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.
As the weeks had wore on, becoming months, I had grown more and more apprehensive and impatient. More than once I had called on Caprus myself, though it was perhaps not wise, to urge him to speed in his work, or to permit me to transmit portions of the documents he was copying to the Sardar. Always he refused. I had been bitter at these delays, complaining and chafing, but there seemed little I could do. He would not inform me of the location of the maps and papers and I did not feel that any direct attempt to steal them and carry them away would be likely to be successful; further, if simply stolen, the Others, through Cernus, would doubtless be informed at the first opportunity and alternate plans put into effect. I reminded myself, again and again, as the month clock rotated, that Caprus was a trusted agent of Priest-Kings, that Misk himself had spoken in the highest terms of him. I must trust Caprus. I would trust him. Yet I could not help my anger.
Ho-Tu pointed with his spoon at Phyllis. �She is not bad,� he said.
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 whit 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.
�Excellent,� said Ho-Tu, putting aside his spoon.
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 supposed 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.
�Sura is doing a good job with her,� said Ho-Tu.
I agreed.
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.
A girl in a tunic of white silk, gracefully, carrying a large pitcher of diluted Ka-la-na wine, approached out table from the rear, and climbed the stairs, delicately, and as though timidly, head down. Then she leaned forward behind me, bending her knees slightly, her body graceful. Her voice in my ear was a whisper, an invitation. I looked at her. Her eyes met mine, beautiful, deep, gray. Her lips were were slightly parted. �Wine, Master?� asked Virginia Kent.
�Yes,� I said, �I will have wine.�
Virginia served me, bowed her head and backed gracefully down the stairs behind me, then turned and hurried away.
�She is White Silk, of course,� said Ho-Tu.
�I know,� I said.
Another girl approached similarly, though she was attired in a tunic of red silk.
�Wine, Master?� asked Elizabeth Cardwell.
�Again,� snapped Ho-Tu, angrily.
Flustered, Elizabeth retreated and again approached. It was only on the third time that she managed to satisfy Ho-Tu, when her eyes, her lips, the carriage of her body, the words she whispered seemed to him adequate. �That is a stupid one,� said Ho-Tu. Elizabeth, angry, backed down the stairs and hurried away.
I glanced at Virginia Kent, who was now moving about the tables, in the incredibly brief silken slave livery, the pitcher on her left shoulder, held there gracefully with her left hand. Her hair was now about three inches longer than it had been when she had come to the House of Cernus. She walked gracefully, insolently, the movement of her firing my blood. Her ankles were slender, beautiful. The left, as was the case with Phyllis, was now no longer encircled with the steel band, the identification band. About her throat, however, as was the case with Phyllis also, there was now a lock collar, snugly fitting, white-enameled. Both girls, branded and collared, were well marked as slave.
The belt dance was now moving to its climax and I turned to watch Phyllis Robertson.
�Capture of Home Stone,� I heard Cernus say to Caprus, who spread his hands helplessly, acknowledging defeat.
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 might 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 and the male stepped back, and Phyllis now stood, alone on the furs, sweating, breathing deeply, head down.
Assassin of Gor p. 185