GIRLS OUTSIDE OF THE CITY PROPER, WHERE THEY COULD ROLEPLAY AND MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS, AND SYLENCE COULD ROLEPLAY IN THE CITY PROPER AND MIND HER OWN BUSINESS AND NEVER SHALL THE TWAIN MEET! (forgive the bold caps as every time I think about that I get pissed off.)

After I saw what Sylence’s new friend (and possible companion or  something right now I could care less what they do) had posted in my home that it was all a part of their OWN roleplay and had nothing to do with me, I was thinking on posting on my entry page that the Panther Girls are allowed in the room and on certain pulldowns outside of the city gates unless they are disguised. I was thinking on that and then decided to approach Siren about it to let her know what I was planning. Now I had a couple of possibilities of doing so. I could either a.) go in the Northern Forests on ImagineChat as an animal and prowl her then let her know in PM what I was planning; b.) enter the Northern Forests as Rick – OOC and let her know, or c.)  enter the Northern Forests in my full Gor tags and decide to roleplay my way in there to let her know. I decided to go in the Forest in my full tags knowing that it would be risky considering I would be captured but Gor is all about taking a risk whenever you hit that button to enter the room. What I mean by that is that you take a risk of losing your character due to death or slavery every time, depending on where and how you roleplay. So I decided to enter there as Richard and try to find her. Was I a fool for doing so? Yes, but at the same time I also wanted to set things right with her as I had known her for longer than I had known Sylence and also had built a good rapport. (If you want to know what I mean by that, feel free to ask me on IM or even in a PM on the boards and I will tell you) I had roleplayed my way in and found the beginning of her territory, which she had marked on the trees in RP with a certain mark. She then asked me to state my business then drop my weapons. I did so then she said in the RP that I was taking a risk. I said I know this and was wanting to speak with her. We then went into PM and talked for a good 15 to 30 minutes about all that happened, and I told her I feel like a failure. She had said that I was a good man but that I had been made a laughingstock by a few because of HOW I act toward the Panther Girls. She had offered me a couple of things on the site she was at and then I told her about wanting to go the slave route but things had fallen apart. She then said she could do that, but even then I still harbored a few resignations as I wanted to do it legitimately. She had an idea then roleplayed a legitimate out for me, placing her spear point against my neck to where if I moved it I would be slitting my own neck and if I were to run she (and even Ice with her bow) would cut me down before I reached my weapons. Given the choices before me (either kneel and be a captive or run and wind up as a pincushion or sleen food) I chose to kneel to captivity, my name now xerxes.

A quick note before I close this out. I would have added script posts to everything involved in this, but I had lost all my past scripts and av’s in a hard drive hiccup yesterday (the culmination of which happened after my talk radio show) so I am mostly going by memory as to what had happened. Now, with that out of the way, let me say that if you have any LEGITIMATE questions about what happened or why I did what I did, please ask. If you are just here to be snarky and defame me, then just keep those remarks to yourself otherwise you will catch all sorts of holy hell from me. There are a couple of names I had permission to mention in here, a couple of names that I decided to hold back on out of respect for them and did not obtain permission to mention them, one name that I mentioned outright as the cause of my downfall, and another name I mentioned because she is a good friend. I did not get permission to mention the last two but rather chose to for the simple reason that while one was the cause of my downfall, the other has the possibility of being my recovery and chance of beginning anew. If those two people have any objections to me mentioning them, I do apologize for it but I do hope you understand why I did such.you can find me on Skype (rickbulow74@live.com) email (rickbulow74@live.com) Yahoo (rickbulow1974@yahoo.com) Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/RickBulow1974) and Twitter (@RickBulow1974) if you want to approach me privately and engage the conversation with me on this topic.