I danced.
I saw anger, and hatred, turn to desire.
I did many cunning things with the chains.
I began to sense, with timidity, and hope, and then a growing confidence, and with an increasing sense of elation, that many of them, perhaps even most, might be encouraged to find me of at least minimal interest.
"Hei!" cried one of them, smiting his thigh.
"Master!" I called to him, gratefully, then dancing back from him, in the sand. Others restrained him from following me and seizing me. Then I was too near the other side of the circle, and returned, quickly, gracefully, to its center, dancing to first one man and then another. More than one reached out for me. Their grasping hands were but a yard or two from me.
"You were surely never of the metal workers!" laughed the fellow who had been of that caste.
"No, Master," I assured him.
"No woman of my caste could move like that!" he cried.
"Do not be too sure, Master," I cautioned him.
I saw sweat upon his forehead, and his fists clench as he perhaps recalled some women he had known, of that caste. Surely the women of his caste, too, could be taught to dance, and to lick and kiss, and serve, and even superbly, such that they might drive a man wild with desire. Were they not, too, in the final analysis, only females? I had known two slaves who had once been of his caste, Corinne, in the house of my training, and Laura, in Hendow" s tavern. Both had been superb slaves. To be sure, being slaves, they were no longer in his caste. Animals do not have caste.
I danced before another.
It was my desperate hope to turn their wrath, and their desire for vengeance, seemingly at the beginning so adamant, so fierce and unrelenting, to interest, and desire, and passion. "Do not kill me, Master," I begged another, "but let me live, I beg you, to serve and please you, and with all the fullness of the female!"
"Perhaps," he said, licking his lips.
I continued to dance.
There are many forms of placatory dances which are performed by female slaves. Some of these tend to have rather fixed forms, sanctioned by custom and tradition, such as the stately "Contrition Dace" 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. Though 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 has 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 situation, 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 forgiveness, to reassure him of the authenticity of her contrition and the genuineness of her desire to do better.
"There is no garbage here, on which to make your bed," said one of the men, "and I have learned that, indeed, in any event, you are worth less than it." "Yes, Master," I said.
"Nor do I have a cloak now, doubled, to soften the cruelty of the cobblestones to your back," he said.
"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 murderers and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiation of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my master, at the payment of a prisoner" s 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 then to move another, with my helplessness, 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 has the look of a wench who would be good in the furs," laughed a man. I heard the chain move in the heavy staple on his shackle.
"There are no furs here," laughed another man.
I had not had furs touch my body since a cool evening, five nights ago, in the overseer" s tent. I had then worn the rectangle of red silk, that in which he was accustomed to put his use slaves. It is such, it thrust over a leather thong knotted above the girl" s belly, that it may be easily brushed aside, or pulled away. It was my hope that I had pleased him well. Toward morning he had chained me, hand and foot, to a stake near his feet, where I could not reach him. I moaned for a time, but the kick of his foot had taught me that I must then be silent.
"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum.
"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owed 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, and 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 cpollar 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 for 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 though I might be their own slave. I saw to my joy, coming gradually to understand it, that they, or surely most of them, would accept 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 last 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 sand, 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 knees in the sand, writhing, bending forward until my hair was in the sand, bending back then, exposing 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 sand, and then I straightened, and then was on my back, and belly, 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 it is 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 whip in hand, encouraging 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.