I clung to the bars.
I smiled.
There would be men here, doubtless, in this place, similar to those whom I had known in the house.
I recalled how the guards had been warned away from me, late in my training, in the house. In its way that, at least in the memory, pleased me. They had not been subjected to such restrictions with respect to any of the others in my group. I was the only one! How special that made me feel! Oh, how I had wanted the guards! How prettily I had begged! And, if not soon satisfied, how rather desperate and plaintive had become my petitions. I could recall having been on my belly more then once, kissing their feet, weeping, imploring their touch. But on the whole I had not had to beg very hard. “Temptress,” had said more than one of me. I had in heat desired them,and they, in their power had put me often to their uses. Oh, yes, I had been needful and beautiful! Too, I had been quick in learning. I had mastered my lessons well. Certainly I was at least one of the best of the students. The guards had been warned away from me! Was it my fault if I might look well, kneeling at their feet? Was I to blame, if they found me of interest, perhaps even disquieting, or distracting? They did not have to spend additional time with me! It had been their choice! I laughed. How popular I had been with them, with perhaps one exception, he whose whip I had first kissed, he who had treated me with such cruelty. But what did he matter? Who cared for him! How special I was! Toward the end they had even warned the guards away from me. They must not be distracted by my plaints and beauty. I was already ready, hot in my shackles. Were there not others to be trained as well?
I did not doubt but what I would be well able to please what men might be in this place.
Had I not been evaluated, and purchased for this place?
Was I not trained?
Often, on my old world, I had been unsure as to how to relate to men, how to behave with them, I mean, really. I was familiar, of course, with the protocols of neuterism, the silly, self-contradictory tenets of unisex, invented by those apparently as innocent of logic as glands, and the pathetic absurdities of “personism,” such things, the fictions, the lies, the pretenses, the many tiny, brittle crusts concealing the smoldering depths of difference, of reality, of sexuality within one. But how tiresome it had been, and how frustrating, pretending to be only a surface, with no interior, no inner reality. Were those who preached such stupidities, I wondered, only such a thing themselves, a one-dimensional surface, or were they simply lying. Could there be very different sorts of human beings? Were some, in effect, hollow? If so, perhaps it was natural for them to suppose that others must be as empty as they. But I did not think that human beings were one-dimensional or hollow, even those who spoke in such a fashion. I thought that we were all very real. Some of us, however, might fear to inquire into this reality. Some of us might feel it was safer to pretend it did not exist, to deny it.
It seemed now to be late afternoon.
I clasped the bars.
On my old world I had been unsure as to how to relate to men, how to relate to them. Many had been the uncertainties, the confusions, in such matters. We had seemed, such as I, and men, on the world, to have no clear identities. We were strangers, and ambiguities, to one another. It was almost as though we had no reality of our own. It was almost as though we were only images, only projections, only shadows, only vapors. But here, on this world, such as I, at least, had an identity, an explicit, verifiable reality. I was here something, something very real, something as real as the living rock about me, as real as the bars of my cell. Here, on this world, there was no puzzle as to how such as I were to relate to men. Here there were no uncertainties. Here the doubts were dissipated. Here the confusions had vanished. On this world I would kneel before men. I would serve them. I would please them to the best of my ability, in any way they might desire.
I clung to the bars.
I pressed my left cheek against them. I thought of the men of this world. How else could a woman such as I relate to such men? I suspected they would find me pleasing. I was sure I could please them. I now knew how to relate to men. I now knew what to do. I had been trained. The uncertainties, the ambiguities, were gone.
I did not think I would have difficulty pleasing the men here. Too, I had had no difficulty in pleasing the men in the house, with but one exception. Why had he hated me? Was he angry that I could not help but be what I was?
The guards in the house, late in my training, had been warned away from me. That did not seem to me likely to happen here. Presumably that had been a special situation, where the resources of instruction must be rationally distributed, where there were others who must be trained, and such. But these were not, presumably, pens. If I were popular here I did not think it likely that men would be warned away from me. There would be no point to it. Rather, I would be merely the more frequently used. If any were to be upset about such a matter, it would presumably be others such as I, but, in that case, let them look out for themselves! I was quiet ready to compete, you see, in any such contests!
How scandalous, I thought, that I should have such thoughts. What had I become? But I knew.
Yes, I was sure I could please men!
I leaned against the bars, dreamily. I would, at any rate, do my best. I knew that I had always wanted to please men, and serve them. That had seemed to me in the order of nature, and to be fitting and right. But now, suddenly, remarkably, I had found myself on a world where, literally, I must do so. On this world, I had no choice in the matter. I was subject to discipline. I did not wish to be punished. I did not wish to be killed.
I held to the bars.
I looked out, at the narrow ledge, the beautiful mountains, the vast, bright, late-afternoon cloudy sky over the mountains.
How beautiful was this world!
To be sure, I was not important. I was less than nothing within it.
I thought of my old world, and its buildings, its streets, its roads, its signs, its crowding, its people, so many of them so wonderful, so precious, so many of them so miserable and sad, their mode of dress, now seemingly so unnatural, or eccentric, the vanities, the hostilities, the offensive, disgusting mindlessness of its materialism, the abuse of serious intellect and genuine feeling, the sense of emptiness and alienation, the destructive, pathetic search of so many for toxic stimulants, the banal electronic gaudiness, the unwillingness to look within, or ahead, the culture of selfishness, comfort and distraction. I was not then so disappointed to be where I was. In my old world I had been told I was important, as one tells everyone in that world, but I had not been, of course. Here I knew I was not important, but hoped that I might, sometime, mean at least a little to someone. One need not be important, you see, not at all, for that to be the case.
But how terrible was this world!
In it I had once actually been put in a collar, a steel collar, which I could not remove!