Prize of Gor (4 page)

“I am very sorry to disturb you,” said the older woman. “I didn’t mean to stare in the theater. Please forgive me. But I am sure I have seen your friend before, or, rather, I mean I am sure that I have seen someone very much like him, long ago. There must be, there might be, it seems possible there might be, a relationship. Perhaps he is a son of my former friend, of many years ago, or such. I am sorry to trouble you about this, but I am very curious about this matter.”

The blonde regarded her, coldly.

“I’m sorry,” said the older woman, “but I wonder if I might trouble you for his name?”

“I do not know you,” said the blonde, and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” said the older woman, “very sorry.”

The older woman backed away, chagrined, embarrassed, and mingled in the crowd, trying to be unobtrusive, mixing in with milling patrons, with those dallying in the lobby, with those waiting for friends, or perhaps for arranged transportation.

The young man returned to his companion, and she must have said something to him, doubtless annoyed, for he looked in the direction of the older woman, who instantly looked away, pretending to busy herself with nearby posters, that their eyes not meet.

The couple then made their way through the exit to the sidewalk outside.

As they left, the older woman watched them, shaken. Then she noticed that, about the left ankle of the blonde, there was a bandage, wrapped tightly there, in several layers. Doubtless she had sustained an ankle injury, though her gait did not seem affected. Oddly, it seemed that something like a ring, or ridge, might lie beneath the bandage. That was suggested by the closeness of the bandage to the ankle at the top and bottom and its widening out, or bulging a little, in the center. The ring, or ridge, seemed to encircle the ankle, and, whatever it was, it was fully concealed by the bandage. Doubtless it was a medical device of some sort, designed to strengthen, to lend support to, the injured ankle.

The older woman followed the couple from the theater discretely, hovering near them, hoping to hear an informative remark, or an address given to the driver of a cab. But the couple stepped into a limousine, a long, dark limousine with darkened windows, which drew near with their appearance outside the theater, its door then opened by a deferential, uniformed chauffeur. The young woman ascended into the dark recesses of the limousine. She did so with a subtle, natural elegance. The older woman saw again the bandage on her ankle, it in odd contrast with the class and quality of her couture. The young man followed her into the vehicle. He must be rich, she thought. Suddenly she feared that they might be married. But there had been no ring on her finger. But then perhaps, in accord, with her own ideology, and such, the blond woman might have scorned to accommodate herself to such demeaning, restrictive and obsolescent conventions. Then she wondered if she might be rich, and not he. But that could not be. She had seen him, and how he looked upon her, and, in his way, gently, but with an undercurrent of iron, had sheltered, commanded and guided her. There was no doubt that he was dominant in the relationship, totally dominant, powerfully so, unquestioningly so, even frighteningly so.

The driver politely closed the door, took his place in the vehicle, and they drove away.

She looked after them, and then hurried to the ticket window, to buy a ticket, as near as possible to the same seat as she had had today, for the performance of
La Bohème
next Saturday.

Chapter 3

HOW SHE AWAKENED IN A STRANGE ROOM;

SHE FINDS THAT SHE HAS BEEN ANKLETED

She stirred, uneasily.

She kept her eyes closed, fearing that if she opened them the room might turn slowly, surely, patiently, mockingly, about her. She lay there, under the covers, for the moment, half conscious, not feeling well, utterly disoriented, groggy, lethargic, affected as though with some indefinable, eccentric, disconcerting malaise. This was doubtless an aftereffect of the chemical which had been taken into her system, though that was not clear to her at the time. She twisted about, a little, softly moaning, a tiny whimper, protestingly. Surely she was in her own bed. But it seemed oddly deep, somehow too soft, for her simple bed. Her head ached, dully; she still felt tired; she was weary; she was unwilling to awaken. She lay there for a time, trying not to move, wanting to again lose consciousness, she felt so miserable. She desired to return to the favoring, understanding, redemptive kindness, the supposed security, of sleep. But, after a bit, despite what would have been her choice, her deeper subjectivity, anxiously, frightened, seemingly more informed than she herself, calling out, began to make itself heard; it seems then that her consciousness, patiently, insistently, responding, began little by little to overcome her resistance, the misery and weariness of her fifty-eight-year-old body, and reassert itself, groping ever nearer the doors of awareness.

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.

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?