Dance of Need I turned away and gave my attention to the slave writhing on the tiles before us. She was performing a need dance, of a type not uncommon among Gorean female slaves. Such a dance usually proceeds in clearly defined phrases, evident not merely in the expressions and movements of the girl but in the nature of the accompanying music. There are usually five phases to such a dance. In the first phase the girl, dancing, feigns indifference to the presence of men, before whom, as a slave, she must perform. In the second phase, for she has not yet been raped, her distress and uneasiness, her restlessness, her disturbance by her sexual urges, must become subtly more manifest. Here it must be evident that she is beginning to feel her sexuality, and drives, profoundly, and yet is struggling against them. Toward the end of this phase it must become clear not only that she has sexual needs, and deep ones, but that she is beginning to fear that she may not be, simply as she is, of sufficient interest to men to obtain their satisfaction. Here, need, coupled with anxiety and self-doubt, for she has not yet been seized by strong men, must become clear. In the third phase of the dance she, in an almost ladylike fashion, acknowledges herself defeated in her attempt to conceal hersexuality; she then, again in an almost ladylike fashion, delicately but clearly, with restraint but unmistakably, acknowledges, and publicly, before masters, that she has sexual needs. Then, with smiles, and gestures, displaying herself, she makes manifest her readiness for the service of men, her willingness, and her receptivity. She invited them, so to speak to have her. But she has not yet been seized by an arm or an ankle, or by her collar, a thumb hooked rudely under it, or hair, and pulled from the floor. What if she is not sufficiently pleasing? What if she is not to be fulfilled? What if she must continue to dance, alone, unnoticed. At this point it becomes clear to her that it is by no means a foregone conclusion that men will find her of interest, or that they will see fit to satisy her. She must strive to be pleasing. If she is not good enough she may be chained, unfilfilled, another night alone in the kennel. There are always other girls. She must earn her rape. Too, if she should be insufficiently pleasing consistently it is likely that she will be slain. goreans place few impediments in the way of liberation of a slave female's sexuality. In this phase of the dance, then, shamelessly the woman dances her need and, shamelessly, begs for her sexual satisfaction. The phase of the dance is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. The fifth, and final phase, of the dance, is far more dramatic and exciting. In this phase the girl, overcome by sexual desire and terrified that she may not be found sufficiently pleasing, clearly manifests, and utterly, that she is a slave female. In this portion of the dance the girl is seldom on her feet. Rather, sitting, rolling, and changing position, on her side, her back, her belly, half kneeling, half sitting, kneeling, crawling, reaching out, bending backwards, lying down, twisting with passion, gesturing to her body, presenting it to masters for their inspection and interest, whimpering, moaning, crying out, brazenly presenting herself as a slave, pleading for her rape, she writhes, a piteous, begging, vulnerable, ready slave, a woman fit for and begging for the touch of a master, a woman begging to become, at the least touch of her master, a totally submitted slave. The fourth phase of the dance, as I have mentioned, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. This portion of the dance, the fifth portion, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Slave Girl... The music ended with a swirl of sound and the girl, with a jangle of bells, lay before the table of Policrates, whimpering, her hand extended. She lifted her head. I read the unmistakable need in her eyes. She was indeed a slave female.     Dance of Seduction At a languid gesture from Ibn Saran, Alyena lifted herself from the scarlet tiles, gracefully turning from her side to her knees, and then, head back, hair to the floor, slowly, inch by melodic protesting inch, arms before her body, lifted herself to a kneeling position, erect, the last bit of her to rise being her head, with a swirl of her blonde, loose hair. Then, looking to Ibn Saran, suddenly she bent forward, as though impulsively, as though she could not help herself, and, hands on the tiles, head down, kissed the tiles at his feet, before his slippers. She looked up at him. I gathered she wanted to be bought by him. He was her "rich man." He lifted his finger for her to rise. Her right leg thrust forth, brazenly, and then, from her kneeling position, slowly, hands above her head, moving, high, she rose swaying to her feet. "May I strip your slave?" inquired Ibn Saran. "Of course," I said. He nodded to the girl. To the music she unhooked her slave halter of yellow silk and, as though contemptuously, discarded it. I saw she was excited to see his interest in her. Only too obviously was she interested in him making a purchase of her. The churning of milk and the pounding of grain were not for lovely Alyena. That was for ugly girls and free women. She was too desirable, too beautiful, to be set to such labors... Alyena, now, slowly, disengaged the dancing silk from her hips, yet held it, moving it on and about her body, by her hands, taunting the reclining, languid, heavy-lidded Ibn Saran, to whom she knew, at his slightest gesture, she must bare herself. He regarded her veil work; she was skillful; he was a connoisseur of slave girls... At a signal from Ibn Saran, Alyena drew the veil about her body, and around it, and, with one small hand, threw it aside. She stood boldly before him, arms lifted, head to the side, right leg flexed. The veil, floating, wafted away, a dozen feet from her, and gently, ever so gently, settled to the tiles. Then, to the new melodic line, she danced... Alyena now to a swirl of music spun before us, swept helpless with it, bangles clashing, to its climax. Then she stopped, marvelously, motionlessly, as the music was silent, her head back, her arms high, her body covered with sweat, and then, to the last swirl of the barbaric melody, fell to the floor at the feet ofvIbn Saran. I noted the light hair on her forearms. She gasped for breath. Dance of Sa-eela The Sa-eela is one of the most moving, deeply rhythmic and erotic of the slaves dances of Gor. It belongs, generally to the genre of dances commonly known as the Lure Dances of the Love-Starved Slave Girl. The common theme of the genre, of course, is the attempt on the part of a neglected slave to call herself to the attention of the Master. The Sa-eela, usually performed in the nude, as though by a low slave, and by a girl freed of all impediments except her collar, is one of the most powerful of slave dances of Gor. It is done rather differently in different cities but the variations practiced in the river towns and, generally in the Vosk basin, are in my opinion, among the finest. There is no standardization for better or worse, in Gorean slave dance. Not only can the dances differ from city to city, but even from tavern to tavern, and from girl to girl. This is because each girl, in her own way, brings the nature of her own body, her own dispositions, her own sensuality and needs, her own personality, to the dance.. For the woman, slave dance is a uniquely personal and creative art form. Too, it provides her with a wondrous modality for deeply intimate self-expression.. The Sa-eela, of course is not the sort of dance which could be performed by a free woman. The slave now danced upon her knees, at the end of the table using the table in the dance, thrusting her belly against it, and touching it with her hands, and her body and lips. Then with her back inches from the table, on the tiles, on her back, and sides, and knees, and then prone, and again supine, and then writhing, as though in frustration and loneliness. Stands before the Master, hands lifted, their backs together above her head. T observed the dancer, closely, the striking of her small, clinched fists on the tiles, the scratching of her fingernails at their smooth surfaces, the turning of a hip, the flattening of a thigh, the lifting of a knee, the turning of her head, the piteous scarrering of her hair from side to side. She lay on her back, and whimpering, struck down in misery, stinging the palms of her hands, bruising her small heels. She might have been in a cell,locked away from men. She then rolled to her stomach, and rose to her hands and knees, and head down remainded for a moment in that posture. It is at this moment that the music enters a different melodic phase, one less physical andfrenzied, one almost lyrical in its poignance. She crawls some feet to her left and lifts her head. She puts out her small hand. It seems that it there encounters some barrier, some enclosing, confining wall. She then rises to her feet. Swiftly she hurries about, in the graceful, frightened haste of the dancer, her hands seeming to trace the location of the obdurate barriers, those invisible walls which seem to contain her. She then stood and faced us, and put her head in her hands, bent over and straightened her body, her head and hair thrown back. "I?" she seemed to ask, looking out, as though some rude jailer might have come to the gate of her pen. But there is of couse, no one there, and in the performance of the dance, that is clearly understood. Then, in poignant fantasy, within the pen, she prepares herself for the Master, seeming to thoughtfully select silks and jewelry, seeming to apply perfume and cosmetics, seeming to be bedecked in shimmering diaphanous slave plendor. She then crosses her wrists, and moves them, as though they have been bound. She then extends hem before her as though the strap on them had been drawn taut. It then seems that she, head high, a bound lave is being led on her tether, from the pen. But, at the gate, of course, her wrists separate, and her small alms and fingers indicate for us clearly, that she is still confined. She retreats to the center of the pen, falls to her knees, covers he head with her hands, and weeps. The next phase of the music begins at this point. She looks up..there is a sound in the corridor... She leaps up, and backs against the wall of her pen. This time, it seems, truly, there are men there, that they have come for her. She puts her head up; She turns away; she feigns disdane. Then it seems as she, startled, looks about, on the floor of the pen, calling to them, lifting her head, holding out her hand piteously to them. She pleads to be considered. It then seems, as she shrinks back, lifting herself to the plams of her hands, frightened, that the gate to her pen has been opened. She kneels swiftly in the position of the pleasure slave. Obviously she fears her rude jailers. Twice it seems she is struck with a whip. Then she again assumes the postion of a pleasure slave. She nods her head. She understands well what is expected of her. She is to perform well on the tiles of the feasting hall. "Yes Masters!" it seems she says. But how little do her jailers, perhaps only common and boorishfellows, understand that this is precisely what she too, deeply and desperately desires to do. How long she has waited, in cruel frustration, unfulfilled and lonely, in her cell for just such a moment, that precious opportunity in which she a mere slave, may be permitted to display and present herself for consideration of her Master. How can they understand the poignance, and significance of this moment for her? She is to have an opportunity to present herself before the Master! Who knows if she in such a large house, one with such cells and jailers, may ever again be given such an opportunity. It then seems that she is hauled to her feet and that her wrists, tightly and cruelly, are bound behind her back. Her body and head are then bent far over. Her head twists. It seems a man's hand is in her hair. Not as a high slave, clothed in jewelries and shimmering silks, tastefully bound, is she to be conducted to the site of her performance, some aristocratic banquet; rather, cruelly bound and nude, she is to be thrown before masters at a drunken feast. She then with small, hurried steps, bent over, described a wide circle on the tiles. Then, it seemed, she was thrown to her knees, and then her side, before us. Her hands were still held as though tightly bound behind her. She looked at us. We were of course, the "masters," before whom she was to perform. She rose to her feet. She twisted as though her hands were being untied. She then flexed her legs and lifted her hands over her head, as she hand in the beginning, back to back. The final phases of the Sa-eela then begin. In these phases the girl, in all her unshielded beauty, and naked except for the collar of slavery, attempts to arouse the interest of her master. The slave's body gleamed with sweat. She had small feet, and lovely high arches. Her body was superb. She had now entered into the display phase of the Sa-eela. In this portion of the dance the girl calls attention to the various aspects of her beauty, from the swirling sheen of her cascading hair, to her ankles, from her small feet to her tiny, fine fingers. The music now, pounding and throbbing, mounted headily tword the climax of the Sa-eela. In these, the final portions of the Sa-eela, the slave in effect, puts herself at the mercy of the master. She has already presented before him, almost in a delectable enumeration, many of the more external and rhythmic aspects of her beauty. She has displayed herself hitherto before him rather as an object in which, hopefully, he might take an interest. A woman may do this, of course from many motives; such as fear or her desire to be purchased by an affluent Master, only one of which might be her authentic, poignant desire to be found pleasing by him. for her own sake. In such displays there can be, though there often is not, a subtle psychological distinction, detectable in the behavior, between the merchandise, so to speak, and the girl who is displaying herself as merchandise. In the first case, where no true distinction exists, which is the authentic case, the girl in effect says, "I am for sale. Buy me, and love me!" In the second case, the girl in effect says, "Here is a fine slave. Are you not interested in her?" In the second case of couse, the Gorean is interested, though the girl may not understand this clearly, in not only the merchandise but the girl who is displaying the merchandise. She might truly be terrified if she understood that it was herself he intended to own, and in fact, was going to own, she the exhibitor of the merchandise as well as she, the merchandise exhibited. Goreans, as I have mentioned, are interested in owning the whole woman, in all her sweetness, depth, complexity and individualism. The girl now, in all her helplessness, in all her desperation in all her sensual splendor, was dancing not aspects or attributes of her beauty before her master, but was dancing her own passions, her own needs and desires, her own piteous needful, beautiful, intimate and personal self before him. There were no restraints, no reservations, no compromises, no divisions or distinctions. Her needs were as exposed as her collared body. She danced herself before her Master. The music swirled to its climax and the slave turned and flung herself to her back on the tiles. As the music struck its last, rousing note, she arched her back, and flexed her legs, and looked back at him, her right arm extended piteously back toward him.     Tether Dance I jerked the tether on her throat. "This is a tether," I said, "It is to be well incorporated in your dance. You are a tethered slave. Do not forget it. You may fight the tether, you may love it. It may confine your body, you may use it to caress your body, an invitation to your master, a surrogate symbol of his domination of you. You need not dance always on your feet. A woman can dance beautifully on her knees, moving as little as a hand, or on her back, or belly or side. In all things do not forget that you are a slave." "Are you now commanding me to dance before you?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "you dance now as a commanded slave. And if I am not well pleased have no fear but what you will be well beaten, if not slain." "Yes, Master," she said. I then struck my hands together, and, terrified, the girl danced. She had not been taught the tether dance, one of the most beautiful of the slave dances of Gor, but she improvised well. Indeed, it was hard to believe that she had not had training. I am inclined to believe that the need dances and display dances of the human female may be, at least in their rudiments, instinctual. I suspect there is a genetic disposition in the woman toward this type of behavior and that certain of the movements,closely associated with luring behavior and love movements, may also be genetically based. One reason for supposing this to be the case is that a girl's growth in certain forms of dance skills does not follow a normal learning curve. It is rather like the human being's ability to acquire speech, which also does not follow a normal learning curve. It seems reasonably likely that facility in acquiring speech, which would have enormous survival value, has been selected for. Similarly, a woman's marvelous adaptability to erotic dance may possibly have been selected for. At any rate, whatever the truth may be in these matters, feminine women, perhaps to the horror of their more masculine sisters, seem to take naturally to the beauties of erotic dance. At the very least, perhaps inexplicably, they are marvelously good at it. These genetic dispositions, of course, if they exist, can be culturally suppressed. I watched the girl dance. She was quite good... "Now you are becoming a woman," I told her. She knelt on one knee, her right; her left leg was flexed; the tether was taken, in a turn, about her left thigh; her hands, too, were on her left thigh; her head was down, but turned toward me; her lip trembled. "Continue to dance, Slave," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. I watched her, and marveled. It is interesting to note that such movements, those of slave dances, despite the inhibitions of rigid cultures, may occur in a girl's sleep, and may even occur, almost spontaneously, when she, nude, alone, passes before a mirror in her bedroom. How shocked she may be to suddenly see her body move as that of a slave. Could it have been she who so moved? Later, perhaps to her surprise, she finds herself standingbefore the mirror. She is naked, and alone. Then, perhaps scarcely understanding what is occurring within her, she sees the girl in the mirror has begun to dance. The movements are not dissimilar perhaps to those of women who, thousands of years ago, danced in firelit caves before their masters. Then, knowing well that it is she herself who is the dancer, she dances brazenly, boldly, before the mirror. Well does she present her bared beauty before it in the movements, the attitudes and postures of the female slave. Then perhaps she falls to the rug, scratching at it, pressing her belly to it. "I want a Master," she whispers. I now stood up. My arms were folded. The girl now was upon her knees at my feet, the tether on her neck slung back behind her to the slave stake. Still in her dance, she began to lick and kiss at my body. I then took her by the upper arms and held her, half lifted from her knees, before me. "Please do not whip me," she begged. I then, by the upper arms, dragged her to the side of the slave stake. I put her on her knees there. She looked up at me. "You danced well as a slave," I said.     Whip Dance A new dancer came forth upon the floor and began, a tall brute near her with the leather, to perform a whip dance... ...In the whip dance, though there are various versions of it, depending on the locality, the girl is almost never struck with the whip, unless, of course, she does not perform well. When the whip is cracked, however, the girl will commonly react as though she has been struck. this, conjoined with the music, and her beauty, and the obvious symbolism of her beauty beneath total male descipline, can be extremely, powerfully erotic. In an elegant, civilized context, one of beauty and music, it makes clear and bespeaks the raw and essential primitives of the ancient, genetic, biological sexual realtionship of men and women.... The whip dance continued before us.. The whip dance was now approaching its climax... I turned my attention to the dancer on the floor. She lay now on her back, one knee lifted, her arms at her sides, palms down, before the brute with his whip, who towered over her. Her head, too, was turned to the side. Then she turned her head to face the brute who tyrannized her. She looked deeply into his eyes. then, delicately, in a graceful gesture, she turned her hands, putting their backs to the floor, exposing her palms, and the soft flesh of her palms, to him, indicating her surrender, her submission, her vulnerability and her readiness. There was applause, the striking of the left shoulder, from the tables. The brute then crouched beside her and encircled her neck with the coils of his whip. He drew her to her knees then before him. She looked up at him, her neck in the whip coils, his. There was more applause. Then the brute looked to Policrates, who indicated a table. He then pulled the girl to her feet and, running her over the tiles, and then releasing the coils from her neck, threw her stumbling into the arms of waiting pirates who, with a cry of pleasure, sized her and began to work their lusty wills upon her. There was more applause, and laughter.

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