She opened her eyes and cried out, suddenly, in consternation.
Clearly she was not in her own bedroom, in her apartment.
She sat up, abruptly, gasping, in the deep, soft, luxurious, strange bed, and put her hands swiftly to her own body. She wore what must be, or was similar to, a hospital gown, such as that with which patients are familiar, or those awaiting examinations in the offices of their physicians. It was all she wore, save for one unimportant, negligible exception of which she, in her consternation, in her immediate concerns, was unaware at the time.
From the bed, sitting upright upon it, half under the covers, she looked about, wildly, for her clothing. There was no sign of it.
The room itself seemed elegant, almost rococo, with a high ceiling. There were carved moldings, a marble floor, a sparkling chandelier, lit. There were no windows. There was one door, paneled, flanked by pilasters. There was a chair in the room, surely an antique, or similar to such, delicate, elegant, richly upholstered. There was a mirror to one side, in which she saw herself, beside herself with consternation, in the simple, severe, white, starched garment. She put her hand to her head swiftly. Her hair had been loosened and, it seemed, trimmed, and shortened. She had been thinking of having it trimmed, but not shortened to that extent, but had not had it attended to. She had tended to be a bit careless, and a little dilatory, in matters pertaining to her appearance. But later that would not be permitted to her. Commonly she wore her hair up, tightly bound in a bun at the back. That had suited her professional image, and had been a part of her strategy to proclaim and make manifest her independence, and personness, and to distance herself from males, to chill them, and warn them away, to show them that she did not need them and despised them, those insensitive, boorish, lustful others, her enemies. She had not worn her hair in this fashion, that short, rather at her nape, since she was a girl. Against the wall there were a highboy, and two chests. She considered the bed in which she seemed so improbable an occupant. It was large, deep and luxurious, the sort of bed on which a sovereign might have sported with concubines, or a virile king with his pet courtesans. It had four sturdy, massive posts. The first thought which flared into her mind, though she forced it away immediately, in terror, was that it was a bed on which might be spread-eagled a woman, wrists and ankles bound to their respective posts. To be sure, they could not, for the size of the bed, have had fair limbs fastened directly against the dark wood of the posts themselves. The ropes, fastened to the posts, would have to lead to, say, a yard away in each case, the wrists and ankles of their captive.
She hurried in horror from the surface of that great bed, from the whispering of its softness, the intimations of its posts, from its decadent suggestions of ecstatic, unbelievable pleasures imposed mercilessly, perhaps even curiously, or indifferently, on helpless, writhing victims.
She felt the shock of the cool marble floor on her feet, and realized that she was, of course, barefooted. She looked about for slippers, or footwear of some sort, but detected none.
She moaned, angrily.
Then, suddenly, she cried out in dismay, and backed toward the bed, until she felt its obdurate, solid frame against the back of her thighs, beneath the gown, which could be opened from the back. She sat back, disbelievingly, on the bed, on the discarded, unruly covers.
She looked down at her ankle, her left ankle.
On it there was a narrow, but sturdy band, or ring. Swiftly she drew her feet up on the bed, and sat there, at its edge. She reached to the object, to unclasp it from her ankle. To her amazement she could not open it. She turned it, as she could, a little, on her ankle, searching for the simple catch, or spring, which, at a touch, would release it. There was clearly a hinge, and a catch, but, too, there was a locking area, with an aperture, for a tiny key. She jerked at the device, trying to remove it from her ankle. She could not do so. She realized, with anger, and a sinking feeling, that its removal was not in her power, that the device had been closed, and locked. It was locked on her.
Irrationally she thrust down at it, trying to force it from her ankle. She wept. Her ankle was bruised. The grasp of the device was close, obdurate and perfect. She realized that such a device had not been designed to be removed by its wearer. The wearer of such a device has no choice in these matters. The wearer must await in such matters the pleasure of another.
There seemed to be some marks on the band, or ring, tiny marks, marks intentionally inscribed, clearly, but they were in no script with which she was familiar.
She saw herself in the mirror, her image reflected from across the room, she sitting on the bed, with her knees drawn up, her left ankle toward the mirror, the gown up about her knees.
Hurriedly she drew down the gown, though not so much as to cover the ring on her ankle, which she continued to regard in the mirror, and herself.
In the instant before she had drawn the gown down she had seen her calves in the mirror, and, to her surprise, to her fear, and with perhaps an unwilling, sudden moment of apprehensive pleasure, she realized that there was still there in her body, even now, a turn of roundedness, and softness, about them. They were still, even now, even in her present age, obviously the calves of a female, and perhaps those of one once not altogether unpleasant to look upon, even in the deplorable physical sense, and she did not think them unattractive.
She sat there, then, for a moment, regarding herself, the gown now modestly drawn downward, but the steel still visible in the mirror.
Then she drew the gown upward a tiny bit, the better to see the device, she told herself.
Then, hurriedly, she drew it down again.
She regarded herself in the great mirror.
She saw herself.
She did not understand where she was, or what had been done to her. She did know that she was in a strange bed, in a strange room, and in a strange garment.
She regarded herself in the mirror.
She was ankleted.
Chapter 4
HOW CERTAIN THINGS WERE EXPLAINED TO HER,
BUT MUCH REMAINED STILL UNCLEAR
“I thought you were awake,” he said, looking up from the desk. “I thought I heard you cry out, a bit ago, from within.”
She stood in the threshold of the bedroom, having emerged from it, now facing the room outside.
“Where am I?” she cried. “What am I doing here? What is the meaning of this? Where are my clothes? Why am I dressed like this?”
“Did you enjoy the performance of La Bohème?” he asked.
She looked about the room, frightened, tears burning in her eyes. The room seemed rather officelike, and there were shelves of books about the walls, and certain curios here and there, and occasional meaningless bric-a-brac, or so one supposes, and some filing cabinets, some office machinery, diverse paraphernalia, some chairs.