(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>: Taxi, Beach, then Restaurant Rampoldi<br/><strong>With</strong>: Paulette<br/><br/>Leaving the hotel (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=145840.0), he'd felt truly proud to have her beside him.  Perhaps as they devised their act together they would incorporate this – Paulette as a seemingly free woman, in striking dresses like this one, he would write a chanson or two, perhaps he would glean details of her life from her and have her sing them.<br/><br/>'Restaurant Rampoldi,' he said to the cabbie, 'mais avant ca nous voulons nous promener sur la plage...'<br/>They could have walked their journeys but it seemed appropriately decadent to take a taxi to the beach.  A low sun was still warming.  She took off her shoes and walked barefoot as they capered down to the edge of the ocean.  There were a few dog-walkers, a loving couple, a woman staked out naked at the sea's edge, the water lapping up over her, her Master muttering something to her in a Slavic language.<br/><br/>Oh, and then a carriage, led by two ponygirls, jingled and jangled by.<br/><br/>Mati was teaching Paulette a song, he'd started on it that afternoon: 'So you sing<em>Slave slave slave</em>, and I sing...<br/><br/>I got me a slave (slave slave slave)<br/>Wrote some notes on a stave (slave slave slave)<br/>She sang as if they came from her heart<br/>Even though her Master imagined her part<br/>I got me a slave slave slave, I got me a slave<br/><br/>I got me a slave (slave slave slave) & she's so dutiful<br/>I got me a slave (slave slave slave) & she's so beautiful<br/>When I beat her she says she deserved it<br/>Even though her Master is a pain-loving pervert<br/>I got me a slave slave slave, I got me a slave'<br/><br/>Back in the cab they were still singing and riffing on it, both using her belly and breasts to play percussion.  He looked into her eyes and saw each sting of pain.<br/><br/>And then they were at the restaurant...