kajira Dances Page 3

Veil-Pole Dance 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.     Pole Dance Then, suddenly, the two men with the kaiila quirts struck her across the back and, before she could do more than cry out, she was, too, pulled to her feet and forward, on the two tethers. She then stood, held by the tethers, wildly, before the pole. Cancega pointed to the pole. She looked at him, bewildered. Then the quirts, again, struck her, and she cried out in pain. Cancega again pointed to the pole. Winyela then put her head down and took the pole in her small hands, and kissed it, humbly. "Yes," said Cancega, encouraging her. "Yes." Again Winyela kissed the pole. "Yes," said Cancega. Winyela then heard the rattles behind her, giving her her rhythm. These rattles were then joined by the fifing of whistles, shrill and high, formed from the wing bones of the taloned Herlit. A small drum, too, then began to sound. Its more accented beats, approached subtly but predictable, instructed the helpless, lovely dancer as to the placement and timing of the more dramatic of her demonstrations and motions. "It is the Kaiila," chanted the men. Winyela danced. There was dust upon her hair and on her body. On her cheeks were the three bars of greases that marked her as the property of the Kailla. Grease, too, had been smeared liberally upon her body. No longer was she a shining beauty. She was now only a filthy slave, an ignoble animal, something of no account, something worthless, obviously, but nonetheless permitted, in the kindness of the Kaiila, a woman of another people, to attempt to please the pole. I smiled. Was this not suitable? Was this not appropriate for her, a slave? Winyela, kissing the pole, and caressing it, and moving about it, and rubbing her body against it, under the directions of Cancega, and guided sometimes by the tethers on her neck, continued to dance. I whistled softly to myself. "Ah," said Cuwignaka. "It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men. "I think the pole will be pleased," I said. "I think a rock would be pleased," said Cuwignaka. "I agree," I said. Winyela, by the neck tethers, was pulled against the pole. She seized it, and writhed against it, and licked at it. "It is the Kaiila!" chanted the men. "It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka. A transformation seemed suddenly to come over Winyela. This was evinced in her dance. "She is aroused," said Cuwignaka. "Yes," I said. She began, then, helplessly, to dance her servitude, her submission, her slavery. The dance, then, came helplessly from the depths of her. The tethers pulled her back from the pole and she reached forth for it. She struggled to reach it, writhing. Bit by bit she was permitted to near it, and then she embraced it. She climbed, then, upon the pole. There her dance, on her knees, her belly and back, squirming and clutching, continued... Winyela now knelt on the pole and bent backwards, until her hair fell about the wood, and then she slipped her legs down about the pole and lay back on it, her hands holding to the pole behind her head. She reared helplessly on the pole, and writhed upon it, almost as though she might have been chained to it, and then, she turned about and lay on the pole, on her stomach, her thighs gripping it, her hands pushing her body up, and away from the pole, and then, suddenly, moving down about the trunk, bringing her head and shoulder down. Her red hair hung about the smooth, white wood. Her lips, again and again, pressed down upon it, in helpless kisses.... Winyela, helplessly, piteously, danced her obeisance to the great pole, and, in this, to her Master, and to men... In her dance, of course, Winyela was understood to be dancing not only her personal slavery, which she surely was, but, from the point of view of the Kaiila, in the symbolism of the dance, in the medicine of the dance, that the women of enemies were fit to be no more than the slaves of the Kaiila. I did not doubt but what the Fleer and the Yellow Knives, and other peoples, too, might have similar ceremonies, in which, in one way or another, a similar profession might take place, there being danced or enacted also by a woman of another group, perhaps even, in those cases, by a maiden of the Kaiila. I, myself, saw the symbolism of the dance, and, I think, so, too, did Winyela, in a pattern far deeper than that of an ethnocentric idiosyncrasy. I saw the symbolism as being in accord with what is certainly one of the deepest and most pervasive themes of organic nature, that of dominance and submission. In the dance, as I chose to understand it, Winyela danced the glory of life and the natural order; in it she danced her submission to the might of men and the fulfillment of her own femaleness; in it she danced her desire to be owned, to feel passion, to give of herself, unstintingly, to surrender herself, rejoicing, to service and love. "It is the Kaiila!" shouted the men. "It is the Kaiila!" shouted Cuwignaka. Winyela was dragged back, toward the bottom of the pole on its tripods. There she was knelt down. The two men holding her neck tethers slipped the rawhide, between their fist and the girl's neck, under their feet, the man on her left under his right foot, and the man on her right under his left foot. But already Winyela, of her own accord, breathing deeply from the exertions of her dance, and trembling, had put her head to the dirt, humbly, before the pole. Then the tension on the two tethers was increased, the rawhide on her neck being drawn tight under the feet of her keepers. I do not think Winyela desired to raise her head. But now, of course, she could not have done so had she wished. It was held in place. I think this is the way she would have wanted it. This is what she would have chosen, to be owned, to serve, to be deprived of choice. The men about slapped their thighs and grunted their approval. The music stopped. The tethers were removed from Winyela's neck. She then, tentatively, lifted her head. It seemed now she was forgotten.     Stalking Dance of the Panther Girls 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. 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.     Mirana's Dance of Beauty Mirana rises from the furs easily, moving to the center of the room, feeling the eyes of a Master upon her as she sways hypnotically to the slow soft music that begins at her signal The scarlet dancing silks are slung low upon her hips, and her hands move as though plucking flowers or fruit from a tree in a walled garden. Her hunger is obvious to the observer in how she holds the fruit to her lips, how she presses herself to the unseen wall, puzzled and bereft at her confinement. Her hands go out, close together, as if linked by slave bracelets, or as if they hold the lush larma. her eyes flash as she seems to offer it, a piteous plea for the Master to ease her hunger. Mirana moves achingly slowly, and her hands glide up and down, caressing her swaying breasts , giving doubt to the watcher as to which fruit is more luscious, the larma or the girl. Kneeling down, she leans toward a Master, her body moves in a slow, languid gesture that brings attention to the outstretched hands. Mirana can feel her need growing stronger as the Master beholds her, and her skin flushes with desire under His gaze. She hears His furious "No!, please us more, girl" in her ears alone, and the command to remain on the floor, and she moans with the depth of her need. Turning furiously, gracefully, with a leg extending and a hand reaching, stroking the length of it, then looking over her shoulder at Him, the fierce voice echoing loud in her mind, almost drowning out the low, insistent beat of drums and whine of instruments. Rolling, twisting, writhing on the floor, her body speaks its sinuous charms to the watchers' eyes, a subtle thrust of hip and shimmy of breast capturing the gaze. The girlslave strives to please, moaning, and the music swirls to its frenzied climax. She rises, spinning, and whirling, in a jangle of bells and then, suddenly, drops to the floor before Him, helpless, vulnerable, a female slave. Her body, in the firelight, glows with a fine sheen of sweat, as she gasps for breath; her breasts lift and fall as she drinks of the warm air, and her lips are parted to whisper, "may You find this dance pleasing, and may this girl's service be found pleasing as well." Breathing quickly, flushed with the exertion, she feels His attention on her, His gaze unwavering, her heat rising steadily inside her as He looks upon her quivering form; she bites her lip, and drops her gaze to the floor, quietly kneeling in the silence that deafens after the music ends.     Calliope's Capture Dance the music begins as a slow, steady beat. a pulse. she enters the ring in a stylized march, her legs rising in straight, tall lines opposite her arms, proud, confident, fearless. she is a warrior, and more. she is a woman who recognizes her abilities and is not afraid of them. her slender body seems out of scale in relation to other women, its lines so long, so fragile, with an air of cold serenity, her mouth exquisitely vicious. in her mind she sees an Urth man and a deceptively gentle smile curls upon her lips as she strides towards him. she looks down, watching him rise to his feet. her arms cradle him to her, she rocks him slowly to the music, her hands moving as he kneels before her. she closes her eyes at the imagined touch, then opens them and pulls him back up to her. the gentle smile is replaced by a sneer and she pushes him away, lifts her foot with a swift kick. successful in having finished with him, she smoothes her raven hair confidently and turns her back to him. the music takes an ominous tone and she sees them, the Goreans. with no fear she grasps an invisible sword and marches towards them, spinning, striking. not only is she fighting, she is winning. suddenly she turns her head, distracted, and falls to the ground. her wrist is grabbed, she wrenches it free. she is outraged, it is clearly written on her face, but is ready to face death. she is shocked when it doesn't come. she rises to her knees slowly, her hands, wrists coming together, lifting above her head, her chin bowing. she is captured. her dance takes on a mournful tone - her movement slow and agonized as she rises to her feet. her wrists lead her reluctantly to the slave pole and she struggles against it, pinned by invisable bounds. she circles the pole as she would circle her own corpse, defeated, her heart an empty shell. she kneels to the pole, her head pressed against it, her hair obscuring her face. she presses her body down to the sand, seemingly desperate to have it consume her. suddenly she hears another sound in the music. she lifts her head and her blue eyes search until she finds Him. she sees Him with her whole body. she feels her heart beating again, feels her body with unadulterated anquish coming alive for want of His touch. she follows His gaze in her mind, rises to her feet. slowly she presses her face to the pole and her wrists come free. she feels the merging of her world with His and it draws her relentlessly towards Him, on a collision course from which there shall be no return. He stands still, waiting. the air between them feels thick, resonant, palpable. her need for Him screams from her cells. she looks into his eyes, saying to Him silently, with her tender, delicate movements, "the waiting for You has been so long.... " and she hears in her mind His silent response. "I know." Nothing has prepared her for this moment, and yet she is perfectly prepared. her body becomes alive because He wishes it to be so. her hands slide over her body as if they are His. she begins to sway her hips in a slow, sensual movement, her long, dark lashes rising and revealing her clear blue eyes. she lifts her slender arms out to Him and turns, propelling herself from the floor in a series of light, joyful leaps, incredibly light in her realization that she is His, that He exists, that He is here. she dances for Him, her body becoming one with its own desires, her hands offering her lush breasts to His touch. she bounds through the air, launched by sheer will, sheer desire to please Him. her hands move over her breasts, down to touch her tight belly, to her heat. she revels not in her captivity, but in His ownership, her movements light and free, full of reckless abandon. she leaps through the air, her legs spread wide, her arms poised, her head held high, knowing He has claimed her. as the music comes to a halt, she touches the floor and slips immediately into nadu, her thighs spread wide, her breast heaving, her chin level. calliope casts a final glance at the invisible Master, and bows her head to the floor, ending her capture dance, her dance of hope.

Tavern - slaves