~Dances on the Blocks of Ar's~GOREAN DANCES FROM THE BOOKS
"Again the auctioneer looked to the box of Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar. "Does noble Samos now care to express interest?" inquired the auctioneer. "Let them perform," said Samos.
Again the auctioneer bowed to Samos. The crowd shouted with delight. "Shall Pleasure Silks be bought?" inquired the auctioneer.
"No," said Samos. Again the crowd roared with its pleasure. The Musicians took up their instruments and, together, as three slaves, women who would be owned by men, the girls danced.
In the crowd men cried out with pleasure; I heard even gasps from women, perhaps amazingly, startled that their sex was capable of such beauty; the eyes of some of the women shone with ill-concealed admiration and excitement; I could mark the quickness of their breath in their veils; the eyes of others seemed terrified, and, shrinking, they looked from the block about themselves, suddenly fearing the men with whom they shared the tiers; I heard the tearing of a veil and heard a girl scream and turned to see her lips being raped by the kiss of a Warrior, and then she was yielding to him; the crowd went wild; here and there there was the cry of a woman in the throng who was seized by those near her; one girl tried to flee and was dragged screaming by the ankle to the foot of a tier; another woman, with her own hands, tore away her veil and seized in her hands the head of a man near her, pressing her lips to his, and in a moment, she lay, robes torn, in his arms, weeping, crying with pleasure.
Four dances the girls danced while the crowd screamed and roared, and then, at an instant, their dances ended, they stood suddenly motionless, splendid, animal, magnificent, inciting. Then they, breathing deeply, stained with sweat, stepped back on the block, and the auctioneer stepped forward.
He did not even call for a bid.
Assassin of Gor, pages 304
The auctioneer signaled to the Musicians again and once more, to the shouts of the crowd, while he held open his hand, not yet closing it, taking bids, the girls performed the last moments of Ar's dance of the newly collared slave girl, who dances her joy at the thought she will soon be in the arms of a strong master. When the dance ended the three girls, slaves, knelt in the position of submission, back on their heels, arms extended, heads lowered, wrists crossed as though for binding; Elizabeth knelt facing the crowd and perpendicular to her, on her left and right knelt Virginia and Phyllis, a vunerable, submitted flower of slave girls.
~Assassins of Gor, page 308~
Ar's Dance of passion
"'Then I will show you a love dance,' she said happily, 'a dance I learned in the WalledGardens of Ar.'
'I should like that,' I said, and, as I watched, Talena performed Ar's strangely beautiful dance of passion.
She danced before me for several minutes, her scarlet dancing silks flashing in the firelight, her bare feet, with their belled ankles, striking softly on the carpet. With a last flash of the finger cymbals, she fell to the carpet before me, her breath hot and quick, her eyes blazing with desire. I was at her side, and she was in my arms. Her heart beat wildly against my breast. She looked into my eyes, her lips trembling."
~Tarnsman of Gor, Pg. 135~
Alyena Learns Dance
"'Yes, pretty Alyena,' I said to her, 'I will have you taught to dance, for in your belly is slave fire.'
Alyena, in dancing, sensed the power of Ibn Saran. It is not difficult for a female dancer, lightly clad, displaying her beauty, to detect where among those who watch her lies power. I am not sure precisely how this is done. Doubtless, to some extent, it has to do with richness of raiment. But even more, I suspect, it has to do with the way in which they hold their bodies, their assurance, their eyes, as they, as though owning her, observe her. A woman finds herself looked upon very differently by a man who has power and one who does not. Instinctively, of course, to be looked upon by a man with power thrills a woman. They desire, desperately, to please him. This is particularly true of a slave girl, whose femaleness is most shamelessly and brazenly bared. Ibn Saran, languid, observed the dancer. His face betrayed no emotion. He, sipped his hot black wine.
Alyena threw herself to the floor before him, moving to the music. I saw her turn, and twist, and writhe, and move, and, on her belly, hold out her hand to him.
Her lessons, which had been intensive, once we had arrived at the Oasis of Nine Wells, had cost little, and had, in my opinion, much increased her value, doubling or tripling it. T'he modest cost of the lessons had been, in my opinion, an excellent investment. My property had now increased, considerably, in value. But most credit, surely, had to go to the girl herself. With fantastic diligence had she applied herself to her lessons, and practices. Even so small a thing as the motion of the wrist she had practiced for hours.
Her teacher was a cafe slave girl, Seleenya, rented, from her master; her musicians were a flutist, hired early, and, later, a kaska player, to accompany him.
Once I saw her, naked, covered with sweat and bangles, in the sand.
'Have you had to beat her often?' I asked Seleenya. 'No,' said the slave girl. 'I have never seen a girl so eager,' she said. 'Play,' said I to the musicians.
They played, until I, by lifting a finger, silenced them. At the same time, too, Alyena froze in the sand, her right hand high, left band low, at her hip, her head bent to the left, eyes intent on the fingers of her left hand, as though curious to ' see if they would dare to touch her thigh; then she broke the pose, and threw back her head, breathing deeply. There was sand on her ankles and feet; perspiration ran down her body.
I motioned her to her feet. I signaled the musicians. She danced.
I observed her. I thought it not unlikely this slave might stir the interest of a man of means.
'Resume your practices,' I told her.
The musicians began again, and again the girl danced. It was superb. And it was incredible.
She did not yet know she was a true slave. What a little fool she was. I watched her move.
She smiled at me, disdainfully. I considered her blond hair, now wild about her head as, suddenly, she entered into a series of spins. Her gaze focused to the last moment on a spot across the room from her, and then, suddenly, on each spin, her head snapped about, and sheagain found the focus. Then she finished the spins, and froze, hands over her head, body held high, stomach in, right leg flexed and extended, toes only touching the floor. Then she was again in basic position. Her white skin, in itself, in the Tahari, would bring a good price. Blond hair and blue eyes, too, in this region, made her a rare specimen. But beyond these trivialities, though of considerable commercial import, was the fact that she was beautiful, both in face and figure.
Behind me, as I thrust apart the beads, I heard the pounding of the drum, the kaska, the silence, then the sound, as the flutist, his hands on her body, to the sound of the drum, instructed the girl in the line-length and intensity of one of the varieties of pre-abandonment pelvic thrusts.
'Less,' he said. 'Less. There must be more control, more precision. You are being forced to do this, but you are holding back. You are angry. This must show in your face.'
'Please do not touch me so, Master,' she said.
"Be silent,' he said to her. 'You are slave.'" ~Tribesmen of Gor, pages. 100 - 104~
Phyllis' Belt Dance
"I observed Phyllis Robertson performing the belt dance, on love furs spread between the tables, under the eyes of the Warriors of Cernus and the members of his staff. The music was wild, a melody of the delta of the Vosk. The belt dance is a dance developed and made famous by Port Kar dancing girls.
The belt dance is performed with a Warrior. She now writhed on the furs at his feet, moving as though being struck with a whip. A white silken cord had been knotted about her waist; in this cord was thrust a narrow rectangle of white silk, perhaps about two feet long. About her throat, close fitting and snug, there was a white-enameled collar, a lock collar. She no longer wore the band of steel on her left ankle.
Phyllis Robertson now lay on her back, and then her side, and then turned and rolled, drawing up her legs, putting her hands before her face, as though fending blows, her face a mask of pain, of fear.
The music became more wild.
The dance receives its name from the fact that the girl's head is not suppose to rise above the Warrior's belt, but only purists concern themselves with such niceties; wherever the dance is performed, however, it is imperative that the girl never rise to her feet.
The music now became a moan of surrender, and the girl was on her knees, her head down, her hands on the ankle of the Warrior, his sandal lost in the unbound darkness of her hair, her lips to his foot.
In the next phases of the dance the girl knows herself the Warrior's, and endeavors to please him, but he is difficult to move, and her efforts, with the music, become ever more frenzied and desperate.
The belt dance was now moving to its climax and I turned to watch Phyllis Robertson. Under the torchlight Phyllis Robertson was now on her knees, the Warrior at her side, holding her behind the small of the back. Her head went farther back, as her hands moved on the arms of the Warrior, as though once to press him away, and then again to draw him closer, and her head then touched the furs, her body a cruel, helpless bow in his hands, and then, her head down, it seemed she struggled and her body straightened itself until she lay, save for her head and heels, on his hands clasped behind her back, her arms extended over her head to the fur behind her. At this point, with a clash of cymbals, both dancers remained immobile. Then, after this instant of silence under the torches, the music struck the final note, with a mighty and jarring clash of cymbals, and the Warrior had lowered her to the furs and her lips, arms about his neck, sought his with eagerness. Then, both dancers broke apart and the male stepped back, and Phyllis now stood, alone on the furs, sweating, breathing deeply, head down."
~Assassin of Gor, Pgs. 185 - 188~
~Buy me, Master ~
There were now some four or five girls in the circle. ; One wore a sign that said, "I am for sale."The girl who wore the sign, "I am for sale," danced before us, as she had before others, displaying her Master's proffered merchandise. ; I saw that she wanted to be purchased. that was obvious in the pleading nature of her dance. ; Her Master was perhaps a dealer, and one, as are many, who is harsh with his stock. ; Her dance, thusly, was rather like the "Buy me, Master" behavior of a girl on a chain, the "slaver's necklace," or in the market, the sort of behavior in which she begs purchase. ; A girl on such a chain, or in a market, who is to much passed over has reason for alarm. ; Not only is she likely to be lowered on the chain, perhaps even to "last girl," which is demeaning to her, and a great blow to her vanity, but she is likely to be encouraged to greater efforts by a variety of admonitory devices, in particular, the switch and whip. ; Earth-girl slaves brought to Gor, for example, are often, particularly at first, understandably enough, I suppose, afraid to be sold, and accordingly, naturally enough, I suppose, sometimes attempt, sully in subtle ways, to discourage buyers, thereby hoping to be permitted to cling to the relative security of the slaver's chain. ; Needless to say, this behavior is soon corrected and, in a short time, only to eager now to be off the slaver's chain, they are displaying themselves, and proposing themselves, luscious, eager, ready, begging merchandise, to prospective buyers.
The girl for sale was a short legged brunet, extremely attractive. I considered buying her, but decided against it. This was not the time for buying slaves. I gestured to her to dance on. She whirled away. A tear moved diagonally down her cheek.
She might, of course, not belong to a dealer.
There are many reasons why a master might put his girl, or girls, up for sale, of course. ; He might wish, for example, if he is a breeder, to improve the quality of his pens or kennels, trying out new blood lines, freshening his stock, and such. ; He might wish, casually, merely to try out new slaves, perhaps ridding himself of one to acquire another, who may have caught his eye. ; Perhaps he wants to keep a flow of slaves in his house, lest he grow to attached to one, always a danger. ; Too, of course, economic considerations sometimes become paramount, these sometimes dictating the selling off of chattels, whose value, of course, unlike that of a free woman, constitutes a source of possible income. ; Indeed, there are many reasons for the buying and selling of slaves, as there are for other forms of properties.
I continued to watch the female, the sign about her neck dance. ; No, I said to myself, it would not do to bring her into peril. ; Then I chastised myself for weakness. ; One would not wish to purchase her, of course, because she might constitute encumbrance. ; Still, she was attractive. Even as I considered the matter she received a sign from a fellow, her Master, I suppose, and she tore open her silk, and danced even more plaintively before one fellow and then another. She seemed frightened. ; I suspected she had been warned as to what might befall her ifs he should prove unsuccessful in securing a buyer. ; I saw her glance at her Master. ; His gaze was stern, unpitying, She danced in terror.
I saw that the girl with the sign about her neck had taken a leaf from the book of the blonde, and cunningly, too. ; She, too was now on her knees, advertising her charms, attesting mutely to the joys and delicacies that would be attendant upon her ownership. ; I saw her owner look at her, startled. She, of course, did not see him. I gathered he had never seen her in just this fashion or way before, her silk parted, writhing on her knees, kissing, lifting her hands, her head moving, her hair flung about. ; "I will buy her!" called a fellow. "How much do you want?" inquired another, eagerly. ; her Master rushed into the circle. ; "Close your silk, lascivious slut!" he ordered her. ; Swiftly she clutched the silk about her, startled, confused, kneeling small before him. ; He looked about, angrily. ; He jerked her by one arm to her feet. She struggled to keep her silk closed with the other hand. ; "She is not for sale!" he said. ; He then drew her rapidly from the light, into the darkness outside the circle. ; We heard a tearing of silk. ; There was much laughter.
Magicians of Gor, pgs. 43-47
Dance of the six Thongs
"You may dance, Slave," I told her.It was to be the dance of the six thongs.
She slipped the silk from her and knelt before the great table and chair, between the other tables, dropping her head. She wore five pieces of metal, her collar and locked rings on her wrists and ankles. Slave bells were attached to the collar and the rings. She lifted her head, and regarded me. The musicians, to one side, began to play. Six of my men, each with a length of binding fiber, approached her. She held her arms down, and a bit to the sides. The ends of six lengths of binding fiber, like slave snares, were fastened on her, one for each wrist and ankle, and two about her waist; the men, then, each holding the free end of a length of fiber, stood about her, some six or eight feet from her, three on a side. She was thus imprisoned among them, each holding a thong that bound her....
Sandra then, luxuriously, catlike, like a woman awakening, stretched her arms.
There was laughter.
It was as though she did not know herself bound.
When she went to draw her arms back to her body there was just the briefest instant in which she could not do so, and she frowned, looked annoyed, puzzled, and then was permitted to move as she wished.
I laughed.
She was superb.
Then, still kneeling, she raised her hand, head back, insolently to her hair, to remove from it one of the ornate pins, its head carved from the horn of kailiauk, that bound it.
Again a thong, this time that on her right wrist, prohibited, but only for an instant, the movement, but inches from her hair.
She frowned. There was laughter.
At last, sometimes immediately permitted, sometimes not, she had removed the pins from her hair. Her hair was beautiful, rich, long and black. As she knelt, it fell back to her ankles.
Then, with her hands, she lifted the hair again back over her head, and then, suddenly, her hands, by the thongs were pulled apart and her hair fell again loose and rich over her body.
Now, angrily, struggling, she fought to lift her hair again but the thongs, holding apart her hands, did not permit her to do so. She fought them. The thongs would permit her only to wear her hair loosely.
Then, as though in terror and fury, as though she now first understood herself in the snares of a slave, she leaped to her feet, fighting, to the music, the thongs.
The dancing girls of Port Kar, I told myself, are the best on all Gor.
Dark and golden, shimmering, crying out, stamping, she danced, her thonged beauty incandescent in the light of the torches and the frenzy of the slave bells.
She turned and twisted and leaped, and sometimes seemed almost free, but was always, by the dark thongs, held complete prisoner. Sometimes she would rush upon one man or another, but the others would not permit her to reach him, keeping her always beautiful female slave snared in her web of thongs. She writhed and cried out, trying to force the thongs from her body, but could not do so.
At last, bit by bit, as her fear and terror mounted, the men, fist by fist, took up the slack in the thongs that tethered her, until suddenly, they swiftly bound her hand and foot and lifted her over their heads, captured female slave, displaying her bound arched body to the tables.
There were cries of pleasure from the tables, and much striking of the right fist on the left shoulder.
She had been truly superb.
Then the men carried her before my talbe and held her bound before me. "A slave," said one.
"Yes," cried the girl, "slave!"
The music finished with a clash.
The applause and cries were wild and loud.
I was much pleased.
~Raiders of Gor, page 228~
Dance of An Earth Girl
I watched Aemilianus' slave emerging from the kitchen. I listened to the unobtrusive music of the musicians, who were sitting on a rug a few feet in front of, and to the left of, the table. I took another sip of the black wine.The voluptuous blond slave began to lower certain of the lamps.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"Forgive me, Master," she said. She then hurried again to the kitchen. As she had done this work the light in the room was romantically softened, but an area, soft as well, of greater illumination had been left before the table. When she had left the room, the musicians, too, had stopped playing. This seemed interesting.
The blond slave of Aemilianus then re-entered. She placed a large, folded square of sparkling white linen at the bottom of the table. She then lit a wide, large, low candle and placed this candle, on a plate, on the soft, wide square of folded linen. She then withdrew to the side.
I looked at the white linen, and the candle, in the half darkness.
I was startled.
What memories this stirred in me!
The musicians then began to play, softly. The girl emerged from the kitchen.
There were sounds of pleasure, and surprise, from those about the table.
The dark-haired girl, exquisite and lovely, stood in the light, on the tiles, back from the foot of the table, that we might well see her. Her hair was drawn severely back on her head. She wore what seemed to be a svelte, satin, off-the-shoulder, white sheath gown. Twisted about her feet, over and under, were golden straps.
The girl then turned gracefully before us, displaying the garments. I saw that her hair, severely drawn back on her head, was fastened behind the back of her head in a bun. I had known it would be. I had not forgotten.
The girl, then, to the music, moved gracefully, turning, her bands held out, about the table, displaying herself and her garments for us. She then returned to her place on the tiles, at the foot of the table.
I regarded her. How beautiful she was! She looked at me. Then, gracefully and decisively, to the music, she unbound her hair.
There was applause for this at the table, the gentle striking of left shoulders, for she had done it well, and the significance of a woman's unbinding her hair before a man is well understood on Gor.
She then, reaching to the left side, beneath her arm, of what seemed to be a white sheath gown, undid a fastening, and then others, at the side of her body, her waist, her thigh, and knee, and then, gracefully, the Gorean music unobtrusive but melodious in the background, removed the garment. I saw then that a rectangle of white cloth, cleverly tucked and sewn, had been used to simulate the off-the-shoulder, white sheath gown on Earth. Such an actual gown, of course, had not been available to her on Gor.
There was gentle, appreciative applause.
She now stood before us in what seemed to be a brief, silken, off-the-sboulder slip.
The girl then sat on the tiles before us, but back a bit, where we, sitting cross-legged at the low table, could well see her. She extended her right leg, gracefully. It was flexed and, as her foot was placed fully upon the floor, her toes were pointed. These two things, respectively, curved her calf deliciously and extended the line of her beauty. Her left leg was back, its ankle beneath her right thigh. She looked at me, and then, bending forward, removed the golden straps wound about and under her right foot. In the restaurant she bad worn golden pumps, with wisps of golden straps. She looked at me. Well did she, and the others, know the significance of removing footwear before a free man. She cast aside the straps she had taken from her right foot. Then, putting her hands back, swiftly and smoothly, beautifully, to the music, without rising, she changed her position on the tiles. Her left thigh now faced me. Her left leg was now gracefully extended, flexed and toes pointed. Her left thigh, and calf, and ankle and foot were marvelous. Her right fcot, as her left previously had been, was back, the right ankle now beneath her right thigh. She then removed the golden straps from her left foot, and cast them aside. She looked at me. She had bared her feet before a free man. The golden straps she had used to simulate the footwear which she had worn on Earth were golden binding straps. They were the nearest thing she could find, within her limited resources, I gathered, to what she had worn in the restaurant. I did not object. They resembled somewhat, and well suggested, that footwear. Such straps, incidentally, are commonly used to bind the hands and feet of women.
There was gentle applause for the girl, and murinurs of appreciation. The footwear had been well removed.
She then rose to her feet and stood again before us, but now barefoot upon the tiles.
She then reached again to her left side, and undid a fastening there, below her left arm, and then another below it, and then one at her hip. She then unwrapped the brief sliplike garment from her body, and dropped it to one side.
The brassiere had been simulated cleverly with soft white silk. Her beauty, soft, and almost as though protesting its confinement, strained against this silk. Too, between her breasts, this silk had been twisted and knotted, this making even more evident the sweet contours of her beauty, and the sturdy, silken restraint placed upon it. The panties, too, were simulated with white silk, which, in a narrow rectangle, had been wrapped twice about her hips and tucked in at her waist. There was no nether closure to this silk, of course. The Gorean slave girl is not permitted to shield her intimacies without the explicit permission of her master.
Besides these two garments, intended, respectively, to suggest the brassiere and panties of an Earth girl, she still wore, of course, the light, narrow white scarf, this twisted and wound twice about her throat, the ends thrown over her left shoulder.
The girl then, to the music, put back her head and put her hands behind her back, and, reaching high behind her back, this lifting her breasts beautifully, strained for a moment, and then, one by one, twisting slightly, undid the hooks on the confining, tight silk.
Our eyes met.
The silk was then dropped to one side, "Superb," said Glyco.
She then reached to the white scarf on her throat and, beautifully, to the music, undid it one turn. She then, to the music, drew it beautifully, slowly, from her throat, and,
gracefully, dropped it to one side. She wore, of course, now revealed, a close-fitting, gleaming slave collar.
She lifted her head, and, with her fingers, delicately indicated and displayed the collar.
She then stood before us as a barefoot, half-naked, collared slave.
Gorean applause, and murmurs of appreciation, greeted this aspect of her performance.
Our eyes met again.
She then reached with her right hand to her waist and undid the tuck in the silk which was wrapped about her hips. Slowly and beautifully then, to the music, with both hands, she unwound the silk, and then dropped it to the tiles.
"Superb!" said Glyco.
She then crawled to me, on her hands and knees, her head humbly down. Then, when she reached me, she lowered herself to her belly and, extending her right hand, touched me on the knee. She lifted her head. "You are my master," she said, "and I am your slave, and I love you!"
~Guardsman of Gor, page 247~
An Earth Girl "DOREEN" Dances before Men of Gor
"'You will begin at the beginning,' he said. 'You will perform the entire dance, from beginning to end, for us.'
'Please, no,' I said. I could riot stand the thought, the terrifying thought, of putting myself, in the beauty of dance, before men such as these. I could not even dream of letting such men see me dance. It was utterly unthinkable. I had not even dared to show myself thusly to common men, to banal, safe, inoffensive, trivial, conquered men, men of the sort with whom I associated, men of the sort I knew. Who knew what they might think, how they might be tempted to act, what they might be prompted to do?
The piece was excellent, in its melodic lines, its moods, and shifts. It was one of my favorites. But never before had I danced to it in terror. Never before had I danced to it before men. Then it finished in a swirl and I spun and sank to my knees before them, my head down, my hands on my thighs, in a common ending position for such a dance. Never before, however, I think, had I been so suddenly and deeply struck with the meaning of this ending position, it following the beauty of the dance, its presentation of the dancer in a posture of submission."
~Dancer of Gor, pages 32-33~
~A former lure girl's placatory Dance~
There are many forms of placatory dances which are performed by female slaves. ; Some of these tend to have rather fixed forms, sanctioned by customs and tradition. ; such as the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. ; Some form of placatory dance is usually taught to the girl in slave training. ; There is no telling when it might be needed. ; Though I had had, because of the relatively advanced state of my dancing skills, for a new slave, very little instruction in dance in the house of my first training, I had been taught at least that much. ; The form of placatory dance taught to a girl usually depends on the girl in question. For example, I had not been taught the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. ; It had been felt that the nature of my body lent itself to a more desperate , needful, lascivious form of dance. ; I had been taught how to dance on my knees, for example, and supplicatingly, on my back, and belly. ; Most placatory dances, however, are not fixed-form dances, but are "free" dances, in which the slave exquisitely alert to the nuances of the situation, the particular Master, the nature of his displeasure, the gravity of her offense, and such, improvises, doing her best to assuage his anger and beg his forgiveness, to reassure him of the authenticity of her contrition and the genuineness of her desire to do better.
"Hot Sand will do, Master," I said, "and chains in which my limbs are enclosed."
"Yes," he said.
I saw I did not need to fear him, save in the ways any slave must fear a Master.
I danced then to those whose eyes were hardest. ; Some of them were not even men I had trapped, but only men who knew what I had done. ; Some may have been as innocent as those I had lured; others might have been murders and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiration of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my Master, at the payment of a prisoners fee, by the writ of a praetor or, in more desperate cases, by the order of a quaestor. ; I danced abjectly. ; I danced piteously. ; I danced beggingly. ; I danced as well as I could. ; I could not do more. ; They would either be pleased or not. ; My fate was in their hands.
"She is pretty," said one of them.
-
"Yes," said another.
Hope sprang again high within me. ; I sought them to move another, with my helplessness, and the pleas of my body.
"Are you a good slave lay?" asked a man.
"It is my hope that I am pleasing, Master," I said. ; "Surely I shall endeavor to be so."
He grinned.
"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum.
"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owned his chaining to me.
I began to be conscious then, as I sometimes was, of the incredible power of the female slave, of how helpless men could be before her, and of what she could do to them.
"Ah," said one of the men, softly, watching.
I repeated the movement.
"Yes," said another man. ; "Yes!" said another.
How paradoxical I thought, that she who is branded, and collared, and owned, is nothing, should have such power!
"Dance, slut, dance!" said a man.
And then again I danced, helplessly, piteously, suing for their favor, striving desperately to be found pleasing. ; In the end the power belongs to the master, totally, and not to the slave. ; She is his.
"Excellent," said a man. "Excellent."
I danced.
-
I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no collar has been locked on it in the night. ; How could she, a free woman, have such a dream? ; What could it mean? ; And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? ; She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. ; The familiar surroundings reassure her. ; She has had such dreams before. ; What could they mean? ; Nothing, of course. ; Nothing! Such dreams must be meaningless! ; They must be! but what if they were not? ; She shudders. Perhaps she then, in her long silken gown, curls up, frightened, at the foot of her bed. ; What, too, could that mean? ; She does not know. ; Surely that, too, means nothing. But what if it did? She lies there, troubled, but somehow comforted, somehow secure, in that position. ; It seems to her, somehow, that that is where she belongs.
"Superb," said a man.
I saw now that they, or most of them, were pleased. ; I sensed now that I might be spared, at least if I pleased them, too, well enough in the sand. ; I had lured many of them, but now I danced before them, to please them, begging for my life, danced before them helplessly, at their mercy, submitted and dependent on their favor, for my very life, as much as thought I might be their own slave. ; I saw to my joy, coming gradually to understand it that they, or surely most of them, would accept this, my beauty, my submission and service, abject and total, in lieu of my blood. ; It would be vengeance enough for them. ; How mighty they were, and kind! ; To be sure, I would have to continue to show them perfections of slave service and total deference. ; How grateful I was to he whom I had most feared, he who was lost upon the chain, he who had given me this eagerly embraced opportunity to save my slave's hide! ; But it was he, of all of them, who had refused to watch me dance. ; He stood with his back turned to me, his back straight, his arms folded, looking away. ; Many times I had danced to him, moving behind him in the and, but he did not turn. ; he did not deign to glance upon me. ; Then, near the end of my dance, as it approached its climax, I was on my kneels in the sand, writhing, bending forward until my hair was in the sand, bending ; back then, expressing the bow of my body, my thighs, my belly, my breasts and throat to them, my hands inviting attention to them, my hair back in the stand, and then I straightened, and then was on my back, and bellly, twisting and moving, lifting my hands to them, begging for favor, piteously suing for mercy. ; Such things I had been taught as long ago as the house of my first training, but I think, truly, even had I not had such training, I would, in the circumstances, have done much the same. ; Perhaps as instinctual in a woman. ; I had, when owned by Gordon, the musician, once seen a former free woman, new to her collar, in an alley in Samnium, performing so for a Master, he with the whip in hand, encouraged her to adequacy. ; She did well, She, shuddering, half in shock, learned that she would be spared, at least for the time. ; He then began to instruct her in how to give pleasure to a man. ; She attended fearfully, and well, to her lessons.
At the end of my dance, I was on my knees again, behind him. ; I lifted my hands to him. "Master, please!" I begged. ; "Look upon me!" But he did not turn.
With a cry of joy the men surged about me. I was lifted by my upper arms and flung back in the sand. ; My legs were lifted up, my knees bent. My wrist chain was pulled forward and thrust over and behind my feet. ; It was then jerked up, behind me. ; I could not move my hands from my sides. ; I was helpless. ; My ankles, each in the grip of one man, were pulled apart, until my ankle chain, its links straightened, permitted no further extension. ; My opened tunic was thrust back on both sides. ; I, half submerged in the sand, put my head back, looking up, and back. I could see the figures, and the palanquin, seemingly small, seemingly far above me, seemingly far away from me on the ridge. ; I thought my Master, Ionicus, of Cos, might be looking for me, through the lorgnon. "Oh!" I cried, suddenly as the first of them put me to his pleasure.
Dancer of Gor, pgs. 333-335
The Love Dance
of A Newly collared girl
I turned to the musicians. "Do you know," I asked, "the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?"
"Port Kar's?" asked the leader of the musicians.
"Yes" I said.
"Of course," said he.
I had purchased more than marking and collars at the smithy.
"On your feet," boomed Thurnock to Thura, and she leaped frightened to her feet, standing ankle deep in the thick pile rug.
At a gesture from Clitus, Ula, too, leaped to her feet.
I put ankle rings on Midice, and then slave bracelets. And tore from her the bit of silk she wore. She looked at me with terror.
I lifted her to her feet, and stood before her.
"Play," I told the musicians.
The Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl has many variations, in the different cities of Gor, but the common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master.
The musicians began to play, and to the clappings and cries of Thurnock and Clitus, Thura and Ula danced before them.
"Dance," said I to Midice.
In terror the dark-haired girl, lithe, tears in her eyes, she so marvelously legged, lifted her wrists.
Now again Midice danced, her ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time her ankles were not as though chained, nor her wrists as though braceleted; rather they were truly chained and braceleted; she wore the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not think she would now conclude her dance by spitting upon me and whirling away.
She trembled. "Find me pleasing," she begged.
"Do not afflict her so," said Telima to me.
"Go to the kitchen," said I, "Kettle Slave."
Telima turned and, in the stained tunic of rep-cloth, left the room, as she had been commanded.
The music grew more wild.
"Where now," I demanded of Midice, "is your insolence, your contempt!"
"Be kind!" she cried. "Be kind to Midice!"
The music grew even more wild.
And then Ula, boldly before Clitus, tore from her own body the silk she wore and danced, her arms extended to him.
He leaped to his feet and carried her from the room.
I laughed.
Then Thura, to my amazement, though a rence girl, dancing, revealed herself similarly to the great Thurnock, he only of the peasants, and he, with a great laugh, swept her from her feet and carried her from the room.
"Do I dance for my life?" begged Midice.
I drew the Gorean blade. "Yes," I said, "you do."
And she danced superbly for me, every fiber of her beautiful body straining to please me, her eyes, each instant, pleading. trying to read in mine her fate. At last, when she could dance no more, she fell at my feet, and put her head to my sandals.
"Find me pleasing," she begged. "Find me pleasing, my Master!"
I had had my sport.
~Raiders of Gor, page 115~
Elinor Dances the madness of her need
chained under the three moons of Gor
Rask of Treve Indicated me. "Chain her," he said "under the moons of Gor."
"Come, Girl," said the guard.
I followed him.
I could now see the moons, beginning to rise over the points of the palisade.
What did I care that the girl, Talena, was tonight sent to the tent of Rask of Treve?
I hated him!
I hated her even more than him!
I wished the guard had not taken my clothes.
But when a girl is chained under tie moons of Gor, she is chained naked.
I did not understand their intention.
I lay back in the grass. I felt it with my hands. I closed my eyes. I smiled.
I was furious of course, with what he had done to me, but also, I could not have helped responding to him as I has. He had, cruelly, mercilessly, unfairly, giving me no option, elicited from me the fantastic depths of sensation of which I had not even realized my body was capable. His touch as that of a master, had commanded my body, totally, and I had swum in sensation, clutching him, fearing that I might drown with pleasure in his arms. Laugh if you will, but I could call him nothing but "Master." Do not scorn me nor mock me until you yourself, perhaps on some distant world someday wear a collar, until you, yourself as a slave have known the touch of such a man as Rask of Treve…………
I wept.
I threw myself against the chain, running toward his tent, and fell in the grass, my ankle burning, scraped, from the steel that obdurately clasped it. On my hands and knees I tried to crawl to the tent. My left leg stretched taunt behind me, held. I cried out with frustration and pounded the grassy earth, weeping, with my fists.
I rolled on my back and looked up at the moons.
I lay there my fist clenched. Then I closed my eyes. I could not dare to look upon them again, the great white. Looming moons of Gor, dominating the skies.
I pounded the grass with the sides of my fists in misery. The I dared to look again upon the vast, looming moons of Gor. What choice had I? I was only a girl who had been chained naked beneath them. I screamed and leaped to my feet, my hands extended to the moons, I stood helplessly beneath them, chained, naked, reaching for them.
Then I began to dance the madness of my need, writhing beneath the moons of Gor, clutching at them, turning stamping my feet, swirling, crying out.
And when I could dance no more I fell to the grass, writhing, tearing at it, whimpering.
~Captive of Gor, from pages 339-341~
A New Slave Learns Dance
"Samos then signaled to the musicians, who were seated to one side, that they should prepare
to play.
Samos signaled again to the musicians, and they began to play a sensual, slow, adagio melody.
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 sleave 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 bondswoman, 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, iin turn, suggests the potentialities, the capacities for love, the sensibilities, the dispositions of the pleasure slave.'
'She is not acceptable,' said Samos. 'She is inadequate.'
'She is trying desperately to please,' I said.
'But she is not succeeding,' he said.
'She has a lovely body,' I said. 'Perhaps someone could buy her for a pittance, for a pot girl.'
'She is not adequate,' said Samos. 'I will have to have her destroyed.'
'Dance, you stupid slave,' hissed one. 'Do you not know you are a slave? Do you not know you are owned?'
A wild look, one of sudden, fearful insight, came over the face of the dancer. She had not thought, specifically, objectively, it seemed, about this aspect of matters. But, of course, she was owned. She was now property. She could now be bought and sold, like a tarsk, at the pleasure of masters.
'Dance, fool!' cried one of the slave girls to the former Lady Rowena of Lydius.
'See the free woman!' laughed one of the slaves. 'It is the sleen for her,' said another.
'Please men!' cried another. 'What do you think you are for?'
She who had been the Lady Rowena fell sobbing to her knees, helpless on the tiles, covering her face with her hands. The music stopped.
'With your permission,' I said to Samos. I rose to my feet and went to the girl, now prone, red eyed, on the tiles. I crouched down beside her. 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.
'Men desire women,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'And you belong to that sex,' I said, 'which is maddeningly, exquisitely desirable.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'And you are,' I said, 'I think, objectively, a beautiful member of that sex.'
'Thank you, Master,' she whispered.
'It therefore seems not inconceivable that men might find you desirable.'
'Yes, Master,' she whispered.
'Does that please you?' I asked.
'It terrifies me,' she said.
'Do you have normal feelings toward men?' I asked.
'I think so, Master,' she said. 'Now that you are a slave,' I said, 'it is not only permissible for you to yield to these feelings, but you must do so.'
'Master!' she whispered.
'Yes,' I said, 'for you are now a slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she whispered, shuddering.
'That makes quite a difference, doesn't it?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'She does not have slave reflexes,' said a man.
'We are now going to put these things together,' I said. 'First, you are an exquisitely desirable woman. You are the sort of woman who could drive a man mad with passion. You are the sort of woman to possess whom men might kill. Furthermore, your beauty and desirability is increased a thousand fold because you are a property girl, a slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she whispered. 'Oh, Master!'
'Men are now of even greater interest to you, are they not?' I asked.
'Yes, Master!' she wept.
'Now,' I said, 'second, let us consider things from the point of view of the woman, from your point of view.'
'As a slave,' I said, 'it is not only permissible for you to yield to your deepest, most stirring, most primitive, most overwhelmingly feminine urges but you must do so, shamelessly, unqualifiedly, completely.'
'Yes, Master,' she cried, and thrust herself suddenly, piteously, against my hand. I then, by the hair, pulled her about and threw her lengthwise, prone, to the tiles. She looked up at me, over her shoulder. I saw wildness in her eyes. I saw that she had begun to sense what it might be to be an aroused slave.
'Whip,' I said, to a man. The whip was placed in my hand.
'Master?' asked the girl, apprehensively.
'I do not believe you were given permission to stop dancing earlier,' I said.
'No, Master,' she said.
'As you are a stupid girl and new to your condition, your punishment, this time, will be light. Three lashes.'
'Three!' she sobbed.
"Do not expect masters to be so lenient with your stupidity in the future,' I said.
'No, Master,' she wept.
Then, doubtless for the first time in her life, she who had been the proud free woman, the Lady Rowena of Lydius, naked, and on her belly on the tiles, felt, like the common girl she now was, the slave whip of Gor.
'Stand,' I told her. 'Back straight, belly in, breasts out. Lift your hands to your shoulders, flex your knees.'
'I have been whipped,' she said, disbelievingly.
'See the difference?' said a man to another at his table. 'How she stands?'
'Yes,' said the other.
I touched her here and there, with the whip, deftly, correcting a line, or the tension of a curve.
She shrank back from the touch of the whip. She now knew what it could to do to her. She had felt it. After, a girl has once felt the whip the mere sight of it is usually enough to bring her immediately into line. 'What hangs upon the wall?' a master might ask. 'The slave whip, Master,' she responds. 'How may I be more pleasing?'
I handed the whip back to the fellow who had had it, and returned to my place at the table of Samos.
He signaled the musicians, and they began, again, to play.
I saw that it was a slave who danced before the men. She gyrated but inches from a burly oarsman, then leaped back, eluding his drunken grasp. She moved between the tables, a slave, an owned woman. Then she was kneeling beside a man, kissing and caressing him, and then, as though it were involuntary, as though her hands were tied behind her and she was being pulled back, away from him, by a rope, she retreated from him. In a moment she was showering another man with her hair and kisses. Then she offered a man wine, holding the goblet, pressing it Against her belly, swaying sensuously before him. She was then again in the center of the tiles, among the tables. She made as if to speak, and then, suddenly, stopped, as though startled. Then she took a wad of her long, golden hair and, swiftly balling it, thrust it, as though insolently, in her mouth. She then looked at the men reproachfully. It was as though a man, perhaps not desiring to hear her speak, had gagged her with her own hair. There was laughter. She drew the hair from her mouth, drawing some of it, in loosening it, deeply back between her teeth, with her head back, as though she might have been in the constraint of a gag strap, all this to the music, and then her hair was free, and, with a movement of her head and movements of her hands, beautifully, she draped and spread it about her. It seemed then she withdrew modestly, frightened, behind the hair, drawing it like a cloak or sheet about her, as though by means of this piteous device she might hope desperately to conceal at least some minimal particle of her beauty from the rude scrutiny of masters. But it was not to be permitted.
To a swirl of music, taking her hair to the sides, holding it, parting it, with clenched fists thrust behind her, twisting, her body thrust forward, her beauty was suddenly, it seemed as though by command, or by the action of another, brazenly based. 'Good!' said more than one man. There was a striking of shoulders in Gorean applause. Even some of the slave girls cried out with pleasure. The girl had done it well. Then she was again dancing among the tables. Her movements gave much pleasure. She entertained well. If Samos had known she would prove this good he might have put her in bells or a chain. I doubted that some of the things she had done, in all their abundance and richness, had been merely thought up on the spur of the moment. I suspected that many times in her dreams and fantasies she had danced thus before men, as a slave. Then, lo, one night in Port Kar she found herself truly a slave, and so dancing, and for her life.
As the music neared its climax she returned before our table, dancing desperately and pleadingly. It was there that was to be found her master.
She lowered herself to the floor and there, on her knees, and her sides, and her belly and back, continued her dance.
Men cried out with pleasure.
Floor movements are among the most stimulatory aspects of slave dance. I regarded her. She was not bad. She was, of course, not trained. A connoisseur of slave dance, I suppose, might have pointed out errors in the pointing of a toe, the extension of a limb, the use of a hand, not well raming the body, not subtly inviting the viewer's eye inward, and so on, but, on the whole, she was definitely not bad. Given her lack of training, a lack which could, of course, be easily remedied, she was not bad, really. Much of what she did, I suppose, is instinctual in a woman. Too, of course, she was dancing for her life.
She writhed well, an utterly helpless, begging slave. Then the music was finished and she was before us, kneeling, her head down, in submission to Samos. She lifted her head to regard Samos, her master. She searched his face fearfully, for the least sign of her fate. It was he who would decide whether she would live or die.
'For the moment, at least,' said Samos, 'you will not be thrown to sleen.'"
~Players of Gor, pages 19-28~
Need dance of the Panther Girl
There was a long silence, of some Ihn, and then, at a nod from Hura, who threw her long black hair back and lifted her head to the moons, the drum began again its beat. Mira's head was down, and shaking. Her right foot was stamping. The panther girls put down their heads. I saw their fists begin to clench and unclench. They stood, scarcely moving, but I could sense the movement of the drum in their blood.
The men of Tyros glanced to one another.
It was few free men who had ever looked, unbound, on the rites of panther girls.
Hura's eyes were on the moons. She lifted her hands, fingers like claws, and screamed her need.
The girls then, following her, began to dance...
How starved must be the lonely, hating panther women of the forests, so gross is their hostility, so fierce their hatred, and yet need, of men. They twisted, screaming now, clawing at the moons. I would scarcely have guessed at the primitive hungers evident in each movement of those barbaric, feline bodies. They would be masters of men. Proud, magnificent creatures. And yet by biology, by their beauty, by their aroused inwardness, could not, in fact, own but only, in their true fulfillment, belong, be taken, be conquered....
The drum was now very heady, swift. The dance of the panther girls became more wild, more frenzied. Vicious, sinuous, clawing, lithe, these savage beauties, in their skins and gold, with their knives, their light spears, weapons darting, danced. They were terrible, and beautiful, in the streaming, flooding light of the looming, primitive moons of perilous Gor. I could hear their cries of rage and need, hear their heels striking in the earth, their hands slapping at their thighs. I saw the teeth of some, white, bared, at the moons, their eyes blazing. The hair of all was unbound. Several had already, oblivious of the presence of the men of Tyros, torn away their skins to the waist, others completely. On some I could hear the movement of the necklaces of sleen teeth tied about their necks, the shivering and ringing of slender golden bangles on their tanned ankles. In their dance they danced among the staked-out bodies of the men of Marlenus, and about the great Ubar himself. Their weapons leapt at the bound men, but never did the blows fall...
The dance would soon strike its climax. It could continue little longer. The women would go mad with their need to strike and rape.
Suddenly the drum stopped and Hura stopped, her body bent backward, her head back, her long black hair falling to the back of her knees.
She was breathing deeply, very deeply. Her body was covered with a sheen of sweat.
~Hunters of Gor, page 197~
Dance of the Panther Girls
Then, about me, the panther girls, circling, swaying, began a slow stalking dance, as of hunters.
I lay in the center of the circle.
Their movements were slow, and incredibly beautiful. Then suddenly one would cry out and thrust at me with her spear. But the spear was not thrust into my body. Its point would stop before it had administered its wound. Many of the blows would have been mortal. But many thrusts were only to my eyes, or arms and legs. Every bit of me began to feel exposed, threatened.
I was their catch.
Then the dance became progressively swifter and wilder, and the feigned blows became more frequent, and then, suddenly, with a wild cry, the swirling throng about me stood for an instant stock still, and then with a cry, each spear thrust down savagely toward my heart.
I cried out.
None of the spears had struck me.
The girls cast aside the spears. Then, like feeding she-panthers they knelt about me, each one, with her hands and tongue, touching and kissing me.
I cried out with anguish.
I knew I could not long resist them.
~Hunters of Gor, page 138~
Love Dances of The Wagon Peoples
"Dance," ordered Aphris.
The trembling girl before her did not move.
"Dance!" screamed Aphris, rising to her feet.
"What shall I do?" begged the kneeling girl of Kamchak. She looked not too unlike Hereena, and was perhaps a similar sort of girl, raised and trained much the same. Like Hereena, of course, she wore the tiny golden nose ring.
Kamchak spoke to her, very gently. "You are slave," he said. "Dance for your masters."
The girl looked at him gratefully and she, with the others, rose to her feet and to the astounding barbarity of the music performed the savage love dances of the Kassars, the Paravaci, the Kataii, the Tuchuks.
They were magnificent.
One girl, the leader of the dancers, she who had spoken to Kamchak, was a Tuchuk girl, and was particularly startling, vital, uncontrollable, wild.
It was then clear to me why the Turian men so hungered for the wenches of the Wagon Peoples.
At the height of one of her dances, called the Dance of the Tuchuk Slave Girl, Kamchak turned to Aphris of Turia, who was watching the dance, eyes bright, as astounded as I at the savage spectacle. "I will see to it," said Kamchak, "when you are my slave, that you are taught that dance."
~Nomads of Gor, page 98~
The Pole Dance of Winyela
suddenly, the two men with the kaiila quirts struck her across the back and, before she could do more than cry out, she was, too, pulled to her feet and forward, on the two tethers.
She then stood, held by the tethers, wildly, before the pole.
Cancega pointed to the pole.
She looked at him, bewildered.
Then the quirts, again, struck her, and she cried out in pain.
Cancega again pointed to the pole.
Winyela then put her head down and took the pole in her small hands, and kissed it, humbly.
"Yes," said Cancega, encouraging her. "Yes."
Again Winyela kissed the pole.
"Yes," said Cancega.
Winyela then heard the rattles behind her, giving her her rhythm. These rattles were then joined by the fifing of whistles, shrill and high, formed from the wing bones of the taloned Herlit. A small drum, too, then began to sound. Its more accented beats, approached subtly but predictable, instructed the helpless, lovely dancer as to the placement and timing of the more dramatic of her demonstrations and motions.
"It is the Kaiila," chanted the men.
Winyela danced. There was dust upon her hair and on her body. On her cheeks were the three bars of greases that marked her as the property of the Kailla. Grease, too, had been smeared liberally upon her body. No longer was she a shining beauty. She was now only a filthy slave, an ignoble animal, something of no account, something worthless, obviously, but nonetheless permitted, in the kindness of the Kaiila, a woman of another people, to attempt to please the pole.
I smiled.
Was this not suitable? Was this not appropriate for her, a slave?
Winyela, kissing the pole, and caressing it, and moving about it, and rubbing her body against it, under the directions of Cancega, and guided sometimes by the tethers on her neck, continued to dance.
I whistled softly to myself.
"Ah," said Cuwignaka.
"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.
"I think the pole will be pleased," I said.
"I think a rock would be pleased," said Cuwignaka.
"I agree," I said.
Winyela, by the neck tethers, was pulled against the pole. She seized it, and writhed against it, and licked at it.
"It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men.
"It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka.
A transformation seemed suddenly to come over Winyela. This was evinced in her dance.
"She is aroused," said Cuwignaka.
Winyela's Pole Dance
"Yes," I said.
She began, then, helplessly, to dance her servitude, her submission, her slavery. The dance, then, came helplessly from the depths of her. The tethers pulled her back from the pole and she reached forth for it. She struggled to reach it, writhing. Bit by bit she was permitted to near it, and then she embraced it. She climbed, then, upon the pole. There her dance, on her knees, her belly and back, squirming and clutching, continued...
Winyela now knelt on the pole and bent backwards, until her hair fell about the wood, and then she slipped her legs down about the pole and lay back on it, her hands holding to the pole behind her head. She reared helplessly on the pole, and writhed upon it, almost as though she might have been chained to it, and then, she turned about and lay on the pole, on her stomach, her thighs gripping it, her hands pushing her body up, and away from the pole, and then, suddenly, moving down about the trunk, bringing her head and shoulder down. Her red hair hung about the smooth, white wood. Her lips, again and again, pressed down upon it, in helpless kisses....
Winyela, helplessly, piteously, danced her obeisance to the great pole, and, in this, to her master, and to men...
In her dance, of course, Winyela was understood to be dancing not only her personal slavery, which she surely was, but, from the point of view of the Kaiila, in the symbolism of the dance, in the medicine of the dance, that the women of enemies were fit to be no more than the slaves of the Kaiila. I did not doubt but what the Fleer and the Yellow Knives, and other peoples, too, might have similar ceremonies, in which, in one way or another, a similar profession might take place, there being danced or enacted also by a woman of another group, perhaps even, in those cases, by a maiden of the Kaiila. I, myself, saw the symbolism of the dance, and, I think, so, too, did Winyela, in a pattern far deeper than that of an ethnocentric idiosyncrasy. I saw the symbolism as being in accord with what is certainly one of the deepest and most pervasive themes of organic nature, that of dominance and submission. In the dance, as I chose to understand it, Winyela danced the glory of life and the natural order; in it she danced her submission to the might of men and the fulfillment of her own femaleness; in it she danced her desire to be owned, to feel passion, to give of herself, unstintingly, to surrender herself, rejoicing, to service and love.
"It is the Kaiila!" shouted the men.
"It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka.
Winyela was dragged back, toward the bottom of the pole on its tripods. There she was knelt down. The two men holding her neck tethers slipped the rawhide, between their fist and the girl's neck, under their feet, the man on her left under his right foot, and the man on her right under his left foot. But already Winyela, of her own accord, breathing deeply from the exertions of her dance, and trembling, had put her head to the dirt, humbly, before the pole. Then the tension on the two tethers was increased, the rawhide on her neck being drawn tight under the feet of her keepers. I do not think Winyela desired to raise her head. But now, of course, she could not have done so had she wished. It was held in place. I think this is the way she would have wanted it. This is what she would have chosen, to be owned, to serve, to be deprived of choice.
The men about slapped their thighs and grunted their approval. The music stopped. The tethers were removed from Winyela's neck. She then, tentatively, lifted her head. It seemed now she was forgotten.
~Blood Brothers of Gor, page 39~
Need Dance of a slave of Port Cos
I turned away and gave my attention to the slave writhing on the tiles before us.
She was performing a need dance, of a type not uncommon among Gorean female slaves. Such a dance usually proceeds in clearly defined phrases, evident not merely in the expressions and movements of the girl but in the nature of the accompanying music. There are usually five phases to such a dance. In the first phase the girl, dancing, feigns indifference to the presence of men, before whom, as a slave, she must perform. In the second phase, for she has not yet been raped, her distress and uneasiness, her restlessness, her disturbance by her sexual urges, must become subtly more manifest. Here it must be evident that she is beginning to feel her sexuality, and drives, profoundly, and yet is struggling against them. Toward the end of this phase it must beome clear not only that she has sexual needs, and deep ones, but that she is beginning to fear that she may not be, simply as she is, of sufficient interest to men to obtain their satisfaction. Here, need, coupled with anxiety and self-doubt, for she has not yet been seized by strong men, must become clear. In the third phase of the dance she, in an almost ladylike fashion, acknowledges herself defeated in her attempt to conceal her sexuality; she then, again in an almost ladylike fashion, delicately but clearly, with restraint but unmistakably, acknowledges, and publicly, before masters, that she has sexual needs. Then, with smiles, and gestures, displaying herself, she makes manifest her readiness for the service of men, her willingness, and her receptivity. She invited them, so to speak to have her. But she has not yet been seized by an arm or an ankle, or by her collar, a thumb hooked rudely under it, or hair, and pulled from the floor. What if she is not sufficiently pleasing? What if she is not to be fulfilled? What if she must continue to dance, alone, unnoticed. At this point it becomes clear to her that it is by no means a foregone conclusion that men will find her of interest, or that they will see fit to satisy her. She must strive to be pleasing. If she is not good enough she may be chained, unfilfilled, another night alone in the kennel. There are always other girls. She must earn her rape. Too, if she should be insufficiently pleasing consistently it is likely that she will be slain. goreans place few impediments in the way of liberation of a slave female's sexuality. In this phase of the dance, then, shamelessly the woman dances her need and, shamelessly, begs for her sexual satisfaction. The phase of the dance is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. The fifth, and final phase, of the dance, is far more dramatic and exciting. In this phase the girl, overcome by sexual desire and terrified that she may not be found sufficiently pleasing, clearly manifests, and utterly, that she is a slave female. In this portion of the dance the girl is seldom on her feet. Rather, sitting, rolling, and changing position, on her side, her back, her belly, half kneeling, half sitting, kneeling, crawling, reaching out, bending backwards, lying down, twisting with passion, gesturing to her body, presenting it to masters for their inspection and interest, whimpering, moaning, crying out, brazenly presenting herself as a slave, pleading for her rape, she writhes, a piteous, begging, vulnerable, ready slave, a woman fit for and begging for the touch of a master, a woman begging to become, at the least touch of her master, a totally submitted slave. The fourth phase of the dance, as I have mentioned, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. This portion of the dance, the fifth portion, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Slave Girl...
The music ended with a swirl of sound and the girl, with a jangle of bells, lay before the table of Policrates, whimpering, her hand extended. She lifted her head. I read the unmistakable need in her eyes. She was indeed a slave female.
~Rogue of Gor, page 185~
Whip Dance, with a Master
A new dancer came forth upon the floor and began, a tall brute near her with the leather, to perform a whip dance...
...In the whip dance, though there are various versions of it, depending on the locality, the girl is almost never struck with the whip, unless, of course, she does not perform well. When the whip is cracked, however, the girl will commonly react as though she has been struck. this, conjoined with the music, and her beauty, and the obvious symbolism of her beauty beneath total male descipline, can be extremely, powerfully erotic. In an elegant, civilized context, one of beauty and music, it makes clear and bespeaks the raw and essential primitives of the ancient, genetic, biological sexual realtionship of men and women....
The whip dance continued before us.. The whip dance was now approaching its climax...
I turned my attention to the dancer on the floor. She lay now on her back, one knee lifted, her arms at her sides, palms down, before the brute with his whip, who towered over her. Her head, too, was turned to the side. Then she turned her head to face the brute who tyrannized her. She looked deeply into his eyes. then, delicately, in a graceful gesture, she turned her hands, putting their backs to the floor, exposing her palms, and the soft flesh of her palms, to him, indicating her surrender, her submission, her vulnerability and her readiness.
There was applause, the striking of the left shoulder, from the tables.
The brute then crouched beside her and encircled her neck with the coils of his whip. He drew her to her knees then before him. She looked up at him, her neck in the whip coils, his.
There was more applause. Then the brute looked to Policrates, who indicated a table. He then pulled the girl to her feet and, running her over the tiles, and then releasing the coils from her neck, threw her stumbling into the arms of waiting pirates who, with a cry of pleasure, seized her and began to work their lusty wills upon her. There was more applause, and laughter.
~Rogue of Gor, page 191~
The Sa-eela
The Sa-eela is one of the most moving, deeply rhythmic and erotic of the slaves dances of Gor. It belongs, generally to the genre of dances commonly known as the Lure Dances of the Love-Starved Slave Girl. The common theme of the genre, of course, is the attempt on the part of a neglected slave to call herself to the attention of the master. The Sa-eela, usually performed in the nude, as though by a low slave, and by a girl freed of all impediments except her collar, is one of the most powerful of slave dances of Gor. It is done rather differently in different cities but the variations practiced in the river towns and, generally in the Vosk basin, are in my opinion, among the finest. There is no standardization for better or worse, in Gorean slave dance. Not only can the dances differ from city to city, but even from tavern to tavern, and from girl to girl. This is because each girl, in her own way, brings the nature of her own body, her own dispositions, her own sensuality and needs, her own personality, to the dance.. For the woman, slave dance is a uniquely personal and creative art form. Too, it provides her with a wondrous modality for deeply intimate self-expression..
The Sa-eela, of course is not the sort of dance which could be performed by a free woman.
Peggy now danced upon her knees, at the end of the table using the table in the dance, thrusting her belly against it, and touching it with her hands, and her body and lips.
Peggy, then was back from the table, on the tiles, on her back, and sides, and knees, and then prone, and again supine, and then writhing, as though in frustration and loneliness. Stands before the Master, hands lifted, their backs together above her head.
T observed the dancer, closely, the striking of her small, clinched fists on the tiles, the scratching of her fingernails at their smooth surfaces, the turning of a hip, the flattening of a thigh, the lifting of a knee, the turning of her head, the piteous scarrering of her hair from side to side. She lay on her back, and whimpering, struck down in misery, stinging the palms of her hands, bruising her small heels. She might have been in a cell, locked away from men.
She then rolled to her stomach, and rose to her hands and knees, and head down remainded for a moment in that posture. It is at this moment that the music enters a different melodic phase, one less physical and frenzied, one almost lyrical in its poignance. She crawls some feet to her left and lifts her head. She puts out her small hand. It seems that it there encounters some barrier, some enclosing, confining wall. She then rises to her feet. Swiftly she hurries about, in the graceful, frightened haste of the dancer, her hands seeming to trace the location of the obdurate barriers, those invisible walls which seem to contain her. She then stood and faced us, and put her head in her hands, bent over and straightened her body, her head and hair thrown back. "I?" she seemed to ask, looking out, as though some rude jailer might have come to the gate of her pen. But there is of couse, no one there, and in the performance of the dance, that is clearly understood. Then, in poignant fantasy, within the pen, she prepares herself for the Master, seeming to thoughtfully select silks and jewelry, seeming to apply perfume and cosmetics, seeming to be bedecked in shimmering diaphanous slave splendor. She then crosses her wrists, and moves them, as though they have been bound. She then extends them before her as though the strap on them had been drawn taut. It then seems that she, head high, a bound slave is being led on her tether, from the pen. But, at the gate, of course, her wrists separate, and her small palms and fingers indicate for us clearly, that she is still confined. She retreats to the center of the pen, falls to her knees, covers her head with her hands, and weeps.
The next phase of the music begins at this point.
She looks up. There is a sound in the corridor, beyond the gate. She leaps up, and backs against the wall of her pen. This time, it seems, truly, there are men there, that they have come for her. She puts her head up; She turns away; she feigns disdane. Then it seems as she, startled, looks about, on the floor of the pen, calling to them, lifting her head, holding out her hand piteously to them. She pleads to be considered.
It then seems, as she shrinks back, lifting herself to the plams of her hands, frightened, that the gate to her pen has been opened. She kneels swiftly in the position of the pleasure slave. Obviously she fears her rude jailers. Twice it seems she is struck with a whip. Then she again assumes the postion of a pleasure slave. She nods her head. She understands well what is expected of her. She is to perform well on the tiles of the feasting hall. "Yes Masters!" it seems she says. But how little do her jailers, perhaps only common and boorish fellows, understand that this is precisely what she too, deeply and desperately desires to do. How long she has waited, in cruel frustration, unfulfilled and lonely, in her cell for just such a moment, that precious opportunity in which she a mere slave, may be permitted to display and present herself for consideration of her master. How can they understand the poignance, and significance of this moment for her? She is to have an opportunity to present herself before the master! Who knows if she in such a large house, one with such cells and jailers, may ever again be given such an opportunity.
It then seems that she is hauled to her feet and that her wrists, tightly and cruelly, are bound behind her back. Her body and head are then bent far over. Her head twists. It seems a man's hand is in her hair. Not as a high slave, clothed in jewelries and shimmering silks, tastefully bound, is she to be conducted to the site of her performance, some aristocratic banquet; rather, cruelly bound and nude, she is to be thrown before masters at a drunken feast. She then with small, hurried steps, bent over, described a wide circle on the tiles. Then, it seemed, she was thrown to her knees, and then her side, before us. Her hands were still held as though tightly bound behind her. She looked at us. We were of course, the "masters," before whom she was to perform. She rose to her feet. She twisted as though her hands were being untied. She then flexed her legs and lifted her hands over her head, as she hand in the beginning, back to back.
The final phases of the Sa-eela then begin.
In these phases the girl, in all her unshielded beauty, and naked except for the collar of slavery, attempts to arouse the interest of her master.
Peggy's body gleamed with sweat. She had small feet, and lovely high arches. Her body was superb.
She had now entered into the display phase of the Sa-eela. In this portion of the dance the girl calls attention to the various aspects of her beauty, from the swirling sheen of her cascading hair, to her ankles, from her small feet to her tiny, fine fingers.
The music now, pounding and throbbing, mounted headily tword the climax of the Sa-eela.
In these, the final portions of the Sa-eela, the slave in effect, puts herself at the mercy of the master. She has already presented before him, almost in a delectable enumeration, many of the more external and rhythmic aspects of her beauty. She has displayed herself hitherto before him rather as an object in which, hopefully, he might take an interest. A woman may do this, of course from many motives; such as fear or her desire to be purchased by an affluent master, only one of which might be her authentic, poignant desire to be found pleasing by him. for her own sake. In such displays there can be, though there often is not, a subtle psychological distinction, detectable in the behavior, between the merchandise, so to speak, and the girl who is displaying herself as merchandise. In the first case, where no true distinction exists, which is the authentic case, the girl in effect says, "I am for sale. Buy me, and love me!" In the second case, the girl in effect says, "Here is a fine slave. Are you not interested in her?" In the second case of couse, the Gorean is interested, though the girl may not understand this clearly, in not only the merchandise but the girl who is displaying the merchandise. She might truly be terrified if she understood that it was herself he intended to own, and in fact, was going to own, she the exhibitor of the merchandise as well as she, the merchandise exhibited. Goreans, as I have mentioned, are interested in owning the whole woman, in all her sweetness, depth, complexity and individualism.
The girl now, in all her helplessness, in all her desperation in all her sensual splendor, was dancing not aspects or attributes of her beauty before her master, but was dancing her own passions, her own needs and desires, her own piteous needful, beautiful, intimate and personal self before him. There were no restraints, no reservations, no compromises, no divisions or distinctions. Her needs were as exposed as her collared body. She danced herself before her master.
The music swirled to its climax and Peggy, turning, flung herself to her back on the tiles. As the music struck its last, rousing note, she arched her back, and flexed her legs, and looked back at him, her right arm extended piteously back toward him.
~Guardman of Gor, page 260~
Need Dance of a slave of Port Cos
I turned away and gave my attention to the slave writhing on the tiles before us.
She was performing a need dance, of a type not uncommon among Gorean female slaves. Such a dance usually proceeds in clearly defined phrases, evident not merely in the expressions and movements of the girl but in the nature of the accompanying music. There are usually five phases to such a dance. In the first phase the girl, dancing, feigns indifference to the presence of men, before whom, as a slave, she must perform. In the second phase, for she has not yet been raped, her distress and uneasiness, her restlessness, her disturbance by her sexual urges, must become subtly more manifest. Here it must be evident that she is beginning to feel her sexuality, and drives, profoundly, and yet is struggling against them. Toward the end of this phase it must beome clear not only that she has sexual needs, and deep ones, but that she is beginning to fear that she may not be, simply as she is, of sufficient interest to men to obtain their satisfaction. Here, need, coupled with anxiety and self-doubt, for she has not yet been seized by strong men, must become clear. In the third phase of the dance she, in an almost ladylike fashion, acknowledges herself defeated in her attempt to conceal her sexuality; she then, again in an almost ladylike fashion, delicately but clearly, with restraint but unmistakably, acknowledges, and publicly, before masters, that she has sexual needs. Then, with smiles, and gestures, displaying herself, she makes manifest her readiness for the service of men, her willingness, and her receptivity. She invited them, so to speak to have her. But she has not yet been seized by an arm or an ankle, or by her collar, a thumb hooked rudely under it, or hair, and pulled from the floor. What if she is not sufficiently pleasing? What if she is not to be fulfilled? What if she must continue to dance, alone, unnoticed. At this point it becomes clear to her that it is by no means a foregone conclusion that men will find her of interest, or that they will see fit to satisy her. She must strive to be pleasing. If she is not good enough she may be chained, unfilfilled, another night alone in the kennel. There are always other girls. She must earn her rape. Too, if she should be insufficiently pleasing consistently it is likely that she will be slain. goreans place few impediments in the way of liberation of a slave female's sexuality. In this phase of the dance, then, shamelessly the woman dances her need and, shamelessly, begs for her sexual satisfaction. The phase of the dance is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. The fifth, and final phase, of the dance, is far more dramatic and exciting. In this phase the girl, overcome by sexual desire and terrified that she may not be found sufficiently pleasing, clearly manifests, and utterly, that she is a slave female. In this portion of the dance the girl is seldom on her feet. Rather, sitting, rolling, and changing position, on her side, her back, her belly, half kneeling, half sitting, kneeling, crawling, reaching out, bending backwards, lying down, twisting with passion, gesturing to her body, presenting it to masters for their inspection and interest, whimpering, moaning, crying out, brazenly presenting herself as a slave, pleading for her rape, she writhes, a piteous, begging, vulnerable, ready slave, a woman fit for and begging for the touch of a master, a woman begging to become, at the least touch of her master, a totally submitted slave. The fourth phase of the dance, as I have mentioned, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. This portion of the dance, the fifth portion, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Slave Girl...
The music ended with a swirl of sound and the girl, with a jangle of bells, lay before the table of Policrates, whimpering, her hand extended. She lifted her head. I read the unmistakable need in her eyes. She was indeed a slave female.
~Rogue of Gor, page 185~
Beauty Dance of a Port Kar Girl
The girl wore Gorean dancing silk. It hung low upon her bared hips, and fell to her ankles. It was scarlet, diaphanous. A front corner of the silk was taken behind her and thrust, loose and draped, into the rolled silk knotted about her hips; a back corner of the silk was drawn before her and thrust loosely, draped, into the rolled silk at her right hip. Low on her hips she wore a belt of small denomination, threaded, overlapping golden coins. A veil concealed her muchly from us, it thrust into the strap of the coined halter at her left shoulder, and into the coined belt at her right hip. On her arms she wore numerous armlets and bracelets. On the thumb and first finger of both her left and right hand were golden finger cymbals. On her throat was a collar...
He clapped his hands. Immediately the girl stood beautifully, alert, before us, her arms high, wrists outward. The musicians, to one side, stirred, readying themselves. Their leader was a czehar player....
He looked at the girl. He clapped his hands, sharply.
There was a clear note of the finger cymbals, sharp, delicate, bright, and the slave girl danced before us.
I regarded the coins threaded, overlapping, on her belt and halter. They took the firelight beautifully. They glinted, but were of small worth. One dresses such a woman in cheap coins; she is slave. Her hand moved to the veil at her right hip. Her head was turned away, as though unwilling and reluctant, yet knowing she must obey...
The dancer was now moving slowly to the music...
I turned to watch the dancer. She danced well. At the moment she writhed upon the "slave pole," it fixing her in place. There is no actual pole, of course, but sometimes it is difficult to believe there is not. The girl imagines that a pole, slender, supple, swaying, transfixes her body, holding her helplessly. About this imaginary pole, it constituting a hypothetical center of gravity, she moves, undulating, swaying, sometimes yielding to it in ecstasy, sometimes fighting it, it always holding her in perfect place, its captive. The control achieved by the use of the "slave pole" is remarkable. An incredible, voluptuous tension is almost immediately generated, visible in the dancer's body, and kinetically felt by those who watch. I heard men at the table cry out with pleasure. The dancer's hands were at her thighs. She regarded them, angrily, and still she moved. Her shoulder lifted and fell; her hands touched her breasts and shoulder; her head was back, and then again she glared at the men, angrily. Her arms were high, very high. Her hips moved, swaying. Then, the music suddenly silent, she was absolutely still. Her left hand was at her thigh; her right high above her head; her eyes were on her hip; frozen into a hip sway; then there was again a bright, clear flash of finger cymbals, and the music began again, and again she moved, helpless on the pole. Men threw coins at her feet....
The dancer moaned, crying out, as though in agony. Still she remained impaled upon the slave pole, its prisoner...
The hips of the dancer now moved, seemingly in isolation from the rest of her body, though her wrists and hands, ever so slightly, moved to the music...
Samos, with a snap of his fingers, freed the dancer from the slave pole. She moved, turning, toward us. Before us, loosening her veil at the right hip, she danced. Then she took it from her left shoulder, where it had been tucked beneath the strap of her halter. With the veil loose, covering her, holding it in her hands, she danced before us. then she regarded us, dark-eyed, over the veil; it turned about her body, then,.. she wafted the silk about her, immeshing her in its gossamer softness. I saw the parted lips, the eyes wide with horror, of the kneeling, harnessed girl, through the light, yellow veil; then the dancer had drawn it away from her, and, turning, was again in the center of the floor....
The dancer whirled near us, then enveloped me in her veil. Within the secrecy of the veil, binding us together, she moved her body slowly before me, lips parted, moaning... I slowly removed her veil from her, then threw it aside. Then with my right hand, the Tuchuk quiva in it, while still holding her with my left, as she continued to move to the music, I, behind her back, cut the halter she wore from her. I then thrust her from me, before the tables, that she might better please the guests of Samos, first slaver of Port Kar. She looked at me reproachfully, but, seeing my eyes, turned frightened to the men, hands over her head, to please them. Never in all this, of course, had she lost the music in her body. The men cried out, pleased with her beauty...
All eyes were on the dark-haired dancer, the skirt of diaphanous scarlet dancing silk low upon her hips. Her hands moved as though she might be, starved with desire, picking flowers from a wall in a garden. One saw almost the vines from which she plucked them, and how she held them to her lips, and, at times, seemed to press herself against the wall which confined her. Then she turned and, as though alone, danced her need before the men...
I idly observed the dancer. Her eyes were on me. It seemed, in her hands, she held ripe fruits for me, lush larma, fresh picked. Her wrists were close together, as though confined by the links of slave bracelets. She touched the imaginary larma to her body, caressing her swaying beauty with it, and then, eyes piteous, held her hands forth, as though begging me to accept the lush fruit. Men at the table clapped their hands on the wood, and looked at me. Others smote their left shoulders. I smiled. On gor, the female slave, desiring her master, yet sometimes fearing to speak to him, frightened that she may be struck, has recourse upon occasion to certain devices, the meaning of which is generally established and cuturally well understood...to kneel before the master and put her head down and lift her arms, offering him fruit, usually a larma, or a yellow Gorean peach, ripe and fresh. These devices, incidentally, may be used even by a slave girl who hates her master but whose body, trained to love, cannot endure the absence of the masculine caress. Such girls, even with hatred, may offer the larma, furious with themselves, yet helpless, the captive of their slave needs, forced to beg on their knees for the touch of a harsh master, who revels in the sport of their plight..They are slaves.
The girl now knelt before me, her body obedient still trembling, throbbing, to the melodious, sensual command of the music.
I looked into the cupped hands, held toward me. They might have been linked in slave bracelets. They might have held lush larma. I reached across the table and took her in my arms, and dragged her, turning her, and threw her on her back on the table before me. I lifted her to me, and thrust my lips to hers, crushing her slave lips beneath mine. Her eyes shone. I held her from me. She lifted her lips to mine. I did not permit her to touch me. I jerked her to her feet and, half turning her, ripping her silk from her, hurled her to the map floor, where she half lay, half crouched, one leg beneath her, looking at me, stripped save for her collar, the brand, the armlets, bells, the anklets, with fury. "Please us more," I told her. Her eyes blazed. "And do not rise from the floor, Slave," I told her. The music, which had stopped, began again.
She turned furiously, yet gracefully, extending a leg, touching an ankle, moving her hands up her leg, looking at me over her shoulder, and then rolled, and writhed, as though beneath the lash of master....
The dancer now lay on her back and the music was visible in her breathing, and in small movements of her head, and hands. Her hands were small and lovely.
She lay on the map floor, her head turned toward us. She was covered with sweat. I snapped my fingers and her legs turned under her, and she was kneeling, head back, dark hair on the tiles. Her hands moved, delicate, lovely.
Slowly, if permitted, she would rise to an erect kneeling position; her hands, as she lifted herself, extended toward us. Four times said I "No," each time my command forcing her head back, her body bent, to the floor, and each time, again, to the music, she lifted her body. The fifth time I let her rise to an erect kneeling position. The last portion of her body to rise was her beautiful head. The collar was at her throat. Her dark eyes, smoldering, vulnerable, reproachful, regarded me. Still did she move to the music, which had not yet released her.
With a gesture I permitted her to rise to her feet. "Dance your body, Slave," I told her, "to the guest of Samos."
Angrily the girl, man by man, slowly, meaningfully, danced her beauty to each guest. They struck the tables, and cried out. More than one reached to clutch her but each time, swiftly, she moved back...
The dancer, now behind us, continued to move before the low tables. The eyes of the men gleamed. Before each man, for moments seemingly his alone, she danced her beauty...
The dancer turned from the tables and, hands high over her head, approached me. She swayed to the music before me. "You commanded me to dance my beauty for the guests of Samos," said she, "Master. You, too, are such a guest."
I looked upon her, narrow lidded, as she strove to please me.
Then she moaned and turned away, and, as the music swirled to its maddened, frenzied climax, she spun, whirling, in a jangle of bells and clashing barbaric ornaments before the guests of Samos. then, as the music suddenly stopped, she fell to the floor, helpless, vulnerable, a female slave. Her body, under the torchlight, shone with a sheen of sweat. She gasped for breath; her body was beautiful, her breasts lifting and falling, as she drank deeply of the air. Her lips were parted. Now that her dance was finished she could scarcely move. We had not been gentle with her. She looked up at me, and lifted her hand. It was at my feet she lay.
~Tribesmen of Gor, pg. 8~
Port Kar, Chain Dance
"The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled, descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot of the stairs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then the musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat and flight. To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the crowds of a burning city-alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his hand was upon her shoulder and she threw back her head and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire body was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to him and, with both hands, brushed
away hood and veil.
There was a cry of delight from the crowd.
The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her thus in the firelight - her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her skin tannish. She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move. She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but she did not.
Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in abject ,isery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.
The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.
Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.
He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered. He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure, closed the collar - a Turian collar - about her throat. The chain to which the collar was attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of length.
Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length. She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.
The music had stopped.
Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight the music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain. Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last. The dance consists of serveral phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others are defiant and swift; some are graceful and pleading; each time, as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the caped warrior. At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight." ~Nomads of Gor, Pgs. 159-161~
NOT ONLY GIRLS DANCED LOL
The oar-dance
of the rower of Torvaldsland
I saw people running down the sloping green land, toward the water. Several came form within the palisade. Among them, white kirtled, collared, excited, ran bond-maids. These, upon the arrival of their Master are permitted to greet him. The men of the north enjoy the bright eyes, the leaping bodies, the squealing, the greetings of their bond-bond maids. In the fields I saw an overseer, clad in scarlet, with a gesture of his hand, releasing the thralls. Then, they, too, ran down toward the water.
It would be holiday, I gathered, at the hall of Ivar Forkbeard.
The Forkbeard himself now, from a wooden keg, poured a great tankard of ale, which must have been of the measure of five gallons. over this he then closed his fist. It was the sign of the hammer, the sign of Thor. The tankard then, with two great bronze handles, was passed from hands to hands among the rowers. The men threw back their heads and, the liquid spilling down their bodies, drank ale. It was the victory ale.
Then the Forkbeard himself drained the remains of the tankard, threw it to the foot of the mast, and then, to my astonishment, leapt from the ship, onto the moving oards. Then men sang. The Forkbeard then, to the delight of those on the bank, who cheered him, as the serpent edged into the dock, adressed himself delightedly to the oar-dance of the rover of Torvaldsland. It is not actually a dance, of course, but it is an athletic feat of no little stature requiring a superb eye, fantastic balance and incredible coordination. Ivar Forkbeard, crying out, leaped from moving oar to moving oar, proceeding from the oars nearest the stem on the port side to the stern, then leaping back onto the deck at the stern quarter and leaping again on the oars this time on the starboard side, and proceeding from the oar nearest the stern to that nearest the stem, and then, lifting his arms, he leaped again into the ship, almost thrown into it as the oar lifted. He then stood on the prow, near me, sweating and grinning. I saw cups of ale, on the bank, being lifted to him. Men cheered. I heard the cries of bond-maids. ~Marauders of Gor, pages 82-83~
The Ship Dance
Near the pit of sand several slave girls, dancers, in Pleasure Silk were kneeling back on their heels and clapping their hands with glee. In the pit of sand one of the guards, utterly drunk, was performing a ship dance, the movement of his legs marvelously suggesting the pitch and roll of a deck, his hands moving as though climbing ropes, then hauling rope, then splicing and knotting it. I knew he had been of Port Kar. He was a cutthroat but there were drunken tears in his eyes as he hoped about, pantomiming the work of one of the swift galleys. It is said that men once having seen Thassa are never willing to leave it again, that those who have left the sea are never again truly happy. A moment later another guard leaped into the pit of sand and to the amusement of the girls, began a dance of larl hunters, joined by two or three others, in a file, dancing the stalking of the beasts, the confrontation, the kill. The man who had been dancing the ship dance, had now left the pit of sand, and, over against one wall, in the shadows of the torchlight, largely unnoted, danced alone, danced for himself the memories of gleaming Thassa and the swift black ships, the Tarns of the Sea, as the galleys of Port Kar are known.
~Assassins of Gor, page 240~
Whip Dance of Port Kar
"I watched the dancing girl of Port Kar writhing on the square if sand between the tables, under the whips of masters, in a Paga tavern in Port Kar.
It is called the Whip Dance, the dance the girl on the sand danced.
She wore a delicate vest and belt of chains and jewels, with shimmering metal droplets attached. And she wore ankle rings, and linked slave bracelets, again with shimmering droplets pendent upon them; and a locked collar, matching.
She danced under ships' lanterns, hanging from the ceiling of he paga tavern, it located near the wharves bounding the great arsenal.
I heard the snapping of the whips, her cries."
~Raiders of Gor, Pg. 100~
The Bead Dance of a Schendi slave
I then gave my attention to the dancer, a sweetly hipped black girl in yellow beads.
She was skillful and, I suspected, from the use of the hands and beads, had been trained in Ianda, a merchant island north of Anango. Certain figures are formed with the hands and beads which have symbolic meaning, much of which was lost upon me, as I was not familiar with the conventions involved. Some, however, I had seen before, and had been explained to me. One was that of the free woman, another of the whip, another of the yielding, collared slave. Another was that of the thieving slave girl, and another that of the girl summoned, terrified, before the master. Each of these, with the music and followed by its dance expression, was very well done. Women are beautiful and they make fantastic dancers. One of the figures done was that of a girl, a slave, who encounters one who is afflicted with plague. She, a slave, knows that if she should contract the disease she would, in all probability, be summarily slain. She dances her terror at this. This was followed by the figure of obedience, and that by the figure of joy.
~Explorers of Gor, page 133~
Alyena's Dance of Seduction
At a languid gesture from Ibn Saran, Alyena lifted herself from the scarlet tiles, gracefully turning from her side to her knees, and then, head back, hair to the floor, slowly, inch by melodic protesting inch, arms before her body, lifted herself to a kneeling position, erect, the last bit of her to rise being her head, with a swirl of her blond, loose hair. Then, looking to Ibn Saran, suddenly she bent forward, as though impulsively, as though she could not help herself, and, hands on the tiles, head down, kissed the tiles at his feet, before his slippers. She looked up at him. I gathered she wanted to be bought by him. He was her "rich man." He lifted his finger for her to rise. Her right leg thrust forth, brazenly, and then, from her kneeling position, slowly, hands above her head, moving, high, she rose swaying to her feet.
"May I strip your slave?" inquired Ibn Saran.
"Of course," I said.
He nodded to the girl. To the music she unhooked her slave halter of yellow silk and, as though contemptuously, discarded it. I saw she was excited to see his interest in her. Only too obviously was she interested in him making a purchase of her. The churning of milk and the pounding of grain were not for lovely Alyena. That was for ugly girls and free women. She was too desirable, too beautiful, to be set to such labors...
Alyena, now, slowly, disengaged the dancing silk from her hips, yet held it, moving it on and about her body, by her hands, taunting the reclining, languid, heavy-lidded Ibn Saran, to whom she knew, at his slightest gesture, she must bare herself.
He regarded her veil work; she was skillful; he was a connoisseur of slave girls...
At a signal from Ibn Saran, Alyena drew the veil about her body, and around it, and, with one small hand, threw it aside. She stood boldly before him, arms lifted, head to the side, right leg flexed. The veil, floating, wafted away, a dozen feet from her, and gently, ever so gently, settled to the tiles. Then, to the new melodic line, she danced...
Alyena now to a swirl of music spun before us, swept helpless with it, bangles clashing, to its climax.
Then she stopped, marvelously, motionlessly, as the music was silent, her head back, her arms high, her body covered with sweat, and then, to the last swirl of the barbaric melody, fell to the floor at the feet of Ibn Saran. I noted the light hair on her forearms. She gasped for breath.
~Tribesmen of Gor, page 104~
Veil Dance of a Tahari girl
"There were bells, three rows of them, small and golden, thronged tightly about the girl's left ankle.
The entire floor of the chamber, shining, richly mosaiced, broad, reflecting the torchlight, was a map.
I watched the girl. Her knees were slightly bent. Her weight was on her heels, freeing her hips.
Her rib cage was lifted, but her shoulders, relaxed, were down.
Her abdominal muscles, too, were relaxed, loose. Her chin was lifted, haughtily. She did not deign to look at us. Dark hair flowed behind her.
The left ankle of the girl, under the bells, the brown thong, the golden metal, was tanned. The girl wore Gorean dancing silk. It hung low upon her bared hips, and fell to her ankles. It was scarlet, diaphanous. A front corner of the silk was taken behind her and thrust, loose and draped, into the rolled silk knotted about her hips; a back corner of the silk was drawn before her and thrust loosely, draped, into the rolled silk at her right hip. Low on her hips she wore a belt of small denomination, threaded, overlapping golden coins. A veil concealed her muchly from us, it thrust into the strap of the coined halter at her left shoulder, and into the coined belt at her right hip. On her arms she wore numerous armlets and bracelets. On the thumb and first finger of both her left and right hand were golden finger cymbals. On her throat was a collar.
'Yes,' said Samos. He clapped his bands. Immediately the girl stood beautifully, alert, before us, her arms high, wrists outward. The musicians, to one side, stirred, readying themselves.
Their leader was a czehar player.
He looked at the girl. He clapped his hands, sharply.
There was a clear note of the finger cymbals, sharp, delicate, bright, and the slave girl danced before us.
I regarded the coins threaded, overlapping, on her belt and halter. They took the firelight beautifully. They glinted, but were of small worth. One dresses such a woman in cheap coins;she is slave. Her hand moved to the veil at her right hip. Her head was turned away, as though unwilling and reluctant, yet knowing she must obey.
The dancer was now moving slowly to the music.
I turned to watch the dancer. She danced well. At the moment she writhed upon the 'slave pole,' it fixing her in place. There is no actual pole, of course, but sometimes it is difficult to believe there is not. The girl imagines that a pole, slender, supple, swaying, transfixed her body, holding her helplessly. About this imaginary pole, it constituting a hypothetical center of gravity, she moves, undulating, swaying, sometimes yielding to it in ecstasy, sometimes fighting it, it always holding her in perfect place, its captive. The control achieved by the use of the 'slave pole' is remarkable. An incredible, voluptuous tension is almost immediately generated, visible in the dancers body, and kinetically felt by those who watch. I heard men at the table cry out with pleasure. The dancer's hands were at her thighs. She regarded them, angrily, and still she moved. Her shoulders lifted and fell; her hands touched her breasts and shoulders; her head was back, and then again she glared at the men, angrily. Her arms were high, very high. Her hips moved, swaying. Then, the music suddenly silent, she was absolutely still. Her left hand was at her thigh; her right high above her head; her eyes were on her hip frozen into a hip sway; then there was again a bright, clear flash of the finger cymbals, and the music began again, and again she moved, helpless on the pole. Men threw coins at her feet.
The dancer moaned, crying out, as though in agony. Still she remained impaled upon the slave pole, its prisioner.
The hips of the dancer now moved, seemingly in isolation from the rest of her body, though her wrists and hands, ever so slightly, moved to the music.
Samos, with a snap of his fingers, freed the dancer from the slave pole. She moved, turning, toward us. Before us, loosening her veil at the right hip, she danced. Then she took it from her left shoulder, where it had been tucked beneath the strap of her halter. With the veil loose, covering her, holding it in her hands, she danced before us. Then she regarded us, dark-eyed, over the veil, it turned about her body; then, to the misery of the blondish girl, she wafted the silk about her, immeshing her in its gossamer softness. I saw the parted lips, the eyes wide with horror, of the kneeling, harnessed girl, through the light, yellow veil; then the dancer had drawn it away from her, and, turning, was again in the center of the floor."
~Tribesment of Gor, pgs. 7 - 13~
~The dance of Tuka~
"Tuka, Tuka!" called another fellow.
"She is extremely pretty," I said.
"She knows something of slave dance," said a fellow, licking his lips.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes" he said.
"Tuka, Tuka, Tuka!" called more men.
The fellow, Teiber, looked down at his slave, who looked up at him, and quickly, timidly, kissed at his thigh. ; How much she was his, I thought.
"Tuka, to the circle!" called a fellow.
"She is a dancer," said a man.
"She is extraordinary," said another.
"Put Tuka in the circle!" called a fellow.
"Tuka, Tuka!" called another.
Teiber snapped his fingers once, sharply, and the slave leaped to her feet, standing erect, her head down, turned to the right, her hands at her sides, the palms facing backward. ; She might have been in a paga tavern, preparing to enter upon the sand or floor. ; I considered Teiber's Tuka. ; She had an excellent figure for slave dance.
"Clear the circle!" called a fellow.
The other dancers hurried to the side, to sit and kneel, and watch.
I considered the slave. ; She was beautiful, and well curved.
Teiber gestured to the circle.
"Ahh!" said men.
"She moves like a dancer," I said.
"She is a dancer," said a fellow.
I considered the girl. ; She now stood in the circle, relaxed, yet supple and vital, her wrists, back to back, over her head, her kneels flexed.
"She is a bred passion slave," I said, "with papers and a lineage going back a thousand years."
"No," said a man.
"Where did he pick her up," I asked, "at the Curulean?"
"I do not know," said a fellow.
I supposed she was perhaps a capture. ; I did not know if a fellow such as this Teiber, who did not seem of the merchants or rich, could have afforded a slave of such obvious value. ; A fellow, for example, who cannot afford a certain kaiila might be able to capture it, and then, once he has his rope on its neck, and manages to make away with it, it is his mount.
"Aii!" cried a fellow.
"Aii!" said I too.
Dancing was the slave!
"She is surely a bred passion slave," I said. ; "Surely the blood line of such an animal go back a thousand years!"
"No! No!" said a man, rapt, not taking his eyes from the slave.
I regarded her, in awe.
"She is trained of course," said a man.
Only to obviously was this a trained dancer, and yet, too, there was far more than training involved. ; Too, I speak not of such relatively insignificant matters as the mere excellence of her figure for slave dance, as suitable and fitting as it might be for such and art form, for women with many figures can be superb in slave dance, or that she must possess a great natural talent for such a mode of expression, but something much deeper. ; In the nature of her dance I saw more than training, her figure, and her talent. ; Within this woman, revealing itself in the dance, in its rhythm, its joy, its spontaneity, its wonders, were untold depths of femaleness, a deep and radical femininity, unabashed and unapologetic, a rejoicing ; in her sex, a respect of it, a love of it, an acceptance of it and a celebration of it, a wanting of it, and of what she was, a woman, a slave, in all of its marvelousness.
"Tuka, Tuka!" called men.
Men clapped their hands.
The slave danced.
Much it seemed to me, though there might be two hundred men about the circle, she danced for her Master.
Once he even indicated that she should move more about which, instantly, commanded, she did.
"Tuka, Tuka!" even called some of the other slaves about the edges of the circle, sitting and kneeling there, unable to take their eyes from her, clapping, too. ; Teiber's Tuka it seemed, was popular even with the other slaves, of which she was such a superb specimen.
I watched her moving about the circle.
"Aii!" cried men, as she would pause a moment to dance before them. ; I had little doubt she might once have been a tavern dancer. Such dancers must present themselves in such a fashion before customers. This gives the customer an opportunity to assess them, and to keep them in mind, if he wishes, for later use in an alcove.
"Aii," cried another fellow.
I speculated that she would not have languished for attention in the alcoves.
"She is superb," said the flow next to me.
"Yes," I said.
She was working her way about the circle.
It was interesting to me that a Master would dare to display such a slave publicly. I gathered that he was quite confident of his capacity to keep her. ; He must then, I suspected, be excellent with the sword.
"Ah," said the fellow next to me.
The dancer approached.
How marvelous are the Gorean women, I thought. ; And I thought then, too, sadly, of the women of Earth, so many of them so confused, so miserable, so unhappy, women not knowing what they were,or what they might be, women trapped in a maze of ultimately ; barren artifices, women subjected to social coercions, women subjected to antibiological constraints, women forced to deny themselves and their depth natures in the name of freedom, women trying to be men, not knowing how to be women, women torturing themselves and others with their confusions, their inhibitions, their pain, their frustrations. ; But I did not blame them for they were the victims of pathological conditioning programs. ; Any beautiful, natural creature can be clipped and then instructed to rejoice i n its mutilations and mishappenness. ; So inhibit, so frigid, so inert, so anesthetic. ; That so many of them could even feel their pain was, I supposed, a hopeful sign. ; If their culture was correct, or judicious, why did it contain so much unhappiness and pain? ; In a body, pain is an indication that something is wrong. ; So, too, it is in a culture.
Then the dancer was before me, and I ; was awed with beauty.
I kept her there before me for a moment, not letting her move away, my gaze holding her.
I wept then for the men of Earth, that they would not know such beauties. How utterly marvelous are the Gorean females! How utterly different they are from the women of Earth! How impossible would it be for a female of Earth to match them!
I watched the dancer then move to the next fellow, and turn about.
Suddenly I was stunned. ; High on her left arm there was a small, circular scar. ; It was not, surely, in that place, and given its nature, the result of a marking iron. ; Indeed , it is by means of such tiny indications, fillings in the teeth, and such, that a certain sort of girl, for which there is a market on Gor, is often recognized.
"She is not from Gor!" I said.
"She is from far away," said the fellow next to me.
"From the distand land," said another.
"Called 'Earth,'" said another.
"Yes," I said.
The mark on the girl's arm had not been the result of the imprint of a master's iron. ; It had been a vaccination mark. ; I had noted, too, interestingly, just before she had whirled away, that she was shy. ; I assessed her as being quite intelligent, extremely sensitive, and an excellent slave.
She had now, as the music swirled to its finish, returned to move before her Master. ; Then, the dance ended, men striking their left shoulders in Gorean applause, shouting their vociferous approval, some armed warriors striking their shields with spear blades, she sank to the ground, on her back, breathless, breasts heaving, covered with a sheen of sweat, before her Master, her left knee raised, her head turned toward him, then palms of of her hands, at her sides, vulnerably exposed.
She had been superb. ; My shoulder was sore where I had much struck it.
Then with a sensuous, fluid movement she rose to her knees before her Master. ; She spread her knees, widely. She regarded him, beggingly. ; The danced had much aroused her, and she was totally his, completely at his will, his pleasure and mercy.
"Our gratitude , Teiber!" cried a fellow.
;
Magicians of Gor, pgs. 52-56
The Tether dance of an untrained slave
I jerked the tether on her throat.
"This is a tether," I said, "It is to be well incorporated in your dance. You are a tethered slave. Do not forget it. You may fight the tether, you may love it. It may confine your body, you may use it to caress your body, an invitation to your master, a surrogate symbol of his domination of you. You need not dance always on your feet. A woman can dance beautifully on her knees, moving as little as a hand, or on her back, or belly or side. In all things do not forget that you are a slave."
"Are you now commanding me to dance before you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "you dance now as a commanded slave. And if I am not well pleased have no fear but what you will be well beaten, if not slain."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then struck my hands together, and, terrified, the girl danced.
She had not been taught the tether dance, one of the most beautiful of the slave dances of Gor, but she improvised well. Indeed, it was hard to believe that she had not had training. I am inclined to believe that the need dances and display dances of the human female may be, at least in their rudiments, instinctual. I suspect there is a genetic disposition in the woman toward this type of behavior and that certain of the movements, closely associated with luring behavior and love movements, may also be genetically based. One reason for supposing this to be the case is that a girl's growth in certain forms of dance skills does not follow a normal learning curve. It is rather like the human being's ability to acquire speech, which also does not follow a normal learning curve. It seems reasonably likely that facility in acquiring speech, which would have enormous survival value, has been selected for. Similarly, a woman's marvelous adaptability to erotic dance may possibly have been selected for. At any rate, whatever the truth may be in these matters, feminine women, perhaps to the horror of their more masculine sisters, seem to take naturally to the beauties of erotic dance. At the very least, perhaps inexplicably, they are marvelously good at it. These genetic dispositions, of course, if they exist, can be culturally suppressed.
I watched the girl dance. She was quite good...
"Now you are becoming a woman," I told her. She knelt on one knee, her right; her left leg was flexed; the tether was taken, in a turn, about her left thigh; her hands, too, were on her left thigh; her head was down, but turned toward me; her lip trembled. "Continue to dance, Slave," I told her.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I watched her, and marveled. It is interesting to note that such movements, those of slave dances, despite the inhibitions of rigid cultures, may occur in a girl's sleep, and may even occur, almost spontaneously, when she, nude, alone, passes before a mirror in her bedroom. How shocked she may be to suddenly see her body move as that of a slave. Could it have been she who so moved? Later, perhaps to her surprise, she finds herself standing before the mirror. She is naked, and alone. Then, perhaps scarcely understanding what is occurring within her, she sees the girl in the mirror has begun to dance. The movements are not dissimilar perhaps to those of women who, thousands of years ago, danced in firelit caves before their masters. Then, knowing well that it si she herself who is the dancer, she dances brazenly, boldly, before the mirror. Well does she present her bared beauty before it in the movements, the attitudes and postures of the female slave. Then perhaps she falls to the rug, scratching at it, pressing her belly to it. "I want a Master," she whispers.
I now stood up. My arms were folded.
The girl now was upon her knees at my feet, the tether on her neck slung back behind her to the slave stake. Still in her dance, she began to lick and kiss at my body.
I then took her by the upper arms and held her, half lifted from her knees, before me.
"Please do not whip me," she begged.
I then, by the upper arms, dragged her to the side of the slave stake. I put her on her knees there. She looked up at me. "You danced well as a slave," I said.
~Explorers of Gor, page 360~
~The Hope of Tina~
'May the melody also be,' said she, 'one in which a slave may be well displayed.' 'A block melody?' asked the flutist, addressing his question to Philebus. 'No,' said Philebus, 'nothing so sensuous. Rather, say, the 'Hope of Tina.' Approval from the crowd met tthis proposal. The 'Hope of Tina,' a melody of Cos whuch would surely be popular with most of the fellows present, was an excellent choice. It was supposedly the expression of the yearning, or hope, of a young girl that she may be so beautiful, and so femine, and marvelous, that she will prove acceptable as a slave.
'Why do you wish to dance before me?' asked the burly fellow of the slave. 'Did Master not wish to see a woman dance?' she asked.
He regarded her, puzzled. It was clear he did not recall her, but also clear, for he was no fool, that he suspected more was afoot that a mere compliance with a masterly whim, even though such whims, for the slave, in many contexts, constitute orders of iron. To be sure, Temione was not a dancer, not in the strict trained sense, but she could move, and marvelously, and so, somehow, she did, swaying before him, and turning, but usually facing him, as though she wished not to miss an expression or an emotion that might cross his countenance. Yet, too, uncompromisingly, she was one with the music, and, particularly in the beginning, with the story, seeming to examine her own charms, timidly, as it, like the 'Tina' of the song, she might be considering her possible merits, whether of not she might qualify for bondage, whether or not she might somehow prove worthy of it, if only, perhaps, by inward compensations of zeal and love, whether or not she might, with some justification, aspire to the collar. Then later it seemed she danced her slavery openly, unabashedly, sensuously, so slowly, and so excitingly, before the men and, in particular, before the burly fellow. Surely now, all doubts resolved, there was no longer a question about the suitability of bondage for such a woman. The collar looked well on her neck. It belonged there. There was no doubt about it. How she looked at the burly fellow! He was now so taken with her he could hardly move. Now the exquisite slut began to sense her power, that of her beauty and desirability. She had determined, I now realized, from the first movement she had leaped to her feet, obedient to the command of her master, Philebus, that she would make test of her womanhood, that she would, courageously, regardless of the consequences, risking contempt and perhaps even punishment, display herself before him, this rude fellow who had once so scorned and tyrannized her as a free woman, as what she now was, ultimately and solely, female and slave. To be sure, she, new to her slavery, had perhaps not fully realized that she had really no chice in the matter but, willingly or not, must do so, and to the best of her ability, in total perfection
Vagabonds of Gor, pgs. 37-40
~A Dance of Placatory before her Master ~
I heard the sound of a tabor several yards away, and the swirl of a flute, and the clapping of hands.
I went in that direction.
"Marcus," I said, pleased, finding him in the crowd there.
"Women are dancing," he said.
"Superb," I said.
"The camp is in a holiday mood," I said.
"Yes," he said.
A fellow tore off the tunic of a slave girl and thrust her out, into the circle.
"Aii!" cried men.
The female danced.
"That one is pretty," said Marcus. He referred to a redhead, thrust into the circle.
There were now some four or five girls in the circle. ; One wore a sign that said, "I am for sale."
Two more girls entered the circle.
"Look," said Marcus. ; He referred to a new girl, joining the others in the circle. ; She wore ropes and performed on her kneels, her sides, her back and stomach.
"She is very good," said Marcus.
"Yes," I said.
The dance in the circle, as one might have gathered, was not the stately dance of free maidens. ; Even in which, of course, the maidens, though scarcely admitting this even to themselves, experience something of that stimulatory voluptuousness of movement, but slave dance, that form of dance, in its thousands of variations, ; in which a female may excitingly and beautifully, marvelously and fulfillingly, express the depths and profundities of her nature. ; In such dance the woman moves as a female, and shows herself as a female, in all her excitingness and beauty. ; It is no wonder that women love such dance, in which dance they are so desirable and beautiful, and in which dance they feel so free, so sexual, so much a slave.
Another woman entered the circle. ; She, to, was excellent.
Another girl, a slim blonde, was thrust into the circle. ; Her master, arms folded, regarded her. She lifted her chained wrists above her head, palms facing outwards, this, because of the linkage of the manacles, tightening it, bringing the backs of her hands closely together. ; She faced her Master. ; Desperate was she to please him. ; There was a placatory aspect to her dance. It seemed she wished to divert his wrath.
"Ahh," said Marcus. "Look!"
He was indicating the slim blonde, she with the chained wrists, whose dance before her Master seemed clearly placatory in nature. ; She had perhaps begged to be permitted to appear before him in the dancing circle, that she might attempt to please him. ; He had perhaps acquiesced. I recalled he had thrust her into the circle, perhaps in this generously according her, thought perhaps with some impatience, and misgivings, this chance to make amends for some perhaps unintentional, minuscule transgression. ; Perhaps his paga had not been heated to the right temperature. ; Women look well in collars.
The blonde was on her knees, extending her hands to her Master, piteously, all this with the music in her arms, her shoulders, her head and hair, her belly.
Her Master seized her from the circle then and hurried her from the light, her head down, held by the hair, at his left hip. ; This is a common leading position for female slaves being conducted short distances. ; As the master holds her hair in the left hand, it leaves his right hand, commonly the sword hand, free.
Another woman was thrust into the circle.
I thought the blonde had very successfully managed to divert the Master's wrath., assuming that was what she was up to. ; The only whip she need fear now, muchly, at nay rate, would seem to be the "whip of the furs." To be sure, she might be given a stroke or two, if only to remind her that she was slave.
Magicians of Gor pgs. 43-46
The Tile Dance
"I hear from the chain master," said Samos, "that you have learned the tile dance creditably."
The tiny cups and glasses shook on the tray. "I am pleased," she said, "if Krobus should think so."
The tile dance is commonly performed on red tiles, usually beneath the slave ring of the master's couch. The girl performs the dance on her back, her stomach and sides. Usually her neck is chained to the slave ring. The dance signifies the restlessness, the misery, of a love-starved slave girl. It is a premise of the dance that the girl moves and twists, and squirms, in her need, as if she is completely alone, as if her need is known only to herself; then, supposedly, the master surprises her, and she attempts to suppress the helplessness and torment of her needs; then, failing this, surrendering her pride in its final shred, she writhes openly, piteously, before him, begging him to deign to touch her. Needless to say, the entire dance is observed by the master, and this, in fact, of course, is known to both the dancer and her audience, the master. The tile dance, for simple psychological and behavioral reasons, having to do with the submission context and the motions of the body, can piteously arouse even a captured, cold free woman; in the case of a slave, of course, it can make her scream and sob with need.
~Explorers of Gor, pages 13-14~
A Slave learns the chain dance
"The drummer and the flautist prepared once more to play. The girl in the long, light chain smiled at me. She, at any rate, was pleased by my response.
A wrist ring was fastened on her right wrist. The long, slender, gleaming chain was fastened to this and, looping down and up, ascended gracefully to a wide chain ring on her collar, through which it freely passed, thence descending, looping down, and ascending, looping up, gracefully, to the left wrist ring. If she were to stand quietly, the palms of her hands on her thighs, the lower portions of the chain, those two dangling loops, would have been about at the level of her knees, just a little higher. The higher portion of the chain, of course, would be at the collar loop.
The musicians began again to play. There is much that can be done with such a chain. It was a dancing chain. Its purpose was not to confine the girl but to allow her to incorporate it in her dance, enhancing the dance with its movements and beauty. It is, of course, symbolic of her bondage, this adding fantastic dimensions of significance to the dance. It is not merely a beautiful woman who dances, but one who can be bought and sold, one who is subject to male ownership. Too, of course, the wrist rings, and the collar, are truly locked on her. There is no doubt about it. It is a slave, with all that that means, who is dancing."
~Kajira of Gor, pages 142-143~
Training in the Pole or Post Dance
"She knelt behind the dark, smooth post, facing it, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts against it, her hands embracing it.
'This may be done to music,' said Hermidorus, 'and, as you know, there are many versions tothe post dance, or pole dance, singly, or with more than one girl, with or without bonds, wand so on, but here we are using it merely as a training exercise. The whip cracked again and the girl, suddenly and lasciviously, became active.
I gasped.
She began to writhe about the pole. 'Kiss it, caress it, love it!' commanded the trainer, snapping the whip. 'Now more slowly, now scarcely moving, now use your thighs, and breasts more, moving all about it, holding it. Touch it with your tongue, lick it! Use the inside of your thighs more, your breasts, turn about it, slowly, sensuously. Lift your hands above your head, palms to the pole, caressing it. Turn about the pole! Twist about it! Now to your knees, holding it!' He then cracked the whip again. 'Enough!' he said. She was then as she had been before, kneeling behind the post, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts pressed against it, her hands embracing it."
~Kajira of Gor, page 141~
~Doreen's Virgin Dance ~
"Do you beg now to dance before your first use Master?" asked Mirus.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And before the guests of Hendow?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"And before all present?" he inquired.
"Yes, Master!" I said.
"Adorn her," said Mirius.
"Ina," called Tupita. "Sit," she said then to me, "with your hands on the floor beside you, leaning forward, your right leg advanced."
Ina came forward from the back through the beaded curtain, with a flat, shallow, box. Tupita and Sita removed the leather cuffs from my wrists.
There are some three senses of the expression "virgin dance" on Gor. There is a sense in which it is a kind of dance, rather than a particular dance, which is deemed appropriate for virgins. In that sense I was not expected to perform a "virgin dance." One would seldom see such dances in taverns. The second sense is the obvious one in which it is a dance danced by a virgin, and usually just prior to the loss of her virginity. In that sense, it could be almost any dance which serves the purpose of displaying the girl before her initial ravishing. The third sense of the term is that of a specific dance, or type of dance, most often, interestingly, not even danced by a virgin, but usually by an experienced slave. It is not exactly a story dance, but more of an emotional or attitudinal piece, more in the nature of a "role dance," a dance in which the slave dances as though she might be a virgin, but knows she is to be ravished, and that she is expected to be pleasing. The dance I was expected to perform was, I suppose, a "virgin dance" in both the second and third senses of the term. Mirius, paradoxically, speaking obviously in the third sense of the term, had told me that I would do better at this sort of dance when I was no longer a virgin.
felt metal anklets being thrust on my ankles by Tupita and Sita. They put several on each ankle. They then, similarly, placed narrow bracelets on both my wrists, several on each wrist. A long belt of cord, to which were attached numerous metal disks, suspended and shimmering, was then looped twice about me, the first loop secured high, and tight, at my waist, and the second loop, a larger loop, a framing loop, was secured in such a way, in the back, that it would hang quite low on my belly, well below my navel. The purpose of this belt was to call attention to, and enhance, by sound and sight, the movements of the hips and abdomen. With the slave beads I already wore I felt unutterably displayed, and barbaric. I could not move now without the sounds of the beads, the anklets and bracelets, the shimmering belt with its two loops.
"Stand," said Tupita.
I did.
The men gasped with pleasure. I was frightened.
"Prepare to dance, slave," said Tupita.
"Good," said a man.
I stood then with my hands lifted over my head, the backs of my hands facing one another, my knees flexed. It is a common beginning position in slave dance.
The musicians readied themselves.
I looked out on the men. These were not men of Earth, defeated and tamed by propaganda and lies. These were Gorean men, men like lions. I stood before them, weak and helpless, a woman from Earth, now a collared slave who must dance for their pleasure.
The czehar player, sitting cross-legged, now had his instruments across his lap. He was the leader of the musicians. He had his horn pick in hand.
I stood barefoot, naked, save for collar and adornments, on the dancing floor of a low-ceilinged Gorean tavern. I must prepare to please masters.
"Are you ready?" asked the leader of the musicians, the czehar player.
"Yes, Master!" I said, eagerly
"Aii!" cried a fellow, pleased, as I began to dance.
The music was rich about me.
I danced, as the slave I was.
"Here, slut, here!" called more than one man
I teased them, dancing close to them, swaying, my belly alive for them, with the jangling metal pieces, the anklets clashing on my ankles, the bracelets sliding and ringing on my wrists, and then as they attempted to seize me, drew back, backing away, or whirled, with a swirl of beads, away from them. I picked one man after another out of the audience, seeming to dance my beauty most meaningfully to him. Perhaps he would be my use master. I did not know.
"Several began to keep the time with their hands, clapping them together.
Suddenly in my dance it seemed I was a virgin, reluctant and fearful, terrified in the reality in which she found herself, but knowing she must respond to the music, to those heady, sensuous rhythms, to the wild cries of the flute, to the beating of the drum. I then danced timidity, and reluctance and inhibition, but yet reflecting, as one would, in such a situation, the commands of the music. I examined in dismay the beads about my neck, the cords at my waist, my barbarically adorned anklets and wrists. I touched my thighs, and lifted my arms, looking at them, and put my hands upon my body, as though I could not believe that it was unclothed. I pretended to shrink down within myself, to desire to crouch down, and conceal and cover my nudity. but then I straightened up, fearfully, as though I had heard commands to desist in such absurdities, and then I extended my hands to the sides, to various sides, as though pleading for mercy, to be released from the imperatives of the music, but then reacted, drawing back, as though I had seen the sigh of whips or weapons., The kaska player, alert to this, reduced the volume of his drumming, and then, five times, smote hard upon the taut skin, almost like the cracking of a whip, to which I reacted, turning to one side and another, as though such a disciplinary device had been sounded menacingly, on all sides, in my vicinity, and then I continued to dance, helpless before the will of masters. Then, as the dance continued, I signified by expression and movement my curiosity and fascination with what I was being forced to do, and the responses of my body, reconciled now to its reality, helplessly obedient now to the music.
I suddenly by expression and movement, an almost involuntary contortion of my belly, seemingly startling me, and frightening me, appeared to suddenly sense, or glimpse, my sexuality.
"Ah," said a man, appreciatively.
I approached him in the dance, and then others, my belly seeming to register, with its jangling accouterments, their presence. Each time I would draw back fro them, but my belly, my hips, would seem to propel me again toward them, or toward yet another. I then felt my hips, and thighs, and breasts, and belly, as these seemed to come alive in the music. And then, throwing my head back, I danced unabashedly as an acknowledged, aroused slave, much as I had before, taunting them, teasing them, delighting in my power, but then, suddenly as though I sensed my ultimate helplessness, my ultimate inability to achieve total fulfillment without the wholeness of sexuality, without the master and the yielding, which gave meaning to the incipient passions within me. I danced the aroused slave who is the property of the master and begs his touch.
"Good," said a fellow.
"The slut is excellent," said another.
Then I realized suddenly that I was actually aroused. The interior of my thighs were hot. My belly, hot and burning, seemed to beg to be touched. I do not know, really, whether I had done this to myself in the dance, which is possible, or if my arousal had merely come upon me in the course of the dance, but I was aroused. I was a helpless, aroused slave! This now was no role. It was what I was.
I returned to the back of the dancing floor, piteously, that I might sway before my master, he in the back, by the bearded curtain, gross, loathsome Hendrow.
Hendrow nodded to me, almost imperceptibly. Then pointing to me, and lifting his finger twice, he indicated I should turn away, and return my dance, in the center of the floor, facing the crowd.
I knew the music was approaching its climax, and the dance must be concluded.
I then, in the coda of my performance, danced helplessness and beauty, and submission, surrendering myself as I, in my collar, must, into the hands and mercies of masters.
As the music concluded I performed floor movements, and the eyes of the men blazed, and fists pounded on the tables, and then the music was done and I lay before them on my back, my breasts rising and falling as I fought for breath, my body sheened with sweat, my hands beside me, palms up, my knees lifted slightly, my right knee highest, a slave before masters.
Dancer of Gor, pgs. 190-196