(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/><strong>Location</strong>: Restaurant Rampoldi<br/><strong>With</strong>: Paulette<br/><br/>Moved by her story, he smiled and squeezed her hand.  'To fly with me.  I feel glad.'<br/><br/>The food came.  He took a mussel in its shell, scraped one from its mooring with his fork, dipped it in the juice of the sauce, and offered it to her.<br/><br/>She ate, and licked her lips.<br/><br/>Desire flickered between them like electricity.<br/><br/>'Something in you needs slavery for now, by the feel of you.'  He squeezed her arm jokily, the feel of her – but he meant it too.  'But you've gone beyond the abjectness you needed before, perhaps.  I'll be a tyrant sometimes, as you know.'  His marks were still on her skin.  His prick, despite himself, twitched with pleasure at the memory of inflicting pain on her.  'Tell you what.  A year from now we'll have dinner here and I'll offer you your freedom.  And it'll be my aim to have so seduced you that you'll refuse.  No,'  seeing her about to speak, 'please don't answer for now.'<br/><br/>He waved to the maitre d'.  'Let's sing something now.  I wrote some more words to the song<em>Grace</em>while you were sleeping.  I want you to lie across the top of the piano while I sing.  Exaggerate the notion that you're posing, that you know how beautiful you are.   At the end of the second verse, and during the third, you sing '<em>de Mati, je m'appelle Paulette de Mati</em>' as a counterpoint.  You'll understand when it comes.'<br/><br/>He took a sip of champagne.  Then he stood and offered her his hand, and led her to the piano.  He helped her up, via the piano stool, to lie on the top of the piano.<br/><br/>The maitre d' announced through a microphone:  'Ladies and gentlement, we are pleased that one of our guests tonight, Mati Groves, has agreed to sing for us.'<br/><br/>There was applause.  Mati said: 'With the assistance of Paulette, I'd like to sing you an entirely new song.'  And he played the intro, and began.<br/><br/><em> Grace<br/>Some see it in the beauty of her face<br/>Some in the way she moves from place to place<br/>as if some animal once taught her<br/>how to wear chains with pride and hauteur<br/>that's why I call her<br/>Grace...</em><br/><br/><em>Shame<br/>She feels it in the way they took her name<br/>Then flung it back at her, a picture reframed <br/>as if they'd the power to make her someone else<br/>but she still holds a gravity within herself<br/>that's why I call her<br/>Grace...</em><br/><br/>(and he nodded to her, and she began to sing:<br/><br/><em>de Mati<br/>je m'appelle Paulette de Mati..</em>.<br/><br/>….over and over, while he sang the third verse:)<br/><br/><em>Slave<br/>What does it mean to be a slave?<br/>To be his subject, yet amazingly brave<br/>She endures every blow against her<br/>yet still tenderly calls me Master<br/>that's why I call her<br/>Grace  </em>