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.
From #10. Tribesmen of Gor, pg. 08, by John Norman. A Port Kar Slave's
Dance of Beauty
Belt
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. Beside me Ho-Tu was shoveling porridge into
his mouth with a horn spoon. 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. Cernus, as usual, was engaged in a game with
Caprus, and had eyes only for the board...
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....
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.
From #5. Assassin of Gor, pg. 185, by John Norman. Phyllis Robertson's Belt Dance
Chain
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 misery 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.
I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated. Kamchak, too,
would not take his eyes from the woman.
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.
From #4. Nomads of Gor, pg. 159, by John Norman. A Port Kar Slave's Chain
Dance
Need
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.
From #15. Rogue of Gor, pg. 185, by John Norman. A Port Cos Slave's Need
Dance
Panther
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.
From #8. Hunters of Gor, pg. 138, by John Norman. The Tribe of Verna's
Stalking Dance of the Panther Girls
