and silken cords that render them helpless?” he asked.
“Ah!” said Astrinax. “See that one!”
“But, yes!” agreed he in whose care I was.
“You knew me in Ar,” I said. “You must have agreed to my keeping and management.”
“I like having you cook for me,” he said, “and I enjoy shackling you, such things.”
“I see,” I said. “I have heard that some men, for whatever reason, see a woman as their slave, as delicious, incomparable collar meat, special to them, and will not rest until she is chained at their feet.”
“And I have heard,” said he, “that some women, for whatever reason, look up at a fellow, from their knees, and recognize him as their master.”
“There is another beauty,” said Astrinax, indicating another paga girl.
“She has brown hair,” I said.
“At least,” said he in whose charge I was, “it is more than a hort or two in length.”
“My hair will grow,” I said.
“I think,” said he, “I will ask the Lady Bina to have it shaved off again.”
“Please do not, Master!” I said.
“You are going to be deferent, docile, obedient, humble, zealous, eager to please, and such, are you not?” he asked.
“Yes, Master!” I said.
“What lovely girls,” said Astrinax.
“Superb,” said he in whose charge I was.
“But we have obtained no new men, no new swords,” said Lykos.
“Are all taverns like this, Master?” I asked Astrinax. I suspected not, for the apparent quality of the girls.
“No,” he said. “The prices here are such that the place should be burned down. In a typical tavern a drink is a single tarsk-bit, with which drink a girl may go, if you want her. Here, a drink is five tarsk-bits, five! And for all I know, the girl is extra.”
“No,” said Lykos. “She goes with the drink.”
“But five tarsk-bits!” said Astrinax.
“True,” granted Lykos, resignedly.
At that moment there was an exciting skirl of music, a flash of bells, a burst of color, a jangle of beads, and a cry of enthusiasm from the patrons, and a dancer was on the floor. After her entry she stood silent, not moving, posed, ready, on the floor. I could sense the anticipation, even the difference in breathing, of the men. Then the music began, softly, slowly, and the dancer, looking about herself, began to move, obedient to the melody of masters.
“Is she a slave?” I asked.
“Certainly,” said he in whose charge I was. “It may be hard to see, beneath the necklaces, so many of them, but there is a collar there, close-fitting, steel, and locked.”
“Much as mine,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“She is so beautiful,” I said. “She is so soft, so feminine, so utterly female, so vulnerable, so needful.”
“A slave,” said Lykos.
“It is so beautiful,” I said. “What is it called?”
“It is a form of dance fit for slaves, is it not?” he said.
“Yes,” I breathed, awed, rapt.
“Slave dance,” said he in whose charge I was.
“Slave dance,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said.
“I have seen something like it,” I said, “on my former world, but I scarcely dared look upon it.”
“It spoke to you of things which stirred you, things for which you longed, but which you feared, spoke to you of a distant, or forgotten, world, one a thousand times more real, I suspect, than that which you knew. It spoke to you of how women might be before men, as slaves, and how men might look upon women, as masters.”
“Yes,” I whispered, “but here it seems somehow different.”
“It is different here,” he said, “for this is such a world.”
“I think I know this dance, or sort of dance,” said Astrinax. “It will have its phases, its swiftness, and its slowness, its emotions, insolence, pride, defiance, apprehension, recognition, fear, struggle, defeat, surrender, and submission.”
I heard, it startling me, the cracking of a whip. The dancer reacted, as though struck, but the blade had not touched her. Occasionally it snapped again, and again, and, at the end of the dance, as is often the case in such dance, the dancer is prostrate, clearly submitted and owned. In this particular dance she was kneeling and the fellow with the whip was behind her. He placed the whip, coiled, against the back of her neck, and she lowered her head. The men about voiced their approval, and several smote their left shoulders with their right hand. Others uttered trilling noises or staccato bursts of sound. Others pounded on the tables. She then sprang to her feet and hurried from the floor, followed by the fellow with the whip.
“Paga, Master?” asked a girl.
She had not been summoned to our table!
Sometimes a master will summon a particular girl to his table. Masters have choices, of course, even if they are interested only in paga. I suppose it is natural for a master to wish to be served by one girl, rather than another. On the other hand, more than paga might be involved. The particular girl, summoned, is well aware that the fellow may be considering her for alcoving, as well.
The slave had addressed herself to he in whose charge I was! To be sure, a girl might approach a table, unsummoned. But how dared she? I remained, of course, on my knees. I had no permission to rise.
She glanced at me, condescendingly, and smiled, with the look of a high-priced girl upon one of lesser value, perhaps one who might regard herself as fortunate that men had deigned to put a collar on her, at all.
I recognize her soft, light, loose sheen of swirling, diaphanous yellow silk. It had been insolently cast before me earlier, and drawn across my face.
It was doubtless her way her of showing contempt for a lesser girl, and calling Master Desmond’s attention to the difference amongst slaves.
He was a handsome fellow. Might he not be interested in buying her?
“Yes,” said Desmond, “paga.”
She then backed away, smiling, and then turned about, making her way to the paga vat.
“An excellent choice, Kalligone,” said a tavern’s man, as the five tarsk-bits were placed in his hand. Before he left, he dropped a slender silken cord, short, coiled, on the table. There was little doubt what such a cord was for. Most masters, on the other hand, brought their own cords, bracelets, laces or thongs to a table. The tavern’s man then left the table.
“Master!” I protested, tears in my eyes.
“What is wrong?” asked he in whose charge I was.
“Nothing,” I said.
Shortly, the slave, whose name I took to be Kalligone, returned, and, two hands on the goblet, knelt before Master Desmond. Her knees, beneath the sheen of silk, were clearly spread. Of course, I thought, angrily, she is a pleasure slave! But then are not all paga girls pleasure slaves? Was pleasure not what men paid for? Was it not with pleasure in mind, inordinate pleasure, that men put collars on such women?
Kalligone did not neglect to glance at the cord, and smiled.
“Here,” said Master Desmond, holding out his hand.
“Master?” she said, startled.
“Here,” he said. He then took the goblet, and placed it on the table.
“Master?” she asked, again.
“Leave,” he said, “but remain on the floor. I may want you later. Go, quickly, on your pretty little feet, and jangle your bells.”
“You refuse Kalligone?” she said.
