When the tiny plates and cups of the seventh course had been cleared away the Lady Florence looked over to the chained slave, kneeling at her ring. She had finished her own meager provender even to, at the Mistress' command, licking the pans. They had then been taken away by Bonnie.
'It is time for you to entertain us, my dear,' said the Lady Florence to the slave.
The girl looked at her, frightened.
'Surely you do not think slaves are kept about only to be pampered and fed?' she inquired.
'No, Mistress,' said the girl.
'I had intended to rent a dancing slave in Vonda,' said the Lady Florence to her guests, 'a decorous girl in blue silk and a golden collar, who might by the loveliness and grace of her movements please us, but it slipped my mind. I am so forgetful! I am afraid we must make do with poor Melpomene.'
The Lady Leta laughed.
'Pamela,' said the Lady Florence, 'bring dancing silks for our slave.'
'Oh, Mistress,' said Pamela, smiling, 'this is a house of refinement. We do not have such scandalous garments here.'
'Ali, poor Melpomene,' said the Mistress. Then she snapped to Melpomene, 'On your feet, Slave!'
Swiftly Melpomene leaped to her feet, tears in her eyes. The chain fell to the ring from the chain loop on her collar.
'Tenalion, my dear,' said the Lady Florence, 'would you please relieve our lovely Melpomene of the impediment of her chain?'
'Certainly, Lady Florence,' said Tenalion. He had been considering Lady Florence, doubtless surmising the configuration of her body beneath the ornate robes.
In a moment Tenalion had taken the chain from Melpomene, unlocking it first from the iron ring in the floor and, secondly, from her collar loop. The order of these events was not arbitrary. It was the opposite, too, of course, of the order in which she had been originally secured, where the chain had been first placed on her collar loop and only then locked about the ring in the floor. Commonly, in a Gorean tethering or chaining situation, of this sort, where neither fastening has as yet been effected, that bond which is on, or near, a woman's body is the first to be placed; similarly, of course, it is the last to be removed. In many situations, of course, there is only one fastening to be effected, that on the woman. It is not unusual for a master, for example, to keep a chain attached to the slave ring at the foot of his couch. It only needs, thus, when he wishes, to be put on the woman. Tenalion coiled the chain, and returned to his place. He put the chain in the box, which reposed near him. Melpomene then, now unchained, but naked, and wearing her collar, stood on the red tiles near the slave ring.
The Lady Florence looked to the leader of the musicians.
'Surely you are not going to dance a naked slave in mixed company?' laughed the Lady Leta.
'Is this a rude house?' laughed the Lady Perimene.
'Scandalous!' laughed the Lady Leta.
'Oh,' cried the Lady Florence, in mock dismay, 'I wished to obtain a dancing slave from Vonda, but it slipped my mind, so silly am I, and we have now on hand only poor Melpomene.'
'She will have to do,' said the Lady Leta.
'She seems a poor slave,' said the Lady Perimene.'
'Many slaves are like that at first,' said Tenalion, soberly, 'but with diet and exercise, and training, and discipline, they become wonders.'
'I see,' shuddered the Lady Perimene.
'To be sure,' said the Lady Florence, 'to dance a naked slave in mixed company seems scarcely to comport with the dignity of a refined house, but remember, too, I am a hostess, and we have men present, and we all know what beasts they are.' The women laughed. 'Yes,' said the Lady Leta. 'And so,' said the Lady Florence, smiling, 'as a good hostess I am under the obligation, surely, of providing a little something for the men.'
'Of course!' agreed the Lady Leta.
'The beasts!' laughed the Lady Perimene.
The men laughed, and Melpomene reddened, totally.
The Lady Florence again turned to the musicians.
'Mistress,' cried Melpomene, suddenly, in misery, 'I do not know how to dance!'
'What!' cried the Lady Florence, as though in astonishment.
'I was a free woman,' wept Melpomene. 'I have been locked in a collar but this night. I know nothing of the lovely and sensuous dances of the female slave.'
'Bring a slave,whip,' said the Lady Florence to Pamela, who swiftly brought it to her, from where she had earlier cast it aside.
I saw Tenalion smile. To be sure, many of the dances of female slaves are lovely and sensuous; others, of course, are piteous and orgasmic. In all fairness, though, one must note that there is a large variety of slave dances on Gor, and that there is some variation from city to city. The institution of female slavery on Gor is doubtless thousands of years old; accordingly it is natural that there should be great complexity and refinement in such a delicious art form as slave dance. There are even, it might be mentioned, hate dances and rebellion dances, but most dances, as might be expected, are display dances, or need dances, or love and submission dances; even the hate and rebellion dances, of course, conclude, inevitably, with the ultimate surrender of the girl to her master as a love slave.
'I do not know how to dance, Mistress,' whimpered Melpomene. 'Please do not whip me.'
The Lady Florence stood up.
'I will dance! I will dance!' cried the girl.
The Lady Florence sat down, smiling. 'And as you dance, Melpomene,' she said, 'do not neglect to dance your beauty to the men, and dance it as the slut and slave you are.'
'Yes, Mistress!' she wept.
The Lady Florence then signaled to the musicians. There was a swirl of music and a beating on the drum, and then a pause, and then began, with the czehar prominent, the strains of a slow Gorean melody. And Melpomene, the collared slave, danced, entertaining the guests of her Mistress, the Lady Florence of Vonda.
'It is natural in a woman,' said Kenneth.
'I think so,' I said.
Though doubtless Melpomene was untrained and lacked the thousand previsions and controls, the brilliancies and techniques, of the trained dancer, she was not unattractive on the tiles. She strove to please and dance well. I have little doubt but what the disposition to, and the fundamentals of, slave dance are instinctual in a woman. No other explanation seems compatible with the readiness with which they can acquire such dance. Many of the expressions, the gestures and movements of the body, of course, are clearly reminiscent of those of need and desire, of love and submission. I have little doubt but what these dispositions and talents have been naturally and sexually selected for in the course of evolution, such women being more often spared and sought.
The musicians now played more swiftly.
'Earlier, I suspect,' said Kenneth, 'she has danced so only in the privacy of her chambers, naked, before her mirror.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'What a slave she is!' called the Lady Leta.
'It is for the men,' laughed the Lady Florence.
'Surely I must avert my eyes!' laughed the Lady Leta.
'I, too!' laughed the Lady Perimene.
'Dance, you slut, dance!' cried the Lady Florence.
'Yes, Mistress!' wept Melpomene. 'Yes, Mistress!'
Neither of the other two women, I noted, had averted their eyes.
'To the men!' ordered the Lady Florence. 'To the men!'
Sobbing, the slave then danced her beauty to Brandon, a prefect of Vonda. He threw back his head, laughing at the humiliation wrought upon her, once a proud free woman. She spun from him and, crying, danced before Philebus, bounty creditor of Venna. He grinned and lifted before her eyes the bank draft, drawn on the bank of Reginald in Vonda, certified, and signed by the Lady Florence, for one thousand, four hundred and twenty tarns of gold. His trip had been quite successful, and he had now, too, the pleasure of seeing she who had been the
