How I had treasured it!
Oh, there were dangers here, doubtless. And I did not know how many or of what sorts. How ignorant I was!
But I did not think I was discontent, really, to be here. Did not even mind the cell, really. Such as I must expect to be kept in such places. Surely it would not do, to let us run around as we might please.
I thought of some of my friends, on my old world. We had, of course, gone about together. I had had classes with some of them. But it was interesting how I now thought of them. I did not think of them now so much as they had been, on the bus, in classes, in the library, in labs, wandering about with me in the wide, smooth halls, and corridors, and courts of one or another of an endless list of shopping malls, patronizing garish restaurants whose claim to fame was the speed with which inferior food could be served, and such, but rather how they might be now, if they, like myself, had been brought to this world. How would three rows of thronged bells look, jinkling on the left ankle of a bare footed Sandra? Wouldn’t Jean look well, in a common camisk, carrying a vessel of water, balanced with one hand on her head, as we had been trained to do? And surely Pricilla would be fetching in a tiny bit of yellow silk, all she would wear. And Sally, plum, cuddly little Sally, so excitable, so talkative, so self-depreciating, so cynical with respect to the value of her own charms, let her wardrobe for the time be merely a collar, and her place only the tiles at a man’s feet. Let her kneel there in terror and discover that her previous assessments of her desirability, her attractions, were quite in error, and that, in such matters, much depends on the health of men, their naturalness and their power. I now thought of my friends, you see, rather in the categories of my new world. I wondered what prices they might bring, on a sales block. Certainly all were lovely; certainly all would look well in collars. It was my speculation that they would all, all of them, my lovely friends, my dearest friends, bring excellent prices.
Men would want them all.
But what if I had to compete for the favor of a master with them? That would be different. It would then be every girl for herself.
I heard, suddenly, from far off, out of sight, to my right, a shrill, birdlike cry.
I grasped the bars and pressed myself against them, looking up, and to the right. I saw nothing.
They cry had seemed birdlike, but, even far off, it was too might to have had such a source.
Then, a moment later, closer, I heard the same cry.
Again I pressed myself to the bars. I could see nothing, only the sky, the clouds.
I wondered what had made that sound.
My thoughts then wandered to some of the men I had known on my world. I wondered, too, what they might look like, clad not in the enclosed, hampering, eccentric garments prescribed for them by their culture, but in freer, more natural garb, such as tunics, and, as I had sometimes seen in the house, robes, and cloaks, of various sorts, things which might, in a moment, be cast aside, beautifully and boldly freeing the body for activity, for the race, for wrestling, for bathing, for the use of weapons, for the command of such as I. But whereas it seemed natural to think of the women of my world, or some of them, clad as I was, it seemed somehow foolish, or improbably, to think of the men of my world in the garmenture of the men of this world. It did not seem appropriate for them. I doubted that they could wear it honestly, if they could wear it well. I thought that they, given what they were, might be unworthy of such garments. But perhaps I am unfair to the men of my old world. Doubtless on that world, somewhere there must be true men. And I did not think, truly, that the men of my old world were really so different from the men here. The major differences, I was sure, were not biological, but cultural. I had been given a drink in the pens, for example, the intent of which, as I understood it, was to prevent conception. This suggested surely that the men here were cross-fertile with women such as I, and, thus, presumably, that we, despite the seeming considerable differences between us, were actually of the same species. The differences between the men of this world, so self-confident, so audacious, so lordly, so natural, so strong, so free, and those of my old world, so little like them, then, I assumed, must be, at least primarily, differences of acculturation. On my old world nature had been feared. It must be denied, or distorted. Civilization was the foe of nature. On this world nature had been accepted, and celebrated. It was neither distorted nor denied. Here, civilization and nature were in harmony. Here, it was not the task of civilization to disparage, condemn, and fight nature, with all the pathological consequences of such an endeavor, but rather to fulfill and express her, in her richness and variety, to enhance her and bedeck her with the glories of customs, practices and institutions.
I suddenly then heard again, this time so much closer and terrible, from somewhere to the right, perhaps no more than a hundred yards away, that dreadful shrill birdlike cry or scream. I was startled. I was terrified. I stood behind the bars, unable even to move. Then I suddenly gasped with fear. My hands were clenched on the bars. Moving from the right toward the left, some yards above the level of the ledge, some seventy or so yards out from it, I saw a gigantic hawklike creature, a monstrous, titanic bird, of incredible dimension. It must have had a wingspan of some forty feet in breadth! It was difficult to convey the terribleness, the size, the speed, the savagery, the power, the ferocity, the clearly predatory, clearly carnivorous nature of such a thing! But the most incredible thing, to my mind, was that I saw, in the moment or two it was in my visual field, that this monster was harnessed and saddled, and, astride it, was ahelmeted figure, that of a man!
I almost fainted behind the bars.
How grateful for the bars was I then!
The figure astride the winged monster had not looked toward the mountain, the ledge, the cell.
What had lain in this direction had apparently not concerened him.
Indeed, what could be of importance here, what worth considering?
I clung to the bars. My holding to them kept me from falling.
Such men existed here!
I felt giddy.
Men who could master such things!
I staggered back from the bars. My fingers went to my throat. Surely there must be a collar there! But there was not. I pulled down, frightened, on the edges of my brief skirt. I wanted then, somehow, to more cover myself. But, of course, the gesture, given the brevity of the tunic, was futile. I felt my thigh, through the tunic. The tiny mark was there, identifying me for any who might have an interest in the matter, as the sort I was. I put my finger tips then again to my throat. It was now bare. But I did not think that it would be long, in a place such as this, where there were such men, without a collar.
Suddenly certain of my memories, or seeming memories, of my journey here, made more sense. I, sometime ago, hooded, had been bound hand and foot, wrapped in a blanket, and strapped, apparently, in some sort of basket. I had felt as though it were borne though the air. I had thought I had heard great snapping sounds, doubtless now the beating of wings, and certain cries, doubtless, now, of such a creature, or of one somewhat like it, utilized for draft purposes.
I was terrified of that gigantic bird.
And I was property in this place, where there were such things, and men who could master them.
I was afraid.
I did not wish to be fed to such a thing.
But surely it was unlikely that I had been purchased and brought here, apparently from so far away, for such a purpose.
But then, perhaps strangely, perhaps unaccountably, I became excited, sexually.
I returned again to the bars, and, again, grasped them.
I thought again of my friends. I wondered if they ever thought of me. I wondered if they wondered, sometimes, what had become of me. I was not the same I knew. I was not much different. What would they think, I wondered, if they could see me now, in such a rag, in such a place, captive, and more then captive, animal and property, behind bars. Never would they suspect, I speculated, that their friend was now other than they had known her, that she was now quite different, that she was now subject to the collar, that she was branded. Would they be able to grasp now that she must obey, that she must please and serve? No, they could presumably not grasp such things. But I understood them quite well. How thrilled I was to be here, and, too, to be what I was. I had seen the great bird, in all its magnificent power and savagery. And I had seen its rider, too, paying me no attention, so careless of the cells. How exotic was this world! How beautiful it was! How exciting it was! How thrilling it was! How different it was! And I was here, and as what I was. I pressed myself against the bars, trembling. I wondered then again if my friends could have understood something of what it was to be a woman such as I, on a world such as this. Perhaps, I thought. They, too, are women.