"Susan," I said.
"Mistress?" she asked, raising her head.
"Did Ligurious speak to you?" I asked.
"Yes, Mistress," she said.
"You know that tonight you are to- to dancer,
"Yes, Mistress," she said. "Before selected guardsmen. The whip dance." "It was not my idea, Susan," I said. "I did not ask Ligurlous to have you punished. It was his idea. I want, you to know that. I am sorry."
"It had not even occurred to me that it might have been your idea, Mistress," smiled Susan. "You did not even want me punished. Mistress has always shown me incredible lenience. Mistress has always shown me incredible kindness. It is almost as ifa€”"
"Yes?" I said.
"a€”almost as if Mistress has some idea of the helplessness and vulnerability of the slave."
"And how," I asked angrily, "would I, a free woman, have any idea of that?" "Forgive me, Mistress," said Susan. "Of course you, as a free woman, could not!" I was angry. I considered whipping the little, collared slut. She put her head down, quickly, and continued her work, menial work, work suitable for such as she, a slave.
"Susan," I said.
"Yes, Mistress?" she asked.
"Is it hard to learn the whip dance?" I asked.
"I am not a dancer, Mistress," said Susan, "nor are most who perform the dance. It is not even, really, a dance. One simply has one's clothes taken away, and then one moves before strong, powerful men as such men would have a woman move before them. Then when one is sufficiently pleased, he indicates this and you serve his pleasure."
"How do you know what to do?" I asked.
"Sometimes one tries different things," she said, "for example, about or on the furniture, on the floor, about their bodies, at their feet, on your back, on your belly, hoping to find something that they will respond to. Sometimes they give you explicit instructions or commands, as when a woman is put through slave paces. Sometimes they guide you, or help you, sometimes by the whip, sometimes by expressions or cries. At other times the girl listens, so to speak, to the slave fires in her belly, and seems to become one with them and the dance, and then, soon, must beg the brutes, in her dance, and by her piteous expressions and gestures, to relieve the merciless tensions in her body, allowing her to complete the cruel cycle of arousal, allowing her to receive them and submit to them, the masters, in the spasmodic surrender of the helpless slave."
"But the whip," I said. "Do you not fear it?"
"I fear it," she said. "But I do not think I will feel it."
"Why?" I asked.
Susan suddenly looked me directly in the eye. "I dance well," she said. I turned away from her. When I looked at her again, she had finished her work. "Will Mistress be needing me further for this evening?" she asked.
I looked at Susan.
How chaste, how modest, how demure she seemed in her brief tunic, and collar, with her lovely face and beautiful little figure, How dainty, how exquisitel How deferential, how shyl Surely she was a woman's slave, and only that, attentive, knowledgeable, efficient, respectful and selfeffacing.
But a man such as Ligurious had bought her naked off a slave block in Cos. What a sweet, bashful girl she was.
But tonight she would dance naked for guardsmen.
"Mistress?" asked Susan.
"You do not seem distressed that tonight you will dance," I observed. Indeed, it seemed she might be looking forward to it.
"No, Mistress'," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Must I speak?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I love men, and wish to serve them, fully," she said.
"Lewd and shameless slut!" I cried.
"I am a slave," she said. "Forgive me, Mistress. Too, I have not been given to a man in eleven days. My fingernails are bloody from scratching at the tiles in my kennel."
I shuddered. I had not thought much about where slave girls might be kept at night. To be sure, I knew that they were not wandering freely about the palace. Now, it seemed, that some, at least, might be locked in kennels. This made sense, of course, considering that, like the shameless, little slut, Susan, they were animals.
"It does not seem that the whip dance, truly, would be much of a punishment for you," I said.
"Ligurious has several women," she said. "He does not know me that well. He has had me Prily a few times, and, I have improved my skills, considerably, since then."
"He thinks, then, that it will be a terrible punishment for you?" I asked. "I would suppose so," she said. "Doubtless he expects that I will be muchly lashed."
"What is it like to be In the arms of a man such as Ligunous?" I asked, as though not much interested, really.
"He devastates a woman," she said, "turning her into a tormented, whimpering animal, and then he makes her yield to him, fully, and as a slave."
"Did you spill the wine on purpose?" I asked.
"No, Mistress," she laughed. "I did not know that Ligurious was coming to your quarters. It occurred before his arrival. Too, I know you would not be so cruel as to assign me to the whip dance. Too, the common punishment for such a clumsiness is not the uncompromising, degrading severity of the whip dance but disciplines more prosaic in their nature, such as a restriction or change in rations, close chains or, most often, a switching or whipping."
"I see," I said.
I wondered what Susan would look like, her body glistening with a sheen of sweat, twisting and writhing before men, pleasing them as a naked slave, theirs then to be exploited and used however they might wish. She seemed such an ideal woman's slave, such an efficient, bashful, modest girl, it was hard to imagine her in such a context. But she had told me that her fingernails were bloody from scratching at the tiles in her kennel. It seemed then that quiet, sweet, withdrawn, retiring: Susan actually bad sexual needs and powerful ones. These needs, too, presumably, given her appearance and curvatures, bespeaking a richness in female hormones, would be deeply feminine ones. I wondered in bow many girls like Susan there might lie a pleasure slave, waiting to be uncaged and commanded.
"I dance well," she had told me.
How startled I had been when she had said that. I bad turned away.
She had looked into my eyes, in that instant, not as a slave into the eyes of a free woman, but as one woman into the eyes of another. I had felt then, in that instant, that we were both, ultimately, only women, that we were identical in our femaleness', that we were united in the bonds of a common sisterhood and what, in relationship to men, it entailed. We were both, ultimately, only women; we were both, ultimately, though I was free and she was a slave, representatives of the slave sex.
I wondered if I, too, could dance well. I knew that if I did not, I would be lashed.
"I will have no further need for you tonight, Susan," I said. "I think that you should soon report to your masters of the evening."
"Yes, Mistress," she said. "Thank you, Mistress." Susan," I said. "Yes, Mistress?" she said.
"Is there unrest in the city?"
"I do not know, Mistress," she said. "I am seldom outside the grounds of the palace."
I had resolved upon a bold plan.
"Before it: report to your temporary masters," I said, "inform Drusus Rencius that I wish to see him. He is to report to my quarters within the Ahn." "'Yes, Mistress," she said.
"It will not be necessary to inform Ligurious of this action on your part," I said.
"As Mistress wishes," she said.
"It is my recommendation, " I said, "that in reporting to your temporary masters you are a little late, but just late enough to increase their eagerness, not late enough that you are lashed for tardiness."
"Yes, Mistress," smiled Susan. "Thank you, Mistressf" She then sped from the room.
I then went again to the barred window, and looked out, over the city.