But I did not think I had been brought here merely for the typical purposes of one such as I.
Surely there was more to it than that.
I thought of these things, standing by the bars.
I was a woman from faraway, from a quite different world, a world of banality, glitter and hypocrisy, a world fearful of authenticity and truth, one afraid to understand and feel.
How special and wonderful, and clever, I had thought myself, on my old world. Then one, or more, it seems, on that very world, my old world, had seen me, and had made a decision. I had been brought here. No more was I now than an animal, and a property. Had I done anything, I wondered, to occasion that decision. Perhaps I had brushed against someone, the wrong person, and had permitted a tiny sound of irritation to escape me. Perhaps a mere expression of transitory annoyance had crossed my features. Perhaps something in my demeanor had hinted at an attitude of too much self-satisfaction or complacency, or had suggested some pretense to a fraudulent superiority or had tended to convey some subtle contempt. Perhaps the decision had then been made, and I had been brought here, perhaps to the amusement of one or more, to be what I now was, nothing, and at the mercy of the rights holders. But perhaps, too, all I had had to do with my presence here was to have been what I was, a female of interest to one or more appraisers, one fulfilling, perhaps excellently, certain criteria. I had perhaps been discovered, noted, followed, and reviewed, attention being paid not so much to what I was then, as to what I might, with suitable training, become. How, I wondered, did those who concerned themselves with such things, to whom they were doubtless a matter of business, assess such potentialities? Did they image me naked, or how I might look in silk, moving sensuously, or kneeling, in chains, such things? And how did they know about my secret heats, and frustrations, I had attempted to conceal so zealously from the world? Were such things betrayed, without my knowledge, to those who could see them, in certain tiny movements, in subtle expressions? How had they seen me — as an appealing property, one as yet unowned, as an animal, isolated and meaningless, one, as yet,lacking its master?
How bored I had been on my old world!
How little things had meant!
How dissatisfied and frustrated I had been!
I had been a tiny fragment, adrift, purposeless, moved with the waves and wind.
Then the decision had been made.
I had been brought here. I had now learned to wear silk and iron.
I was terrified, in a way, to be here.
But now I was no longer adrift, no more than the bars of the cell. No longer was I detached from the truths and ways of nature.
Here I would be, whether I wished it or not, what I ultimately and most profoundly was, a female, in the fullest sense of the word.
And I was not discontent.
Suddenly another great bird smote its way over the valley, this time moving to the right, returning apparently to its source of origin.
This one did not bear apparent booty, but bore, rather, it seemed, on long straps, dispatch cases. The rider was not armored. The bird was smaller than many, and with shorter wings. Such are most adept, I would learn, in evasive maneuvers.
What manner of men were here, I wondered. What manner of men here would own properties such as I? To whom would I, personally, belong? I wanted to belong to one man, to serve him perfectly and wholeheartedly in all ways, and, hopefully, to be his only property of my sort. But men such as these, I feared, might have several such as I. Could such a man be content with but one of us? What if his whim, or mood, should change? I would try to be such, of course, that my rights holder would feel no need for another, indeed, I would try to be such that he would not even think of another. And are we not expensive? Would this not be an argument for a rights holder not keeping more than one of us, at least at a time? But men here, it seemed, from what I had seen from the cell, might not pay for their women, or, at least, all of them. Apparently they took them rather as it pleased them.
I shuddered.
I recalled the booty I had seen, booty other than I, and booty such as I.
How terrified I was of the men I had seen, masters of such monsters as the mighty birds I had seen!
I was pleased that I had learned how to wear silk and iron.
This place, I feared, was a lair of eagles.
10
I screamed suddenly, startled, at the pounding of the pipe between the bars, and at the snarling at the beast. I had not been looking. I had been taken totally unawares. I had not expected either sound. I scrambled to the back of the cell and pressed myself, my body and the palms of my hands, against the stone there. It was as though I would try to press though the rock itself. I looked back over my shoulder, wildly. I saw shadows there. “Please, no!” I cried in my native language. Then I realized in misery that such a lapse might earn me a beating. I saw the beast there, the low, large, long, heavy beast, six-legged monster, with the triangular viperlike head. It was just outside the bars. At its side stood a corpulent, massive male, in a half tunic, with a heavy leather belt, and leather wristlets. In his left hand he held the beast, on a short leash. The metal pipe with which he had struck the bars he threw behind him, on a shoulder strap. It was the sort of thing with which he might have subdued even a man. From his belt there hung a ring of keys and a whip. I heard the beast snuffling and growling. I heard the ring of keys, jangling, removed from the belt. He went to the side, as I could see, turning half about, past the right side of the door, as one faces outward. I heard him then, out of sight, to the right of the door. He opened, it seemed, a panel of some sort. I heard a key thrust in a lock, and turned. The locking mechanism, you see, is not visible from the cell. It is somewhere outside, and, I conjectured, protected in a paneled niche. I was to some extent familiar with these things from the cell’s having been opened several times before, in the morning. To be sure, I had then, warned by the signal bar, been prone at the back of the cell, helplessly spread-eagled. He had, however, as yet, not demanded any such accommodation. I crouched now at the back of the cell, turned about, looking. I saw him re-emerge into view, the keys back on his belt. He looked through the bars and, fro an instant, our eyes met, and then I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. I saw him transfer the leash to his right hand and reach down and, with his left hand, in one motion, with a sound of sliding metal, lift the gate. I gasped. This had apparently required considerable force, but it had been done easily. I suspected then that he, or another such as he, might have been with the woman, or women, earlier. The beast put its head down and moved forward, a quick, stealthy step, little more than the movement of one paw. I groaned. I trusted it was under effective discipline. I hoped the man could hold it, if it were not. But I had no assurance of that. It was larger and heavier then he, by far, and had the leverage of six clawed legs. I hoped the leash would not break. I heard the growling of the animal. I flung a pleading, helpless glance at its keeper, and perhaps mine. I did not darn meet the eyes of the animal, for fear I might trigger some attack response. It could have torn me into pieces. It could have bitten me in two. Briefly again, fleetingly, in terror, begging him to control the animal, my eyes met those of the massive male, and then, again, I looked down. He was a man not untypical of this world, in his size and strength. But, too, even more typical of this world, one could read in his eyes the absence of vacillation and confusion, the undivided nature of his character, the firmness, simplicity and unilaterality of his will. He did not belong to a world in which men, though deceit and trickery, and lies, and insidious, hypocritical conditioning programs, had been bled and weakened. On this world, at least where women such as I were concerned, men had kept their power. They had not surrendered their manhood, their natural dominance. In his eyes, you see, I saw the firmness of his character, the strength of his will, which was as iron. In his eyes, in a sense, you see, I saw, unpretentious and untroubled, the severity, the simplicity, the strictness, the rigor, the uncompromising relentlessness of nature.