Dancer of Gor

Quickly I reached down and picked up the object, its folds tucked in among themselves. I opened it, and shook it out. It was a brief slave tunic, slit deeply at the hips, with narrow shoulder straps, little more than strings. I looked up at him, gratefully. It was the first garment of my own I had been given on this world. To be sure, I had been, upon occasion, given blankets or sheets to hold about myself, usually for warmth, and I had been, in my training, put in various costumes, mostly, I suppose, for my masters to see what I looked like in them, such as the common and Turian camisk, and the scandalous garb prescribed for Tuchuk slave girls. Too, I had been taught the wearing of, and arrangement of, simple, typical slave garments, such as tunics of various sorts, and ta-teeras, or slave rage. I had even been taught the tying of slave girdles, in such a way as to emphasize, and sometimes more than subtly, my figure. And, indeed, part of my training had not been only to wear, and move in such garments, but also how to remove them provocatively, and gracefully. Even the blankets and sheets we had been given, presumably mostly for warmth, we had to remove in certain fashions that clearly, from a man" s point of view, would have counted as an extremely sensuous disrobing. Then, recollecting that I had been ordered to put it on, I pulled it over my head and put my arms through the straps. In a moment I had drawn it down about me.

"Stand," he said.

Happily I stood, pulling the garment down more, hastily, modestly, about my thighs. Then I realized, blushing, that doing this must have as its consequences the greater accentuation of my figure.

"Turn," he said. "Walk about. Then return and stand before me." Happily I moved about in the garment.

"Do you not know how to walk?" he asked.

"Forgive me, Master," I said.

I then walked as a slave, proudly, my shoulders back, gracefully and beautifully, as a woman owned by men. As an Earth female I would never have dared to walk in such a way. Such movements are probably indexed, like physical distances between individuals, to the culture. In Gorean culture, generally, it seemed to me that people stood closer to one another than I was accustomed to on Earth. In this way it was natural for men here, for example, to stand much closer to the scantily clad slave then the average man of, say, northern Europe, on Earth, would be likely to, to a woman of his area. Indeed, he usually stands up and draw her to him, taking her in his arms. The dynamic consequences of these proximities are minimized considerably, of course, by the fact that the slave often kneels in the presence of the free male. It is customary in the kneeling position to remain back a few feet from the male. The kneeling position, itself, expresses the servitude of the slave, and her submission. The distance serves three major purposes. It symbolizes in the distance, as well as in the differential in height, the social inferiority of the slave to the master. It puts the slave in a position where all of her, for the master" s delight, can be seen. A space between the slave and the free male so that the releasing of his rapacity is then likely to require a decision, and is less likely to be simply, reflexively, triggered. This is regarded as being particularly important when the slave is in the presence of a male who is not her master. The kneeling position, thus, interestingly, can occasionally provide a measure of security, if a somewhat tenuous one, for the slave, tending to reduce to some extent the frequency with which, in a culture with such interpersonal proximities, she might otherwise be subjected to unauthorized rape. This same tiny measure of protection, of course, puts her in much greater danger from her real master, for he, observing her, seeing her kneeling beautifully before him, can also delay in his considerations as to her suitable exploitations. How shall he use her? What shall he have her do, and so on. To be sure, sometimes he simply takes her and when he wants her, and almost by reflexive whim. She is his. The main reason why a slave kneels, of course, aside from such subtle and complex considerations, is simply that she is a slave, and that that position, accordingly, is appropriate for her.