Peggy now danced upon her knees, at the end of the table using the table in the dance, thrusting her belly against it, and touching it with her hands, and her body and lips. Peggy, then was back from the table, on the tiles, on her back, and sides, and knees, and then prone, and again supine, and then writhing, as though in frustration and loneliness. Stands before the Master, hands lifted, their backs together above her head.
I observed the dancer, closely, the striking of her small, clenched fists on the tiles, the scratching of her fingernails at their smooth surfaces, the turning of a hip, the flattening of a thigh, the lifting of a knee, the turning of her head, the piteous scattering of her head from side to side. She lay on her back, and whimpering, struck down in misery, stinging the palms of her hands, bruising her small heels. She might have been in a cell, locked away from men.
She then rolled to her stomach, and rose to her hands and knees, and head down remained for a moment in that posture. It is at this moment that the music enters a different melodic phase, one less physical and frenzied, one almost lyrical in poignance. She crawls some feet to her left and lifts her head. She puts out her small hand. It seems that it there encounters some barrier, some enclosing, confining wall. She then rises to her feet. Swiftly she hurries about, in the graceful, frightened haste of the dancer, her hands seeming to trace the location of the obdurate barriers, those invisible walls which seem to contain her. She then stood and faced us, and put her head in her hands, bent over and straightened her body, her head and hair thrown back. "I?" she seemed to ask, looking out, as though some rude jailer might have come to the gate of her pen. But there is of course, no one there, and in the performance of the dance, that is clearly understood.
Then, in poignant fantasy, within the pen, she prepares herself for the Master, seeming to thoughtfully select silks and jewelry, seeming to apply perfume and cosmetics, seeming to be bedecked in shimmering diaphanous slave splendor. She then crosses her wrists, and moves them, as though they have been bound. She then extends them before her as though the strap on them had been drawn taut. It then seems that she, head high, a bound slave is being led on her tether, from the pen. This time, it seems, truly, there are men there, that they have come for her. She puts her head up; she turns away; she feigns disdain. Then it seems as she, startled, looks about, on the floor of the pen, calling to them, lifting her head, holding out her hand piteously to them. She pleads to be considered.
