on Gorean Dance
"That is a slave song! she cried. He stopped clapping and singing, and regarded her. "There are white slaves present, Master!" she cried. He looked upon her sternly. "I dance, my master," she cried, frightened. She flexed her legs, freeing her body to move, and extended her arms gracefully to the right, the right arm further advanced than the left. "Is she free?" asked Ayari. "No," said Kisu. "Have her put her arms over her head, wrists back to back," said Ayari. "Do so," said Kisu. Tende complied. "How lovely that is," said Kisu. "I have seen it done in Schendi," said Ayari. "It is one of the ways in which a slave may begin a dance." I smiled to myself. That was true. The lovely posture which Tende had just assumed was undeniably one of the initial postures of certain slave dances. It is widely known on Gor, of course, not just in Schendi. It is, for example, quite familiar in Port Kar and, far to the southeast of that port, and somewhere far to the north and east of our present position, in the Tahari. Slave dances, of course, may begin in dozens of ways, sometimes even with the girl roped or chained at a man's feet. I looked at Tende. To be sure, only a slave dance could begin from such a posture. No free woman, for example, would dare to place herself in such a position before Gorean free men, unless perhaps, weary of her misery and frustration, she was begging them, almost explicitly, to put her in a collar ... "Are you ready, slave?" asked Kisu. "Yes, Master," said Tende. I am fond of slave dances. It is hard for a woman to be more beautiful than when she dances her beauty as a slave before masters ... "Dance, slave," said Kisu. "Yes, Master," said Tende. Tende then, obedient to her master's command, as Kisu clapped his hands and sang, danced on a flat rock in the Ua river, danced before Bila Huruma, so far away, her master's enemy, from whom she had been stolen. She danced well. I observed the eyes of the blond-haired barbarian who, with Alice knelt on the rock. The eyes of the blond-haired barbaria, gazing on the exhibited slave, shone with excitement. How beautiful Tende was. And how stimulating it was to the blond-haired barbarian to realize that a man could force a woman to do this sort of thing. Kisu continued to clap his hands. He continued to sing, the strains of a melodic slave song. Dances bring high prices on Gor. Some slavers specialize in dancers, renting them, and buying and selling them. Two such houses in Ar are those of Kelsius and Aurelius. Some say that the finest dancers of Gor are found in Ar; others say that they are found in Port Kar, and others say that they are in the Tahari, or in Turia. These controversies, I think, are fruitless. I have been in many cities and in each I have found marvelous dancers. The matter is further complicated by the buying and selling of girls and their shipment, as merchandise, among cities. A dancer has usually had many masters; her fair throat has been graced by many collars. In some cities if a dancer is not thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she is thrown to the patrons of the tavern to be torn to pieces or beaten. If she is thought to have been sufficiently pleasing she may be auctioned, for the period of an Ahn, to the highest bidder. "Enough!" called Kisu, happily. Tende stopped dancing ...
{Explorers of Gor, page 342}
{Rogue of Gor, pages 10-11}
