Kajira of Gor (3 page)

“She will be ideal for our purposes,” said another.

“You may get up, Tiff any,” said the first man.

I rose to my feet. I gathered that the session was over. I was confident that

they were pleased.

The fan, which had produced the surrogate of an ocean breeze, was turned off.

The photographer began to extinguish his lights and put them to the side, in a

line against the wall.

One of the men turned off the projector and the beach scene which had been

projected behind me vanished, leaving in its -place a featureless, opaque, white

screen.

“You are very pretty, Tiffany, Miss Collins,” said the first man. “And you did

very well.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You may now change,” he said.

“We well,” I said. I feared I might be being dismissed. I returned to the

dressing room. I could hear them talking outside, but I could not make out what

they were saying. In a few moments I emerged from the dressing room. I wore a

man-tailored, beige blazer with a rather severe, matching pleated skirt, with a

rather strict white ‘blouse, of synthetic material, and medium heels. I had

wished to present a rather businesslike look. I did not wish to wear

particularly feminine clothes as men are inclined to see women who do this as

females, and behave towards them and, relate to them as such.

Women are no longer forced, in effect, to dress as females, in particular ways,

with all the dynamic, attendant psychological effects for both sexes which might

accrue to such a practice.

I then stood before the fellow who seemed to be in charge.

I saw that be did not particularly approve of my ensemble. I hoped this would

not diminish my chances of meeting whatever requirements they might have in mind

with respect to my acceptability. Perhaps I should have worn something more

feminine. After all, I was a woman. Too, the shorts and blouse in which I bad

been placed, for the pictures, left little doubt in my mind that my femaleness,

at least in some sense or another, might well be pertinent to their interests.

“Perhaps I should have worn something less severe?” I said, tentatively. I did

want to be pleasing to them. Obviously they had a good deal of money to spend.

Too, interestingly, they were the sort of men towards whom, independently, I

felt a strong, disturbing, almost inexplicable desire to be pleasing.

“Your attire does seem a bit defensive,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I smiled. How interestingly, I thought, he had put that.

“Such defenses, of course,” he said, “may be removed from a woman.”

His remark, rightly or wrongly, struck me as being broader and deeper in its

meaning than the mere bantering witticism it might have been taken to be. It

suggested more to me, unsettling me, than a mere change of, or removal of,

attire. It suggested to me, for a moment, a reference to a world in which a

woman might be without defenses, fully, a world in which she was simply not

permitted defenses.

“Perhaps I should have worn something more feminine,” I said.

He regarded me, appraisingly. I sensed that he was looking past the severe

man-tailored blazer, the rather strict blouse, the rather strict, beige pleated

skirt. As they had had me pose in the shorts and blouse, and had had me move, I

was sure they had little doubt, for most practical purposes, as to what I looked

like.

“If you are selected,” he said, “any apparel which you might receive, I assure

you, will leave little doubt as to your femininity.”

“If I am selected?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“It is my hope that I pleased you,” I said. “I thought you were pleased.” One of

the men, I recalled, had thought that I might be ideal for their purposes.

“We are pleased,” he said, “very. You did very well.”

“When will you be able to make your decision?” I asked. “When will I learn

whether or not I have been selected?”

“For one thing,” said the man, “you have already been selected.”

One of the men laughed.

“That decision we are empowered to Make,” said the first man. “The second

decision, that with respect to the more important post, so to speak, of

necessity, must be made elsewhere.”

“May I call you?” I asked.

“We have your number,” he said.

“I understand,” I said. I was not really displeased, for he bad told me that for

one thing, at any rate, I had already been selected.

“Process the photos, immediately,” he said to the photographer.

The photographer nodded.

They were apparently going to proceed expeditiously in the matter. This pleased

me. I do not like to wait.

“When do you think you will know,” I asked, “-about the more important post?”

“it will take at least several days,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

“Come here,”-he said, beckoning to me. I went and stood quite close to him. “Put

down your head,” he said. I did so, and he, moving behind me, and pulling the

collar of my blouse out a bit with his finger, put his head down, close to the

side of my face, by my neck. He inhaled, deeply.

“Yes,” I said, “I am wearing the perfume, as you asked.”

“As I commanded,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, softly, rather startled at myself, “as you commanded.” Is I then

left. I wore his perfume.

2
     
The Crate

I turned off the shower.

It must have been about ten minutes after eight in the evening. It was now some

six weeks after my test, or interview, or whatever it had been, in the

photographer’s studio. On each Monday of these six weeks I had received in the

mail, in a plain white envelope without a return address, a one-hundred-dollar

bill. This money, I bad gathered, was in the nature of some sort of a retainer.

I recalled that the man who had first seen me at the perfume counter, he who

seemed to be in charge of the group, had said that he recognized that my time,

as of now, was valuable. I was still not clear on what he had meant by the

phrase ‘as of now.’ These bills, until a few days ago, had been my only evidence

that the men had not forgotten me. Then, on a Monday evening, a few days ago,

the Monday before last, at eight o’clock, I bad received a phone call. I bad

returned home to my small apartment only a few minutes earlier, from the local

supermarket.

I was putting away groceries and was not thinking of the men at all. I had, to

be sure, taken the hundred-dollar bill from the mail box earlier and put it in

my dresser. This had become for me, however, almost routine. I was, at any rate,

not thinking of the men. When the phone rang my first reaction was one of

irritation. I picked up the phone. “Hello,” I said.

“Hello?” Then I was suddenly afraid. I was not sure there was someone on the

line. “Hello?” I said. Then, after a moment’s silence, a male voice on the other

end of the line spoke quietly and precisely. I did not recognize the voice.

“You have been selected,” it said. “Hello!” I said. “Hello Who is this?” Then

the line was dead. He had hung up. The next two nights I waited by the phone at

eight o’clock. It was silent. It rang, however, on Thursday, precisely at eight.

I seized the receiver from its hook. I was told to report the next evening to

the southwest corner of a given intersection in Manhattan at precisely eight

P.M. There I would be picked up by a limousine.

I was almost sick with relief when I saw that the man I knew, he whom I had met

at the perfume counter, he who had seemed in charge of the others, was in the

limousine. The other two were with him, too, one with him in the back seat and

one riding beside the driver. I did not recognize the driver.

“Congratulations, Miss Collins!” he said, warmly. “You have been fully approved.

You qualify with flying colors, as I had thought you would, on all counts.”

“Wonderful!” I said.

The driver bad now left the vehicle and come about, to open the door. The man I

knew stepped out, and, while the driver held the door, motioned that I might

enter. I did so, and then he entered behind me. The driver shut the door, and

returned about the vehicle to his place. I was sitting between the two men in

the back of the limousine.

“I had hoped I might qualify,” I said.

“I was confident you would,” he said. “You have the appearance, and,

independently, the beauty and the dispositions. You are perfectly suited to our

purposes.”

“Am I to gather that I have been found acceptable for what you spoke of as the

more important position, or post, or something like that, then?” I asked.

“Precisely,” he said, warmly.

“Good,” I said, snuggling back against the seat. I was quite pleased. These men,

it seemed, were rich, or, at least, had access to considerable wealth. They

would doubtless be willing to pay highly for the use of my beauty.

“I recall, you said,” I said, “that I had already been selected for one thing,

even at the photographer’s studio.”

“Yes,” he said.

“But it was less important, I gather, than this other, more prestigious

assignment, or position?”

“Yes,” he said. “The other position, so to speak, could be filled by almost any

beautiful woman.”

“I see,” I said.

“And if there should come a time in which your services are no longer required

for this more important post, as I have put it, you might still, I am sure, meet

the qualifications f or this other thing.”

“That is reassuring,” I said.

The man on my left smiled.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Were you given permission to speak?” asked the man I knew, he who had

originally seen Me in the department store, he on my right.

I looked at him, startled.

“Kneel down here,” he said, pointing to the floor of the car, “your left side to

the back of the front seat.” I did so, frightened. I was the only woman in the

car. “Get on your hands and knees,” he said. I did so. I could then, facing as I

was, see him, by lifting and turning my head. He was unfolding a blanket. “You

will not speak,” be said, “until five minutes after you have left the

limousine.” He then, opening the blanket, cast it over me. I on all fours before

them, covered by the blanket, hidden by it, was in consternation. The limousine

drove on. No one outside the car could have told that I was in the car. I was

silent.

As I knelt on all fours before them my mind was racing.

Why had they done this? Perhaps they did not wish anyone to know that I was in

the car with them. Perhaps they did not wish for me to be recognized with them,

or they with me.

Perhaps they were driving to some secret location, which they did not wish me to

know. I was frightened. I did not know what their purposes were. After a time

they let me lie down at their feet, with my legs drawn up, still covered with

the blanket. I lay near their shoes. Once they even stopped for gas. “Do not

move,” I was told. I was perfectly quiet, at their feet. They drove about for at

least four hours. It was all-I could do to keep from rubbing my thighs together

and moaning.

Then the limousine pulled to one side and stopped. The blanket was lifted from

me.

“You may get out now,” said the man who seemed in charge, pleasantly.

I rose to my feet and, crouching down, my muscles aching, stepped from the

limousine. The driver bad remained in his place. The man who had been to my

right when I was sitting, he who seemed to be in charge of the others, bad

opened the door. I stood outside then, on the curb. There was traffic. The

lights were bright. I was in the same place where I had originally been picked

up, at the southwest corner of the intersection in Manhattan. It was a little

after midnight.

I watched the limousine drive away, disappearing in the traffic. I did not

really understand what they had done, or why they had done it. I stood back on

the sidewalk then. I was extremely disturbed. I was almost trembling. Too,

inexplicably, it seemed, I was terribly aroused, sexually.

Why had they done what they did?

For the first time in my life I had been put to the feet of men, and kept,

uncompromisingly, in ignorance and silence.

They had dominated me. I almost trembled, filled with unfamiliar sensations and

emotions. These feelings, these responses, were not simply genital. They seemed

to suffuse, overwhelmingly, my whole body and mind.

I became aware of a man asking me for directions.

I turned away from him, suddenly, and hurried away. I had not yet been out of

the limousine for five minutes. I could not yet speak.

I took my hand from the shower handle. A few drops of water descended from the

shower head. It was warm and steamy in the bathroom, from the warm water which I

had been running. It was about ten or eleven minutes after eight P.M. It was

Tuesday. Yesterday, on Monday evening, at eight-P.M., I had received another

call. I had been instructed to take a shower at precisely eight P.M. this

evening. I had done so. I slid back the shower curtain. There was steam on the

walls and mirrors. I looked for my robe. I had thought I had left it on the

vanity. It was not there. I stepped from the shower stall, and picked up a towel

and began to dry myself.