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
