He signaled the musicians, and they began, again, to play.
I saw that it was a slave who danced before the men. She gyrated but inches from a burly
oarsman, then leaped back, eluding his drunken grasp. She moved between the tables, a
slave, an owned woman. Then she was kneeling beside a man, kissing and caressing him, and
then, as though it were involuntary, as though her hands were tied behind her and she was
being pulled back, away from him, by a rope, she retreated from him. In a moment she was
showering another man with her hair and kisses. Then she offered a man wine, holding the
goblet, pressing it Against her belly, swaying sensuously before him. She was then again
in the center of the tiles, among the tables. She made as if to speak, and then, suddenly,
stopped, as though startled. Then she took a wad of her long, golden hair and, swiftly
balling it, thrust it, as though insolently, in her mouth. She then looked at the men
reproachfully. It was as though a man, perhaps not desiring to hear her speak, had gagged
her with her own hair. There was laughter. She drew the hair from her mouth, drawing some
of it, in loosening it, deeply back between her teeth, with her head back, as though she
might have been in the constraint of a gag strap, all this to the music, and then her hair
was free, and, with a movement of her head and movements of her hands, beautifully, she
draped and spread it about her. It seemed then she withdrew modestly, frightened, behind
the hair, drawing it like a cloak or sheet about her, as though by means of this piteous
device she might hope desperately to conceal at least some minimal particle of her beauty
from the rude scrutiny of masters. But it was not to be permitted.
To a swirl of music, taking her hair to the sides, holding it, parting it, with clenched
fists thrust behind her, twisting, her body thrust forward, her beauty was suddenly, it
seemed as though by command, or by the action of another, brazenly based. 'Good!' said
more than one man. There was a striking of shoulders in Gorean applause. Even some of the
slave girls cried out with pleasure. The girl had done it well. Then she was again dancing
among the tables. Her movements gave much pleasure. She entertained well. If Samos had
known she would prove this good he might have put her in bells or a chain. I doubted that
some of the things she had done, in all their abundance and richness, had been merely
thought up on the spur of the moment. I suspected that many times in her dreams and
fantasies she had danced thus before men, as a slave. Then, lo, one night in Port Kar she
found herself truly a slave, and so dancing, and for her life.
As the music neared its climax she returned before our table, dancing desperately and
pleadingly. It was there that was to be found her master.
She lowered herself to the floor and there, on her knees, and her sides, and her belly and
back, continued her dance.
Men cried out with pleasure.
Floor movements are among the most stimulatory aspects of slave dance. I regarded her. She
was not bad. She was, of course, not trained. A connoisseur of slave dance, I suppose,
might have pointed out errors in the pointing of a toe, the extension of a limb, the use
of a hand, not well framing the body, not subtly inviting the viewer's eye inward, and so
on, but, on the whole, she was definitely not bad. Given her lack of training, a lack
which could, of course, be easily remedied, she was not bad, really. Much of what she did,
I suppose, is instinctual in a woman. Too, of course, she was dancing for her life.
She writhed well, an utterly helpless, begging slave. Then the music was finished and she
was before us, kneeling, her head down, in submission to Samos. She lifted her head to
regard Samos, her master. She searched his face fearfully, for the least sign of her fate.
It was he who would decide whether she would live or die.
'For the moment, at least,' said Samos, 'you will not be thrown to sleen.'"
Players of Gor, Pg. 19 - 28
