Chain Dance

     To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened figure ran first here and then there,
     occasionally avoiding imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though through the
     crowds of a burning city--alone, yet somehow suggesting the presence about her of hunted
     others. Now, in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a warrior in scarlet
     cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that
     wherever the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last his hand was upon
     her shoulder and she threw back her head and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire body
     was wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to him and, with both hands, brushed
     away hood and veil.”

     “There was a cry of delight from the crowd.”

     “The girl's face was fixed in the dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I
     had seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was startling still to see her thus in
     the firelight--her hair was long and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her skin
     tannish.”

     ”She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move. She seemed to writhe in misery
     and try to escape his grip but she did not.”

     “Then he removed his hands from her shoulders and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in
     abject misery at his feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling, lowering the
     head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists crossed.”

     The warrior then turned from her and held out one hand.

     Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain and collar.

     “He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so and stood before him, head lowered.”

     “He pushed up her head and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the enclosure,
     closed the collar--a Turian collar--about her throat. The chain to which the collar was
     attached was a good deal longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet of
     length.”

     “Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn and move away from him, as he played
     out the chain, until she stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length. She
     did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down, her hands on the chain.”

     “I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were watching fascinated. Kamchak, too, would not take
     his eyes from the woman.”

     “The music had stopped.”

     “Then with a suddenness that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight the
     music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion and rage and the wench from
     Port Kar was suddenly a chained she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast
     her black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous, swirling yellow Pleasure
     Silk. There was now a frenzy and hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and
     snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is designed to permit. She circled
     the warrior like a captive moon to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the
     chain. Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time inches closer. At times
     he would permit her to draw back again, but never to the full length of the chain, and each
     time he permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last.”

     “The dance consists of several phases, depending on the general orbit allowed the girl by
     the chain.”

     “Certain of these phases are very slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps
     the turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others are defiant and swift; some are
     graceful and pleading; some stately, some simple; some proud, some piteous; but each time,
     as the common thread, she is drawn closer to the caped warrior. At last his fist was within
     the Turian collar itself and he drew the girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her
     with his kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting, obedient, her head to
     his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms and carried from the firelight.”
     Nomads of Gor, Page 159

     ”The drummer and the flautist prepared once more to play. The girl in the long, light chain
     smiled at me. She, at any rate, was pleased by my response.”

     “A wrist ring was fastened on her right wrist. The long, slender, gleaming chain was
     fastened to this and, looping down and up, ascended gracefully to a wide chain ring on her
     collar, through which it freely passed, thence descending, looping down, and ascending,
     looping up, gracefully, to the left wrist ring. If she were to stand quietly, the palms of her
     hands on her thighs, the lower portions of the chain, those two dangling loops, would have
     been about at the level of her knees, just a little higher. The higher portion of the chain, of
     course, would be at the collar loop.”

     “The musicians began again to play. There is much that can be done with such a chain. It
     was a dancing chain. Its purpose was not to confine the girl but to allow her to incorporate
     it in her dance, enhancing the dance with its movements and beauty. It is, of course,
     symbolic of her bondage, this adding fantastic dimensions of significance to the dance. It is
     not merely a beautiful woman who dances, but one who can be bought and sold, one who is
     subject to male ownership. Too, of course, the wrist rings, and the collar, are truly locked on
     her. There is no doubt about it. It is a slave, with all that that means, who is dancing.”
     Kajira of Gor, Page 142-143