"Hot Sand will do, Master," I said, "and chains in which my limbs are enclosed."
"Yes," he said.
I saw I did not need to fear him, save in the ways any slave must fear a Master. I danced then to those whose eyes were hardest. Some of them were not even men I had trapped, but only men who knew what I had done. Some may have been as innocent as those I had lured; others might have been murderers and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiration of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my Master, at the payment of a prisoners fee, by the writ of a praetor or, in more desperate cases, by the order of a quaestor. I danced abjectly. I danced piteously. I danced beggingly. I danced as well as I could. I could not do more. They would either be pleased or not. My fate was in their hands. "She is pretty," said one of them.
"Yes," said another. Hope sprang again high within me. I sought them to move another, with my helplessness, and the pleas of my body.
"Are you a good slave lay?" asked a man.
"It is my hope that I am pleasing, Master," I said. "Surely I shall endeavor to be so." He grinned.
"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum.
"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owed his chaining to me. I began to be conscious then, as I sometimes was, of the incredible power of the female slave, of how helpless men could be before her, and of what she could do to them.
"Ah," said one of the men, softly, watching. I repeated the movement.
"Yes," said another man. "Yes!" said another. How paradoxical I thought, that she who is branded, and collared, and owned, is nothing, should have such power!
"Dance, slut, dance!" said a man. And then again I danced, helplessly, piteously, suing for their favor, striving desperately to be found pleasing. In the end the power belongs to the master, totally, and not to the slave. She is his.
"Excellent," said a man. "Excellent." I danced.
I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no collar has been locked on it in the night. How could she, a free woman, have such a dream? What could it mean? And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. The familiar surroundings reassure her. She has had such dreams before. What could they mean?
