An Open Door

It was a little more than three hands that the girl, Cup, spent confined in a cell beneath my domicile on Aulus Street. From the start of the third hand of En'Kara to about the middle of the first passage hand, she waited. It was not an uncomfortable cell, as far as girl-confinements are measured. She was not, for example, close-chained in a cage. She could stand if she chose within the enclosure. There was a grate in the stone flooring with access to one of the myriad of sewage passages that run through this glorious, modern city. Her fortune, too, was increased by regular precipitation, affording run off rather than stagnant conditions. I gave her a blanket for warmth and a bit of hay to soak up any dampness. Most indulgently, she was fed and watered, save a handful of days when I felt starving her might be beneficial. She took a bite out of one of my whores. I judged that sustinence enough for two days after the incident. That, ironically, was where she was most indulged. She was afforded contact with others. I sent the girl Elise down to her daily to feed and water the girl and ensure that her hygiene was looked after. Too, she was beaten daily by the girl, once First Girl of the grand Curulean of Ar. I, however, did not pay the girl a visit for the duration of the time she was confined. There was little time for it. She was not only being disciplined during her tenure, she was being put aside. A slave who does not learn may be disciplined further, put aside, sold, or simply disposed of. It is important that a woman understand her place in this world if she is to survive in it. Locking a woman away says to her, or should say to her, "See here. You are troublesome. I do not have time for you at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next month. Or next year. You will wait on my schedule. You are only a girl." The pragmatic girl can say to herself, "I will wait. I am thankful, at least, that I am fed on most days. It tells me he has not forgotten about me. It tells me I must wait upon his schedule. I must wait. I will improve."

Of course not every girl is pragmatic. Some are stubborn. Some have a romantic vision of how they will be conquered and dominated that simply does not fit with reality. I have known beauties that have found themselves forgotten on a chain of a hundred women. Perfumed and pretty, waiting to serve, finding themselves nothing more than a part of the decor. An objet d'art. Some women that might find themselves first girl on a Pirate's chain in Port Kar serve as kettle and mat wenches in Thentis or Esalinus. The bottom line, the lesson to take away, is that in the relationship between a man and a slave, the man must be fulfilled. The slave must take her fulfillment, if she is afforded the opportunity, in his pleasure. Whether the man chooses to keep the woman simmering on the stove, a ready feast that he may or may not indulge himself with each night, or on a shelf like a bottle of good wine or aging cheese, is not in the power of a mere girl to change. She may within the confines of her discipline, of course, hope to influence him, but there are no guarantees in the life of a slave.

I once owned a girl that knew more than one hundred ways to walk through an open door. When she forgot how to crawl, I sold her.