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 several 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 capped 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.

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.

"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 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 master observes the entire dance, and both the dancer and her audience, the master, in fact, of course, know this. 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.

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 wilder. The dance receives its name from the fact that the girl's head is not suppose to rise abovethe 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.

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 become 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 atdelicately 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 an arm or an ankle has not yet seized her, 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 satisfy her. She must strive to be pleasing. If she is not good enough she may be chained, unfulfilled, 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 presentingherself 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.

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