Ligurious moved his right hand, grasping the rim of the coverlet, tight about my breasts.
"Do you wish to see her, fully?" he asked. I whimpered. I realized he could strip the coverlet away, baring me in the light of the lamp.
"You are not so clever as you think, Ligurious," she said.
"Do you think I do not see that you, in stripping her, would be, in effect, and to your lust and amusement, stripping me, and before my very eyes?"
"Forgive me," smiled Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus.
"Pull the lower portion of the coverlet down further," she said. "You have revealed too much of her thighs."
"Of course," he smiled, and adjusted the coverlet, drawing it down, over my knees.
"Men ate beasts," she said.
"You well know my feelings for you," he said.
"They will go unrequited," she said. "Content yourself with your slaves." I feared the woman bending over me. I could sense now that even if she seemed superficially much like me, at least in appearances, she was in actuality quite different. She seemed highly intelligent, doubtless more so than I, and severe and decisive. She seemed harsh, and hard and cold. She seemed merciless and cruel; she seemed arrogant, impatient, demanding, haughty and imperious. Such a woman I thought, as I am not, is perhaps a true Tatrix. Surely it seemed more believable that such a woman might hold power in a city such as Corcyrus than I. The lamp again approached more closely. Again my head was pulled back, helplessly, firmly, forcibly.
"She is not as beautiful as I," said the woman.
"No," said Ligurious. "Of course not."
Then my hair was released and the two figures took their way from the room. I had then twisted on the couch, freed myself of the confinements of the coverlet, and, sensible of the effects of the wine, or perhaps a containment of the wine, had fallen into a dreamless sleep.
I heard movements outside the door. The guard was being changed.
I could not lock the door from the inside. Yet I lay nude, on my back, on the great couch. I wondered if this was brazen. I rolled to my side and pulled my legs up. I bit at the silken coverlet. I wondered if there was a Tatrix within me. I did not think so. There was something else in me, I feared, something that I had only become clearly aware of on this barbaric world, this world in which I must be true to my femininity, and in which there were true men.
I then understood, I thought, the strange dream I had had.
It was not contrasting now, I thought, perhaps two selves, or, more likely, two women, muchly resembling one another, but rather it had been calling to my attention, in its figurative imagery, in the symbolic transformations common to dreams, a discrepancy between what I in actuality was and what it was expected, doubtless, that a Tatrix should be. The contrast, I realized, had been clear, I helpless, sobbing under the domination of Ligurious, little better than a slave, and she above me, far superior me, haughty, decisive, imperious, cold and powerful. I sobbed. I knew then from the dream, or from what had seemed a dream, that there was no Tatrix in me. I was not a Tatrix, not in my heart. I was, at best, something different. Angrily I arose from the couch. I went to the window. I put my hands on the bars. Many times, secretly, I had tried them. They were heavy, narrowly set, reinforced, inflexible. I laid my cheek gently against them. They felt cool. I then drew back and, my hands on the bars, looked out, across the rooftops of Corcyrus, to the walls of the city, and to the fields beyond. The city was muchly dark. Some of the major avenues, however, such as that Iphicrates, were illuminated, dimly, by lamps. In many Gorean citim when men go out at night, they carry their own light, torches or lamps. I then looked upward, into the humid night. I could see two of the three moons of this world. I then, suddenly, angrily, shook the bars. They were for my own protection, I had been informed. But I could not open them, or remove them, say, with knotted clothing or bedding, to lower myself to the levels below. They might indeed serve to keep others out, perhaps climbing upward, or descending on ropes from the roof above, but they surely served as well, and as perfectly, to keep me within! What is this room, I asked myself, is it truly my protected quarters, or is it, rather, my cell? I walked back to the center of the room, near the great couch. I looked at the bars. Then I went to the long mirror behind the vanity. I looked at myself, in the mirror, in the dim moonlight, filtered into the room. She is rather pretty, I thought. She may be pretty enough, even, to be a slave. Susan, I recalled, had thought it possible that a man, some men at least, might find her of interest, really of interest, of sufficient interest to be worth putting in bondage. I wondered if she could please a man. Perhaps if she tried very i hard to be pleasing some man, in his kindness, might find her acceptable. I turned before the mirror, studying the girl that I was thusly displaying. Yes, I thought, it is not impossible that I she might be considered worthy of a collar. "Mistress would look well being sold from a block," Susan bad said. "Are you free, Tiffany?" I asked the image in the mirror. "Yes," I told myself. "I am free." I turned my left thigh to the mirror, I my chin. I studied the girl in the mirror. I wondered what she would like, with a brand, with a collar. "You see, Tiffany," I said. "You are not branded. You are not collared." I looked at the girl in the mirror. I wondered who I was, what I was.
"I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus!" I said.
But the girl in the mirror did not appear to be a Tatrix. She appeared, clearly, to be something else.
I forced from my mind the memory of the slaves I had seen earlier, the girls in the street, in their one-piece, skimpy garments, heads down, kneeling, chained together by the neck, the girls in the market, in their chains, stark naked, kneeling, too, their heads down to the warm cement, being publicly displayed for sale.
"What are you?" I asked. "Do you not dare speak? Then show me. Show me!" Slowly, numbly, frightened, I turned about and went to the foot of the great couch. I knelt there, and, putting my head down, tenderly lifted up, in two hands, a length of the chain that lay coiled there. I kissed it. "No!" I cried out to myself, replacing the chain. But then I rose up and, timidly, softly, went to the wall where the whip hung. I removed the whip from its hook and knelt down with it. I wrapped its blades back about the handle. Then, humbly, my head down, submissively, near the point where the five long, soft blades join the staff, holding it in both hands, I kissed it. "No!" I wept, in protest. Then I replaced the whip on its hook. I went then again to the mirror. The vanity was low enough, meant to be used by a kneeling woman, and I was back far enough, that I could see myself on the tiles, completely. I saw the girl in the mirror kneel down. "No," I said. I saw her kneel back on her heels. I saw her straighten her back, and lift her chin, and put her hands on her thighs. "No!" I said. I saw her spread her knees. "No," I said. "No! No!" I had seen girls in the palace do that, for example, when a free man had entered a room. Sometimes, too, in identically this same position, they would keep their heads submissively lowered, until given permission to raise them. This variation, and similar variations, depend on the specific discipline to which a given girl is subjected. The head is usually kept raised; this precludes the necessity of a specific command to lift the head; in the headlifted position she has no choice but to bare her facial beauty to the viewer; too, her least expression may be read; too, of course, she can see who is in the room with her and is thus better able, even from the first instant, to discern his moods, anticipate his needs, and resp I leaped to my feet, furious with the girl in the mirror. She, lied! She lied! I fled to the wardrobe. I flung back the sliding doors. I am Tatrix! I tore my yellow robe, that of brief silk, from its carved hanger. I put it on me, swiftly, angrily, belting it, tightly. I ran to the door leading from my quarters. I reached to the handle and jerked it wildly towards me. I had opened this door a hundred times. I cried out in surprise, in misery. This time it did not yield. I jerked twice again, both of my hands on the handle. The door, somehow, was fastened on the other side. It seemed, or something on it seemed, to strike against some obstacle or barrier. I struck at it, pounding on it. "Let me out!" I cried. "Let me out!" I heard two sliding sounds. On the other side, I knew, were four pairs of brackets. Never, however, as far as I knew, had they been used. Two of these pairs of brackets were on the door itself, one at the lower part of the door and one at the upper part. Matching them in height, but in the wall, were sets. One of these pairs, its the other two pairs of brack bars located on opposite sides of the door, corresponded to the brackets, and the other pair, its members opposite one another, one on each side of the door, corresponded to the lower-door brackets. The door was thus, if beams or bars were to be inserted through these brackets, prevented from swinging inward, its natural opening motion. The door opened. Five guards were there. Two of them I noted, at a glance, were laying heavy beams against the wall. It was these, then, obviously, which had secured the door.