Growth; Assignment; Discipline

originally posted March 19, 2007

During the Waiting Hand, I've given some of them; Elise, Portia, and Nirah, access to the scrolls in the library on the third floor. While it is a time for reflection, I feel that it can also be a time for study, for growth. A few of them were curious about the Tahari regions, no doubt due the appearance of such fellows at the En'kara Fair of last year. That Fair, strange as it seems, will be taking place in the coming hand. It has already been a year since Emily danced in the tent for the men of Gor, since Locutius and Nikos of Tyros read the words of a dissident poet on a world stage.
Six Girl was given a more traditional chore. She will write for me. She will recollect her place on the chain through a series of essays. This has worked before for her, helped to center her focus. I have given her a snatch of sheer silk, black in color, to work on as well. Each night, when she puts down the pen, she is to take up the needle and sew. She longs to wear more colorful silk, as her sisters on the chain, but she does not truly understand the color black. Until now, of course.
"Black is the color of solvency," I informed her. "To be 'in the black' indicates that you are able to pay your debts as they occur."
In short, it signifies that she is no longer struggling to breathe. That what is past is past. The debt she incurs, from the first day of En'Kara, will be current. She is, however, to finish the hem of that garment with an opaque line of red silk. Red is the color of debt. Lest she come to think she is free and clear, she will understand that she will always owe, every moment she wears the collar I've locked on her throat. Solvent of her past, she continues to incur debt with every breath. They all do.
Regarding Cup, I've finally tired of her ruse. I had intended to delay the inevitable until the last day of the Waiting Hand, but I am not so dramatic a fellow. She read for me last night, in her own, supposedly illiterate voice. It was a chapter of my choosing from a diary she kept in the not-so-distant past. When she was finished, I beat her ass. More specifically, I beat her back, her ass, and the back of her legs. While she knelt there, remaining in the position prescribed for discipline, the handle of the whip shoved cross-wise between her teeth, I supped. It was a humble meal of dry bread and water, a fitting repast for the Waiting Hand. In time, she was permitted the indulgence of kneeling before me. She was not permitted to sob or ball. There would be time enough for that in the confines of the room she shares with the sleen. If Tasta were amenable to suffering the sound of such tears, I judged it acceptable. As she knelt there, she was reminded to whom she belonged. She was reminded the primary duties of a slave girl. She was, too, reminded that she had been lax in the primary duties of a slave girl.
She can be an obstinate, little slut. It is my hope, however, that the lesson of the leather was well-received.