The Totems of Abydos (19 page)

“I am wet, and cold,” said Brenner. “I think I will change, and shower.”

“Well,” said Rodriguez, “you have made progress. You have admitted that you are a human being, that you have sexual needs.”

Rodriguez glanced at the bell, which would ring for maid service.

Brenner pretended not to notice. He found a robe in his bag, and some dry clothes. He could no longer hear the vacuum in the hall. But he did not doubt but what there would be a maid on cal1.

“Your next step,” said Rodriguez, “now that you have acknowledged that you have sexual needs, is to satisfy them.” He pointed to the bell.

“No, no!” said Brenner, hastily, frightened. The bell seemed very large on the wall, very prominent, very visible. Though, to be sure, it was actually rather small, and discreet.

Rodriguez looked at him, puzzled.

Brenner shook his head. It was, after all, one thing to have sexual needs, and quite another to satisfy them.

“As you wish,” said Rodriguez.

“Where are you going?” asked Brenner.

“Out,” said Rodriguez.

“Wait for me,” said Brenner. “I’m coming with you.”

He did not wish to be left alone with the bell. Too, what if there should be the small knock on the door? What if a maid should check with him, to see if he wanted anything? Certainly he would not want anything. No! He would want nothing, nothing!

At the door to the bath Brenner turned. He looked at the disarranged covers on his bed, where the maid had lain.

“I’ll only be a moment,” he said.

“All right,” said Rodriguez.

“Is it true,” asked Brenner, “that women have sexual needs?”

“Yes,” said Rodriguez, “but in some women they are latent, and must be aroused.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“But they are there,” said Rodriguez, “like combustible material.”

Brenner nodded.

“And once they are aroused,” said Rodriguez, “it is done to her.”

“‘Done to her’?” asked Brenner.

“Yes,” said Rodriguez. “They are then with her. She cannot unarouse them, so to speak.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“The clearest case is the slave,” said Rodriguez. “But then they are given no choice in the matter. Their passions are aroused deliberately and uncompromisingly, even cruelly, with no concern for them, and aroused in such a manner that their emergence is profound and frequent, indeed, in such a manner that they become, in effect, the pathetic, helpless prisoners of their needs, dependent on masters for their satisfaction.”

“It is hard to understand,” said Brenner.

“I have seen them at a man’s feet, begging,” said Rodriguez.

Brenner gasped.

“Will they be satisfied?” asked Rodriguez. “It is up to the master.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“Those are a slave girl’s strongest chains,” said Rodriguez.

“I understand,” said Brenner.

“But you must understand, too,” said Rodriguez, “that eventually the slave girl rejoices in these chains, in whose clasp she continues to remain helpless.

“I do not understand,” said Brenner.

“They keep her on the mark, where she wishes to be,” said Rodriguez, “even more than more prosaic bonds, such as chains, brands, identifications and such.”

“I do not understand,” said Brenner.

“She is a female,” said Rodriguez. “And it is only in bondage, and such relationships, that her femaleness, both by herself and others, is fully appreciated, understood, relished, and celebrated. There is a wholeness in this. Nothing is isolated. Her entire personal, individual, exciting, beautiful psychosexuality is involved, the full range of her feminine needs, nothing starved or denied, the wholeness of her being, the wholeness of her deepest self, involving such, things as giving, devotion, love, service, attentiveness, a desire to be truly pleasing, profoundly so, and as a
female
, and so on.”

“You mean they want these things?” asked Brenner.

“Certainly,” said Rodriguez.

“And they accept these things, and relish them, of their own free will?” asked Brenner.

“Yes,” said Rodriguez, “but one must there be careful, for it is important to the slave to be a
slave
, and this means that she must then, in a sense, be choiceless.”

“Interesting,” said Brenner.

“Had she the choice, she would choose to be given no choice, said Rodriguez.

“This seems a paradox,” said Brenner.

“Perhaps,” said Rodriguez.

“But then,” said Brenner, “if she is a slave, then she would have no choice, no choice in actuality, literally no choice, whether she wished it or not.”

“Correct,” said Rodriguez. “She is a slave. She has no choice. She is choiceless, absolutely. She is a domestic animal, a slave.”

“Doesn’t she know she is supposed to be free, and such things?” asked Brenner.

“Like a man?” asked Rodriguez.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“I thought,” said Rodriguez, “we were discussing psychobiology, not the prescriptions of politics.”

“Very well,” said Brenner. “Continue.”

“The slave may even, in the beginning,” said Rodriguez, “use the bondage of her liberated needs as an excuse to submit, for if she does not submit, and in ways suitable to the master’s will, she will not be satisfied.”

“I understand,” said Brenner.

“Not to mention her obvious subjectability to other forms of punishment, as well,” said Rodriguez.

“Of course,” said Brenner.

“For example, the whip,” said Rodriguez.

“I understand,” said Brenner, shuddering.

“But soon,” said Rodriguez, “as the slave becomes familiar with her duties, her chains and silk, and understands in her belly that she is now a slave, and that is that, and that is all, she senses a great relief and happiness. She is then at her master’s feet. She is content, joyful, and fulfilled.”

“But surely she must occasionally regret her choicelessness,” said Brenner.

“Doubtless,” said Rodriguez. “She is, after all, a slave. Doubtless the condition contains its terrors as well as its gratifications.”

“But what you have described is a sort of an ideal, is it not?” asked Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez. “Doubtless many are the girls who shiver with cold, naked and miserable, chained in the holds of freighters. Doubtless some are dragged weeping to blocks to be sold. Doubtless some labor long hours in remote, muddy fields, far from public view, or, similarly, concealed from sight, behind the scenes, in public kitchens and laundries. Some doubtless labor in barren, spacious, friendless mills, chained to looms. Perhaps they envy certain of their more fortunate sisters, those with painted lips, chained to their beds in brothels.”

“Horrifying,” said Brenner.

“More terrifying,” said Rodriguez, “is the slave who knows that her master does not care for her, for example, she who is merely taken for granted, who must serve neglected or unnoticed, perhaps even scorned. Too, some slaves find that their masters do not like them, literally, and that these masters are intent upon keeping them at a primitive level of slavery, one more associated with terror and punishment than discipline and love. It is one thing, for example, to subdue and tame a rebellious slave, one not yet in touch with her deeper realities, decisively and effectively, and quite another to relate to a woman whom one makes certain will continue to hate you, say, for the pleasure of the psychological torment one sees imposed upon her, for example, as she must beg you for sexual relief, and such. There are many variations here.”

“You seem to believe that there are two sexes,” said Brenner.

“Yes,” said Rodriguez. “And they are not the same.”

“That is not the official position of the home world,” said Brenner.

“The official position of the home world is mistaken,” said Rodriguez.

“Perhaps,” said Brenner.

“Did you believe it?” asked Rodriguez.

“No,” admitted Brenner.

I didn’t think so,” said Rodriguez. “Only idiots take it seriously. The important thing is the lie, and to pretend to take it seriously, for purposes of politics.”

“The home world is not as inflexible and uniform in its views as you think,” said Brenner.

“Oh?” said Rodriguez. To be sure, he had not spent a great deal of time on the home world over the past several years. As you might suspect, there had been good reasons for this.

“Some on the home world,” said Brenner, “speculate that sexual needs may exist.”

“How bold!” exclaimed Rodriguez.

“Well, it is something,” said Brenner, irritably.

“It is a sop thrown to intellectuals,” said Rodriguez. “It is usually brought up at professional conventions, where there are no students about to rush off and report to the morality officers. Also, it tends to reassure sycophantic toads of the reality of academic freedom.”

“It is always pointed out, of course,” said Brenner, “that these needs, if they exist, are unimportant and negligible.”

“That position neglects at least one fact,” said Rodriguez.

“What is that?” asked Brenner.

“Sexuality’s radical centrality,” he said. “It is the engine which powers the machine, the force which gives meaning to the world.”

Brenner gathered from these remarks that Rodriguez did not share even the more liberal view of sexual needs expressed in the bold conjecture that such might, if only in some minimalistic form, exist. Indeed, he seemed to regard sexuality as of great importance. Apparently, even if it were politically unacceptable, and thus to be denied, or ignored, it was real, very real. Brenner wondered what a world might be like which openly acknowledged sexual realities, rather than denying or hiding them. Perhaps some of the openly stratified, or “strong,” worlds, as Rodriguez might have referred to them, he speculated.

“I will tell you something I wager you do not know,” said Rodriguez.

“What is that?” asked Brenner.

“Have you heard of the levies?” asked Rodriguez.

“What levies?” asked Brenner.

“Some ten thousand, or so, women from the home world, each year, are taken in them, for slaves.”

Brenner regarded him, startled.

“To be sure,” said Rodriguez, “that is only part of the tribute.”

“I don’t understand,” said Brenner.

“You do not think a world as weak as ours, as silly as ours, a world which has made one stupid choice after another, a world which is not capable, even, of defending itself against interstellar attack, a world which has nothing really with which to even make a serious contribution to a defensive alliance of worlds, is likely to be somehow immune from the notice of more efficient worlds.”

“Speak clearly,” said Brenner.

“The home world is now, as it has been several times in the past, a tributary planet. That goes back even to the time of the Telnarian Empire, which you also probably did not know. After its collapse the home world, which had been a tributary planet within the aegis of the empire, fell amongst the prizes to be sought by ensuant barbarisms. In these times of troubles, so to speak, the home world fell within the sphere of influence of one world or another. In those days, our governments, rather as they like to do today, but then with better justification, preferred, in their high echelons, to think of these disbursements, so to speak, as payments for protection, and, in a sense, formerly, protection was involved. The home world became tributary to world “A” which would then protect it, as one of its tributaries, from world “B.” But then, later, in the fallings out of war, and after the failures of various alliances, certain agreements were reached amongstst some of these barbarisms, ones active in this portion of the galaxy, agreements which, in effect, divided this portion of the galaxy into protectorates, as our governments might put it, or into tributary sectors, as the barbarisms put it.”

“To what world is the home world tributary?” asked Brenner.

“I do not know,” said Rodriguez. “But I gather that it is far away.”

“What would they want with women from the home world?” asked Brenner.

“Probably nothing having to do with the women
per se
,” said Rodriguez, “who might not even be of interest to them, except, of course, for their value as trade goods.”

Brenner could not speak.

“The trade may have a dozen corners, so to speak,” said Rodriguez. “The women might be inserted at any given point in a trade network. I really do not know. Similarly they might be traded from one world to several others for a variety of items, or they might be traded about, from point to point, for one good or another, until they came to a world or worlds that wanted them for themselves, as what they would be, slaves, of course.”

“I have not heard of this,” said Brenner.

“You can scarcely blame the government for being somewhat reluctant to publicize the matter,” said Rodriguez. “Besides, ten thousand, or so, women, taken here and there out of the population of the home world annually, is a negligible amount, one scarcely to be missed.”