  
Dance of Beauty
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, page 8
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