"Again the auctioneer looked to the box of Samos, First Slaver of Port Kar. "Does noble Samos now care to express interest?" inquired the auctioneer. "Let them perform," said Samos.

Again the auctioneer bowed to Samos. The crowd shouted with delight. "Shall Pleasure Silks be bought?" inquired the auctioneer.

"No," said Samos.

Again the crowd roared with its pleasure. The Musicians took up their instruments and, together, as three slaves, women who would be owned by men, the girls danced.

In the crowd men cried out with pleasure; I heard even gasps from women, perhaps amazingly, startled that their sex was capable of such beauty; the eyes of some of the women shone with ill-concealed admiration and excitement; I could mark the quickness of their breath in their veils; the eyes of others seemed terrified, and, shrinking, they looked from the block about themselves, suddenly fearing the men with whom they shared the tiers; I heard the tearing of a veil and heard a girl scream and turned to see her lips being raped by the kiss of a Warrior, and then she was yielding to him; the crowd went wild; here and there there was the cry of a woman in the throng who was seized by those near her; one girl tried to flee and was dragged screaming by the ankle to the foot of a tier; another woman, with her own hands, tore away her veil and seized in her hands the head of a man near her, pressing her lips to his, and in a moment, she lay, robes torn, in his arms, weeping, crying with pleasure.

Four dances the girls danced while the crowd screamed and roared, and then, at an instant, their dances ended, they stood suddenly motionless, splendid, animal, magnificent, inciting. Then they, breathing deeply, stained with sweat, stepped back on the block, and the auctioneer stepped forward.

He did not even call for a bid.

Assassin of Gor, pages 304



The auctioneer signaled to the Musicians again and once more, to the shouts of the crowd, while he held open his hand, not yet closing it, taking bids, the girls performed the last moments of Ar's dance of the newly collared slave girl, who dances her joy at the thought she will soon be in the arms of a strong master. When the dance ended the three girls, slaves, knelt in the position of submission, back on their heels, arms extended, heads lowered, wrists crossed as though for binding; Elizabeth knelt facing the crowd and perpendicular to her, on her left and right knelt Virginia and Phyllis, a vunerable, submitted flower of slave girls.