Dancer of Gor

"I do not understand," I said, frightened. "What are you talking about?" "You are doubtless the sort of female who has intellectual pretensions," he said.

I was silent.

"Do you think you are intelligent?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"You are not," he said.

I was silent.

"But you do, doubtless, have some form of intelligence," he said, "in your small, nasty way."

I looked up at him, angrily.

"And you will need every bit of it, I assure you," he said, "just to stay alive."

I looked at him, frightened.

"Hateful slut," he said.

I squirmed under his epithet. I was conscious of the light silk on my body. The bells on my ankle, jangled.

"Yes," he said, regarding me, "you are a modern woman, one with intellectual pretensions. I see it now, certainly, one of those modern women who desire to destroy men."

"I don" t know what you" re talking about," I said.

"But there are ways of treating, and handling, women such as you," he said, "ways of rendering them not only absolutely harmless, but, better still, exquisitely useful and delicious."

"I don" t know what you" re talking about!" I protested.

"Do not lie to me," he snarled.

I put down my head, miserable. The bells on my ankle moved.

"Your garment is an interesting one," he said. "It well reveals you." I looked up at him, frightened.

"To be sure," he said, "it is a bit more ample than is necessary, not as snug as it might be, not cut as high at the thighs as it might be, not cut as deeply at the neck as it might be, and, surely, as I determined earlier, it is insufficiently diaphanous."

I looked up at him.

"Take it off," he said.

Numbly I pulled the tiny garment over my head and put it beside me on the carpet.

"It may be a long time," he said, "before you are again permitted a garment." I trembled, naked.

The third man went to the table, that on which rested the attachA© case. He removed an object from the case. I gasped in terror. He handed it to the man in front of me. It was a whip. It had a single, stout, coiled lash.

"What do you think your name was?" he asked.

"Doreen," I said. "Doreen Williamson!" That had seemed a strange way to inquire my name, surely. Too, they knew so much about me. They must have known my name. What did he mean then, "What did I think my name was?"

"Well, Doreen," he said, "do you still remember Harper" s Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities?"

"Yes," I said. The way he had said my name somehow alarmed me. It was almost as though that name might not be mine, really. It was almost as though he had simply, perhaps, primarily as a convenience for himself, decided to call me that, if only for the time.

"Fetch it," he said.

I looked at the whip. I leap to my feet, in a jangle of bells, and hurried to the place where the book was. In a moment I had it and had returned, and, holding the book, knelt again before him.

"Kiss it," he said.

I did so.

"Put it down," he said, "to the side."

I did so.

He then held the whip before me. "Kiss the whip," he said.

I did so.

"Kiss my feet," he said. I put my head down, frightened, the palms of my hands on the carpet, and kissed his feet. I then straightened up, and knelt back on my heels.

"Put your hands, palms down, on your thighs," he said.

I obeyed.

"Apparently you do have some intelligence," he said. "Now put your knees apart." "Please, no!" I said.

"Perhaps I was wrong," he mused.

Swiftly I put my knees apart.

"Perhaps you will survive," he mused.

He then nodded to the fellow on his left. To my horror the fellow went again to the attachA© case and this time brought out coils of chain. I could not see well in the half darkness what it was. Then he was behind me. To my horror I felt a metal collar locked about my neck. It was a very sturdy metal collar. It had, apparently, an attachment, or ring, of some sort, I supposed, in the back, and to this attachment, or ring, the long chain was attached. The fellow behind me must have held it mostly coiled in his hand. The collar encircled my neck closely. I touched it, frightened. I put my finger inside the rim of the implacable encirclement. There was only a half inch or so between its metal and my throat. I felt its weight on the attachment, or ring. I was leashed. I wore a chain leash. I was terrified. Perhaps no one can conjecture my feelings, truly, who has not been, too, the helpless prisoner of such a device.

"Slut," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you a virgin?" he asked.

"I see," I said. "I am to be raped."

"Perhaps," he said.