Having It All (47 page)
“Well, why not write up a summary outline and see if they’ll buy it,” Jim suggested, finishing his coffee.”It won't be easy. There's that Politically Correct element that will think of some reason not to allow it. You know them all: Ed Wicker, your chairman of the board, for example. He's eager to protect helpless females from exploitation but equally willing to hire illegal alien nannies and migrant workers for fifty cents an hour. Or Tammy Fernandez, she’s all for women's rights as long as they aren't applied to her personal sweatshop, making pirated designer clothes.
“Yeah. I know them all,” said Sandy.”How about Mark and Judy? Geez, if I hear one more time about how pornography is ruining our society I'll scream.”
“So, you should think about this. I know it is important to you, but the chances of it backfiring on you are considerable. Funding the exhibits is enough of a clue to get some people wondering why, in these times, you would fund this and not the 'Evolution of Modern Dance' that the Fieldings wanted or the 'Architectural Variations of Parisian Sewers' display that Charlie and Ann are pushing. And I don’t have to tell you that if you finance it they will perhaps be more receptive, but not necessarily more accepting.”
“Right. Let’s try it.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Six Months Later
The announcement was included in the museum's monthly newsletter mailing to its patrons and contributors. Sandy read it and then realized that her dream, at least this dream, was being fulfilled.
The Museum of History
is pleased to announce its newest exhibit series:
“Human restraints through the ages.”
Now open in the basement level hall B.
Note to parents: While this exhibit has great historical value,
it's subject matter may be too strong for young children.
Parental guidance is suggested.
No one under 18 will be admitted
without a parent or guardian.
In a separate article, the newsletter indicated that an anonymous donor had financed the entire new exhibit, which would change twice a year, over a period of five years. The Board of Directors offered its grateful thanks to this generous donor.
Sandy showed Jim the newsletter and then stared at him, raising her pretty eyebrows in question. Her hair was now cut much shorter and was a dark brown, almost mousey. She had lost about fifteen pounds through dieting and was, at a quick glance, not the same person she was a few months before. “It's ready,” she said. “Can we do it tonight?”
Jim studied her carefully before he spoke.”You still want to go through with this? It can be very destructive to you socially if you are found out.”
“I know, but we've worked so hard to get this far. The Turkish unit is finished and the work on the next one, the Spanish Inquisition, my favorite, is coming along nicely. Now I need the closure. I think it will work. They have my formal resignation and have tried to talk me out of it three different times. The board, as a group, thinks that if I leave, the money will stop. I can't seem to convince them otherwise. Besides, this first display, the Turkish Galley, is a great test. If they like this one, we can continue with the others over time.”
“How about how you will fare? Six months is a long time to spend that way, even with the special systems I built into the exhibit.”
“I know, but the time I spent while Meg was here was close to that.”
“Not hardly. They kept you chained in that box for only a week. This is different. You'll be on a liquid diet that you have to suck through a mouth tube, you'll have a catheter and a butt plug. You will be damned uncomfortable.”
“I think it will be grand. I can't wait. All those people looking at me every day for ten hours while I stand there with a thing up my ass and cunt, sucking peach-flavored smoothies through a straw and unable to move at all. Besides, if it doesn’t work out, you can get me out.”
“Don't bet on it. You go, you are committed at least until regular monthly maintenance is scheduled and we will arrange for that to be more frequent. And your substitute clone will be ready by then.”
“What about someone recognizing me? Can you fix that?”
“I think the brank will help in that regard. I doubt you will be recognizable with your new hair cut so short, like a slave's would be, dyed this mousey brown and a scar or two on you from recent floggings. That always gets their attention to things other than your face.”
“How risqué are you going to make me? Will I look hot?”
“Shit, Honey, you always look sexy. Besides, we don't want too many perverts jerking off outside the display glass, do we?”
But what will I wear?”
“Hey, you're the museum exhibits manager…or at least you were. What can we get away with before the local thought police show up and want to see you fully dressed?”
“I thought about that,” said Sandy. “And I think the key is just a simple, sheer and dirty white shift, with a few holes and tears in it for authenticity. Given present fashion, we can show a lot of breast and leg, maybe a bit of ass from the side. No nipples or pubic hair, though. Jill would veto that.”
“You made a point there. Can anyone get into the exhibit cases?”
“In an emergency, there is a glass security case with keys, but otherwise, the museum's contract with exhibitors is that it is their property on loan; the exhibitors' property, not the museum's.”
“Okay,” said Jim, with a certain finality. “I guess we're all set then.”
“Yes!” shouted Sandy with more excitement than one might expect from a young woman who was about to consign herself to a month or more of solitary isolation in a tiny cage. “Tonight. The installation is ready and finished. Let's do it.”
Epilogue
“This is a new exhibit for the museum,” the guide told the group of visitors. “As you can see, it represents the very latest state of the art digital graphics and very lifelike forms. What you see here in full natural scale is a cross section of a Turkish Slave Galley from approximately the fourth to sixth century BC. Note that the oars are manned by slaves who are chained both to their oars and to the benches. In the cargo hold on your left, you can see more slaves being transported to their new home. These ships were quite fast and made coastal voyages around the Mediterranean over many decades. The Romans, Greeks and French also used this type of craft.”
Jim stood with the crowd of visitors, looking intently at the tiny, barred cage in the ship's aft hold. The figures in the exhibit were incredibly lifelike, not like the old time wax dummies that had once been the industry standard. The faces of several male and female slaves could easily be seen. All of them were chained to the wall of the cage, their heads enclosed in iron branks. The brank, their unruly hair and the dim lighting partly obscured their faces, but Jim noted one young woman who stood out from the rest. Her wrists were cruelly fastened by a long chain to the wall above her, her neck was collared and also chained to the wall. She stood in the cage wearing little more than a thin, semi-transparent smock that failed to hide her pretty legs, which were chained to the deck. A heavy chain around her waist hung down behind her and vanished into the deck. Her ripe body was marked by whip scars and the shift was torn and tattered, revealing a bit of naked breast. The shift was cut high on the sides, showing clearly that she wore no underwear of any kind. But even with the brank, Jim swore he saw the trace of a smile on the slave's face.
He thought about how empty his house seemed now and he wondered about the plans on his desk, especially the ones that showed, in great detail, three proposed optional layouts for the Spanish Inquisition display. In one of them, a lovely young woman in rags stood in a crowded hall, before her judges. Her wrists were chained behind her back, pulled up and locked to the rusty metal collar around her neck. A metal brace of some sort held a thick bit and metal plate in her mouth and her tongue was pulled out and held there with a steel pin through it. There was simulated blood down the front of her filthy chemise and her pointed breasts showed clearly through the worn fabric. Her back was nearly bare and displayed multiple whip marks criss-crossing the length of her torso from neck to buttocks.
The second optional design showed the same woman hanging from a whipping post, but now she was naked and the chemise was around her chained feet. The inquisitors stood behind her, directing the torturer as to what portion of the frail body to whip next.
The third option was different. It was the inside of a stone-walled cell with the same woman bent forward, chained to the wall, her arms hoisted up behind her so that it was difficult to see her face. The torturer held a handful of her dark hair, pulling it back so that she had to look into his cruel eyes. Oddly enough, the woman was smiling, as though she knew something her tormentors did not. Jim knew it too. The woman in all three of the scenarios was Sandy and she was living her dreams.
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