“The arrogance of him! The arrogance of him!” she thought. Then she went and sat down, determinedly, on the stool.
When the attendant with the cart of food, for there were other cells, too, it seemed, in the corridor, passed her cell he did not stop.
“Feed me!” she had called.
But he had gone his way.
Grasping the bars then she realized that she did not have control over her own food. What she was fed, and, indeed, if she were fed, was no longer up to her, but to others. She had complained about the loss of two meals, as a punishment, presumably, for not doing well in her “lessons.” Now the attendant had simply passed her by.
She went to bed, on the hard, narrow cot, hungry that night.
The next morning the cart did not stop, either.
“Please!” she begged.
She was extremely attentive in her lessons that day. And she was extremely cooperative with, and pleasant to, and deferential to, even desperately deferential to, her lovely ankleted instructrices. It was almost as though they were the adults and she a timid, frightened, disciplined child, trying desperately to please them, to win from them even the tiniest of smiles.
She was miserable with hunger that night.
The attendant, in passing her cell, threw a roll into the cell, which she ran to, seized up and, on her knees, devoured in haste.
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Some days later her treatment was resumed.
Chapter 7
SHE IS PRESENTED BEFORE THE YOUNG MAN,
FOLLOWING THE SECOND PHASE OF HER TRANSFORMATION
“The female,” said the man, announcing her presence.
She took her place within the yellow circle, in that lofty room, before the dais, on which reposed the curule chair.
The light, as before, from a high window, fell upon her.
“Ah!” said the young man, he robed, leaning forward.
She then stood a little taller, a little more gracefully. Stirrings in her, subtly sensed, informed her that she was before a male, causing her some uneasiness. In her lifetime, of course, she had been before thousands of males, in the sense of standing within their vicinity, and such, but this seemed muchly different. Here she was rather alone, in a special situation, being looked upon, in a particular way. In this way she could not recall having ever been before a male before, in this particular way, the way that she now sensed she was.
When she had stood before him some days ago, she supposed it had been some days ago, perhaps as long as two weeks ago, it had not been the same. She had been before him, so to speak, but not in this way before him.
“Do you enjoy your present accommodations?” he asked.
“They are doubtless as you have decided they will be,” she said.
She felt stronger now than she had before. She suspected that she could now better withstand, and resist, the lack of food, at least for a longer time. She did not think that he could now so easily bring her to helpless futility before him. She was stronger now. She did not care, of course, to put the matter to a test. She accepted that he could change her diet, or limit her intake of food, or deny it to her altogether, as he might please. That lesson had been learned. She understood that, sooner or later, he could bring her to her knees, or belly, whimpering, begging, groveling for a crust. But, still, she was stronger now.
This time, too, she had been hooded, and dragged from a narrow table, but she had been placed in a different cell.
Her new cell was quite different from the former cell. It was much smaller, some seven feet by seven feet. There was no mat of woven fiber on the floor; the floor was bare, and hard, consisting of heavy blocks of fitted stone, such as those in the corridor. There was no furniture in the cell, no cot, no stool. There was a flat mat, on which she might sit, or sleep. She had a blanket.
“Your curves have now reappeared,” he said, casually, idly.
She stiffened.
He had not seen her, as far as she knew, since their last interview in this room.
“You bled, as I understand it,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
When this had happened she had cried out, and had been alarmed, not understanding what had occurred, it had been so long, and so unexpected. But the women who were now her teachers, three of them, different from before, only one of whom spoke English, and that a broken English, had laughed at her, thinking she must be very stupid. But they had found her water and cloths, that she might clean her leg, and a rag which she might insert into her body. They made her clean the floor of the cell. After all, it was she who had soiled it. Perhaps, surprisingly, the flow had not been negligible, at all, as one might have expected, it beginning again, but had been abundant. She wondered if, while she had been unconscious, it, or things associated with it, had begun again, only she would not then have been aware of such changes in her body.
“While we are on such matters,” he said, “I would suppose that it was explained to you that you will later be given a particular drink, the name of which is unimportant now, which will temporarily, but indefinitely, preclude any possibility of biological conception on your part?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I fail to understand the need for such a drink. I myself can manage such things. I am the mistress of my own body.”
He smiled.
“Was it also explained to you that there is another drink, one which one might think of as a releaser of sorts, which will not only restore your possibility of conception, but ready you for it, indeed, prime you for it, so to speak?”
“Yes,” she said, embarrassed.
“And thus make you available, if one wishes, for utilization.”
“I do not understand,” she said. “No, no one said anything about “utilization.”
“I see,” he said.
“What do you mean by that?” She regarded him, apprehensively. “What do you mean by “utilization”?”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I have been unnecessarily obscure. You are, of course, available for a large number of diverse utilizations, in theory, I suppose, for an infinite number of utilizations. The utilization I had in mind was “stock utilization.”
“Stock utilization!” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“As in “livestock,” he said.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Some men cannot be blamed for wishing to increase their holdings,” he said.
“Holdings!”
Again, he smiled.
“Please!” she said.
“Your ankle looks well in its ring,” he said.
She looked down at the steel cuff on her ankle. It was on her as fixedly as ever, as efficiently, as perfectly, as it had been on her former world, in the house where she had worn the white hospital or examination gown, in the house where she had been given the first injection, while lying on her right side before his desk.
She regarded him. “I see you do not choose to clarify these matters,” she said.
“Your perception is correct,” he said.
“You cannot mean!” she whispered.
“Such things will be decided not by you, but by others,” he said.
She turned white.
“Yes,” he smiled.
It was perhaps at that moment that she began to suspect what she might be, and what might be done to her.
She recalled a remark he had made of the hated Tutina, whom she had not yet seen on this world, that he had “bought her.”
“No,” she cried. “This cannot be!”
“What?” he inquired.
“What am I?” she asked. “What is my status here?”
“Can you not guess?” he asked.
“There is still no chair for me here,” she said.
“You are being permitted to stand,” he pointed out.