The woman suddenly cracked her whip. The girls stopped dancing. "Kneel," she said to them. "You, Lale, remain where you are."
"What did she say?" asked the woman with the whip.
Lale trembled, and moaned.
"Nothing, really, I said. "It was merely that she attempted to elicit my pity, to win my choice, telling me that if she was not chosen tonight she would be whipped."
"Head to the floor!" cried the hostess.
Lale put her head down to the floor. The lash fell once, fiercely, across her back. Lale cried out in misery.
"It is not worth whipping her about," I said. "It is not her fault if she is not popular."
"Not popular?" laughed the hostess. "Oh, she is a sly one, the little she-sleen! She is one of the most popular girls in the house,"
"Oh?" I said.
Lale cried out as the whip fell on her again.
"Look up, little fool," said the hostess, "and see the man you tried to manipulate."
Lale looked up in misery, the tears streaming down her face.
"Does he look like the kind of man you could play your silly little games with, does he look like the kind of man you could manipulate with pity? Can you not see he knows what slaves are, and knows how to handle them. Head down!"
Again the lash fell upon Lale.
"I have told you about that trick! said the free woman, angrily. "You have used it before! Perhaps that is the secret of your popularity! Perhaps that is why you are so often chosen, and are thrown sweets in the chaining bin as rewards! Is that how you compete with the other girls?"
"Please, Mistress!" begged Lale. But the lash fell twice more upon her. I noted that the other girls, kneeling in the background, did not seem at all dismayed with the punishment of the errant Lale. If she were popular in the house, I gathered it was with the customers, and not with her chain sisters. "And now you have lied again, and to a free man!" snarled the hostess. Three more times then the lash fell upon the hapless Lale, and then she lay on her belly, sobbing on the tiles.
"Kneel!" commanded the free woman. Lale struggled to her knees.
"Get on all fours," said the woman. Lale was then on all fours.
"You are now in the modality of the she-quadruped," said my hostess.
Lale moaned.
"Esne," called my hostess. That woman, she who had earlier taken the Lady Labiena from the floor, came over. She, too, carried a whip, and was dressed in brief leather, rather like that of a warrior. At her belt was a chain leash. My hostess made a sign and Lale was leashed.
"Can you understand me, my little she-quadruped?" asked my hostess. "Whimper once for "Yes, whimper twice for "No.
Lale whimpered once.
"Good," said my hostess. "You are a bright little she-quadruped."
The chain shook, as Lale trembled.
"Have you ever served as a she-quadruped before?" asked my hostess.
Lale whimpered twice.
"But you understand something of what is involved, do you not?" asked my hostess.
One whimper.
"For two weeks," said my hostess, "or more, if I choose, you will be chained in the darkness, in one of the back alcoves, serving there as a speechless animal any who may come upon you or desire you."
Lale groaned in pain.
"Do you understand?" asked my hostess.
Lale whimpered once.
"Take her way," said my hostess. "Delta Tunnel, Alcove Twenty-One." That would be the left side of the tunnel, as one entered. The even numbers are on the right.
I watched Lale being conducted from the floor. Her head was down. Once or twice her head was jerked up, as the leash was tautened, Esne hurrying her along. Esne, like my hostess, was a sturdy woman. It interested me that the hostesses here were dressed in rather mannish garb. That was, I supposed, primarily to impress upon the slaves that it was a masculine type discipline to which they were being subjected. Too, of course, it is easier to move swiftly, and to kick, and use a whip, in such garb. On the other hand, it did seem a bit of an empty mockery. The hostesses, when all was said and done, were not really men; they were, ultimately, like their charges, only females. To be sure, they were free females, and this well qualified them for their posts. There are few things a female slave fears more than a free female. Female slaves, so helpless in their collars, so much at the mercy of any free person whatsoever, live in terror of such females, for they know that they despise and hate them.
"Return to your places," said my hostess to the other girls.
"Yes, Mistress," they said, and, leaping up, hurried back into the shadows, at the left, from whence they had been summoned, there to crouch and kneel once more, awaiting their next call forward.
"I am sorry," said my hostess.
"Perhaps you have others?" I asked. I looked about. As yet, as nearly as I could tell, no one had attempted to contact me. I assumed that they would attempt to make the first contact, either having seen me, presumably near the Central Cylinder, or having some sort of description. I would prefer, of course, to get a look at them first, and, if necessary, to count them.
"If you care to wait," she said, "some of these other wenches, on their backs and bellies on the mats, will be relinquished."
"Have you any others, available now?" I asked.
"Not really," she said. "We do have some new girls, in cages, recently brought in. They are not yet fully trained for the floor, however. Indeed, some are only recently marked and collared. We do have the girls in the alcoves, of course." "Who is that woman?" I asked. I indicated a nicely bodied woman, barefoot, in a calf-length, sleeveless white gown, with a low dA©colletage, moving among the tables. The neckline left no doubt s to certain of her excitements. They were such as men might pay for in a slave market. I found it interesting that she, in this place, though apparently not a hostess, was clothed. The slaves I had seen here were stripped. Golden bangles encircled her ankles, and golden bracelets encircled her wrists. Too, she had golden armlets.
"She is a free woman," said my hostess.
"Here?" I asked.
"She has paid her tarsk bit," said my hostess. "Beware of her."
I saw the woman approaching a fellow at a table. She knelt near the table, in the position of the free woman. She smiled at him.
"Where are the cages?" I asked.
"I will show you," she said.
I rose to my feet.
My hostess paused for a moment beside one of the girls serving on a nearby fellow's mat. The chain on her neck ran to the mat ring. Becoming suddenly aware of the presence of the hostess, the girl, who was kneeling, swiftly put her head to the floor.
"Leitel," said the hostess, kindly.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl, her voice quavering.
"You can lick and kiss more salaciously than that," she chided.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Our customers do not come here," said the hostess, "for attentions which they could receive at home from their free companions. They come here for the kisses of slaves, and the pleasures of slaves."
"Yes, Mistress," whispered the girl.
"Are you a slave?" asked the hostess.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"Wholly?"
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"And this is a customer?" she asked, indicating the house's client in question. "Yes, Mistress," she wept.
"See, then," she said, "that you give him the pleasures of a slave." "Yes, Mistress!" she wept.
"The total pleasures of a slave," said my hostess. "Yes, Mistress!" she cried.
My hostess then continued on her way, and I followed her. We went past the girls at the left, Yartel, and the rest. They shrank back in fear as the hostess passed them.
"You keep these females under excellent discipline," I observed.
"Yes," she said.
"You seem to enjoy making them serve men," I said.