Chapter Thirteen
Delila returned to the cages that night to display all her marks as she danced for Degas’s guests behind the gilded bars. Returned to the cages that night and every night thereafter for a month, she endured the stares of men and women whose gaze was purely lecherous, and whose words were meant to provoke her more. Yet, by that second night, after her second caning, she had a new scheme, playing games with her admirers, coyly teasing them with her thrusting loins, while her mind did wicked things to them that averted her overt and ever present anger. It was an accommodation that would work as long as she remained just another bird dancing in her gilded cage.
Degas watched her from the doorways of the vast chamber of sensuality, his eyes often darting her way to sense what
