(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/75/Matigroves125square.jpg)<br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">Mati Groves</span></span><br/>Location: The Galaxy<br/>With: Paulette Lisette saint-Simon; and an audience including Okello Okanjo, Kaelyn Richelieu; Kaelyn's slave, Tillie; Kaelyn's friend, Marie-Clare Lisson; Marie-Clare's slave and mother, Annalie Rachel Lisson.<br/><br/>Mati's heart lifted at Paulette's voice, and the blending of their voices.  Hell, she was so beautiful, and so talented, and yet her master seemed to treat her as if  -<br/><br/>Don't go there, Mati.  Who are you to judge?  This world is as it is, and you need to find your place in it.<br/><br/>Which was partly a musical place.  People – slaves and the free – seemed to have noticed what he was doing, now the beautiful slave had joined in.  He stroked her hair: 'You were terrific,' he murmured.<br/><br/>There'd been a marvellous contrast, between the roughness of the words -<em>I don't want you but I need you</em>– and the purity of her expression.  Even as he enjoyed her singing, for no-one had sung with him for months, he felt their difference.<br/><br/>He needed to find his place in this world.  He needed a slave beside him.  A slave of his own.  Maybe one who sang a little dirty.<br/><br/>But what the heck: one more number, before he left.<br/><br/>He bent to her.  He liked her musky scent.  'We'll do Bowie's<em>I would be your slave.</em>If you don't know the lyrics, find a harmonising<em>Oooooo</em>.  But if you know the words, sing them...'<br/><br/>He played the descending chords of the intro, smiled in a way he'd forgotten he knew how to smile to an audience, and began: 'Walking in the snowy street, Let me understand...'