The dance that the chocoletto girl was performing was an expurgated version of the kylee sex ritual which the Louave maidens of Dubhe 7 practiced on the eve of their betrothal. Expurgated or not, however, it was still on the lascivious side. The G-string that constituted the chocoletto girl's entire costume put her but one degree above the nakedness which the original dance demanded. Nathan Blake's voice was slightly thick when he summoned the waiter who was hovering in the shadows at the back of the room. "Is she free?" he asked. "I do not know, mensakin. Perhaps." Blake resumed watching.

The girl's movements were a delicate blend of love and lust. Her face accompanied her body, eyes half-lidded one moment to match the languid motion of her limbs, wide and feral the next to match the furious bump and grind of her hips. For a chocoletto she was light-skinned-more bronze, really, than brown. But then, the word "chocoletto", coined by the early beche-la-mer traders, was misleading, and few of the natives of Dubhe 4's southern-most continent lived up to it completely.