Waste Not Want Not

originally posted October 1, 2006

I put the black girl in the yellow silk left behind by a naked, silver-haired slave. Sentimentality has its place, I suppose, but the color favors her dark skin. She will wear it. She will earn money in it. From the looks of the snug fit, due to her more generous bosom and sweetness through the hips, she will spend a good portion of her time repairing the occasional rent or tear in the garment. The 'earner' of the whore coffle has seen a significant drop in production. They will all see a drop in rations until she earns what I expect of her.
"Lean whores are hungry whores," I told her as she cowered. "Hungry whores are productive whores. Productive whores earn."
"Yes, Master," she responded.
I brought three girls; Joy, Elise and Six to Samsara. Much of the work, the painting of the front door and the unboxing of crates, was done. Girl work was all that remained. Sweeping, polishing and dusting and the like. I put the girl, Joy, to the task of supervising the other two. They were given a beating, Elise and Six, but it was nothing more than a reminder really. A 'Welcome to my home. There is discipline in my home' sort of beating. It is important to remind women now and again that absolute obedience and exquisite beauty is a mandate, not a suggestion. They were informed that they were welcome in my home, there was discipline in my home and that Joy was their first girl in that home. I think, gauging their responses and the lack of bickering amongst one another in the ensuing days, that they have learned all of the lessons I sought to teach them. For the record...like the 'earner' I expect her to be, Portia has already begun to reassert herself. After speaking with her in the afternoon, she returned to the Boarding House the same evening with a respectable thirteen copper tarsks. When a fellow with a decidedly 'coastal' accent visited, she continued to earn late into the evening. She seemed, briefly, at odds with the notion of wearing the yellow silk I assigned to her. The aforementioned sentimentality faded soon enough. Hunger will do that to a slut. So will the threat of leather. I let myself get drunk last evening. It has been a while. I did not, of course, become uncontrollably inebriated. Those days are past. I am a responsible businessman. I cannot indulge in that sort of thing any longer. The fist fights, for one, are something I do not miss. I do not know why the amount of alcohol, to given level, seems to be directly proportional to the propensity for irrational violence in an individual. If all it does is lower one's inhibitions, is not one likely to do as one would like to, without reservation? I am an affable fellow, genuinely so in my estimation, but I can attest to more sore fingers and knuckles the morning after a night of drinking than I care to count. Mostly because those sore fingers and knuckles were coupled with my share of black eyes and bruised ribs. Maybe it does more than lower one's inhibitions then. Perhaps it deadens the senses a bit, reduces one's judgment. I know it helps when I get angry. The first few cups are soothing. Subsequent cups are blissfully numbing. I don't know. Applying mathematics to the love of drink is difficult business. The ledgers are a better source of distraction. Counting the coins, keeping track of the finances, that sort of thing. Writing, too, plays and poetry, keep the mind busy. And women. They are the ultimate distraction, no? I am sincerely pissed off at the moment, but I cannot afford to let it get to me. 'Integral to the security of this world.' What the fuck does that mean?