There are many forms of placatory dances which are performed by female slaves. Some of these tend to have rather fixed forms, sanctioned by custons and tradition. such as the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. Some form of placatory dance is usually taught to the girl in slave training. There is no telling when it might be needed. Thought I had had, because of the relatively advanced state of my dancing skills, for a new slave, very little instruction in dance in the house of my first training, I had been taught at least that much. The form of placatory dance taught to a girl usually depends on the girl in question. For example, I had not been taught the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. It had been felt that the nature of my body lent itself to a more desperate , needful, lascivious form of dance. I had been taught how to dance on my knees, for example, and supplicatingly, on my back, and belly. Most placatory dances, however, are not fixed-form dances, but are "free" dances, in which the slave exquisitely alert to the nuances of the stiuation, the particular Master, the nature of his displeasure, the gravity of her offense, and such, improvises, doing her best to assuage his anger and beg his forgivness, to reassure him of the authenticity of her contrition and the genuineness of her desire to do better. 

"Hot Sand will do, Master," I said, "and chains in which my limbs are enclosed." 

"Yes," he said. 

I saw I did not need to fear him, save in the ways any slave must fear a Master. 

I danced then to those whose eyes were hardest. Some of them were not even men I had trapped, but only men who knew what I had done. Some may have been as innocent as those I had lured; others might have been murders and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiration of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my Master, at the payment of a prisoners fee, by the writ of a praetor or, in more desperate cases, by the order of a quaestor. I danced abjectly. I danced piteously. I danced beggingly. I danced as well as I could. I could not do more. They would either be pleased or not. My fate was in their hands. 
 
 

"She is pretty," said one of them. 

"Yes," said another. 

Hope sprang again high within me. I sought them to move another, with my helplesness, and the pleas of my body. 

"Are you a good slave lay?" asked a man.

"It is my hope that I am pleasing, Master," I said. "Surely I shall endeavor to be so." 

He grinned. 

"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum. 

"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owned his chaining to me. I began to be conscious then, as I sometimes was, of the incredible power of the female slave, of how helpless men could be before her, and of what she could do to them. 

"Ah," said one of the men, softly, watching. 

I repeated the movement. 

"Yes," said another man. "Yes!" said another. 

How paradoxical I thought, that she who is branded, and collared, and owned, is nothing, should have such power! 

"Dance, slut, dance!" said a man. 

And then again I danced, helplessly, piteously, suing for their favor, striving desperately to be found pleasing. In the end the power belongs to the master, totally, and not to the slave. She is his. 

"Excellent," said a man. "Excellent." 

I danced. 

I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no collar has been locked on it in the night. How could she, a free woman, have such a dream? What could it mean? And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. The familiar surroundings reassure her. She has had such dreams before. What could they mean? Nothing, of course. Nothing! Such dreams must be meaningless! They must be! but what if they were not? She shudders. Perhaps she then, in her long silken gown, curls up, frightened, at the foot of her bed. What, too, could that mean? She does not know. Surely that, too, means nothing. But what if it did? She lies there, troubled, but somehow comforted, somehow secure, in that position. It seems to her, somehow, that that is where she belongs. 

"Superb," said a man. 

I saw now that they, or most of them, were pleased. I sensed now that I might be spared, at least if I pleased them, too, well enough in the sand. I had lured many of them, but now I danced before them, to please them, begging for my life, danced before them helplessly, at their mercy, submitted and dependent on their favor, for my very life, as much as thought I might be their own slave. I saw to my joy, coming gradually to understand it that they, or surely most of them, would accpet this, my beauty, my submission and service, abject and total, in lieu of my blood. It would be vengeance enough for them. How mighty they were, and kind! To be sure, I would have to continue to show them perfections of slave service and total deference. How grateful I was to he whom I had most feared, he who was lost upon the chain, he who had given me this eagerly embraced opportunity to save my slave's hide! But it was he, of all of them, who had refused to watch me dance. He stood with his back turned to me, his back straight, his arms folded, looking away. Many times I had danced to him, moving behind him in the and, but he did not turn. he did not deign to glance upon me. Then, near the end of my dance, as it approached its climax, I was on my kneels in the sand, writhing, bending forward until my hair was in the sand, bending back then, expressing the bow of my body, my thighs, my belly, my breasts and throat to them, my hands inviting attention to them, my hair back in the stand, and then I straightened, and then was on my back, and bellly, twisting and moving, lifting my hands to them, begging for favor, piteously suing for mercy. Such things I had been taught as long ago as the house of my first training, but I think, truly, even had I not had such training, I would, in the circumstances, have done much the same. Perhaps as instinctual in a woman. I had, when owned by Gordon, the musician, once seen a former free woman, new to her collar, in an alley in Samnium, performing so for a Master, he with the whip in hand, encouraged her to adequacy. She did well, She, shuddering, half in shock, learned that she would be spared, at least for the time. He then began to instruct her in how to give pleasure to a man. She attended fearfully, and well, to her lessons. 

At the end of my dance, I was on my knees again, behind him. I lifted my hands to him. "Master, please!" I begged. "Look upon me!" But he did not turn. With a cry of joy the men surged about me. I was lifted by my upper arms and flung back in the sand. My legs were lifted up, my knees bent. My wrist chain was pulled forward and thrust over and behind my feet. It was then jerked up, behind me. I could not move my hands from my sides. I was helpless. My ankles, each in the grip of one man, were pulled apart, until my ankle chain, its links straightened, permitted no further extension. My opened tunic was thrust back on both sides. I, half submerged in the sand, put my head back, looking up, and back. I could see the figures, and the palanquin, seemingly small, seemingly far above me, seemingly far away from me on the ridge. I thought my Master, Ionicus, of Cos, might be looking for me, through the lorgnon. "Oh!" I cried, suddenly as the first of them put me to his pleasure. 

Dancer of Gor, pages 333-335