Then, about me, the panther girls, circling, swaying, began
a slow stalking dance, as of hunters.
I lay in the center of the circle.
Their movements were slow, and incredibly beautiful. Then suddenly one would cry out and
thrust at me with her spear. But the spear was not thrust into my body. Its point would
stop before it had administered its wound. Many of the blows would have been mortal. But
many thrusts were only to my eyes, or arms and legs. Every bit of me began to feel
exposed, threatened.
I was their catch.
Then the dance became progressively swifter and wilder, and the feigned blows became more
frequent, and then, suddenly, with a wild cry, the swirling throng about me stood for an
instant stock still, and then with a cry, each spear thrust down savagely toward my heart.
I cried out.
None of the spears had struck me.
The girls cast aside the spears. Then, like feeding she-panthers they knelt about me, each
one, with her hands and tongue, touching and kissing me.
I cried out with anguish.
I knew I could not long resist them.
Hunters of Gor, page 138
There was a long silence, of some Ihn, and then, at a nod
from Hura, who threw her long black hair back and lifted her head to the moons, the drum
began again its beat. Mira's head was down, and shaking. Her right foot was stamping. The
panther girls put down their heads. I saw their fists begin to clench and unclench. They
stood, scarcely moving, but I could sense the movement of the drum in their blood.
The men of Tyros glanced to one another.
It was few free men who had ever looked, unbound, on the rites of panther girls.
Hura's eyes were on the moons. She lifted her hands, fingers like claws, and screamed her
need.
The girls then, following her, began to dance...
How starved must be the lonely, hating panther women of the forests, so gross is their
hostility, so fierce their hatred, and yet need, of men. They twisted, screaming now,
clawing at the moons. I would scarcely have guessed at the primitive hungers evident in
each movement of those barbaric, feline bodies. They would be masters of men. Proud,
magnificent creatures. And yet by biology, by their beauty, by their aroused inwardness,
could not, in fact, own but only, in their true fulfillment, belong, be taken, be
conquered....
The drum was now very heady, swift. The dance of the panther girls became more wild, more
frenzied. Vicious, sinuous, clawing, lithe, these savage beauties, in their skins and
gold, with their knives, their light spears, weapons darting, danced. They were terrible,
and beautiful, in the streaming, flooding light of the looming, primitive moons of
perilous Gor. I could hear their cries of rage and need, hear their heels striking in the
earth, their hands slapping at their thighs. I saw the teeth of some, white, bared, at the
moons, their eyes blazing. The hair of all was unbound. Several had already, oblivious of
the presence of the men of Tyros, torn away their skins to the waist, others completely.
On some I could hear the movement of the necklaces of sleen teeth tied about their necks,
the shivering and ringing of slender golden bangles on their tanned ankles. In their dance
they danced among the staked-out bodies of the men of Marlenus, and about the great Ubar
himself. Their weapons leapt at the bound men, but never did the blows fall...
The dance would soon strike its climax. It could continue little longer. The women would
go mad with their need to strike and rape.
Suddenly the drum stopped and Hura stopped, her body bent backward, her head back, her
long black hair falling to the back of her knees.
She was breathing deeply, very deeply. Her body was covered with a sheen of sweat.
Hunters of Gor, page 197
