"Do you feel," he asked, "that you truly know how to dance-before men." "I think so, Master," I said, reddening.
"There are no free women present," he said. "Therefore your performance need not be inhibited."
"I understand, Master," I said. Too, to my pleasure, I gathered that he himself was not disinterested in seeing me dance, and that I was to dance as what I was, a slave.
"You may begin," he said.
"Dance, dance, Tuka," urged Tupita.
I rose to my feet. I rubbed my hands on my thighs. I touched myself about the waist, lifting my hands slightly, calling attention to my bosom. Such things are subtle. I wanted to so please the stranger. I wanted to show him what I could do, and now was.
"Your legs are short," said the stranger.
"Forgive me, Master," I said.
"It is not a criticism," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said. Such legs, I knew, were splendid for this form of dance, in which, from time to time, the woman becomes a writhing, cuddly love animal, made for a man" s hands and arms.
I saw from the stranger" s eyes that I was to particularly dance myself to Mirus. I turned to face him. I lifted my left hand, holding my right low, at my hip. My head was down, humbly, and turned to the left.
I knew Mirus would try not to watch me. He would nurse his fury. He would attempt to resist me. He did not wish to permit me to placate him.
I knew I must attract his attention.
"Ai!" I cried suddenly, as though in pain, and I reacted as though I had been, from his quarter, struck with a whip.
Mirus looked at me, startled, and I looked at him, reproachfully, and frightened, and than, as though he had whipped me, and commanded me, I began to dance. There was no music, of course, and so the dance must content itself largely with the expression, as it were, of my servitude, and my subjection to his will. I moved as beautifully as I could, and as though in fear the before him, trying to please him, begging to placate him. From time to time in the dance I reacted again as though I had felt the whip, crying out in pain, looking at him in terror, sometimes struck even to my knees. Sometimes, too, I tried to dance before the stranger, but his eyes would inform me that it was before Mirus that I was to dance slave beauty.
"Look at her, Master!" cried Tupita. "See how beautiful she is!" "Master," I wept to Mirus. "I beg forgiveness!"
Then I reacted again and again, as though he might have been angered by my plea, as though I were struck with the whip. Then I was on my back, and stomach, even, reacting as though I was struck, turning, twisting, as though in terror and pain to fend blows. It was as though he were punishing me.
"She dances well," said Mirus.
"Forgive her, Master," begged Tupita. "She is sorry! She begs forgiveness!" I looked to the stranger, in his mask, from where I lay. His eyes shone. I almost cried out with pleasure. Had he though that he had known me? Well, perhaps now he was wondering if he had really, at all, known me!
I leaped to my feet and moved sensuously but, too, as though prodded and shoved, as though driven, herded, to the slave wagon. Tupita gasped. I seized the slave whip and thrust it between my teeth, harshly, as might have a man, and then I flung myself to the dirt. Then, bit by bit, sometimes on my knees, sometimes as though I had tried to rise, and had then again been thrust to my knees, sometimes on all fours, sometimes as though trying to rise to my knees, and being forced again to all fours, I made my way to Mirus. As I approached him it seemed I became more and more terrified, and contrite, and then, at the conclusion of my dance, I put my head down and placed the whip humbly before him. I then put my head down again licked and kissed it, and then I put myself on my belly, prostrated before him, a slave at his mercy. "Forgive me, Master," I begged.
"You have placed a whip before me," he observed.
"That it may be used to punish a slave, Master," I said. How naturally I thought of myself as a slave! I was a slave.
"It would seem in your dance," he said, "that you were already much punished." I said nothing. In the dance, of course, not a blow had fallen upon me. "But it is not my whip to which you are subject," he said. I was startled, and my heart leapt to hear this. Could he mean that the stranger had put claim upon me, and that it was to his whip that I was now subject? But, of course, he may have meant only that I belonged to Ionicus of Cos. That could be read upon my collar.
"I am at your mercy," I said. "I am yours to punish."
"And for what," he asked, "would I punish you?"
"Master?" I asked, lifting my head.
"For having obeyed your master, or your master" s men?" he asked.
"Master!" I said, tears in my eyes.
"Surely such was your duty," he said.
"She might have been terribly punished, even slain otherwise!" interpolated Tupita.
"Did you choose to be a lure girl?" he asked.
"No, Master!" I said.
"I am sure now," he said, "as I reflect on these things, not in anger, that you were indeed reluctant to entice me, and might have preferred to be permitted to withdraw."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"But in my pleasure at seeing you again," he said, "such signs, obvious as they might have been, I overlooked. It did not even occur to me that you might then be a lure girl. Any other girl, one unknown, of course, I might have immediately suspected, particularly under the circumstances, the loneliness of the street, the absurdity of a key in your belt, and such."
I said nothing.
"It is my fault," he said. "You were beguiled by your affections for me, by your trust in me."
"No," he said. "I was stupid.
"Forgive me, Master," I said.
"You are not stupid, Master," said Tupita. "Look at Tuka. See how well curved she is, how desirable she is! She could have lured a general!"
"Slave," said Mirus to me.
"Yes, Master," I said."What do you think should be the punishment for a free woman who did what you did?"
"Whatever master pleases," I said, "once she was branded, and put in a collar." "Kneel," he said.
"Yes, Master, " I said.
"Are you not somewhat overdressed?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. I removed the bit of clothing I wore, the belt, the narrow strip of cloth.
"Approach," he said, "on your knees."
"Yes, Master," I said.
He rose to a crouching position. He put his hands on my upper arms. He was very strong.
"You are a well-curved slave," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"What do you think should be the punishment for a slave who did what you did?" he asked.
"Whatever masters please," I said.
"The whip?" he asked.
"If masters please," I said. I would be more than happy to settle for the whip! "Perhaps," he said, "for the whip of the furs."
"Oh, yes, Master!" cried Tupita. "Yes! Yes!"
"My anger with you," said Mirus, "I think was in part motivated by anger with myself, that I so easily succumbed to your charms."
"Yes, Master," I said. I had never doubted that.
"Do not entirely blame yourself, Master," called Tupita. "I am sure she was a very clever lure girl, a brilliantly lovely and skillful lure girl!" I did not think this contribution by Tupita was really necessary.
"Yes," said Mirus, looking at me, "that is true."
He then lifted me up, and carried me back, away from the fire, into the darkness.
"Use her well!" cried Tupita, "Make her pay! Teach her who is master!" He then threw me to my side in the leaves, in the darkness. I lay there, my legs pulled up, frightened.
"I am somewhat angry," Mirus informed me.
"Yes, Master," I said. That was only too obvious.
"I am first girl, slave," called Tupita to me. "See that you serve him well! If you do not serve him well, I will beat a bucket of slave oil out of you!" "Yes, Mistress!" I called to her.
Mirus crouched beside me. He thrust me to my back. He unceremoniously flung my legs apart. I, serve him well! It seemed clearly his attention, at least at first, to help himself. I did not expect to be given much more consideration that a free woman taken in the streets of a burning city, subjected to hasty loot use, thence to be dragged away stripped after he captor, her hands bound behind her, a rope on her neck.