the approaching stranger.
I saw some girls rummaging through a garbage can. They wore short tunics but they were not slaves. Goreans sometimes refer to such women as 'strays.' They are civic nuisances. They are occasionally rounded up, guardsmen appearing at opposite ends of an alley, trapping them, and collared.
'Buy me, Master,' begged the girl, kneeling before Drusus Rencius. 'I will give you much pleasure.'
'Next!' barked the trainer, in the house of Kliomenesy The next girl hurried forward and knelt before Drusus Rencius, kissing his feet, and then lifting her head, piteously, to him. 'Buy me, Master,' she said. 'I will give you much pleasure…'
'Next!' barked the trainer.
The next woman then hurried to Drusus and, threw herself to her belly before him, kissing his feet. She then rose slowly to her knees, kissing him from the ankles to the waist.
Kneeling before him, then, close to him, holding his legs she looked up at him. 'Buy me, Master,' she whispered. 'I will give you much pleasure.' How furious I was that these women were being sent to the feet of Drusus Rencius. They were naked and beautiful, but who would want to buy them? They were only slaves. That could be told by the collars they wore, bars of rounded iron which, here, in the house, had been curved about their necks and hammered shut. I stood in the background, angry, braceleted, helpless.
'You!' said the trainer, gesturing to another girl with his Whip. 'To his feetl Beg for love!'
This girl hurried forward and knelt before Drusus Rencius.
'I beg for love, Master,' she whispered.
'You!' said the trainer, indicating another girl. She, too, hurried forward. She knelt before Drusus Rencius, her palms on the floor, her head to the very tiles. 'I beg for love,' she whispered. 'I beg for love, Master.'
I was startled. I realized, suddenly, that these two women, indeed, were begging for love. 'Beg elsewhere, sluts!' I thought. 'Leave Drusus Rencius alone!' And how offensive that a woman should beg for love! Surely her intimate, desperate needs for attention, for affection and love were better concealed even from herself, if possible, and certainly, at least, from others! And if they must beg, the helpless sluts, did they not know how a woman be~, by looks, by glances, by small, hopeful services. Surely a woman should not be expected to speak honestly in such matters. What brute would force her to such extremities? Too, how vulnerable a woman would make herself, placing herself so at the mercy of men, subject to being spurned, subject to his scorn and rejection.
Yet how simple, how straightforward and liberating might be such a confession. How beautiful it might be to so express one's vulnerability, and femininity, so tenderly, so piteously, so openly. To be sure, one would expect such a confession only from a woman whose needs were both desperate and deep, a woman who had needs such as might characterize slaves.
'Come along,' said Hermidorus.
'Please, Drusus,' I said. 'My hands have been braceleted long enough. I am beginning to feel too helpless, too much like a slave. Please release me.' 'I will release you in the room,' he said. I then continued to follow him, still braceleted, through the alleys, toward the inn of Lysias.
'Slowly, more humbly,' cautioned the trainer, half crouching over, watching carefully, moving slowly beside the girl. Then he moved about her, more quickly, varying his perspective. Then he moved to the end of the room, where he might wait for her to approach. 'Head lower,' he said. 'Better, better.' I watched her approach him, head down, on her hands and knees, her breasts depending beautifully. Then she dropped the whip from her teeth before his booted feet. She then remained there, head down, in position. 'Better,' he said. He then picked up the whip and tossed it across the tiles. 'Again,' he said. She then rose lightly to her feet and hurried to the whip, where, once more, she dropped to her hands and knees. She picked up the whip delicately in her teeth, and looked at him. He snapped his fingers. Again, then, head down, slowly, she approached him, the whip held in her mouth.
'Kneel, back on your heels,' said the trainer to the dark haired woman. 'Straighten your back, suck in your gut, put your shoulders back, thrust out your breasts, spread your knees, widely, lift your chin, put your hands on your thighs.
You are not going to be sold as a tower slave, Lady Tina. You are going to be sold as a pleasure slave.'
The whip cracked, and I jumped. But it had not touched the girl, only startled her.
She knelt behind the dark, smooth post, facing it, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts against it, her hands embracing it.
'this may be done to music,' said Hermidorus, 'and, as you know, there are many versions to the post dance, or pole dance, singly, or with more than one girl, with or without bonds, wand so on, but here we are using it merely as a training exercise.
The whip cracked again and the girl, suddenly and lasciviously, became active. I gasped.
She began to writhe about the pole. 'Kiss it, caress it, love It!' commanded the trainer, snapping the whip. 'Now more slowly, now scarcely moving, now use your thighs, and breasts more, moving all about it, holding it. Touch it with your tongue, lick it! Use the inside of your thighs more, your breasts, turn about it, slowly, sensuously. Lift your hands above your head, palms to the pole, caressing it. Turn about the pole! Twist about it! Now to your knees, holding it!' He then cracked the whip again. 'Enough!' he said. She was then as she had been before, kneeling behind the post, her knees on either side of it, her belly and breasts pressed against it, her hands embracing it. The girl was looking at me. She was wondering, perhaps, if I were the next to be put to the post. I looked away, angrily. Did she not know I was not a lowly thing like she? Did she not know I was free?
'It is a useful exercise,' said Hermidorus to Drusus.
'Obviously,' agreed Drusus.
I looked back at the girl. She was now looking away. I looked at the post. It was dark, and shiny. It had been polished smooth, apparently, by the bodies of many girls.
The girl looked suddenly at me. There was a hostility in our looks toward one another. She saw, I think, in my eyes, that I thought I could have done better at the post than she.
Then I looked away. What would I care for her opinionsi Were we competitive women?
'Come along,' said Hermidorus.
'These women,' said Hermidorus, 'are practicing their floor movements.' A trainer stood among them, with a whip. Occasionally he would snap this whip near a girl. I did not doubt but what the girls on the tiles, if they were found sufficiently displeasing to the trainer, or too frequently required the admonitory signal of the cracking leather, would soon hear the snap of the lash not in their mere vicinity but on their own bared bodies. Two of the girls, I saw, had stripes on them, one on the thigh, and one on the side. The trainer was not now paying them much attention. They were now, apparently, doing well. 'Come along,' said Hermidorus.
'How beautiful!' I breathed.
Drusus Rencius looked sharply at me. I feared for a moment I might be struck. Hermidorus, on the other hand, did not seem to notice. My exclamation, perhaps, had seemed sufficiently inadvertent, involuntary and irrepressible, to be ignored; or perhaps it was to be ignored because I was not a slave, but a free woman. I did not meet Drusus Rencius's eyes. It was not like I had just decided to speak and had spoken. In a place like this I did not know if I was subject to discipline or not. I did not think so, for I was a free woman. On the other hand I knew I was here on the sufferance of the house of Kijomenes. Indeed, on these premises, I knew that Drusus Rencius even held a license on me.
The drummer and the flautist prepared once more to play.
The girl in the long, light chain smiled at me. She, at any rate, was pleased by my response.
A wrist ring was fastened on her right wrist. The long, slender, gleaming chain was fastened to this and, looping down and up, ascended gracefully to a wide chain ring on her collar, through which it freely passed, thence descending, looping down, and ascending, looping up, gracefully, to the left wrist ring. If she were to stand quietly, the palms of her hands ~n her thighs, the lower portions of the chain, those two dangling loops, would have been about at the level of her knees, just a little higher. The higher portion of the chain, of course, would be at the collar loop.
The musicians began again to play. There is much that can be done with such a chain. It was a dancing chain. Its purpose was not to confine the girl but to allow her to incorporate it in her dance, enhancing the dance with its movements and beauty. It is, of course, symbolic of her bondage, this adding fantastic dimensions of significance to the dance.
It is not merely a beautiful woman who dances, but one who can be bought and sold, one who is subject to
