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was low and husky, sensuous, insinuating! Her accent was Turkmen Turkish, identifiable even though Turkish, spoken all across Russia, varies hardly at all. Her voice had a thrilling effect upon me. It set my pulse surging.
    To my disappointment, she put the cura irizva aside. With bowed head and downcast eyes, she whispered, "O
    Master, with your permission and at your command, I will dance."
    "Dance!" I permitted and commanded eagerly.
    Again I had spoken too loud. She cowered. But then, presently, she took up the tambourine. This was unusual. Turkish dancers usually use finger castanets. But it was a Turkish drum.
    She rose so sinuously and effortlessly that I scarcely realized she had stood.
    I thought for a moment she was just standing there. And then I saw the muscles of that bare stomach!
    In the flame light, her belly was moving and writhing without another single motion to her body. A real belly dancer!
    The jacket covered her breasts. The pantaloons covered her thighs. But the nakedness in between was alive!
    Then, in time to the moving muscles, she began to tap the drum. She tapped it harder and her legs began to sway. Harder and her whole body began to sway. Her stomach muscles bunched and writhed and her hips began to grind!
    Oh, my Gods!
    It was enough to drive a man MAD!
    And all the time her eyes demurely cast down.
    But now what was she doing? Between each time she used her hand to strike at the drum, she was giving a tug at her face.
    She was unveiling!
    Little by little, as one foot lifted and then the other foot, as her hips swung wider and wider, she was disclosing more and more of her face. She began to hum a wordless song in time to the drumbeat.
    Suddenly, with a yell, she leapt into the air!
    The veil flew away.
    She came down, her hips grinding, grinding, her belly twitching and churning, her hands and arms writhing. Her eyes on me were steady and burning!
    She was GORGEOUS!
    Never had I seen such a face before!
    I caught my breath. My heart was in my throat. I had never before in my life been so aroused.
    She began to pick her feet up higher. The tambourine began to beat more savagely. She began to strike it against her elbow and hand alternately, and then she was AWAY!
    She leaped through the flame light, turning in the air, spinning, coming down, pausing to grind—her eyes had an intensity that would drill holes in me!
    She sprang in huge bounds into the air. The drum beat faster and faster. She spun and sprang faster and faster. She was a blur of motion in the yellow-orange fire!
    I have never seen such dancing!
    My own body began to jerk in rhythm to hers.
    Suddenly, she sprang high in the air, let out a piercing cry and came down cross-legged on her pillow. Sitting, absolutely still.
    But her eyes on me were like coals of fire!
    I could not catch my breath.
    She reached out with a fast gesture and snatched at the cura irizva.
    She clutched it to her.
    She struck a chord.
    Her eyes were hot—riveted upon me!
    In a throbbing, passion-congested voice she sang:
    The nightingale lay trembling
    In his brutal hand,
    Its throat that pulsed
    With fear, Was strangled in a moment of coarse passion,
    Dear—
    Remember me when I am gone, If you would kill for love!
    It was too much! I screamed at her, "No! No! Oh, Gods, I would never kill you!"
    That did it.
    Too loud!
    She cowered back. She raced to the door, crying out in fear, opened it and was gone!
    I raced after her.
    I was too late.
    Her room door was steel-barred from within.
    I sat in the patio, aching with passion unfulfilled, drowned in remorse.
    I sat there until dawn, watching that door.
    She did not come out.
Chapter 6
    Throughout the following day, I was in a daze. I could only think of Utanc. But I couldn't think very clearly. Numerous ideas of how I might attract her attention and make amends for frightening her were all discarded.
    The fence of her private garden had a small hole in it and in the afternoon I crouched there, longing for a