by John Norman
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.
There was no window in the room, but it was well lit, indirectly.
“I want my clothes!” she said.
“You may inquire later about your clothing, but not now,” he said.
The blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, to whom the older woman had taken such an instant dislike, whom she had scorned as so simple, so unworthy of the male, the one who had accompanied him to the performances, and had been his companion in the limousine, she who seemed so vital, so alive, so sensuous, who was so insolently, so excitingly figured, who was so primitive, so sensual that she seemed little more than a luscious, beautiful, well-curved animal designed by nature to stimulate and satisfy with perfection the lowest, the most basic and the most physical needs of powerful, inconsiderate men, was also in the room. Oddly, in spite of the fact that there were chairs in the room, she was kneeling, beside the desk. She wore a brief, silken, scarlet, diaphanous gown. It left little to conjecture of, concerning her beauty. The older woman enjoyed looking down upon her, seeing her there on her knees, so garbed. Hostility, like cold wire, was taut between the women.
The young man rose from behind the desk, and drew a chair toward the desk, placing it before the desk.
“Please seat yourself,” he invited the older woman.
“You will let her sit?” cried the woman kneeling beside the desk.
He turned a sharp glance upon the speaker, and, suddenly, her entire demeanor changed, and she trembled, shrinking down, making herself small, and holding her head down.
“Tutina, it seems, forgot herself,” said the young man. “I apologize. Do not fear. She will be disciplined.”
So ‘Tutina’, then, thought the older woman, is the name of that stupid tart! It seemed an odd name, an unfamiliar sort of name, but it did not seem inappropriate for one such as she, one who was so elementally, so simplistically, so reductively female. The older woman did not understand the meaning of the reference to “discipline,” but something in that word, seemingly in its very sound, terrified her. Did it suggest that the woman’s femininity, the very principle of her femininity, was somehow uncompromisingly subjected to his masculinity, to the very principle of his masculinity?
The young man then turned again, affably, toward the older woman, indicating the chair.
Clearly the blonde was frightened.
The older woman, too, was frightened, for she had seen his glance. She looked about, wildly.
“There is no telephone in the room,” he said.
“I shall scream,” whispered the older woman, knowing she would not do so.
“It would do you no good,” the young man said. “We are in an isolated dwelling, on a remote estate.”
There was another door in the room, other than that which led in from the bedroom. Suddenly, awkwardly, she fled toward it, and flung it open. Outside two men, large, unpleasant looking men, one of them the chauffeur, rose suddenly from chairs, blocking her way.
She shrank back.
“Do you want her stripped and bound, and thrown to your feet?” inquired the chauffeur.
“No,” said the young man, agreeably.
“She wears the anklet,” said the chauffeur.
“That will be all,” said the young man to the chauffeur, and then the chauffeur and his companion drew back, chastened, deferentially closing the door behind them. “Please,” said the young man to the older woman, gently, indicating the chair he had placed before the desk.
She stood before the chair.
“I searched in the all the drawers, and the chests, in the bedroom,” she cried, “and my clothes were not there! Then I came out.”
“Dressed as you are,” said the young man.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I had thought you might have wrapped yourself in a sheet, or comforter, or such,” he smiled.
“I shall go back and do so,” she said.
“You have chosen to present yourself as you are, and you will remain clad as you are,” he said.
The blond woman looked up from her knees, a tiny smile on her lips.
“I want my clothing,” said the older woman.
“I told you that you might inquire later about your clothing, not now,” said the young man, evenly.
“This is all I have on!” protested the older woman, indicating the starched, white, stiff gown, so simple, so antiseptic, in its appearance. It was substantially open in the back, save for two ties, one at the back of the neck and another at the small of the back.
“Not all, actually,” said the young man.
She looked down at her left ankle. “Remove this horrid thing from my ankle!” she demanded.
“It is certainly not horrid,” he said. “It is actually quite attractive. It sets your ankle off very nicely. Indeed your ankle looks as though it might have been made to be encircled by such a ring. Do not concern yourself with it. The steel, circling closely about the flesh, is indisputably lovely, as well as, independently, of course, quite meaningful.”
Tears sprang to her eyes.
“You are not alone,” he said. He turned to Tutina, who was now, as he stood, to his left. “Anklet!” he snapped.
Instantly she turned about, sinuously, and, half lying, half kneeling, extended her left leg, gracefully, toward the older woman, her knee slightly bent, her toes pointed, extending the line of her well-curved calf. There, on her ankle, there was a similar ring.
The older woman gasped, in misery. Did this mean that she, somehow, now shared some status, or condition, with that other woman, that trivial, simple, stupid, hated, beautiful Tutina? Surely not! Too, she now understood the meaning of the bandage which had been worn by Tutina to both performances. It was to conceal the device on her ankle, which had not been removed. It seemed that Tutina might be no more capable than she of removing the device, and, too, that she might be kept within it much as a matter of course. Too, the older woman was alarmed, and troubled, by the sudden, prompt, immediate, graceful response of Tutina to the utterance “Anklet!” It was as though she had been trained to present the device for easy view, and immediately, gracefully, beautifully, upon the utterance of that word, which, it seemed, constituted an understood, familiar command. Lastly the older woman sensed, from the sharpness with which the command had been issued, that the young man was not pleased with Tutina. That doubtless went back to Tutina’s protest when the young man had invited her to seat herself. The older woman suspected that the young man might recall this lapse, if lapse it was, to Tutina when they were alone. Certainly, after the incident, Tutina had appeared to be uneasy, and perhaps apprehensive.
The older woman recalled that the young man had made a casual reference to “discipline.” She had not understand the reference, but, somehow, it had frightened her. She recalled that the reference had been made easily, almost in passing, treating it as though it might be something unimportant, something trivial, a mere matter of course, something to be simply taken for granted.
But the blonde, Tutina, had not taken the matter so lightly. She had been clearly frightened. Even now she was clearly frightened.
The young man snapped his fingers, and Tutina swirled back to her original position, and kept her head down.
“There is some sort of marking on the thing,” said the older woman, looking down, to her own ankle.
“Do not concern yourself with it,” he said. “It is a reference number, yours, in our records.”
“Who undressed me? Who put me in this gown?” asked the older woman, frightened.
“Tutina,” said the young man.
She glanced at the blond woman, who then, lifting her head, smiled up at her, knowingly, scornfully. No longer then, at that moment, did Tutina seem timid. To be sure, she was then relating to the older woman, not to the young man.
The older woman flushed, and then, in embarrassment, closed her eyes briefly, and then opened them, looking down, angrily, toward the rug. Vaguely she recognized that it seemed to be an oriental rug, and might, she speculated, be of considerable value.
How amused must the blond woman, Tutina, have been, she thought, when she removed her clothing and would then compare her own abundant, vital, provocative riches with the worn, slack, tired, withered, pathetic, impoverished form which, helpless and unconscious, lay before her. She would then presumably, turning the old form about, have proceeded to see that it was once again concealed, though now perhaps, to her amusement, in such a reductive, simple, thin, single, embarrassing, uniform, meaningless, dehumanizing cover.
“I want my clothing,” said the older woman. She touched the gown. “I do not want to wear this,” she said.
“You would not think twice about it, if you were in the office of an examining physician,” said the young man.
“I do not want to wear it!” she said.
“You may remove it,” said the young man.
“No!” she said, frightened.
The young man smiled.
“I have no money, no wealth, I have no family, no loved ones, nothing, you can get no ransom for me! I mean nothing to anyone! I am a mature, middle-aged, woman. You can have no interest in me. It is not as though I were young and lovely! What can you want of me? There is nothing I can do for you!”
Again he smiled.
“I do not understand!” she said.
He did not respond to her.
“Monster!” she wept.
“Perhaps, perhaps more than you know,” he mused.
“Release me!” she begged.
“Please be seated,” he said.
“Release me!” she said, imperiously, coldly, drawing her small frame up to its full height, summoning all the rigor, all the severity, of which she was capable.
How she would have terrified weak men, administrators, colleagues, and such, by the presentation of such a fierce mien, suggesting implacable resolution, and full readiness to have instant and embarrassing recourse to various devices, procedures, pressures, laws and institutions engineered to impose the will of such as she, with the full force of the coercive apparatus of a captured state, upon the community at large.
“Do not try my patience,” said the young man. “Sit there.”
“No!” she said.
“You will sit there, clothed,” he said, “or you will kneel here,” he indicating at the same time a place to the side, on the rug, “naked, before me.”
“I have a Ph.D.,” she quavered. “In gender studies!”
“You are a stupid bitch,” he said. “The choice is yours.”
She sat down, quickly, and turned a bit to the side, keeping her legs closely together, moving the gown down, as she could, to protect herself.
“I am not stupid,” she said weakly.
“No, I suppose not,” he said, irritably. “Indeed, in some respects, you are extremely intelligent. If you were not, you would not be of interest to us. But, in other respects, it seems you are incredibly stupid.
“But I suppose,” he said, “you will prove capable of learning.” He glanced down at Tutina, kneeling to his left. “What do you think, Tutina?” he asked.
“I am sure she will learn quickly,” said Tutina, her head down.
The young man returned his attention to the older woman. “Interesting, how you sit,” he said.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“I thought that subscribers to your ideology methodologically affected bellicose facades of what they mistakenly believe to be masculine body language, for example, leaning back, and throwing the legs apart, indicating, supposedly, their masculinity, and openness, their lack of inhibitions, and such, their repudiation of femininity, for feminists seem to seek to be the least feminine of all their gender. And yet you sit there in a manner undisguisedly, and, I suspect, naturally feminine.”
She held her knees the more tightly together, and trembled. She felt so open, and vulnerable. She did not care what he thought! Perhaps it was because the gown was all she had to shield her body from his gaze. Too, it was muchly open in the back. Or, perhaps, it was because she now had a different, frightened sense of herself. She now wore an anklet.
“How did you enjoy La Bohème?” he asked, rather as he had, earlier.
“I thought it was beautiful,” she whispered.
“I, too,” he said. “Beautiful!”
She regarded him, helplessly, pathetically.
“There are other forms of song dramas, elsewhere,” he said. “They, too, are very beautiful. Perhaps, suitably disguised, or unobtrusively positioned, in order not to produce offense, you might be able to see one, or another, of them.”
“What do you want of me?” she begged. “Why am I here? What are you going to do with me?”
“I shall explain a small number of things to you,” he said, “a portion of what I think you are, at present, capable of understanding. Later, of course, you will learn a great deal more. Some of what I say may seem surprising to you, even incredible, so I would encourage you, despite your possible impulses to do otherwise, not to interrupt me frequently or inopportunely. If necessary, I will have Tutina tie your hands behind your back and tape your mouth shut. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“First,” he said, “you have been unconscious, for better than forty-eight hours.”
She regarded him, startled.
“That is partly a function of your age,” he said. “Younger individuals recover considerably more quickly.”
Then there are other individuals, she thought.
She remembered the performance of La Bohème. As she had planned she had arranged to have a seat for that performance as close as possible to the seat she had occupied for the earlier performance, that of Richard Strauss’s Salomé. To her delight, the couple, the young man and his companion, too, had had seats comparable to those of the first performance. Though she had scarcely managed to take her eyes from the couple during the performance, and had sat there, breathing quickly, heart beating rapidly, tense, nervous, excited the whole time, she had had no intention of approaching them again. She recalled, smartly, her rebuff, earlier, at the hands of the blonde and the civil tolerance, no more than that required by simple courtesy, surely, of the young man. But, interestingly, to her delight, and alarm, the couple, after the performance, seeming to see her for the first time, had smiled at her, rather as if acknowledging that they had met her before, and pleasantly. Thus encouraged, feeling almost like a young girl, timid, shy, bashful, almost stammering, she had dared to approach them, ostensibly to chat, inconsequentially, about the performance. They had permitted her to apologize for her forward actions of some days ago, not that such actions really required any such apology, and had expressed interest in her small observations, and speculations, particularly the young man. The blonde, though attentive and pleasant, had tended to be somewhat reserved, and, on the whole, had lingered in the background. That had suited the older woman very well, who did not care in the least for the young man’s companion, whom she viewed as obviously far beneath him, profoundly unworthy of him. Did he not know that? The older woman, then pleased with the reticence and, for most practical purposes, the disappearance of the blonde, addressed herself delightedly to the young man, re
alizing that she was now somehow the center of his attention. She felt a wondrous warmth, and a strange animation in his presence. Seldom, it seemed, had she been so voluble, and witty. Her various allusions, and subtle references, to various matters, performers, and composers, demonstrating how well informed, and how well read, she was, seemed to be instantly understood, and appreciated, by the young man. His smiles, his expressions of understandings, his tiny sounds, of amusement, and such, at exactly the right moments, encouraged, and thrilled, her. She found herself basking in his approval, and she wanted, more than anything, it seemed, to please him. She was elated to be before him, being found pleasing. How she wanted to win his smile, to impress him! She hoped that no one who knew her, particularly ideological colleagues, would see her thus, before this large, powerful male, trying to please him. It was true; she desperately wanted to please him, to be found pleasing by him, despite the fact that he was a mere male, a mere insensitive, boorish, rude male, an enemy. It was almost, she had felt, as though she were preening herself before him, turning about, showing her feathers, impressing him, and delighting herself in doing so. It was almost as though she were slyly courting him, and even, though the thought should surely be abhorrent, and offensive, to her, attempting to show herself before him as an attractive member of the opposite sex. How abhorrent, at her age, at her age, and he a man, the enemy! And she remembered vaguely, scarcely with full consciousness, and fighting, even in her animation and delight, to keep the insistent glimmerings from rising forcefully and undeniably before her, how, many years ago, she, then in her late twenties, had been the teacher of such a young man, one whom this young man so remarkably resembled. She recalled, unwillingly, yet with an odd delight, how that young man had troubled her, and how he had watched her, and how she had, she sensed it now, moved before him, and presented herself before him. She had prepared herself for the classes, eagerly, looking forward to being before him, wanting to impress him, wanting to perform for him. She had attended to her prim appearance, to her polished, severe mien, to her coiffure. She had even considered applying lipstick on the days of the class, but had, of course, thought the better of it. Lipstick was so daringly sensual, worthy of only unworthy women. But once, daringly, she had worn two light, narrow, golden bracelets on her left wrist, that might sometimes strike together, making a tiny, provocative sound. He made her terribly uneasy, and yet she was thrilled, undeniably, with the way he watched her, almost without expression. Many times, as though inadvertently, with no intent, of course, she had turned in such a way as to display the slim, provocative delights of her figure before him. Once, after such a display, she had seen him smile, knowingly, and he so young! How furious she had been! He had misunderstood! It was inexcusable! Were there only two in the class? She sensed now how she had been before him, how she, as a female, had tried to attract him, though, of course, not admitting this in any obvious way to herself, and, indeed, on a fully conscious level, she supposed she might have denied it, doubtless vehemently, except perhaps, in quiet, private moments, when she was alone, when she might perhaps, tears in her eyes, softly kiss her pillow. She had tried to resist these things, and scorn him, and, upon occasion, demean and defeat him, and humiliate him before the class, utilizing the full authority of her position to do so. But she had had little success in such endeavors. Indeed, in exchanges with him, she had often found herself confused, and reeling, almost as though from physical blows. It was almost as though he had seized her, and thrown her to her belly at his feet, and bound her hand and foot, and then stepped away from her, to look down upon her, she helpless at his feet, no more than a female captive, his to do with as he might please. She had dreamed, more than once, that he had torn away her prim garmenture and put her on her back on the desk and raped her, while the class looked on, bemused. Finished, he had thrust her from the desk to the floor, where she had then knelt naked before him, her head down, kissing his feet in gratitude.
