by John Norman
Ellen stepped back.
Feike, smiling, sweating, breathing deeply, brushed back through the silk, and another slave, at a gesture of the interior whip master, hurried to the sand.
I can only be beaten so much, thought Ellen. And I do not think they will kill me. And as each is to dance thrice, it is not as though they will feel particularly cheated, for after me will come Ita once again, who is a fine dancer. They will then see that it was a joke that I be sent to the circle. I will then be drawn from the roster, beaten, and permitted, I trust, to return to the vat of Callimachus. That is what will happen. I did not ask to come to the circle. They cannot blame me. I warned them. Perhaps they will be merely amused at the clever jest. Too, a girl from another circle, say, one of the free circles, might be hurried here to take my place.
But I am frightened, terribly frightened, she told herself.
Girl after girl went to the sand and returned.
Ellen felt she could scarcely move. She was tempted to run, to try to leave the enclosure by the back entrance, through which she had been introduced into it. After all, she was not chained there, one of a set of kneeling dancing slaves, to be released, one after the other, from a shackle, to be returned to its obdurate clasp when her performance was concluded.
She looked to the back entrance, wildly.
“117, be ready,” said the interior whip master.
Ellen knew there was no escape for her. For the Gorean slave girl there is no escape.
“Yes, Master,” said Ellen.
The opening seemed inviting, seemingly beckoning her to flee into an alluring, salubrious, safely concealing darkness beyond, but for all the good it would have done her, it might as well have been sealed with granite and iron. She might as well have been chained hand and foot, and neck, to a heavy ring fixed in the bottom of a narrow, cement, well-like slave pit, looking up at the iron grating yards above her head.
But there was time. The other girl had scarcely begun to dance.
Then there was, from outside on the sand, the sudden sound of a snapping whip. Ellen started. It was not only that the sound was unexpected, and sharp, but that its significance carried a special meaning for such as she, a slave.
Outside there was some hooting, some angry cries of men.
Then, only a moment or two later, she heard the whip again, twice, and this time cries of pain, doubtless from the exhibited dancer.
In a moment, clutching her silk about her, it parted by the whip, crying, the chastised dancer fled within the preparation enclosure. It was she who had appropriated the bracelet from Ellen, and it was still on her wrist. “It serves you right, arrogant slave girl,” thought Ellen. “Now you are not so proud!” The woman knelt on the rug within the small enclosure, bent over, holding her arms about herself, weeping bitterly. There was blood on her back. She looked up at Ellen for an instant, and then looked down, miserably. No longer was she proud and beautiful. Now she was only a whipped slave. “Next time, 51, Dara,” said the interior whip master, “you will dance better.” He held his whip down and she fled to it on her knees and kissed it, and then put her head down, kissing his sandals. “Yes, Master,” she sobbed. “Yes, Master!”
“51,” thought, Ellen. “Such a high number! To be sure, she is so beautiful! What would she have done wrong? Perhaps she had been overconfident. Perhaps she had thought herself too good to be danced in this place, before such men. Perhaps she had not given her best performance? Perhaps she had held something back?”
The men were shouting angrily outside.
The interior whip master looked up from the beautiful penitent slave at his feet, as though suddenly coming to his senses. “117!” he cried. “Out, little fool, onto the sand!”
With one last look at the beaten slave, and with terror and a sinking heart, and a jangle of slave bells, Ellen, clutching her veil about her silks, rushed abjectly through the curtain and half stumbled to the sand outside.
There was a sound of interest, and laughter, from the men, and then they were expectant, quiet.
Ellen realized, suddenly, that it had not occurred to them to take her clumsiness at its face value. This was the ba-ta circle. Surely it was intentional on her part. Slave girls are not clumsy, certainly not after they have learned their collars. They are the most vulnerable, feminine and graceful of women, for they are owned, for they belong to men, and dancers, of course, are also slave girls and thus, and certainly given their special training, will presumably be in no way inferior to their more common sisters in bondage. As an incidental observation, it is interesting to note that the grace of the dancer, though, of course, not the special training of the dancer, is expected of all slave girls, and most certainly of those who like Ellen must kneel before men in the spread-kneed position, that is, the pleasure slaves.
Ellen knelt then in the sand and put her head down to the sand, that it might be clear to all that she was a slave and acknowledged them her masters.
She wanted them to be in no doubt about that.
How well and perfectly she knew herself the slave of men!
It was what she was, and knew herself to be!
I am yours, Masters, she thought to herself.
I am that sort of woman, she who is, and knows herself to be, a man’s slave, only that!
Please do not beat me!
Then she rose to her feet and put her veil about her head, wrapping it closely about her head and shoulders, concealing even her face. It was much as though she might be a free woman, though surely the bells on her ankle and her silks belied that possibility. She then walked about the dancing area, erect, proudly, gracefully, but keeping herself concealed.
To be sure, her feet were bare, and there were bells on her left ankle. This created, to the Gorean thinking, a paradox.
She was sure she was beautiful, and that the men, who had glimpsed her for an instant when she entered upon the sand, had seen that, but only for a tantalizing moment. Her beauty, she hoped, might save her, compensating to a significant extent for her ignorance of slave dance. To be sure, she had seen the women moving in the circles. She could not control her body with the subtlety they manifested, but she could see some of the simpler things they did, and she had some sense of what it might be to yield to such music, to obey it, to surrender herself to it, abjectly, as an aroused, commanded slave.
She walked about the circle once more, the veil closely about her, concealing even her features.
The whip master, whom she noted with care, seemed puzzled, but tolerant. Certainly his hand was not clutched menacingly upon his whip, the coiled blade of which, visibly, bore stains of blood, that of her humbled predecessor. The first czehar player, in whose charge were the musicians, appeared puzzled as well, but continued to elicit from his instrument, held across his knees, subtle melodies which sang of life and nature, which hinted of men and women, and masters and slaves. The music followed Ellen, quietly, expectantly, enhancing her contrived mystery.
Then, suddenly, Ellen, without permission, turned about and gracefully, regally, and with a toss of her head, exited the sand, going through the parting of the silk to the preparation enclosure.
There was silence behind her.
The other dancers were awaiting her, many wide-eyed and frightened.
“I do not understand,” said Feike. “What are you doing?”
“Being a slave,” said Ellen.
Suddenly, from outside the preparation enclosure, there were shouts of pleasure, and the smiting of the left shoulder, in Gorean applause.
“Ita,” cried the interior whip master, “to the sand!”
Ita hurried through the parting in the silk.
“What were you doing?” asked the interior whip master of Ellen.
“Dancing,” she said.
“That is not dancing,” he said.
“There is more than one way to dance, Master,” said Ellen. And, as she knelt down by the cosmetics table, she thought to herself, “I have not yet been beaten.
But what shall I do now? Surely I am no more than the width of a strand of slave silk from the blows of the lash.”
The second time the beaten slave, 51, Dara, had apparently danced well. She had not been permitted to change her silks, and they were parted in the back, where the whip had cut through them. In her dance she had piteously, and abjectly, made it clear to the masters that not only did she now respect them, but that she was now pathetically concerned to subject herself to their pleasure, even as though she were their own slave. Gone was now any arrogance or haughtiness. Gone now was any suggestion that she might be too good to dance for such as they. Now it was clear that she was only a humbled, punished slave who had well learned her lesson. She danced now as a grateful slave who was inordinately privileged to, and profoundly grateful for the opportunity to, be granted permission to perform for them, for those who were a thousand times, nay, immeasurably, above her. She even incorporated into her dance, turning away from the crowd, the stripes upon her back, exhibiting them, where the admonitions of the whip had recalled her to a clearer sense of her position and condition. Ellen was, on the whole, pleased that 51, she called ‘Dara’, had not been again displeasing, and had not been again subjected to the typical Gorean consequences attendant upon the least lapse into slave laxity, but, on the other hand, she realized that she herself would now find herself contrasted not with a slave who had failed to please masters but with one who had been only too obviously pleasing. Given the Gorean applause, the striking of the left shoulder, the callings out of the men, Ellen supposed that Dara, upon returning to the area of preparation area, would be flushed with insolent triumph. On the other hand, when she returned, she seemed white-faced, and shaken, and grateful that this time things had gone as well as they had.
“117, Ellen,” said the interior whip master.
“A moment, Master!” said Ellen. “Let them wait an instant! It is important!”
On an impulse Ellen addressed Dara. “Slave girl,” she said, sharply.
Dara looked at her, frightened. No longer was she the insolent slave who had seized the bracelet from her.
“Mistress?” said Dara, quickly, before she had thought.
“When you dance again,” said Ellen, “feature the bracelet you wear on your left wrist. Call attention to it! See that it is well noticed!”
Dara, frightened, went to remove it from her wrist.
“No,” said Ellen. “Wear it when you dance next. See that it is recognized!”
Dara cast a frightened glance at the interior whip master. “Do it,” he said, though doubtless he was as puzzled as she.
Ellen then thrust the armlets and bracelets from her own limbs.
Dara had sunk to her knees within the area of preparation, partly in misery, partly in confusion, partly in relief. Ellen bent down, quickly, and kissed her. “Thank you,” said Ellen. Dara looked up at her, bewildered. It was no longer clear to her where she stood amongst the slaves in the tent. Presumably, before Ellen’s addition to the list, she had been the last dancer, and thus, putatively, the best, for the best is often saved for the last. Perhaps that is why, at least in part, she had danced as she had the first time on the sand, because she was angered at having been unexpectedly supplanted in the favored position of last dancer. But then she had been whipped, and upon her return to the area of preparation after her second dancing, Ellen, a mere barbarian, who had seemingly supplanted her in the favored position, had spoken sharply to her, a liberty which might have been authorized, as far as she knew, by the interior whip master.
“Out, surely out onto the sand!” said the interior whip master to Ellen, uncertain, half in exasperation.
“Yes, Master!” said Ellen, and hurried out through the silk, onto the sand.
The first time Ellen had barely shown herself to the men, keeping herself concealed in veils, and had done little more, after her initial, clear and unmistakable acknowledgment of her abject bondage before them, that they would have no doubt as to what she was and how she understood herself, than move about the sand with a certain cold, superior, lofty, regal pride, moving serenely, insolently, about, as a smug, self-satisfied free woman, doubtless of high caste, one secure in her status, one fully assured of her importance and station. She had then, with a toss of her veiled head, returned to the area of preparation.
It was a different Ellen who appeared this time upon the sand, one who seemed uncertain, and frightened.
With her own hands, but, it seemed, as though with the hands of another, she drew her veil about, drawing it to one side and then the other, this providing a glimpse, then again they concealed, of her features. It was as though two or three men, unseen, might be tearing at the concealment, she fighting them, she trying to restore it. Then, as she spun in the sand, to the music, she unwound the veil and put it down about her shoulders. She threw her head back as though in anguish, in misery and protest, but her features were bared to the men. It seemed then she had undergone one of the most dreaded fates of a high-caste Gorean free woman. Her face was publicly bared! She was face-stripped! Her face was naked! Her face, with all its beauty, with all its readable, betraying, exquisite and subtle expressiveness, with all it would tell about her inner life, about her emotions, her feelings, her interests, fears, hopes, pleasures and concerns, had been publicly revealed; it had been bared; it was naked, stark naked; it was now as that of a slave. One of the interesting things from the Gorean point of view about most of the women of Earth is that they do not veil themselves; most go about, even in public, with bared features. This tends to be incomprehensible to the average Gorean. On Gor, on the other hand, as you have doubtless by now gathered, this omission, or this practice, that of not wearing the veil, is common with, and, indeed, is usually imposed upon, and in many cities by law, slaves. Such are commonly denied the veil, as they are other garments of free women. Indeed, the donning of the garments of a free woman by a slave can be a capital offense. The failure of most women of Earth to veil themselves is regarded as shameless. It is one of several reasons, such as the failure to speak Gorean, which tends to make Goreans regard Earth females as barbarians, as natural slaves, as slave stock. Going about so brazenly, is it not their intention to offer themselves for the scrutiny of slavers; is it not a way to court the collar, to beg for it? Certainly Gorean slavers on Earth are grateful for the custom, as it considerably facilitates their assessment of the slave wares of Earth.
As Ellen had with the veiling of her features, so now it seemed that she struggled with her implicit, but unseen, assailants, to cling to the veil, held so tightly about her shoulders and body. Who could be tearing her veil away from her body? Could these be invisible assailants, of some powerful, but uncertain nature, or were they her own needs determined despite her conscious will to have their way with her, to reduce her brutishly, ruthlessly, to the denied, but beloved core of her being, or might they be the unseen hands of any there, of any within that crowded, silken enclosure, who were determined to see that she became a woman?
Bit by bit, to the music, writhing, turning, twisting, resisting, sometimes winning, sometimes losing, she fought with the veil, and then lost, the veil behind her, in the sand, and she was before them as a silked, belled slave, in swirling skirt, open on the left, with high-haltered breasts, and encircling necklaces. It seemed she fled then about the circle, running here and there, sometimes coming close to the men, who sometimes reached for her, sometimes drawing back, as in fear. She seemed in consternation, frantic, as though she would turn this way and that to escape, but found always her way barred. In this it was made clear to all, by gestures and displays, though unobtrusively, by subtly drawing attention to the matter, that her arms and wrists were bare. At the time most of the men probably did not notice this, but would presumably be aware of it on some level, and would recall it later.
Then suddenly on the sand, she stopped, near its center, and looked out, toward the crowd. The music stopped with her. She took a step backward, and then another step.
And the czehar player underlined these steps. Her lip trembled. She put forth her hand, as though to fend away someone who was approaching her. Then she seemed to watch someone approach her on her left, and seemed too terrified, or exhausted, to run. Then she hunched her left shoulder up and looked to her upper left arm in horror, as though it might have been grasped. She looked with dismay, and fear, it seemed, to some unseen captor.
Then swiftly, to music, it seemed she was turned about, fiercely, and then, as she stood still, yet seeming to resist in place, it seemed that her hands, wrists crossed, were lifted up behind her, to the small of her back. They then stayed there. She struggled to free them, but could not. She looked back over her shoulder in fear, as though at an imperious, ferocious captor. Then it seemed she was thrust stumbling, back-braceleted, toward the parting in the silk that led to the area of preparation, and, in an instant, disappeared within.
There was a pause, as though that rude, bestial gathering was for a moment taken aback by what it had witnessed, and then there began a steady, increasing flow of applause. Men cried out with pleasure, and Ellen, gasping, and frightened, within the silken enclosure, trembled, for she well knew the accents of lustful masters and that such as she, the embonded woman, was the object societally designated for the satisfaction of their most profound needs. Such men would not rage in frustration on Gor; they would not starve on Gor; the civilization in its foresight, understanding, wisdom and benevolence had provided such as she for their service, satisfaction, and delectation.