Dancing Around The Question

We are pushing further north again, part of that caravan pulled by shambling bosk and massive broad tharlarion. My coffle marches amongst the wagons of all imaginable cultures south of the Vosk. They are beautful dina in colorful silk. Portia leads them well. They are, of course, intensely curious as to where I am leading them. Initially, I had a definite destination in mind and a very good estimate as to how long we would be gone. I washed the doors of Samsara and the Boarding House white. It pained me to be away from the my home during The Waiting Hand, but I have been away during this time of reflection and remembrance in the past and might again in the years to come. The doors will not be sealed in pitch and have hung from them the branches of the brak bush. They will be whitewashed, however and remain so until I return, whenever that might be. I am no longer sure of that. The slaves ask not unoften as to where we are going or when we will get there. The journey, I tell them, should be savored. They are out in the open on the beautiful, perilous plains of the world. When is the last time they were outside the walls of Ar? While I know some have traveled, with me or with others, when is the last time they were so far afield? Enjoy yourself, Ladies. We will get there when we get there...

Joy danced tonight. By the light of the campfire, before others in our group, barbarian and native, she danced the shameless movements of her former world. I instructed her to do so. "Dance," I told her. She conjured the memory of the songs of Earth, hummed them to herself as her hips shook. She had my attention. Her dance spoke of the perversion of her world. They dare men and seem to belittle them. Not in the way a Gorean girl tempts and teases. It is else. It says, "I dare you," knowing you will do nothing. She will not be shown the price of her beauty after such a dance. She will name her price to the men who line up and sue her favor. It was not unlike the mocking movements of panther girls, save there is no desperation in an Earth Girl's dance. Her spear points are not literal, but they are sharp just the same. She needn't claw at her garment and rip it from her bosom, scratching and screaming. The man she chooses, at her leisure, will obediently open her bodice and lavish the attention she demands. He, solicitously, as he has taken great pains to reach the summit that is her concession, will work to please her. I wonder if she knows how much the movement of her body, recalled from a lifetime ago, spoke these truths, revealed these deviances? It will be, to the eyes of Goreans, man and woman, arousing in more than one way.